What’s in the $1.2 trillion government funding
package
By Tami Luhby and Katie
Lobosco, CNN Updated 4:49 PM
EDT, Thu March 21, 2024
Congress released a massive $1.2 trillion bill on Thursday to fund the rest of the federal government.
The package, which runs more than 1,000 pages, would provide funding for the departments of Defense, Homeland
Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, State and the
legislative branch. Lawmakers have until the end of Friday to approve the bill
to avoid a partial government shutdown.
The legislation would complete the funding of federal agencies
through the fiscal year, which ends September 30. Congress earlier this
month approved funding for the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice,
Veterans Affairs, Energy, Interior, Transportation and Housing and Urban
Development, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, military construction
and other federal programs.
House Republicans and Democrats each provided summaries of
what’s in the bill. Here’s what’s in the package
Homeland Security: The package would provide nearly $62
billion in total discretionary resources for Homeland Security, which was
the most contentious of the appropriation bills that lawmakers were
negotiating. It would include nearly $59 billion for non-defense programs and
more than $3 billion for defense-related programs. The total figure excludes
certain offsetting funds.
US Customs and Border Protection would receive nearly $20
billion, an increase of $3 billion from the prior fiscal year. It would provide
$495 million to bring the number of Border Patrol agents to 22,000, the highest
number ever funded, and $20 million to hire an additional 150 officers to
support counter-fentanyl efforts.
It would bolster funding for processing capacity, medical care
and the support of children’s well-being, but it does not provide money for a
border wall. It increases funding for Transportation Security Administration
personnel by more than $1 billion.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would receive close to
$10 billion. More than $721 million would be provided for transportation and
removal operations of people who no longer have a legal basis to remain in the
US or who pose a security or safety risk, nearly $292 million more than
in President Joe Biden’s budget.
It would increase the number of detention beds to 41,500, which
is 7,500 more beds than funded in the prior fiscal year, as part of more than
$3 billion for custody operations, the highest amount ever appropriated.
The package would also boost funding for countering fentanyl and
human smuggling investigations, non-intrusive inspection technology and staff
to assist with the management and processing of those on the non-detained and
detained dockets.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services would receive $281
million, including $160 million for refugee processing, asylum and work
authorization backlog reduction.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency would receive more than
$25 billion, nearly $73 million below the prior fiscal year.
Defense: The bill would provide $824 billion for defense,
an increase of nearly $27 billion from fiscal year 2023.
It would hike basic military pay by 5.2%, the largest boost in more than 20 years. It would
also beef up the basic allowance for housing by 5.4% and an allowance for meals
by 1.7%. Plus, it would continue funding for suicide prevention and sexual
assault programs.
The package would provide $300 million for the Ukraine Security
Assistance Initiative to aid the nation against Russian aggression. The funding
is separate from a larger assistance package for Ukraine that is currently bogged down on Capitol Hill.
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It also would preserve the agency’s travel policy to allow
service members and their families access to reproductive health care. And it
would cut nearly $51 million from diversity and inclusion programs, rolling
back support to fiscal year 2021 levels.
The bill would also increase military funding for Taiwan to $300
million. The funds come from the State Department’s foreign military financing
program. Last year, the US approved funding through this program for the first time for Taiwan. The program is typically only used for
sovereign nations – a move that angered China, which claims the self-governing
island as its own.
State: The package would provide more than $58 billion for
state, foreign operations and related programs, a decrease of more than $3
billion from the prior fiscal year.
It would fully fund the US security commitment to Israel of more
than $3 billion and prohibit taxpayer dollars from going to the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which supports Palestinian refugees and
has come under fire after Israel alleged some of its staff were involved in
Hamas’ October 7 attack. The bill would also eliminate funding for the United
Nations Commission of Inquiry against Israel. And it would implement new
conditions on any assistance to Gaza.
It would funnel nearly $9 billion for international security
assistance to allies and partners through international narcotics control and
law enforcement activities, antiterrorism programs and peacekeeping operations,
among other efforts.
It would also provide nearly $9 billion in humanitarian
assistance to various migration, refugee and international disaster programs.
To address China’s activities in the Indo-Pacific region, the
package would provide $300 million to Taiwan to support loans and loan
guarantees, $400 million to the Countering the People’s Republic of China
Influence Fund and nearly $2 billion “to help counter the growing influence of
the PRC (China) in developing countries,” according to the House Democrats’
fact sheet.
