Slurping at the trough

Remember last year's Democratic campaign promises of fiscal responsibility, earmark reform and greater transparency in appropriations? This week, congressional leadership tossed them into the trough with the rest of the slop that made up a $516 billion omnibus spending bill.

Lawmakers still haven't found the time to pass viable alternative minimum tax relief, but they cleared their schedules to lard up a year-end budget deal with more than 9,000 pork projects totaling at least $12 billion. Those figures would have been much higher had President Bush not reined in the holiday spending spree with a veto threat.

The omnibus bill, which was passed by the House on Monday and funds 14 Cabinet agencies, includes lots of goodies for Nevada. Local law enforcement agencies will get hundreds of thousands of dollars for equipment, the College of Southern Nevada scored $730,000 for Internet-based courses, the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy got almost half a million dollars and various highway projects picked up more than $3 million, enough to build and pave a single offramp.

Such gluttony is status quo in Washington, where the one thing sniping Republicans and Democrats can always agree on is setting aside taxpayer dollars in order to secure votes back home.

But what makes this year's bill especially egregious is the way in which Democrats crammed it through the lower house. In a rush to get home by Christmas, they gave representatives and taxpayers less than 24 hours to review the 3,400-page monstrosity before beginning debate at 6 p.m. Monday. In winning control of Congress last year, Democrats promised to give lawmakers and the public ample time to review the thousands of add-ons.

So much for changing a culture of waste and special-interest influence in Washington.

"It is business as usual," Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz said in response to Monday's vote.

Here, piggy, piggy, piggy.