As Shutdown Looms, Congress Nails Down a Few Details on the Omnibus

Congressional leaders have yet to release the omnibus spending bill that they must pass before Friday however, congressional leaders have reportedly iced down some details.

The omnibus spending bill will allocate $1.3 trillion of federal spending over the next two years.

Reports suggest that congressional leaders have yet to iron out the major issues, however, here are some details that congressional leaders have agreed to:

• $1.3 billion in funding border wall fencing, not the concrete border wall prototypes that President Donald Trump proposed and visited last week.
• $2.8 billion to combat the opioid crisis, which will also include $500 million for the National Institute of Health to research opioid addiction as well as $1.4 billion for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
• $10 billion in new infrastructure funding, which includes $600 million for high-speed Internet deployment, $2.6 billion for the Federal Highway Administration, and $1.2 billion for the Federal Railroad Administration.
• $1.34 billion in funding to prepare for the 2020 Census, which is double the amount that the Trump administration requested in their budget.

Other reports suggest that the House omnibus spending bill will not include an Obamacare bailout package.

Multiple lawmakers suggested that the House will vote on the $1.3 trillion spending bill on Thursday; leaving the Senate increasingly little time to pass before the omnibus before Friday night deadline.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) told Breitbart News Daily that the “Senate Democrats seem to be calling most of the shots” on the omnibus spending bill.

Meadows then asked why Republicans have not pushed to include more conservatives policies in the omnibus spending bill.

The North Carolina congressman asked, “Why are we not defunding Planned Parenthood? Why are we not getting significant funding for the wall? Why do we continue to fund sanctuary cities? A lot of these questions continue to be left unanswered. Certainly, it’s not just Democrats that need to answer these questions, but Republicans as well.”

Meadows declared, “I think it’s time that we tell nine Democrats in the Senate that they don’t control Washington, DC.”