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Our elected officials have not gotten the memo, the United States is over-extended. Last night, the Senate passed a $1.5 trillion Omnibus Bill to keep the government open through September, 2022. If it hadn’t passed, the government would shut down tonight at midnight. The 2700 page bill now heads to the desk of Joe Biden to be signed. You would laugh if you weren’t taking out a loan to fill your gas tank and deciding whether to pay for medication or utility bills.
The clowns in Washington D.C. obligate the American taxpayer every single time they vote on one of these bills. Here is what is in the Ominbus Bill which the Senate has not linked up with the House Bill:
-Ukraine aid: The bill allocates $13.6. billion in humanitarian relief and military support to Ukraine, including funding for refugees, medical supplies, food, and weapons transfers. Such aid is separate from bipartisan trade legislation the House has also passed, which support President Joe Biden’s efforts to curb energy imports from Russia and require a review of Russia’s membership in the World Trade Organization.
-Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act: The legislation contains $575 million to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which funds programs that combat domestic abuse and sexual assault. Lawmakers have struggled to renew the bill since it expired in 2019 due to disagreements about gun control provisions, but they’ve since arrived at a compromise that stripped those out.
-Financial aid for college: The bill includes $24.6 billion for federal student aid programs, including funding that increases the maximum Pell grant by $400 to $6,895 per year. That’s the biggest expansion to these grants — which are awarded annually to undergraduate students based on financial need — in 10 years, according to the legislation.
Food aid programs: The legislation contains $26.9 billion for child nutrition programs, which includes a $1.8 billion boost over the previous year for school lunches and a summer SNAP program. It does not include, however, funding for waivers that would enable schools to offer universal free lunches as they have been able to do during the pandemic.-Infrastructure money: As Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) noted last month, much of the spending allocated in the infrastructure bill has been held up because it has to be formally approved by Congress first via these appropriations bills. Once the bills are passed, millions in funding for roads and bridges, and other transportation programs, can be funneled out.
Defense spending: Roughly half the bill is dedicated to funding for the military and national security — including $32.5 billion more than the prior year. This includes money for weapons and transportation systems, veterans’ health care and a 2.7 percent salary increase for service members.-Earmarks: Beyond the larger expenditures that it contains, the appropriations package also brings the return of earmarks, or the ability for lawmakers to set aside funds for specific projects in their state or district.
I support the Ukraine people in their war against Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but $13.6 billion? Waste, fraud and abuse will be rampant. Ukraine has been a corrupt country for all three of its decades. I don’t want anymore of our tax dollars going up Hunter Biden’s nose or paying for another house for the “Big Guy”.
The Senate required at least 60 votes to pass the bill. The final vote was 68 to 31. That means that 18 Republican Senators voted for this monstrosity. Marco Rubio sent out this tweet and video:
We should have passed funding for Ukraine 2 weeks ago.
But instead,Democrats held it hostage so it could ram through thousands of earmarks,green new deal programs,the hiring of 10000 IRS agents & other woke priorities buried in thousands of pages.This is a ridiculous process. pic.twitter.com/1SLC91Q2pU— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 11, 2022
Amen, Senator. The Demoncrats in Senate think we need 10,000 new IRS agents? Because American taxpayers aren’t harassed enough by the IRS,right? The Senate thinks they need more agents to up in our business.
Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming also objected to the aid for Ukraine being shoved into the $1.5 trillion Omnibus Bill:
Such forceful words from both Senators Rubio and Lummis. Let us get this straight: If the Republicans take both the House and Senate in November, we need more more pretty or forceful words. The American taxpayers are tired and broke. Aid for foreign countries is killing us. The New Green Deal is destroying the engine of our economy. Fossil fuels make our economy run for now. The American taxpayer needs help, not words. We cannot afford the printing of $1.5 trillion.
The basement dwelling, drooling, dementia patient in the White House will sign this bill and crow about what he is done for us. His conscience will never let him admit what he has done to us. We are broke, we are tired, and we don’t like what is being done to our country.
