Republicans' 1st Budget Under Trump Blocks Funding The Wall, Funds Planned Parenthood

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
May. 01, 2017

The Republicans' first trillion-dollar spending package explicitly blocks any funds going towards the wall but continues funding Planned Parenthood.

This is all happening because the Republicans were too cowardly to play hardball and force the Democrats to shut the government down. Instead, they seemingly caved to the Democrats' every whim with the excuse being they're "punting" for harder negotiations at a later date and want to focus on replacing Obamacare. The problem with this logic is Trump's mandate is not going to get any stronger as time passes, which is probably what these swamp-creatures want.

From Washington Post:
A spending agreement was reached last night that will keep the government funded through the end of September. This will be the first significant bipartisan measure passed by Congress since Donald Trump took office.

-- The White House agreed to punt on a lot of the president’s top priorities until this fall to avert a shutdown on Friday and to clear the deck so that the House can pass a health care bill. “This is going to be a great week,” Gary Cohn, Trump’s chief economic adviser, said on CBS this morning. “We're going to get health care down to the floor of the House. We're convinced we've got the votes, and we're going to keep moving on with our agenda.”
Gary Cohn, aka "Globalist Gary," aka President Cohn, the Democrat Goldman Sachs banker brought in by Democrat Jared Kushner is now speaking for the Trump administration.



While the Washington Post is spinning this as Trump's failure, all the evidence points to Trump having been overthrown by the deep state around the time of the Syria strikes.
-- Now that the language has posted, here are the eight most notable areas Trump caved in his first big spending negotiation:

1. There are explicit restrictions to block the border wall. We knew last week there would be no money to start construction on a project that the president says is more important to his base than anything else. But the final agreement goes further, putting strict limitations on how Trump can use new money for border security (e.g. to invest in new technology and repair existing fencing). Administration officials have insisted they already have the statutory authority to start building the wall under a 2006 law. This prevents such an end run.

The $1.5 billion for border security is also half as much as the White House requested. Additionally, there are no cuts in funding to sanctuary cities, something a federal judge said last week would be required for the Justice Department to follow through on its threats. And there is also no money for a deportation force.
The cowardly Republican establishment is literally taking orders from the Democrats. This is why we need a total purge.
2. Non-defense domestic spending will go up, despite the Trump team's insistence he wouldn't let that happen. The president called for $18 billion in cuts. Instead, he's going to sign a budget with lots of sweeteners that grow the size of government. Mitch McConnell made sure $4.6 billion got put aside to permanently extend health benefits to 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families. Nancy Pelosi made sure $295 million was included to shore up Medicaid in Puerto Rico. Chuck Schumer got $61 million to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for the cost of protecting Trump when he travels to his residences in Florida and New York. There is also another $2 billion in disaster relief money for states, which bought a couple votes. (Kelsey Snell, our lead budget reporter, has more examples.)
Why the hell are we giving almost $300 million to fund Medicaid in Puerto Rico?
3. Barack Obama's cancer moonshot is generously funded. The administration asked to slash spending at the National Institutes of Health by $1.2 billion for the rest of this fiscal year. Instead, the NIH will get a $2 billion boost -- on top of the huge increase it got last year. Republican appropriators who care about biomedical research, including Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), delivered.

Trump also failed in his efforts to cut money for other kinds of scientific inquiry. For example, he proposed defunding the Advanced Research Projects Agency--Energy. Instead, it is getting a $15 million increase.

4. Trump fought to cut the Environmental Protection Agency by a third. The final deal trims its budget by just 1 percent, with no staff cuts. As part of a compromise, the EPA gets $80 million less than last year, but the budget is $8 billion.

5. He didn't defund Planned Parenthood. Despite the best efforts of social conservatives, the group will continue to receive funding at current levels.

6. The president got less than half as much for the military as he said was necessary. Trump repeatedly prodded Congress to increase military spending by $30 billion. He's getting $12.5 billion, with an additional $2.5 billion if/when he delivers a detailed plan on how to defeat the Islamic State. Many Democrats from states with bases and manufacturers, especially those up for reelection in 2018, wanted this too. Like Trump, they will tout the increased spending as a victory. The White House plans to call this a down payment on a much bigger investment down the road.

7. Democrats say they forced Republicans to withdraw more than 160 riders. These unrelated policy measures, which each could have been a poison pill, would have done things like get rid of the fiduciary rule and water down environmental regulations. On the other side of the ledger, this budget blocks the Justice Department from restricting the dispensing of medical marijuana in states where it has been legalized.

8. To keep negotiations moving, the White House already agreed last week to continue paying Obamacare subsidies. This money, which goes to insurance companies, reduces out-of-pocket expenses for low income people who get coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The Trump administration justifies giving up on this because of the potential to resolve the bigger issue by repealing Obamacare.

The House is expected to easily pass this spending deal in the coming days.

-- Soon after the deal was reached last night, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi quickly put out celebratory statements. But McConnell and Paul Ryan did not.
The Republican screw-job is continuing. I wonder what percentage of this is pure cowardice versus Senators and congressmen being compromised and blackmailed?

We elected a billionaire outsider who owed nothing to anyone to bring in real change and "drain the swamp," instead we're getting more of the same and the deep state managed to neutralize him after around 80 days in office.

Follow InformationLiberation on Twitter and Facebook.













All original InformationLiberation articles CC 4.0



About - Privacy Policy