The House’s 272-142 vote also sent the president a $555 billion catchall spending bill that combines the war money with money for 14 Cabinet departments. War spending aside, Bush’s GOP allies were divided over whether the overall spending bill was a victory for their party in the monthslong fight with Democrats over agency budgets.Conservatives and outside groups such as the Club for Growth, which seeks to elect lawmakers opposed to tax and spending increases, criticized the bill for having about $28 billion in domestic spending that topped Bush’s budget and was paid for by a combination of “emergency” spending, transfers from the defense budget and other maneuvers.Republican leaders acknowledged some excesses. But they said the measure could have cost a lot more if the GOP and the White House not stood firm against more than $20 billion in additional domestic spending included in Democratic spending bills that passed last summer.

“The fact is we got the number down to the baseline,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

My Way News

As if that makes me feel any better. This bill had 11,144 earmarks in it and I heard on the news this evening that several of the earmarks didn’t even indicate what they were for. They pointed out an example of a $1 million earmark for Detroit with no stated purpose on what the money is going to be spent on. Furthermore, they didn’t have the final version of the bill, with dozens of added earmarks to it, even 24 hours before they voted on it. How can 272 House members and 76 Senators vote for a bill for over half a trillion dollars that they haven’t even read?

14 Republican Senators voted against this.

Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

Senator DeMint has the full list of earmarks at his Web site.  FYI, it takes a while to load.