Taxpayers Buy Bush A Yacht

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Rspaight
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Taxpayers Buy Bush A Yacht

Postby Rspaight » Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:38 pm

Do you think it'll have a landing strip so he practice tail-hooking? Maybe he'll start wearing a sailor suit.

Bolding mine.

Congress Passes $388 Billion Spending Bill
Sat Nov 20, 2004 09:58 PM ET

By Anna Willard

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress on Saturday passed a $388 billion package financing government programs in this fiscal year after days of tough talks, but a last minute snag means it may not be sent to President Bush for signing into law for several days.

The Senate voted 65-30 for the legislation late on Saturday that sets aside funds for a range of priorities including a presidential yacht, foreign aid and energy. It is one of the final pieces of work for the 108th Congress and they may return to finish a spy agency overhaul before the end of the year.

The House of Representatives passed the bill 344-51 earlier on Saturday. But it must also approve a resolution that would correct part of the spending bill that would have allowed lawmakers access to the tax returns of Americans and which provoked outrage among lawmakers from both parties.

The House is expected to do that next week but until it has been done the spending bill will not be sent to Bush for signing into law. Congress passed a measure to keep the government open in the meantime.

To fit into limits demanded by Bush as part of his effort to trim the record budget deficit, Republicans agreed to make an across-the-board cut in spending levels backed earlier by the House and Senate, provoking anger among some lawmakers.

"It's been a terrible bill to handle," said outgoing Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican.

Some last minute increases were allowed for favored White House projects like NASA space programs.

Democrats fumed that Republican leaders had cut crucial funding for education, health and the environment.

'THANKSGIVING TURKEY'

Democratic Rep. David Obey, from Wisconsin, called the bill a "Thanksgiving Turkey" which he said was "totally inadequate to meet the nation's needs."

Although lawmakers found common ground during the 108th Congress on tax breaks for companies and families there was also plenty of election-year gridlock.

Partisan fighting continued on Saturday as Democrats raged over a Republican-introduced measure in the spending bill making it easier for hospitals to refuse to provide abortions or abortion counseling.

"This provision is nothing more than a payoff to the religious right," said Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat.

The spending bill wraps together 9 bills that Congress failed to pass before the election, financing most government agencies in the 2005 fiscal year that started Oct. 1.

The bill sets aside $23 billion for the Department of Energy while foreign aid programs will get $19.4 billion. Those were increases from 2004 but less than Bush requested. The bill funding the Departments of Transportation and Treasury will get $89.9 billion, less than last year and Bush's request.

The Bush administration threatened to veto the massive bill if the cost of its programs pushed spending for all 13 bills above an $821.9 billion limit.

In a victory for the White House, lawmakers agreed to open up some government agency jobs to the private sector.

The bill also dropped language that would have challenged new Bush rules on overtime and travel to Cuba and to extend milk subsidies for small dairy farmers.

On another tricky issue, the compromise bill included $577 million in funding for a nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada but dropped language that would reclassify fees paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund.

The bill also included a measure to make Mexican trucks operating in the United States safer. And it added $403 million dollars to ease the crisis in Sudan.

But it cut $1 billion from Bush's $2.5 billion request for the Millennium Challenge Account, a new program to encourage economic and political reforms in poor countries. Advocacy groups were disappointed with the level of funding for the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS.

The NASA space agency, a priority of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, found a last minute boost to $16.2 billion, an increase of $822 million over last year's levels.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney