U.S. Appropriations FY2025: The Power of the Purse Unhinged - Early Days

The first bill is now heading to the House floor. It's passed the Rules Committee and is on the schedule. So, to start with?

Bill:

H.R. 8580 - Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025
Link: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8580

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To start with, I'll be stealing my posts from the 118th Congress thread and reposting them here to set the stage.
It breaks the 10,000 character limit to post both at once, so here's the first, which was following the press release that 8580 had passed out of the Appropriations Committee and heading to the Rules Committee for further processing.

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Original in the 118th Congress thread:

The discretionary appropriations circus for FY25 is chugging along.

And yes, the thread is coming in a few months once more action has occurred and we're closer to the election, but I figure I'd highlight a couple of things.

1) Republicans are hopeful to get all the bills done before the end of Fiscal. For those keeping score? The last time the government discretionary funding was completed BEFORE DECEMBER (that's 2+ months late) was... hold on... Yep. 1999, for FY00. (I have been doing research). Depending on which member of the appropriations committee you talk to, you get varying levels of hope and despondency.

The most recent The Hill article:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4685337-gop-tempers-expectations-on-appropriations-bills/

“If we don’t hit any speed bumps it could work,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the funding subcommittee that oversees dollars for the Department of Agriculture, said this week when asked about leadership’s proposed floor schedule. “But we usually hit speed bumps.”

2) The full House appropriations committee has voted through the bill for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs. Traditionally, this is one of the bills that gets worked on early, passed early, and can actually make its way through the rules committee to the full house floor before the end of summer. This isn't one that normally gets politics played with it to the extreme sense that other functional areas do. More on this in a moment.

• 2a) The sub-committee has completed it's work on the bill for Legislative Affairs, and passed it up to the full committee. Considering this is pretty much JUST the budget for the House (the Senate will construct their own)? Seeing this get moved around this fast isn't a surprise.

Okay, now, the MilConstruction and VA bill? It is contentious this year. And it reads VERY much like a war of talking points, primarily dealing with the VA and treatment of women and LGTBQ+ individuals. Oh, and zeroing out anything about DEI and combatting climate change. Because of course it is.

How the two sides are stating the most controversial things (which are mostly covered in riders).

Republicans

Democrats

o Prohibiting the use of funds to promote or advance critical race theory. o Prohibiting the implementation, administration, or enforcement of the Biden Administration’s executive orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion. o Prohibiting taxpayer dollars from being used for abortion, using Hyde language which includes exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. o Protecting the 2nd Amendment rights of veterans, preventing VA from sending information to the FBI about veterans without a judge’s consent. o Prohibiting VA from processing medical care claims for illegal aliens.

• Further limits women’s access to abortion, harming women veterans’ health. • Leaves military installations, servicemembers, and their families vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and worsening natural disasters by failing to include dedicated Climate Change and Resilience funding and walking back on investments in Natural Disaster Recovery construction. • Undermines the ability to keep guns out of the hands of those prohibited under Federal law from purchasing or possessing firearms. • Repeats the same extreme House Republican tactics attempted in fiscal year 2024 by including partisan changes to existing law, known as “riders,” that hurt Americans and create chaos. Once again, Republicans are disenfranchising veterans rather than making VA a welcoming and inclusive place for all those who volunteer to serve our country. We did not make promises to certain servicemembers in exchange for their service and sacrifice; we made promises to everyone

Primary press releases.
Republican: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...ary-construction-veterans-affairs-and-related
Democrats: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...can-funding-bill-fails-to-meet-the-needs-of-0

Text of the bill is available via both in various forms.

So yeah, as Jeffries recently said (that Hill article linked above):

In remarks to reporters on Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the annual funding bills that have come from the Republican side so far have “zero chance of becoming law,” accusing the party of pursuing cuts and “right-wing” policies that won’t pass the Democratic-led Senate.

Those right wing policies? Pretty much all the things I wrote up there.


3) Final thing? The total, "top line" number for appropriations is normally resolved in a Budget Resolution, but last year (and this) were negotiated between McCarthy and Biden. And current members of the GOP don't really want to follow that. Specifically, in regard to non-defense spending increases. AKA, they don't want any. This ties into the deal last year about the debt ceiling and Democrats pointing out that the deal that was reached was reneged on by McCarthy and the GOP nearly immediately.


So yeah. Passing the 12 bills for discretionary spending by 30 September? A month before the election? In THIS environment?
Suuuuuuuuuure.

Click to expand...

H.R. 8580 - Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025
Link: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8580

Second post, having dug into the actual bill text. I kind of lose it here for a bit. It made me.. not happy.

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Original post:

Well.

I read through the text of H.R. 8580 - Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025 (text @ congress.gov), the bill I reference just up there as it has passed completely out of the Appropriations Committee and been reported to the House at large - Rules Committee is next.

I found the relevant sections that are pretty damn obviously vindictive or Republican flags.

For the most part the text is filled with standard boilerplate language massaging how much money goes where - this is "top" level stuff for the most part, as individual organizations within the respective departments funding priorities tend to be a little to far down the list for Congress to care about. Where you start to find the all new language is mixed in to "relevant" sections under Administrative Provisions.

And even though the language is a bit on the legalese side, the meaning is crystal clear and extra easy to parse.

How I found them? Looking for "Prohibit" and "None of" was surprisingly effective, and then drilling through the large number of Sections and Subsections under the aforementioned Administrative Provisions. This is where blanket statements tend to live that apply to the Agency/Department in full, and tend not to feature specific dollar amounts - merely percentages, All, or None.

