#government funding
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The Affordable Connectivity Programs funding is expected to end early this next year. For those who don't know it gives a lot of people free or reduced Internet services.
I receive a 30 dollar credit each month off of my bill, and even then my bill is still $50/month. This is really going to hit hard, especially for people who currently receive free WiFi through the program. It's important people have Internet access in their homes, and it's something a lot of people cannot afford to lose right now. While yes public WiFi is an option not everyone has the ability to get themselves around to places that offer it.
Spectrum has a link where you can send an email asking to extend the program here
You can also contact your state representative too. You can use this link to look up who your representative is.
This program saved me during the pandemic when I lost my job, and even if it loses funding I will be fine for now, but that is not the case for everyone, especially with the rising cost of bills and internet access in general.
#affordable connectivity program#ACP#wifi#government funding#i recieved this email earlier today and idk how many ppl know abt the program but its rlly important#government programs#government
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Tim Campbell
* * * *
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
February 29, 2024
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
MAR 1, 2024
Today’s story is that in the negotiations to fund the government and pass the national supplemental security bill, MAGA Republicans appear to be losing ground. Biden appears to be trying to weaken them further by making it clear it is Republicans, not Democrats, who are preventing new, strict border security legislation.
The first of two continuing resolutions to fund the government for fiscal year 2024 will expire tomorrow. Fiscal year 2024 began on October 1, 2023, and Congress agreed to a topline budget, but it has been unable to fund the necessary appropriations because MAGA Republicans have insisted on having their extreme demands met in those measures. In this struggle, former president Trump has urged his loyalists not to give way, telling them in September 2023: “UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN!”
But a poll from last September showed that 75% of Americans oppose using brinksmanship over a government shutdown to bargain for partisan gain.
After kicking the can down the road by passing three previous continuing resolutions, House Republicans a week ago expected a shutdown. But today they backed off. The House passed a short-term continuing resolution that pushes back the dates on which the two continuing resolutions expire, from March 1 and March 8 to March 8 and March 22. The vote was 320 to 99 in the House, with 113 Republicans joining 207 Democrats to pass the measure. Ninety-seven Republicans opposed the bill, as did two Democrats who were protesting the lack of aid to Ukraine.
Tonight, the Senate approved the continuing resolution by a vote of 77 to 13. President Joe Biden is expected to sign it tomorrow. “What we have done today has overcome the opposition of the MAGA hard right and gives us a formula for completing the appropriations process in a way that does not shut the government down and capitulate to extremists,” Senate majority leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) said.
Trump opposes helping Ukraine in its fight to resist Russia’s invasion, and under his orders, MAGA Republicans have also stalled the national security supplemental bill, which contains Ukrainian aid, as well as aid to Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and humanitarian aid to Gaza. The measure passed the Senate on February 13 by a strong bipartisan vote of 70 to 29, and is expected to pass the House if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) takes it up, but so far, he has refused.
Today, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) told reporters that “several” House Republicans are willing to sign a discharge petition to force Speaker Johnson to bring a national security supplemental measure to the floor for a vote. A simple majority can force a vote on a bill through a discharge petition, but such a measure is rare because it undermines the House speaker. With Johnson refusing to take up the Senate measure, Fitzpatrick and his colleague Representative Jared Golden (D-ME) have prepared their own pared-down aid measure. Fitzpatrick told CNN’s Jake Tapper Tuesday that “[w]e are trying to add an additional pressure point on something that has to happen.”
Speakers from the parliaments of 23 nations wrote to Johnson yesterday and urged him to take up the Senate measure, saying that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has “challenged the entire democratic world, jeopardizing the security in the whole European and Euro-Atlantic area,” and that “the world is rapidly moving towards the destruction of the sustainable world order.”
On Tuesday, Johnson met with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate majority leader Schumer, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to discuss the importance of funding the government and passing the national security supplemental bill. There, he was the odd man out as the other five pressed upon him how crucial funding for Ukraine is for U.S. national security.
Yesterday, Johnson told Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity that the leaders told him he was “on an island by myself, and it was me versus everyone else in the room.” He went on: “What the liberal media doesn’t understand, Sean, is that if you’re here in Washington and you’re described as a leader that’s on an island by themselves, it probably means you’re standing with the American people.”
