A pork-stuffed bill to fund operations of the federal government was justly abandoned Thursday. The bill was 1,900 pages long and would have cost almost $1.3 trillion. It included some needed things, but also billions of dollars in debt-swelling “earmark” spending.
The bill merged spending for all federal agencies into one big, wasteful measure. Normally, 12 separate bills would have been voted on, but Senate Democrats had not brought a single one of the 12 bills to the floor this year. As The Associated Press reported, that is “an unprecedented collapse of the appropriations process.”
Congress now will likely pass a measure just to keep the government running through early next year. Then bills to fund government can be considered without all the pork-barrel projects that so enrage voters.
The defeat of this big bill is a win for taxpayers and common sense.