更新 12/18 东部时间上午 8:52. Many readers asked me to check whether border fence-gutting provisions were included in the version of the bill passed last night. See here for the answer.

更新 12/18 东部时间上午 8:00. The Senate’s turn…

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The vote took place 今晚, but the tango continues:

The House Monday approved a $516 billion measure funding 14 Cabinet agencies and funding for troops in Afghanistan, setting the stage for a year-end budget deal with the White House.

President Bush has signaled he’ll ultimately sign the measure — assuming up to $40 billion more is provided by the Senate for the Iraq war — despite opposition from GOP conservatives.

In an unusual two-step, lawmakers first voted 253-154 to approve the omnibus spending bill; they then voted 206-201 to add $31 billion for troops in Afghanistan to the measure. The combined $516 billion spending package is set for Senate debate on Tuesday.

The year-end measure mostly sticks within Bush’s budget, though it shifts billions of dollars into politically sensitive programs he sought to cut. Bush signaled he would sign the measure, awarding a 4 percent increase, on average, to domestic programs.

Bush’s approval depends on Senate Republicans succeeding, later this week, in adding up to $40 billion for U.S. troops in Iraq.

Here are the roll call votes for the 第一票 和 second vote.

End result: “Twin defeat” for the Dems…

Republicans generally opposed the omnibus bill measure since it fails to include funding for military operations in Iraq and provides $13 billion above Bush’s “top line” request for the one-third of the budget passed each year by Congress.

The Senate is expected to approve the bill after substituting $70 billion in funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. The complicated plan calls for the House to have a vote limited to the war funding. That vote, if successful, would clear the combined bill for Bush’s approval and allow lawmakers to go home for Christmas.

The result would be a twin defeat for Democrats, who had vowed not to allow additional Iraq war funding without conditions and had spent months on legislation to add $27 billion to domestic programs, an almost 7 percent increase.

Fiscal conservatives are still not satisfied. GOP Rep. Mike Pence blasts the legislation:

“Thirty-five hundred pages, thirty-four pounds, and members of the minority have had, at this very hour, roughly one day to review its contents.

“This legislation, which we will consider under this rule will cost approximately $515 billion, including $44 billion designated as so-called emergency spending and over $10 billion in other budget gimmicks being used to artificially lower the cost.

“I want to commend President Bush and the men and women of goodwill in this Congress who have worked to lower the cost of this legislation from its House and Senate-passed versions. There have been improvements on the margin. There has been lipstick placed on this pig, but it’s still a pig. And the American people are soon to find that out.

“For example, this legislation includes $31 billion dollars for military operations in Afghanistan and for protective equipment for troops serving overseas but it does not include one dime to fund our troops in harm’s way, at this hour, serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“I say to my patriotic colleagues in the other party, ‘it is unconscionable that we would bring before this Congress a spending bill, which for some purpose serving some audience far to the left of this chamber, I suspect, we are not including a single cent for our soldiers in harm’s way.

“This omnibus contains over $11 billion dollars in so-called emergency and contingency spending. Let me favor my colleagues with some of the emergency provisions in this bill: Twenty million dollars for salaries at the Farm Service Agency. Apparently salaries of employees at the Farm Service Agency aren’t anticipated. Eight million dollars for salaries at the Department of Justice, legal activities and salaries also at DOJ. Salaries and expenses for everything from the U.S. Marshall Service and U.S. Attorneys. Where is the surprise and the emergency in finding out we have employees at the Department of Justice?

“My own personal favorite here: We have a legislative emergency in the form of $100 million dollars for Presidential security at political conventions. This is the so-called emergency spending. Those who say this legislation comes in at or near the President’s number will not include these provisions. There are so many more that will be explored in the months ahead.

“This bill is also chalked full of the very worst kind of pork barrel spending. Let me say, I request earmark projects for my district and there are some necessary infrastructure projects in this legislation for eastern Indiana. I brought every single one of them through the ordinary committee process in the light of day. But there are, we must assume, thousands of so-called air-dropped earmarks in this legislation which will not come to light until after this legislation is signed into law.

“So it’s what we don’t know in this legislation that frustrates me the most. Twenty-four hours, I say again, twenty-four hours to review thirty-five hundred pages and thirty-four pounds.

“Twenty years ago, President Reagan came to this podium and said these words, ‘the budget process is broken down. It needs a drastic overhaul.’

“With each ensuing year, the spectacle before the American people is the same as it was this Christmas: Budget deadlines delayed or missed completely. Hundreds of billions worth of spending packed into one bill, and a federal government on the brink of default. So said Ronald Reagan before this Congress, two decades ago, ‘The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.’

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“I was a harsh critic of reckless and wasteful spending when my party was in control and I rise respectfully to register the same dissent. We can do better. The American people expect from this Congress, whatever its management, to do better than to pile into a heap our unfinished business the week before Christmas and send it all to the President after barely seeing the light of day.”