House increases treasury spending, ends phone tax

On September 14, by a vote of 212 to 209, the House passed a bill (HR 4516) appropriating over $32 billion to the Treasury and the Legislative Branch while repealing the 3% federal telephone tax. The bill give $30.3 billion to the Treasury and the Postal system-,an increase of nearly 14% over last year-and $2.5 billion to the Legislative Branch-a 1.6% hike.

The,measure, a mini-omnibus bill whose provisions had been passed by the House separately earlier in this session, was the product of a House-Senate conference that hiked total expenditures $1 billion above the House's level. The bill also contains a pay raise for congressmen. Most Democrats objected that the bill did not spend enough money, while many House conservatives opposed the spending increase.

Rep. David Obey (D: Wis.) accused the Republicans of playing politics with the bill, which he said the President would veto. "The legislative appropriations bill started out as a bill which every single member of the minority side was willing to sign and send on to the other body end the President. Unfortunately, it was been packaged with a number of other unrelated items, other appropriations bills, as well as tax provisions which have no business in the bill. In essence, at this point, this dog has three tails and no legs. ft is not going anywhere. And the sooner we dispose of it, the sooner we can get back to reality."

Treasury-Postal Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Kolbe (R: Ariz.) defended himself against charges that he was cutting spending. "[Obey] used the word `cutting; that this bill is cutting. But I think we should be clear that we may not be acting as much as he would like in terms of new spending, but at 13.8% over last year's spending, it is hardly a cut. There are not cuts in this in virtually every account, there are additions, and most of them are very much needed, and we acknowledge that. But this is not cuts."

Congressional Democrats and the administration complained particularly that the bill did not match the President's request in the arms of anti-terrorism funding and increased spending for the Internal Revenue Service.

On these points Kolbe was quick to point out that his bill was very generous, despite Congress's self-imposed spending caps. "With regard to counterterrorism, the additional monies, as I mentioned, we have $55 million in this bill that is emergency spending so it can be spent immediately, above and beyond the budget caps.... That offer was rejected."

The telephone-tax repeal had passed the House this summer 420 to 2, and the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill passed 373 to 50. The Treasury-Postal bill passed the House 216 to 202 on July 20, but, like the tax provision, it never came up for a vote on the Senate floor. The two measures were added to the legislative Branch bill in that bill's House-Senate conference. A "yes" vote was a vote to spend $32 billion on the Treasury Department, the Postal Service and the Legislative Branch while eliminating the 3% telephone tax. A "no" vote was a vote against the bill.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Sep 29, 2000
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