UPDATED: Senate Omnibus Bill: Nearly 2,000 Pages of Runaway Spending and Pork

Brian Riedl / December 15, 2010

As recession-weary Americans continue to tighten their belts, not even trillion-dollar deficits can persuade Senate Democrats to stop their spending spree. In a single 1,924-page bill—which was crafted in secret and will be voted on before anyone has read it fully—Congress is set to spend a staggering $1.1 trillion on discretionary programs for fiscal year (FY) 2011, plus an additional $160 billion in emergency war spending.

To put this in context, non-emergency discretionary spending has already surged by $217 billion (25 percent) in the past three years—plus an additional $311 billion from the failed “stimulus.” Rather than pare back those unsustainable spending hikes, this bill would pile on a $17 billion increase that exceeds even the House’s massive spending bill.

This is exactly the kind of secretive, pork-laden, massive spending bill that induced a voter revolt last month. This brazen rejection of transparency and fiscal responsibility is a major reason why federal spending has soared to $30,000 per household (a post–World War II record of nearly 25 percent of the economy) and created trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. (more…)