Senate Approves $410 Billion Bill to Fund Federal Government

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Obama to Push for New Rules on Earmarks

Acknowledging it's an 'imperfect' bill, President Barack Obama said he will accept a $410 billion spending package but insisted it must signal an 'end to the old way of doing business.'

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The debate also gave renewed prominence to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chief critic of the bill's earmarks. "This evil has grown, and it has grown, and it has grown," said McCain, who called the earmarking process a "gateway drug" to more egregious, and possibly illegal, forms of influence peddling.

But as debate unfolded over the past week, Republican members of the Senate Appropriations Committee teamed up with most Democrats to reject efforts to remove any earmarks from the bill, including items connected to a lobbying firm under federal investigation. One reason for their solidarity was an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that any changes would render the measure dead, limiting current funding to 2008 levels.

The independent watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense found 8,570 disclosed earmarks in the bill, worth $7.7 billion. Only five senators did not add pet projects to the measure, including Republicans McCain, Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.), and Democrats Feingold and McCaskill.

The bill appeared in jeopardy again last night after Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) demanded a vote on his amendment to force Congress to approve its own cost-of-living increases each year, rather than allowing them to take effect automatically. The measure was politically attractive to members of both parties, but failed after Reid warned that it would sink the bill and vowed to bring the pay issue to the floor separately.

Earmarks account for just 1 percent of the bill's overall cost, but House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said they had become wrapped into the larger debate about the size of the federal government, along with concerns about the soaring deficit.

Speaking to reporters, he tallied up $2 trillion in spending in five months, including the omnibus spending bill, the stimulus and the financial bailout, just as Obama's advisers revealed deficit projections of $1.8 trillion, major banks and auto companies teetered on the brink, and the stock markets remained near historic lows despite yesterday's rally.

"We're betting trillions of dollars that we're doing the right thing. So far, the bet's not paying off," Boehner said. "Had it not been for the stimulus and the budget proposal, [the omnibus] might have been noncontroversial. . . . This little iceberg came along and caused them all sorts of problems."

Staff writer Paul Kane contributed to this report.