To The Embarrassment Of POTUS

Congress Passes Stopgap, Avoids Shutdown House Republicans lead by Senator John Boehner are trying to freeze the money in the Omnibus spending bill that is a biennial pork laden piece of legislation.

With a $410 billion catchall spending bill stalled in the Senate and a midnight deadline looming, Congress rushed through stopgap legislation Friday to keep the government running for another five days.

The stopgap measure was needed because on Thursday night, Senate Republicans unexpectedly put the brakes on the sweeping measure. The so-called omnibus bill would award domestic agencies with big spending increases and it also contains about 8,000 pet projects sought by lawmakers.

Republican Sen. John Boehner instead pushed for a long-term spending freeze, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Fuss.

The true colors of the Democrats are emerging.

If the larger spending bill ends up being amended by the Senate, the House would again have to act on that bill, giving Republicans more chances to launch political attacks.

In fact, Reid says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has threatened to pull the plug on the measure altogether if it is amended by the Senate. The government would instead run on automatic pilot under legislation keeping agencies operating at current levels. That would deny senators and House members all of their pet projects.

"She said, 'We have put our members through a lot over here on this appropriations bill. I am not going to put them through any more,'" Reid recalled on Wednesday.

"We can send a strong signal to the American people by extending this spending freeze through September 30," the Ohio Republican said. "Let's show the American taxpayer that we get it."

And, to the embarrassment of Mr. Obama - who promised during last year's campaign to force Congress to curb its pork-barrel ways - the bill contains 7,991 pet projects totaling $5.5 billion, according to calculations by the GOP staff of the House Appropriations Committee.

This saga isn't tax and spend. It is spend and spend more.