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5 More Surprises Hiding in the CRomnibus Bill
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/5-more-surprises-hiding-in-the-cromnibus-bill/ar-BBheCVz
"Congress rushed out of town this month, leaving in its wake a 1,603-page monstrosity of a spending bill that combined what ought to have been 11 separate appropriations bills into a single piece of legislation.
The so-called CRomnibus (called that because it required a Continuing Resolution funding the Department of Homeland Security through early 2015 in order to complete work on federal spending) wasn’t available long enough for the public or lawmakers to give it detailed scrutiny before lawmakers hit the road.
Some provisions attracted attention and debate, but others went largely unnoticed. (For more on what’s in the bill, see here and here.) The five elements of the bill below fall squarely in the second category, having gotten relatively scant attention before the CRomnibus received President Obama’s signature.
Military pay and benefits
Any move to cut pay for soldiers is almost certainly political non-starter when considered on its own. Camouflaged in the CRomnibus, though, it sailed through. Members of the military were slated to receive a 1.8 percent pay increase in the coming year, but under the bill the president signed into law, that increase is reduced by nearly half, to 1 percent. The new law also sets the stage for members of the military and their families to pay more for prescription drugs and for a decrease in their housing allowances.
War funding
The spending bill sets aside $64 billion above and beyond the Pentagon’s already enormous budget to fund the ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only is the money not counted against the Pentagon’s spending, it is also off the books when it comes to compliance with the Bipartisan Budget Act passed earlier this year.
To put that in perspective, the off-the-books spending on Iraq and Afghanistan next year will be more than the funding of every cabinet-level department in the Executive Branch, other than the Pentagon.
Pension protection
Across the country, many businesses that promised their employees pensions when they retired neglected to make the necessary contributions to adequately fund those pensions. With the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation running out of money to bail out insolvent private pension funds, the CRomnibus makes it easier for companies to slash the benefits of workers who have already retired.
The provision in question deals with what are known as multiemployer pension plans, which are funded jointly by groups of employers and unions in certain industries. Those plans cover about 10 million workers in total, but plans covering about 1.5 million workers are at risk of running out of money over the next 20 years.
The CRomnibus provision was meant to prevent federal bailouts of those funds, but to achieve that goal it carves out a big exception to the 1974 ERISA law, which said that benefits already earned by private-sector workers could not be cut.
Critics of the measure worry about the precedent that might be set here: With the Dow Jones Industrial Average at record highs and corporate profits booming, companies that failed to live up to the promises they made to their employees are being allowed cut promised benefits rather than make good on their agreements.
Funding for ACORN
The bill contains a provision barring the federal government from providing any funding to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. What’s that you say? ACORN hasn’t existed since 2010? Well apparently, just in case the fair housing advocacy group, disbanded amid scandal four years ago, comes back from the dead, its zombie won’t be getting any federal cash.
Government waste
The bill specifically blocks the government from taking steps in multiple areas to save taxpayer money. It bars the Department of Agriculture from shuttering redundant Farm Service Agency offices – some of which are literally unused. It insists that the Pentagon continue spending money on weapons systems that the heads of the various service branches have said are unnecessary. It defunds the Independent Payments Advisory Board, which was specifically designed to help the government save money on health care spending.
That last, of course, is one of the signature elements of the Affordable Care Act, meant to stop the expansion of health coverage from busting the federal budget. The fact that President Obama was willing to sign it suggests that he may have been eager to get out of town as well. "
"Congress rushed out of town this month, leaving in its wake a 1,603-page monstrosity of a spending bill that combined what ought to have been 11 separate appropriations bills into a single piece of legislation.
The so-called CRomnibus (called that because it required a Continuing Resolution funding the Department of Homeland Security through early 2015 in order to complete work on federal spending) wasn’t available long enough for the public or lawmakers to give it detailed scrutiny before lawmakers hit the road.
Some provisions attracted attention and debate, but others went largely unnoticed. (For more on what’s in the bill, see here and here.) The five elements of the bill below fall squarely in the second category, having gotten relatively scant attention before the CRomnibus received President Obama’s signature.
Military pay and benefits
Any move to cut pay for soldiers is almost certainly political non-starter when considered on its own. Camouflaged in the CRomnibus, though, it sailed through. Members of the military were slated to receive a 1.8 percent pay increase in the coming year, but under the bill the president signed into law, that increase is reduced by nearly half, to 1 percent. The new law also sets the stage for members of the military and their families to pay more for prescription drugs and for a decrease in their housing allowances.
