The omnibus spending bill

What a turkey that was. Sure, it was crafted by both democrats and republicans largely behind doors over the course of a year. With a lot of "I'll give you this if you give me that." All of that horse trading was to decide how to spend $1.1 trillion.
The problem really isn't 6000 thousand earmarks that micromanage how to divvy up the goodies. That process is symptomatic of a more-or-less pragmatic process otherwise known as making sausage. They have to get to the end game somehow.

The real problem is $1.1 trillion. Or how much sausage this country really needs.

Mitch Mc. said that republicans are now realizing there is something wrong with the process. Maybe. But what about tackling the budget in exactly the opposite way? Instead of saying (Mitch) let's start with $1.1 trillion and figure out how to spend it, what about let's start with 20% less and figure out what to cut?

A great learning experience would be to start with Congress' own budget, $5.42 billion. That's an 89% increase since 2000. OK, security does cost more, but hey - there are 535 senators and representatives. That is over 10 million for each one of them. Per year.

Sorry, was in a hurry to complete Christmas shopping and forgot to list citations.

Congressional operating costs: Congressional News Connection
Decent summary of what I heard myself on C-Span: Politico