Republican Opposition Kills $1.2 Trillion `Omnibus' U.S. Spending Measure

By Brian Faler - Dec 16, 2010 11:01 PM CT

A $1.2 trillion “omnibus” spending bill loaded with thousands of lawmakers’ pet projects known as earmarks is dead in the U.S. Senate after the chamber’s top Democrat conceded that he didn’t have the votes to overcome Republican opposition.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said yesterday that he was abandoning the measure after several Republicans he had been counting on withdrew their support of the plan to fund the government through Sept. 30, 2011. He said he would work with Republicans to write a shorter-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, in its place.

Reid said the Senate would also take test votes tomorrow on legislation to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays serving opening in the military, as well as a measure that would grant legal status to some younger illegal immigrants.

The House passed a “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal bill Dec. 15. The immigration legislation, called the DREAM Act, would allow people who came to the U.S. illegally before age 16 and remained for at least five years to gain legal residency after completing two years of college or military service. The House passed it on Dec. 9.

The decision to kill the omnibus measure was a key victory for Republicans, who lined up against the legislation even though most had used it to secure funding for projects in their home states. Republican complaints included the time they were given to consider the 1,924-page measure, which was introduced Dec. 14.

Republican Objections

Reid “doesn’t have the votes, and the reason he doesn’t have the votes is because members on this side of the aisle increasingly felt concerned about the way we do business,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.

“For many of our members, it was not so much the substance of the bill but the process” that spurred opposition, he said.

Critics of earmarks hailed the bill’s defeat. “This is a great, great victory for the American people,” said Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican. “I want to thank those that made the calls, those that sent e-mails, those that stood up and called into the talk shows all over America and said, ‘We’ve had enough.’”

Democrats, who control the Senate with 58 votes, needed to pick up the support of at least three Republicans to overcome stalling tactics after Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, announced her opposition to the bill.

Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett had announced he would support the measure, while Ohio Republican George Voinovich had said he was leaning toward backing it. Both lawmakers leave office when the new Congress convenes in early January.

‘Walked Away’

Reid said that though he had been counting on support from as many as nine Republicans, “in the last 24 hours, they’ve walked away.”

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, complained that Republicans opposed the measure even after his colleagues cut billions from the bill to meet their spending demands.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates yesterday urged lawmakers to approve the legislation, saying “a yearlong continuing resolution, as far as I’m concerned, for the Department of Defense is the worst of all possible worlds -- the omnibus is not great, but it beats a yearlong continuing resolution.”

The resolution currently funding government on a temporary basis expires tomorrow. Reid yesterday didn’t reveal the duration of the new resolution being crafted.

‘Hypocrite’ Charge

The earmark issue prompted sharp debate among lawmakers, with Reid calling Republicans hypocrites for threatening to sink the omnibus bill while failing to rescind earmarks they included in it.

“If you went to ‘H’ in a dictionary and found ‘hypocrite,’ under that would be people who ask for earmarks but vote against them,” he told reporters.

All but a handful of lawmakers in both parties had requested about $8 billion in earmarks in the bill. McConnell had secured more than $100 million in such projects, according to the Washington-based budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

McConnell has called for a resolution to fund the government until Feb. 18, which would make it easier for Republicans to begin cutting spending when they take control of the House in January and have a larger minority in the Senate. Under McConnell’s plan, lawmakers would need to pass another funding measure legislation to prevent the government from shutting down.

The derailing of the omnibus bill is the latest in a series of breakdowns this year in the congressional budgeting process. Democrats failed to approve an annual tax-and-spending blueprint or any of the 12 annual appropriations bills needed to fund agencies for the 2011 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

“There’s no more basic work than the funding of the government -- that’s the first thing we ought to be doing,” said McConnell. “As a result of not doing the basic work of government, here we are, at the end, struggling with this issue.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net