Making Sense of "The Bus"
You're being bribed with your own money.
March has not been kind to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Their uber-narrow majority continues to dwindle, with Colorado Republican Ken Buck leaving in a disappointed huff last Friday and the announcement that a “rising star,” US Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), would exit Congress in April, oddly timed so that his seat will remain open - and his constituents unrepresented - until after the November elections. I smell local political considerations at play in both cases. Members diminish themselves by leaving Congress before their two-year commitment ends, short of death, disability, or conviction.
At this rate, Democrats need to do nothing to win control of the US House. They should wait for another quitter or two to leave.
Their majority declines from an already-slim 5-seat margin at the beginning of this Congress to just one seat after April 19th. Special elections are scheduled later this spring and early summer, and a pair of seats, including the one vacated by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), should be restored.
And then, in what looks like a violation of the way they pledged to operate, especially on appropriations bills, the supposedly most conservative GOP House Speaker ever, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), negotiated two “minibus” appropriations bills, the last one totaling over 1,000 pages, and gave his colleagues less than the promised 72-hours to digest legislation funding more than half of the federal government, including the Department of Defense. There was no ability to amend the legislation.
The fiscal year it funds is already more than half over. So much for “regular order.”
It contained so many dubious “earmarks,” or “Congressionally Directed Spending” as it is officially called, that it drew even the ire and the “no” vote of a senior House Republican appropriator - one of its subcommittee chair “cardinals,” US Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL). Most of the egregious earmarks came from US Senators.
The second minibus alone, signed into law this past weekend by President Joe Biden, contained about 1,000 earmarks totaling $1.9 billion. A billion here, a billion there, and soon you’re talking about real money, the late Senate GOP leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL) once opined. He would amend that to read “trillion” if we were still blessed with his presence.
And therein lies the rub. The House has worked very hard, with very difficult and frequently recalcitrant conservatives to meet its obligations to pass all 13 major appropriations bills. A handful of House Republicans don’t fully grasp how to negotiate successfully, nor do they understand incremental progress, both at which the Democrats master. The Senate didn’t pass a single one. Instead, the Senate insisted on lumping the appropriations into two large bills loaded with odiferous earmarks and jamming it down the House’s collective throats with a few crumbs to allow them to crow about a few wins. More about earmarks in a moment.
Nearly all Democrats voted for the bill, while less than half the Republicans did. One of the Republicans’ perpetual showhorses, US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), filed a privileged motion to “vacate the chair” as Members left two for a traditional two-week Easter break.
MTG, as she is called, true to form, immediately fundraised off her stunt.
DEFEND MTG - SIGN A STATEMENT OF SUPPORT
I just filed a Motion to Vacate.
Now I am being attacked from all sides!
I need to know if you still have my back. Let me know I am doing the right thing.
Please sign your “DEFEND MTG” statement of support right away:
No thanks. Hard pass.
With important foreign aid legislation waiting upon their arrival in two weeks, they will first have to deal with MTG’s privileged motion. And if she’s successful - it will only take a couple of Republicans voting with all the Democrats - to bring more drama to the floor as they try to elect another Speaker. This time, having enough moderate Republicans may team with Democrats to pick someone MTG really won’t like. Even fellow showhorse Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who prompted the last drama when he engineered, with a united caucus of Democrats, McCarthy’s departure, has figured that out. Hope springs eternal.
The size of the bill alone—$1.2 trillion, the sum of all federal spending in 1989, and that’s not counting the other minibus—is enough to give one pause. The federal deficit will likely reach $2 trillion this fiscal year, sending our public debt close to $35 trillion. Deficit spending is running about $10 billion per day. This is beyond unsustainable—it’s reckless.
It’s no wonder that conservatives are livid. But frankly, it’s hard to blame Speaker Johnson for this. He held a weak hand, with a disharmonious and practically non-existent GOP “majority” with showhorses like MTG hanging over him with Damocles’ sword. He was negotiating against a profligate Democratic White House and no less profligate bipartisan Senate that easily had a filibuster-proof supermajority to pass anything.
That was backdropped against not just a deadline but a potential government “shutdown” that also never plays well for Republicans, who would again be blamed for the disruptions, such as they are, heading into tourist season - Spring break - when millions of Americans flock to national parks and monuments that assuredly would be closed.
Johnson’s position was untenable, try as he did to claim some policy victories and a smattering of savings. But it will be the stench of these earmarks, among others, that are sure to rankle many, as reported by the conservative outlet, the Washington Stand:
$400,000 requested by Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) for Briarpatch Youth Services in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. The group promises to hide minors’ struggle with gender dysphoria from their parents while indoctrinating teens in extreme gender ideology. Its “Queer 101 Training” promises to teach “an intersectional understanding on queer oppression” and aims “to demonstrate how limiting the ‘male’ and ‘female’ binary is.” The organization offers “individual counseling services” for children “ages 12-17,” in which a “[c]ounselor can work with children on exploring identity, resiliency, and creating a Gender Support Plan for school support and advocacy.” The group’s website says, “Youth do NOT need parent/guardian permission to join Teens Like Us. We understand not all youth are at a point in their lives where they can safely and confidently ‘come out.’” (Emphasis in original.) The group’s “Queer 101 Training” aims “to demonstrate how limiting the ‘male’ and ‘female’ binary is.”
