This past Saturday, the following was published in an article here on McHenry County Blog:
“The good news is there will be no threat of a government shutdown entering the new year as the fiscal year (FY) 2020 appropriations/funding/spending bills were signed into law on Friday after congressional action passed all three bills.
“The not-so-good news, what’s in these bills?”
John Lopez, Mchenry County Blog, 12/21/19 emphasis added
.
In recent days, several components of the FY2020 budget have been surfaced by McHenry County Blog, congressional candidates Jeanne Ives in the 6th and Jim Oberweis in the 14th, as well as Congresswoman Lauren Underwood press releases.
But Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) took to social media last week to call out how quickly the $1.4 trillion bills, H.R. 1158 and H.R. 1865, were rushed through both houses of Congress and passed last week, Tuesday in the House and Thursday in the Senate.
Then President Trump signed both bills into law, as well as the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed the Senate last week.
Here is Cruz’s social media video examining the components of the two appropriations bills:
Senator Cruz makes two points which need discernment:
Extends Ex-Im Bank: That is, the Export-Import Bank many like Cruz and the Freedom Caucus have been trying to end.
Its extension was due this year, and this is something President Trump supports, including fully staffing the governing board of Ex-Im Bank in May.
Clarification from what Cruz said, asking for the vote. While there was no Senate vote on the stand-alone Ex-Im Bank extension bill H.R. 4863, on 11/15, the House voted on H.R. 4863 and it passed the House with a 235-184, with 13 Republicans joining the Democrats supporting the bill.
While not one of the blatant single-digit-of-Republican votes the Democrats like to call “bipartisan”, Republican support was minimal, and included Illinois’ Congressman Adam Kinzinger.
Four Democrats voted against H.R. 4863, including Squad members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley (Ilhan Omar was absent), along with Jared Huffman.
6th district candidate Jeanne Ives issued two press releases taking Congressman Sean Casten to task for supporting Ex-Im Bank renewal, both on 11/15, and last week on 12/17 as a component of H.R. 1865.
Failed to Defund Planned Parenthood: Disgusting the federal government has anything to do with Planned Parenthood, so Cruz said one of many reasons he voted against the appropriations bills was this.
But when Cruz voted against H.R. 1865 and voting against funding Planned Parenthood, he also voted against the Hyde Amendment, which the Democrats supported in order to pass the legislation. And during the summer, the initial appropriations bill for Health and Human Services, H.R. 2740, also contained the Hyde Amendment.
Just pointing out when raising many critical points as reasons to vote against it, votes against a lot of other things are taking place, too.
So How Did We Get to This Point?
FY2020 started on October 1, yet it was December 20 when both of the appropriations bills were signed.
The House passed their appropriations bills, all 10-12 of them, by June, with the exception of NDAA (H.R. 2500), which passed in July. The Senate version of NDAA (S. 1790) was passed in July, too, and NDAA went to Conference and signed into law last week.
So all of the non-NDAA appropriations bills were not acted upon in the Senate after the end of June.
If negotiations began around or after the August recess, the public did not know.
The Bipartisan Budget Act between House Speaker Pelosi and the Trump Administration was reached in July and the House voted on H.R. 3877 on July 25.
The Senate passed it on August 1, and the President signed it the next day.
So the month of September, and no budget completed. Two continuing resolutions had to be passed, with the 2nd one to expire on the night of December 20.
Now the budget is in place.
Hope all of the candidates for the House and the Senate will discuss how to end this kind of protracted budget process.
While the blame falls on House and Senate leadership, something has to change on the schedule, and that is before discussing how to rein in the federal spending.
At least the government is not being ready to be shut down like it was a year ago.
Related Articles:
- Ives 12/20: http://159.89.184.83/2019/12/21/ives-goes-after-casten-on-budget-vote
- Oberweis 12/23: http://159.89.184.83/2019/12/23/oberwies-pans-budget-bill
- McHenry County Blog 12/21: http://159.89.184.83/2019/12/21/u-s-senate-il-06-il-14-federal-government-funded-through-9-30-20
- Ives 11/15: http://159.89.184.83/2019/11/15/il-06-jeanne-ives-calls-out-crony-capitalist-casten
@John Lopez, I appreciate how you’ve enhanced the content on the Blog.
It’s a nice improvement. I simply ask that you consider leaving the editorializing to the end.
(“While not one of the blatant single-digit-of-Republican votes the Democrats like to call ‘bipartisan’, Republican support was minimal, and included Illinois’ Congressman Adam Kinzinger.”)
All the mid-sentence comments are distracting and at times can weaken the facts and your position.
Trolls aside, a number of us are discerning and can easily pick out what’s troubling.
A “so what?” at the end can be a nice recap.
Oh yes, Teddy Cruz our Hispanic immigrant from the Great White North who thinks himself America’s next Francisco Franco.
Clip the beard Cruz, too Mephistophelean
Here is a comment by John Lopez on 03/12/2020 at 3:55 pm about how the Hyde Amendment was passed in the 116th General Assembly.
http://mchenrycountyblog.com/2020/03/12/illinois-66th-district-abortion-part-i-allen-skillicorns-verbal-smash-and-grab/#comment-527719