Congress has unveiled yet another last-minute spending bill to avert a government shutdown that would begin in February. The package weighs in at roughly $1.7 trillion, fully funding the federal government through the end of September. It’s a massive omnibus that locks in spending for the rest of the year and kicks every hard budget fight down the road until fall. The bill was put forward by both parties, which means it’s unlikely to spark a long, drawn-out fight. When leadership on both sides signs on, you can safely assume that everyone’s spending wish list made it in. And indeed, this thing is a spending behemoth. It doesn’t just fund the basics of keeping the government open. It layers in new programs, expanded defense initiatives, foreign security commitments, and long-term authorizations that would never survive as standalone bills. By bundling everything together, Congress insulates controversial line items from scrutiny and pushes them through under the pressure of an artificial crisis. Here’s the real kick in the pants: Remember the health-care eligibility fight Republicans made such a big deal about in the last spending showdown? The one they swore was about stopping permanent expansions of pandemic-era programs? It’s gone. Those “temporary” pandemic expansions in health and welfare programs are now effectively baked in as permanent costs for taxpayers. That hard-fought battle last fall? Turns out it was just theater. For fun, right? And here is another kick in the pants: Buried several hundred pages deep is something Congress apparently considers non-negotiable: money for Israel. Flip to page 101 of 1,059 and you’ll find provisions allocating hundreds of millions of dollars for Israeli missile-defense programs, including Iron Dome and other joint U.S.–Israel systems. Once again, Congress has structured things so that funding the U.S. government also requires funding another country’s defense infrastructure. They sold us down the river with this one and both sides keep doing it. The post Shutdown Averted, Accountability Gone: What Congress Buried in the $1.7 Trillion Bill appeared first on Redacted.