How Congress Defanged Biden's Big Science Push
How Congress Defanged Biden's Big Science Push
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“These aren’t the numbers I’d like to see. I’m disappointed that we can’t provide funding to match what we authorized in CHIPS and Science,” House Science Chair Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) told POLITICO in an email. “Unfortunately, in our current fiscal environment we have to make difficult decisions and that’s reflected in the budgets for these agencies.”
This is one of the major things that congress does that pisses me off. They pass legislation to do a thing, then refuse to pass legislation to fund that thing. This is horse shit. We need a constitutional amendment that states that if congress passes a law, then it is going to be paid for. If later on congress decides they don't want to pay for it then they need to repeal the law.
Two different sessions — the CHIPS act passed in 2022. At the beginning of 2023, control of Congress shifted to the Republicans, and their new leadership doesn't want to do things would improve the country. Individual Republicans may say something else, but their party position is simply set against it, and the consequential vote they cast was the one for Speaker.
Let me try to clarify. I'm saying congress should not have the option to pull this bullshit. If leadership this session doesn't want to pay for the CHIPS act they should have to repeal the act. If they can't get the votes to repeal it, then too fucking bad, they still have to pay for it.
Having funding for legislation separate from the legislation itself is the problem. Combining funding into giant budget bills that are "must pass" lets them undermine the CHIPS legislation that was passed in prior a session despite the fact that they don't have the votes to repeal it because members who support CHIPS must still vote for the budget bill to avoid a shutdown of the government.
I like how many European countries fixed the shutdown issue... Force a snap election for everyone in parliament if a budget isn't passed.
Eh, the CHIPS Act also does good things that doesn't necessarily need additional funding, so repealing it entirely would end those things as well. This problem gets at the structure of Congress, they have "authorization" committees that give power to federal agencies and separate committees that give money to agencies.