House GOP leaders ramming through $1 trillion spending bill

[Lucille]

Congress Set to Screw over the American People
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...erican-people/

Yet again. Says Rep. Walter Jones. House Speaker John Boehner wants to rush through a $1 trillion spending bill in Congress’s last week in session–right before the government is due to shut down. I say shut it down!

And leave it shut. The whole planet and everyone on it will be better off.

House conservatives are griping that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is putting the squeeze on them by rushing through a $1 trillion spending bill in Congress’s last week in session.

Appropriators are expected to roll out the legislation early next week, giving critics scant time to figure out what’s inside before they cast their votes by the end of the week. The government would shut down on Dec. 12 without a new funding bill.

“Here we are doing the appropriations bill the last couple days” before a government shutdown, conservative Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) said in an interview this week. “That’s not to squeeze Harry Reid. That’s to squeeze us.”

Boehner critics say there’s no reason the Speaker couldn’t have brought the spending package to the floor this past week, giving the House more time to consider it.

But doing so would also give more time for the right to build a case against it.

“They don’t want you to read it, that’s why! You think they want you to analyze all the mischievous items in there?” Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) told The Hill.

Asked if the timing of the plan was aimed at jamming the Senate or House conservatives, Jones replied: “I think its aimed at screwing over the American people. You can quote me on that.”

Pushing a government funding bill through Congress at the 11th hour is nothing new.

What’s striking this time, however, is that Boehner and outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are mostly in agreement on how to do it.
[...]
GOP leaders appear to have much of their conference behind them, though many conservatives are expected to vote no.

“I think the fix is in,” Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) told The Hill.

[Brian4Liberty]

Is Pelosi still in charge?

[oyarde]

Looks to me that Jones & Salmon are right .

[donnay]

Proves they are just different cheeks of the same ass.

[libertyjam]

Boehner Joins Hands with Pelosi to Defeat Conservatives

Created: Friday, 05 December 2014 19:33
Written by Gun Owners of America

-- Action brings Boehner’s legitimacy as Speaker into question

You have let Washington know that you oppose giving Barack Obama a blank check until September 30, 2015 and, in doing so, that you oppose Congress setting gun policy in a long-term, Harry Reid-drafted appropriations bill.

And Washington has heard you, loud and clear.

According to Neil Munro of the Daily Caller, House Speaker John Boehner is now faced with "snowballing opposition" to his plan of passing a ten-month carte blanche funding bill for the government, crafted by Harry Reid on the Senate side and by a House that has a lot more Democrats than it will have after January 6.

The Boehner abomination is called the “Cromnibus” -- a combination of the initials for "continuing resolution" (CR) and "omnibus." This monstrosity would do nothing to stop the implementation of the anti-gun ObamaCare law (which Republicans said they opposed).

And, while the “Cromnibus” will probably stop some gun-related Obama abuses, it is not expected to address problems like ATF's routine copying of a dealer's 4473's in connection with a routine annual inspection. Nor will it defund much of Obama’s anti-gun agenda.

Is it any wonder that liberal anti-gun Democrats like Rep. James Moran (D-VA) have embraced the Boehner approach?

Now, in a move that is the political equivalent of treason, Boehner is countering hemorrhaging support among Republicans by asking Nancy Pelosi to provide the votes necessary for passage. Given that the “Cromnibus” will define virtually all government discretionary spending and policy for the next ten months, this is like turning over control of Congress to the Democrats for 37.5% of a congressional term.

But pro-gun forces are countering Boehner's perfidy tit-for-tat. The Chairman of Gun Owners of America has promised that GOA will score support of the Boehner-Pelosi bill as an anti-gun vote.

Said GOA’s Tim Macy: “If we had wanted Democrats to control Congress, we would have voted for them. Instead, we give Boehner a 247-vote majority, only to have him cede control to Pelosi, Reid, and Obama over every important decision for the next ten months.”

GOA has even raised the issue of whether a Speaker who has more regard for the minority than his own caucus should continue in his position.

ACTION: Contact your Representative. Tell him or her that support of the Boehner-Pelosi deal will be considered an anti-gun vote.

NOTE: This alert contains different messages for Republican and Democrat Representatives. By using the GOA Engage site to contact your Representative, the system will automatically select the correct letter.

http://www.gunowners.org/alert1252014a.htm

[jmdrake]

Congress Set to Screw over the American People
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...erican-people/

And leave it shut. The whole planet and everyone on it will be better off.

Ain't that the truth? It's funny that Tavis Smiley was willing to admit that blacks are worse off after five years, but he was still angry at the republicans over the government shut down.

[Matt Collins]

This is the article Thomas posted to his wall:


http://thehill.com/homenews/house/22...-spending-bill

[Lucille]

This is the article Thomas posted to his wall:

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/22...-spending-bill

What an amazing coincidence!

