Throwing Values Under the Omnibus

Chuck Donovan / December 10, 2009

While most eyes in Washington are on the massive health care reform bills, Congress is ever so slowly making policy changes via other legislative vehicles, including the Omnibus Appropriations bill being readied for enactment before December 18. This Omnibus Appropriations bill includes six of the 13 annual spending bills the Congress must approve to keep federal agencies running, and it commits $447 billion to a variety of program increases – bringing the new spending total for non-defense, non-veterans discretionary programs to a level 85 percent higher than just two years ago.

This higher spending is coupled with major shifts on a host of values-laden issues. Many of these changes affect the District of Columbia first and foremost. For Fiscal Year 2010, the Omnibus will, for the first time since FY 1996, permits funds appropriated by Congress and derived from local revenues to be used to fund abortions in the District. Only that portion of the funds in the bill that are deemed to derive from federal sources will be unavailable to use for abortions. As a result, elective abortion will be publicly funded in the District from resources that pass through the U.S. Treasury. (more…)