In a remarkable bipartisan move, Congress passed a budget bill to finance the federal government until September 2023. Heather Cox Richardson describes the political maneuvering behind its passage. Republicans in the House wanted to wait until the new Congress is seated. They hold a slim majority. With Kevin McCarthy courting the MAGA caucus, who knows if the House would ever agree on a budget.
Jim Jordan—the Trump lackey from Ohio who seldom wears a jacket— keeps tweeting snide comments about the budget. But he never mentions that half the budget—$850 billion—is defense spending. I enjoy tweeting that fact to him.
Heather Cox Richardson wrote yesterday:
Today, by a vote of 225 to 201, the House passed the 4,155-page omnibus spending bill necessary to fund the government through September 30, 2023. The Senate passed it yesterday by a bipartisan vote of 68–29, and President Joe Biden has said he will sign it as soon as it gets to his desk.
The measure establishes nondefense discretionary spending at about $773 billion, an increase of about $68 billion, or 6%. It increases defense spending to $858 billion, an increase of about 10%. Defense funding is about $45 billion more than Biden had requested, reflecting the depletion of military stores in Ukraine, where the largest European war since World War II is raging, and the recognition of a military buildup with growing tensions between the U.S. and China.
Senators Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) and Richard C. Shelby (R-AL) and Representative Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) hammered out the bill over months of negotiations. Leahy and Shelby are the two most senior members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and both are retiring at the end of this session. Shelby told the Senate: “We know it’s not perfect, but it’s got a lot of good stuff in it.”
House Republicans refused to participate in the negotiations, tipping their hand to just how disorganized they are right now. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) insisted that the measure should wait until the Republicans take control of the House in 11 days. This reflects the determination of far-right extremists in the party to hold government funding hostage in order to get concessions from the Democrats.
But their positions are so extreme that most Republicans wanted to get the deal done before they could gum it up. Indeed, right now they are refusing to back Republican minority leader McCarthy for speaker, forcing him to more and more extreme positions to woo them. Earlier this week, McCarthy publicly claimed that if he becomes House speaker, he will reject any bill proposed by a senator who voted yes on the omnibus bill. After the measure passed the House, McCarthy spoke forcefully against it, prompting Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) to say: “After listening to that, it’s clear he doesn’t have the votes yet.”
The measure invests in education, childcare, and healthcare, giving boosts to the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and investing in mental health programs. It addresses the opioid crisis and invests in food security programs and in housing and heating assistance programs. It invests in the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Park Service and makes a historic investment in the National Science Foundation. It raises the pay for members of the armed forces, and it invests in state and local law enforcement. It will also provide supplemental funding of about $45 billion for Ukraine aid and $41 billion for disaster relief. It reforms the Electoral Count Act to prevent a plan like that hatched by former president Donald Trump and his cronies to overturn an election, and it funds prosecutions stemming from the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“A lot of hard work, a lot of compromise,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, (D-NY) said. “But we funded the government with an aggressive investment in American families, American workers, American national defense.” Schumer called the bill “one of the most significant appropriations packages we’ve done in a really long time.”
And so, members of Congress are on their way home, in the nation’s severe winter storm, for the winter holiday.
Please open the link and read the rest of her post.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Cue broken record. The American people do not understand the process that is supposed to exist besides this now annual farce of governing. A vast majority of members of Congress have no idea this is not how it is supposed to be. This masquerade being promoted as an achievement by some is merely the calcification of the institutional shift of power to leadership as well as continued movement toward more corporate and other narrow special interests that benefit and strengthen from this perverted process.
The sad thing is that rather than educate the public, reform the system so that it works (which would depoliticize 90%+ of federal spending almost immediately) like it is supposed to. We–I too fall into this trap–tout things we like as we are ignorant of other, more consequential, details tucked away in the law. These will surely come out in the next few days-to-years.
Fix the appropriations process, make it work. Make it transparent. Make it law by committee process so that the vast majority of bills are completed before the September 30 deadline. Federal agencies and departments are always one-to-two years, that’s optimistic, behind in their planning and projections. This has real consequences on people’s lives from recreation to disaster planning and medical research. That is the only step toward creating comprehensive, actual governing at the federal level. It forces compromise in order to work. It forces opponents to deal with each other. The current process just exacerbates and codifies the ills that are at the core of a real constitutional crisis. One that leaders who understand ignore to cater to the vast ignorance of the American populace.
If Garland were Starr the House majority would shrink by at least 2 . Tough to make floor votes from a Federal Prison even by telephone. Pick your two the Child predictor from Florida and the newly elected felon from the 3rd CD in NY would be mine.
When one party has a substantial plurality who don’t believe in Government with a goal of making Government fail . Thus Taxation and Regulation fail.Proving to the people that Government is the problem. How do you have a ” process”. They win by Government failing the people.
None of this forgives the Democrats for also being beholden to certain Corporate interests. However the education the vast Majority of the American people need has a long way to go before we get down to educating them about the committee process. How many understand the powers of the Branches. How many understand the filibusterer and its crippling effect on legislation or the Dog and Pony Show it provides cover for .
The average American does not have a Bachelors no less a Masters and is not commenting on Diane’s Blog.
Even those with a college degree don’t have the time OR knowledge to understand the committee process and the way bills are now drafted. My gosh! The bills are now thousands of pages long and even our elected officials can’t/don’t read them in entirety before signing. The bills are ALL drafted by corporate interests and stink tanks. Our government is a circus…..lots of clowns, donkeys and elephants with one grand Ringmaster and all beholden to corporate interests. This will NEVER change as long as Citizens United is in play.
And in keeping with the holiday spirit, my favorite movie is “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I feel like George Bailey (upon getting his wish that he was never born) when he discovers that Bedford Falls had become Pottersville. The US has become its own “Pottersville”….or Koch-landia, Gates-topia, Musk-ville etc…
LisaM
That is why the Congressman have staff and the Congressional Research Service. Then again, that is why the Republicans have gutted the CRS.
Note: I have it on good authority that the so-called “Jim Jordan” is NOT from Ohio (or AHIA as it he pronounces it) but was actually dropped off from a flying saucer which landed in a corn field (yes, we do have corn fields–plenty of ’em) a few years back–near a place called St. Paris (any similarity with actual Paris, purely coincidental). He wrestled his way through THE Ohio State University a few years back and somehow ended up in Washington–though nobody I know ever remembers voting for him. Just want to set the record straight with the kind of veracity he deserves.
If you saw the outline of his District you would know why he landed in DC