Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled a $1.1 trillion spending bill from consideration Thursday night after Republicans who had earlier committed to Reid that they would vote for the measure quietly withdrew their support.
The legislation, an omnibus appropriations bill, was a combination of all 12 annual spending bills that Congress usually passes individually. Although Congress sometimes combines four or five unfinished spending bills into an omnibus measure at the end of a year, months of squabbling between Democrats and Republicans over health care reform, unemployment benefits and other issues left the Senate with none of the spending bills passed as the legislative calendar drew to a close.
The good news is that the folks that got tossed out of office in the last election won't be the ones determining how the money gets spent. The bad news is that if the latest tax rate extension bill is any indication of how the 112th Congress will conduct themselves, I'm not all that convinced that we'll be saving any money by not allowing the Democrats to have one more spending spree before they find another job.
