Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.
The House and Senate are both out for their August recess. The House is scheduled to return on September 12, with the Senate scheduled to return September 5.
With 9 currently scheduled weeks of session in the House and 12 currently scheduled weeks of session in the Senate, Congress will look to accomplish a lot this fall. Appropriations, FISA, Farm Bill, and the NDAA are some of the issues left to tackle this Fall.
The appropriations process in the House stalled after just passing the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill 219-211 on the last day the House was in session before the August recess. The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed all twelve of their bills, but have yet to bring any to the Senate floor. An interesting part of the upcoming appropriations battle is the desire by House conservatives to follow through with their commitment to get to FY22 spending levels that will occur over the August recess.
Over the weekend, conservative fighter and Congressman from Texas, Chip Roy, joined Fox News Sunday where he identified areas of the appropriations process that conservatives should unite around this fall. “We should use the power of the purse in Congress and I can tell you right now for all my colleagues I will not vote for a continuing resolution or any funding for DHS or DOJ if we don’t get changes to both. I want the border secure, I want DOJ restored to following the rule of law, and we should use the power of the purse as James Madison wrote in Federalist 58, it’s the most powerful weapon against an over tyrannical Executive Branch that we see unfold before our eyes.” Congressman Roy wasn’t the only conservative to lay out a plan to cut out the woke and weaponized parts of the government.
Congressman Byron Donalds also dug in with Charlie Kirk. “A spending fight is about to occur, Charlie, because the government runs out of money on September 30. House Republicans are going to have major input on how government spending is going to go through the next calendar year so we should use this opportunity to hold government agencies accountable.” They’re pushing this not without good reason as well. Not only are they pushing to cut out the woke and weaponized parts of government, but as Congressman Bob Good points out “All Democrats, and those Republicans who talk about fiscal responsibility but voted for the unlimited debt ceiling increase that locked in Biden’s big spending –own this credit rating downgrade.” Tucked into Fitch’s downgrade was the view of the deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, meaning, a lack of seriousness about our country’s fiscal health from those in power.
So, from the looks of it, conservatives in Congress are going to do something about it this September. There are some concerns about the Congress doing a number of short term CRs that would eventually lead the spending fight into a Omnibus showdown a couple days before Christmas. So with this as motivation, look for conservatives to lead a serious effort to change the spending debate when Congress returns.
The Latest From Around The Conservative Movement
· Center for Renewing America: Return Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act related funding to pre-COVID levels
· Center for Renewing America: Red Flag Laws are Unconstitutional and Dangerous
· State Freedom Caucus Network: American Library Association and their Marxist President on Defense
· The American Mind: Statism and the New Right
One More Thing…