Democrats and Republicans in Congress have teamed up to push a radical leftist, $1.5 trillion “omnibus” spending bill — accelerating the federal government’s reckless spending while implementing multiple far-left, Marxist policies.
On Tuesday, March 8, negotiators of both parties announced a “bipartisan” agreement on the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, numbered H.R. 2471. This 2,741-page bill authorizes a total of $1.5 trillion in spending on various government programs for Fiscal Year 2022.
On Wednesday, March 9, the House passed H.R. 2471. The vote was delayed for hours over a dispute among Democrats regarding $15 billion in COVID-19 spending. Originally, the spending would have been offset by removing already-passed Covid aid for states, but House Democrat leadership ultimately removed the funding altogether while promising to pass it separately next week.
H.R. 2471 was voted on in two pieces, a method chosen by establishment leadership to ensure its passage. The provisions related to the military and homeland security passed by a 361-69 vote, while the domestic-spending provisions passed by a 260-171 vote. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration; a vote will most likely occur between Friday evening and Sunday.
H.R. 2471 continues and accelerates the federal government’s reckless overspending that will result in economic catastrophe. Not only does the bill authorize $1.5 trillion in spending in just one year, but, according to Senate Democrats, it “includes a 6.7 percent increase for non-defense discretionary spending, the largest increase in non-defense programs in four years.” Meanwhile, neocon Senate Republicans are lauding a massive increase in defense spending plus nearly $14 billion in “emergency funding” for Ukraine.
Additionally, H.R. 2471’s provisions are blatantly unconstitutional and implement far-left, Marxist policies. One of the worst of the provisions snuck into the bill is the misleadingly titled “Violence Against Women Act” (VAWA). This radical provision would:
- enact tyrannical gun-control policies, particularly empowering the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to deputize local law enforcement to act as ATF agents, and to launch criminal investigations into law-abiding citizens who are mistakenly denied by the NICS background check system;
- impose Marxist “gender identity” protections that would require women’s shelters to accept gender-confused men if they wish to participate in VAWA grant programs. The bill doesn’t include any religious exemptions;
- insert Critical Race Theory into federal government policy by mandating “improving equity and reducing disparities”;
- allow Indian tribal courts to exercise jurisdiction over non-Indians in direct violation of Articles II and III of the U.S. Constitution; and
- fund a grant program that promotes the notion that it is “reproductive coercion” and domestic violence for fathers to dissuade their wives or girlfriends to not commit an abortion.
VAWA is one of the most extreme programs snuck into H.R. 2471, but it is not the only one. The omnibus bill also:
- unconstitutionally spends over $33 billion on government education, something the federal government has absolutely no business doing;
- spends over $100 billion on leftist “Green New Deal” programs, further implementing a radical climate-change agenda and rigging the economy in favor of “green” energy;
- includes over 4,000 wasteful “pork” earmarks (totaling billions of dollars) for the first time since 2011;
- as mentioned above, spends $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine, further entangling the United States in foreign conflicts;
- spends $0 on border security or other programs that would end mass migration into the United States, despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on border security in foreign countries;
- expands Marxist “diversity, equality, and inclusion” at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence;
- spends billions of dollars on multiple wasteful welfare programs, government subsidies, and grants; and
- continues the federal government’s COVID-19 “national emergency.”
H.R. 2471 includes many other wasteful and radical provisions, but what is mentioned above is sufficient to show the danger it poses to the Constitution and American liberty. The U.S. Senate would be wise to reject H.R. 2471 and instead only pass legislation that upholds the Constitution and individual liberty.
To urge your U.S. senators to oppose H.R. 2471, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, visit The John Birch Society’s legislative alert here.
