Free Republic

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) unveiled a gambit to burst a legislative logjam and unleash a four-vote flood including a standalone vote on tens of billions in American taxpayer aid to Ukraine. The plan appears to exploit the sense of urgency in Congress for sending aid to Israel in the wake of Iranian missile attacks in a scheme to bypass Republican animosity towards continuing to fund Ukraine’s war against Russia. Johnson unveiled his plan to his colleagues during a Monday night House Republican Conference meeting. His plan is to hold a single vote on a rule — the product specifying which...

@SundayFutures Today on @SundayFutures with @MariaBartiromo, Senator @RandPaul had a message for @SpeakerJohnson regarding putting together another foreign aid package.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday he will try to advance wartime aid for Israel this week as he attempts the difficult task of winning House approval for a national security package that also includes funding for Ukraine and allies in Asia. Johnson, R-La., is already under immense political pressure from his fellow GOP lawmakers as he tries to stretch between the Republican Party’s divided support for helping Kyiv defend itself from Moscow’s invasion. The Republican speaker has sat for two months on a $95 billion supplemental package that would send support to the U.S. allies, as...

One of the worst kept secrets in Washington is no one actually knows just how much money the United States has spent in support of Ukraine. Over the past year, however, conservatives in Congress have been pushing President Joe Biden and his administration for the real number, and they’re finally getting some answers. In a letter sent to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young on Tuesday, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, along with Sens. Roger Marshall, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and twelve other members of Congress, chronicled the immense difficulty Congress...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday that he expects to move a package including aid for Ukraine with “some important innovations” when the House returns from recess. In an interview on “Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy,” Johnson stressed the difficult position he’s in, with a historically narrow House majority, but said he was working throughout the current work period to come up with a package and plans to put it on the floor when the House gavels back into session.

@RepThomasMassie Unfortunately, this is not April fools. Johnson, Schumer & the deep state are writing the Ukraine bill. Then Johnson will suspend rules to pass it. “We’re putting that product together & we’ll be moving it right after the district work period,” -Johnson.

House Republican appropriators say they will follow the two-year budget deal reached after the 2013 government shutdown regardless of who wins control of the Senate in November’s elections. Winning the Senate would give the GOP more leverage in spending fights with the administration, but GOP lawmakers have signaled they don't want to open a new bruising war over spending by rolling back the 2013 budget deal, in which Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) agreed to spending caps for the government for the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years. On the cusp of an election that could deliver...

Pelosi says 'the cupboard is bare' By ELIZABETH TITUS | 9/22/13 9:35 AM EDT House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says that while deficit reduction is a laudable goal, there are precious few spending cuts left to negotiate in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. "The cupboard is bare," the California Democrat said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "There's no more cuts to make." "We all want to reduce the deficit," she added. "Put everything on the table, review it, but you cannot have any more cuts just for the sake of cuts. Right now...

For several years, the economy limped along because of me. I scrimped on everything, did it myself if I could do it myself, and hoarded money out of fear that the recent recession had another dip or two left in it. Things are different now. I’ve turned my savings into spending, rung up thousands of dollars’ worth of purchases on my credit cards and in the process paid a lot more in taxes. And I’ll probably keep spending like this until I nearly run out of money. In other words, I’ve bought a house. All told, I could easily end...

President Barack Obama’s deputies are negotiating a $1 billion aid package with Egypt’s new Islamist government, even as Egypt’s cash-strapped military revealed that it is trying to buy $1 billion worth of German submarines that could threaten Israel’s fast-growing offshore energy projects. The German government has pointedly declined to deny the incendiary revelation about Egypt’s request to buy the two submarines. Instead, the German government offered vague support for Israel, which is facing renewed threats from Iran’s nuclear program and the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt. “There has been no change in the German government’s position towards Israel,...

CAMP DAVID, Md. — Leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations opened the door Saturday to more government spending in Europe as way to revive the continent’s struggling economy, shifting away from the idea that the surest way to recovery was through strict fiscal austerity. Meeting at the Group of Eight summit at Camp David, President Obama and his fellow leaders said they were committed foremost to creating jobs and growth, a shift, at least in emphasis, from previous gatherings dominated by German efforts to reduce high government debt through drastic fiscal reform. In a joint statement, the leaders of eight...