For example, on abortion:

Sec. 255.
(a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to implement, administer, or otherwise carry out the Department of Veterans Affairs interim final rule published on September 9, 2022, or any successor to such rule, or to propose, promulgate, or implement any substantially similar rule or policy.
(b) None of the funds appropriated in this Act shall be expended for any abortion, including through a medical benefits package or health benefits program that includes coverage of abortion.
(c) The limitations established in subsection (b) shall not apply to an abortion—

(1) if the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest; or​

(2) in the case where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed.​

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That's pretty clear cut.

For those curious? "Interim Final Rule published September 9, 2022" is VERY on the nose, and was Veterans Affair's response to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health
Link to the rule: FederalRegister.gov
What was the response? To VERY quickly summarize, it was to continue the existing VA policy of providing abortions and follow-up care if deemed needed for the life OR health of the pregnant veteran REGARDLESS of the local states laws on the issue.

Pretty easy to see why GOP folks hated this. I want to comment more, but most of it is incandescent rage and swear words at the GOP in general. So, yeah, you get the picture.

Oh and what is this in the very next section?

Sec. 256. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for surgical procedures or hormone therapies for the purposes of gender affirming care.

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Yeah.

Sec 257? No flags of foreign places or flags for things like, oh, I don't know (checks date) Pride Month.
Sec 259? No funds for COVID Vaccines!
Sec 260? No funds for services for people "unlawfully present in the United States". The back half of the section says "who is not eligible for health care under the laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs." ... I don't know what that means. Other than this, like the flag thing, is in line with furthering Republican ideology. In this case, anti-immigrant sentiments.
Sec 261? No funds available for use by the VA to report any potential "red flags" for mental health reasons for individuals who might cause harm to themselves or others unless ordered by a court to do so. The GOP framed this as stopping the VA from preventing anyone from getting guns.

Further down, in "General Provisions"

Sec 414 - No funds for anything in a slew of executive orders focused on DEI and Racial Equality
Sec 415 - CRT BAD!
Sec 416 - Discrimination against marred LGTBQ+ is okay! It's worded as a withholding of funds from any actions taken AGAINST people who speak out with a "sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction, that marriage is, or should be recognized as, a union of one man and one woman." Reading not-so-between-the-lines? Bigots have free reign to be bigots. There are bunch of stipulations here, but that is what it ultimately boils down to (in my understanding, at least).
Sec 417 - DEI BAD!
Sec 418 - COVID MASKING BAD!
Sec 419 and Sec 420 - CLIMATE CHANGE IS FAKE! NO FUNDS FOR YOU! No funds for a whole slew of Biden administration Executive Orders.

a;lgkhqt[09ihas;tgoihqt[0ua9tgr;oihihawtaqq0t!!!!!!!!!!!

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*and... breathe..... *

Yeah.
This is going nowhere. If the Democrats have control of either chamber or the presidency? No. Where.

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Where do we stand now?

The bill (8580, MilCon/VA) has made it through the Rules Committee (9-3, on party lines), that rule was agreed to in the House, and is on the docket after the ICC sanctions.

There are a LOT of amendments to be debated. And this is supposed to be the EASY one of the 12 to get passed. I haven't had time to go through them all yet, but there are some doozies in there.

Want to see? Scroll down to section B. And then keep scrolling.
https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-FY2025-MilCon

Rules state that for each amendment (or cluster of them) is brought to the floor, they get 20 minutes of debate each before yeas/nays are done. This might take a hot minute.

And to be fun, lurking in the wings? The bill for the Legislative Branch has made it out of the subcommittee. And I have thoughts. More on those later.

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Something to keep in mind. Whatever one of these gets passed by the House first and makes it’s way to the Senate? It will sit there, not being voted on, for months. In fact, there is a good chance that this bill (if it passes the House) will be turned upside down by the Senate Appropriations Committee, shook extremely hard, and then have a bunch of appropriations bills stuffed into it all at once to make a consolidated package of some sort. And that won’t be until MUCH later.

GMBigKev said:

There's such bizarre anger in a lot of these

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There really is. Like this one:

I mean, I know Greene isn’t… yeah. But what is this for?! It has to be in retribution for something, I guess, but… Just what?

Or these two from Gosar:

That second one in particular, calling it out in the amendment as “the VA’s woke funding program”.

Just. Ugh.

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There are some interesting amendments in there attempting to shuffle money around for pet projects on both the Military Construction and the VA side. Honestly curious how some of those get voted on.

And it’s on the House floor now.

1 hour of general debate, and then the amendments. It’s going to be a long day. Or two.

I’ll do an attempt at post game, go over the results when I can. But as I work nights, it’ll be after the session is gaveled done with for today, I’m afraid - sleep first, politics later.

A whole slew of amendments were brought to the floor today. A BUNCH.

First, to clarify, the list we need to go off of is here, on the actual Rules Report. There are 47 of them.
PDF: https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/RULEHR8580HR8282.pdf

But to see the actual amendment, you have to go back to the rules link I posted earlier and click on the representatives name by the specific amendment, here:

Second, I’ll do my best to summarize, but some of these are going to need deeper dives than I have time for right now. I’ll clarify ones I plan to come back to further down.

And now, the amendments, listed in the order where the House voted on them.

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Carter (R TX) put forth a bloc of amendments at once. From Part B: Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, and 47.

What is all of that? Everything but the last is tweaking individual lines by a million or two dollars and reassigning it to another line. On the surface, per the summaries? There isn’t anything objectionable there. I’ll dig further into it later, because I’m not certain there isn’t something past the surface.

For example, here is the summary for No 3, a Boebert amendment that:

Transfers $2 million from VA bureaucracy to resources for medical and prosthetic research to ensure our veterans receive cutting edge medical care from the VA.

