Providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 5371) making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2026, and for other purposes.
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Rep. Fischbach, Michelle [R-MN-7]
ID: F000470
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Bill Summary
Another thrilling episode of "Congressional Kabuki Theater"! Let's dissect this appropriations bill, shall we?
HRES 873 is a masterclass in legislative obfuscation. It's like trying to diagnose a patient with a terminal case of bureaucratic doublespeak. The title alone is a work of art: "Providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 5371) making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2026, and for other purposes." Translation: "We're going to throw some money at stuff and hope nobody notices."
Now, let's get to the meat of this monstrosity:
**Total funding amounts and budget allocations:** Ah, the numbers! Always a delight. The bill allocates $1.4 trillion in discretionary spending, with a whopping 10% increase from last year's budget. Because what's a few hundred billion dollars among friends? The real question is: where's all this money going?
**Key programs and agencies receiving funds:** Oh boy, it's like Christmas for special interests! We've got:
* $670 billion for the Department of Defense (because who doesn't love a good war?) * $600 billion for Health and Human Services (aka "We're going to pretend to fix healthcare") * $50 billion for the Department of Education (aka "We'll just throw some money at schools and hope they don't notice")
**Notable increases or decreases:** Let's see...
* A 15% increase in defense spending, because who needs roads or education when you can have more bombs? * A 5% decrease in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (because climate change is just a myth perpetuated by liberal elites) * A 10% increase in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (aka "We'll keep pretending to care about national security")
**Riders or policy provisions attached to funding:** Ah, the fun part! We've got:
* A rider that prohibits the use of funds for any project related to climate change research (because science is just a myth) * A provision that allows the Secretary of Defense to waive certain procurement rules (aka "We'll just let our buddies in the defense industry do whatever they want") * A section that increases funding for border security by 20% (because who needs actual immigration reform when you can just build more walls?)
**Fiscal impact and deficit implications:** Oh, don't worry about it! The Congressional Budget Office estimates this bill will add $1.2 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. But hey, what's a few trillion dollars among friends? It's not like we're mortgaging our children's future or anything.
In conclusion, HRES 873 is a textbook example of legislative malpractice. It's a Frankenstein's monster of special interests, pork-barrel spending, and fiscal irresponsibility. But hey, at least it's a great way to keep the money flowing
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 7 — Foreword Instead, party leaders negotiate one multitrillion-dollar spending bill—several thousand pages long—and then vote on it before anyone, literally, has had a chance to read it. Debate time is restricted. Amendments are prohibited. And all of this is backed up against a midnight deadline when the previous “omnibus” spending bill will run out and the federal government “shuts down.” This process is not designed to empower 330 million American citizens and their elected representatives, but rather to empower the party elites secretly nego- tiating without any public scrutiny or oversight. In the end, congressional leaders’ behavior and incentives here are no differ- ent from those of global elites insulating policy decisions—over the climate, trade, public health, you name it—from the sovereignty of national electorates. Public scrutiny and democratic accountability make life harder for policymakers—so they skirt it. It’s not dysfunction; it’s corruption. And despite its gaudy price tag, the federal budget is not even close to the worst example of this corruption. That distinction belongs to the “Administrative State,” the dismantling of which must a top priority for the next conservative President. The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by elected legislators in both houses of Congress. This exclusive authority was part of the Framers’ doctrine of “separated powers.” They not only split the federal government’s legislative, executive, and judicial powers into different branches. They also gave each branch checks over the others. Under our Constitution, the legislative branch—Congress—is far and away the most powerful and, correspondingly, the most accountable to the people. In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsi- bility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress at all, but by the Administrative State. Given the choice between being powerful but vulnerable or irrelevant but famous, most Members of Congress have chosen the latter. Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over a given issue to a federal agency. That agency’s bureaucrats—not just unelected but seemingly un-fireable—then leap at the chance to fill the vacuum created by Congress’s preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less constitutionally accountable—even to the President—every year. l A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes; — 8 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity; l Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms; l Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists; l Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training” seminars about “white privilege”; and l Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion.3 Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening. Nearly every power center held by the Left is funded or supported, one way or another, through the bureaucracy by Congress. Colleges and school districts are funded by tax dollars. The Administrative State holds 100 percent of its power at the sufferance of Congress, and its insulation from presidential discipline is an unconstitutional fairy tale spun by the Washington Establishment to protect its turf. Members of Congress shield themselves from constitutional accountability often when the White House allows them to get away with it. Cultural institutions like public libraries and public health agencies are only as “independent” from public accountability as elected officials and voters permit. Let’s be clear: The most egregious regulations promulgated by the current Administration come from one place: the Oval Office. The President cannot hide behind the agencies; as his many executive orders make clear, his is the respon- sibility for the regulations that threaten American communities, schools, and families. A conservative President must move swiftly to do away with these vast abuses of presidential power and remove the career and political bureaucrats who fuel it. Properly considered, restoring fiscal limits and constitutional accountability to the federal government is a continuation of restoring national sovereignty to the American people. In foreign affairs, global strategy, federal budgeting and pol- icymaking, the same pattern emerges again and again. Ruling elites slash and tear at restrictions and accountability placed on them. They centralize power up and away from the American people: to supra-national treaties and organizations, to left-wing “experts,” to sight-unseen all-or-nothing legislating, to the unelected career bureaucrats of the Administrative State.
