House Funds Key Programs but Adds to Government Bloat, Waste

From Daily Signal.com (Dec. 17):

The House passed two spending bills totaling $1.4 trillion Tuesday to fund the federal government through the remainder of fiscal year 2020, which began Oct. 1.

Although the first bill would provide much-needed funding and budget certainty to core constitutional responsibilities, such as national defense, the second “minibus” is a Christmas tree of bloated spending and add-ons that have no place being voted on through an appropriations bill.

The House passed the two bills, introduced late Monday afternoon, in less than 24 hours. The Senate is expected to consider the two measures later this week.

The fact that the House voted on more than 2,000 combined pages of text within 24 hours of introducing the two bills is a troubling symptom of Washington’s budget dysfunction. This is not the way that the budget process is supposed to work, and it leads to wasteful spending and other negative impacts for American taxpayers.

Lawmakers must work together to implement reforms that create a better functioning and more responsible budget process.

The first spending bill, dubbed the “national security” minibus, provides a total of $860.3 billion in fiscal 2020. This includes $92.6 billion in funding adjustments that fall outside the Budget Control Act spending caps. The funding is divided among the Defense; Commerce, Justice, and Science; Homeland Security; and Financial Services appropriations bills.

Providing national security is one of the key responsibilities of the federal government. This package will ensure that the Department of Defense and other security agencies are properly trained and equipped so that they can continue to ensure the safety of all Americans. Passing full-year appropriations now also will enable these agencies to proceed with long-term projects.

However, the national security “minibus” is not without flaws. The bill includes $17.4 billion in disaster funding that is not constrained by the budget caps and is not paid for. This funding goes directly to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund and is intended to be used to respond to disasters that have a cost of less than $500 million per event. [read more]