Congress fails the taxpayers in adoption of spending bill

Like mushrooms growing in a dank cellar, the federal government's massive spending bill grew and grew behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, and when it finally saw the light of day even members of the majority party who pushed for its passage were embarrassed.
Indeed today, Republicans were expected to repeal a provision in the 2005 omnibus package to fund domestic departments that gives House and Senate Appropriations chairmen and their aides access to Internal Revenue Service "facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein."
And while Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Oklahoma, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the IRS, insisted that the inclusion of the provision was the result of "honest mistakes," the fact remains that it was in the version of the bill voted on by Congress.
Such unfettered power has no place in a democracy. Currently, the chairmen of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, which are responsible for tax law, have the authority to look at income tax returns. However, as Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, noted, "They are under very stringent penalties, both civil and criminal, if ever they release that information." It was an aide of Conrad's who first pointed out the implications of the provision contained in the omnibus spending bill.
This kind of sweeping authority not subject to penalties would be cause for concern under any circumstances, but it is especially troubling now, when one party controls the White House and Congress. The Nov. 2 general election saw the re-election of Republican George W. Bush and Republicans' strengthening their hold on the House and Senate.
Indeed, the very secrecy surrounding the development of the $388 billion spending bill points to a disturbing trend in Congress, namely, the absence of transparency in how public dollars are allocated.
Not reassuring
No one who watched the debate Saturday in the Senate prior to the passage of the bill could have been reassured. As veteran Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., a student of the Constitution and a stickler for legislative tradition, contended, not one senator could claim to have read all 3,000 pages of the measure and to know how every public dollar is being spent.
The normal budget process, which involves committee hearings on various spending items and the development of a blueprint, was not followed. The omnibus measure was a mishmash of nine of the 13 annual appropriations bills. Of the nine, seven had never been to the Senate floor for debate.
Thus, it is not surprising that the IRS infiltration provision was intact when the measure was called up for a vote. Another provision, which bars states from enforcing laws that require health care providers, hospitals, HMOs or insurers to pay for, provide or give referrals for abortion, threatened to became a major stumbling block,
It was only after Democrats received a pledge from Republican leaders to revisit the provision and hold full-blown hearings on a measure to repeal it that the $388 billion bill was released for a vote.
Given the current federal budget crisis, with runaway deficits, members of Congress must have to justify every public dollar the federal government spends. They didn't do that with the passage of the omnibus package.
The American taxpayers deserve better.