Vote Notes: Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Appropriations Bill

Today, the House voted on a bill that provides full-year funding in 2019 for the military and the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education as well as a temporary extension of 2018 funding levels for the rest of the federal government. 

In this regard, the bill was a marriage of extraneous pieces. The military spending was vetted and had been debated in the House. It had full year funding. Health and Human Services was not debated in the House and was not subject to a whole host of amendments that would have been offered had it been. And then there was a hodge-podge of rest of year funding that simply relied on a continuing resolution, which means that you take last year’s funding and apply it to this year. In doing so, there is no vetting of ideas and no recalibration of spending so that you award programs that work and penalize those that don’t. 

Most any observer would say that the bill continues Congress’ punting of budget responsibilities. In this case, seven of the twelve appropriation bills were debated and funded as they are supposed to be in what’s called regular order. The other five, the more controversial five, were not. They were wrapped into continued resolution funding, which again means simply that you take what you spent last year and spend it again this year. This is hardly the mark of a well-managed organization because vital to any well-run business, non-profit, or family is the idea of reshuffling the budget cards and taking money from things that don’t work and applying it to things that do. 

The cynic would say what’s at play here is a calculated, politically-motivated attempt to delay the real spending debate on these controversial components until after the midterm elections. This would particularly disadvantage House conservatives in the lame-duck session that will follow the elections in November. 

More than anything, the bill found bipartisan accord by simply spending lots more on many different categories of expenditure. While that may work in the short run, I don’t think it works for the taxpayer in the long run. For these reasons, I voted against the bill, which passed 361 to 61. 

Before I get into the meat of the bill and my particular objections to it, let me get a little deeper in the weeds in explaining what this bill does. There are twelve spending, or “appropriations,” bills that Congress is supposed to pass each year that authorize a full year of funding for different parts of the federal government. Three of those twelve bills - covering energy and water programs, military construction and veterans affairs, and the legislative branch - have already passed the House and Senate and have been signed into law by the president. Unless Congress passes the nine remaining appropriations bills for 2019 before October 1st, it will have to extend the expiration dates of the existing 2018 appropriations bills or the government will shut down.

The bill voted on today includes short-term extensions for seven of those twelve appropriations bills - covering foreign affairs, homeland security, commerce, justice, and science, agriculture, financial services, transportation, interior and the environment - until December 7th. It also includes the full-year, 2019 appropriations bills for the military and the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. All together, the bill authorizes $1.78 trillion in spending for 2019, an increase of $81 billion over last year.

For the military, the bill provides $674.8 billion for 2019, a $19.7 billion increase from last year. That total includes $67.9 billion for the Overseas Contingency Operations account, a $2.7 billion increase over last year. This account is not subject to existing budget caps and has frequently been abused in recent years as a way to get around those caps. To see funding for this account increased is disappointing in light of the military’s expressed commitment to stop funding non-warfighting programs out of this account. 

For the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, the bill provides $180 billion in discretionary 2019 funding, an increase of about $1 billion over last year. In addition, the bill authorizes $866.4 billion in mandatory spending - spending that is essentially set on “autopilot” and not dealt with in the annual budget process, which is $63.2 billion more than in 2018. In total, the bill authorizes approximately $1.05 trillion in discretionary and mandatory funding for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, a $64.2 billion increase over last year.

Finally, the continuing resolution portion of the bill extends the expiration dates of seven 2018 appropriations bills for 68 days, from October 1st to December 7th. All together, these seven bills represent $325.4 billion in annualized spending, which boils down to $60.6 billion over 68 days. 

This bill represents a blatant attempt by the Senate and House leadership to defang House conservatives and force them into voting for a spending bill without fighting for adoption of their own amendments. While the Senate had the opportunity to amend, debate, and vote on their own version of both the military funding bill and the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education funding bill, the House only voted on its version of the military funding bill. 

The Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education funding bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee included provisions barring funding for Planned Parenthood, preventing the government from discriminating against child welfare agencies that limit adoptions based on religious beliefs, and allowing migrant children to be detained at the border with their parents as opposed to being forcibly separated. Those provisions, along with several others favored by conservatives, were not included in the final version of the bill voted on today.

In previous years, the absence of so many conservative provisions in the final version of a spending bill - known as a conference report - would likely have caused House conservatives to oppose it, or at least leverage their votes in order to get some of those provisions added back in. This year, however, the Senate and House leadership are attempting to avoid that by tying the conference report together with short-term funding extensions for the rest of the federal government. In other words, the powers that be have carefully engineered this bill so that standing up for conservative principles and opposing it not only means opposing full-year funding for the military, which is badly needed, but also potentially triggering a government shutdown. Members of the House - whether they be conservative, liberal, or in-between - ought to have been given the same opportunity their Senate counterparts had, to debate, amend, and vote on their own version of these funding bills without the looming possibility of a government shutdown clouding their decision making. 

A continuing resolution that extends funding until early December is a calculated attempt to put off spending decisions until after the election. Without that pressure from voters, don’t expect lawmakers to suddenly become budget hawks. In other words, in the context of an election year, the length of this particular continuing resolution is a strong hint that the next funding deal in December will likely not be particularly financially responsible.