An omnibus bill covers many topics, often including “pork” or special project allocations. The US Congress merged all aspects of an annual federal budget into one bill to save time. However, omnibus bills can be huge and may contain hidden elements. Critics have called for “clean bills,” but extra expenses often remain. The metaphor of a bus picking up and dropping off passengers is used to describe the process of an omnibus bill.
Omnibus can be translated as providing for many things at once, and an omnibus bill is one that usually has one main topic (like a budget) but may simultaneously address many other topics. For example, a budget bill might amend laws or institute new laws, and while the primary subject is the budget, it might contain various other features such as “pork” or special project allocations.
In the 1970s, the US Congress changed some of the ways it budgeted, and one method that was increasingly adopted was to take all aspects of an annual federal budget for all the different departments and merge them together. It takes less time to debate, vote on, and pass a single omnibus bill than trying to vote on bills for each of the major departments.
This business of approving an omnibus bill for groceries remains popular, although there are some inherent problems. An omnibus bill can be huge and may contain “buried” elements that people, like voters, may not discover until the bill passes. As the bill gains recognition as one that could pass, rotating and dealing with the fine elements of it tend to add more legislation, amendments, or extra expense to secure passage, and this can frustrate the original authors.
In the late 2000s, there were more requests for “clean bills,” i.e. those that have no additional features attached to them. However, even with these demands, some extra expenses accompany many grocery bills. This was the case with the passage of a US$410 billion (USD) spending bill signed in 2009 by President Obama. Some critics wanted the president to veto the bill because it contained about $8 billion in pork or additional appropriations.
Similarly, the $700 billion bank bailout bill passed in late 2008 contained very disparate elements. For example, one aspect of the bill passed amendments to the previous US Mental Health Parity Act, passing a new act that will require insurers offering mental health insurance to do so at the same level as their coverage for other medical insurance. . While these changes to the insurance law had many supporters, it’s unclear why it was attached to a bailout bill, except that it gained approval in this way. The inclusion in the bill of bailout and many other features of the bill has made this bill omnibus.
While the use of the omnibus bill is mostly related to the above definition of joining disparate elements together, buses that carry people can also be called omnibuses, and that’s almost a better metaphor for thinking about these bills. A bus starts out with a few passengers and picks up more at each of its stops, occasionally dropping off a passenger or two at various points. The nature of the omnibus bill goes a lot like this; the bill takes more passengers (amendments, appropriations, laws) and leaves a few before it finally passes. At the end of the day, when such a bill is passed by a legislative body, it is a “bus load” of laws, ideas and expenses, which can be very complicated and which contain many elements each unique from the other .
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