For example, the final bill moves about $3.6 billion out of the “base” budget for low-income rental assistance administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and includes it in the disaster aid title. Similarly, an extra $2.5 billion for low-income heating assistance previously in the base budget for the Department of Health and Services is also now designated an emergency.
Conservative angst
A handful of hard-core conservatives railed against the omnibus at a press conference Tuesday, saying lawmakers don’t have time to read the bill in a process they feel is rushed by design to facilitate runaway spending. Most of them declined to commit to pursuing a time agreement to speed up the process.
“This is why we’re $31 trillion in debt, because of stuff like this,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said. “This is wrong. It’s got to stop.”
Lee was joined by GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Braun of Indiana. Braun described a core group of “six or seven” conservatives opposed to more spending and the process of appropriating through late, massive omnibus packages, but he predicted that, ultimately, 30 to 35 Republicans will vote against the measure.
Paul and Lee complained that conservatives get blamed for holding up spending bills if they don’t consent to time agreements when leadership knows that it takes a week to move a bill through the Senate under regular order and could begin the process sooner.
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