Like many issues that we will cover in the months ahead, the first act of approval by the U.S. House is almost meaningless, and that's true with a $410 billion Omnibus budget spending bill.

The real fight comes next in the U.S. Senate.

The House sent the Senate its version of the Omnibus on Wednesday, approving it on a vote of 245-178.

20 Democrats voted against the bill, while 16 Republicans voted for it, including GOP Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida, who wasted no time hailing the measure in a press release.

"Nearly $4 Million Headed To Fifth District," said the headline on her release, as she noted $416,000 going to the University of Florida for a "Shellfish Aquaculture Development Program and $400,000 for Lake County, Florida to buy portable radio communications equipment for first responders.

The bill was denounced by most Republicans, who railed against the dozens of earmarks for local projects in the bill.

"At a time when American households are cutting unnecessary spending to weather this economic storm, the federal government should be doing the same," said Rep. Jerry Lewis of California.

One note before you say "Go Get 'Em Jerry!" is that Republicans had a pretty big hand in the creation of this bill.

The group Taxpayers for Common Sense says of the over 8,000 earmarks totaling $7.7 billion, a lot of them are for the GOP.

How many?  Guess.  What percent of the earmarks do you think were requested by Republican lawmakers?  They are in the minority, so it can't be that much, eh?

10%?  Nope. 

20%?  Not even close.

It turns out GOP lawmakers asked for 40% of those earmarks.  That's in line with the usual split of 60-40 for the majority.  The GOP did that when they ran the show.

In other words, when you hear the protests of Republicans about this bill, remember that they were doing much the same when they ran the show a few years ago.

Does that make it right?  Of course not, but some context is needed.

Next week the Senate will debate this bill.  I can't wait for that, because with all kinds of amendments allowed, it should be a fun battle to watch.

Will anything change?  Stay tuned. 

Now let's list the Republicans who voted for the bill, and the Democrats who voted against it.

16 GOP for the bill:  Bono Mack, Brown-Waite, Cao,  Capito, Castle, Dent, Emerson, Gerlach, LoBiondo, McHugh, Miller (MI), Murphy (PA), Reichert, Upton, Whitfield, Young (AK.)

20 Dems against: Bean, Cardoza, Childres, Cooper, Costa, Donnelly (IN), Driehaus, Giffords, Hill, Kind, Kratovil, Marshall, Matheson, Mitchell, Minnick, Nye, Peterson, Speier, Tanner, Taylor.

You can see the vote results at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll086.xml