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The actual amendment is:

Page 34, line 19, after the dollar amount, insert ‘‘(increased by $2,000,000)’’.
Page 35, line 23, after the dollar amount, insert ‘‘(reduced by $2,000,000)’’.

Click to expand...

That needs a deeper look. As there are so many in the bloc, I’ll tackle it later.

Passed via voice vote.

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Bergman (MI) and a BUNCH of others (bi-partisan):
From Part B: No. 1

Tweaks funding to “express support” towards research using psychedelic assisted therapies to treat PTSD and depression. And to encourage the VA to actively train therapists to administer the treatments. They moved $20,000,000 around - that’s a lot of support.

Commentary : I really, REALLY like this. I‘ve heard anecdotal tales through my network grapevine of lunatics who spent an inordinate amount of time getting shot at and seeing friends die that a few have gone through trials of such therapy. And the results were life changing, in a good way. After YEARS of.. yeah. Anyway.

Passed via voice vote.

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More are coming, don’t want to run into the character limit .

More amendments:

Bergman (MI) and a BUNCH of others (bi-partisan):
From Part B: No. 2

What is it? More tweaking of funds for PTSD research, this time including reports to congress following FDA approval of midomafetamine-assisted therapies to treat PTSD. Reports to be on how/if the VA is going to use such treatments and to show there work.

Commentary Well, this might be going nowhere in a hurry. Which is kind of a bummer.

Details from Ars’ own Dr. Mole:

Passed via voice vote. Not that it’s going to make much difference now.

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Bost (R - IL):
From Part B: No 8

What is it? It’s a “None of the funds” requirement to ignore the following provision:

in Chapter 1.8 of the VHA Office of Community Care, ‘‘Field Guidebook: Specialty Pro-grams’’ to make wait time and drive time access standards only applicable to primary care, specialty care, and non-institutional extended care services.

Click to expand...

I don’t know what that means. The summary paints it as making access standards the same for Mental Health Residential Treatment Program as for primary care, specialty care, etc.

Passed via yeas and nays, largely on party lines. Link to Roll Call vote results: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024237

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Burchett (R - TN):
From Part B: No 9

What is it? A “None of the funds” restriction. No removing the photograph “V-J Day in Times Square.”

Um… what? This was a thing? I don’t know what is going on here.

Passed via voice vote:

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Ah, here we go. Some juice.

Crane (R - TX):
From part B: No 10

What is it? A ”none of the funds” provision, preventing the VA from reporting determinations to the DoJ National Instant Criminal Background Check System, established as part of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

Commentary……
Every single thing I want to say here involves swear words. I do not like this.

Passed via yeas and nays, largely on party lines. Roll Call link: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024238

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Greene (R - GA)
Part B, No 16

What is it? Cutting funding from NATO.

This woman is bonkers.

FAILED via yeas and nays in dramatic fashion. Roll Call link: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024239

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Passed via voice vote:

Hagemen (R - WY) - Part B, no 17 - “None of the funds” to continue decommissioning mileage reimbursement kiosks. Commentary: Um.. .okay?

James (R - MI) - Part B, No 18 - Tweaks funding, shifting funds from building outpatient clinics and the like and making it available for building/leasing/purchasing stuff for the VA hospital network.

Kiggans (R - VA) - Part B, No 19 - Tweaks funding to make more money available for privatized housing for unaccompanied service members (MilCon). Commentary: To be honest, I was married my entire time in and never lived in a dorm facility outside of Basic and the first part of school. So.. sure?

Kiggans (R - VA) with Bi-partisan support - Part B, No 20 - Tweaks funds to maintain medical care for folks in the Territories and Freely Associated States. Good for Puerto Rico, Guam, and others.

Kiggans (R - VA) with Bi-partisan support - Part B, No 21 - Tweaks funds to emphasize mental health programs, especially regarding suicide prevention and outreach. Commentary: Good.

Kiggans (R - VA) with Scott (D - VA) - Part B, No 22 - Tweaks funds to tell the Navy and USMC to hurry up with demolition activities and get rid of old stuff on their bases. Commentary: Some eye sores on the super base at Norfolk, eh?

Molinaro (R - NY) - Part B, No 29 - Tweaks funding ($10 million) to emphasize the Office of Mental Health work with veterans with disabilities, mental health, and substance abuse challenges.

Ogles (R - TN) - Part B, No 31 thru 35 - (31)Tweaks funding to promote the VA home loan. (32) Tweaks funding for treating PTSD. (33) Tweaks funds for in-home health care services. (34) Tweaks funding to try and increase speed for the Board of Veterans Appeals processing. (35) Tweaks funds to focus on maintaining nursing homes for WW2, Korean, and Vietnam veterans. Commentary: I listed all of these together because something is odd. These are all fairly innocuous on the surface, but for a couple of things. 1) These are already known or pretty decently funded programs. 2) They are all taking $1,000,000 and shifting it slightly. Something smells fishy. I’ll do some digging, see what I can find.

Perry (R - PA) - Part B, No 36 - Tweaks funds to furnish Stellate Ganglion Block (SGB) therapy to personnel who want it. Commentary: I had to look that up - it’s a real treatment.

Peters (D - CA) with Bipartisan support - Part B, No 37 & 38 - (37) Tweaks funds by $1,000,000 to encourage VA and public housing authorities to help veterans seeking housing assistance. (38) Tweaks funds by $1,000,000 to emphasize the SSVF Shallow Subsidy program that aims to keep veterans in their homes and prevent them from becoming homeless. Commentary: Good, but the numbers always make me question how this is supposed to work. And it’s one thing to label the the amendment this way, but the actual text is literally inserting a “increase by $1,000,000” and a “reduce by $1,000,000“ at the appropriate part of the line. I’ll look.

