approximately half of the states because they use their own money to offer abortion services to
Medicaid recipients; note that federal law since the mid-1990s has offered so-called “conscience
protection” where federal funds are used.
111
A second obstacle to final approval of the
appropriations bill emerged suddenly when it was discovered at the last minute the bill contained
a provision allowing the chairman of the House or Senate Appropriations Committees to
designate agents who would have the authority to examine a person’s tax returns. When this
unprecedented provision became widely known, it was quickly denounced as “a Saturday night
massacre on Americans’ privacy,” by House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and
embarrassed Republicans rushed to remove the provision.
112
Although House Republicans labeled the $388 billion budget bill as “a lean and clean
package,”
113
it was, in the words of Senator John McCain (R-AZ), “one big fat turkey...but this
bird is not loaded with the traditional stuffing, it is packed with pork.”
114
Congressional leaders
managed to adhere to the Administration’s demand to hold expenditure growth to one percent,
while at the same time filling the budget bill with a wide spectrum of perks and pork. Watchdog
groups such as The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste and Taxpayers for Common
Sense pointed to earmarks for projects such as $75,000 for the Paper Industry Hall of Fame in
Appleton, Wisconsin, $500,000 for the Kincaid Park Soccer and Nordic Ski Center in
Anchorage, Alaska, $4 million for the International Fertilizer Development Center in Alabama,
$100,000 for a weather museum in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, $335,000 to protect North
Dakota sunflowers from blackbirds, and $1 million to support a “Wild American Shrimp
Initiative.” Taxpayers for Common Sense counted 11,772 earmarked special projects totaling
$15.78 billion, or about 4 percent of the FY2005 budget bill.
115
Most agencies suffered an across the board expenditure cut of 0.8 percent, which along
with the 3.5 percent raise in civil service pay, effectively reduced agency spending by more than
Convention