Gwen Graham: “as fate would have it, the first vote this new session of Congress has before it, as our first measure, is an omnibus…”

“as fate would have it, the first vote this new session of Congress has before it, as our first measure, is an omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2004. This first-of-the-year appropriations bill is the product of negotiation among the leadership, primarily Republican leadership in this Chamber and their House counterparts, to meld together a series of appropriations bills that had been unable to be passed prior to the time of our adjournment in 2003 and have now been presented to us as a single bill. This single bill will provide for discretionary domestic spending of $328 billion--$328 billion. In fact, it contains over 7,000 earmarks, which means specific projects that have been added to this bill, almost exclusively projects that were never considered by the Senate. Senator McCain has given a speech, as has Senator Byrd, outlining adequate reasons to vote against this omnibus bill based on those facts alone. I would probably have voted against the bill based on those facts alone because I consider myself to be a fiscal hawk, and I consider that the kind of spending in this bill is illustrative of the undisciplined practices into which this Congress and this President have too often fallen. But that is not the reason I am going to discuss today. It is the fact of what is not in this bill.…”