Pfluger (R - TX) - Part B, No 39 - Tweaks fundings to direct the VA to work with the National Academies of Sciences to try and identify exposures/cancers affecting military aviators and those who served as active duty aircrew.

Rodgers (R - WA) - Part B No 40 & 41 - Tweaks funds to emphasize (40) emergency care coverage and (41) housing oversight.

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Up next? The Roll Calls, what they were, how they went.
And what remains on the list.

Amendments that went to the yeas and nays:

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Mast (R - FL) with bipartisan support - Part B, No 28

What is it?
Ensures veterans can participate in state-approved medical marijuana programs, and removes the directive that prevents the VA staff from recommending or referring veterans to said programs.

It does this via a “None of the funds” provision, that removes the ability to enforce directives and policies related to preventing this from happening. Take the money away it becomes toothless. Power of the Purse indeed.

Commentary: It took ‘em long enough! And bipartisan support on this one.

Passed by yeas and nays. Majority Democratic support, and the Republicans split down the middle.
Roll call link: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024240

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Self (R - TX) or Roy (R - TX) - Part B, No 42

So, the roll call and record says Self, but the report and amendment say Roy. Have fun with that.

What is it? A “none of these funds” provision that will prevent removing a display that features a mission statement, “To fulfill President Lincoln's promise 'to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan' by serving and honoring the men and women who are America's veterans.”

Commentary:
The VA changed the motto to be gender neutral.
From: https://www.va.gov/icare/
VA’s Mission:

To fulfill President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.

Click to expand...

Certain members of congress (who may or may not by misogynistic bigots) want to keep the old motto up and displayed.

Passed via yeas and nays on party lines.
Roll Call link: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024241

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What is left?

Four more amendments on the Part B list. Two promoting the use of AI (which will be badly written), one telling the VA not to pay bonuses to senior execs at the Central Office, and one stopping the VA from processing medical claims for ICE.

You know what ISN’T on the list?
Democratic Amendments striking the Sections prohibiting enforcement of climate change executive orders.
Democratic Amendments striking the Sections pulling funding from DEI and related activitIes.
MULTIPLE Democratic Amendments striking the Section that messes with reproductive rights and abortion.


Three thoughts:
1) Of course those Democratic amendments aren’t up for vote or debate. Because the Republicans control the Rules Committee, and therefore can dictate what amendments can go to the floor.
2) There is next to no chance that this passes the Senate in its current state. There is some truly disgusting stuff in the basic bill.
3) As noted by myself and others? This isn’t what the end product will look like. Not even close.


And sorry for the disjointed format - kind of figuring out how I wanted to stitch this all together, and switched it up there in the middle.

Huh. Okay. Today I learned. Thanks, @AbidingArs.

karolus said:

And, with all the pressing issues we have facing the country right now—outside of cheap political points—why is time being wasted on this?

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There is a LOT of this in the amendments to spending bills. Which is why when I find GOP led efforts in amendments that seem to be for a specific purpose that isn’t performative? My government-trained-and-certified BS detector* starts to ping.

Hence flagging a lot of the amendments so far as, “I need to look further into this.”

But that’ll be this evening. Sleep first. The perils of night shift, alas.


*BS detectors are also emitters. They are dual use… devices? Implants? Sub-organs?

It passed, 209-197.
Now it will languish in the Senate for months. And will likely not be seen again in this form or with this content. But that’s analysis for later.

Lt_Storm said:

When I was reading the Boebert amendments, I figured that she was setting up talking points about gutting wasteful bureaucracy. Because anyone doing paper or administrative work is bad or something.

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That was my initial thought too.

There was something more than that, though. She had put forward, and then withdrawn, at least one amendment doing that ”reduce salary to $1” vindictive and performative BS that both she and Greene are very fond of.

I’m curious to know where and what exactly she was removing money from. Just general “administration”, or was she targetin specific offices/agencies/etc? I suspect the latter.

Alright, let’s finish up the amendments in general.

Schweikert (R - AZ) - Part B, No’s 43 and 44

What are they?
No 43 is shifting $1,000,000 within the Veterans Benefits Administration to ”provide support for utilizing AI to expedite claims.”
No 44 is shifting $10,000,000 within the VA as a department to conduct a study as to the ”benefits of utilizing artificial intelligence” to do a BUNCH of stuff.

Commentary:
So, I was curious as to what the language for these looked like. Was it more clear about what sort of AI are we talking about? Because if it’s generative LLM nonsense, I want to eject these loons into a cold lake… which now that I’ve written that out? Isn’t a good metaphor at all…

And… it’s not helpful. At all. Here is the actual text of the amendments:

No 43 - AI to expedite claims.

Page 26, line 24, after the dollar amount, insert ‘‘(increased by $1,000,000)’’.
Page 35, line 23, after the dollar amount, insert ‘‘(reduced by $1,000,000)’’.

Click to expand...

No 44 - AI Study

Page 36, line 18, after the dollar amount, insert ‘‘(reduced by $10,000,000)(increased by $10,000,000)’’.

Click to expand...

Alright, fine, I’m going to be doing this a lot later when the bill has been marked up with all the approved amendments. But I’ll bite.

Text of the bill as it was reported to the House from the Appropriations Committee: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr8580/BILLS-118hr8580rh.pdf

Son of a… the amendments are to the Rules Committee print version of the bill. Fricken congress. grumble grumble grumble
Alright, here’s THAT version of the bill (pdf): https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/FY25 MCVA Rules Committee Print 3.43 05.23.2024_xml.pdf

Now, matching up No 44 about the AI Study with what will actually be law (well, if this were to be signed in current form, which is laughable at best), here is the relevant section of the text, with the line in question bolded by me:

8 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS
9 (INCLUDING TRANSFER OF FUNDS)
10 For necessary expenses for information technology
11 systems and telecommunications support, including devel-
12 opmental information systems and operational information
13 systems; for pay and associated costs; and for the capital
14 asset acquisition of information technology systems, in-
15 cluding management and related contractual costs of said
16 acquisitions, including contractual costs associated with
17 operations authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United
18 States Code, $6,231,680,000, plus reimbursements:

Click to expand...

