Rounds Ponders Omnibus Spending Bill

The federal government is on the verge to appropriate spending for its bureaus before the holiday season begins. It is expected by the end of the week the budget will be approved.

South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds says within the large-scale omnibus bill, there will be some benefits to South Dakota. “There’s some money in it for construction work at Elsworth. We’ve got some stuff to get moving on the long-range strike bomber. (Also we need to fund) the deep underground science and engineering lab construction at Lead. We’ve got a couple million dollars to keep the IHS hospitals at CMS accreditation standards which they really needed.”

However Rounds indicates some not so prudent spending is currently part of the bill. “We’ve currently got to buy Russian rockets to (launch) satellites. One provision in the bill that would pave the way for American rockets to be used was taken out by some guys that have businesses that want to buy (Russian rockets) and sell them to the government.”

Above all, the current catch-all omnibus bill style needs to change and Rounds says Washington cannot do the people’s business this way. “It’s one of the reasons why people don’t have confidence in Washington. It’s our fault. We’ve got to fix it.

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“We want a real appropriations process with individual bills and we want to know what’s in those bills.” Additionally Rounds cites the necessity of debating spending measures on the Senate floor. Once passed by both chambers and signed by the President, the over 2,000 page bill will fund the government through September 2016.