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Congress has virtually accomplished step one within the arduous job assigned to them within the debt ceiling deal President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck final month. As a reward, they’re taking off now till mid-July, as a result of who doesn’t take almost three weeks to have a good time Independence Day? They’ll want that point to get themselves mentally ready, as a result of the half they simply did was the simple bit. What’s forward goes to be actually messy.
This previous week, the Senate Appropriations Committee established the funding ranges for the entire federal authorities departments for subsequent fiscal 12 months, which begins Oct. 1. To be exact, the Democrats on the committee set these numbers. Whereas Chairman Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, and rating member Sen. Susan Collins, Maine, labored collectively and mentioned good issues about one another, Republicans on the committee unanimously voted towards it.
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The committee strictly adhered to the current debt ceiling settlement: whole funding at $1.59 trillion, with $886.3 billion going towards protection and $703.7 billion for home packages. “The challenges we face beneath the boundaries imposed by the debt ceiling deal don’t get any simpler and so they don’t get any higher if we begin going backwards, or if we abandon our return to common order, or we write unserious payments,” Murray mentioned, pointedly warning Republicans towards breaking the deal, which after all they’re attempting to do.
“Because of the inadequacy of funding for Homeland Safety and the necessity for added protection funding, sadly, I can not assist the … allocations,” Collins mentioned, talking for the Republicans.
That’s simply the Senate facet. Then there’s the issue youngster Home, the place a tiny majority representing one-half (the Home) of one-third (the Congress) of the federal government can shut down the entire shebang with a tantrum. And that’s precisely the place we may be headed as Home Republicans are already reneging on the deal and transferring home spending payments which can be effectively beneath the settlement, due to the Freedom Caucus and McCarthy’s weak spot in giving in to them. That’s establishing not only a Home-Senate battle, however a Home GOP versus Senate GOP struggle, particularly for added, emergency funding to assist Ukraine struggle off the Russian invasion. McCarthy’s dominated that out, selecting a struggle with Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell.
Past slashing packages willy-nilly, Home Republicans are additionally including a bunch of tradition conflict poison drugs into their appropriations payments, preventing what they insist is “wokeness” within the authorities. Like . . . preserving the utmost quantity of nicotine in cigarettes? Sure, that may be a factor they’re attempting to do. Nothing like lung most cancers to struggle the woke.
That’s not all although. Home Republicans are preventing one another over spending. The Freedom Caucus doesn’t belief McCarthy and management to chop as deeply as they need and are threatening to close the federal government right down to spite their very own colleagues. That features Florida Man Matt Gaetz who has as a mission utterly defunding the Veterans Administration.
We’re going to want quantity jerseys to type out the battle to return: Home vs. Senate; Home GOP vs. Senate GOP; Home GOP vs. Home GOP. Backside line, it might take a miracle to get out of this mess with out a authorities shutdown. Simply in time for the 2024 election marketing campaign to kick into gear.
Becoming a member of us on “The Downballot” this week is North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel, the primary member of Congress to seem on the present! Nickel provides us the blow-by-blow of his unlikely victory that noticed him flip an especially aggressive seat from purple to blue final 12 months, together with how he adjusted when a brand new map gave him a really completely different district and why highlighting the extremism of his MAGA-flavored opponent was key to his success. A real election nerd, Nickel tells us which precincts he was monitoring on election evening that permit him know he was going to win—and which fellow Home freshman is the one you wish to rock out with at a live performance.
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