Associated Press - December 8, 2003
Alan Fram

More than two months after the government's budget year began, Republican leaders pushed the sweeping measure through by 242-176. Its fate remained uncertain in the Senate, where Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was leaning toward delaying a vote until late January because of opposition and a reluctance by senators, now on recess, to return to the Capitol.

The 1,182-page legislation will finance items from biomedical research to school lunches, from foreign aid to federal subsidies to the District of Columbia. An amalgam of seven bills that are supposed to be approved separately, the package covers 11 Cabinet departments and scores of other agencies.

"We bring about as good a fiscally conservative bill that meets the needs of the country as we possibly could," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla.

Though written largely by the GOP, the bill was approved by 58 Democrats along with the 184 Republicans who voted for it. Voting no were 137 Democrats, 38 Republicans and 1 independent.

The bill all but groans with earmarks, or money for museums, industrial parks and other projects for home districts of lawmakers of both parties. Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., top Democrat on the Appropriations panel, said there were more than 7,000 of them worth more than $7.5 billion, a long and ever-expanding tradition that prompted some conservative Republicans to oppose the bill.

"We seem to have no shame," said conservative Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

Democrats complained that the bill provided too little for schools, veterans and other programs and dictated federal policy that in many cases saw Bush prevail over congressional opposition.

These include provisions that let companies deny overtime to more white-collar workers, allow networks to own more television stations, aided Bush's plan to let private companies do more federal work and required the FBI to destroy gun purchase applications after a day.

"Let the executive department know that this is a democracy," complained No. 2 Democratic leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland. "It is not a kingdom. It is not a dictatorship."

Republicans said the bill, which controls one-sixth of the $2.2 trillion federal budget, crowned an effort for them to control spending. Young said the bill's price tag would have been even higher had his panel included more of lawmakers' requests for earmarks, which he said exceeded $50 billion.

Combined with six regular spending bills that have already become law, plus the $87.5 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan approved last month, the measure would bring total spending that Congress controls for this year to $875 billion.

That is a 3 percent increase over last year, the smallest increase in years.

"If they were in charge, they'd be spending much more," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said of Democrats.

Not mentioned was that largely thanks to war and ramped up domestic security efforts, spending controlled by Congress grew by about 15 percent last year, contributing to the record $374 billion federal deficit for 2003.

Lawmakers decided to provide more than the White House requested for veterans' health care, highway construction projects and even a keynote Bush priority, stepping up the fight against AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. The president requested $2 billion for the AIDS battle but got $2.4 billion.

Also growing were aid to low-income school districts, education for the handicapped, the FBI and the AmeriCorps national service program.

There also was $1.5 billion to help communities upgrade their election systems and $25 million each for Boston and New York to provide security at next summer's presidential party conventions.

Agencies whose spending bills have not become law have been operating at last year's spending levels. Their authority to do so runs through January, so the Senate has until then to act on the $373 billion package.

Democrats said they would object to an effort by Frist, expected Tuesday, to push the legislation through the Senate by voice vote. Like their House counterparts, the anger of Democratic senators was focused on the policy fights with Bush over overtime and other issues.

The $373 billion includes $45 billion for highway, aviation and mass transit projects that comes from transportation taxes, such as the federal levy on gasoline.

In addition, the bill triggers the expenditure of $447 billion for Medicare and other automatically paid benefits for which no congressional decision-making is required.

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