(The Associated Press circulated the following story by Andrew Taylor on September 11.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate pressed ahead Tuesday with a $106 billion transportation and housing bill rejecting President Bush’s proposed cuts to Amtrak, housing programs and community development projects.
The measure, just the fourth of 12 appropriations bills to come before the Senate, faces a White House veto promise for exceeding Bush’s tight budget limit for domestic programs. The Senate was expected to pass the bill overwhelmingly Wednesday morning.
The bill also would boost spending to repair and replace the country’s crumbling network of bridges to more than $6 billion, an almost 50 percent increase over current levels.
Separately, Minnesota’s senators won approval of $195 million to replace the collapsed Interstate 35W span in Minneapolis.
Also Tuesday, senators voted 74-24 to block the Transportation Department from going ahead with a North American Free Trade Agreement pilot program giving Mexican trucks greater access to U.S. highways.
The popular spending bill is filled with money popular with lawmakers, including highway projects, grants to expand and repair airports and grants for community centers, housing projects and economic development projects.
Much of the momentum behind the transportation and housing measure comes from the more than 800 home-state projects inserted into the measure by senators in both parties. Those so-called earmarks total more than $2.5 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group based in Washington.
Such projects include $5 million obtained by Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to continue work on a 116-mile expressway through southwest Virginia and southwest West Virginia.
And Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., won $850,000 to renovate the Morning Star Ranch in Florence, Kan., a Christian training center for young inner-city men and campground and retreat for Christian groups.
The bill would provide $1.4 billion for the money-losing Amtrak national passenger railroad, a perennial target of the administration. The White House proposed eliminating Amtrak’s $500 million operating subsidy.
But Amtrak runs trains through almost every state, which gives it great support among lawmakers despite criticism from the Bush administration and some lawmakers for excessive subsidies on its cross-country trains, high labor costs and questionable management practices.
Comparable cuts were rejected by GOP-controlled Congresses.
The Senate measure also rejects Bush’s planned cuts of $735 million to the approximately $4 billion budget for community development block grants, as well as $765 million in cuts to a $3.5 billion budget for airport improvement grants.
“This bill spends more than the president’s budget, not because it includes vast new spending initiatives but because it refuses to acquiesce to the president’s reckless cuts,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, lead author of the measure. “These are the very same cuts that have been proposed in past years by the Bush administration and rightly rejected then by the Republican-led Congresses.”
In a policy statement issued Monday, the White House promised to veto the bill over “an irresponsible and excessive level of spending.”
The bill also contains funding aimed at easing the subprime mortgage crisis, which is threatening 1 million to 3 million people with the loss of their homes.
The measure already contained $100 million sought by Democrats such as Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Sherrod Brown of Ohio to provide aid to nonprofit groups that offer counseling and information to help homeowners avoid foreclosures.
“This investment will pay for itself many times over, through the avoidance of foreclosures and the pain and suffering they cost this country, both in economic and non-economic terms,” Schumer said.
On Tuesday, Sens. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., succeeded by voice vote in dedicating an additional $100 million for the same purpose.
The House passed a companion bill in July.