The ultraconservative faction of Congress is talking about a new spending deal announced Sunday that would likely bundle funding for 12 government agencies into two up-or-down votes.
The more than 1,000-page spending plan for the government’s first six agencies, which has a funding deadline of Friday, was released Sunday, and members of the House Freedom Caucus and like-minded senators denounced the “earmarks.” in the bill.
After being negotiated by House and Senate leaders from both parties, it will be voted on in the House on Wednesday.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote in anarchy and Biden’s tyranny.”
Representative Ralph Norman listed a number of allocations requested by Democrats that had been included in the deal.
‘Assign corrupt government. Earmarks turn Republicans into Democrats. No Republican should support them. No Republican should vote for this bill,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.
President Johnson said Republicans “achieved key conservative policy victories” on the more than $460 billion measure despite a “divided government” and rejected “left-wing proposals” in the deal with Democrats announced Sunday.
The package would include Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under a single vote.
Conservatives have been insisting that Congress approve funding for each government agency individually, but that seemed unsustainable under a deeply divided government.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote in anarchy and Biden’s tyranny.”
The spending package did not include the new border security restrictions that Conservatives had wanted.
‘No. No. WTH (Speaker Mike Johnson) what’s wrong with you….’ read a post on X that Roy reposted.
Rep. Ralph Norman listed “the worst of the worst allocations in Schumer’s 1,000-plus-page spending rampage.”
“Assignments are bad,” he wrote in X.
The South Carolina Republican noted that the bill includes $1.65 million for a “living and working space” for artists in New York, in Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s district, and $1.1 million for an “electric vehicle infrastructure master plan” in Chicago requested by the top Democratic senator. Dick Durbin, $1 million for a ‘citywide climate assessment’ in Providence, RI, and $1 million for an LGBTQ community center in Philadelphia.
‘It’s like a swamp to take YOUR money, borrow more and put it all into reckless political projects. That’s earmarks in a nutshell,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said on X.
‘Just look (Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer)‘s) request for $1 million to build a new environmental justice center in New York. Give me a break.’
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Va., decried a number of policies that were “given up” or not included in the bill, including defunding Trump’s prosecutor’s office, blocking the use of funds to provide legal representation to illegal aliens and the defunding of President Biden’s executive. orders to expand gun restrictions.
Republicans touted “deep cuts” to the EPA (10%), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) (7%) and the FBI (6%), which Johnson said have “threatened our freedoms and our economy”.
Other policy provisions in the bill would provide additional funding to the FAA to oversee production of Boeing 737 Max aircraft – following several alarming safety incidents in recent months – while another would ban sales from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. United to China.
Amtrak, the long-beleaguered U.S. rail operator, would also get an additional $2.4 billion in financing.
Democrats proclaimed that the bill maintained full funding for a special food assistance program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and included advances in rental and pay assistance for infrastructure employees, such as bus drivers. air traffic.
Democrats also touted the bill rejecting “poison pills,” such as banning the promotion of critical race theory and gender-affirming care at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
But other GOP-led provisions include prohibiting veterans from being flagged by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check without a judge’s consent.
Additionally, it cuts “endangered species listing activities” at the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and strengthens “monitoring and review of foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.”
The new funding details come after Congress passed a fourth short-term funding bill late last week, just a day before the government’s funding deadline.
Another deadline for funding the remaining government agencies looms on March 22, but Congress is expected to group those bills into one or two minibus votes.
