House easily passes $1.3 trillion
spending bill, by Julie Grace Brufke, 3/22/18, the Hill
The House easily passed a
$1.3 trillion spending package on Thursday, sending
legislation to the Senate that would prevent a shutdown and deliver
the largest federal spending increase in years.
Lawmakers approved the
bill in a 256-167 vote on Thursday, with majorities in
each caucus backing the measure. Ninety Republicans and 77 Democrats voted
against the bill. A large numbers of conservative Republicans
were among those voting no over the measure’s
massive price tag and the lack of transparency in the bill-writing process.
Conservative unrest came
close to knocking the bill out during a procedural vote on Thursday on the rule
governing debate. An unusually high number of Republicans — 25 — voted against
their own party's rule and in defiance of President Trump, who had publicly backed the package. The Senate is expected to
begin work on the bill immediately ahead of a midnight
Friday deadline for preventing a shutdown.
But it's not clear if the Senate can avoid at least a temporary
gap. In
February, Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Ky.) caused a brief government shutdown by delaying a similar vote
past its midnight deadline.
He has signaled his opposition to the new package.
The spending package
includes $695 billion in defense funding and $591 billion in nondefense
funding, including a combined $78 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations
spending that does not count toward legal budget caps. Last month, Congress
agreed to increase the 2018 spending caps by $80 billion for defense and $63
billion for nondefense and set similar increases for 2019.
Alongside the $1.5
trillion tax cuts approved last year, the spending path is poised to push deficits past a trillion by
next year, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Thursday
that Trump will sign the
bill, even though it contains major concessions to Democrats. “Let’s cut
right to the chase. Is the president going to sign the bill? The answer is
yes,” he told reporters. Mulvaney said even though Trump did not get everything
he wanted, the measure “funds his priorities” on the military and border
security.
The 2,232-page bill was
released Wednesday evening after lawmakers
struggled for days to finalize details of the legislation.
House GOP leaders, working
to sell members in their own conference on the omnibus, have praised the
legislation for providing a massive funding boost for the military, funding 100
miles of the border wall and providing money to combat the opioid
crisis.
“We have the greatest
fighting force in the world, but we have asked them to do so much more with so
much less for so long,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters before the vote Thursday. “Today we begin to reverse that damage.”
Conservatives in the lower
chamber blasted both the process of crafting the massive spending package and
its content, arguing it fails to provide conservative wins while adding to the
deficit.
House Majority
Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that
while they would have liked to have adhered to the three-day rule, they were
unable to adhere to the timeline — noting members would be attending Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-N.Y.) funeral Friday.
“We passed all 12
appropriation bills and we've gone through so much of this already — the
Speaker has been walking everybody through the bill during the time,” he told
reporters. "It's something I'd like to keep longer, it's not something,
you'll notice, we've never done before — it's just certain circumstance.”
The road to passing the
massive package was not an easy one. While Congress had approved a budget caps
deal six weeks ago, which set the spending levels governing the omnibus, negotiators
had scores of contentious policy riders to iron out before the sides signed
off, a process that ran right up through Wednesday.
Among the most
controversial riders were a provision providing $1.6 billion for border
security, including hundreds of millions of dollars for new fence construction
favored by Trump and the Republicans.
Negotiators also worked
out a delicate deal on new funding for the Gateway project, a rail and tunnel
initiative connecting New York and New Jersey. Trump had threatened to veto the
entire package based on the initial $900 million request from regional
lawmakers, notably Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). The compromise knocks the figure down to $541
million.
Other major provisions
include $4 billion to fight the nation’s opioid crisis, a temporary extension to funding for the
Federal Aviation Administration and language designed to fix a glitch in the
GOP’s new tax law that critics said threatened small farmers.
In a surprise move, the
package also features several gun-related provisions: one designed to bolster
the background check system before
firearm purchases and another clearing the path for federal researchers to
examine gun violence as a public health threat, research
that’s currently discouraged by a decades-old restriction known as the Dickey
Amendment.
The conservative spending
hawks were not the only critics of the package. Scores of liberal Democrats,
particularly members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, opposed the omnibus
largely to protest the absence of language to protect the Dreamers, young
immigrants brought to the country illegally as kids.
Rep. Luis Gutiérrez
(D-Ill.), who opposed the package, said the Democrats caved on the effort to
salvage the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “They can pat
themselves on the back as much as they want; the fact is there’s going to be
more enforcement in this bill,” he said. “I just think the Dreamers were thrown
under the omnibus.”
Mike Lillis, Niv Elis, Jordan Fabian, Scott Wong and Melanie
Zanona contributed.
Comments
423 of
435 House Reps voted and 167, or 40% voted No.
Of the
167 No votes, 90 Republicans and 77 Democrats voted No for different
reasons. 97 of 100 Senators voted and
32, or 33% voted No. Republicans voted No to protest the excessive, unnecessary
domestic spending the Democrats wanted.
This
budget bill gives congress 6 months before they need to pass another budget
bill. The federal government fiscal year begins in October. The bill they pass
in September 2018 would for the budget they would have from 10/1/18 to 9/30/19.
Timidity
about issues would hurt Republicans and embolden Democrats and would be a
mistake as we anticipate the November 2018 Congressional elections. Republicans
need to publish their new Immigration Bill and plans to reduce immigrant and
refugee welfare. They also need to repeal Obamacare subsidies. The new budget
should also include border wall funding.
All
spending cuts and additions would be revealed in their budget discussions for
the new budget in September 2018, ahead of the November elections. The Trump
Agenda included changes to unleash the US economy and this underway. The
military spending in this Bill was the next priority to pre-empt enemy actions
and restore deterrence.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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