War funding
The spending bill sets aside $64 billion above and beyond the Pentagon’s already enormous budget to fund the ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only is the money not counted against the Pentagon’s spending, it is also off the books when it comes to compliance with the Bipartisan Budget Act passed earlier this year.
To put that in perspective, the off-the-books spending on Iraq and Afghanistan next year will be more than the funding of every cabinet-level department in the Executive Branch, other than the Pentagon.
Pension protection
Across the country, many businesses that promised their employees pensions when they retired neglected to make the necessary contributions to adequately fund those pensions. With the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation running out of money to bail out insolvent private pension funds, the CRomnibus makes it easier for companies to slash the benefits of workers who have already retired.
The provision in question deals with what are known as multiemployer pension plans, which are funded jointly by groups of employers and unions in certain industries. Those plans cover about 10 million workers in total, but plans covering about 1.5 million workers are at risk of running out of money over the next 20 years.
The CRomnibus provision was meant to prevent federal bailouts of those funds, but to achieve that goal it carves out a big exception to the 1974 ERISA law, which said that benefits already earned by private-sector workers could not be cut.
Critics of the measure worry about the precedent that might be set here: With the Dow Jones Industrial Average at record highs and corporate profits booming, companies that failed to live up to the promises they made to their employees are being allowed cut promised benefits rather than make good on their agreements.
Funding for ACORN
The bill contains a provision barring the federal government from providing any funding to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. What’s that you say? ACORN hasn’t existed since 2010? Well apparently, just in case the fair housing advocacy group, disbanded amid scandal four years ago, comes back from the dead, its zombie won’t be getting any federal cash.
Government waste
The bill specifically blocks the government from taking steps in multiple areas to save taxpayer money. It bars the Department of Agriculture from shuttering redundant Farm Service Agency offices – some of which are literally unused. It insists that the Pentagon continue spending money on weapons systems that the heads of the various service branches have said are unnecessary. It defunds the Independent Payments Advisory Board, which was specifically designed to help the government save money on health care spending.
That last, of course, is one of the signature elements of the Affordable Care Act, meant to stop the expansion of health coverage from busting the federal budget. The fact that President Obama was willing to sign it suggests that he may have been eager to get out of town as well. "
"No time to read" sums it up.
I've got a check list here at work that my employees are trained off of and they can refer to it time to time to ensure that they are following policy in order to give consistent service and ensure things are being done right. It took a couple of years to get the list refined to where it is today and it is basically fool proof.
Congress has been around for, oh, you know, a couple of hundred years or so and apparently they don't have a list resembling the one I mentioned above. READING THE DAMNED BILLS should be on that list.... but hey, these are busy folks with a lot of bribes to take and back room deals to make.... to ensure everything goes right after they leave office.... and it appears to be fool proof as well....
I've got a check list here at work that my employees are trained off of and they can refer to it time to time to ensure that they are following policy in order to give consistent service and ensure things are being done right. It took a couple of years to get the list refined to where it is today and it is basically fool proof.
Congress has been around for, oh, you know, a couple of hundred years or so and apparently they don't have a list resembling the one I mentioned above. READING THE DAMNED BILLS should be on that list.... but hey, these are busy folks with a lot of bribes to take and back room deals to make.... to ensure everything goes right after they leave office.... and it appears to be fool proof as well....
"By the way, how dare any of these politicrats take anything away from Americans in the armed services."
They dare because most of the idiots voting on the bill aren't bothering to read it before they vote... If I recall, they were all chomping at the bit to get home for the Christmas holiday and Obama was wanted to get it signed before he winged off on another Hawaiian vacation. No time, to read...
They dare because most of the idiots voting on the bill aren't bothering to read it before they vote... If I recall, they were all chomping at the bit to get home for the Christmas holiday and Obama was wanted to get it signed before he winged off on another Hawaiian vacation. No time, to read...
Wasn't the healthcare bill over 1900 pages? Either way, this how things slip through the cracks because nobody elected actually looks at the bills before they vote on them. Wonderful sayings like "you'll have to vote for it to see what's in it" are derived from this mentality and we Americans keep falling for it, time and time again....
By the way, how dare any of these politicrats take anything away from Americans in the armed services.
By the way, how dare any of these politicrats take anything away from Americans in the armed services.
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