But an AP-NORC poll released today shows that it is not Johnson but the others at that meeting who are standing with the American people: 74% of Americans, including 62% of Republicans, support U.S. aid to Ukraine’s military.
The struggle between Biden and Trump for control over U.S. politics played out starkly today as both were in Texas to talk about immigration. Both say the influx of migrants at the southern border of the United States needs to be better managed. But Trump blames Biden for what he compares to a war in which an “invasion” of criminal “fighting-age men” are pouring over the border. (NBC News noted that “there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States” and that, in fact, their review of crime data ”shows overall crime levels dropping in those cities that have received the most migrants.”)
Trump promises he would solve immigration issues instantly with executive orders, although his orders during his term faced legal challenges.
In contrast to Trump’s promise to dictate a solution, Biden emphasized that the government should work for the people. In Texas, he noted that the federal government has rushed emergency personnel and funds to the state to combat the deadly wildfires there that have burned more than a million acres, and he urged Congress to pass a law to address border issues, as he has asked it to since he took office.
Such a measure is popular, and earlier this month, Trump undermined a bill that was tilted so far to the right that it drew the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, and the U.S. Border Patrol union. Senators from both parties had spent four months hammering the bill out at the insistence of House Republicans, who then killed it when Trump, apparently hoping to keep the issue open for his campaign, told them to.
Today, Biden urged Congress to pass the $20.2 billion bipartisan border bill that would, he said, give border patrol officers the resources they need: 1,500 more border agents, 100 cutting-edge machines to detect and stop illegal fentanyl, 100 additional immigration judges to deal with the backlog of cases, 4,300 more asylum officers, more immigrant visas, and emergency authority for the president to shut the border when it becomes overwhelmed.
Biden spoke directly to Trump: “Instead of playing politics with the issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I'll join you, in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together…. Instead of playing politics with the issue, why don't we just get together and get it done. Let’s remember who the heck we work for. We work for the American people, not the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. We work for the American people.”
Trump may not share that perspective. Last night, Maggie Haberman and Andrew Higgins of the New York Times reported that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has undermined democracy in Hungary, will visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago next week as Trump scrambles to find the more than half a billion dollars he needs to pay the fines and penalties courts have ordered. “We cannot interfere in other countries’ elections,” Orbán said last week, “but we would very much like to see President Donald Trump return to the White House.”
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
#GOPutin#political cartoons#Tim Campbell#Letters From An American#Heather Cox Richardson#American Foreign Policy#war in Ukraine#Russia#dictators#Orban#government funding#feckless Speaker of the House#National Security
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Ain't it kinda fucked up that we have nursing homes for the elderly when their family can't take care of them anymore, but only if they have the money to afford it. Do you know how many old homeless people I've seen in my day who could really use a place like that to get off the streets and get some much needed help. These places should be free.
#government funding#imagine if you didnt have to use your entire lifes savings to put your family members into a Good home thatd care for them#instead of leaving them to the streets because well you just dont have that kind of money#shelters can only do so much#homelessness#if the government simply funded them like they do schools and libraries it would take so much stress off so many shoulders#but that would be too kind wouldnt it
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Democrats held firm for us in all the negotiations last summer. The deluge of calls reminding them why they need to protect them worked.
However, it might be a good idea to contact your senators just in case.
If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options:
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/
To get your Critters' numbers to call direct: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
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IRS pleas for more funding from Congress — made over the years by one leader after another — finally paid off this summer when Democrats tucked an $80 billion boost for the agency into their flagship climate and health care law.
Fortified with a new funding stream, the IRS is making plans to clear a massive backlog of unprocessed tax returns, upgrade technology that is decades out of date and, yes, hire more auditors.
But, as GOP candidates across the country are making clear, the battle over IRS funding has only just begun. They are making attacks on a larger IRS a central part of their midterm election pitch to voters, warning that the Democratic legislation will bankroll an army of auditors that will harass middle-class taxpayers rather than help them.
“If you pass it, they will come — after you,” says an ad running in an Iowa House race that spoofs a scene in the “Field of Dreams” movie. Instead of baseball players emerging from a field of corn, it’s black-suited IRS agents.
The GOP’s warnings are generally alarmist and misleading. The agency is not hiring an army of 87,000 “new agents” to target low- and middle-class Americans. Many hires will be used to replace some 50,000 IRS employee retirements in coming years. Others will become customer service representatives answering taxpayer phone calls.
