WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House voted Friday to strip President Joe Biden’s Homeland Security secretary and secretary of state of their salaries. It approved measures banning military installations from having drag queen story hours for children. And it passed legislation banning paid leave for Pentagon workers who have abortions.
The provisions were included in three bills to fund the Departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security, which Republicans in the House of Representatives passed largely along party lines, even though none of these bills have any hope of ever being passed. will be transposed into law.
With a government funding deadline in late September and high-stakes elections in November, lawmakers have entered a period of legislative theater, with each chamber submitting spending proposals that the other will never approve.
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In the House of Representatives, for the second year in a row, that has led Republican leaders to open the floodgates to a barrage of conservative priorities. These include scaling back initiatives to combat climate change and promote diversity, and cutting the budgets of Biden administration officials — sometimes with little resistance from Democrats, who know these proposals will never pass .
“None of these bills — none of them — will be signed into law the way they’re written right now,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “We all know this isn’t about serious legislation. This is about show business, catering to the most extreme right wing of the Republican base, and it’s a waste of time.”
The scenes played out this week in the House of Representatives, as lawmakers voted on dozens of amendments that foreshadowed the bitter spending battle Congress will face this fall. The House-passed bills provide a starting point for bipartisan negotiations, meaning lawmakers will once again have to bridge a vast chasm between legislation passed by the Republican-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate.
In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans are fighting over how federal dollars should be divided between military and domestic spending. Republicans are pushing for a significant increase in money for the military, while Democrats insist that can’t happen without an equal increase in domestic spending.
Privately, most appropriators recognize that a stopgap short-term spending bill will most likely be needed to avoid a government shutdown in late September, delaying the federal spending debate until after the November election.
Many of the conservative policy proposals that Republicans in the House of Representatives have been trying to pass were left out of the budget bills passed this year after Democrats refused to accept them. For example, a measure aimed at allowing drag queen story hours on military bases and another proposal to ban the FBI from building a new headquarters in Maryland were included in budget bills the House passed last cycle but were ultimately scrapped by Democrats.
Republicans have insisted that they use their power to rein in federal agencies that have strayed from their core missions.
“There are those who say that cuts of this magnitude endanger America’s leadership in the world and make us less safe,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., on the State Department bill. “I strongly disagree. It’s quite the opposite. It eliminates controversial or ineffective programs that American taxpayers don’t support and, frankly, our allies and partners don’t support either.”
House Republicans on Wednesday and Thursday rejected a number of divisive amendments from their far-right colleagues, including a series of measures calling for an end to aid and arms sales to Ukraine and another proposal — identical to one the House passed last year and was defeated in negotiations with the Senate — that would have cut Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s salary to $1.
The legislation passed Friday would slightly increase funding for the Pentagon, with a 4.5% pay raise for all military personnel, while cutting about $670 million for climate change and diversity initiatives. It would cut funding for the State Department and related agencies by 12% and provide a small boost to funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
“This bill funds the department’s core responsibilities that protect the homeland,” said Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev. “What it doesn’t do is fund liberal priorities that further contribute to the chaos at our southern border.”
The Pentagon funding bill passed 217-198. The legislation to fund the State Department passed by a vote of 212 to 200. And the bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security passed 212-203.
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