Omnibusting: Omnibus Spending Bill, Earmarks, Pork and Budget Gimmicks

President Bush signed the $555-billion omnibus spending bill yesterday and reiterated his dislike for the pork-barrel projects included in the legislation.

I am disappointed in the way the Congress compiled this legislation, including abandoning the goal I set early this year to reduce the number and cost of earmarks by half. Instead, the Congress dropped into the bill nearly 9,800 earmarks that total more than $10 billion. These projects are not funded through a merit-based process and provide a vehicle for wasteful Government spending.

Bush’s statement didn’t specific any specific steps he would take to trim the fat from the bill, but the White House later confirmed that Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle was still exploring ways to curtain the earmarks.

The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl discusses the explosion of earmarks and the budget gimmicks included in the fiscal 2008 omnibus spending bill in a segment on Fox News.

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt joined Sen. Tom Coburn and Rep. Jeb Hensarling at The Heritage Foundation on Tuesday to address conservative bloggers about the omnibus. Click below to watch video of Blunt’s opening remarks.

Sen. Jim DeMint’s office has compiled the following top 10 list of reasons to oppose the omnibus.

1. Contains more than 11,000 wasteful pork projects, second highest in history
2. Overspends by $24.3 billion in gimmicks, largest spending bill in history
3. Weakens border security, reduces fencing
4. Cuts national security to pay for liberal social programs
5. Cuts abstinence funding; increases Planned Parenthood funding
6. Cuts labor oversight; increases funding to labor unions
7. Cuts funding for U.S. Marshals Service that enforces sex offender registry
8. Allows government to sue businesses that require English in the workplace
9. Spends millions to help solve energy problems … in North Korea
10. Increases funding for National Endowment for the Arts

Earlier today, Heritage released its own top 10 list of the biggest problems with the bill.

Senators Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and U.S. Representatives John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) and John Campbell (R-Calif.) are putting pressure on President Bush to keep his commitment to cut the number and cost of earmarks at least in half.

In his 2007 State of the Union address, Bush said:

Next, there is the matter of earmarks. These special interest items are often slipped into bills at the last hour – when not even C-SPAN is watching. In 2005 alone, the number of earmarks grew to over 13,000 and totaled nearly $18 billion. Even worse, over 90 percent of earmarks never make it to the floor of the House and Senate – they are dropped into committee reports that are not even part of the bill that arrives on my desk. You didn’t vote them into law. I didn’t sign them into law. Yet, they’re treated as if they have the force of law. The time has come to end this practice. So let us work together to reform the budget process, expose every earmark to the light of day and to a vote in Congress, and cut the number and cost of earmarks at least in half by the end of this session.

Yesterday, it appeared the White House was backing away from that goal by refusing to issue a veto threat solely on the explosion of earmarks. Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle said bluntly, “I don’t think [President Bush] has ever made the statement that he would veto legislation because of the insistence of earmarks.” Nussle said Bush needs the line-item veto to effectively chop earmarks from spending bills.

According to the earmark baseline developed by the Office of Management and Budget, there were 13,492 appropriations earmarks in fiscal year 2005. In order to meet Bush’s “50 percent reduction,” Congress could not pass more than 6,476 earmarks for fiscal year 2008.

So far, however, 9,170 earmarks have been discovered in the 2008 omnibus spending bill. This amount, in addition to the 2,161 earmarks in the 2008 defense spending bill (none of which were requested by the Pentagon), brings this year’s earmark total to 11,331 earmarks for 2008, a mere 16 percent reduction compared to OMB’s baseline of 13,492 earmarks in 2005.

UPDATE: Andy Roth of the Club for Growth rounds up comments from Senators Coburn and DeMint and Representatives Shadegg, Hensarling and Campbell.

President Bush’s year-long fight with Democrats over federal spending gave conservatives hope that the White House had finally adopted the backbone needed to stand firm for fiscal restraint. It was less clear yesterday the Bush Administration would carry that fight into 2008. The release of a Statement of Administration Policy clearly stated Bush’s intention to veto the omnibus, as it’s currently written. However, Bush appears to be leaving the door open to signing the mammoth bill if money for U.S. troops in Iraq is added.

With the Senate set to tackle the Iraq funding issue as early as today, it appears Congress and the White House are closer to striking a deal than conservatives would like. Yesterday, Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle said he was generally pleased with the concessions Democrats made regarding policy changes in the bill. He all but dismissed the notion of a veto for the explosion of earmarks, which the White House wanted cut in half. And Nussle appeared resigned to the fact that the administration would have to swallow nearly $20 billion in “emergency” spending and budget gimmicks.

The White House’s position has left groups like the Club for Growth deeply disappointed and conservatives frustrated by the apparent willingness to settle for a bad bill.