Some of the IRS hires will be added to the ranks of sophisticated auditing teams that spend thousands of hours poring over complicated returns, but the Biden administration has also made clear that small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in their chances of being audited.
“The purpose of the funding is to modernize a severely underfunded agency to provide the American people with the customer service they deserve,” said Natasha Sarin, Treasury’s Counselor for Tax Policy and Implementation.
But campaign politics has a way of becoming policy. With GOP ads against the IRS blanketing campaign airwaves, funding for the agency appears far from safe and could come under threat as soon as the next Congress is sworn in.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the speaker-in-waiting, has promised that if Republicans take the majority, passage of a bill to repeal the new IRS funding will be their first legislative act.
While such a bill stands little chance of becoming law — President Joe Biden will retain veto power even if the GOP wins control of Congress — Republicans are unlikely to abandon the issue. Their greatest leverage over IRS funding will come when Congress takes up must-pass spending bills to finance government agencies or to avoid a government default on its debt.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist and president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank, doubts that lawmakers will go so far as to force a government shutdown in a demand for less IRS funding.
“If it was important enough to shut the government over it, the government would be shut,” Holtz-Eakin said. He noted that lawmakers passed a short-term measure last month to finance the government into December and largely skipped the IRS fight.
Still, some proponents of the additional IRS funding are concerned by the Democratic response to the GOP ads, or to be more precise, the lack thereof. Instead, Democratic groups and candidates are largely focusing their campaign ads on non-economic issues such as abortion rights.
“There’s crickets, is exactly the word, a crickets response from Democrats on this issue,” said Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, a liberal-leaning advocacy group.
“This is a story about messaging,” Clemente said. “... Candidates need to be talking about it. They need to be running ads on it. They need to be telling people how they’re going to benefit, not just personally benefit by an improved IRS, but how rich and corporate tax cheats are going to have to pay the taxes that they owe.”
The IRS is still working on the details about how it would spend the extra $80 billion, but it has emphasized that resources would be directed at improving customer service and scrutiny at the high end of the income scale.
Among other things, the IRS says its new funding will be devoted to remedying longstanding customer service issues — like answering the phone. The problem is so pervasive that a bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote to the IRS last November to complain about phone calls being answered only 9% of the time during the 2021 filing season.
The IRS will also be tasked with coming up with how to move forward with an expanded free-file system for taxpayers.
Nina Olson, a former head of the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate, said if funds are cut, taxpayers who have been hoping for better customer service will be most negatively impacted.
“If you don’t want the IRS to handle 85% of incoming calls, then cut the funding — if you want the IRS to continue to have technology that comes from the 1960s, by all means, cut its funding,” Olson said.
Democrats provided the funding boost to the IRS to help pay for other health and climate priorities, such as helping millions pay their health insurance premiums over the next three years and capping insulin costs at no more than $35 a month for Medicare beneficiaries.
Of the additional $80 billion in IRS funding, the legislation allocated $46 billion for enforcing tax laws. The remainder goes to other activities such as services for taxpayers, operations support and updating business systems.
Additional funding for the agency has been politically controversial since 2013, when the IRS under the Obama administration was found to have used inappropriate criteria to review tea party groups and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status.
In the ensuing years, the IRS was mostly on the losing end of congressional funding fights, even as a subsequent 2017 report found that both conservative and liberal groups were chosen for scrutiny.
In April, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig told members of the Senate Finance Committee the agency’s budget has decreased by more than 15% over the past decade when accounting for inflation and that the number of full-time employees at 79,000 in the last fiscal year was close to 1974 levels.
Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said if Republicans are successful in cutting funding for the IRS, “it will seriously damage a fundamental function of the government,” she said “which is really troubling.”
“The reality is that government, through the IRS, plays a critically important role in the lives of Americans every day,” she said. “Pretending that role doesn’t exist to score political points is destructive.”
#us politics#news#biden administration#2022 midterms#2022 elections#2022#gop#Republicans#conservatives#IRS#internal revenue service#taxes#funding#government funding#Charles Rettig#customer service#ap news#associated press
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It is hard to think of a pathology in American urban life, from crime to poverty to fatherlessness, that is not blamed on “underfunded schools.” Progressives conjure up images of a run-down schoolhouse with moldy walls, tattered decades-old textbooks, and musty blackboards to explain away the decades of academic underperformance and high drop-out, truancy, and delinquency rates in inner-city schools.
