deminibus

[Benjamin Zimmer]

CQ TODAY
March 5, 2005 – 1:13 a.m.
Cochran Coins New Term for Multiple-Bill Spending Packages
By Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff

In typically understated fashion, Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad
Cochran, R-Miss., has coined a new term in the lexicon of spending.

After winning his colleagues’ support for a plan to restructure his
committee, Cochran said the days of the appropriations omnibus — a measure
combining several spending bills — are finished.

“We’re not going to have any,” Cochran declared softly. But, questioned
about the possibility of a “minibus,” a diminutive that has come to
describe an omnibus bearing just a few bills, Cochran quickly countered
with a new construction, presumably meaning a vehicle with a very small
number of bills. He called it “deminibus.”

Source: CQ Today
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