How that is all going to be written in the final text, I’ll be curious to see. Especially as the REASON for the $10,000,000 (the AI study) doesn’t appear to be actually in the codified text of what would be law. Which, to my interpretation (which is probably wrong), amounts to this being an increase in the IT budget by $10,000,000, and a wishlist item of an AI study that isn’t actually required by law.

Anyway, the results:

Both Passed via the yeas and nays with widespread bipartisan support, with the majority of detractors being Democrats.
No 43, 333-70. Roll call link: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024243
No 44, 392-11. Roll call link: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024244

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Self (R - TX) or Stuebe (R - FL). Part B, No 45

The amendment says Self. The live.house.gov site says it’s Stuebe. Whatever.

What is it?
A “none of the funds” provision preventing Senior Executive Service personnel get a critical skills incentive (aka, a bonus). The amendment title used on the floor and in the Rules Committee report says “at the VA Central Office”, but the text of the amendment itself doesn’t make that distinction - it says “at the Department of Veterans Affairs” without any specific offices named. So, no critical skills bonus for the top line folks for fiscal year 2025.

Passed via yeas and nays, largely on party lines with some yeas from Democrats, 237-169.
Roll call link: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024245

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Passed via voice vote:

Steube (R - FL). Part B, No 46 - A “none of these funds” provision preventing the VA from processing medical claims for the ICE Health Services Corps. Commentary: There has to be a story here, right? Why is this a thing?

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Whew. That’s a lot of stuff.

But yeah, I’m very curious how shifting money around without an explicit written instruction other than a statement in a Rules Committee report actually equates out to action-by-law. Once the full text of the bill has been marked up, I’ll sit down with a huge mug of tea and dissect it down, see what actually changed and if any additional details were given.

There are a few more details I’m curious about as well regarding the initial markup, and who requested what be added in addition to the basic text. But that is going to require watching videos and reading transcripts, I suspect. And it’s my weekend, you can’t make me!

NEWS!

Reported out of House Appropriations subcommittees either today or yesterday:
Defense
Financial Services
Homeland
State-Foreign Operations

It’s a couple of weeks faster than last year or the year before. This is the House version of “hurrying” to get all of these done before end of fiscal.

I just checked the status table and saw this. I’ll go over the releases a bit later. I suspect it’ll be more of the same. I’ll post links and anything particularly interesting or egregious in a while.

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**DISCLAIMER ABOUT DEFENSE BUDGET STUFF

Alright, since it’s starting to rear its ugly head, I am going to address this RIGHT now: I am in this functional area.
I WILL NOT be providing additional commentary or doing any particular deep dives into the Defense budget, for multiple reasons.
1) I will be inherently biased - even more so than I normally am.
2) I do not want to unintentionally War Thunder myself or Ars Technica. That would be BAD.
3) Defense topics are touchy as hell, and really should be constrained to their own thread(s).

Cool? Cool.

And for folks who want their news from actual journalists!

The Hill on the MilCon/VA bill passing the house:

And on the few who crossed party lines to vote the other way.

Largely talks about what we’ve seen already - the GOP ra-ra-ra-ing because it’s their bill and they want to say they are moving forward in a hurry, and the Democrats (and the Biden administration) pointing out that there are some REALLY BIG freaking problems in regards to reproductive rights and the environment and DEI measures - namely the GOP trying to negate anything in those areas down to a null state.

They do talk to a few of the cross party voters though, since 4 Democrats voted for passage and a couple of GOP folks voted no.

A telling quote from Gluesenkamp Perez (D - WA) (what a name) on why she voted for passage:

“The legislation also included two of my amendments to address failures for veterans in Lewis County impacted by the Chehalis VA clinic closure and for veterans in Skamania County who lost federal funding eligibility for no-cost transportation to VA medical appointments,” she continued.

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Rosendale (R - MT) voted against passage. He spouted something about voting it down because it ruined more lives than Planned Parenthood - he’s a ”culture war” republican with little of substance beyond clicks from what I can glean following a quick search. Montana NPR dunks on him pretty regularly, from what I can gather. But he said something I find myself agreeing with, and that feels gross.

“This bill also fails all veterans that rely on the VA for healthcare as it does nothing to terminate or restructure the VA’s contract with Oracle-Cerner whose failed digitization efforts have increased medical costs and made receiving medical care harder for veterans,” he added.

Click to expand...

Cerner was bought by Oracle in 2021. Any good they may have been doing is now ruined. Because Oracle. And I have opinions about Oracle. And NONE of them are kind.

AbidingArs said:

I found this article that discusses the issue, which concerns whether the VA is using any resources on ICE detainees. I'm not familiar enough with the topic to decide if it is just culture war - I suspect so, since it sounds to me like the desire is to avoid having to provide medical care for ICE detainees and not just ensuring that funding for the VA is not used for that purpose.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, reading those quotes, AND a Rosendale sighting? This is 100% culture war nonsense, trying to make it seem like VA medical staff are actively treating immigrants.

Thanks for digging, and yep, that explains that.

And in fact, from the debate on the amendment, emphasis by me - and this is just after Wasserman Schultz pointed out that ICE is going to have to stand up an entirely new office process claims instead doing an inter-departmental transfer and pay the VA to dit for them.

