What’s in, and out, of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill
Samantha-Jo Roth
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Appropriators unveiled a $1.7 trillion fiscal 2023 spending bill early Tuesday morning, a measure lawmakers are scrambling to pass before government funding runs out on Friday.
The so-called omnibus covers the dozen annual spending bills for every federal agency. It provides $858 billion in defense funding and $772.5 billion for nondefense, domestic programs, according to a release from the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The release of the 4,155-page bill came around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, just days ahead of a midnight deadline Friday to fund the government. After reaching a deal on the legislation last week, lawmakers passed a one-week continuing resolution to give themselves more time to negotiate and draft the finer details of the spending bill.
“From funding for nutrition programs and housing assistance, to home energy costs and college affordability, our bipartisan, bicameral, omnibus appropriations bill directly invests in providing relief from the burden of inflation on the American people, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
Leahy’s Republican counterpart in the Senate, Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL), tweeted early Tuesday that the negotiations were “far from perfect, but ultimately it allowed Republican redlines to be adhered to.”
Both parties are claiming wins in the spending bill. Senate Republicans say the bill will boost defense spending above the rate of inflation and increase social spending at a lower rate than inflation.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the final bill is not what President Joe Biden requested when he sent his initial budget to Congress earlier this year.
“The administration wanted to cut funding for our armed forces after inflation while massively increasing spending on nondefense. Republicans have taken the president’s bizarre position and flipped it on its head,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Monday.
Democrats are taking their own victory lap, saying the total funding numbers were larger than the previous year’s domestic and foreign aid accounts. The bill provides $772.5 billion for nondefense, domestic programs.
Democrats are also highlighting investments in healthcare and research, such as $9.2 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $47.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $1.5 billion for Biden’s efforts to fight cancer, and $950 million for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
What’s in the sprawling bill
An increase in defense spending
The bill would provide the military $858 billion this fiscal year, a nearly 10% increase over current levels. The funding also includes a 4.6% pay bump for service members and Pentagon employees.
Aid for Ukraine
The bill includes about $45 billion for Ukraine, higher than the $37.7 billion the White House requested. The increase in funding comes as there have been concerns about the level of support next year from a Republican-led House, in which some conservatives are critical of the aid.
Electoral Count Act reforms
Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced Tuesday the inclusion of reforms to the Electoral Count Reform Act, a bill that would amend the 1887 Electoral Count Act to clarify the vice president cannot overturn the election results when Congress counts Electoral College votes. The legislation was created in response to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by pro-Trump rioters.
“We are pleased that our legislation has been included in the omnibus appropriations bill and are grateful to have the support of so many of our colleagues. We look forward to seeing this bill signed into law,” the senators said in a joint statement.
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TikTok ban
Sen. Josh Hawley‘s (R-MO) bill to prohibit the use of TikTok on federal government devices made it into the massive package after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) expressed support for its inclusion in the omnibus.
Hawley’s bill, which comes as a number of states ban the application from government devices, passed in the Senate unanimously earlier this month.
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Disaster relief
The bill includes about $40 billion in funding to “assist communities across the country recovering from drought, hurricanes, flooding, wildfire, natural disasters and other matters,” according to a legislative summary.
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What’s not in the bill
The funding bill is the last opportunity for Democrats to determine the federal budget while the party controls both chambers of Congress. In an effort to secure at least 10 Republican votes to avoid a filibuster, Democrats had to abandon a number of priorities.
A push for an expansion of the child tax credit didn’t make the cut. Neither did legislation that would have provided citizenship to “Dreamers,” who illegally entered the United States as children.
A compromise measure worked out by leading Democrats and Republicans to address sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine offenses was not included in the final version either, and a push to include a popular cannabis banking bill known as the SAFE Banking Act also failed. The bill sought to do away with federal rules restricting banks from working with legal cannabis businesses.
Additionally, there was not an increase in IRS funding; the legislation only secured about $12.3 billion, which is $275 million less than fiscal 2022 levels.