Something for all in House $410B spending bill

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill packed with pet projects requested by Democrats and Republicans alike, including $173,000 for research on asparagus production in Washington state.

The bill, passed on a 245-178 vote, increases spending on domestic programs by an average of 8 percent in the current fiscal year, which began in October.

The legislation includes nine of the regular appropriations bills for the current fiscal year. Unable to reach agreement with President Bush last year, Congress provided most domestic agencies and programs with a short-term infusion of cash, which runs out at the end of next week.

Republicans described the spending bill as wasteful. Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, counted more than 8,500 "congressionally designated projects" in the bill and said the cost of these earmarks totaled $7.7 billion, up 3.4 percent from last year.

These include $1.7 million for a honeybee laboratory in Weslaco, Texas; $346,000 for research on apple fire blight in Michigan and New York; and $1.5 million for work on grapes and grape products, including wine.

Democrats said that 40 percent of the spending on earmarks went to projects that had been requested by Republicans.

The spending bill drew the support of 229 Democrats and 16 Republicans. There were 159 Republicans and 20 Democrats opposed. Democrats in the Washington state delegation were joined by Republican Rep. Dave Reichert in voting for the measure.

The spending plan now goes to the Senate, where it faces opposition from Republicans and some moderate Democrats. Congress must pass some kind of funding legislation by March 6 or domestic programs will run out of money.

The bill increases budgets for the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation, among others.

Overall, it provides $19 billion more than Bush requested for the same agencies and $31 billion more than what they got in the last fiscal year.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said the bill "turns the page once and for all on the last eight years."

Democrats boasted that they had not included earmarks in the $787 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed last week. But in the new bill, lawmakers of both parties relished the opportunity to stuff it with pet projects.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said that earmarks were a small part of the bill and had been fully disclosed. Without the earmarks, he said, "the White House and its anonymous bureaucrats" would control all spending.

A number of policy changes are included in the bill. It would, for example, make it easier for Americans to visit immediate relatives in Cuba. And it would forbid Mexican trucks to operate outside certain commercial zones along the border with the United States. The Teamsters union, which supported Obama's election last year, had sought the restriction.

Among the earmarks was one sponsored by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who secured $200,000 for a "tattoo-removal violence outreach program" in Los Angeles. Aides said the money would pay for a tattoo-removal machine that could help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past, and anyone benefiting would be required to perform community service.

Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said the bill included at least a dozen earmarks for clients of PMA Group, a lobbying company now at the center of a federal corruption investigation.

Federal prosecutors are investigating PMA Group's founder and president, Paul Magliochetti, who is a former top aide to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds defense programs.

Lawmakers did make one important nod toward austerity: They froze their salaries for 2010. Most members of Congress earn $174,000 a year; leaders get more. The freeze doesn't affect 2009 pay. Members got a $4,700 cost-of-living raise last month.

House Republicans have been divided on the merits of earmarks. Some, like Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and the minority leader, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, do not request earmarks. But other Republicans, including many on the Appropriations Committee, do request such projects.