Today’s Agenda
Today, Senator Lee will be holding a Utah tele-press conference at 6 PM EDT, and will appear on Fox Business Channel’s Freedom Watch at 8 PM EDT.
From the Senator’s Desk
Portions of the prepared remarks of Senator Jeff Sessions regarding today’s “minibus” bill:
“The Democrat majority contends that their appropriations package will save taxpayers money. But this is just more bogus Washington accounting. We’ve crunched the numbers and discovered that these bills will increase spending by $10 billion over last year. I would like to take a moment to explain.
“This is the first appropriations bill the Senate has considered after discretionary spending caps were established as part of the recent debt limit negotiations. The Budget Control Act, as the bill was pretentiously named, had as a goal to bring discretionary spending down from $1,050 billion in FY11 to $1,043 billion in FY12, an alleged actual spending reduction of a paltry $7 billion.
“Does this bill adequately move us towards even this minor goal? The majority party says it does. They contend that this bill—this minibus—spends $128 billion, which is $1 billion below the $129 billion spent last year—a reduction of less than 1 percent. They are very proud of this.
“But, the Budget Control Act also created a new category of spending above the $1,043 billion, spending for disaster assistance. The debt limit deal provided for an allowance for disaster spending equal to the average of the prior 10 years, which can be accessed simply by providing the proper words in the appropriations bill. The majority party contends that this money should magically not count when you decide how much is spent. Why? It’s a disaster and disasters don’t count, don’t you know?
“As amended on the Senate floor two weeks ago, this bill now contains $3.2 billion in new spending above the caps for disaster relief—a further increase of 20 percent. While there are arguments that this $3.2 billion should not be counted as an expenditure, the CBO score—the official score—includes it as an expenditure. No one has challenged them because it appears they are plainly correct to score the $3.2 billion as spending.”
Recent Votes
Today, the Senate voted down Senator Lee’s motion to maintain 2011 spending levels in certain areas of 2012 appropriations, including agriculture and commerce. This would have saved taxpayers roughly $10 billion in comparison to the spending levels that were ultimately passed, which Senator Lee voted against.
On Twitter
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I agree with @senjohnthune that the CLASS Act should be repealed. Keeping this law on the books is dangerous.
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Just announced: AG Eric Holder will appear before Senate Judiciary Committee November 8 #FastAndFurious
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Over 70% of consumers have said it’s bad time to buy goods/services they want & NEED for longest time on record: http://bloom.bg/vf8ieg #tcot
Around the Water Cooler
GOP legislators headed to Washington to meet with Utah delegation
A group of five GOP state House leaders and members are heading to Washington, D.C., this week to lobby Utah’s congressional delegation on a list of issues.
“There were some issues we felt we needed to come together with and hopefully express our concerns with where Washington is headed,” House Majority Leader Brad Dee, R-Ogden, said.
Dee, along with House Speaker Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, and GOP Reps. Bill Wright, of Holden, James Dunnigan, of Taylorsville, and John Dougall, of American Fork, will meet Tuesday and Wednesday with the delegation
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac executives get big housing bonuses
The Obama administration’s efforts to fix the housing crisis may have fallen well short of helping millions of distressed mortgage holders, but they have led to seven-figure paydays for some top executives at troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator for Fannie and Freddie, approved $12.79 million in bonus pay after 10 executives from the two government-sponsored corporations last year met modest performance targets tied to modifying mortgages in jeopardy of foreclosure.
Looking Ahead
Tomorrow, Senator Lee will attend a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony and meet with Utah legislators who have traveled to Washington, D.C.