OPINION:
With Elon Musk out of the picture, some in Congress think they can return to their free-spending ways. House and Senate committees have completed preliminary work on fewer than half of the appropriations bills that must pass by Sept. 30, and the early results aren’t promising.
The House skipped town before finishing its consideration of the $76 billion measure funding the departments of Commerce, Justice and State, leaving senators in the driver’s seat for the process.
Forget about President Trump’s “skinny” budget. Senate appropriators intend to feed these bureaucracies a staggering $7 billion more than even President Biden thought they needed last year. The initial plan also fattens agency coffers by $1.2 billion. Rep. Harold Rogers, Kentucky Republican and chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on justice, science and related agencies, disingenuously claims the amount “represents a 2.8 percent decrease when compared to the total effective spending of the Fiscal Year 2025 enacted levels.”
Let’s do the math. The Commerce, Justice and State departments received $75.6 billion this year. The House wants them to have $76.8 billion in 2026, and the Senate seeks $82.6 billion. Blow away the smoke and mirrors, and big increases remain, relieving these departments of any incentive to use existing resources wisely.
The administration is parsimonious in its attempts to terminate objectionable items such as “climate-dominated research, data, and grant programs.” That doesn’t fly with senators who insist on restoring the National Weather Service’s climate change propaganda, contrary to the choice voters made in November. Had the public sought to plus-size the hysteria-mongering, it would have voted for the Democratic candidate.
Earth’s climate is driven by the giant ball of fire around which it revolves, not mankind’s comparatively trivial exhalations. That’s why American taxpayers shouldn’t be sending $4 million to Princeton University for climate change research. With a $34 billion endowment, that institution is free to prattle about these topics on its own dime.
It gets worse. Gun rights activists are up in arms because the Senate refuses to save a few bucks by making tiny cuts that have the side benefit of ending harassment of law-abiding gun owners. The House proposal includes measures that reverse the prior administration’s use of rulemaking to develop backdoor gun bans, but the Senate ignored them.
“Our God-given Second Amendment liberties are not a suggestion, and these freedoms must be both protected and restored through every avenue possible — including the annual appropriations process,” Rep. Andrew Clyde, Georgia Republican and gun store owner, wrote on X.
Also missing in the upper chamber’s bill is a requirement that the Justice Department report on violent crimes committed in the District of Columbia, along with the number of crooks let off the hook by judges and prosecutors. Major cities have concealed escalating lawlessness by not reporting reliable statistics to the FBI.
Congress has until the end of September to get its act together, or trillions of dollars in expenditures will again be bundled into massive legislative vehicles that enable spendthrift appropriators to hide goodies for their friends and donors.
There’s no reason to fund federal agencies at levels that would make Mr. Biden blush. Every family learns the hard way how to stretch a budget when times are tough, and the feds can do that the same. Fortunately, the public has a chance to weigh in over the August recess before the final bills are approved.
If lawmakers don’t get the message, it may be time for Mr. Trump to warm up his veto pen.
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