Senate Passes Pork-Infested $1.5 Trillion Spending And Ukraine Relief Bill

Senate passes pork-infested $1.5 Trillion government spending bill with $14 billion Ukraine relief spending attached. The massive spending package, which would appropriate funds for the government until September 30, passed the Senate on Thursday evening in a bipartisan vote of 68 to 31, with 18 Republicans joining all Democrats voting in support. Take note of the Republicans/Rinos!

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., on the House passing the $1.5 trillion spending bill, including $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine, foreign oil dependence and national defense. Video credit, FoxBusinessNews/YouTube

The New York Post reports: The House of Representatives approved a bipartisan $1.5 trillion spending bill that was was stripped of funds originally earmarked to fight the coronavirus pandemic while sending billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine. The passage of the measure marked the first time Democrats were able to largely shape a spending package during President Biden’s term, but the White House was incensed that the House dropped a $15.6 billion pandemic aid package to save the bill.

The axed funding was meant to bolster vaccine supply, treatments, and tests at home and abroad, but rank-and-file Democrats balked at GOP demands that cuts to state aid be used to cover the initiatives Wednesday. “It is heartbreaking to remove the Covid funding, and we must continue to fight for urgently needed Covid assistance, but unfortunately that will not be included in this bill,” House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wrote in an afternoon

Headlining the 2,741-page bill, about $782 billion is allocated for military spending under the Defense Department, while an additional $125 billion has been allocated to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In addition to funding day-to-day government operations, the bill appropriates about $14 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine as it fights off a Russian invasion, with $4 billion to help displaced refugees, $6.5 billion for military assistance, and $1.8 billion for any macroeconomic needs, according to the House Committee on Appropriations.

Senate passes pork-infested bill that also grants agency requests for a number of new provisions, including a $400 increase to the maximum Pell Grant award, and nearly $7 billion to establish an agency under the National Institutes of Health tasked with building “high-risk, high-reward” technologies for disease research.

Among other provisions in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which expired in 1994 and provided funds to help prosecute violent crimes against women; a measure to give the Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over synthetic nicotine; and cybersecurity protections to help curb the risk of infrastructure attacks.