The Politico reports that soon-to-be Speaker of the House, Republican John Boehner is planning to separate appropriations bills into smaller bills, voted on separately, a plan Boehner circulated a couple months ago to which there are mixed reactions on to date.The plans include slicing and dicing appropriations bills into dozens of smaller, bite-size pieces — making it easier to kill or slash unpopular agencies. Other proposals include statutory spending caps, weekly votes on spending cuts and other reforms to ensure spending bills aren’t sneakily passed under special rules.
On some level, their plans may create a sense of organized chaos on the House floor — picture dozens of votes on dozens of federal program cuts and likely gridlock on spending bills. And don’t forget that a lot of these efforts will die with a Democratic-led Senate and a Democrat in the White House.
But the intent is to force debate as much as to actually legislate — and make Old Guard Republicans and Democrats uncomfortable with a new way of thinking about the size and scope of government.
In other words instead of jamming dozens of bills and massively huge spending all into one bill, the GOP plans to separate appropriations to force discussion on each bill, which in turn will make government spending more transparent.
Quick explanation of appropriations bill:
An appropriation bill or running bill is a legislative motion (bill) which authorizes the government to spend money. It is a bill that sets money aside for specific spending. In most democracies, approval of the legislature is necessary for the government to spend money.
Quick explanation of what an omnibus bill is:
An Omnibus bill is a single document that is accepted in a single vote by a legislature, but packages together several measures into one or combines diverse subjects into a single bill. Examples are reconciliation bills, combined appropriations bills, and private relief and claims bills. Omnibus legislation is routinely used by the United States Congress to group together the budgets of all departments in one year in an Omnibus spending bill.
Quick explanation of what an Earmark is:
In United States politics, an earmark is a legislative (especially congressional) provision that directs approved funds to be spent on specific projects, or that directs specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees. The term "earmark" is used in this sense only in the United States.
So, Appropriation bills spend the money, an Omnibus bill is often used to combine appropriations, among other things, and earmarks are injected into both.
Using just the Fiscal Year 2010 defense appropriations bill as one example- It was a $636.3 billion Fiscal Year 2010 defense appropriations bill, the government’s largest spending bill. The legislation contains 1,720 earmarks worth $4.2 billion. (Source)
Example from 2009- Approximately $3.9 billion in earmarks were in the omnibus spending bill and earmarks do not get publicly scrutinized during committee hearings like most funding requests .
Ed Morrissey from Hot Air explains what happened this year:
For FY2011, the Democrats didn’t bother to produce a budget at all until after the midterms despite having large majorities and a Democrat in the White House, instead waiting until now to push another huge omnibus spending bill through the lame-duck session. This approach creates pressure for an all-or-nothing vote on the entire federal spending plan, steamrolling those who oppose specific areas of spending — and it’s hard to argue that this is an accident.
Back to Boehner's plan:
Perhaps the most dramatic change is Boehner’s planned Appropriations Committee overhaul to require funding on a department-by-department basis, first reported by POLITICO on Wednesday. His proposal would subdivide the dozen current appropriations bills so that funding for each major federal agency would require a separate House vote.
That proposal, in part, is a reaction to the growing practice of omnibus legislation, which tea party activists and other congressional critics have attacked for its lack of accountability — other than for K Street lobbyists and insiders who are paid well for their expertise. Boehner has been promoting that plan while the leadership-controlled GOP Steering Committee has been assessing candidates for chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
“The [suggested] changes may be easier to follow and make more sense” than the existing practices, said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. “As long as members can make a case for or against a particular program, they will have the basis for objective decisions.”
Smaller bills give lawmakers and the public a chance to understand what is in the bill itself, what they are authorizing money to pay for, what type of extra unnecessary spending is injected into those bills.
It will also help stop the practice of shoving a dozen appropriation bills into one huge omnibus bill, using the necessary spending to force lawmakers to agree to the unnecessary spending in order to guarantee priority spending.
Make no mistake, politicians from both sides will not be happy, because this will force transparency instead of just having politicians promise transparency and then bypassing that promise in their typical sneaky manner.
Bruce McQuain from Questions and Observations makes the following point:
And an objective process in which to identify and eliminate waste, fraud, abuse, parts of agencies (redundant) or entire agencies (unproductive bureaucracies)if the case could be made (and it can – the question is whether it will). But this sort of process at least is a step in the right direction of bringing fiscal sanity back to the appropriations process if it can be introduced and followed.
After November 2, 2010 when voters gave the GOP a second chance by giving them control of the House of Representatives (effective in January), Conservatives and Independents made it clear that they would be watching, they expected the GOP to keep their promises, to cut spending, to focus on the economy and job creation and to make the process they governed by more transparent.
This is a step in the right direction and one that will stop the GOP of the present from walking back and becoming the GOP of the recent past.
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