Dec 31, 2022 5 min read

The U.S. government’s fiscal year begins Oct. 1. On that date, Congress is expected to have a new budget for the next fiscal year. They have done so only four times in the last 40 years. That should be the definition of dereliction of duty.

If this happened only occasionally, one might ascribe it to happenstance. When it happens regularly, there is a reason. Why?

In the slimy world of the swamp, leverage is everything. Crisis creates leverage. When there is no budget on Oct. 1, theoretically the government has no authorized money to spend. This can be, and usually is, covered by short-term funding bills until a budget can be put in place. Several of those were passed between October and December and still nothing even resembling a budget was put forth. Finally, the end of December was in sight. This is also the end of the congressional term. On Jan. 3 a new Congress will be sworn in, this time with a Republican House. If the Senate were to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government into the new year, then the Republican House would have the opportunity to review the spending items.

So, in true swamp fashion, the Democrats in the Senate dragged their feet until the last minute and, with anguished cries from their captive press that if a budget were not passed immediately the government would have to shut down right before Christmas, magically presented a 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion monstrosity full of pork projects. They needed 60 votes to pass this bill and only had 50 at best. Now we get into the why of how this happens.

Needing at least 10 Republican votes, it’s time to play “let’s make a deal.” Sen. Mitch McConnell has never been a real Republican and he has a coterie of like-minded fence sitters who can always be bought.

At any point, McConnell could have pushed a continuing resolution and either carried the budget discussion into 2023 and given the Republican House a chance to produce a reasonable budget or forced major concessions on what was put on the table, but he did not. Why? Follow the money.

Here is a theory.

There is $45 billion for aid to Ukraine and funds to replenish Pentagon stockpiles of weapons that have already been sent to Ukraine. This is in addition to the $66 billion of taxpayer money our lawmakers have already sent to Ukraine. For some perspective, in just a few months, the U.S. has sent more aid to Ukraine than to three of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in history. It cannot be by accident that there are no tracking or accounting measures for these funds. There are many who suspect a portion of this unaccounted-for money is finding its way back to U.S. politicians. Just by chance, defense contractors are big donors to campaign funds and support the Ukraine effort.

Using the made-for-TV crisis that we have to keep the government functioning, McConnell lines up the necessary votes and the country is $1.7 trillion deeper in debt.

Let’s see what our senators agreed to for their 30 pieces of silver.

The bill focuses on Democratic pet projects such as $575 million for family planning and reproductive health in areas where population growth threatens “biodiversity.”

There are the obligatory LGBTQ projects such as $1.2 million for LGBTQ students at San Diego Community College District and $3 million for a New York LGBTQ Museum.

The bill provides a whopping $2.6 billion for U.S. attorneys to further support prosecutions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Translated, this is funding for targeting political opponents. I must have missed the funding for prosecuting the Biden clan implicated by the Hunter Biden laptop. Or did China line item veto those?

The bill eliminates Medicaid coverage protection from the public health emergency. Millions of people enrolled in Medicaid during the pandemic. They stand to lose that coverage in April 2023.

The bill prohibits U.S. Customs and Border Protection from spending more than $1.5 billion for border security technology and capabilities except to improve processing people into the country. There is no money for U.S. border security but $410 million for border security in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Oman.

The bill contains $65 million for the coastal salmon industry and $3.6 million for the Michelle Obama Walking Trail in Georgia.

This bill is driven by nothing but political self-interest. The sad thing is that 18 unprincipled Republican senators supported it. They sold out. The Republicans who supported it included the usual suspects: Shelly Capito (W.Va.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (Ark.), Mitt Romney (Utah), and Richard Shelby (Ala.).

The 18 are mostly aligned with the “America First” movement. That’s rich. I would describe them more as “Democrats First” since these senators regularly vote with Democrats.

It’s a shame that so many good Republicans fought so hard to deliver a Republican Senate not realizing it probably made little difference when this block of untrustworthy votes lurked in the background.

This bill did not have to be if Republicans had only acted like Republicans.

Dave Ball is chairman of the Washington County Republican Party.