Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior…
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More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of…[more]

March 18, 2024 • 03:11 PM

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Spending Bill, Not Obamacare, Reveals Deep GOP Division Print
By Byron York
Tuesday, May 09 2017
A grand total of 20 GOP House members split with their leadership on health care, while 103 did so on spending.

If you want to see what divides Republicans in Congress, don't look at the struggle to repeal and replace Obamacare. Look at spending.

The House's narrow passage of a partial repeal of Obamacare dominated media for days. Happening at the same time, but receiving relatively little coverage, was the Senate's approval of a $1.1 trillion spending bill that revealedfar more than Obamacarethe deep differences among Republicans in both houses of Congress.

The story is in the numbers. On Obamacare, 217 Republicans voted for partial repeal, while just 20a little under 10 percent of the House GOP conferencevoted against it.

On the spending bill, just 131 Republicans voted yes, while 103 GOP lawmakersabout 43 percent of the House GOP conferencevoted no. In the Senate, 32 Republicans voted yes, while 18 GOP senatorsabout one-third of the Republican sidevoted no.

Lawmakers gave several reasons for rejecting the leadership's spending deal with Democrats. "This bill funds sanctuary cities, funds Planned Parenthood, it funds Obamacare and I think that was unfortunate and it's a real missed opportunity," Sen. Ted Cruza no votetold San Antonio radio host Trey Ware. "There is a reason Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are celebrating, because the spending measure funds everything they want and funds virtually none of the priorities we were elected to fund."

"I think the Democrats cleaned our clock," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, another no vote. "I'm for comprehensive immigration reform, but sanctuary cities go untouched. Obamacare continues to be funded in a way that we all say is illegal."

"Drain the swamp, right?" asked Rep. Dave Brat, another no vote, in Buzzfeed. "Where is that in the budget? Nowhere. We fully funded the swamp."

Another House Republican no vote pointed to a provision in the spending bill that would double the number of so-called H-2B visas to allow temporary low-wage foreign workers into the U.S.a move a number of experts said would lower wages for American workers.

"H-2Bs will be an issue and will cause a loss of conservative support for the bill," the member said shortly before the vote. "Very un-Trumpian to ban border wall construction and fund sanctuary cities while also expanding foreign labor!"

Foreign labor was a key factor in the no vote of Sen. Tom Cotton. In a floor speech Thursday, the Arkansas Republican explained that he recognized the good parts of the bill, in particular more defense spending. But he focused on the H-2B provision, not just because it is bad policyhe explained at length what that is sobut because it "shows just how bad this process is."

"It's not necessary," Cotton said of the visa expansion's inclusion in the bill. "It has nothing to do with funding the government, nothing. It hasn't been vetted. It hasn't gone through the normal legislative process, which would be the Judiciary Committee, where the chairman and the senior Democrat both have written that they oppose this measure. I don't even know how it got in (the bill)."

And yet there it was. And President Trump signed it into law.

In the end, the spending bill votes revealed significant divisions among Republicans about the amount of spendingmore precisely, the amount of deficit spendingthey can tolerate. Those differences extend far beyond their conflicts over Obamacare repeal. A grand total of 20 GOP House members split with their leadership on health care, while 103 did so on spending. In the Senate, where the Republican majority is so narrow they have just two votes to spare, the GOP lost 18 votes. Those are signs of problems ahead.

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Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.
COPYRIGHT 2017 BYRON YORK

Notable Quote   
 
"It's a rematch.President Biden and former President Trump each hit a key marker last week, clinching enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee of their respective party.The outcome of the general election will come down to a handful of states, as usual.The map maintained by The Hill and Decision Desk HQ lists seven contests as toss-ups."Read the entire article here.…[more]
 
 
— Niall Stanage, The Hill
 
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