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Category: Appropriations

House Approves Bigger Checks, Overrides Defense Veto

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Today the US House of Representatives voted, by a 2/3 majority, to increase COVID-relief stimulus checks from $600 to $2000 per individual. The President has signaled support of this, however it is unclear if it can pass in the Senate.

The House also voted, with significant bipartisan support, to override the President’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual piece of legislation setting broad defense policy. If the Senate also votes to override, the legislation can become law without the President’s signature.

Read more here.

Trump Follows Through on Veto Threat (No, not on THAT bill)

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President Trump this afternoon followed through on his earlier threats and vetoed the FY2021 defense authorization bill, known as the “NDAA.”  The legislation sets defense policies every year and addresses issues like troop withdrawals, and has been adopted every year since 1967.  The bill was approved by Congress earlier this month by veto-proof margins in both chambers.

Trump wanted the bill to include a provision that stripped away protections for social media companies, a topic that is not related to defense.  He also wanted the to prevent the renaming of Southern military bases.  Trump had threatened to veto the legislation over those two provisions and he followed through on that threat this afternoon.

The House will be in session next Monday and may seek to override the veto then.  The Senate is scheduled to be in session Tuesday and may follow suit, if the House is successful in its override attempt.  Although the House vote earlier this month was by a veto-proof margin of 335 – 78, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) did not commit to push House Republicans to override a veto from President Trump.  The Senate vote was also by a veto-proof margin, 83-14.

Based on the White House developments earlier this afternoon on the omnibus appropriations/COVID package, Monday could turn out to be even more critical, as the current government funding bill expires at Midnight Tuesday.

Read more about the unfolding situation here, here, and here.

Well, That Didn’t Take Long

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With a video in which he called it a “disgrace,” President Trump yesterday blasted the COVID/omnibus spending package that was only adopted on Monday.  His biggest complaints seem to be that the stimulus checks of $600 per person for families making less than $75,000 a year is not big enough and that the bill contains too much “wasteful” spending.  He wants the checks to be at least $2,000.

Smaller checks were pushed by Congressional Republicans and his own Treasury secretary.  Democratic leaders have, at least publicly, seized on the remarks to try to make another push on larger stimulus checks.  Not surprisingly, the video is now leading many to wonder whether Trump will veto the measure, which took six months to craft.

Trump must sign the measure by next Monday in order to prevent a shutdown.

Read more about the developments here in Politico, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Axios.

COVID/Approps Spending Package Cleared by Both Chambers

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After making the text available earlier in the day, both chambers of Congress cleared the massive $2.3-trillion COVID/FY2021 appropriations package last evening.  The measure now goes to the White House for the President’s signature, although it is uncertain when that would exactly happen.

Because the printing and processing of the official text of legislation for the President’s signature takes time– and the size of yesterday’s package was unusually large– Congress also passed and Trump signed yesterday another continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown while the legislative package was being readied.

Office of Federal Relations will continue to provide updates about the bill on its blog.