H.R. 2617 would authorize $1.6 trillion for regular fiscal 2023 discretionary federal spending and another $100 billion for a wide variety of other legislation (nearly $47 billion for aid to Ukraine and roughly $38 billion for U.S. natural disasters) that was tacked onto the bill in last-minute negotiations by congressional leaders. Looking at the big picture, this bill minimizes congressional accountability to the voters by combining the 2023 spending approval for 15 Cabinet departments and eight federal agencies into only one bill. On top of that, the federal budget deficit for 2023 is expected to be one trillion dollars.
The House passed H.R. 2617 on December 23, 2022 by a vote of 225 to 201 (Roll Call 549). We have assigned pluses to the nays because passage of this largely unconstitutional bill in the context of a projected $1 trillion 2023 federal budget deficit reveals a high degree of fiscal irresponsibility and unaccountability to the voters by Congress. This Omnibus 2023 spending bill should have been punted by this “lame duck” session of Congress into the next Congress, where it would have been subject to revision by the members selected by the voters on November 8, 2022.
