The omnibus spending bill is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla. Although it only weighs in at 15 pounds, it is 3,320 pages and 14 inches tall. The odds that any lawmaker read this thing are slimmer than Evander Holyfield's chances of winning another boxing championship. Nada.

It is so large that a lot of outrageous provisions were able to hide in plain sight. Everyone mentions the tax privacy provision, but the legislation has hundreds of similar sections that have gone unnoticed. Our favorites are a provision that allows Capitol Police protection for Senators traveling overseas, and another allowing the Export-Import Bank to provide subsidies in support of U.S. companies doing business in Libya. We have documented nearly 12,000 special interest earmarks in the bill, some of dubious worth. Clearly, the nation would benefit from closer scrutiny of this legislation. When a bill of this size is cobbled together behind closed doors by a few and rammed through at the last minute, it is a license for legislative mischief.

What is even more troubling is that for many in Congress, this bill was a model of responsibility and fiscal restraint. Asking our Congress to rein in pork is like recruiting John Goodman to be the spokesperson for Weight Watchers.

The way Congress creates spending bills is broken. Congress simply isn't as committed to the crafting good spending legislation as they should be. Instead, they have frequent junkets or recesses, pathetic workweeks and days spent entirely on partisan politicking, leaving important bills to gather dust.

Republicans blame Democrats and Democrats blame Republicans. The bottom line is that there is more than enough blame to go around. The last time Congress passed all 13 spending by October 1, the start of the fiscal year, was 1994. This really is a national embarrassment.

Interestingly, over the same time period, earmarking in appropriations bills has grown by 400 percent. Increasingly, Congress has been micromanaging agency budgets and arbitrarily picking winners and losers in the budget process. Thus, the B.B. King Museum and the private National Whitewater Center have become national spending priorities. Instead of funding the best ideas, only the projects that are backed by powerful appropriations committee members get singled out.

The process is fundamentally undemocratic. Seven of the nine bills had no Senate floor consideration. Further, because they were rammed through conference, 100 senators were deprived of the opportunity to vote for or against hundreds of billions in spending. Passing legislation that no one has had the chance to read violates the principles of democratic government. The budget process is limping along, but it won't last much longer unless we make some significant changes.

The appropriations process is clearly flawed. Fiscal year 2005 is more than 60 days old, and Congress has not yet done last year's work, cramming a colossal spending bill that Congress should be ashamed of down our throats. This is the third year in a row that Congress has had to pass an omnibus spending bill, and the sixth time in the last eight fiscal years. Congress needs to get the process back on track by making it more transparent and bringing fiscal discipline back to Capitol Hill.

With our country facing budget deficits as far as the eye can see, it is time for us to start making tough decisions about the nation's fiscal future. We cannot continue down this road of fiscal irresponsibility that rewards special interests at the taxpayers' expense. We have missed the boat on hundreds of belt tightening opportunities in the last few years. Now is the time to take a stand.