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GOP seeks vote on huge spending billSenate action expected Friday
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans began pushing a vast $397.4 billion spending bill through the House on Thursday, a package pouring taxpayers' money on everything from poor school districts to a probe of the shuttle Columbia disaster to the National Cowgirl Museum in Texas. The bill and supporting documents stacked more than 13 inches high, weighed 32 pounds and exceeded 3,000 pages, and opponents used it as a prop to argue that few lawmakers knew exactly what was in it. It would finance every agency but the Pentagon for the last two-thirds of the federal budget year, ending the stalemate that began last year when President Bush demanded lower spending than many in Congress wanted. In the last frantic days of House-Senate bargaining, a bill that already had something for almost everyone grew even sweeter. Lawmakers threw in $3.1 billion to help farmers and ranchers, including those hurt by drought and floods; $1.5 billion to help states revamp their election systems; $54 billion over 10 years to increase Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals; and $10 billion for added defense spending that Bush originally requested a year ago. "This is now a must-pass bill," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Florida. "This is a national defense bill, it provides for the needs of our country and it employs some fiscal restraint." House passage seemed virtually certain, with the Senate expected to follow by Friday. White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said Bush would sign it into law. The measure was opposed by an odd coalition: Some Democrats complaining it shortchanged education, domestic security and park lands, and conservative Republicans angry that it spent too much. "Rather than duct tape and plastic sheeting, I think our firemen would rather have more aid," said Rep. David Obey, D-Wisconsin. Wins for Bush included the added defense spending, and the fact that its final price tag was billions below what many Democrats wanted. Money for farmers, defense, highwaysBut it also contained many billions of dollars he had not initially sought for farm aid, highway construction, doctors and hospitals, and a $2.2 billion advance on 2004 education spending. That money that did not count against the bill's price tag because it comes from different budget accounts. Squirreled away inside were thousands of home-district projects for senators and representatives of both parties costing several billion dollars and adding to the bill's virtually unstoppable momentum. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, took credit for winning $90,000 to create a bilingual audio tour for the cowgirl museum in Fort Worth, where she was once mayor. There was $50,000 more for research on shiitake mushrooms at the South Central Family Farm Research Center in Booneville, Arkansas; $45,000 for a Korean War memorial in Athens, Alabama; and $400,000 to help the Nevada Wildlife Division return displaced wildlife to their natural habitats. One section alone divided $315 million for wastewater grants among 484 such projects. The listing ran from $1.6 million for a water main in Palmer, Alaska, to $572 million for water system improvements in Beach Bottom, W.Virginia. Those two states are represented by the top members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Robert Byrd, D-W.Virginia. Fishing interests on both coasts, the timber and energy industries, and farmers north and south also benefited. Democrats complained that obscure provisions helped a Georgia chicken producer that wants to label its products "organic" even though they don't meet required government criteria, and provided $15 million to 10 Texas diary farmers who stood to lose money because their herds were ill. In the Senate, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was threatening to slow passage. He was unhappy that a program paying farmers to conserve land and water, enacted only last year, was being tapped to pay for the $3.1 billion farm aid package. The measure would provide $53.1 billion for the Education Department, $3.1 billion more than Bush requested. Democrats cited that as a victory. It would also roll back a provision enacted last year giving vaccine manufacturers protection against lawsuits from people claiming that their products have caused autism in some children. The measure also included: • $15.4 billion for NASA, $500 million over last year. It included $50 million to let the space agency investigate the February 1 destruction of the Columbia, which killed seven astronauts. • Nearly $11.8 billion for school districts serving large numbers of low-income students, $1.4 billion more than last year. • $3.5 billion for local police, firefighters, emergency personnel and other "first responders." Democrats argued that Bush had promised a "new" $3.5 billion for these programs and that the figure was only $1.2 billion more than was provided a year ago. • $700 million to help South American countries battle drug lords. • Increases over last year for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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