Obama Will Sign '09 Appropriations Despite Earmarks

According to both Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and OMB Director Peter Orszag, speaking on the Sunday talk shows, President Obama will sign the appropriations legislation for fiscal 2009 Congress is expected to send him this week, after clearing the Senate and the conference committee, despite 8,330 earmarks costing about $7.7 billion out of the $410 billion appropriated, or a little less than 1.9% of the total expenditures authorized in the bill.

Despite heavy Republican criticism that the Oval Office is now backing down from the campaign pledge of "no earmarks," these two high level staffers characterized the '09 appropriation measure as "last year's business," and emphasized that Obama will not be so forgiving in connection with the future budget and appropriation bills coming to his desk.

Obama is letting no grass grow under his feet or those of his staff, naming Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius as his nominee to head his Health and Human Services Department, and spearhead the drive for health care reform. This could indeed prove to be the first multitasking administration in a long time. We hope we can continue cutting through the blizzard of activity to keep readers focused on those legislative actions affecting the construction industry.

Fiscal '09 Budget Passes House

On a vote of 245 in favor and 178 opposed, the $410 billion fiscal year 2009 omnibus appropriations bill passed the House February 25. The Senate has to vote on the bill next week because the continuing resolution funding federal government operations at fiscal 2008 levels expires March 6. Unless the Senate passes the omnibus before that deadline, another continuing resolution would be necessary to avoid a government shutdown.

This appropriation for fiscal 2009 includes budget increases of about 8% for most federal government operations. It also contains 8,330 earmarks, which can be viewed at this link:

http://appropriations.house.gov/FY2009_consolidated.shtml

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he expects the bill to pass the Senate before the March 6 deadline, so when federal employees leave work Friday afternoon they will know they can report back on Monday morning, expecting to get paid for their efforts.

Meanwhile, President Obama unveiled his budget outline for fiscal 2010, which for the first time in many years actually includes every dollar the federal government truly expects to spend, including war spending by the Department of Defense, and a contingency fund for natural disaster relief. The total budget is $3.55 trillion.

The Obama budget outline includes plans for spending over the next ten years, rather than the five year plans the Bush administration was fond of presenting. The outline contains a few things which should give encouragement to the construction industry:

Spending $150 billion over ten years for clean energy initiatives.

Spending $5 billion over 5 years for high speed rail construction, in addition to the $8 billion appropriated in the stimulus legislation.

Spending $64.5 billion on other transportation projects.

In other pro-construction talk around Washington, Interior Secretary Salazar wants to fund a Civilian Conservation Corps of 10,000 young trades workers to begin addressing the $8 billion backlog in national park projects, starting with such urban facilities as Independence Hall in Philadelphia and the Frederick Douglass Home in Washington, D.C.

One negative in the outline is the suggestion that the stimulus bill's one year deferral of the new three percent withholding tax on government contractors will not be made permanent, and collection of the tax will start next year.