Congress approves
$397 billion budget bill

Hawaii's delegation OKs the measure
that finances every agency
except the Pentagon

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By Alan Fram
Associated Press

WASHINGTON >> Congress overwhelmingly approved a vast $397.4 billion spending bill yesterday, a package pouring taxpayers' money into everything from poor school districts to a probe of the shuttle Columbia disaster to the National Cowgirl Museum in Texas.

By votes of 338-83 in the House and 76-20 in the Senate, lawmakers approved a package financing every agency but the Pentagon for the last two-thirds of the federal budget year. Its scope was underlined by its sheer size: The papers stacked more than 13 inches high, weighed 32 pounds and exceeded 3,000 pages, inviting opponents to use it as a prop to argue that few knew exactly what was in it.

Hawaii's two Democratic senators, Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye, both voted for the legislation. Neil Abercrombie and Ed Case, the state's two Democratic representatives, also voted for the bill.

Final passage ended a grinding budget stalemate that began last year when President Bush demanded lower spending than many in Congress wanted. Even though the measure would spend billions more than he initially sought, Bush congratulated lawmakers and said he would sign it.

"This budget will provide valuable resources for priorities such as homeland security, military operations and education while adhering to the spending restraint set forth in my budget," Bush said in a written statement. "I look forward to signing this legislation and to continuing a course of fiscal discipline."

In the last frantic days of House-Senate bargaining, a bill that already had something for almost everyone grew even sweeter. Lawmakers threw in $3.1 billion to help farmers and ranchers, including those hurt by drought and floods; $1.5 billion to help states revamp their election systems; $54 billion over 10 years to increase Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals; and $10 billion for added defense spending that Bush originally requested a year ago.

"This is now a must-pass bill," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla. "This is a national defense bill, it provides for the needs of our country and it employs some fiscal restraint."

The measure was opposed by an odd coalition: some Democrats complaining it shortchanged education, domestic security and park lands, and some Republicans angry that it spent too much on lawmakers' projects critics dub pork.

"Rather than duct tape and plastic sheeting, I think our firemen would rather have more aid," said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis.

"I ought to nominate some of my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican, for the hall of fame for pork," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. "But I'm afraid that they would fund it."

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had threatened to slow Senate passage because a program he sponsored paying farmers to conserve land and water, enacted only last year, was being tapped to pay for the $3.1 billion farm package. He eventually let the measure go after Senate leaders assured him they would try to restore the money soon, he said.

Wins for Bush included added defense spending and the fact that its final price tag was billions below what many Democrats wanted.

But it also contained many billions of dollars he had not initially sought for farm aid, highway construction, doctors and hospitals, and a $2.2 billion advance on 2004 education spending. That money that did not count against the bill's price tag because it comes from different budget accounts.

Squirreled away inside were thousands of home-district projects for senators and representatives of both parties costing several billion dollars and adding to the bill's virtually unstoppable momentum. One portion of the bill had 885 of them for community development grants.