Congress Rushes Stop-Gap Resolution to Avoid Scrutiny of Wasteful Spending

They don’t even bother to hide their distain for the public anymore.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today blasted House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wisconsin) for presiding over a dysfunctional, chaotic federal budget circus. In a flurry of activity yesterday, Chairman Obey forced Congress to vote on a stop-gap continuing resolution worth $1 trillion in spending with less than 24 hours to review its contents. The rush was aimed at getting lawmakers out of Washington, D.C. as quickly as possible to campaign before the November election and to short-circuit any in-depth scrutiny of the billions of dollars in wasteful spending. The bill came to the House floor under a closed rule, which prohibited amendments and passed 370 to 58.

“Chairman Obey’s actions, and the actions of the entire Democratic leadership team in the House represent a stunning abdication of fiscal responsibility,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz. “A significant number of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are allowing themselves to be steamrolled and, once again, demonstrating blatant hostility to the rights of taxpayers to know how their money is being spent. The deadline for approving appropriations bills is the same each year, September 30, and if the Democrats had done their job over the past nine months, this legislation could have been deliberately considered, reviewed, and publicized. Democrats took over Congress promising greater transparency; this is completely contrary to that claim.”

The bill, H.R. 2638, will fund nine of the twelve appropriations bills at fiscal year 2008 levels until March 6, 2009. It contains billions in congressional earmarks. H.R. 2638 also contains language which appropriates $7 billion of an authorized $50 billion in loan guarantees to bailout Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers. The bill contains a $600 billion “security omnibus” bill combining the remaining three appropriations bills (Military Con/Veterans Affairs, Defense, and Homeland Security), as well as $22.9 billion in so-called disaster relief. Lawmakers also rammed through a separate $600 billion Defense Authorization bill, which passed by a vote of 392 to 39.

When asked by Bloomberg News about whether the process has been secretive, Obey bluntly replied “You’re damn right it has because if it’s done in the public it would never get done.” He wanted to “avoid his colleagues’ ‘pontificating’on the content of the legislation” because “that’s what politicians do when this stuff is done in full view of the press.” He said “we’ve done this the old fashioned way by brokering agreements in order to get things done and I make no apology for it.”:
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/News2?abbr=CCAGW_&page=NewsArticle&id=11608

Didja get that, dear taxpayer? They’re gonna broker agreements behind our back and out of public scrutiny and not feel one fucking bit of remorse.

Still think the Dem love affair with raising taxes is a good idea?