Free Republic

The budget deal to keep the government funded through September agreed upon by congressional leaders would continue funding the refugee resettlement program. An agreement on the omnibus budget was reached by leaders from both parties Sunday, as a government shutdown looms on Friday. The proposed spending agreement includes no money to construct the president’s border wall, and continues funding Planned Parenthood. [….] The bill would include a total of $3 billion towards migration and refugee assistance, which is roughly the same that was spent in Fiscal Year 2016. It would also include $50 million towards the emergency refugee and migration...

State transportation officials may be forced to suspend construction on some partially completed highway projects if the Legislature follows through with a proposal to cut its off-the-top funding from income tax revenues to $320 million, says Mike Patterson, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. The transportation department was scheduled to receive $571 million in off-the-top funding from income tax revenues next fiscal year, but a joint legislative committee passed a revenue measure Thursday evening that calls for reducing that amount to $320 million. Patterson said such a drastic cut would force his department to suspend several construction projects...

RUSH: You know, the more you get into this, the worse it actually is. Listen to this. This is from the Washington Post story with the headline: “Eight Ways Trump Got Rolled in His First Budget .” This, in the Washington Post, is their number one roll, and it’s understandable. The only thing that didn’t get any money in this budget is Trump’s wall. Everything else — including everything Trump opposes — got a budget increase. Try this: “There are explicit restrictions to block the border wall. “We knew last week there would be no money to start construction on...

A deal has been reached on a $1 trillion-plus bill to fund the government for the final five months of this fiscal year, an agreement that is likely to avert a government shutdown. Congressional negotiators had been working through the weekend to hash out the last remaining complications in a bill to fund the government before the agreement was announced Sunday night. After President Donald Trump backed down on funding for the construction of a border wall, some additional sticking points remained, including health benefits for coal miners, funding for Puerto Rico and an additional $30 billion for defense, delaying...

Congressional Republicans and Democrats forged a hard-won agreement Sunday night on a huge $1 trillion-plus spending bill that would fund the day-to-day operations of virtually every federal agency through September, denying President Donald Trump funding for a border wall and rejecting his cuts to popular domestic programs. Aides to lawmakers involved in the talks announced the agreement after weeks of negotiations. It's expected to be made public Sunday night. The catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during Trump's short tenure in the White House. While losing on the wall along the U.S.-Mexico...

The President and Congress agreed to a spending bill to get the government through to September. President Chuck Schumer said: This agreement is a good agreement for the American people and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table,” said... Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren’t used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure.” Since Republicans lost the presidency and the Congress in the last election, it is no surprise that this spending bill...

Congressional negotiators reached a bipartisan deal late Sunday to fund the federal government through September, easing the threat of a shutdown but denying President Trump several key priorities — including money for his promised border wall with Mexico. The estimated $1-trillion omnibus package would provide $12.5 billion in increased military funding, about half the amount Trump requested from Congress. Another $2.5 billion for defense is available if the administration submits a counter-terrorism strategy to fight Islamic State. But the final deal failed to include the big cuts to domestic non-defense accounts that Trump was seeking, and thus emerged as something...

(title truncated, full title Trump Calls Schumer's Bluff: "If There's A Shutdown, There's A Shutdown... Democrats Would Be To Blame") With Democrats seemingly unsatisfied with Republicans dropping border wall funding and adjusting on Obamacare-related items, it appears President Trump is calling Schumer's and Pelosi's bluff, proclaiming"If there's a shutdown, there's a shutdown," adding that Democrats would be to blame if the federal government was left unfunded. Schumer today:*SCHUMER: TRUMP CONCESSIONS BRING SPENDING DEAL CLOSER TO FINISH *SCHUMER SAYS 'SOME STICKING POINTS' LEFT ON SPENDING BILL TALKS *SCHUMER SAYS REVISED GOP HEALTH CARE BILL 'WORSE' THAN INITIAL *SCHUMER SAYS ISSUE OF...

California's $54 billion plan to fix roads and fund highway improvements cleared a major hurdle late Thursday, passing in the state legislature and setting the stage for what could become a massive spending spree. Positive comments last week from analysts about the state transportation plan sent shares of several construction-related companies sharply higher. Some of them continued to trend higher this week and with passage in both houses of the legislature it's possible they could rally Friday. Analysts have suggested beneficiaries of the state spending could include Summit Materials, a construction materials producer, and AECOM, an engineering firm. Summit's stock...

HARTFORD – Toll talk is back at the State Capitol. Some lawmakers say it will drive billions into the state over the next two decades and others want to put the brakes on the idea.At a hearing, Monday, the proposal to bring electronic tolls to Connecticut highways was discussed, with public comment both for and against it.State accountants said the way Connecticut funds transportation will no longer be sustainable in the next four years and a new revenue source is needed.“This doesn't make any sense at all," State Sen. Toni Boucher said. "This is just another name for another tax...