Ms. Wasserman Schultz

9:39:55 AM

THANK YOU, MR. CHAIRMAN. PERHAPS THE GENTLEMAN HAS SELECTIVE HEARING. BECAUSE THERE ARE NO FUNDS BEING SPENT BY THE V.A. TO PROCESS THESE CLAIMS. BECAUSE I.C.E. FROM THEIR BUDGET PAYS THE V.A. TO PROCESS THE CLAIMS. THERE ARE NO RESOURCES THAT ARE EXTEND PENDED BY THE V.A. -- THAT ARE EXPENDED BY THE V.A. BECAUSE THE FUNDING COMES FROM I.C.E.'S BUDGET. SO THIS AMENDMENT IS INAPPLICABLE TO THIS BILL AND IS JUST A CULTURE WAR OPPORTUNITY TO BASH IMMIGRANTS. IT'S IRRESPONSIBLE AND IT'S ALSO FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE BECAUSE THE CLAIMS FROM I.C.E. HAVE TO GET PROCESSED AND THEY WOULD HAVE TO STAND UP AN ENTIRELY SEPARATE CLAIMS PROCESSING SYSTEM IN ORDER TO GET THOSE CLAIMS PROCESSED. THIS SAVES MONEY AND DOES NOT TAKE ANY FUNDING AWAY FROM PROCESSING CLAIMS FOR OUR VETERANS. WITH THAT, I YIELD BACK THE BALANCE OF MY TIME. IN OPPOSITION TO THE AMENDMENT.

Click to expand...

She goes on the offensive again during debate over Steube’s amendment to kill bonuses because it’s badly worded and doesn’t target the office Steube says it does, it prevents those bonuses from the entire Department of Veterans Affairs. Which will, as she points out, negatively effect recruitment and retention, which sounds EXACTLY like what the GOP has been actively striving for for years, and kicked into overdrive since 2016.

Took a bit of a break over my weekend - a bit slow in the cycle once the bill passed.

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First, some house cleaning.
Appropriations Committee press releases following the passage of Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies:
Republican: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...l-fully-funding-va-health-care-and-bolstering
Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...con-va-funding-bill-fails-meet-needs-veterans

The only real changes on the GOP side? They are clear to highlight that they are coming in OVER the administration request for the Defense portions of the bill, while very mum on the non-defense side - Democrats are quick to point out that it's overall $718 million dollars less than last year for military construction, and the rather large amount of ... well, here is Wasserman (D-FL):

“Worse, these cuts are part of a broader, deeper array of budget decreases which not only abandon the Fiscal Responsibility Act, but will undoubtedly also harm millions of veterans, servicemembers and their families. Lastly, this bill is riddled with extremist policy riders that further erode women’s reproductive rights and cruelly target LGBTQ+ and other diverse communities. In short, they needlessly take away freedoms from those who fought for ours. I’m very disappointed my Republican colleagues, once again, have turned this traditionally bipartisan package of healthcare, infrastructure, and benefits for our servicemembers and veterans, into a culture war cudgel."

Click to expand...

And yes, the Republicans added in a highlight for that amendment from Steube (R-FL) about preventing the VA from processing medical claims for ICE under contract. Because immigrants and bigotry.

I'll be doing a much deeper dive into the actual text of the bill and the amendments in the coming days/weeks. We're going to have some time.

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As I mentioned up a few posts, five more of the twelve bills have made it out of their respective subcommittees.

Legislative Branch (this post)
Defense (future posts)
Financial Services (future posts)
Homeland (future posts)
State-Foreign Operations (future posts)

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Legislative Branch:
I already glanced through the bill text a bit and found very similar language about "none of the funds" to be used for anything related to DEI, critical race theory, and let's folks get away with discriminating against the LGTBQ+ community. But let's take a look at what the GOP and Democrats said about it.

Press Releases:
GOP: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...s-fy25-legislative-branch-appropriations-bill
Democrats: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...publican-2025-legislative-branch-funding-bill

Top line highlights from both parties - bold is copied from the releases.:




Let's see...

GOP highlighting that they won't be required to drive lower emission vehicles, Democrats pointing out how that is, in fact, bad.
GOP pointing out how they are increasing money for Capital Police recruitment/retention. Given what just happened in the PA state house with a couple of former Capital Police who were at the Capital during January 6th, and the GOP treatment of them (NBC News)? Suuuure.

And that last line on the Democrat side really bothers me - I want to go dig into the language in the bill, because this screams continual attacks on the Dreamers by the GOP in any way they can, furthering anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies with an added bonus of anti-Obama. But that's just a straight read from the talking points - I don't have time this morning to dig into the bill text. Regardless, that's just another attack vector the GOP.

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Aaaaand I'm out of time this morning. More to come in the evening.

Fascinating, @AbidingArs. Thanks for digging into that. I'll add it to the queue for a deeper look. Need to identify the specific language and trace the funds from, probably, the FY24 enacted a few months ago, the admin request from March, what came out of the subcommittee, and finally the bill as it heads to the Senate. Establish that base line to compare to what the eventual bill shows when it's repackaged/melted down and reformed late this fall, after the chaos of end-of-fiscal and a little thing called, "an election.".

But first, continuing with going through the topline stuff of the bills that have made is out of the various subcommittees.

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State / Foreign Operations:
The first two bills? Light affair, really.
MilCon/VA is 94 pages.
Legislative Branch is 48 pages.
State and Foreign Operations? 298 pages.

Yeah. And the "summaries" really hammer home that there is... well, a LOT of stuff in this bill. And it really is a "combo-breaker" that dips into topics covered by, my rough top-of-the-head count... at least 6 other threads here in the Soap Box?

