By Shailagh Murray

The Senate ignored President Bush’s veto threat yesterday and easily passed a $109 billion emergency spending bill for war and hurricane recovery costs that also brimmed with favors for farmers, the fishing industry, and the states of Hawaii and Rhode Island.

The two-week debate that preceded yesterday’s 77 to 21 final vote was marked by an election-year surge in targeted spending on behalf of constituents and special interests, despite repeated warnings by fiscal conservatives about a swollen budget deficit.

The Senate added money to rebuild a highway in Hawaii; protect riverbanks in California; upgrade a hurricane barrier in Providence, R.I.; and compensate New England shell fishermen for their losses from a red tide outbreak. The Senate also took steps to make farming less risky by offering compensation for virtually any scourge, including drought, flood, wildfires and pestilence.

The next step for the Senate is a potentially rancorous final negotiating session with the House, where Republican leaders greeted the Senate package with scorn. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called it “dead on arrival” and said his chamber “has no intention of joining in a spending spree.”

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) promised a final bill that does not spend “one dollar more than what the president asks for, period.”

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“In emergency legislation, we have a lot of things that really aren’t emergencies,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who led a largely futile fight to strip extraneous provisions from the bill. “I think we as a body ought to look at that and use self-discipline.”

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It seems Congress is full of nothing but rhetoric when its politicians speak about cutting the budget and keeping federal spending to a responsible level. While this bill represents and includes much needed funding for important priorities like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more hurricane relief for the southern coast, many politicians have let their pork-filled ambitions get in the way of fiscally sound and responsible policy.

With the threat of a veto from President Bush, many conservatives including Trent Lott have no words of support for the president, but merely brush the threat of veto aside - “I don’t take it that seriously, and I don’t think (Bush’s) priorities come down from heaven.” Lott’s words are not only a disappointment, but they are words that represent failing ideals in politicians who cannot and should not be considered conservatives anymore.