Update on the supplemental spending bill: The Senate passed a $109 billion supplemental last thursday, which ended up being significantly higher than the bill passed by the House on March 16th (which was $91.9 billion). A number of Senators voted against the bill because they felt it contained spending that should not have been in the "emergency supplemental." This group included Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has been a ring leader in the fight against including extraneous provisions in emergency bills. Coburn stated, "In emergency legislation, we have a lot of things that really aren't emergencies. I think we as a body ought to look at that and use self-discipline." The final vote count was 77-21; with two Senators (Hatch (R-UT) and Rockefeller (D-WV)) not voting. Interestingly, all Senators who voted against the bill were Republicans. The Senate will have a difficult negotiating session ahead with the House. Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) called the Senate bill "dead on arrival," and Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) promised that the final bill will not spend "One dollar more than what the president asked for, period." The president himself threatened to veto any bill costing significantly more than he requested. This is the same president, however, who has yet to veto anything.