Commentary: The $1.7 Trillion Omnibus Prioritizes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education and STEM Spending

The national debt is growing, but Congress’ recent spending bill is a telltale sign that it has no intention of shrinking the deficit.

After receiving bipartisan support in the Senate, the House passed a 1.7 trillion spending bill on Dec 16, avoiding a government shutdown.

The bill allocates funding mostly to defense, including $45 billion to Ukraine, which will assist the country in its war effort against Russia.

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Wisconsin Republican Congressmen Denounce Omnibus Spending Bill

While a $1.66 trillion omnibus spending bill passed the Democrat-run Senate 75-20 this week with the support of many Republicans, House GOP members, including those representing Wisconsin, are voicing their disappointment. 

Republicans point to exorbitant spending as the major driver of inflation which reached a 40-year high this year and now stands at 7.11 percent, well above the long-term average of 3.27 percent. The party likely cannot prevent the new spending legislation’s passage insofar as the GOP will not take control of the House of Representatives until January. 

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Commentary: The Constitutional Politics of President Trump’s Impoundment Move

To understand President Trump’s signing of the latest so-called COVID-19 “stimulus” bill after days of veto threats, we need to understand the critical constitutional history of the Watergate era. 

Citing the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Trump declared, “I will sign the Omnibus and COVID package with a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed. I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress insisting that those funds be removed from the bill.” 

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Obama-Era Racial and Income Rezoning Scheme, ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’ Defunded in Omnibus

By Robert Romano   One good thing that came out of the omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Donald Trump is that it defunds a key aspect of the Obama era Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulation, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. This was the rule enacted in 2015 that allowed HUD to order more than 1,200 cities and counties that accepted any part of $3 billion of annual community development block grants to rezone neighborhoods along income and racial criteria. This was always a vast overreach, where the federal government could come in and tell communities what must be built and where. Now, it’s over. Under Division L, Title II of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, Section 234, it states, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to direct a grantee to undertake specific changes to existing zoning laws as part of carrying out the final rule entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’ … or the notice entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Assessment Tool’ …” This provision utterly guts the HUD regulation, which had already been delayed by HUD Secretary Ben Carson earlier this year until 2020. Now, with the backing…

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