We need to have a day of
protest next Friday at Noon at Congressional offices of Republican Congressmen
that voted for this pork filled bill and voted to fund amnesty . I thank Austin
Scott and Paul Broun for voting against this bill. The other Republican
Congressmen voted for the bill.
Vote by Georgia GOP
Congressmen on this bad bill that funded amnesty for three months - Republicans
— Broun, N; Collins, Y; Gingrey, Y; Graves, Y; Kingston, Y; Price, Y; Scott,
Austin, N; Westmoreland, Y; Woodall, Y.
Source:
Debbie Dooley, New Republican Leadership for Principles above Politicians
(facebook)
TOP TEN REASONS TO OPPOSE
SPENDING BILL
1.Rubber Stamping
Amnesty
As Obama unabatedly moves
to enact amnesty – already beginning by hiring 1,000 new government employees
to quickly process applications for illegal immigrants in a facility the
administration has secured by the Pentagon, this bill fails to defund one penny
of the process. Amidst the $1.1 trillion 1,603-page bill that contains
roughly hundreds of policy riders, there is absolutely nothing prohibiting any
of Obama’s illegal amnesty. GOP apologists for the bill point out that
funding for the Department of Homeland Security is only funded until March, but
that is irrelevant. There is no defund policy rider to prevent or
restrict a single action at a time when we need it most, which is now.
Moreover, Obama is using many other agencies to help aid and abet illegal
immigration, such as the Justice Department and the Office of Refugee
Resettlement. Each of those other agencies will be funded for the entire
remainder of the fiscal year – without any restrictions.
The bill also contains
$260 million in additional funding to aid poverty in Central America at a time
when we should be withholding existing aid until they respect our sovereignty.
2. Accelerates
Obama’s Amnesty
Not only does this budget
fail to defund amnesty, it actually helps accelerate Obama’s unconstitutional
executive order. The bill contains almost $1 billion in additional
funding for Health & Human Services (HHS) so that the recent illegal immigrants
from Central America (who are not even officially eligible for Obama’s amnesty)
can establish themselves in the country. The bill also contains $260
million in additional funding to aid poverty in Central America at a time when
we should be withholding existing aid until they respect our
sovereignty.
3. Long-Term
Funding for Everything Else
At this point, no
aspect of government, other than Defense, should be funded for the remainder of
the fiscal year, especially by a lame duck Congress. Obama’s lawlessness
will not end with immigration. He will remake American through the HHS,
Labor Department, EPA, and IRS. All of those departments are now fully
funded and Republicans will not have any leverage against more executive action
until next October.
Not only does this bill
consummate Obama’s agenda for another year, it was crafted, in part, by the
same Senate Democrats who were voted out of office in November.
4. 72-hour
Transparency Rule
Once again, House
leadership is breaking their 72-hour posting pledge and plans to vote on a bill
less than 48 hours after posting the text online. But this is not just any
bill. It’s a 1,603-page, 289,861-word budget bill that funds every aspect
of government during a time of grave constitutional crisis. Even Politico
noted the Appropriations Committee desire to obscure and suppress as much
information as possible about the massive bill for as along as possible.
“The leadership would
argue that the secrecy is justified given the political tensions in Congress.
But the picture is of a committee so scared of outside disruptions that it’s
forgotten the pride it once took as a public panel making public decisions
about public money.”
5.
Disenfranchising Voters
Voters sent a resounding
message in November: they want Obama’s agenda stopped. Not only does this bill
consummate Obama’s agenda for another year, it was crafted, in part, by the
same Senate Democrats who were voted out of office in November. The
notion that they would override the will of the people and deny the new
Congress from making these decisions is unconscionable.
6. Ebola Funding
Not only is Congress
planning on throwing in all of the regular appropriations for the reminder of
the fiscal year into an omnibus, they are granting Obama even more emergency
funding for combating Ebola. The White House requested a whopping $6.2 billion,
and most of their request was acceded – roughly $5.4 billion. Most of the funds
will go towards the already-bloated HHS and international aid programs.
As we already noted, the
CDC does not need any more money; they already waste so much in taxpayer
funds. This is a policy problem, not a funding problem.
7. War Funding
The president asked
Congress for an additional $5.6 billion to fund his incoherent foray into the Syrian
civil war. This includes $1.6 billion to equip and train the feckless
Iraqi forces to fight the Islamic State, $165 million to work with the dubious
Syrian opposition forces, and $500 million for foreign assistance
programs. He got almost every penny.
Much like with Ebola
funding, Congress could have used the power of the purse to tweak Obama on his
wrongheaded foreign policy. Instead of focusing on destroying all
terrorists, cutting off funding for terror entities, stripping citizenship from
American Islamic State fighters, and holding Turkey and Qatar accountable,
Obama’s has involved us in another Sunni-Shiite civil war with no good
outcome. Yet, they are giving him the money for an open-ended engagement
without debating a formal war authorization and long-term strategy. This
is war by appropriation and it is cowardice.
8. Misplaced
Priorities
GOP leaders spent the
entire month telling us you can’t defund amnesty in the budget bill. But
as CQ’s Steven Dennis notes, the prohibiting language of “None of these funds”
is mentioned 451 times in the bill. Sadly, defunding amnesty isn’t one of
them. There are also seven instances in which agencies funded by fees are
restricted, something the appropriators claimed was off limits as it relates to
defunding Obama’s amnesty. They further tell us that we can’t “authorize”
or “legislate” in an appropriation bill in order to restrict Obama’s unlawful
behavior, yet they made sure to fight to include their own policy provisions in
the bill.
Among the many policy
provisions included in the bill was Mitch McConnell’s bailout for the NRSC,
easing of Obamacare restrictions….but only on expatriated insurance plans
(Cigna’s carve-out), and a rider delaying the placement of the Sage Grouse on
the Endangered Species List.
9.. Conscience
Provisions
Republicans promised to
clamp down on Obama’s rule forcing businesses to offer all forms of
contraception in employee insurance coverage plans. But evidently, Nancy
Pelosi now has veto power over the House majority and demanded that the rider
be removed from the bill.
10. Budget Gimmicks
Like most budget bills,
far from cutting spending, this bill actually adds to the deficit. While
the bill is being advertised as adhering to the budget cap of $1.013.6
trillion, it actually authorizes billions more in spending. Managers of
the bill employed a special budget gimmick, which allows Congress to shift
around payments on programs outside of the annual budget bill and gives them
cover to increase spending in this budget bill by $19 billion.
Additionally, war
spending, known as “Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO),” are exempt from the
budget caps. Last year, Congress authorized $85 billion in OCO spending,
and due to the drawdown of forces in the Middle East, Obama initially requested
only $59 billion. This bill authorizes $74 billion in war spending.
There is also another $6 billion in disaster relief and the $5 billion in Ebola
funding, which is designated as emergency spending and exempt from the caps.
None of the extra spending is offset with spending cuts. Taken as a
whole, this bill will total $1.119 trillion, over $85 billion more than the
agreed-upon discretionary budget caps.
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