Fellow Conservative,

2024 is nearly upon us and Congress will soon begin a flurry of legislating.. The Senate will return to session on January 8th, followed by the House of Representatives the next day. After the entirety of Congress resumes, they will have ten short days before federal funding begins expiring for certain departments and agencies.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are still fighting for Biden’s $105 billion “supplemental” spending request to fund the Ukraine government, provide foreign aid, and increase manpower at our southern border (to process more illegal immigrants into our communities).

With both federal spending and Biden’s supplemental spending being debated, it’s almost certain to be a tumultuous January on Capitol Hill.

Government funding, where does it stand?

In November, the new House Speaker Mike Johnson led Congress in passing a “laddered” Continuing Resolution (CR) to extend government funding into 2024, while also staggering the funding expiration dates for different departments and agencies.

The idea behind this “laddered” CR was two-fold: 1) Give Congress more time to negotiate spending using the proper process of passing each of the 12 appropriations bills individually and 2) prevent a massive omnibus (all 12 appropriations bills in one) from being rammed through Congress at the last minute.

The first set of bills - Agriculture-FDA, Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation-HUD - expire on January 19th. The second set - Commerce-Justice-Science, Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Interior-Environment, Labor-HHS-Education, Legislative Branch, State and Foreign Operations - expires on February 2nd.

Currently, the House has passed 7 of the 12 bills, and the Senate has passed only 3.

Only time will tell if this “laddered” CR strategy will avoid a massive omnibus bill. The better process is to have 12 votes on 12 bills. But process alone is not enough — the bills must have the right policies and the right spending cuts. Heritage Action has advocated for Congress to eliminate the government bloat created by Covid-era spending bills.

Show me the money

The current trajectory of spending is unsustainable. For the past few years, the federal government has added to the national debt at a faster rate than ever before in our nation’s history. There are only three ways out of this debt: we can tax our way out, inflate our way out, or both.

Currently, and involuntarily, we experiencing the effects of inflation — and as a result, you just experienced the costliest Christmas in history:

As Congress navigates the appropriations process, it must keep these critical elements in mind:

• Topline spending must be reduced to a pre-Covid trajectory
• Transparent accounting must eliminate budget gimmicks that hide spending increases
• Government agencies must be deprived of their bloat, and political agendas must be defunded

The Republican House has created some negotiating leverage over the Democrat Senate by passing more appropriations (spending) bills. In the new year, conservatives in Congress need to be bolstered — you should call your representative and senators and demand spending cuts. And be sure to thank your legislator if they are fighting to reduce spending.

Ultimately, overwhelming public opposition to runaway spending is what will make the difference. Remember that the Tea Party Movement created so much noise that even President Obama was forced to sign a bill to cut federal spending.

Wild Cards

Supplemental Spending

In addition to spending approved through the appropriations process, the Senate has copied Biden’s “supplemental” spending that would be approved outside of the appropriations process. The supplemental totals $110.5 billion and includes:

• $65.5 billion in funding for Ukraine
• $14.3 billion in funding for Israel
• $10.7 billion in funding to process illegal immigrants into the country faster

These are weighty issues and they deserve individual, standalone votes. But Biden and Senate Democrats are holding aid to Israel hostage by insisting it be paired with Ukraine funding and money to fund Biden’s open border. This is a classic tactic of the swamp to pass unpopular legislation — unpopular legislation gets attached to something with broader support (like aid to Israel).

The $10.7 billion in border spending has been one of the most deceptively discussed items in the “supplemental” package. It’s being sold as “border security” but nothing could be further from the truth. This money will not go to build a wall, increase security, end catch-and-release, or fix our broken asylum laws. Biden wants this money to increase resources for the current failed policies—this means processing even more illegal immigrants into our country.

What’s needed to secure the border isn’t simply more money, what’s needed is a complete overhaul of the underlying policies. The House has already passed H.R. 2, which remains the only serious solution to our sieve of a border.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

Another hotly debated legislative item for 2024 – Certain authorizations under FISA ends mid April and is in desperate need of reform.The FBI has misused FISA authority to threaten the constitutional rights of American citizens, targeting their communications for search and seizure without first getting a warrant.

As Heritage Reports: “On the FISA front, beyond its abuse of FISA surveillance in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign, the FBI has also repeatedly abused its access to the data collected through the FISA Section 702 program for the purpose of acquiring information about American citizens or lawful permanent residents of the U.S. (collectively known as “U.S. persons” under FISA) even though Section 702 was designed for national security surveillance of foreign threats to the U.S.”

FISA reforms are desperately needed to ensure that intelligence agencies are capable of fighting terrorism while our fundamental constitutional rights are preserved.

In 2024, we must continue our mission to hold the government accountable. An engaged citizenry is the only counter to endless bureaucratic growth and government abuse of power. But remember, a small band of patriots can make a big difference. We are happy to head into the New Year alongside you.

Happy New Year!

-Ryan and the Heritage Action team

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