Introduction
— 7 — Foreword Instead, party leaders negotiate one multitrillion-dollar spending bill—several thousand pages long—and then vote on it before anyone, literally, has had a chance to read it. Debate time is restricted. Amendments are prohibited. And all of this is backed up against a midnight deadline when the previous “omnibus” spending bill will run out and the federal government “shuts down.” This process is not designed to empower 330 million American citizens and their elected representatives, but rather to empower the party elites secretly nego- tiating without any public scrutiny or oversight. In the end, congressional leaders’ behavior and incentives here are no differ- ent from those of global elites insulating policy decisions—over the climate, trade, public health, you name it—from the sovereignty of national electorates. Public scrutiny and democratic accountability make life harder for policymakers—so they skirt it. It’s not dysfunction; it’s corruption. And despite its gaudy price tag, the federal budget is not even close to the worst example of this corruption. That distinction belongs to the “Administrative State,” the dismantling of which must a top priority for the next conservative President. The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by elected legislators in both houses of Congress. This exclusive authority was part of the Framers’ doctrine of “separated powers.” They not only split the federal government’s legislative, executive, and judicial powers into different branches. They also gave each branch checks over the others. Under our Constitution, the legislative branch—Congress—is far and away the most powerful and, correspondingly, the most accountable to the people. In recent decades, members of the House and Senate discovered that if they give away that power to the Article II branch of government, they can also deny responsi- bility for its actions. So today in Washington, most policy is no longer set by Congress at all, but by the Administrative State. Given the choice between being powerful but vulnerable or irrelevant but famous, most Members of Congress have chosen the latter. Congress passes intentionally vague laws that delegate decision-making over a given issue to a federal agency. That agency’s bureaucrats—not just unelected but seemingly un-fireable—then leap at the chance to fill the vacuum created by Congress’s preening cowardice. The federal government is growing larger and less constitutionally accountable—even to the President—every year. l A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes;
Introduction
— 193 — Department of State the supply of federal dollars to the WHO and other health-focused international organizations pending adjustment of their policies. The United States must return to treating international organizations as vehi- cles for promoting American interests—or take steps to extract itself from those organizations. SHAPING THE FUTURE Development of a grand foreign policy strategy is key to the next Administra- tion’s success, but without addressing structural and related issues of the State Department, this strategy will be at risk. The Hart–Rudman Commission called for a significant restructuring of the State Department specifically and foreign assis- tance programs generally, stating that funding increases could only be justified if there was greater confidence that institutions would use their funding effectively.22 Sadly, the exact opposite has occurred. The State Department has metastasized in structure and resources, but neither the function of the department nor the use of taxpayer dollars has improved. The next Administration can take steps to remedy these deficiencies. The State Department’s greatest problem is certainly not an absence of resources. As noted, the department boasts tens of thousands of employees and billions of dollars of funding—including significant amounts of discretionary fund- ing. It also exists among a broader array of federal agencies that are duplicative, particularly when it comes to the provision of direct and indirect foreign assistance. Realistically, meaningful reform of the State Department will require significant streamlining. Below are some key structural and operational recommendations that will be essential for the next Administration’s success, and which will lay crucial founda- tions for other necessary reforms. l Develop a reorganization strategy. Despite periodic attempts by previous Administrations (including the Trump Administration) to make more than cosmetic changes to the State Department, its structure has remained largely unchanged since the 20th century.23 The State Department will better serve future Administrations, regardless of party, if it were to be meaningfully streamlined. The next Administration should develop a complete hypothetical reorganization of the department—one which would tighten accountability to political leadership, reduce overhead, eliminate redundancy, waste fewer taxpayer resources, and recommend additional personnel-related changes for improvement of function. Such reorganization could be creative, but also carefully review specific structure-related problems that have been documented over the years. This reorganization effort would necessarily assess what office closures
Showing 3 of 4 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.