WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The Senate Thursday defeated a Democratic amendment to a huge spending bill that would have added $5 billion to homeland security funding.
Sponsored by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the amendment was opposed by the GOP and White House as unaffordable.
The 51-45 mostly party-line vote defeated the first of several expected Democratic attempts to add funding for various programs to the omnibus bill -- which combines the 11 remaining appropriations bills that went unfinished last fiscal year.
The extra $5 billion requested by Byrd and other Democrats was described as unnecessary and unaffordable. In this first vote, the Senate Republicans -- led by Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska -- were able to maintain party discipline to prevent Republicans from boosting spending levels above the White House request.
Byrd said he requested the additional funds to help local communities prepare for terror and bioterror attacks. The administration's spending proposal has $24.7 billion allocated for domestic security funding.
The omnibus bill is expected to pass with a minimum of modifications by Democrats. It incorporates discretionary funding for just about every federal agency and program. The bill includes $3.1 billion to fund a drought-relief bill passed last Congress, and over $700 million to bailout Amtrak.
Both requests are about 50 percent of what the Democrats approved last year for each program. The authorization bills had been passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate last year, but no money is dispersed for the programs until approved through the separate appropriations process. In spending bills, Congress frequently authorizes more funds for programs than it appropriates for them.
Republicans hoped to approve the bill -- which runs over 1,000 pages -- before next week's recess, but a dispute over funding for committees delayed work on the bill. Until the Senate was able to reach a partisan compromise Wednesday night, the Senate committees had remained in the hands of Democrats.
In that dispute, Democrats had wanted the funding of committees to reflect the two-vote margin that separates the parties, whereas Republicans had pushed for a more typical two-thirds majority, one-third minority funding for committees. The final compromise allowed the Democrats to have a much higher budget for committee staff, while maintaining committee-funding ratios in other areas
The 11 appropriation bills were supposed to begin funding federal operations Oct. 1, but due to partisan bickering over funding levels stalled the legislation. The federal government has been kept fiscally solvent through a series of continuing resolutions that keep spending at or below last fiscal year's levels.