A new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, highlighted in a recent column by the Institute’s policy and editorial associate, casts serious doubt on the proposition that most poor children in America attend “underfunded schools.” In fact, in many states, the opposite is true.
The report’s author, Adam Tyner, found that “students from poor families generally attend better-funded schools than students from wealthier families.” He found that all but three states now use a progressive school-funding scheme, meaning they compensate for disparities in local tax revenue with state and federal dollars to ensure more-equal funding of students across school districts.
It wasn’t always that way. Many schools in the early 20th century were racially segregated, and conditions across those schools were manifestly unequal. Even after the Court overturned school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, inequalities persisted for decades. Since states often financed their schools with local tax revenue, the mass urban exodus in response to crime, rioting, and disorder cratered those cities’ tax bases and plagued school districts well into the 1980s and ’90s, leaving them understaffed and underfunded.
Today, however, policy changes and legal action have not only corrected but reversed these disparities in most states. At least twenty-seven state supreme courts have overturned school-financing systems for being insufficiently egalitarian, prompting states to implement progressive funding schemes to correct for local revenue disparities. The gap between per pupil funding in wealthier and poorer school districts closed nationally in 2005.
States typically now spend more on poor students than on wealthier ones. The most comprehensive national study of states’ school funding found that states on average spend $529 more per student per year in school districts with poorer populations than in those with wealthier populations. Many states now have funds set aside to subsidize the educations of poor students, such as Tennessee, which last year passed a student-based education-financing bill giving each child a base dollar amount to spend on his education, regardless of his socioeconomic status, and gives “disadvantaged” students an additional stipend beyond the base allowance.
While schools districts within states now largely receive equal or near-equal funding regardless of the districts’ tax revenue, states’ preference for poorer students is actually stronger when you look at student-level, rather than district-level, data. In addition to state and federal aid to poor students, boards of education typically allocate more of their district’s resources to schools serving poorer children than to those serving comparatively wealthier ones.
Because complaints about “underfunded schools” no longer have a factual basis, Tyner notes that “equity-minded school-finance reformers now advocate for ’adequacy’ funding,” that is, spending more on poor children’s educations than on rich children’s. Maybe you agree with that approach, and given the other obstacles poor children have to overcome, I certainly could see an argument for it. But it is debatable whether, or to what extent, increasing school budgets will improve students’ academic performance at all.
Studies on the question are gate-kept by education professionals who, in addition to not being very impressive—one Rutgers education professor’s study concluded that “sufficient financial resources are a necessary underlying condition for providing quality education,” which just begs the question—have a vested interest in preserving the status quo. Some localities, where that gatekeeping isn’t so strong, have found that the relationship between a school’s per pupil expenditure and student performance is either weak or nonexistent. Chicago school districts, for example, spend more than $17,000 per student per year—the figure jumps to almost $30,000 when you include all sources of funding—and only 20 percent of the districts’ students can read at grade level. Other research indicates that money can improve students’ outcomes, but it depends how the money is allocated—spending more on things like teachers’ pensions or on superfluous tools such as “SmartBoards” is unlikely to move the needle.
It is harder, no doubt, for a child in an inner-city school to get an adequate education than it is for a similarly endowed student in a suburban school. But it is harder for those students for reasons that have little to do with the funding and much more to do with the school environment itself and disorder in the community at large. Urban schools have significantly higher suspension rates than do suburban and rural school districts, and it’s not because the (largely black) staffs of these schools are racist. It is almost impossible to learn in an environment where your peers are constantly acting out. No amount of funding, or electronic devices in the classroom, will change that.
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Now begins the summer of our discontempt
#Congress#U.S. Congress#appropriations bills#spending bills#federal spending#FY2024#U.S. government#government funding#12 weeks left#Government Shutdown?
