Congress Unveils a $1.3 Trillion Budget Bill Even as Some Conservatives Balk at Its Size

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: TIME via AP

URL: http://time.com/5210449/budget-bill-spending-congress/

by By ANDREW TAYLOR & LISA MASCARO


Congressional leaders have finalized a sweeping $1.3 trillion budget bill that substantially boosts military and domestic spending but leaves behind young immigrant “Dreamers,” deprives President Donald Trump some of his border wall money, and takes only incremental steps to address gun violence.

As negotiators stumbled toward an end-of-the-week deadline to fund the government or face a federal shutdown, House Speaker Paul Ryan dashed to the White House amid concerns Trump’s support was wavering. Although some conservative Republicans balked at the size of the spending increases and the rush to pass the bill, the White House said the president backed the legislation.

Trump himself sounded less than enthused, tweeting late Wednesday: “Had to waste money on Dem giveaways in order to take care of military pay increase and new equipment.”

Talks had stretched into Wednesday evening before the 2,232-page text was finally released.

“No bill of this size is perfect,” Ryan said. “But this legislation addresses important priorities and makes us stronger at home and abroad.”

Leaders hoped to start voting as soon as Thursday. A stopgap measure may be needed to ensure federal offices aren’t hit with a partial shutdown at midnight Friday when funding for the government expires.

Negotiators have been working for days — and nights — on details of the bill, which is widely viewed as the last major piece of legislation likely to move through Congress in this election year. Lawmakers in both parties sought to attach their top priorities.

Two of the biggest remaining issues had been border wall funds and a legislative response to gun violence after the clamor for action following recent school shootings, including the one in Parkland, Florida.

On guns, leaders agreed to tuck in bipartisan provisions to bolster school safety funds and improve compliance with the criminal background check system for firearm purchases. The bill states that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can do research on gun violence, though not advocacy, an idea Democrats pushed.

But there was no resolution for Dreamers, the young immigrants who have been living in the United States illegally since childhood but whose deportation protections are being challenged in court after Trump tried to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

(EXCERPT) CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....

[SirLinksALot]

SOME KEY HIGHLIGHTS AS PER THE WASHINGTON POST:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/03/22/heres-what-congress-is-stuffing-into-its-1-3-trillion-spending-bill/

Overall spending: The “omnibus” appropriations bill doles out funding for the remainder of fiscal 2018 — that is, until Sept. 30 — to virtually every federal department and agency pursuant to the two-year budget agreement Congress reached in February. Under that agreement, defense spending generally favored by Republicans is set to jump $80 billion over previously authorized spending levels, while domestic spending favored by Democrats rises by $63 billion. The defense funding includes a 2.4 percent pay raise for military personnel and $144 billion for Pentagon hardware. The domestic spending is scattered across the rest of the federal government, but lawmakers are highlighting increases in funding for infrastructure, medical research, veterans programs and efforts to combat the opioid epidemic. Civilian federal employees get a 1.9 percent pay raise, breaking parity with the military for the first time in several years.

Border wall: The bill provides $1.6 billion for barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, but with some serious strings attached. Of the total, $251 million is earmarked specifically for “secondary fencing” near San Diego, where fencing is already in place; $445 million is for no more than 25 miles of “levee fencing”; $196 million is for “primary pedestrian fencing” in the Rio Grande Valley; $445 million is for the replacement of existing fencing in that area; and the rest is for planning, design and technology — not for wall construction. The biggest catch is this: The barriers authorized to be built under the act must be “operationally effective designs” already deployed as of last March, meaning none of President Trump’s big, beautiful wall prototypes can be built.

Immigration enforcement: The bill bumps up funding for both U.S. Customs and Border Protection and for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — delivering increases sought by the Trump administration. But there are significant restrictions on how that new money can be spent. Democrats pushed for, and won, limitations on hiring new ICE interior enforcement agents and on the number of undocumented immigrants the agency can detain. Under provisions written into the bill, ICE can have no more than 40,354 immigrants in detention by the time the fiscal year ends in September. But there is a catch: The Homeland Security secretary is granted discretion to transfer funds from other accounts “as necessary to ensure the detention of aliens prioritized for removal.”

