Senate Dems Defeat GOP Attempt to Filibuster $1.1T Spending Bill

[meme]

the Democrat majority RUBBER STAMPING continues...
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The Democratic-controlled Senate has defeated a GOP filibuster of a huge year-end spending bill.


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AP

Dec. 6: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid speaks to the media on Capitol Hill. (AP)
WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled Senate has defeated a GOP filibuster of a huge year-end spending bill.

The 60-34 vote during a rare Saturday session sets the stage for a final vote Sunday afternoon on the $1.1 trillion measure. The bill combines generous increases for domestic agencies and foreign aid with a 2 percent average pay raise for federal workers.

The 1,000-plus page bill includes $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. It also contains more than 5,000 back-home projects sought by lawmakers in both parties.

The legislation bundles six of the 12 annual spending bills, capping a dysfunctional appropriations process in which Senate Republicans dragged out debates on the routine measures.

Just the $626 billion defense bill would remain. That's being held back to serve as a vehicle to advance must-pass legislation such as the debt increase.

The bill also caps a heated debate over Obama's order to close the military-run prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It would permit detainees held there to be transferred to the United States to stand trial but not to be released.

The measure provides spending increases averaging about 10 percent to programs under immediate control of Congress, blending increases for veterans' programs, NASA and the FBI with a pay raise for federal workers and help for car dealers.

Saturday's bill would offer an improved binding arbitration process to challenge GM and Chrysler's decisions to close more than 2,000 dealerships, which often serve as the anchor of fading small town business districts. It also renewed for two more years a federal loan guarantee program for steel companies.

The bill would also void a long-standing ban on the funding of abortion by the local Washington city government and overturns a ban on federal money for needle exchange programs in the city.

It also phases out a Washington city school voucher program favored by Republicans and opens the door for the city to permit medical marijuana.

It would also lift a nationwide ban on the use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs.

Federal workers would receive pay increases averaging 2 percent, with people in areas with higher living costs receiving slightly higher increases.

Once the bill clears the Senate, it would advance to President Barack Obama's desk.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/12/senate-poised-advance-t-spending/

 

[Bonestorm]

I find it interesting that you think that voting end a Republican filibuster of a bill to simply bring it to the floor for an up-or-down vote on the merits is "rubber stamping." It's the way things work. Republicans obstruct, and the Democrats move ahead with the business of governing.

 

[meme]

I find it interesting that you think that voting end a Republican filibuster of a bill to simply bring it to the floor for an up-or-down vote on the merits is "rubber stamping." It's the way things work. Republicans obstruct, and the Democrats move ahead with the business of governing.

I find it interesting that you don't care about any of the trillion dollars of spending this administration is doing, in a recession almost as bad as the DEPRESSION, as your dear leader like to mouth..
Instead you want to dump on the Republicans for trying to stop them from spending us into oblivion..
yet you all cheered when it was the Democrats doing the same thing to the Bush administration, like saying they should "cut of the funding" for our military in Iraq.

 

[TuTu Monroe]

I find it interesting that you don't care about any of the trillion dollars of spending this administration is doing, in a recession almost as bad as the DEPRESSION, as your dear leader like to mouth..
Instead you want to dump on the Republicans for trying to stop them from spending us into oblivion..
yet you all cheered when it was the Democrats doing the same thing to the Bush administration, like saying they should "cut of the funding" for our military in Iraq.

The national debt it over $12 trillion now and it keeps going up every single damn day. We can never pay it back. I don't mind funding our troops, but the rest of the garbage is insane.