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what I wish I knew about university : ONE
having completed the foundation year of my degree (and going onto my first year) I am now able to look back on the numerous minor inconveniences (although they didn't feel minor at the time ) and see how I could have avoided them. My aim with this is to help university students feel less alone if they were to encounter similar problems and to help people see that, more often than not, those inconveniences aren't as devastating as they feel in the moment
1) if you miss the deadline for applying for student finance its not the end of the world
Over the summer most of my time was spent visiting a member of my family who was in "end-of-life care" which ultimately led to a family bereavement. I was my family's main source of consolation as I was able to detach myself from the individual (it sounds bad I know but I wasn't exactly treated well by him) so applying for funding was not at the top of my list of priority's as I was more focused on ensuring that my family would be ok. in addition to this I had other extracurricular activities that required my attention, and presence. With all of this going on I just forgot about it
My initial feeling was panic. I had put so much effort in the previous weeks to join accommodation and class group chats and talk to people who would be in my flat and class and, when I realised id missed the deadline, I thought that I had wasted my time as I thought that I wouldn't be able to move into accommodation or start class. Luckily enough, that doesn't seem to be the case. After looking online I've found out that I could still apply for funding (although this is at the beginning of august I can't say for certain if you'll still be able to if you do it after August) but there would just be a small gap between starting university and getting the first payment
if you find yourself in a similar situation to this, my advice is to get in touch with the finance and accommodation team and explain what has happened. at the university I go to there is a student support fund that can help students whilst they are waiting for there first payment
#studyblr#uk universities#student financial aid#government funding#university#student life#studying#zoology#conservationists#learn from my mistakes#bank#savings#financial#deadlines#uk studyblr#uni accommodation#city life#city living#uni advice#uni adventures#university life
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#debt ceiling#government funding#republicans#government shutdown#climate change#social security#medicare
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AN OPEN LETTER to THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Co-sponsor H.R. 732, the Save Medicare Act.
802 so far! Help us get to 1,000 signers!
As a constituent, I'm emailing to ask you to co-sponsor H.R. 732, the Save Medicare Act.
Medicare Advantage plans use deceptive marketing to oversell and overcharge for their private health care plans, and then under deliver on care. These private insurers are using government funding to increase their own profits, at the expense of their patients. And they take so much from the Medicare trust fund, that it’s threatening the solvency and future of traditional Medicare.
Congress must act to rein in Medicare Advantage, and should start by giving it a more accurate name. It is not Medicare and should not be advertised as such. The Save Medicare Act would force these plans to stop using “Medicare” in their name and would establish penalties for private insurers who don’t comply. Seniors and people with disabilities deserve to have this level of transparency when choosing their health care.
Please protect traditional Medicare by cosponsoring this bill.
▶ Created on April 4 by Jess Craven · 801 signers in the past 7 days
📱 Text SIGN PWAYKR to 50409
🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409
#AN OPEN LETTER to THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES#Co-sponsor H.R. 732#the Save Medicare Act.#802 so far! Help us get to 1000 signers!#co-sponsor#H.R. 732#Medicare Advantage#deceptive#marketing#oversell#overcharge#private health care plans#under deliver#care#private insurers#government funding#increase#profits#expense#patients#Medicare trust fund#solvency#future#Medicare#Congress#must act#rein in Medicare Advantage#bill#The Save Medicare Act#noncompliance
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Michael De Adder
* * * *
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
February 27, 2024
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
FEB 28, 2024
The House of Representatives will be back in session tomorrow after the February 19 Presidents Day holiday. It is facing a number of crucial issues, but the ongoing problem of the radicalism of the MAGA Republicans has ground—and, apparently, continues to grind—legislation to a halt.
The farm bill, which establishes the main agricultural and food policies of the government—agricultural subsidies and food benefits, among other things—and which needs to be reauthorized every five years, expired in September 2023. While Congress extended the 2018 bill as a stopgap until September 2024, the new bill should be passed.
The farm bill has more breathing room than the appropriations bills to fund the government in fiscal year 2024 (which started on October 1, 2023). Four of the continuing resolutions Congress passed to keep the government running will expire on March 1; the other eight will expire on March 8. Operating on a continuing resolution that maintains 2023 levels of spending means the government cannot shift to the new priorities Congress agreed to in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, along with leaders from the Pentagon and the Senate, warns that the lack of appropriations measures is compromising national defense.
On an even tighter timeline is the national security supplemental bill to aid Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific, and to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza. Ukraine is running out of ammunition, and its war effort is faltering. Every day that passes without the matériel only the U.S. can provide hurts the Ukrainians’ cause.
