Obama Expected To Sign Omnibus Spending Bill

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Abortion
Article Date: 16 Dec 2009 - 3:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

The White House on Monday indicated that President Obama will sign the omnibus fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill (HR 3288) that passed the Senate on Sunday and the House last week, Roll Call reports (Koffler, Roll Call, 12/14). The omnibus bill includes the Financial Services (HR 3170), Commerce-Justice-Science (HR 2847), Labor-HHS-Education (HR 3293), Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (HR 3082), State-Foreign Operations (HR 3081) and Transportation-HUD (HR 3288) appropriations bills.

Labor-HHS-Education, the largest of the FY 2010 appropriations bills, would receive a total of $730.6 billion, which is 9% more than FY 2009 levels and 0.3% above Obama's request. The bill would continue existing federal restrictions on abortion funding. It also would remove restrictions on Washington, D.C.'s use of locally derived tax revenue to fund abortion services for low-income women, as well as ease restrictions on D.C.'s use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs designed to curb the spread of HIV among injection drug users (Women's Health Policy Report, 12/14).

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "One of the goals obviously is to keep the government running right now," adding, "The number of earmarks [in the bill] is down. It's not perfect. The president will continue to try to make progress on those issues." He also said Obama "would like to see Congress get to the point where we're doing appropriations bills and not omnibus bills" (Roll Call, 12/14).

The president is expected to sign the bill despite protests from lawmakers such as Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who was one of three Senate Democrats to vote against the legislation on Sunday (CongressDaily, 12/15). Bayh said Obama must "take the credit card away from the politicians who just want to spend, spend, spend," adding, "It sets a terrible example by showing that politicians are totally out of touch with the sacrifices middle-class U.S. residents are making" (Dinan, Washington Times, 12/14).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

• Additional
• References
• Citations