Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog
This is the time of year when the congressional class usually assrapes the American taxpayer by means of pork-laden “continuing resolutions” that shovel fat stacks of your hard-earned money into the insatiable maw of rich special interests. And they tried to do it again this year, when incoming DOGE head Elon Musk looked at the bill and went “Wait a minute.”
And indeed, it was a pork-laden nightmare.
The continuing resolution, or CR, was meant to kick the government funding deadline down the road by continuing spending at 2024 levels until March and buy more time for Congress to hash out a longer-term budget plan for fiscal year 2025. But it included 1,500 pages worth of policy and funding riders.
With a national debt of $36 trillion and a deficit of $1.8 trillion, conservatives are leery of CRs that don’t cut government spending to begin with, but they’ve argued only a “clean” CR without any riders attached could earn their vote. Others — Democrats and some Republicans — wanted policy and funding riders attached to get something done beyond the status quo.
Here’s a look at all the provisions that prompted Musk and Ramaswamy to step in and insist Republicans kill the CR:
Pay raises for lawmakers
A nearly 4% pay raise would line the pockets of lawmakers if the legislation were to pass: $6,600 extra per year on top of their $174,000 salary.
That salary hasn’t been increased since 2009, but Congress created a program in 2022 allowing members of Congress to expense their food and lodging in Washington, D.C., while conducting official business.
More:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=62013
