The U.S. embargo on Cuba would be loosened, regulatory agencies would get budget increases and lawmakers would secure thousands of pet projects known as earmarks under a $410 billion spending bill unveiled today.
House Democrats’ “omnibus” spending package would combine nine annual appropriations bills left over from last year that are needed to fund programs such as NASA and the national parks through September, the end of the fiscal year. The House plans to vote on the measure later this week, and the Senate will consider it later.
Democrats postponed work on the appropriations bills last year after they were unable to reach an agreement with the outgoing Bush administration over how much to spend on domestic government programs. Most federal agencies, except those related to defense, have been funded by a stopgap measure that expires March 6.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, called the bill “the unfinished business of last year when the president refused to address the priorities and the needs of the American people.” She said, “We will get this done this week.”
The omnibus bill was unveiled as President Barack Obama pledged at a budget summit to cut the government’s deficit in half in four years. The White House and Congressional Budget Office forecast the deficit for this fiscal year will be at least $1.3 trillion.
Stimulus Plan
The spending measure also follows the $787 billion economic stimulus package that Obama signed into law last week. The stimulus bill included no earmarks, according to Obama; the omnibus bill includes thousands of such projects.
The bill would reverse some of former President George W. Bush’s policies. It would relax Cuba travel restrictions by allowing families to visit relatives there once a year rather than once every three years. It would also reverse Bush administration restrictions imposed in 2005 on food and medicine sales to Cuba.
It would also block a Bush administration initiative allowing Mexican trucks to operate widely in the U.S. And the bill would end a private debt-collection program run by the Internal Revenue Service.
The measure would boost the budgets for regulatory agencies Democrats have said were inadequately funded during the Bush years. The bill would provide the Consumer Product Safety Commission with $105 million, a 31 percent increase from last year.
FDA, OSHA
The Food and Drug Administration’s budget would grow 19 percent, to $2 billion. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration would get $513 million, a 6 percent increase. The Securities and Exchange Commission would get a 4 percent increase, to $943 million.
The bill would not reimpose what had been a long-standing ban on offshore oil drilling that Democrats agreed to rescind last year after Republicans complained Congress was not doing enough to lower gas prices. Many Republicans had predicted Democrats would reinstate those restrictions once the November election had passed.
Lawmakers acceded to complaints by Chief Justice John Roberts that Congress has repeatedly failed to provide federal judges with cost-of-living pay increases. Roberts said in a December report that Congress “unfairly” denied inflation adjustments, which has led to a steady erosion in judicial pay.
Under the omnibus legislation, circuit and district judges would get 2.8 percent increases to $184,500 and $174,000, respectively. Roberts’ salary would be boosted to $223,500 from $217,400, and Supreme Court associate justices would get $213,900, up from $208,100.