All of these measures are stalled because extremist MAGA Republicans in the House are insisting their demands be included in them. Negotiators have been trying to hash out the farm bill for months, and today Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said she would rather continue to extend the 2018 law than bow to the House Republicans’ demands for cuts to food assistance programs and funding for climate change.
Appropriations bills are generally passed “clean,” that is, without the inclusion of unrelated controversial elements. But House Republicans are insisting the appropriations bills include their own demands for much deeper cuts than House leadership agreed to, as well as riders about abortion; gun policy; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; LGBTQ+ rights; and so on. Those are nonstarters for Democrats.
As for the national security supplemental measure, lawmakers agree on a bipartisan basis that Ukraine’s successful defense against Russia’s invasion is crucial to U.S. national security. The Senate passed the bill on a strong bipartisan vote of 70 to 29, and if brought to the floor of the House, it would be expected to pass there, too.
But House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to bring it to the floor. When President Joe Biden first asked for the aid in October, Republicans insisted they could not see their way to protecting our national security overseas without addressing it on the southern border. A bipartisan group of senators spent four months hashing out a border provision for the bill—House Republicans declined to participate—only to have House Republicans scuttle the measure when former president Trump told them to. The Senate promptly passed a bill that didn’t have the border component. Rather than take it up, the House recessed.
Today, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with congressional leaders and urged them to pass the appropriations bills and the national security supplemental. But Biden, Harris, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) all agree on the need to pass these measures immediately. The holdout is House speaker Johnson.
After the meeting, Schumer said the meeting on Ukraine was “one of the most intense” scenes he had ever seen in the Oval Office. "We said to the speaker, 'Get it done.' I told him this is one of the moments—I said I've been around here a long time. It's maybe four or five times that history is looking over your shoulder, and if you don't do the right thing, whatever the immediate politics are, you will regret it. I told him two years from now and every year after that, because really, it's in his hands."
For his part, Johnson said that “the House is actively pursuing and investigating all the various options” on the supplemental bill, “but again, the first priority of the country is our border and making sure it’s secure.”
Johnson appears to be working for Trump, who is strongly opposed to aid for Ukraine and likely intends to use immigration as a campaign issue.
But Trump is a poor choice to give control over United States security. Yesterday, Special Counsel Jack Smith responded to Trump’s motion to dismiss the charges against him associated with his stealing and hiding classified documents on the grounds that he was being treated differently than President Biden, who had also had classified documents in his possession but was not criminally charged.
Smith noted that while there have been many government officials who have accidentally or willfully kept classified documents, and even some who briefly resisted attempts to recover them, Trump’s behavior was unique. “He intentionally took possession of a vast trove of some of the nation’s most sensitive documents…and stored them in unsecured locations at his heavily trafficked social club.” Then, when the government tried to recover the documents, Trump “delayed, obfuscated, and dissembled,” finally handing over only “a fraction” of those in his possession. No one, Smith wrote, “has engaged in a remotely similar suite of willful and deceitful criminal conduct and not been prosecuted.”
Perhaps to distract from Smith’s filing, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability chair James Comer (R-KY) and House Committee on the Judiciary chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) today subpoenaed information from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of documents. Hur’s report exonerated the president and showed such contrast between Trump's behavior and Biden's full cooperation with officials that Smith used material from it in his filing.
Comer and Jordan are likely also eager to find new material against Biden after the man who provided the key evidence in their impeachment attempt turned out to be working with Russian intelligence agents and was recently indicted for lying and creating a false record.
Since this year is a leap year, Congress has three days to pass the first four of the appropriations measures or to find another workaround before March 1, when parts of the government shut down. As Schumer said, those measures, along with the national security supplemental bill, are now in Speaker Johnson’s hands.
—
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
#Michael deAdder#political cartoons#KKK#Letters From An American#Heather Cox Richardson#obstructionist congress#do nothing congress#Putin wing of the GOP#war in Ukraine#government funding
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House conservative demands stall efforts to avert shutdown | The Hill
#the hill#us news#united states news#us news source#united states house of representatives#government shutdown#spending bill#government funding#US Republicans#maga republicans
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Have something you want to tell your Congress Critters? If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options:
Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/
To get your Critters' numbers to call direct: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
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Sen. Rick Scott is urging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans to respect the incoming House GOP majority and block a yearlong budget deal.
