You can read the massive 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion spending bill to search for what is hidden in
it.
Here are a few highlights of what is (and is not) in the spending bill
compiled from several sources including the Washington Post, Politico, and Vox.com.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD
The Bill continues the more than $500 million in
taxpayer dollars Planned Parenthood receives each year.
The omnibus does
retain existing language forbidding funds from being used on abortions (except
in cases of rape, incest, or medical emergencies). However, pro-lifers have
long noted that taxpayers' money Planned Parenthood receives for other purposes
still indirectly aids the abortion business, by freeing more revenue from other
sources to be spent on abortions.
Sanctuary Cities
There is “nothing in the omnibus
bill to stop funding for the sanctuary cities. “It will just be a
continuation of the status quo” because Democrats threatened to torpedo the
funding bill if it included new rules allowing administration officials to
block federal funding to the cities which shield illegals from deportation.
IMMIGRATION/DACA
Congress again
failed to come to any compromise agreement on legislation to protect the Dreamers
from President Trump’s executive order ending DACA, and Dreamers remain in
limbo.
The bill also does
not defund “sanctuary cities” that attempt to protect unauthorized immigrant
residents from federal immigration officials, despite Trump’s last-minute push
to defund the cities as part of the omnibus.
BORDER WALL
President Trump
wanted $25 billion of funding for his “big beautiful wall.” He only got $1.6
billion for barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, but with some serious
strings attached. The barriers authorized to be built under the act must
be “operationally effective designs” already deployed as of last March,
meaning none of President Trump’s
“big, beautiful wall” can be built. The bill also does not include an increase in detention beds or
federal deportation agents, a key priority for Democrats in the talks. Trump
fail!
OPIOID ADDICTION
The bill increases
funding to tackle the opioid epidemic, a boost that lawmakers from both parties
hailed as a win. The legislation allocates more than $4.65 billion across
agencies to help states and local governments on efforts toward prevention,
treatment and law enforcement initiatives. That represents a $3 billion
increase over 2017 spending levels.
GUN SAFETY
The bill includes
the Fix NICS Act, bipartisan legislation aimed at improving the National
Instant Criminal Background Check System that is used to screen U.S. gun
buyers. It provides for incentives and penalties to encourage federal agencies
and states to send records to the federal database.
Language in the
report accompanying the bill clarifying that the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention can, in fact, conduct research
into gun violence. A long-standing rider known as the Dickey Amendment, which states that no CDC
funds “may be used to advocate or promote gun control,” has been
interpreted in the past to bar such research.
The bipartisan STOP School Violence Act of 2018 would create a $50 million-a-year grant program for
training to recognize signs of gun violence.
Democrats did not get
raising the minimum age to buy an assault weapon from 18 to 21 years of age.
Republicans did not get concealed-carry
reciprocity, a top NRA priority.
TAXES
The so-called grain glitch, a provision in the new GOP
tax law that favored farmer-owned cooperatives over traditional agriculture
corporations by providing a significantly larger tax benefit for
sales to cooperatives, is undone in the bill.
In exchange for
the grain glitch fix, Democrats won provisions expanding a tax subsidy for
affordable housing — designed to shore up the low-income housing tax credit in
the wake of the GOP tax law.
‘TIP POOLING’
In December, the
Trump Labor Department proposed a rule that would allow employers such as
restaurant owners to “pool” their employees’ tips and redistribute them as they
saw fit — including, potentially, to themselves. That generated a bipartisan
outcry, and the bill spells out explicitly in law that tip
pooling is not permitted.
IRS
Despite the
administration’s attempts to slash its budget, lawmakers grant $11.431 billion
to the nation’s tax collectors, a $196 million year-to-year increase and $456 million
more than Trump requested.
The federal ban on tax-exempt churches engaging in
political activity, known as the Johnson Amendment, will continue,
despite attempts by Trump and GOP lawmakers to rescind it.
Big Bird lives! Lawmakers agreed not to
cut funding for the nation’s public television and radio networks. Government
funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will remain at $465 million
— the same level as past years.
ARTS ENDOWMENTS
Federal funding for the arts goes up, despite GOP
attempts to slash it. The National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities will
see funding climb to $152.8 million each, a $3 million increase over the last
fiscal year. Trump proposed eliminating the endowments.
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE (CRS)
The Congressional
Research Service now must publish online all the reports it prepares for
lawmakers. Researchers rejoice! Hallelujah!
SECRET SERVICE
The Secret Service
will be required to release an annual report on travel costs for people under
their protection, specifically adult children of the president. This is
designed to expose how much taxpayers are spending to safeguard Donald Trump
Jr. and Eric Trump on their overseas business trips.
ELECTION SECURITY
The bill provides
$380 million to the federal Election Assistance Commission to make payments to
states to improve election security and technology, and the FBI is set to
receive $300 million in counterintelligence funding to combat Russian hacking.
