Brad Polumbo: Congress’s Budget Bill is a Bipartisan Disgrace

Convention wisdom treats bipartisanship in Washington as something worth celebrating. But the sad reality is that when both parties’ establishments come together on something, most of the time it means everyday Americans are about to get royally screwed.

Congress’s latest budget bill is no exception. It’s a bipartisan national disgrace.

Congress is spending $1.7 trillion of our money without most members of the House even fully reading the bill they’re voting on. The legislation is an astounding 4,155 pages and was released by leadership only hours before the first round of voting began. As Congressman Dan Bishop explains, to have read the bill by the time the Senate voted to begin debate, “you would’ve needed to read 4+ pages per minute, without a single break, for 16 hours straight.”

Suffice it to say, few, if any, members of Congress actually did this. That’s right: Most of them, Republicans and Democrats alike, are voting away trillions of our dollars without even reading the bill they’re voting on.

They’re not even quite sure how much it costs! As the Wall Street Journal explains, Republicans and Democrats are touting different numbers for non-defense spending, and their respective estimates are off by a whopping $23 billion. They’re literally not even certain whether they’re spending a few dozen billion or not. To call this approach to spending taxpayer dollars reckless would be the understatement of the century.

What’s more, the behemoth bill has numerous sweeping policy changes unrelated to the budget slipped into the legislation so they’ll pass without attention, controversy, or accountability. The omnibus includes sweeping changes to immigration, a vast reform of presidential election laws, a new regulatory system for the cosmetics industry, another huge package of aid to Ukraine, drastic changes to Medicaid rules, a ban on TikTok on government devices, and much, much more.

Whether one supports or opposes any of these items is beside the point. They’re all serious policy issues worthy of actual debate and accountability. But with them passing in this manner, we won’t even know where our representatives stand on these issues. They’ll be able to doge accountability by saying they simply voted yes to prevent a government shut down, not in support of whatever controversial policy their constituents are upset about, while selectively touting the fact that voted in favor of whichever policies their voters support.

Under this budget, the slimy politicians and their lobbyist buddies win, while voters are left in the dark about how their representatives are actually doing their jobs.

And don’t forget the countless billions of dollars of corrupt and wasteful “earmarks,” pet home district spending projects requested by individual members of Congress, slipped into this legislation.

It’s unlikely that $410 million for border security in random countries like Lebanon, $200 million for “gender equity” in Pakistan, or $3.6 million for a hiking trail named after Michelle Obama would ever pass if debated and voted on in their own right. Many Americans would no doubt be outraged by their tax dollars going to such absurd projects, so detached from the pressing issues facing the public. But when they’re slipped into a big omnibus bill like this one, these and countless other disgraceful, corrupt spending items get passed without most taxpayers ever being the wiser.

This kind of budgeting makes a sucker out of you and me. It’s a national disgrace and a dereliction of Congress’s constitutional duties. And leaders of both parties, from Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, are to blame. They’ve all compromised away their last shreds of integrity in exchange for a few of their pet ambitions or projects.

Americans, whatever their political persuasion, shouldn’t stand for this sad excuse for governance happening in our name—and with our money.

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and the co-founder of BASEDPolitics.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.