First? Links!

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House Appropriations Press Releases:

• GOP: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...te-and-foreign-operations-appropriations-bill
• Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...publican-funding-bill-abdicates-us-leadership
  • Top line summary 'fact sheet' from the Democrats, as their press release doesn't have a bunch of details (pdf): https://democrats-appropriations.ho...ons.house.gov/files/SFOPS FY25 Fact Sheet.pdf

Bill text: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/...2025-StateForOp-FY25SFOPsSubcommitteeMark.pdf

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What they said? Selected quotes and links:

Democrats are highlighting how there is overall less funding, and the places that have more funding? Is more than troubling. This is on top of the overall assault against women, climate change, DEI, LGBTQ+ rights, etc.

Democrat Ranking Member (State subcommittee), Lee (D-CA) (statement) (bold emphasis mine):

But perhaps the most damaging aspect of this House mark is the abdication and retreat of U.S. leadership around the world. The bill projects a worldview that sees issues and countries as black and white, good and evil. If we don't like everything about an organization or can't control all their actions, this bill prohibits funding it. It is our way or the highway and this is fundamentally anti-democratic.

This is not how the world works and it is this approach that is causing the United States to become increasingly isolated. Instead of listening to partners and addressing concerns together, this mark forces the U.S. to go it alone and reject any country with a different perspective. It rejects burden-sharing and dialogue. Perhaps telling, the largest increase in this bill is Foreign Military Financing and it zeroes out the United Nations while outright prohibiting a half a dozen UN bodies. The message of this bill is more weapons, less cooperation.

Click to expand...

Democrat Ranking Member (Appropriations committee), DeLauro (D-CT) (statement) (bold emphasis mine):

Once again, we are marking up a State and Foreign Operations bill that resurrects the doomed isolationism of the early 20th century. Just a few months after Democrats and Republicans voted for final bipartisan 2024 funding bills, the majority proposes we decimate the State and Foreign Operations bill with a 12 percent cut from where we just were in March.

Click to expand...

And the GOP is very quick to be proud of those cuts, but they are measuring from different points. And those half-dozen UN bodies they are attempting to prevent money from? Yeah, GOP and 'outrage politics' talking points abound.

Chair (State subcommittee), Diaz-Balart (R-FL) (statement) (bold emphasis mine):
On the spending levels:

Overall funding in the bill was cut by 6% while upholding key U.S. priorities such as supporting strategic allies like Israel and Taiwan, and countering adversaries such as Communist China, the terrorist states of Iran and Cuba, and terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Click to expand...

Under Chairman Tom Cole's leadership, the State and Foreign Operations bill for Fiscal Year 2025 builds on the policy wins of the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted bill, including cutting 11% from Fiscal Year 2024 enacted levels.

Click to expand...

The State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill before us today totals $51.7 billion in new budget authority, which is a cut of $7.6 billion from the fiscal year 2024 enacted level, or 11 percent, and $12.3 billion below the President’s fiscal year 2025 request.

Click to expand...

That always makes interpreting cuts or additions fun, because the "zero" point for measurements can shift so easily, from the administration request to last years approved funding to what the other chamber approved, etc. It gets "fun" to parse through some times. See last year with some of the funding going to NSF and parts of NASA that @KT421 and I were trying to pick apart and finding different things each time we looked.

On not funding parts of the UN:

As the saying goes, the world is on fire right now. We should not be throwing fuel on the flames by funding organizations requested in the President’s budget that—

• Employ terrorists - UNRWA;
• Provide a platform on the global stage to the worst human rights abusers – the Human Rights Council;
• Take bogus legal action against Israel as it fights for its very existence – the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice;
• Cower to communist China and deny Taiwan observer status – the World Health Organization;
• Pay other countries climate reparations – the Loss and Damages Fund; or

Click to expand...

And with bonus anti-abortion insert expletive here:

Finally, this bill includes all longstanding pro-life protections, which includes a prohibition on all funds from being used to pay for abortions and builds on those requirements by applying the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy to all global health funding. The bill also prohibits funding for the U.N. Population Fund.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that fully feeds into the outrage politics the GOP is feeding on in regards to any of these topics right now, along with more/continuing assaults on reproductive rights.

And can't forget some anti-immigrant language too, because the GOP is mad at Mexico for insert really inane reason here. And keep in mind, this statement was in the middle of a paragraph on drug and narcotics interdiction:

For example, no funds—not one dollar—can go to Mexico until a certification is made that an agreement is in place to restore water deliveries owed to the United States from Mexico.

Click to expand...

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In the next post?
Top Line Summary: Pulled from the GOP Press Release and the Democrat Fact Sheet. I'm going to hit the 10K limit if I put it here. I'll have some thoughts as well and I am going to pull out some excerpts from the bill text itself - partly to familiarize anyone who wants to know with the language used in these provisions - especially those that are more politically charged.

to be continued...

State / Foreign Operations:
Continued!

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Top Line Summary: Pulled from the GOP Press Release and the Democrat Fact Sheet. I've trimmed them down quite a bit - the GOP are pretty damn wordy with theirs, but I'd highly encourage everyone to give both of these a once-over in their original form. It's not fun, but it is informative. I had to cut a LOT of stuff out in order to drop back under the 10,000 character limit for this post.

Democrat Fact Sheet: https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/SFOPS FY25 Fact Sheet.pdf
GOP Press Release (scroll down a bit): https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...te-and-foreign-operations-appropriations-bill

Note: I'm going to remember to put the Democrat stuff on the LEFT from now on. Amateur mistake for the first two, apologies.

Emphasis in bold by me:

I feel gross just having gone through and making some of those bold.

