Corrupt congress which does not care about its 15 % type of approval as people keep returning them to office, in probably rigged elections.

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March 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Congress gave final approval to a $410 billion bill that will boost domestic spending, loosen the trade embargo on Cuba and fund thousands of congressional pet projects known as earmarks.

The Senate, after a delay last week that highlighted Democrats' tenuous grip on the chamber, approved the so-called omnibus bill on a voice vote yesterday. Moments earlier, the bill cleared a key procedural vote, 62 to 35. The legislation, which the House passed Feb. 25, heads to President Barack Obama for his signature into law.

Democrats said the bill would provide needed funding increases for federal agencies that saw too many lean years during former President George W. Bush's administration.

"The agencies of our government have been so under-funded and under-resourced during the Bush years that these agencies need this money so they can function properly," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said lawmakers shouldn't be providing so much spending when the government is projected to run record deficits. "This bill costs far too much for a government that should be watching every dime," he said.

Eight Republicans voted yesterday to bring debate on the matter to a close and put the bill to a voice vote. Three Democrats, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against ending the debate, which required 60 votes to pass.

More Amendments

Reid tried to wrap up work on the legislation on March 5 before conceding he didn't have the 60 votes at that point to proceed. Republican senators whose support was needed to clear the procedural hurdle withheld it so they could offer more amendments.

The trouble encountered by Reid signaled the sort of difficulties Senate Democrats may face later this year when they push for more divisive proposals the Obama administration has offered to overhaul the health care system, create a cap-and- trade system to rein in carbon dioxide emissions and raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

The final vote on the omnibus "has taken far too long," Reid said yesterday. "I hope that we can move on to other things with a little more cooperation from the Republicans. It just seems that they're saying 'no' to everything."

Voucher Program

Democrats defeated all of the Republican amendments to the plan, including one that would have deleted provisions phasing out a pilot program in Washington, D.C., allowing 1,700 poor children to use government funds to attend private schools. The vote against that amendment was 58 to 39. Republicans, who created the voucher program in 2003, portrayed Democrats as hypocrites for ending the initiative when many lawmakers send their own children to private schools.

"Why should the choice to send children to good private schools be the right of only a privileged senator's family or those who make a lot of money," said Senator John Ensign, a Nevada Republican. "A good education is a civil right and this should not be the exclusive purview of the rich."

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber's No. 2 Democrat, said too many of the private schools in the program were substandard. He said that while it included some "world- class schools," in others "somebody's mom or wife declared themselves principals or teachers and went in to teach without college degrees -- and received federal subsidies to do it."

Pay Raise Issue

Democrats also defeated, 52 to 45, an attempt by Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, to end the 20-year old practice of giving members of Congress automatic annual salary increases. Vitter called the practice a "offensive" at a time when lawmakers' constituents are struggling to find or hold onto their jobs.

Reid offered to make the changes as part of separate legislation because he said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, would drop the omnibus if lawmakers made any changes to the legislation. Vitter balked, saying he doubted that such a bill would ever become law.

Democrats were forced to shore up their own ranks after Senators Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Bill Nelson of Florida raised concerns about provisions in the bill easing travel and trade restrictions on Cuba. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pledged to the lawmakers the department would closely monitor enforcement of the provisions, which proved enough for both to support the legislation.

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The blog at wp is currently being censored due to the Isr-eli first crowd. I will start posting here, until I see if wordpress is reasonable or not.

nothing here yet.