What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailors?

Too many Republicans have forgotten a powerful rallying cry: “Priorities,” admonishes Kimberley Strassel in the WSJ. And now they are getting a “perfect assist from the Biden White House, which shipped to Congress a $106 billion supplemental appropriation request for Ukraine, Israel, and the border.

But there is more: a separate demand for $56 billion in fictitious “emergency” spending—which it hopes gets wrapped together, continues Ms. Strassel:

President Biden, in an Oval Office address, described the foreign piece as a priority—“vital for America’s national security.” House Republicans should require the president—and their own party’s spenders—to stick to that priority.

Dollars to defeat Russian and Iranian aggression are necessary, argues Ms. Strassel. Whether readers agree or disagree with what is “necessary,” with $33 trillion in debt, is there not room for both guns and butter?

If Mr. Biden intends to backstop two foreign wars, the obvious concession is a substantive reduction of domestic spending. A House GOP that insisted on this would send a great message to voters, even as it reassured those who worry a Ukraine/Israel supplemental will serve as a vehicle for another spending bonanza.

The White House Softball

The Biden team in September tried wrapping $16 billion in “disaster” aid alongside a Ukraine request—though at least those dollars were earmarked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

This week’s $56 billion replacement (more than three times as large) was retitled “critical needs” spending, the better to justify the kitchen sink. Almost none of it is actual emergency spending, and it rightly belongs in an annual appropriations discussion. But Team Biden isn’t going to let this moment of international crisis go to waste, and it is betting the Senate GOP big spenders will sign up for the pretext.

What’s Critical

According to the White House, here’s what is included in “critical.”

• $16 billion in child-care-center funding, since the supposedly one-time $24 billion pandemic allotment is gone.
• $6 billion for the Affordable Connectivity Program, a fraud-racked Covid-era boondoggle that aimed to close the “digital divide” but has in reality blown $17 billion subsidizing the Netflix habits of people who already had high-speed broadband.
• $1.6 billion for home-heating oil, that the Housing and 2.8 billion for Urban Development Department for “restoration,”
• $1.5 billions for the Health and Human Services Department get a further the opioid epidemic.
• $2.2 billion Energy Department to fiddle with the nuclear supply chain.
• $310 millions to the State Department (go figure) for a wastewater plant in Southern California.

Ho! Ho! and up She Rises

Ms. Strassel points out, “almost none of it is actual emergency spending…”

… it rightly belongs in an annual appropriations discussion. But Team Biden isn’t going to let this moment of international crisis go to waste, and it is betting the Senate GOP big spenders will sign up for the pretext.

 Critical: The Kitchen Sink

 According to the White House, here’s what is Critical, making drunken sailors seem fiscally conservative:

• $16 billion to Senate Democrats get another $16 billion in child-care-center funding, since the supposedly one-time $24 billion pandemic allotment is gone.
• $6 billion to Federal Communications Commission for the Affordable Connectivity Program, a fraud-racked Covid-era boondoggle that aimed to close the “digital divide” but has in reality blown $17 billion subsidizing the Netflix habits of people who already had high-speed broadband.
• $1.6 billion for home-heating oil.
• $2.8 billion the Housing and Urban Development Department.
• $2.8 billion for “restoration,” that the Health and Human Services Department.

As K.S writes, “Nary a dime of this is justifiable, which helpfully provides House Republicans the opportunity to draw new lines in the name of priorities.”

One step is to identify clearly and toss out any provision that doesn’t truly count as emergency spending or directly relate to Ukraine or Israel. Another is to make clear that Democrats will be required to make choices, and that money to counter growing international threats will require the White House and Senate Democrats to swallow even deeper cuts in upcoming appropriations bills than those in the spring debt-ceiling deal.

“It’s past time for the Republicans to live up to their claim of fiscal responsibility. The Biden administration just handed them a contrast begging to be made.”