A bundle of spending bills including the US military, Department of Labor, and Health and Human Services failed in the Senate on Thursday, with a procedural vote that needed 60 votes ending up 51-41.
The votes are heavily a political issue surrounding attempts to shift some of the military budget into building a border wall at Mexico, a top Trump priority. The bills only got through the Appropriations Committee on a vote entirely along party lines.
When it got to the Senate floor, Republicans were banking on accusing the Democrats of not supporting the military. This failed, with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) saying that they’re trying to stop the Republicans from “stealing money from our military and putting it into the wall.”
With almost no Democrat support, there was no way the Senate was getting to 60 votes. There had been closed door talks on how to move ahead on this issue with the border wall hanging over everyone’s head.
To make matters even more complicated, there has been protracted fighting on reconciling the bill between the House, where the Democrats are in control, and the Senate. This is something they’ve struggled with for some time, with President Trump angrily condemning the Congressional Democrats as “failing” in not giving him the money for his wall.
That they ended up stopping the talks, and having a vote that was likely to fail, reflects how little idea anyone has on how to sort this out. Instead, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and other committee leaders were counting on saying that military spending “should come first” as excuse enough to push the bill through. But it just wasn’t, and with time running out they may have to accept another continuing resolution to punt the matter into early 2020.
I didn’t know bird-watching was so important here.
Gee, be a shame if “defense” had no money…..
Congress is bought & paid for. The Pentagon is a voracious black hole. “Defense” budget should be slashed by 70%.
As if funding could stop the MIC/bankster mafia. When you create your own currency you don’t need anyone’s permission but the assholes that own the country and want to own the world.
It’s looking more and more like we may need to lop off the heads of some of these elites.
They don’t seem to be willing to sacrifice any of their plunder or control.
The first sentence is the real problem… a “bundle of spending bills” across multiple departments?! That’s like Congress voting on whether or not the US government should exist. And I suppose many of them think it shouldn’t. If they’re going to act like this, maybe they’re right. Meanwhile, a whole bunch of problems need fixing that will literally kill Americans by the thousands… but those are inexpedient to legislate, and not interesting enough for the public to pay attention to when there are so many mesmerizing things on TV.