Congress

President Obama’s Last Budget Lives

Written by SK Ashby

As expected, Congress has reached a "deal" to fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal 2017 and, also as expected, federal spending will remain more or less static.

I hesitate to call this a "deal" because Trump and the Republicans got nothing of consequence out of it.

U.S. House and Senate negotiators reached a bipartisan deal on a $1.1 trillion spending bill that largely tracks with Democratic priorities and rejects most of President Donald Trump’s wish list, including money to begin building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The compromise measure, released early Monday morning, would keep the government open through the end of September. Under House procedures, a vote could be held as early as Wednesday. [...]

Overall, the compromise resembles more of an Obama administration-era budget than a Trump one.

Most federal departments and agencies will see minor spending increases while others will see minuscule funding cuts. The Interior Department will see a minor spending increase, for example, while the Environment Protection Agency's budget will be cut by slightly less than 1 percent.

The Department of Defense will see the largest funding increase with $25 billion in additional spending, which Trump will almost certainly try to take credit for, but most of that money was signed into law by President Obama in December when the last continuing resolution was passed by Congress.

Amusingly, the bill also includes an increase on the cap of H-2B labor visas which Trump would probably fume at if he even understood what that means.

The bill also includes language that prohibits the Jeff Sessions Justice Department from cracking down on medical marijuana and language that prohibits Trump from building his fantasy border wall.

You may recall that Trump signed legislation that allows states to defund Planned Parenthood, but the government funding bill preserves Planned Parenthood funding.

As Bloomberg noted, this is more or less Obama's last budget. And I know Trump and the Republicans are making big promises ahead of fiscal 2018 which begins on October 1st, but I just don't see any of it happening.