On Thursday, 18 Republicans joined all Democrats to pass a $1.7 trillion spending package through the Senate, bringing the massive omnibus over the line in a 68-29 vote.
Congressional leaders are facing a hard deadline of Friday to pass the bill through both houses and to the desk of President Joe Biden before the federal government runs out of funding. Last week, Congress passed a stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, which will fund the federal government up until the day before Christmas Eve.
The 18 Republican senators who voted to pass the bill are Roy Blunt (MO), John Boozman (AR), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Susan Collins (ME), John Cornyn (TX), Tom Cotton (AR), Lindsey Graham (SC), Jim Inhofe (OK), Mitch McConnell (KY), Jerry Moran (KS), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Rob Portman (OH), Mitt Romney (UT), Mike Rounds (SD), Richard Shelby (AL), John Thune (SD), Roger Wicker (MS) and Todd Young (IN).
The text of the 4,155-page omnibus bill was unveiled in the early morning hours on Tuesday. The Senate voted 70-25 on Tuesday, moving the bill through procedural vote to begin debate, clearing the 60-vote threshold. Only 51 votes were required to pass the bill after that.
The spending package has faced harsh criticism from a group of Senate conservatives as well as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is a major leader in the race for the next House speaker.
Critics have said that Congress should continue to pass stopgap measures until the Republican majority takes its seat in the House, which would give the GOP a stronger position to barter with Democrats over spending policies.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has been one of the leading critics of the omnibus in the Senate, giving a speech on the Senate floor blasting the spending package and the Congressional leaders who were pushing it through, including McConnell, the current Senate minority leader.
“This bill before us is legislative barbarism. This is an act of extortion being leveraged on the United States Senate right before Christmas,” Lee said. “This bill, in all 4,155 pages of its glory — or infamy — was negotiated in secret by four or five members of Congress.”
“They wrote it utterly in secret with the design of making an artificial emergency, threatening a shutdown right before Christmas,” he continued.
McConnell worked alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to pass the bill through the Senate, claiming it was a necessary investment in the U.S. military.
“The bipartisan government funding bill before this body is imperfect but strong. It will make huge new investments in our Armed Forces while cutting non-defense, non-veterans baseline spending in real dollars,” he said in a Wednesday statement.
Earlier in the week, McConnell spoke of the bill, implying that those who voted against the measure did not support the U.S. troops and were assisting the Chinese Communist Party in obtaining military supremacy.
“There are literally two options before us,” the Senate minority leader said of the bill. “Number one, we can pass this bill, give our service members and commanders the resources they need, flip the president’s broken budget request on its head, and actually cut baseline, non-defense, non-veteran spending in real dollars while we’re at it. Or we can fail to pass this bill and give our armed forces confusion and uncertainty while the Chinese Communist Party continues to help their military commanders pour money into new research and new weapons.”
Included in the bill is $858 billion in military spending, $45 billion more than Biden requested. It includes another 772.5 billion in non-defense discretionary spending, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The $1.7 trillion bill is full of earmarks, carveouts, and favors for certain lawmakers. It included provisions such as $410 million in funding for border security. That border security, of course, goes to the countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Oman while Title 42, the Trump-era policy that prevents the southern border from being entirely overrun, hangs in the balance here at home.
That provision was pointed out by Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) as an example of questionable spending, who also noted the provisions taken for fish and bees, the billions in funding for the FBI and ATF, and other earmarks, posting them in a lengthy thread.
My team and I are reading through the omnibus bill today – all $1.7 trillion and 4,155 pages of it.
Follow along for some of the most egregious provisions in the bill ⬇️
— Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) December 20, 2022
