Executive, Legislative Branches At Odds Over Budget Reconciliation

OMB Director Peter Orszag suggested to the Senate Budget Committee Tuesday that legislators could filibuster-proof the Obama initiatives in the '10 budget legislation by using the budget reconciliation procedure to pass the bill, rather than letting the legislation be considered in regular order. However, in discussing the expected climate change and renewable energy package of legislation, leaders of both parties in both houses have expressed opposition to eliminating the possibility of amendments from the floor.

General Public Closed Off From Stimulus Debate

In typical Washington fashion, the last version of the stimulus legislation available to the general public is H.R. 1 passed by the House last month. Although three different Senate committees have debated the legislation, and two have voted on proposed amendments to it, the bill is being debated on the Senate floor without any text of the legislation under consideration being available to the public. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is busy discussing his "alternative" proposals without having released any text of amendments he may propose, or revealing his floor strategy to anyone.

Should the Senate pass its version of this legislation, the bill will go to a House-Senate Conference Committee, and once the differences between the two versions are resolved, both the Senate and the House will vote the final version of the bill up or down. Your representatives in Congress will be lucky if they see the text of the bill 24 hours before they cast their votes, and the likelihood is that it won't be available at all to the general public until a few days after it is signed by President Obama. So much for transparency and accountability in government.

The truth is that even if you were to keep your eyes glued to C-Span throughout the Senate debate on this legislation, you won't know what it includes until after it is passed and signed into law. Even in this age of computers and instantaneous communication via the internet, it is quite likely that the text of the legislation as passed will not be seen by anyone outside Washington until days after President Obama signs it. And even then it will be weeks more before the actual construction projects to be funded by these appropriations begin to be posted in the Recovery.gov website for the general public to peruse.

We do understand that the current price tag on the Senate's version of the legislation is $888 billion, and that various Senators will likely propose amendments to increase spending on highways by another $27 billion, schools and colleges by $20 billion, and broadband expansion by $9 billion. This could push the construction industry's share of the appropriations as high as $209 billion from the $153.3 billion in the House version.