Featured Image: Nick Ares/Flickr.com/Cropped/CreativeCommons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Bucky says: “If the Republicans take both the House and Senate in November, …”
The GOP controlled Congress from 2016 to 2018 and what did they do? Repeal Obamacare? Nope. Build the Wall? Lip service yes but action no. Support Trump? Speaker Ryan was actively opposed to Trump. With no historical precedent to go by why should we expect a GOP Congress to do anything about out of control spending?
Cameron says: Sadly, you’re right. The instant a Republican majority happens, “We need to be civil. We need to reach across the aisle.”
[…] post Senate Passes $1.5 Trillion Omnibus Bill With Ukraine appeared first on Victory Girls […]
AF JAG retired says: Time was, specific proposals were referred to committees, where they were debated, witnesses testified for or against them, and people could contact their senators and congressmen to support or oppose. Obamacare destroyed the system. Now everything is done through massive bills containing hundreds of diverse items unconnected to each other (e.g. “Build Back Better”). No one knows what’s in these bills or who wrote them. Senators and representatives are supposed to vote for or against out of party loyalty, in ignorance of what they are doing.
GWB says: Goodness! If they knew what was in them, they might not vote for them!
BTW, this is one of the ways Congress gets in on the “expert” game. “Oh my, you elect us because there’s no way a poor uneducated voter could ever understand all the important things we have to know to make things happen in Congress!”
Of course, I’m more than willing to have nothing happen in Congress. As a formerly conservative blogger used to say, “Don’t just DO something, stand there!“
GWB says: We need an amendment.
All bills must be:
1) passed by tallied vote (accountable to their constituents) in both houses of Congress,
2) passed by actual vote in their final form (none of this “reconciliation” carp),
4) voted on after a required reading time consisting of
-a) 1 legislative day per 5 pages of text/tables/figures/data from the time
— 1. the bill is read out of committee, or
— 2. the bill is introduced/re-introduced to the body in its final form (IOW, it comes back from the other house),
-b) and for said purpose is printed in no smaller than a 10pt font with no less than 3/4″ margins, and
-c) said reading time cannot be interrupted for any other legislative matter,
5) on a single issue; for budget bills this means for a single agency or department, or for a single house of the legislature, the office of the presidency, or separate districts of courts, including the Supreme Court individually,
6) must be justified, in writing, under specific or general powers granted directly by the Constitution,
-a) if “general welfare” is cited, the portion of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, or extant state constitutions (1789) that supports said “general welfare” MUST be cited in entirety,
7) may not authorize any executive branch agency or department to enact rules making any item or process illegal for sale, rent, possession, or use, without specific legislation specifying the specific item to be so regulated in all of its particulars.
I haven’t yet figured out how to prevent funding things that are supposed to be state responsibilities. But the idea of subsidizing the states because some might be richer than others is offensive to the Constitution, too.
BTW, the 1 day/5 pages rule means the maximum number of pages in a bill would be (assuming they were willing to not take recess) 1,250 pages. And that means not another dad-blamed thing would get done all session.
(I’m also willing to write in a suspension of the reading requirements if the bill is to repeal an action of Congress. And maybe if legislation is required to stop an un-constitutional executive order?)
In total, this eliminates omnibus bills, helps to reduce pork (but won’t stop it – the people will have to pillory a few congresscritters for that to happen, and do it regularly), reduces gigantic, dense, indecipherable bills written by lobbyists, and forces them to actually use their legislative power, rather than pass it off to unaccountable bureaucrats.
Feel free to tear into my proposal so I can improve it.
[…] seems reasonable to ask, what secrets are being guarded with this expenditure?Granted that because of the idiocy of the Democrats, the dollar only has the real one value of […]
[…] will get called an agent of Putin. It just seems like we ought to take a hot minute to look at the spending. Tracking the money is near impossible. From The […]
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