2,500 Pages of Mischief

It’s about 2,500 pages long and a foot high. But nothing else is impressive about Congress’ big spending plan for next year. Where economic good sense is concerned, it’s a lightweight. As Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a longtime foe of pork-barrel politics, said Sunday, Congress is spending like a “drunken sailor,” and President Bush isn’t trying to stop it.

What Congress is supposed to do during the budget year is pass 13 individually considered spending bills for everything ranging from defense to education. But this year it managed to pass only six. The solution? Cram the remaining seven bills, which fund 11 of 15 Cabinet departments, into one big, ill-considered, $328-billion sausage called an omnibus spending bill. The same irresponsible thing happened last year.

The House may vote as early as Monday, but the Senate probably won’t until late January. In either case, no lawmaker can realistically master what he or she is voting on.

Much of the funding is perfectly legitimate: $423 million to boost FBI anti-terrorism capacities and $2.4 billion for international AIDS relief leap to mind. But the measure is heavier than usual with pork despite the billowing deficit -- for example, $350,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum -- and contains policy changes that the White House is trying to slip past Congress with no debate. One provision, a pet of the gun lobby, would require destroying federal gun-purchase records within 24 hours, not the current 90 days, if law enforcement officials found no instant warning signals of a criminal past or mental illness.

At the same time, the House and Senate are considering legislation that would temporarily extend tax cuts set to expire in the next few years. The House bill would cost the Treasury at least $7 billion over the next decade, while the Senate’s shorter-term version purports to be revenue-neutral.

This, while Congress is stiffing unemployed workers. A cheerier national fiscal outlook is still not producing a substantial boost in new jobs. In California alone, more than 66,000 workers will exhaust their basic state unemployment benefits in January unless Congress renews temporary federal benefits. The money runs out three days before Christmas and would cost about $1 billion a week to restore for a few more months. Neither Bush nor the congressional GOP leadership is moving to pass an extension.

Congress’ greatest sin, however, is its profligacy. There is some chance that opponents of the omnibus bill will be able to force last-minute changes for the better. But a lot can be buried in 2,500 pages of budgetary mischief. Much of it will not be fully comprehended until long after the measure passes.