It would also direct $125 million to counter fentanyl and other
synthetic drugs coming into the US from other countries for the first time.
The package would invest $10 billion in global health
initiatives, including the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known
as PEPFAR, and programs to improve maternal and child health and fight
infectious disease. That would be nearly $531 million less than the prior
fiscal year.
And it would provide an additional 12,000 Special Immigrant
Visas for Afghans that helped the US.
Education: The bill would provide $79 billion for the
Department of Education, which is $500 million less than the prior fiscal year.
The amount is $22 billion more than House Republicans proposed, but $11 billion
less than Biden’s budget request.
Nearly $44 billion would be provided for K-12 education. About
$18.4 billion – an increase of $20 million above fiscal year 2023 – would go to
the Title I program, the largest federal funding source for K-12 schools.
The package calls for nearly $25 billion for federal student aid
programs, equal to fiscal year 2023. This keeps the maximum Pell grant, the
government’s key aid program for low-income college students, at $7,395 per
person. There is an increase in funding for historically Black colleges and
universities, known as HBCUs; Hispanic serving institutions; and tribally
controlled colleges and universities.
There is no new money for the free community college initiative
that Biden has proposed, according to a summary provided by House Republicans.
Financial services and general government: The package
includes $26 billion for financial services and general government, a decrease
of $1 billion, or 4%, from the prior fiscal year.
The Internal Revenue Service would receive $12 billion, the same
as the prior fiscal year and $1 billion more than House Republicans had wanted
to provide.
The package would officially claw back about $20 billion of the
$80 billion that was provided to the IRS by the Democrat-backed Inflation Reduction Act. The recission was agreed to by Democrats last year in a deal to address the debt ceiling and avoid a US default. These funds were
meant to go to the IRS over a 10-year period and support efforts to modernize
the agency and ramp up enforcement.
Republicans and Democrats have been at odds over the IRS
funding. Despite Democrat assurances that the IRS won’t increase enforcement on
taxpayers making less than $400,0000 a year, Republicans claim that agency will
use the money to hound middle-class taxpayers and small business owners.
The legislation would provide $143 million for disaster relief
efforts at the Small Business Administration, the same amount as last year. The
judiciary would receive nearly $9 billion, an increase of $169 million over the
prior fiscal year.
The package would also provide $750 million for court security for justices, judges, their families and employees. It
would also provide $55 million for election security grants for states to
combat voter fraud, maintain voter rolls and improve the administration and
security of federal elections.
Labor: The package would provide nearly $14 billion for the
Labor Department, which is $145 million below the prior fiscal year’s level.
The amount is nearly $5 billion more than House Republicans proposed.
It would provide more than $10 billion for the Employment and
Training Administration, slightly lower than the prior fiscal year, and $1.9
billion for worker protection agencies, the same amount as in the last fiscal
year’s package.
Health and Human Services: The bill would provide more than
$117 billion for HHS. That would be $14 billion more than House Republicans
proposed, but $12 billion below Biden’s budget request.
The Child Care and Development Block Grant, which provides child care assistance to low-income parents, would receive nearly $9 billion, an
increase of $725 million from the last fiscal year. Head Start, which provides
school readiness services to low-income families, would receive more than $12
billion, a boost of $275 million.
The package would provide $4 billion for the Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program, an increase of $25 million from the prior fiscal
year.
The National Institutes of Health would receive close to $49
billion, an increase of $300 million from the prior fiscal year, excluding
mandatory funding from the 21st Century Cures Act. The National
Cancer Institute and research on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias
would receive funding boosts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would receive $9
billion, with small increases in funding for safe motherhood and infant health,
as well as food safety.
The package would also provide additional money for mental
health and substance abuse programs and services.
Congress: The bill would provide nearly $7 billion for the
legislative branch, $150 million below the last fiscal year’s level. It would
maintain support for an operating budget for congressional offices and would
provide funding to pay interns.
The United States Capitol Police would receive nearly $792
million, an increase of $57 million from the prior fiscal year. It would allow
the force to hire up to 2,204 sworn officers and 636 civilian employees and
continue efforts to beef up the physical security of the Capitol. It also calls
for $2 million to provide security to lawmakers outside of the Capitol –
including residential and district office security.
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https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/politics/government-funding-bill-explained/index.html
Comments
This CNN article proves that you can spend $1.2 Trillion on
government programs that don’t work and go on forever.
