Well, the saga of the Continuing Resolution to fund the government for the balance of the 2007 fiscal year continues to get worse. Now it appears the CR includes funding for a pay raise for congressional staff. Here’s more of what top Hill sources are telling me they’ve found in the draft CR thus far: * The CR increases congressional staff salaries by $41million at the same time it cuts funding for military family housing and baby AIDS prevention. “Members may not be getting a pay raise, but the appropriations committee staffers who wrote in the language killing the baby AIDS prevention program will get their raise. I don t know how they sleep at night,” said a senior Hill aide. * Democrats added language to the $464 billion CR stating that FY2006 earmarks that appear in report language will not have legal effect. The problem with this type of language is that instead of banning earmarks as Democrats promised, it merely preserves the status quo. Report language earmarks have never had the force of law. The President said as much in his State of the Union address, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals as recently as last week ruled that report language is not law. The sham language in the CR allows federal agencies to fund earmarks, and opens the door for appropriators to demand earmark funding through the backdoor of phone calls, emails and letters to federal agencies. * Although the Democrats repeatedly pledged after the election to eliminate earmarks in the remaining FY2007 spending bills, the CR doesn t even define what constitutes an earmark. It is impossible to ban that which hasn t even been defined. * The CR uses numerous budget gimmicks and fake offsets to provide billions of dollars in additional spending above spending caps that were ratified last year. For example, the Democrats claim $3.4 billion in transportation offsets even though the Congressional Budget Office ruled that the gimmick does not save a single penny. The CR also uses several advance appropriations gimmicks whereby spending is moved from the current fiscal year into the next, and the savings produced are then immediately spent on special interest domestic programs. In particular, the CR raids accounts for the U.S. Marshals and the crime victims fund to pay for additional special interest spending elsewhere in the bill. * In order to increase funding for special interest domestic programs, the CR cuts $3.1 billion for the Base Realignment and Closure mission and $16.5 million for military family housing. * The CR prohibits funding for a program that has been highly effective at preventing baby AIDS. The Early Diagnosis Grant Program provides financial support to State programs that screen and treat pregnant women and babies. This initiative has virtually eliminated baby AIDS in Connecticut and New York, but is opposed by the ACLU and radical AIDS activists. The funding prohibition in the CR means that the baby AIDS treatment and prevention money will instead be spent at the discretion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC has made headlines in recent years for its funding priorities which have included flirting classes, zoo trips, erotic writing workshops, hiring a porn star, numerous beachside AIDS conferences and extravagant landscaping at the agency s headquarters including Taj Mahal -style buildings, a high tech visitors center and Japanese gardens.
