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The $1.3 Trillion Omnibus Spending Bill, Explained
There is a ton in the 2,232 page "omnibus spending bill" and today Smart Dissent will do its best to offer a summary.
On Wednesday night, congressional leaders unveiled the “omni”: a massive 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion spending bill covering everything from defense to border security to opioids. In Congress, a spending bill spanning multiple budget areas is known as an “omnibus.”
On Friday, Trump signed the bill despite claiming he hated it. We will now have a funded government through September 30, 2018.
The whole point of omnibus legislation is that it’s kind of a cobbled-together mishmash of provisions and priorities.....the bill resolves a number of serious disagreements....
What does this bill actually do? Here are some highlights:
- After years of cuts, the bill allocates $11.4 billion to IRS, $196 million more than last year.
- ....provides $1.6 billion in funding for border security. The funding can't be used for "the wall."
- $500 million to fund research on opioid addiction and billions more in other programming and studies....the word "opioid" appears 24 times in the bill.
- $380 million for states to shore up voting systems, including electronic enhancements.
- Medical care for veterans, including Medical and Prosthetic Research, gets a bump under the bill. There is also more money for troops (including a 2.4% pay raise, the largest since 2010).
- NASA was a big winner, getting far more than the agency requested, including for space technology and exploration.
- Many federal science and technology programs received funding raises, including the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
- ....boosted funding by $3 million.... for the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts. Spending for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is retained.
- National Park Service (NPS) gets a boost, including $138 million to address the maintenance backlog.
- The Census Bureau will get another $1.34 billion....
- The Community Development Block Grant program, a flexible federal funding program for cities and local governments, is being nearly doubled from $2.8 billion to $5.2 billion, despite Trump’s prior proposals to eliminate it.
- TIGER, a grant program for transportation projects inaugurated by Obama’s stimulus, is seeing its budget tripled to $1.5 billion.
- For the first time ever, the Congressional Research Service (an indispensable nonpartisan agency producing invaluable reports on a wide variety of procedural and policy topics) will be required to post all of its reports online.
- ....bars employers from taking their workers’ tips, holding back a push by Trump’s Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to allow restaurant owners to confiscate tips if they pay workers minimum wage or above.
Just as important as what's in the bill and is what's NOT in the bill.
- ....there was no movement on DACA in the omnibus.
- The Gateway project.... a tunnel between New Jersey and New York City...
- .... riders to block funding for Planned Parenthood did not make it into the final bill.
- The Johnson Amendment remains untouched, meaning that efforts to dismantle the 1954 tax law which prevented charitable organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates will likely continue in separate legislation.
- Both parties wanted to include provisions to stabilize Obamacare health insurance markets, which fell apart over disagreements about whether funding can go to plans that cover abortions, and over disagreements about whether the stabilization measures would hurt more than they help.
- ....doesn’t defund “sanctuary cities” that attempt to protect unauthorized immigrant residents from federal immigration officials
So what now?
....even if all goes according to plan, expect to have very a similar fight in six months, and then again in a year.
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