The House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers in the House, outlined Monday what conditions would need to be met for them to vote for a new spending bill.
The group is calling for spending bills to include provisions on border security, the “unprecedented weaponization” of the Justice Department and FBI, and the Pentagon’s “cancerous woke polices.” The lawmakers also oppose “any blank check for Ukraine in any supplemental appropriations bill.”
The move comes amid momentum for a short-term spending bill to be passed in late September. The government fiscal year ends Sept. 30. Since Congress doesn’t appear poised to complete and pass the 12 appropriations bills by then, there has been talk of a continuing resolution—a bill that extends current spending levels for a specific length of time.
“In the eventuality that Congress must consider a short-term extension of government funding through a Continuing Resolution, we refuse to support any such measure that continues Democrats’ bloated COVID-era spending and simultaneously fails to force the Biden Administration to follow the law and fulfill its most basic responsibilities,” the Caucus writes.
“Any support for a ‘clean’ Continuing Resolution would be an affirmation of the current [Fiscal Year] 2023 spending level grossly increased by the lame-duck December 2022 omnibus spending bill that we all vehemently opposed just seven months ago.”
Some Republican lawmakers further spoke out about their conditions for any spending bill on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter:
The House Freedom Caucus is specifically calling for any spending bill to include the Secure the Border Act, which passed the House in May on a largely party-line vote of 219-213.
At the time, Republican leaders—House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, and GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik—said that the legislation would “increase the number of Border Patrol agents, provide effective border enforcement technology, resume construction of the border wall, and end the administration’s catch and release policy.”
The Caucus also said any spending bill must “address the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI to focus them on prosecuting real criminals instead of conducting political witch hunts and targeting law-abiding citizens”.
The Freedom Caucus members also called for any spending bills to “[e]nd the cancerous woke policies in the Pentagon undermining our military’s core warfighting mission.”
“The time to hold the line against a December spending monstrosity is now,” wrote Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, in a post on X. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“A secure border, equal application of the law, and a competent military are the most fundamental functions of the federal government,” Roberts added. “If it can’t do these basic tasks, it shouldn’t be funded.”
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