$400,000 requested by Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) for the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia, which carries out transgender hormone shots, clears the way for transgender surgeries, advertises transgender services for minors, and holds drag show fundraisers. Mazzoni carries out cross-sex hormone injections and provides medical letters for transgender surgeries. The center begins targeting teens with its Pediatric & Adolescent Comprehensive Transgender Services (PACTS). Its “Youth Drop In,” which is held each Wednesday night, is aimed at teens “ages 14 to 24” and notes, “Patients under 18 can receive confidential care regarding sexual and mental health without parental permission.” The Mazzoni Center both contributes to and profits from the LGBT movement. Mazzoni invited donors to mingle with “a wide range of acts that include drag queens, drag kings, trans-identifying, burlesque, and burlesque performers” at its December 3 Code Red fundraiser. “In December, fundraising for Mazzoni Center truly was a drag,” the center cracked. “Drag entertainer Cherry Pop and her fabulous friends united for the 10th annual Code Red fundraiser, a drag/variety show,” which it described as a “powerful night” for a “vital cause.”
This is your reminder that Senators Baldwin (D-WI) and Casey (D-PA) are up for reelection this fall and will face Republicans Eric Hovde and Dave McCormick, respectively. Both are also battleground states for the Presidential election.
Especially grating for a few of us was the $200 million earmark by Maryland’s two US Senators to build a new FBI headquarters in their state, just outside Washington’s beltway. There’s actually a cottage industry of lobbyists - many of whom are former staff for House and Senate appropriators - who specialize in earmarks. Jack Abramoff used to be one of them.
Earmarks are a bipartisan problem. They were banned for a while after the GOP took control of Congress in 2011 when the abuse became apparent. They were brought back with a few reforms, including transparency. Since Congress has the constitutional “power of the purse,” there are legitimate reasons for them. Congresspeople supposedly know their constituents and are closer to them than nameless, faceless bureaucrats in a far-away capital city. It also gives congressional leaders and appropriation chairs some chits to distribute - your tax money - to help attract support and pass legislation.
But there’s plenty of downsides, too. Despite Speaker Johnson’s crowing about preserving the pro-life “Hyde Amendment” - named after the late pro-life champion, the late US Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) - that prohibits the use of federal tax dollars to pay for abortions, the same bill provides earmarks to dozens of abortion providers, including this one, again courtesy of the Washington Stand:
$1,808,000 requested by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed (both D-R.I.) for Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, which carries out first- and second-term abortions at its Family Planning Clinic. “If you need to discuss abortion care for pregnancy, please feel free to contact the Family Planning Clinic,” states its website. Its “services” include “[s]urgical abortion under general anesthesia in the operating room for people up to 22 weeks pregnant” and “[m]edication abortion (the ‘abortion pill’) for people up to ten weeks pregnant.” The facility will also implant a potential abortifacient inside women after the abortion, advertising a “[p]ost-abortion IUD or contraceptive implant.”
And no doubt the Department of Defense will continue to subsidize abortion tourism, despite unsuccessful efforts by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) to expose and end the practice. No, eliminating earmarks will not significantly reduce the federal deficit, which Medicare and Social Security primarily drive, with paying net interest on that debt right behind and rising fast, and soon to reach $1 trillion annually. But they symbolize Washington’s smarmy, profligate ways, and the broken nature of the budget and spending process. Coming in an election year makes it look like vote buying, both theirs and yours.
Voters increasingly tire of being bribed with their money.
Want to keep earmarks? I have an idea: all budget and appropriations deadlines must be met before “congressionally directed spending” is authorized. I’m tempted to add a balanced budget requirement. Imagine an approved budget and all appropriations in place before the new fiscal year begins—that has only happened once in my professional life. The Federal Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which outlines our perennially ignored federal budget process, lacks accountability. This is but a small way to begin introducing it, very belatedly.
It would also be helpful if voters held all candidates to the same standard that House Republicans, at least most, are trying to reach - “regular order.” That is, doing the job they were elected to do, including living up to the law on budgeting and spending. That’s easier said than done, but it needs to start somewhere. Admittedly, it’s a little hard to hold Senators accountable when elected for six-year terms, and only one-third of the Senate is up for election every two years.
Hopefully, the winning candidate to assume the Senate GOP leader position next Congress, coupled with a GOP majority, will commit to achieving that. Democrats have proven that they’re not interested.
There is no rational way to understand this mess. It is a product of a messy legislative process led by flawed people and a disparate, divided bunch, especially in the House. The Senate’s role in this mess and broken system deserves more attention than it is getting.
But what gets rewarded gets repeated. The main problem is American voters’ inability to hold our elected officials accountable for this mess. Start by not rewarding bad behavior with your votes and your campaign contributions. Until we fix that, expect more of the same.
Or .... they simply ignore the deadlines like they've ignored all other budget constraints over the last half century.
At first blush, I like your idea of Congress meeting all budget deadlines before considering earmarks. But your article contains the contradiction to that thesis: those earmarks are supposedly necessary tradeoffs to pass any budget! Hence, once they meet those deadlines, there's no motive to haggle over gimmes for particular constituencies.
As for blame, that's a chicken and egg dilemma. Politicians promise goodies, voters love the goodies and so the cycle starts, never to be broken. Our broken political institutions reflect our broken culture; short-sighted politicians our shortsighted voters.
A new constitution would forbid the national government from funding any non-nationwide projects, and would adopt a single rate personal tax, no corporate or business tax (only humans can pay taxes!), with a single high personal deduction. No special breaks, no special toys. Thus no special interests. If a state's citizens want to build something they can raise their own funds for that -- we know the money is there; we keep wasting it on stuff not in our national interests. We do not need Uncle Sam to be a discount candy co-op of which we are all involuntary paying subscribers.