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August 11, 2023
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PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Friday morning.
Let’s talk about the new $40 billion supplemental funding request from the White House and what it means for the upcoming FY2024 spending fight.
The proposal includes more than $24 billion in new economic and military aid related to war in Ukraine. There’s $12 billion for domestic disaster relief, and several billion dollars more for border security and fentanyl-abatement efforts.
Here’s what Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young said in a letter Thursday to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other top Hill leaders:
As expected, some high-profile GOP conservatives, including Reps. Chip Roy (Texas) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), have already come out against the White House request.
They’re part of a growing faction of House Republicans who oppose more U.S. funding for Ukraine. Congress has already spent $110 billion in response to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and conservatives insist this is enough, especially with Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive showing little signs of a breakthrough.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), meanwhile, wants the FEMA funding considered separately from the Ukraine aid. “President Biden is holding Floridians, and other Americans, hostage by tying critical domestic disaster relief to foreign military aid,” Rubio said in a statement.
Yet the bigger problem for the White House, we’re told, is that the administration officials didn’t reach out to the House GOP leadership before assembling this package. And while there’s enough bipartisan support in the House to push through the new Ukraine money, the issue will be what McCarthy and other top Republicans seek in return.
The House GOP leadership is also concerned about what happens to this measure in the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP defense hawks have argued that defense spending needs to grow beyond the $886 billion cap that McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to as part of the recent debt-limit agreement.
Senior House Republicans believe that if more defense funding is added to the emergency package, then Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats will seek to include additional domestic spending too. “It will just keep getting bigger and bigger, and then it’s going to collapse,” one top House GOP lawmaker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
House Republicans may push for more border security funding — possibly a lot more — as well as changes in Biden administration migrant policies as a condition for approving the new Ukraine funding, several GOP sources suggested.
They could also try to use the supplemental request to lean on the White House and Democrats over the FY2024 funding bills, where there are huge differences between the House and Senate.
Under pressure from conservative hardliners, McCarthy directed House Appropriations Committee Republicans to draft their bills at FY2022 levels, which is $100 billion-plus lower than the Senate version. The House GOP bills also include a number of culture war provisions on abortion, diversity, transgender issues and climate change that won’t go anywhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
For their part, Democrats and the White House feel that the arguments on behalf of the supplemental funding request are strong, especially disaster aid. They also believe that McCarthy and House GOP leaders will come under enormous pressure to cut some kind of deal before federal agencies are out of money.
There’s one other point worth making here (as we have for weeks) — timing.
Government funding runs out on Sept. 30. While the Senate returns to session on Sept. 5, the House isn’t back until Sept. 12. House members are currently scheduled to be in session for only 12 days in September until a possible shutdown. While the legislative calendar can change — we’re big believers in “magic” when Congress needs to get something done fast — there’s not a lot of time for any deal on the supplemental before a continuing resolution has to be passed to avoid a shutdown.
Would House Republicans add the supplemental package to a CR? Unclear. GOP leadership aides said that hasn’t been discussed yet, they’re still just working through the White House request and what it means. There will be more briefings for House and Senate appropriators today on the package, so we’ll have more on this later.
— John Bresnahan
APPROPS WATCH
House Freedom Caucus seeks to ‘move ball forward’ on approps
House Freedom Caucus members are holding internal discussions on their September strategy to secure big cuts in FY2024 funding bills.
Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), an HFC member who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said he’s taken part in several phone calls with the conservative group and House GOP leadership on how to move forward with the 11 bills the House needs to pass before government funding expires on Sept. 30. The House passed the MilCon-VA bill on a party-line vote before leaving town last month.
“We are in a very similar position to where we were when recess began,” Cline said in an interview. “There have been some conversations to try and move the ball forward because no one wants to shut down. But we do want to see fiscal responsibility in these appropriations bills.”
Cline said HFC Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) has been convening discussions during the recess on which bills the group should focus on, how to achieve their desired cuts and how they can get support from the broader House Republican Conference.
This week, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), the HFC’s policy chair, led a letter to his colleagues asking them to back a plan by 14 Texas Republicans to oppose funding the Department of Homeland Security until border security measures are enhanced. It was the most public position taken by Freedom Caucus members during the August recess related to the spending fight.
Cline said he expects talks to ramp up in coming weeks as the long recess continues.
“You’re going to see an increased sense of urgency on part of the Freedom Caucus members to engage in these discussions with leadership,” Cline said.
The HFC has been adamant on ensuring appropriations bills are marked up at FY2022 levels, especially after the disappointment they had with leadership following the debt-limit debacle.
Some House conservatives have even warned that they’d back a government shutdown in order to achieve their goals. The House doesn’t return to session until Sept. 12.
HFC members have largely been opposed to supporting a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through the fall, but some say it’s too soon to make that call.
“I’m on the fence. Appropriations have a ways to go before convincing conservatives,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) told us.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said he needs to “digest everything before committing” to supporting a CR.
Cline said it would depend on what’s included in the CR, but he didn’t rule out possibly supporting one.
Meanwhile, outside conservative groups have been pressuring House GOP leadership to hold true to their promises to the right flank.
HFC-aligned FreedomWorks has been encouraging grassroots activists to contact Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office to express support for pre-pandemic spending levels.
So far, roughly 4,000 people have used the group’s form to “hold Speaker McCarthy accountable” to the conservatives’ spending cut proposals, according to a source familiar with the stats.
— Mica Soellner
SOCCER CAUCUS
News: The co-chairs of the Congressional Soccer Caucus are urging FIFA President Gianni Infantino to officially recognize Afghanistan’s women’s soccer team. The team’s players fled the nation after the Taliban assumed control of Afghanistan in 2021.
“It is our belief that FIFA should develop a process to allow the members of the team, now exiled, to play in the organization, if not for the future of the beautiful game, then for the important message it sends to women and girls around the world,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter comes amid the knockout stages of the Women’s World Cup, which is taking place in Australia and New Zealand.
Sens. Todd Young (R-Ind.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Chris Van Hollen (D- Md.), along with Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), signed onto the letter.
— Max Cohen
PRESENTED BY FUEL CELL & HYDROGEN ENERGY ASSOCIATION
America needs clean, domestic hydrogen to reach our goals.
Additionality would put an unnecessary and inequitable burden on producers.
THE CAMPAIGN
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) barely survived reelection in 2022 and is already being hit with attack ads this early in the 2024 cycle. A new spot, paid for by Rocky Mountain Values, dings Boebert for opposing the PACT Act. This is the legislation that established a fund to pay for health care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits overseas.
“Lauren Boebert voted against veterans health care over and over again, and she’s left them behind,” a veteran says in the ad.
— Max Cohen
DOWNTOWN DOWNLOAD
Novo Nordisk, the maker of weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, has hired the Madison Group to lobby on “[i]ssues and legislation related to (1) Medicare coverage of anti-obesity medications, (2) the 340B drug pricing program, and (3) Medicare Part D coverage of anti-obesity medications; and other specific legislation.”
The Bally’s Corporation, the betting and gaming company, has hired The Madison Group to lobby on “[i]ssues pertaining to gaming and internet gaming.”
— Jake Sherman
PRESENTED BY FUEL CELL & HYDROGEN ENERGY ASSOCIATION
Don’t let additionality set back clean hydrogen. Learn more.
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