Wisconsin’s highways are seriously underfunded. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s Transportation Fund Solvency report, spending only the $28 billion projected to be available over the next decade will lead to double the number of highway miles in “poor” condition — and will preclude even planning any highway expansions for nearly 40 years. Borrowing enough to spend $31 billion would slightly reduce the amount of “poor” highway miles but still would preclude planning any highway expansions until 2040. But a second WisDOT report offers a way out. Extensive research done last year for the DOT by the consulting firm...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., delivered a message to President Trump on Monday morning about Congress' sensitive negotiations over a spending bill that must pass by Friday. That message: Butt out. "It's my view that if the president stepped out of it, we could get a budget done by Friday," Schumer said on a conference call with reporters. "Totally agree," Pelosi said. "We were on the path to get it done until he did intervene." [Snip] Schumer called the wall a "monkey wrench" the president threw into the process, bungling an agreement...

WASHINGTON — President Trump reportedly backed off his demand that Congress include a down payment for a wall spanning the entire U.S.-Mexico border in a crucial spending bill that must pass by Friday night to keep the government funded. Republican lawmakers have urged the president to focus on border security in general instead of the wall, which Democrats have called a poison pill that would cause them to reject the bill and shut down the government. Trump told a group of conservative reporters he invited to the White House on Monday that he was open to getting funding for the...

Rick Klein and Shushannah Walsh:“Want to really blow up the Senate – and fast? A new proposal is emerging that would likely do just that, and it has nothing to do with Senate Democrats’ vow to filibuster Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. A proposal is being pushed by some Senate Republicans that would seek to ensure that a House-passed bill could be passed intact by only a simple majority of senators.” “How would that work? Well, the vice president, of course, is the president of the Senate. The thinking goes that if the Senate parliamentarian ruled that parts of the...

President Trump's push for a big military buildup in legislation funding the government is likely to go unfulfilled next week, when Congress returns and quickly tries to agree on how to keep the government open after April 28. A $578 billion bill that funds the Pentagon through September and provides some modest increases has already been hammered out by lawmakers in both chambers and passed by the House. While there is talk of a week-long extension before the big bill is passed, the main bill is likely to be the basis of all defense spending for the rest of the...

Not a single member of Congress who represents the territory on the southwest border said they support President Donald Trump’s request for $1.4 billion to begin construction of his promised wall, according to a Wall Street Journal survey, testing the administration’s ability to reach a deal on government funding next week. Most lawmakers representing the region—both Democrats and Republicans—said they are opposed and many said they have unanswered questions. A few were noncommittal, but not a single member of the House or Senate representing the region expressed support for the funding request. That includes nine members of the House and...

Patricia Brennan, a visiting lecturer at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, who spent nearly $400,000 of taxpayer dollars studying duck penises has become a spokesperson in opposition to Trump’s proposed cuts to funding studies like hers. One of the research topics likely to be cut off from tax-funding is her current project to study whale penises. She is eager to examine a recently acquired an orca penis. “It’s enormous!” she exclaimed. “It takes up an entire lab sink. The very idea that Congress might not fund a thorough investigation of this extraordinary specimen is criminal. In order for us to...

A fight over whether to fund a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border could shut down the government next week. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said on Thursday that money for President Trump's proposed border wall must be part of the spending bill Congress must pass by April 28 to avoid a shutdown of the federal government. Democrats, however, aren't going for it. The former South Carolina congressman said in an interview with the Associated Press that the wall is a "tremendous priority" for the Trump administration and will be a top request on the White House wish...

Is this posturing, or is Mick Mulvaney sending a signal that Trump is ready for a government shutdown? Congress is going to have a hot minute or so to pass the omnibus spending bill when they get back in town and the President’s budget boss has decided to toss some gasoline on the bonfire by insisting that funding for the first phase of construction of the wall be included. (Associate Press) White House budget director Mick Mulvaney says that Democratic negotiators on a massive spending bill need to agree to fund top priorities of President Donald Trump such as a...

The United States could reduce Pentagon spending by over a trillion dollars in the next decade-spending $5.2 trillion rather than the currently planned $6.3 trillion- by adopting strategy of military restraint. That’s the bottom line of a study I produced along with several colleagues as part of “Developing Alternative Defense Strategies 2016,” an exercise organized by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, where groups from five think tanks used CSBA’s “Strategic Choices” software to reimagine the U.S. military budget.The others all increased military spending. The teams from the Center for New American Security and the Center for Strategic and...