WASHINGTON - Democrats controlling the House muscled through a bill Wednesday night freezing the budgets of most Cabinet departments and funding the war in Afghanistan for another year. At the same time, the GOP blocked efforts to award $250 checks to Social Security recipients facing another year without a cost-of-living increase.
The spending bill would cap the agencies' annual operating budgets at the $1.2 trillion approved for the recently finished budget year - a $46 billion cut of more than 3 percent from President Barack Obama's request.
It includes $159 billion to prosecute the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq next year.
The 423-page measure, opposed by Republicans, conservative Democrats and some anti-war lawmakers, narrowly passed by a 212-206 vote. The budget-freeze bill wraps a dozen unfinished spending bills into a single measure.
The bill, combined with a massive measure to extend the Bush-era tax cuts, extend unemployment benefits and cut the payroll tax, represents the bulk of Congress' unfinished work as the lame-duck session approaches its close.
A widely backed food safety bill is hitching a ride on the legislation. The measure passed the Senate by a 73-25 vote last week but got caught in a snag because it contained revenue provisions that, under the Constitution, must originate in the House.
There are many exceptions to the freeze. Health care programs for veterans and the military would get a boost, and the measure adds $5.7 billion to the Pell Grant program for low-income college students to maintain the maximum grant at $5,550. People serving in the military would get a 1.4 percent pay raise, but civilian federal workers would have their salaries frozen, as requested by Obama last week.
Senate Democrats are working on a different approach that would provide slightly more money and would include thousands of pet projects sought by lawmakers. It's unclear whether that measure can get enough support from GOP old-timers to survive a filibuster by party conservatives. The House bill is free of such "earmarks."
The measure passed over Republican protests that it still spends too much money and that it caps an unprecedented collapse of the federal budget process in which not a single one of the 12 annual spending bills has yet passed Congress. Ten of 12 House bills haven't even been made public.
House Republicans wanted a short-term measure to punt the unfinished budget business into next year, when they will assume the majority and have more leverage to seek concessions from Obama on spending.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said the legislation would "salvage some investments which over the long haul just might create more jobs than a tax break for millionaires."
Obey was able to find money for some Democratic priorities because other accounts were cut, especially for the census and military base closings, which are $11 billion below fiscal 2010 levels.
That allowed Obey to maintain increased federal air marshal presence on international flights, add money for the Indian health Service, and provide $550 million for Obama's signature "Race to the Top" program that provides grants to better-performing schools.
The budget for high-speed rail would take a cut as would Obama's budget for construction of new federal buildings. But housing subsidies for the poor would get an increase, as would grants to localities to shelter the homeless.
The underlying bill would provide the Pentagon $513 billion for core operations, which is a 1 percent increase to cover pay and health care, but $17 billion less than requested by Obama in February.
The Homeland Security Department would see its budget frozen rather than rising almost 3 percent as Obama sought.
Foreign aid programs, however, would receive a $2.2 billion - more than 4 percent - increase to fund counterinsurgency programs by the Pakistani government, help stabilize Iraq and meet long-standing commitments to Israel and Egypt.
The bill also contains $624 million to implement the nuclear weapons treaty with Russia, known as New START, that's pending before the Senate.
In the Senate, Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, backed by Democratic leaders, has fashioned an "omnibus" spending measure - providing almost $20 billion more than the House bill - that he wants to substitute for the measure being passed across the Capitol.
Such omnibus measures have been a routine but oft-criticized way for Congress to wrap up its unfinished work. Only two spending bills have passed the House and not a single one has passed the Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opposes Inouye's move, but GOP members of the Appropriations Committee, such as Sens. Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, are open to the idea.
It's not clear how strongly McConnell will push against the omnibus measure, however, and key McConnell ally Robert Bennett, R-Utah, says he prefers an omnibus to Obey's approach of "locking in" most of last year's policies and funding levels and predicted several Republicans would break with GOP leaders to advance it. But some Democrats may join with GOP conservatives to oppose the omnibus measure.
Obey said he supports an omnibus measure rather than his more austere bill, but said he's not sure the Senate can pass it.
GOP BLOCKS $250 PAYMENT TO SENIORS
Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans on Wednesday thwarted Democratic efforts to award $250 checks to Social Security recipients facing a second consecutive year without a cost-of-living increase.
President Barack Obama and Democrats have urged approval of the one-time payment, saying seniors barely getting by on their Social Security checks face undue hardships without the COLA increase.
But most Republicans contended that the nation couldn't afford the estimated $14 billion cost of the payment, and that the COLA freezes in 2010 and 2011 come after seniors received a significant boost in 2009.
The measure was brought up under a fast-track procedure in the House that required a two-thirds majority for passage. The 254-153 vote in favor of the bill fell short of that.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the financial aid was critical to seniors facing rising costs and falling home values and was fiscally responsible. "But unfortunately," she said, "congressional Republicans overwhelmingly chose to oppose it."
Twenty-six Republicans voted for the bill, while 141 opposed it. Democrats were in favor, 228-12.
Later, the Senate voted 53-45 on a measure to bring the Social Security supplement bill to the Senate floor for debate. That was seven short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation.
COLAs are set automatically each year by an inflation measure that was adopted by Congress in 1975. More than 58 million retirees, disabled people and surviving family members receive Social Security or Supplemental Security Income checks. The average monthly check is $1,072.
The increase for 2009 was 5.8 percent, the largest in 27 years. It was triggered by a sharp but short-lived spike in gas prices to above $4 a gallon in the summer of 2008. By law, the next increase in benefits won't come until consumer prices as a whole rise above what they were that summer.
Democrats and advocacy groups say the formula does not accurately reflect the living costs of seniors, who pay more for such commodities as health care and drugs.
"Basically, they have their benefit levels flatlined at a time when they're encountering higher costs, reducing their quality of life experience and disappointing them greatly about Social Security," said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., a member of the Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee.
Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas, the top Republican on that subcommittee, acknowledged that disappointment but noted the big increase seniors received in 2009 and the fact that a COLA increase means there will be no rise in Medicare Part B costs for doctors' visits. "Increasing our nation's crushing deficit on the backs of our children by an additional $14 billion is wrong," he said.
Barbara Kennelly, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said it was a "cruel irony" that while Congress and White House were negotiating a deal extending huge tax cuts to wealthy Americans, "today we're told that providing $250 for America's seniors and their families is considered too generous."
The House did approve, by voice vote, a Senate-passed bill aimed at stopping Social Security number fraud by barring federal, state and local governments from displaying those numbers on paper checks.
The bill also bans federal, state and local governments from using prisoners in any capacity that would give them access to Social Security numbers.
Friday
June 20th, 2025
6:32PM
