(This is a visual representation of $1 trillion bucks, represented by stacking $100 bills on top of each other in neat rectangular stacks. In the single-stack vertical version, the stack would be 631 miles high. Congress passed a bill last night bringing the discretionary component of our budget to nearly a thousand miles in height).
Congress rode to our rescue once more and saved “democracy” last night. Or at least their version of the ability to keep the tab running at the till over there behind their taxpayer-funded bar.
It has been a pretty exciting year for running the tab. We may have missed some of the drama yesterday, since only half of the dozen appropriations bills were passed last week, and the other half, including the Defense bill was deferred only to midnight yesterday.
We needn’t remind you this is for the fiscal year that theoretically began last October. Our elected representatives avoided a partial government shut-down by passing a mass of programs from six different accounts amalgamated into one single package that amounted to $1.2 Trillion dollars.
The six spending bills will purportedly fund a group of federal agencies through the end of this fiscal year- FY-24 on Sept. 30. The bipartisan measure passed the House by a vote of 286-134 Friday, with the Senate following suit by a vote of 74-24 early this morning, Saturday, morning, just hours after funding had technically expired at Midnight.
The 1,012-page, six-bill funding package had been released in the small hours of Thursday and expiring at the largest hour of yesterday. You can imagine the hours of detailed study available for sensible law-making. The package was sort of backwards in purpose, since the amalgamation include what one would have thought would be first up for agreement.
Those are Defense, Homeland Security, and State, with over 70% of the funding going to the Pentagon, or Ukraine or someplace.
You can see that the process being used these days to fund our nation is so complex that there is no time to actually talk about it. The Transportation Bill passed two weeks ago with the corn subsidies? Did that include the provision for mandatory external shut-off circuits and biofuel usage? It might, but whether it does or doesn’t, it is now the law.
One of those who provided some additional drama was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a GOP member from Georgia. They have been conducting their own theatrical production in the courts there, so she helpfully introduced a motion to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson from the rostrum.
That was part of last October’s turmoil on House Leadership when Kevin McCarthy was deposed. So, this weekend we are not confronted by a government partly shut down. It is vibrantly alive and pulsing with cash. We were thinking about going out to lunch. Would you care to join us?
We were thinking about a discussion of the FY-25 budget, since that is floating around this week as well. There are supposed to be some exciting things in it that can’t possibly be achieved in the years we will be talking about it behind closed doors.
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You remember how Senator Everette Dirksen used to say it. The quote was memorable back in 1961 when he said: “ Look at education – two-and-one-half billion – a billion for this, a billion for that, a billion for something else. Three to five billion for public works. You haven’t got any budget balance left. You’ll be deeply in the red.”
It was startling back then, all those billions flying around. And a Trillion is a thousand billion, you know? At least we won’t run out this weekend.
Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com.