Infrastructure: Numerous transportation programs get funding increases in the bill, but the debate leading up to its release focused on one megaproject: The Gateway program, aimed at improving rail access to and from Manhattan on Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. Trump made it a signature fight, largely to punish Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democratic backers of the project who have held up other Trump initiatives, and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao told Congress this month that the project simply wasn’t ready for prime time. The project is not mentioned in the bill, and Republican aides say that they turned back efforts to essentially earmark federal funding for the project. But Democrats say that the project is still eligible for as much as $541 million in funding this fiscal year through accounts that Chao does not control. The project might also still qualify for other pools of money, though it will have to compete with other projects on an equal playing field.

Health care: Left out of the bill was a health-care measure sought by GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) that would have allowed states to establish high-risk pools to help cover costly insurance claims while restoring certain payments to insurers under the Affordable Care Act. Trump, who ended the “cost-sharing reduction” payments in the fall, supported the Collins-Alexander language. But Democrats opposed it because they claimed it included language expanding the existing prohibition on federal funding for abortions.

[endicom]

"Congress Unveils a $1.3 Trillion Budget Bill..."

Veil? Shoulda had a burqa.

[INVAR]

At some point in our very near future - some very dire consequences of this spending spree are going to happen.  Like a currency devaluation or currency reset.

They'll have to, just to prevent an overnight collapse of the currency.

The world is already working on replacing the Dollar as the world's reserve currency.  First up is trading China's Yuan for oil as the new gold-backed standard.

Methinks this fiat fiasco's time is about up - and our leaders are milking what they can from everything until the hard reset has to be done.

We might want to take a closer look at civilian life in Argentina or Venezuela after such a thing occurs for some tips on staying afloat in that environment.

[XenaLee]

The end result of demonizing Conservatism.... is spiraling out of control spending and the resultant unsustainable debt incurred.  And eventual collapse.  And the feds just quietly raised interest rates again.  I wonder what the interest on our debt, which is all we can manage to pay, will be next year....?

[mystery-ak]

Should turn on Rush..he is pissed and so are all the Trump voters calling in...

[INVAR]

The end result of demonizing Conservatism.... is spiraling out of control spending and the resultant unsustainable debt incurred.  And eventual collapse.  And the feds just quietly raised interest rates again.  I wonder what the interest on our debt, which is all we can manage to pay, will be next year....?

IN very short order, (an a major warning sign of impending currency collapse) is when we can no longer service the interest on our debt. 

The raise in interest rates just the beginning.  There will be many more, each of them coming faster and faster as the Fed tries to keep the pot from exploding before they can escape the blast radius.

But yes, this is what happens when Conservative principles are sacrificed upon the altar of political pragmatism and 'expedience'.

The Republicans failed to remember what the Democrats ignore: this Beast in Big Government that both parties want - only lasts until they run out of other people's money.

[rustynail]

The republican budget funds the CDC to 'study' gun violence.

[XenaLee]

IN very short order, (an a major warning sign of impending currency collapse) is when we can no longer service the interest on our debt. 

The raise in interest rates just the beginning.  There will be many more, each of them coming faster and faster as the Fed tries to keep the pot from exploding before they can escape the blast radius.

But yes, this is what happens when Conservative principles are sacrificed upon the altar of political pragmatism and 'expedience'.

The Republicans failed to remember what the Democrats ignore: this Beast in Big Government that both parties want - only lasts until they run out of other people's money.

Other people's money... which is an ever-shrinking pot to feed from.... since the DemocRats have created a welfare-state economy.   (Too many people too comfy riding and not enough pulling.)

https://thedailyhatch.org/2012/06/12/too-many-riding-in-the-wagon-and-not-enough-pulling/

https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/two-pictures-that-perfectly-capture-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-welfare-state/

[INVAR]

The republican budget funds the CDC to 'study' gun violence.

And yet when you say there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans you get posts of outrage from plantation slaves who think that money spent on government studies to erode the Second Amendment are better than simply getting the guns now and due process later.  Oh wait - Trump said that.

Never mind.

