By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Republicans on Wednesday advanced President Donald Trump’s partisan budget plan and voting restriction initiatives in a push to boost the party before the November midterm elections.
In a flurry of votes, House Republicans also endorsed a partisan bill placing limits on stock market trading by members of Congress. For years, watchdog groups have argued that lawmakers should not be able to profit from inside information about their work in Washington that could guide and boost their investments.
The bill’s outlook was uncertain in the Senate.
Many Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate had pushed for a tougher bill written last year with the support of a diverse group of Republican and Democratic members.
At the very least, the 232-198 passage of this bill gives Republicans an opportunity to campaign for re-election saying they tried to clean up Washington.
As recently as last month, Democrats sought to change Senate rules to ban stock trades in that chamber by January 1, 2027. Republicans blocked the move.
House Republicans have attached a controversial election reform provision to their stock trading ban, further clouding its prospects for enactment.
A December study by Common Cause found that last year members of Congress from both parties executed 13,324 trades totaling $635.6 million.
Wednesday’s House action came as the 435-seat chamber was on the verge of starting a five-week recess that most will use to campaign for re-election.
$95 BILLION IN NEW SPENDING
The budget measure, which passed on a vote of 216-214, would open the way for Republicans to use a special procedure to whip $95 billion in new spending through the Senate by circumventing a rule designed to give minority Democrats a say in legislation.
That money, if approved later this year, would mainly send $60 billion to the Pentagon, on top of about $1 trillion in the pipeline for the military this year, and as Trump wages an expensive war with Iran.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican, said during House debate that the money would be used for “supporting our troops in their time of need: Just baseline battlefield readiness, bullets and bombs to finish the job and to come home safely and victoriously.”
Representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, senior Democrat on the budget panel, urged defeat of the bill, saying it would add nearly $100 billion in new government deficits at a time when the national debt is racing toward $40 trillion.
“Nothing to lower gas prices. Nothing to lower food prices…just more spending on the most unpopular war in American history,” Boyle said.
The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Budget cautioned that the $95 billion price tag outlined in the Republican budget plan would actually swell to $130 billion when interest payments on the borrowed money are included.
It also noted that with this third special funding bill, using a procedure called reconciliation, lawmakers have been asked to “tolerate shortcomings” with promises that future legislation will reduce the deficit. So far that has not materialized.
Besides the military funds, the budget measure also would send $12 billion in new government aid to farmers, who have been hit with higher fuel and fertilizer prices as a result of Trump’s expanded tariffs on foreign goods.
Trump has been pressuring the Republican-controlled Congress to pass legislation imposing new controls on states’ election laws, which would require tougher voter ID provisions. Democrats call it a “voter suppression” move to help Republicans win the November elections.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan. Editing by Michael Learmonth and David Gregorio)
Comments