Scott, a Florida Republican who challenged McConnell for Senate GOP leader last month, told Fox News Digital that it would be improper to ignore the objections of House Republicans and help Democrats pass a budget deal that funds the government until next October.
"I think we should support the Republicans in the House, they have a majority," said Scott. "They've asked for the opportunity to lead on this next Congress, and we should support a [short-term] budget bill that gives them that opportunity."
Earlier this week, House and Senate appropriators reached a nearly $1.7 trillion budget deal to fund the government until the end of September 2023. It is slated to include more than $858 billion for defense spending, while appropriating $787 billion for domestic spending and additional aid for Ukraine.
Lawmakers are likely to approve the budget deal next week, but they will need to first pass a one-week government funding bill before Friday to avert a shutdown.
The final budget will require at least 10 GOP supporters to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold within the evenly split Senate. Given that reality, House Republicans say McConnell should only approve a short-term government funding bill that runs until mid-January.
The timeline would give Republicans more leverage in budget negotiations since the party is set to control the House of Representatives.
McConnell has not ruled out passing a short-term funding bill, saying that yearlong budget would require Democrats to abandon partisan poison pills.
"If a truly bipartisan full-year bill without poison pills is ready for final Senate passage by late next week, I’ll support it for our Armed Forces," McConnell said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Otherwise, we’ll be passing a short-term continuing resolution into the new year."
"A month ago, the American people voted for a new direction in Washington," said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the GOP's choice for Speaker next Congress. Yet "we've got two members leading appropriations in the Senate who will no longer be here [come January] or be able to be held accountable to their constituents."
McCarthy has said that a GOP-controlled House would force President Joe Biden and the Democrat-run Senate to offer bigger concessions on spending and White House policy in exchange for a budget.
Not everyone believes that will be the case, however. House Republicans will only hold a narrow majority next Congress with hard-line conservatives eager to shut down the government over policy differences and impeach Biden appointees.
"We've been here before during the Tea Party era," said a Senate Republican aide. "The House will grumble about being left out, but they haven't proven themselves as capable of governing either."
McConnell has argued that with Democrats in control of Congress and the White House, Republicans are limited in what they could do.
"We’re on defense," said McConnell. "We’re dealing with the cards that we were dealt."
McConnell also said that despite not being in the majority, Republicans were able to exert influence over the budget. Democrats initially wanted to boost domestic spending over defense but were forced to back down due to GOP opposition.
"Given the fact Democrats have the Presidency, the House and the Senate, to meet our defense number and to not pay any bonus to the Democrats on the domestic side … is far and away the best we could do given the fact that we don’t control the floor or the government," said McConnell.
Scott said that allowing a GOP House to exert its leverage next Congress is more optimal.
"They have a majority," said Scott. "I support their efforts to lead on this next Congress."
Allies of McCarthy say that even if every single House Republican could not be counted on to back a budget deal next year, the new majority would still have significant power.
"Biden would be forced to accept a budget deal that is less favorable simply because McCarthy could refuse to bring anything else to the floor," a House GOP aide told Fox News Digital.
"Even if 5 to 10 wayward Republicans did not fall in line, enough House Democrats would back the deal and avert a government shutdown if Biden was forced to accept it. This is negotiating 101."
#us politics#news#fox news digital#fox news#gop#conservatives#Republicans#Sen. Rick Scott#sen. mitch mcconnell#2022#senate budget plan#government shutdown#government funding bill#government funding#rep. kevin mccarthy#us house of representatives#us senate#biden administration#defense spending#impeachment hearings#republican hypocrisy
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New Searchable 'Federal Program Inventory' Offers Information On Grants, Loans and Direct Payments
The inventory has in recent years accounted for over $3 trillion in federal spending, according to OMB, so the database includes “a high proportion of federal programs.”
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The White House is out with a new memo attacking House Republicans over fentanyl policy: “House Republicans have a stark choice to make: will they honor their word, meet their responsibility to avoid a shutdown, and act on life and death priorities like fighting the fentanyl crisis?” - Political Wire, link from Politico
#White House#biden administration#Fy2024#government funding#continuing resolution#stopgap#fetanyl#Government Shutdown?
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