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There should be another request on the way for disaster relief for hurricane and wildfire recovery, but the administration hasn’t set a figure for that yet.
Both Ukraine and COVID are likely to be a fight with Republicans, particularly COVID-19, which the GOP has practically made a platform out of denying. “We’ve been very careful to focus this request on the needs we have immediately,” a White House official told Politico, acknowledging that “some conditions have changed both on the ground and with Congress as we’ve made our case for these resources.”
“We have repeatedly warned Congress that in the absence of them stepping up to do their part, we’re going to have to make difficult trade-offs,” the official said. “Given that, we’ve revised our request to meet this moment.” That revision is more than halving the request from $22 billion to less than $10 billion.
That funding could either be included in what’s going to be an omnibus spending bill—that’s the whole slew of 2023 funding bills that would take a potential government shutdown off the table until next October. That appears to be on track, and needs to be because the current funding bill expires on Dec. 16. Both of the Senate leaders on Appropriations—Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Richard Shelby (R-AL)—are retiring this year, which might make everyone behave nicely just out of respect. Probably not, at least as far as the House is concerned, but it could happen.
Expect another push from West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin to get his energy project permitting bill “reform” included in the omnibus or in the National Defense Authorization Act, which is (so far) being handled separately from the rest of funding. Manchin had previously gotten the support of the White House in this push. He might have screwed himself on that by releasing a scathing criticism of President Biden for suggesting that he wanted to shut down coal plants. Manchin did that four days before the election, because he is that much of an asshole. He also announced before the election that he is going to block a confirmation hearing for Richard Glick, who has been renominated to lead the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
(Note to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Senate Democrats—don’t put him back in charge of the Energy and Natural Resources committee in the new Congress.)
Then there’s the debt ceiling. Somehow, Senate leaders have decided not to even try budget reconciliation to do that. Or even dealing with it during the lame-duck session, claiming that there isn’t time. “That would not be done this year by reconciliation. It takes too much time,” Schumer’s deputing Dick Durbin said in an interview. “We have three weeks and there is too much else on the agenda.” Well, then, don’t take an entire week off for Thanksgiving. Work some Mondays and Fridays.
Do. The. Job.
Also, make sure that Ukraine gets funding and the House maniacs have no leverage whatsoever to demand cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
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