The $1.7 trillion omnibus bill has passed congress, and it’s such a dumpster fire that it wasn’t even technically ready for the president’s signature.
No, I’m not kidding. Congress apparently passed a bill that wasn’t prepared to be signed. They then had to pass another continuing resolution to keep the government running in the meantime. If that’s not the perfect metaphor for how awful our federal government is, then one doesn’t exist.
Just when you think congress and the White House can’t show themselves to be any more ridiculous, they set their beer down and jump into a tank full of piranhas just to prove you wrong. It’s bad enough no one actually read the bill, but to pass a bill that wasn’t even ready to be signed? Does that mean there are provisions still being massaged after it has been voted on by both chambers? I’m not sure, but if the bill wasn’t ready, why not give members of congress more time to sort through it?
Of course, we know the answer to that. The point was to pass this monstrosity at all costs, not actually do the work of governing responsibly in the process. The omnibus didn’t need to be rushed through since a continuing resolution was obviously possible, but it was rushed through anyway because the oligarchs who run the country don’t even care about keeping pretenses up anymore. It’s unbelievable, yet totally believable at the same time.
And speaking of things that are unbelievable, the more we learn about the contents of the omnibus, the worse they get. Dan Crenshaw shared some things on Friday that I hadn’t seen before.
As Crenshaw points out, despite the fact that federal agencies were all given loads of cash under the guise of COVID-19 relief, they all still got large topline increases in this omnibus. For example, the IRS gets billions more on top of the $80 billion it was just given as part of the recently-passed reconciliation package. The EPA also gets more money for enforcement.
Past that, the White House gets a 19.5 increase in funding for employees while the millions are allocated to fund an “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” for congress. On the flip side, ICE and CBP get completely knee-capped by the omnibus package, with provisions included that don’t allow them to increase enforcement.
So to recap, money was shot out of a cannon for all government agencies, including those that have already been made flush with cash previously, except for the two government agencies which are actually dealing with a real, quantifiable crisis. Again, that’s our government in a nutshell.
And this absolute boondoggle was made possible by Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, who chose to spit on their own voters, telling them that the GOP majority they just voted for can’t be trusted to govern. Yes, Mitt Romney actually used that as one of his excuses in the mind-numbing video he put out on why he voted for the omnibus. But hey, vote Republican! Because it totally matters or something.