Picking up the ‘Pork’- 2009 Budget – Omnibus bill

History lesson on the 2009 budget bill, which is now being considered by the Senate. Bush administration drafted and submitted the original version to the congress in October 2008. At the time for congressional Democrats were mainly responsible for delaying passage of the final spending bill for fiscal 2009 until after the election, when they could have a Democrat in the White House, which is now the case. Had it passed then, it would have been effective from October 1, 2008 until September 31, 2009. However, with a stronghold of the democrats at the time, Congress passed a stopgap bill to fund the country until March 2009, awaiting and hoping a change in the office.

With the slightly reformed budget-bill, omnibus, coming to a Senate vote as early as tomorrow some Bush projects and policies have been deleted, and the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now included transparently for the first time instead of being funded separately as done previously. This version of the 2009 budget, known as the Omnibus Budget Bill, contains at least 8500+ earmarks costing $7+ billion based on different estimates (One estimate from Taxpayers for Common Sense is here).

Obama has repeatedly stated his objections to earmarks, but this bill seems to be grandfathered for that policy. The bill would be effective from April 1, until September 31^st. 2009 if passed without delays. It does not fare well for the tune President Obama has been singing pre-election, about steering clear of ear-marks and pork-barrel projects.

Administration officials argue that this bill completes funding for the previous fiscal year through September 2009, and should have been completed under President Bush. “This is last year’s business. We just want to move on,” said president’s budget director, Peter Orszag.

Senators John McCain (R) of Arizona and Russ Feingold (D) of Wisconsin had proposed giving the president a line-item veto, which would have allowed the chief executive the ability to “clean up” legislation loaded with pork, as originally noted by Senator McCain.

Some of the interesting ear-marks are noted below (with the sources reporting them)

• Flood control and protection along the Guadalupe River: $5 million
• Aid for planned Bio-Info-Nano Research and Development Institute at Ames Research Park: $1.8 million
• Several juvenile justice projects: $3 million
• I-880/I-280/Stevens Creek Boulevard interchange (a project estimated to cost $150 million): $950,000
• Silicon Valley small business assistance portal: $245,643
• San Jose Police mobile identification and records: $695,000
• Silicon Valley Education Foundation: $190,000
• $237,500 earmark for expanding the Japanese-American Museum in San Jose
• $1.4 million for a solar project in San Mateo
  
• $4 million for salt pond restoration in the South Bay
  
• $7.9 million for a bus project in the Livermore-Pleasanton area.

Source: Mercurynews.com

• $713,625 Woody Biomass at SUNY-ESF. Walsh and Schumer sponsors
• $951,500 Sustainable Las Vegas. Berkeley and Reid sponsors.
• $24,000 A+ for Abstinence. Specter is sponsor.
• $300,000 Montana World Trade Center. Rehberg sponsor.
• $950,000 Myrtle Beach International Trade and Convention Center. Graham sponsor.
• $200,000 Oil Region Alliance. Peterson sponsor.
• $190,000 Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY for digitizing and editing the Cody collection. Barbara Cubin is the sponsor
• $143,000 Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Las Vegas, NV, to expand natural history education programs. Sponsored by Harry Reid
• $238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Honolulu, HI, for educational programs. Sen. Daniel Inouye is the sponsor.
• $381,000 for Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY for music education programs. Jerrold Nadler is the sponsor.

Source: Taxpayers For Common Sense

Additional read: Winners and Losers of the Omnibus bill by Fox News.