December 1 – Here we go again.
The US House and Senate are looking at yet another omnibus spending bill at the end of the session to keep the government going.
The clock runs out on December 16 and to avoid another shutdown, legislators are looking at a huge spending bill, some believing legislation would be better than another resolution.
It includes $45 billion in additional defense spending – and that’s over and above what the Biden administration has requested.
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “I don’t know if I can ever remember a case where Congress came in like this and made such a huge allocation beyond what the White House wants, but that’s the top level number. It looks like the Republicans and the Democrats are going to pass that as early as today.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM said, “I just feel like so many things are being done for politics. You hear Mitch McConnell cutting all kinds of deals. Here we go again with the leaders cutting all kinds of bills. Can we afford that? The spending is going to be outrageous. We’ve got to fund Ukraine. Do we? Do we really? I think there’s a lot of questions about what’s going on with that money. Do we still have good accountability on that? So here we just got the House taken over by Republicans, may not be a lot, but it’s a take over, but Mitch McConnell, he trusts Nancy Pelosi more than he does Kevin McCarthy when it comes to what they’ll do with the spending.”
And as is no great surprise, a whole lot of other measures are going to be added to this bill, including the Electoral Count Act, which governs the process of casting and counting Electoral College votes for president and vice president.
Barkdoll said, “Who knows what else they’ll sneak into this? This will be the classic hundreds if not thousands of pages of spending and legislation that will be presented to the House and the Senate with maybe an hour or two before they have to vote on it and that’s always a recipe for problems.”
Jansen said, “Because earmarks are back. They brought them back last year. I would think Republicans taking over the House, that’s something they should eliminate. Oh no, no. We’re going to go ahead and do this with all the earmarks and all the nonsense thrown in there, all the same stuff we’ve been protesting for years. Nope. We’re going to just keep doing business as usual.”
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM noted, “And you wonder why the conversations are getting louder and louder and louder. First off, I don’t think a third party is the solution here, I think a Constitutional Convention would be the absolute possible solution.”
Barkdoll said, “I like both ideas. The Constitutional Convention is tough, but it’s not as far fetched as it might sound. I still think there is a lane at the federal level for a mainstream, center-right independent candidate. They would have to have a lot of money. Poll after poll is showing that voters, the electorate are very frustrated with Democrats and Republicans.”
In fact, a recent Gallup poll shows a plurality of Americans now identify more as independents than they do as Republicans or Democrats.
Barkdoll said, “No one’s been able to put together the coalition yet to have a candidate emerge from that that might be elected, but I still think it could happen.”
