Washington, D.C. – The following is a written statement by Jill Lancelot, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense on the Omnibus Spending Bill:

All taxpayers should be outraged that the Senate just voted 65 to 28 to approve the leave-no-pork-behind Omnibus spending bill. According to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, the 2004 Consolidated Omnibus Spending Bill contains 7,931 political earmarks at the total cost of $10.7 billion. This represents a staggering growth in earmarks over the past several years.

The winners of the bill are the districts and states with powerful appropriators, but the rest of us lose. I feel like Bob Dole — ‘where is the outrage?’ Instead of practicing fiscal restraint, lawmakers are mortgaging our children’s future by leaving them the bill for these mountains of debt.

The thousands of earmarks in this bill provided enough political grease to squeeze this porker out of the Capitol doors. Lawmakers see this as the kickoff for the 2004 re-election campaigns. They can now go back home with their pockets full of goodies for their constituents, leaving a huge crater of a budget deficit behind in Washington.

With the projected half trillion-dollar deficit, a $166 billion bill due for our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and billions for homeland security and other domestic needs, our nation needs to start making tough choices. This spending spree has boldly sent the federal deficit to where no deficit has every gone before and unfortunately there is no end in sight.

Contact: Keith Ashdown
(202) 546-8500 x110