Some notes and thoughts:
I wanted to highlight the BOLD RED parts on the GOP side where in the same document they say they are increasing funding for democracy programs for Cuba, while also classifying it as an "adversarial nation". Just an interesting split message going on there - I'm certain when I dig into the funding, those "democracy programs" that are "for Cuba" will be... questionable.
BOLD BLUE on the GOP side: kind of saying the quiet part out loud there with these two statements - but they do that a LOT with this list. In particular in this case, the blatant, "use diplomacy as a cudgel to make business more profitable" form of interpreting 'national interest'. It's a particular interpretation of diplomatic relations I find repulsive if uncomfortably accurate, depending on who is in the White House and who the Secretary of State is.
BOLD GREEN is the casualties of culture war nonsense - note the deliberate targeting of women, reproductive rights, the promotion of "religious freedom" (which, for the most part so far, has been a not-so-subtle promotion of anti-LGTBQ+ bigotry), climate change, DEI initiatives and anything that might even hint at racial equality, the removal of State personnel that service these areas, and bonus anti-Palestine language.
BOLD UNDERLINED PURPLE: The complete defunding of the UN regular budget from United States discretionary spending.

Ick.
Ick ick ick ick.

On the Democrat side, I wanted to highlight the specific cuts in spending relative to the previous fiscal year. Especially (in addition to everything else ick about the right side of the table) the cuts to the United States Agency for Gobal Media.

For those who don't know what that is:

They broadcast news and information 'round the world. They are largely independent, but also tend to push out information that is... "helpful"... to the interests of the United States. This is the organization that houses Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, among others. The right has had it out for these folks for just about forever, and it's ramped up more and more since they openly criticized Trump occasionally during his presidency.

And a huge huge huge thing they do is the Open Technology Fund (wiki). These folks promote open/free internet, censorship circumvention, etc. Established under the Obama presidency, the reactionary right hates these people. Trump and co really had it out for them. I wonder why.... [/s]

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I'll dig further into the bill text later. I'm feeling particularly sickened just going over all of this in detail, and I'd like to take a bit to mentally recharge for a bit.

Back into it.

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Defense:
I'm going to keep this short and sweet. I have opinions. Lots of them. And I'm going to keep them to myself, while hoping Ken Calvert (R-CA)... <insert very negative inappropriate thoughts>. Because that man irritates me.

Links:
Appropriations Subcommittee for Defense Press Releases:

• GOP: https://appropriations.house.gov/ne...ubcommittee-advances-fy25-appropriations-bill
  • GOP Summary: https://appropriations.house.gov/si...nt/fy25-defense-subcommittee-bill-summary.pdf
• Democrat: https://democrats-appropriations.ho...w-republican-funding-bill-weakens-us-national
  • Democrat Summary: https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/FY25 Defense Summary.pdf
  • Democrat Fact Sheet (talking points cheat sheet): https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-appropriations.house.gov/files/Defense FY25 Fact Sheet.pdf

Some very quick thoughts:
Yes, the riders about eliminating positions and funding for anything related to DEI, LGBTQ+, COVID, etc, that they tried to stuff into last years' bill, but the Senate seems to have destroyed during the consolidation efforts in March? They're back.
In addition, the same language banning CRT, stopping executive orders related to climate change, and allowing discrimination against LGBTQ+ in the name of religious freedom is here. It is cropping up in every bill using VERY similar language. Every. Single. One.

Other than that? You'll have to make your own conclusions. The bill is shorter than the State bill, only 150 pages. But still fairly hefty.

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Financial Services and General Government:
This bill is insane in how far reaching it is. For those that aren't aware of what this puppy funds? Here are the areas of responsibility for this bill, pulled from the Democrat Subcommittee page.

• Department of the Treasury (except International Affairs Technical Assistance, and International Financial Institutions)
• District of Columbia
• Executive Office of the President (except National Space Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office of the United States Trade Representative, and Council on Environmental Quality and Office of Environmental Quality)
• The Judiciary
• Independent Agencies
  • Administrative Conference of the United States
  • Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation
  • Consumer Product Safety Commission
  • Election Assistance Commission
  • Federal Communications Commission
  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of the Inspector General
  • Federal Election Commission
  • Federal Labor Relations Authority
  • Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council
  • Federal Trade Commission
  • General Services Administration
  • Harry S Truman Scholarship Foundation
  • Merit Systems Protection Board
  • Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation
  • National Archives and Records Administration
  • National Credit Union Administration, Community Development Revolving Loan Fund
  • Office of Government Ethics
  • Office of Personnel Management and Related Trust Funds
  • Office of Special Counsel
  • Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
  • Public Buildings Reform Board
  • Securities and Exchange Commission
  • Selective Service System
  • Small Business Administration
  • United States Postal Service, Payment to the Postal Service Fund and Office of Inspector General
  • United States Tax Court
  • General Provisions, Government-wide

Click to expand...

That's nuts. It's effectively the catch all for anything and everything that doesn't fit into other categories. A huge swatch of independent agencies, plus funding Treasury, plus funding the federal Judiciary, plus funding the District of Columbia (as in the city), plus... plus... plus... Yeah, it gets a bit crazy. The bill is 200+ pages long, and we only have statements from the GOP on it so far. I'm going to let this one simmer for a bit before tackling it in full, see if DeLauro and the rest of the Democrats put out a statement or a release.

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That's all I really have time for today, and even that (which really are a pair of copouts, if I'm honest) took about three hours to assemble.

Homeland (that last one I haven't touched on at all) is a contentious son-of-a-gun, but at least it's only 94 pages long, it can't be that bad... right? Right?!?! I'll do my best to tackle it tomorrow/tonight, but it might slip a day.