Key Vote: “NO” on $1.4 Trillion Omnibus & $900 Billion COVID package

Today, the House will consider a massive multi-thousand page, $1.4 trillion omnibus with an additional $900 billion COVID relief package ($2.3 trillion total). After having only a few hours to review the text, the House will take two votes on a single bill as part of a blatantly political process to ensure passage. The first vote will break out critical defense and national security funding. The second vote will package the remainder of the bloated federal appropriations, the inefficient and ineffective COVID “relief” measures, and a slew of unrelated policy changes—like surprise medical billing. It is this second vote that Heritage Action will score on our legislative scorecard.

While Congressional conservatives were able to keep Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats within the established budget caps of 2019, the combined $1.4 trillion in government funding does little to address our unsustainable fiscal path. After all, spending is still $153 billion above the levels set by the Budget Control Act of 2011 and legislators continue to make use of accounting gimmicks that hide total spending levels. Additionally, this year, Congress has authorized more than $2.4 trillion in deficit spending, and this legislation will only add to that figure. In fact, before the pandemic, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had already projected a $1 trillion gap between federal revenues and expenditures. Rather than worsening our $27.4 trillion debt problem, appropriators should be looking for ways to reduce federal spending.

The COVID-related measures included are ineffective, exacerbate our fiscal situation, and do little to encourage our nation to get back to work. While the price tag is a far cry from Speaker Pelosi’s $3 trillion ask and conservatives were able to keep direct state and local bailouts off the table, the legislation still contains flaws. The added COVID measures include a $300 weekly federal supplemental unemployment benefit that would do even more to encourage Americans to stay home and cities to remain shuttered. According to a new report by The Heritage Foundation, extended and increased unemployment benefits can push unemployment rates higher by as much as 2-3 percent and result in many receiving higher benefits than their average paychecks. The COVID measures also include a bailout for the USPS, which suffers from structural issues rather than a business loss from the pandemic.

The funding legislation also contains numerous unrelated policy riders with little to do with appropriations or targeted COVID relief. The legislation includes a 400-page proposal on surprise medical bills which favors federally deputized arbitrators, rather than a truth-in-advertising approach, as the Heritage Foundation has long suggested. It also contains provisions of the American Energy Innovation Act, which picks winners and losers in the energy sector through subsidies, mandates, and by doubling down on failed government-driven programs. Finally, the bill extends more than 30 tax subsidies, which deserve a debate on their own merits, for special interest groups paid for with hard-earned tax dollars.

Rather than completing a regular appropriations process in the fall, Congress has again punted to the last minute, forcing members into an impossible situation just before Christmas. Members will only have a matter of hours to read thousands of pages and vote on a combined $2.3 trillion spending package—one of the largest in history. This agreement, and most notably the second vote in the House, is fiscally irresponsible, inefficiently targeted, and contains policy riders that Heritage Action and conservatives across the country oppose.

Members should reject this deal, and the procedural tactics used to ensure passage. Members should vote “NO” on the second portion of the deal, which contains the worst of the policy proposals as described above.