I laugh in the face of those who try to insist voting Republican is 'fighting against the Marxists' while those of us involved in doing something different elsewhere are declared 'irrelevant'.

What is politically irrelevant, is voting for a Republican thinking you are saving the country.

[LauraTXNM]

The republican budget funds the CDC to 'study' gun violence.

I thought they removed that.

[dfwgator]

Should turn on Rush..he is pissed and so are all the Trump voters calling in...

Trump is about to find out what happens when you don't dance with the one that brung ya.

[jpsb]

Trump is about to find out what happens when you don't dance with the one that brung ya.

Yup, thew GOP is going to get crushed in 2018 and Trump is going to get impeached in 2019.

[SirLinksALot]

Just look at the things in this monstrosity that were included and not included:

Border Security Falls Short

The legislation provides $1.571 billion for “physical barriers and associated technology along the southern border including to hire new border patrol agents and acquire new technology, aircraft, sensors, and non-intrusive inspection equipment,” according to a Republican Study Committee (RSC) document obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

That funding would include only $641 million for roughly 30 miles of new border wall security — under half of what Trump asked Congress for previously. In total, Congress is providing grossly under the $25 billion the White House asked for construction of a border wall and enhanced border security.

According to RSC, that breaks down to:

$251,000,000 for roughly 14 miles of secondary fencing along the southwestern border in San Diego.

$445,000,000 for 25 miles of primary pedestrian levee fencing along the southwest border in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.

$196,000,000 for primary pedestrian fencing along the southwest border in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.

$445,000,000 for replacement of present fencing along the southwest border.

$38,000,000 for border barrier planning and design.

$196,000,000 for acquisition and deployment of border security technology.

Who among you believes that  this level of funding is sufficient for securing the border and preventing illegal immigration?

Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)

Congress is proposing $79.2 million for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

Conservatives have long labeled OPIC a slush fund and a means of “corporate welfare.” The conservative faction of House Republicans looked to target OPIC in 2015, calling it a “crony” capitalistic firm that exists solely for the purposes American investment in developing nations. Yet, here we are .. throwing money at it again.


JFK Opera House Funding

Lawmakers are shelling out $40.515 million in subsidies for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

WHY ? Where in the Constitution is such funding authorized?

[INVAR]

JFK Opera House Funding

Lawmakers are shelling out $40.515 million in subsidies for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

WHY ? Where in the Constitution is such funding authorized?

The Constitution is irrelevant.

It means whatever they say it means and they are 'authorized' to do whatever they want, and spend whatever they want - because... pragmatism man!

[LMAO]

At some point in our very near future - some very dire consequences of this spending spree are going to happen.  Like a currency devaluation or currency reset.

They'll have to, just to prevent an overnight collapse of the currency.

The world is already working on replacing the Dollar as the world's reserve currency.  First up is trading China's Yuan for oil as the new gold-backed standard.

Methinks this fiat fiasco's time is about up - and our leaders are milking what they can from everything until the hard reset has to be done.

We might want to take a closer look at civilian life in Argentina or Venezuela after such a thing occurs for some tips on staying afloat in that environment.

Agree with everything. The part I bolded is probably not going to happen. What would replace the dollar?

[Night Hides Not]

Should turn on Rush..he is pissed and so are all the Trump voters calling in...

I'm sorry, but Rush jumped the shark long ago...seems like he's trying to have it both ways.

[INVAR]

Agree with everything. The part I bolded is probably not going to happen. What would replace the dollar?

Not sure what the world will end up going with - but China, Russia and nations in the Middle East are rushing to back their currencies with gold.

But it is beyond STUPID to assume that laws of economics do not apply to the grievous violations that this country has committed for decades.

A fiat currency at this level of debt and our soon-to-be inability to pay even the interest on that debt is going to collapse the currency.  That is inevitable now. 

The vacuum we leave will be filled by something else able to take its place.

And not to our benefit.

There is already talk growing out there that there is a currency reset or devaluation coming soon for the Dollar.

Then we are in the hyper-inflationary phase of what consequences always come when a government has funded a welfare state corporatocracy and add the insult to injury of open borders.