Here’s another item we can add to the list of things Republicans have failed to accomplished before embarking on “Government Abuse Week.”
A $44.1 billion omnibus appropriations bill for the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development was pulled from the floor of the House today because it didn’t garner enough support from either party. via The Hill
[Rep. Hal Rogers] said House Republicans had effectively abandoned the budget resolution from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that they passed in April, and said they should now seek a way to restore agency budget cuts.
“With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted just three months ago. Thus, I believe that the House has made its choice: sequestration — and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts — must be brought to an end. And, it is also clear that the higher funding levels advocated by the Senate are also simply not achievable in this Congress.” [...]
The office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the House simply ran out of time to finish the bill, but with the chamber scheduled to leave for a five-week August recess on Friday, it likely won’t come up again until the fall, if at all.
Why did they run out of time? It’s only Wednesday, isn’t it? They aren’t leaving town until Friday.
If they ran out of time, it’s because the rest of this week will be dedicated to passing the Don’t Cast Aspersions On My Asparagus Act and a series of other nonsensical legislative fart jokes.
Drafting appropriations bills in the House has been made more difficult because Republican leadership has dictated that all bills must fit within the Paul Ryan Path to Poverty budget framework which would balance the budget in 10 years. This as affected passage of the defense appropriations bill as well as the farm bill and transportation bill.
To put it more simply — Republicans have wasted immense amounts of time drafting and passing (sometimes not passing) appropriation bills intended to carry out Paul Ryan’s Grand Design piece by piece.
None of it has been signed into law yet, and none of it will be. Continuing resolutions will be the only thing that keep the government running through the Fall and into Winter unless the Republicans finally dump Paul Ryan.