Ominous Omnibus

That’s right, we’re talking about budgets again.

The 2010 annual budget reported by the president and the Office of Management and Budget – the one you’ve been hearing about for the last week – actually takes effect, if passed, in October at the beginning of the fiscal year. However, The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 is intended to appropriate money through Sept. 30, 2009, for the government to function through the end of this fiscal year. 

The bill is an amalgamation of nine regular annual appropriations bills, each bill for a separate set of agencies, and a 10th division for agencies related to the Department of Homeland Security. After compiling all 10 of these divisions’ appropriations bills, the entire sum comes to $410 billion.

This bill was actually introduced last year but was not passed, due in part to President Bush and in part to Congress.

However, since the November elections rearranged both the White House and Congress, the bill might be received differently. As it stands, the House has signed it. The bill had a tougher time in the Senate but eventually passed Tuesday. 

The bill will surely become law. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs claimed President Obama would sign the bill. He also claimed that Obama would also unveil new rules for congressional earmarks. It was these earmarks that compelled Sen. Evan Bayh from Indiana to write a column against the bill in the Wall Street Journal last week.

It’s nice to see that moderate Democrats like Bayh are willing to challenge President Barack Obama on spending issues and not simply roll over on their principles, but his refusal strikes us as populist.

Arguments against this bill have generally consisted of pointing out the 8,500-plus earmarks, which total $7.7 billion. 

It seems those ever-present earmarks are always what’s emphasized by a congressman when he or she fundamentally disagrees with a bill and are always represented by their dollar amount. However, earmarks rarely comprise a significant percent of the total bill – in this case, less than 2 percent.

Healthier criticism should come from the fact that, by lumping all these individual appropriations bills together, people do not have time to scrutinize some policy changes that should be debated individually.

While we certainly don’t commend wasteful spending and are disappointed that Obama has reneged on his promise to fight earmarks, we don’t think 2 percent is sufficient to vote against a bill. 

Overall, the earmark argument is often used as a last-ditch effort to distort a bill by over-emphasizing its unrepresentative portions.

Members of Congress claim they really want to crack down on earmarks. If they did they wouldn’t lump 10 appropriations bills together and vote on their summation “either all in or all out.”