[Origanalist]

Hey, whats everybody complaining about? "We" won!

[Noob]

Wall Street Demands Derivatives Deregulation In Government Shutdown Bill

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/12/...tivist%20Post)

[Noob]

GOP Spending Bill Gives Nearly $1 Billion To Aid Border Migrants

The GOP’s draft 2015 “omnibus” spending bill reportedly includes $948 million to help poor and unskilled Central American migrants establish themselves in the United States, but includes no effective restrictions on President Barack Obama’s plan to provide work permits and tax payments to millions of resident illegal immigrants.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/09/go...rder-migrants/

[Suzanimal]

Hey, whats everybody complaining about? "We" won!

Yay! For the party of fiscal responsibility.

[Lucille]

Is Pelosi still in charge?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-To-Floor-Vote

If lawmakers in the House vote this week on a “CR-omnibus” spending package, House Speaker John Boehner will be doing exactly what he accused former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of doing on a similar bill in 2009: Ramming it down Americans’ and lawmakers’ throats without anyone having time to read the bill.

On Feb. 18, 2009, as Pelosi and her top lieutenant Steny Hoyer planned to introduce a half-trillion-dollar omnibus sometime a week or so later then voting on it quickly, Boehner issued a statement calling on Pelosi and Hoyer to post the bill online for more than a full week so Americans and lawmakers could read it.

“If Democratic leaders plan to schedule a vote on the half-trillion dollar omnibus spending bill next week, they should post the legislation online immediately so the American people have adequate time to read the measure and understand what is in it,” Boehner said in the 2009 statement which is coincidentally still available on his website. “My colleagues in the Republican leadership and I made this request two weeks ago, and to date, our request has gone unanswered. Time is running short, and American taxpayers deserve to know how their hard-earned tax dollars will be used under this legislation.”

It’s worth noting that the push by Boehner to have Pelosi post omnibus spending bills online more than a week before votes would be even more transparent than the so-called 3-day rule, where GOP leaders promise they will post bills online for at least part of three different calendar days before scheduling votes on them. Boehner has broken the three day rule promise before, and he’s stretched the limits of it quite a bit—where sometimes leadership will introduce legislation at 11 p.m. and count that as a full day.

The 2009 press release notes that Boehner had even actually sent a letter to Pelosi on Feb. 5--weeks before the vote--asking that Americans have several weeks to read the bill before they vote on it.

It’s also worth pointing out that Pelosi’s and Hoyer’s 2009 omnibus was worth half a trillion dollars. Boehner’s forthcoming omnibus—which he still hasn’t posted online, and only a few of the negotiators know what’s in it—will be worth more than a full $1 trillion. And Boehner will be expecting lawmakers to vote on the bigger omnibus bill while having less information about what’s in it and less time to read it than he pushed for from Pelosi in 2009.

“The fact that the Democratic Majority is planning to bring this massive spending bill to the House floor just days after Congress approved the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ spending plan is added proof that ‘borrow and spend’ has become Washington’s go-to strategy for funding more programs and projects that taxpayers do not need and cannot afford,” Boehner said when Pelosi did what he’s now considering back in February 2009.

“Will the omnibus spending bill be loaded with pork-barrel earmarks?” Boehner questioned of Pelosi’s omnibus back then:

Will it contain harmful language aimed at stopping environmentally-safe energy exploration far off our shores? Will it include other controversial policy changes akin to the ‘stimulus’ bill’s provisions to undermine welfare reform and allow government bureaucrats to ration out health care for families and seniors? These are important questions that must be answered – and will be answered, if Democratic leaders give the American people ample time to review the legislation by placing it online immediately.

[Lucille]

http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/09/go...to-budget-dead

Plans to quickly approve a $1.1 trillion spending package to keep most of the federal government open through the end of the fiscal year fell apart late Monday, increasing the chance lawmakers will miss a Thursday deadline.

That spending package is also called the CROmnibus, since it's part continuing resolution (CR) and part omnibus spending bills; the bill has to be ready two days ahead of a vote. The CR part, which would not change funding levels, is aimed at President Obama's immigration executive order. The GOP-controlled House (and come January, Senate too) doesn't want to fund the president's "amnesty" plan for some illegal immigrants. The rest of the CROmnibus, though, would actually increase spending above the sequester caps that were passed oh-so-many-years ago. That part of increased spending is something the newly elected Republican majority can get behind:

The legislation would provide full funding for 11 of the 12 appropriations bills Congress is supposed to pass each year, but it would extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over immigration enforcement, only through early next year. The shorter deadline for DHS would allow Republicans to craft a legislative response to Obama’s immigration orders next year instead of now.

Over at Roll Call, it appears that this sort of last-minute legislating has confused even top men. There have been something like 90 add-ons in the mad rush to start spending more money than we have. [...]

