From bloated defense budgets to the largest pork-barrel transportation bill in our nation’s history, this has been a very bad year for the taxpayer. The bad news is, it’s not over yet!

This week Congress is expected to approve the Omnibus 1999 Appropriations Bill. While leaders of both parties claim this as a victory, it is a massive failure for taxpayers. One-third of the entire federal budget will be enacted with less than a week’s review. In fact, it has been reported that the Senate will pass the bill by unanimous consent – without even voting on it!

The worst failure is that of the Congressional Republicans responsible for running the Congress and enacting the budget and spending bills on time. Congressional Democrats deserve some credit for insisting they have a chance to read the bill over the past weekend, but are also responsible for adding pork to this bill. The Administration deserves some credit for damage control in resisting some costly riders, but also used the situation to extract increased spending for programs that may not need it.

We understand that rank and file members have no good choices left, but punishing taxpayers is not the way out. TCS has urged that members vote against passage of the bill until dozens of costly and unneeded items and riders attached to this legislation are removed. Most importantly, members should vote against the bill, because it represents a complete failure of the budget process, with little chance to debate the bill and no opportunity to amend the bill. Finally, at the very least, the Senate should have a recorded vote.

There are literally hundreds of outrageous and costly provisions in this bill. Just a few are listed here:

    * IMF Funding: The omnibus bill provides almost $18 billion in funding for the International Monetary Fund without adequate reforms.

    * Agriculture Subsidies: This bill also provides almost $6 billion in poorly targeted direct subsidies to farmers and ranchers. 

    * TVA Subsidies: The bill provides $1 billion to refinance TVA’s federal financing bank loan. It also provides $50 million for TVA’s non-power programs, circumventing the work of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.

    * Budget Surplus: The excessive “emergency” spending reduces the budget surplus that should be used to pay down the national debt.

    * Defense Pork: The bill includes about $9 billion in “emergency supplemental” defense spending, a designation that precludes the establishment of offsets. This figure is twice what the Administration requested and comes on the heels of the passage of the $271 billion FY99 Defense Appropriations bill.

    * Oil Royalty Rider: This rider bars the Minerals Management Service (MMS) from promulgating reform regulations in FY99 to close loopholes in oil royalty payment rules that have allowed oil companies to undervalue oil royalties for years.