Bob Kerrey: “I voted no on this Omnibus spending bill. I did so reluctantly, because most of what I know about it--which is contained…”

“I voted no on this Omnibus spending bill. I did so reluctantly, because most of what I know about it--which is contained in the pages about agriculture, education and other areas--I like. It is because of the several hundred pages that are a complete mystery to me that I vote no. Mr. President, democracy should not work this way. The people send us here to deliberate serious matters of public policy and to represent their interests and the nation's in the debate. In this case there was no debate, and it was not possible to represent anyone's interests because it is impossible to know how, if at all, those interests comport with a bill whose 3,800 pages were not even published until the dark of last night. Lest the American people be confused about why it has come to this, there is a simple answer. The majority party did not schedule Congress' time to do the work the people pay us to do. One of the Congress' most basic duties is to decide how the people's money is to be spent. That process involves the passage of 13 appropriations bills, of which we managed to pass a whopping total of five in several months. The majority party found ample time to debate matters of such crashing importance as the scourge of human cloning and the name of the airport from which most of us are going to flee this scene later today. Let there be no mistake about it: The necessity of a $500 billion omnibus bill did not arise from grand ideological disputes.…”