Both sides are terrified of a government shutdown, even for a coffee break. Because god knows all the horrors that visited the country like a plague the last time anything remotely close to that happened, right? So they will do short-term CRs for a few days at a time until they can figure out what petty differences are separating them.

That's too bad. If the new GOP majority was actually interested in cutting spending—Republicans always seem to be, right up to the moment they take office and realize they are now in charge of the cash register—they'd push for a CR through the end of this fiscal year and get a jump on a budget that actually reduces spending year over year in a smart way and start selling that plan to the American people. Who say they are ready and waiting for just such a budget.

[Occam's Banana]

Hey, whats everybody complaining about? "We" won!

[Lucille]

Everything's OK now! The bifactional ruling party "compromised" by wasting a little bit more of our money. I hope nobody was too worried about a potential shutdown!

Lawmakers strike deal on $1T funding bill to avoid shutdown
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/22...g-bill-reached

The $1.013 trillion bill abides by the caps set by last December’s budget deal, which relieved sequestration for fiscal years 2014 and 2015. Emergency funding brings the bill’s total to under $1.1 trillion.

It includes $64 billion in overseas contingency operations (OCO) funding for the Pentagon, including $5 billion to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and $5.4 billion to combat the Ebola epidemic.

The White House had requested $5.6 billion for anti-ISIS operations and $6.2 billion to fight Ebola.

Congressional leaders have also proposed adding a provision that would increase the amount a person can contribute to a national political party from $32,400 to $324,000. The proposed amendment would also allow a person to give $648,000 in a two-year cycle and a couple could give double that amount in the same period.

The bill doesn’t specifically include new funding to provide law enforcement agencies with body cameras, which Obama had asked Congress to provide in the wake of the decision not to indict the police officer involved in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson.

The spending package, however, does provide funding for other related community policing programs.

Obama had requested an additional $263 million for body cameras and training for law enforcement agencies.

The bill also provides $948 million for the unaccompanied children program, $80 million more than in fiscal 2014. The program allows the Department of Health and Human Services to provide health and education services to unaccompanied minors who enter the United States from Central America—a flow that had surged earlier this year.

The leaders of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Reps. John Kline (R-Minn.) and George Miller (D-Calif.), have proposed an amendment for pension reform that will likely be wrapped into the package. They propose to permit trustees of underfunded plans to adjust benefits, saving troubled plans without a federal bailout.

The legislation also includes $73 million to bolster a national database designed to block gun sales to the mentally ill and other prohibited buyers – a $14.5 million increase over fiscal 2014 levels.

A one-year extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act is attached to the bill, which bans state and local government from imposing taxes on Internet sales and services.

Republicans attached a number of controversial riders, including one that overturns the legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington, D.C., a law passed overwhelmingly by D.C. voters just last month.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday criticized the pot language and other GOP riders considered for the bill, but indicated that they would not cost the bill his support.

The package includes a separate rider that would bar the Justice Department from disrupting state-enacted medical marijuana programs.

The funding bill would force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw a rule that outlined numerous exemptions to the Clean Water Act for farmers. Republicans and agricultural groups complained that it appeared to outlaw scores of other common practices that were previously allowed. The GOP also attached a rider that would restrict the listing of the sage grouse as an endangered species because Republicans argue that would prevent oil-drilling projects.

Taking aim at school nutrition standards championed by first lady Michelle Obama, the spending package includes a provision that provides flexibility to schools to implement some of the standards and to ease some of the new sodium guidelines.

A number of other contentious riders didn’t make the cut, such as restrictions on President Obama’s proposed regulations to reduce power plants’ carbon emissions.

In a statement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) didn’t immediately back the bill, but left the door open to eventually supporting it.

“Until we review the final language, we cannot make a determination about whether House Democrats can support this legislation, but I am hopeful,” she said.

Although the White House, like congressional Democrats, is waiting until it can conduct a full review of the legislative language before officially signaling its view on the funding bill, there are a number of provisions that appeal to to the administration.

The funding bill does not limit implementation of ObamaCare, and retains existing authorities of the Department of Health and Human Services. And the package includes one of the White House’s top budgetary priorities: funding for both the international and domestic response to Ebola.

The White House also appears happy with appropriators’ funding decisions for the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations budget.

The “cromnibus” does not include funding for high-speed rail, for the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” education program and for the International Monetary Fund, among other things.

No new funding for ObamaCare is included. The bill includes the Hyde Amendment, which bans all federal funding for abortions.

The bill cuts $345.6 million from the Internal Revenue Service’s budget and $60 million from the EPA.

Wow. The Republicrats must be pretty scared of Americans waking up and throwing them all out, increasing allowed political contributions ten-fold! I mean wow. What third party candidate can compete with that kind of money?

By Cromnibus! The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Massive New $1.1 Trillion Spending Bill
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/10/by...bad-and-the-ug

[Suzanimal]