The biggest fashion spenders in America aren't New Yorkers, Los Angelinos or even Chicagoans. They're Washington, DC locals. A new list by Bundle.com focuses on different spending habits across the U.S. - and has thrown some less than predictable cities into the fashion spotlight. Focusing on average monthly spend on clothes, shoes and other wear, the figures show that DC - not normally associated with fashion - is packed with shopaholics who spend, on average, a massive $263 each month on clothes and shoes. Serious spending: As much as NYC is viewed as a shoppers' city, it is Washington DC...

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans unexpectedly pledged an immediate review of President Barack Obama's jobs proposals on Friday as he launched a public campaign for urgent passage of his day-old $447 billion program of tax cuts and new spending. "The time for gridlock and games is over," the president declared. "Nothing radical in this bill," Obama told a large crowd at the University of Richmond on the afternoon after his dramatic speech to Congress. "Everything in it will put more people back to work and more money back in the pockets of those who are working. Everything in it will...

This shows how pitifully small the GOP's cuts in the $1.5 trillion deficit are. The Hill: U.S. military operations in Libya could wipe out a significant chunk of the budget cuts won by congressional Republicans in recent weeks, defense analysts say. GOP leaders have trumpeted enacted spending reductions that amount to more than $285 million per day since the beginning of March. But defense analysts say the Pentagon could be burning through more than $100 million per day in Libya, putting those budget savings at risk. In separate briefings on Monday, the Defense Department and the White House said they...

He has been, in many ways, a governor of firsts:• The first to take office as a result of a recall election.• The first to commute, on an almost daily basis and via private jet, between the Capitol and his Southern California mansion. • The first to have served in the Austrian army, the first to have won the Mr. Olympia body-building title seven times, and - as far as we know - the first California chief executive to have nude photos of himself widely available on the World Wide Web.But "first" does not necessarily mean "great," or even "good."And...

U.S. President Barack Obama signs the HIRE Act, a job growth initiative, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington March 18, 2010. U.S. President Barack Obama says goodbye to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi after signing the HIRE Act, a job growth initiative, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, March 18, 2010. President Barack Obama has a word with Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., after he signed the HIRE Act jobs bill in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Thursday, March 18, 2010. At rear, from left to right: Budget...

The left plans to continue its assault on welfare reform by extending the welfare spending increases established in last year's "stimulus" bill. Fortunately, The Heritage Foundation's welfare expert, Robert Rector, continues to play an important role in the debate. At a congressional hearing yesterday, Rector was the only witness representing conservative ideas. He was up against Chairman Jim McDermott (D-WA) and his handpicked witnesses, who argued that welfare spending hasn't increased enough. Rector, who was chiefly responsible for the groundbreaking welfare reforms of 1996, testified that the U.S. is already expected to spend almost $1 trillion on means-tested (i.e. "welfare")...

Ayes - 220 Nays - 198 NV - 15

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton on Friday will propose a $70 billion emergency spending package and possibly another $40 billion tax rebate to counter what she sees as a coming recession, according to the New York Times. "I have been looking at the latest unemployment numbers, and I really think it is imperative that we start to move to help people dealing with the housing market and give the country a jolt of confidence in the economy," the senator from New York told the Times. Clinton's plan would provide $30 billion for an emergency housing crisis...

In hindsight, it's only fitting that Arnold Schwarzenegger swept into office by recalling Gray Davis. Because the way things are going these days, we find ourselves recalling Davis all the time. Davis, you might, er, recall, was given the boot for allowing California to run up a massive budget deficit. Under his watch, Sacramento locked itself into outrageous spending patterns based on the assumption that the dot-com boom would last forever. It didn't, Gray got dumped, and along came Arnold, who has proved to be little more than a Davis sequel. Although Schwarzenegger proposed strong spending restraints in 2005, they...