Senators narrowly voted Saturday to cut off debate on an omnibus spending bill with $447 billion in discretionary spending.
The final vote will come Sunday afternoon.
The $1.1 trillion measure will essentially keep the government running but includes budget boosts to the Education Department, the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and others.
It bundles six of the 12 annual spending bills — cutting off a lengthy appropriations process — and combines $650 billion in government spending for programs such as Medicare and Medicaid with $447 billion in discretionary government operating budgets.
The measure boosts spending on oversight of financial markets, high-speed rail, small business lending programs and needle-exchange programs.
But included in the measure are more than 5,000 earmarks sought by Democrats and Republicans.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blasted the “pork” in the measure, reading into the congressional record an ABC News.com story that highlights the back-home spending projects.
Other Republicans argued the bill spends too much at a time when Americans are feeling the economic crunch.
“Obviously we need to run the government, but do you suppose the government could be a little bit like families and be just a little bit prudent in how much it spends?” said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
Democratic leaders had to keep the vote open for more than an hour to reach the 60 votes.
The last “aye” came from Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut Independent, who is Jewish and does not use automobiles on Saturday for religious reasons.
Lieberman could be seen on the Senate floor in his long coat and scarf, after walking to work.
The senator lives nearly five miles from the Senate and temperatures were near freezing in Washington this morning.
At a news conference Saturday Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., likened lawmakers — who will have to vote to raise the debt ceiling above $13 trillion later this month — as being “like drunken sailors saying they don’t want the bar to ever close.”
(Source; ABC News)
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13 Responses
Great kidush hesham. A wish he makes a kidush hesham on other issues like gay marriage
senator joseph lieberman is a modern tzadik which powers over many others.
I’m sure Barak “I won’t sign any bill with earmarks” Obama won’t sign the bill. Wait, did I say WON’T sign the bill? Like he didn’t sign the other pork filled bill?
It’s also good to see that Lieberman is still a democrat at heart. So to all you Connecticut republican and independent voters, know this. A democrat is a democrat. A wolf dressed as a sheep is still a wolf.
Did Lieberman make an Eiruvai Techumin?
this is what joe walked 12 miles on shabbos for, to make everyone pay more taxes?
kol hackavod. were there any other melachos he managed to avoid? usage of the mic? carrying ?
oy i wish that we had more mks in the knesset who made headlines like this instead of running away from their heritage like they do!
Senator does not use mic. on Shabbos, he also doesn’t vote himself either sice its done electronicly. He was even joking about it in 2000 when he said thay AlGore was his Shabbos goy when it came to voting. I also believe there is an Eiruv on D.C.
Strength of purpose and resolute dignity marked the henchman as he strode the six thousand six hundred sixty six steps from the ancient hall to the headquarters. At headquarters he will seal the fate of those he now controlled. His high position and specific bloodline made his decision now the deciding one. The others in high command were waiting with bated breath to see what he would do. There were others who would do the same thing but this striking figure of a high commander was unafraid to decide the issue while others feared the potential consequences of their actions and deferred to this man of conviction. His victims, he knew, were less than human. On the Darwinian developmental scale they were a drag on the race if not the entire species.
He wanted to savor the great momentum his decisive command decision would set in motion. With each drop of his left foot on the walk to headquarters he knew two of these ill fated subhumans would be destroyed annually. With each drop of his right foot one more every year. He strode pounding his feet hard and slowly into the cold pavement of his chosen homeland. He was a God. His heels crashing down painfully so that he could feel the reflexology nervous effect deadening his painfully circumcised private part as he strode purposely from the halls of his ancestors. He remembered their campaigns of antiquity, campaigns of genocidal slaughter and conquest for the good of their race, their fatherland. It thrilled his heart and soul to know these executions would be carried out specially by a special tearing apart process without benefit of anesthesia as part of the Reich’s experiment in quantitative human suffering. Finally he arrived at general headquarters. Heavily overcoated yet instantly recognizable as a general staff member of distinction. He was welcomed by those who supported his position, and he was dismissive of those who disagreed in an attitude of mourning and shame, helpless in the face of three more staff members whose votes would replace his resolute vote for holocaust should he falter, not to mention the three Hassan‘s from their own ranks.
Then Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut proudly cast his vote to allow a thousand federally funded abortions in the district of Columbia every year as part of the omnibus funding bill. It escaped him that his people had cast annihilated seven nations for the same practice before Molech three millennia earlier. This will go down as the Sabbath Day Lieberman Abortion Holocaust Bill of 2009.
(Three Republicans helped Democrats advance the measure: Sens. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama and Susan Collins of Maine. So reports Wash. Times.)
On the comment about other melachos: He doesn’t take the elevator and has been known to bring food and sleep in his office on Shabbos, when he knows he has to be there – there was the story years ago of Al Gore giving him the keys to his parents’ apartment, which wasn’t being used, when he heard that Sen Lieberman had been staying in his office over Shabbos on occasion. For tzorchei tzibur and darchei sholom he can do certain things he couldn’t do otherwise, and I’ve heard he has spoken with rabbonim to get guidelines and knows to ask a sheila. It’s a balancing act, but there is the opportunity to accomplish a lot of needed things, and he’s taken the opportunity to create a big kiddush Hashem (One example is when a presidential debate was postponed long enough to have him stay in a hotel during the day and run out after havdoloh). On the eruv techumin comment, he doesn’t need to make one in the city, and hotzo-oh for what he needs is much less of a problem than it could be, since there is an eruv, which most locals seem to hold to be perfectly reliable, covering the downtown area, and almost surely the entire walk, and I’m sure he has enough non-Jewish aides when some type of amira has to be done. He doesn’t have to walk right up to a mic, but if someone records from a distance or takes a picture without his consent, he doesn’t necessarily have to be choshesh, depending on the situation. Voting in the Senate is done orally, not electronically, even in a recorded vote. All in all, we have to give him a lot of credit for what he does, to dan l’kaf zchus, and to remember that all the laws of rechilus and loshon hora apply here. (Perhaps we can use this as an opportunity to review them.)Considering the effort toward shmiras mitzvos compared to that made by most other Jewish legislators, we should be giving positive feedback, not criticism. Halevai they should make a quarter of the effort he does. Maybe we just don’t appreciate it enough.
#4 Eruv techumin?! In a city?! Do you think one needs an eruv techumin to walk from Brighton Beach to Williamsburg too?
#7 Voting is NOT electronic. There is no issur at all in it. The truth is he doesn’t need a heter of any kind, since he’s not doing any issurim; but leravcha demilsa he has the heter of “tzorchei tzibbur”.
He may be a “shomer shabbos” and walk to the Senate but he does consume pork…. about 1 BILLION DOLLARS WORTH!!
10,
tzorchei tzibbur is a poor excuse here. very poor indeed!
#12, voting in the Senate is by definition tzorchei tzibbur, whether you agree with his vote or not.