On September 29, the House approved, 389-32, a continuing resolution (H. J. Res. 107) to fund government programs at their FY2004 levels until November 20, 2004. The Senate approved the resolution by unanimous consent later the same day.
To date, the Department of Defense spending bill is the only one of the thirteen FY2005 spending bills that has been enacted into law.
As requested by the administration, the continuing resolution would reallocate reconstruction funding for Iraq to provide more funding for security in Iraq.
Also included in the continuing resolution is language to allow the District of Columbia to spend its local funds at the levels in the FY2005 District of Columbia spending bill (H.R. 4850) as approved by the House on July 20 (see The Source, 7/23/04).
In addition, the continuing resolution would extend child nutrition programs and programs administered by the Small Business Administration that were due to expire in FY2004.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that the continuing resolution “is nothing less than an admission of failure by the House Republican leadership,” adding, “But it is a fitting capstone to the least productive session of Congress that I have been a part of since I was elected to this body in 1981. We are setting a record today, Mr. Speaker, but not a record that any of us can be proud of. So far, and all of my colleagues ought to listen to this, so far in this second session of the 108th Congress, we are on course to work fewer days, 93 as of today, than any other single session since 1948; 1948 was the famous ‘Do Nothing Congress.’ This Congress is doing even less than the ‘Do Nothing Congress.’”
House Appropriations Committee Chair Bill Young (R-FL) responded, “I make the case that the House has worked together very well, majority party and minority party. The committee has worked together very well, majority party and minority party. But we are only half of the equation. We are the House of Representatives. We are the people’s House. The other body, for whatever reasons, did not pass these bills, and we cannot pass a bill in the House and send it to the President without having the other body agree to it, or at least to go to conference and have an agreement on what that conference decides. So, all in all, the criticisms of the House leadership I think are not really in order, but I understand that we are getting close to election time, so I am not offended by that. I just do not think that the criticisms really stand.”
