Controversial Expenditures in Congress’ $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill
By Corinne Murdock |
The following are some of the controversial carve outs within Congress’ 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion spending bill, “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.”
Fiscal Responsibility
- Waives PAYGO budgetary enforcement – $130 billion
Law Enforcement
- Jan. 6 prosecuting attorneys – $2.6 billion
- FBI investigations of extremist violence and domestic terrorism – $11.3 billion
- Capitol Police – $132 million
Criminal Justice Reform
- First Step Act of 2018 (enables prisoners to earn sentence reduction credits) – $409.4 million
- Restorative justice responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking – $15 million
- Culturally-specific services for female domestic/intimate violence victims – $11 million
- New restorative justice national center – $3 million
- Alternative sentencing programs – $3.5 million
- Drug courts – $95 million
- Mental health courts – $45 million
- Grants supporting community-based alternatives and restorative justice – $10 million
- Community violence intervention and prevention initiative grants – $50 million
- Community policing development activities, programs – $275.88 million
Social Justice
- Health and Human Services for diversity training – over $100 million
- Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund – $200 million
- Women’s Leadership Program – $50 million
- Foreign gender-based violence prevention – $250 million
- Foreign female empowerment – $150 million
- Hate crime outreach and training by state, local, and tribal law enforcement – $25 million
- Establishing Office of Diversity & Inclusion in the legislative branch – $3.5 million
- LGBTQ+ Pride Center in California – $1.2 million
- Community space for gender-expansive people – $1 million
- American LGBTQ museum in New York City – $3 million
Globalism
- Ukrainian military and economic aid – $45 billion
- Foreign food security and agricultural development – $1 billion ($265 million specifically for smaller enterprises by the poor, especially women)
- Foreign racial reconciliation – $25 million
Honors
- Nancy Pelosi Fellowship Program – $2 million
- Renaming and boosting funding for the Lake Champlain Basin Program after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) – $35 million
- President Jimmy Carter Museum upgrade – $7.25 million
- President Ulysses S. Grant Museum upgrade – $6 million
Welfare
- Child Care and Development Block Grant – $8 billion
- Head Start – $12 billion
- Pell Grant increase by $500 (7.2 percent) – up to around $3 to $3.5 billion
- Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program – $5 billion
- Community Development Block Grant formula program – $6.4 billion
- 21,500+ affordable housing units – $388 million
Environment
- Environmental Protection Agency – $576 million
- Sustainable landscapes – $185 million
- Foreign clean energy programs – $260 million
- Foreign indigenous environment protection, including species preservation – $20 million
- Climate crisis response – $15.3 billion
- Multimodal, transit, bicycle and pedestrian, and passenger rail grants for green infrastructure – $1.7 billion
- “Defense” funding for climate crisis – $2 billion
- Foreign family planning/reproductive health, namely in “areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species” – $575 million
Pandemics
- Global Health Programs fund for future pandemics – $200 million
- COVID Response – $5 million
- COVID-19 American History Project – $1.5 million
The 4,155 page spending bill may be accessed here.
READ MORE: Arizona’s Congressional Leaders React to Omnibus
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.