Congress OKs bill averting government shutdown

House Minor­ity Leader Nancy Pelosi of Cal­i­for­nia ges­tures dur­ing her weekly news con­fer­ence on Capi­tol Hill in Wash­ing­ton. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Harry Hamburg)

ALAN FRAM

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — A week­end gov­ern­ment shut­down that nei­ther party wanted was averted when Con­gress approved a com­pro­mise spend­ing bill Thurs­day, as lead­ers over­came major defec­tions by Repub­li­cans angry over what they con­sid­ered exces­sive spend­ing. To the dis­may of lib­er­als, the mea­sure also blocks Obama admin­is­tra­tion plans to impose stricter nutri­tion stan­dards on school lunches.

The Sen­ate sent the mea­sure to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama for his sig­na­ture on a 70–30 vote, shortly after the House con­sented to the bill 298–121.

Though pas­sage was by com­fort­able mar­gins, the vote in both cham­bers high­lighted GOP fis­sures over fed­eral spend­ing. House Repub­li­cans backed the leg­is­la­tion by just 133–101, while GOP sen­a­tors voted heav­ily against the bipar­ti­san bill, 30–17.

Many con­ser­v­a­tives also were unhappy that the bill poten­tially would leave tax­pay­ers on the hook for even more spend­ing because it would expand the size of mort­gages that could be insured by the Fed­eral Hous­ing Admin­is­tra­tion in wealthy areas from $625,500 to $729,750.

“Some say, ‘Oh, the tea party, you shouldn’t lis­ten to them, they were angry peo­ple,’” Sen. Jeff Ses­sions, R-Ala., said. “Well, I think they were deeply frus­trated peo­ple and, yes, some­what angry. Why shouldn’t they be?”

The votes occurred against a back­drop of par­ti­san grid­lock among mem­bers of Con­gress’ super­com­mit­tee, which has less than a week to try agree­ing to a debt-reduction plan. Some Repub­li­cans on that panel have been push­ing to include some tax increases as part of a deal, and that has upset some Repub­li­cans adamant against aban­don­ing the party’s core stance against boost­ing levies.

Democ­rats sup­ported the mea­sure over­whelm­ingly, with only 20 in the House and none in the Sen­ate vot­ing “no.” Lib­er­als mocked a pro­vi­sion block­ing Obama admin­is­tra­tion efforts to prod schools to put health­ier foods on their lunch menus, includ­ing a pro­posal to no longer con­sider the tomato paste on pizza to be a vegetable.

“What’s next? Are Twinkies going to be con­sid­ered a veg­etable?” said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., who voted against passage.

Despite the objec­tions, pas­sage was never in real doubt. Both par­ties were eager to avoid fur­ther tar­nish­ing Con­gress’ ghastly pub­lic image, which took a beat­ing after par­ti­san stand­offs nearly caused a gov­ern­ment shut­down this past spring and a fed­eral default in the summer.

“It’s a good bill. It’s not per­fect but it’s a lot bet­ter than the alter­na­tive,” said Rep. Norm Dicks of Wash­ing­ton, top Demo­c­rat on the House Appro­pri­a­tions Committee.

The government’s new fis­cal year started Oct. 1 with­out enact­ment of any year­long spend­ing bills. A tem­po­rary mea­sure that has been financ­ing fed­eral agen­cies expires after mid­night Friday.

The leg­is­la­tion would keep the government’s doors open through Dec. 16, giv­ing law­mak­ers more time to catch up on their tardy bud­get work. It would also pro­vide $182 bil­lion to finance the depart­ments of Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment, Trans­porta­tion, Agri­cul­ture, Com­merce and Jus­tice, and many smaller agen­cies through the rest of the government’s bud­get year.

Sup­port­ers said the bill hon­ors a sum­mer com­pro­mise between Obama and Repub­li­cans to limit over­all spend­ing on fed­eral agen­cies to just over $1 tril­lion, $7 bil­lion less than last year.

“This bill is the next step in break­ing the sta­tus quo of exces­sive fed­eral spend­ing that is throw­ing our bud­gets out of whack,” said Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chair­man of the House Appro­pri­a­tions Committee.

To try win­ning over skep­tics, GOP lead­ers told their rank-and-file that the bill would elim­i­nate 20 fed­eral pro­grams. All were rel­a­tively small, includ­ing a $35 mil­lion Agri­cul­ture Depart­ment healthy food ini­tia­tive and a $12 mil­lion National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion under­ground sci­ence lab.

They also noted that the bill pro­vided none of the $8 bil­lion Obama requested for build­ing high-speed rail lines and none of the $322 mil­lion the pres­i­dent sought to estab­lish a cli­mate change office in the National Oceanic and Atmos­pheric Administration.

Obama’s request for an addi­tional $308 mil­lion for the Com­mod­ity Futures Trad­ing Com­mis­sion, which is respon­si­ble for imple­ment­ing much of last year’s finan­cial law, was cut to $205 mil­lion. Reduc­tions were also included for NASA.

Democ­rats boasted that unlike an ear­lier House-passed ver­sion, the com­pro­mise bill lacked GOP lan­guage block­ing enforce­ment of parts of last year’s law over­haul­ing the reg­u­la­tion of finan­cial mar­kets and pre­vent­ing the gov­ern­ment from reg­u­lat­ing the RU-486 birth con­trol pill.

They also said it included more money than Repub­li­cans wanted for pro­vid­ing food to poor women, chil­dren and older peo­ple; help­ing com­mu­ni­ties hire police offi­cers; oper­at­ing fed­eral pris­ons; financ­ing the National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion; and high­way and tran­sit programs.

The bill also would extend to Dec. 16 the dead­line by which the ail­ing U.S. Postal Ser­vice must pay $5.5 bil­lion to the Trea­sury for future retiree health ben­e­fits. Postal offi­cials have warned they have no cash and would default on the annual pay­ment, which was orig­i­nally due Sept. 30.

The Agri­cul­ture Depart­ment had pro­posed improv­ing school lunches by steps like lim­it­ing pota­toes and salt and pro­mot­ing whole grains.

The leg­is­la­tion blocked those rules. As a result, the bill would allow the tomato paste typ­i­cally top­ping piz­zas to be con­sid­ered a veg­etable, a prac­tice the Agri­cul­ture Depart­ment wanted to curb.

Fed­er­ally sub­si­dized school meals must con­tain cer­tain amounts of veg­eta­bles, and the pro­posed rules could have forced schools to remove foods like pizza and french fries from their cafeterias.

Posted by AP News on Nov 17 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.