Everything you need to know about the government spending deal

Congress didn’t give President Donald Trump money for his border wall — and Mexico certainly isn’t paying for it — so now he’s asking his administration to go to legally questionable lengths to fund it anyway.

Trump has spoken with Secretary of Defense James Mattis about using Department of Defense money for the border wall, Pentagon spokesperson Dana White confirmed Thursday. The president reportedly noted that the Pentagon was getting so much money in Congress’s $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that it could surely afford the border wall, according to the Washington Post.

After a few hours of ultimately fruitless drama, President Donald Trump signed the omnibus spending bill to fund the federal government through September 30.

He took shots at Congress, at Democrats, at the Senate’s procedurals and promised that he would not sign another mega-spending package released at the last minute. But this time, he did sign it.

The omnibus spending bill that Congress just passed included good news for businesses that hire foreign guest workers, like the Trump Organization. The bill allows the administration to nearly double the number of H-2B visas available for companies to hire temporary foreign workers this year to 129,547.

The H-2B program is supposed to help US businesses that can’t find American workers to fill temporary jobs at hotels, ski resorts, and landscaping companies. But the law caps the number of work visas at 33,000 for the summer months and 33,000 for the winter months.

Last weekend, Ted Cruz forced the Senate to stay in session all day on a Saturday — and arguably made it easier for Senate Democrats to confirm 24 presidential nominees, including a new surgeon general. Cruz’ fellow Republicans were, to say the least, not pleased.

This isn’t the first time Cruz has ticked off his Senate GOP colleagues. But it might be the first time he’s apologized for it.

The Senate needed to pass something by midnight Saturday night to prevent the federal government from running out of money and shutting down.

On Friday night, the Senate was supposed to pass a bill funding the government through Wednesday. Then, they would adjourn for the weekend, and come back on Monday to pass the $1.1 trillion “CRomnibus”: the bill to fund most of the government through September, 2015.

Medical marijuana advocates praised the budget provision as an important step to protecting medical marijuana businesses and patients who are operating legally under state law.

“Congressional leaders seem to have finally gotten the message that a supermajority of Americans wants states to be able to implement sensible marijuana reforms without federal interference,” said Tom Angell, head of the pro-legalization Marijuana Majority. “This legislation greatly reduces the chances that costly and senseless DEA raids will come between seriously ill patients and the doctor-recommended medicine they need for relief.”

On Thursday night, the House passed a bill to fund the government that political insiders are calling the CRomnibus. Many have wondered where such a strange moniker might have originated and what, precisely, it means. Ezra Klein’s explainer on the CRomnibus has the answer:

’Why it’s called “the CRomnibus”: The bill is being referred to on the Hill as the “CRomnibus”. That’s because it’s a mash-up of an omnibus bill, which is how Congress funds the government when things are working normally, and a continuing resolution (CR), which is how Congress funds the government when it can’t come to a deal. In this case, the CR only affects the Department of Homeland Security, which, as mentioned before, will see its funding expire in February.’

In the federal spending deal passed by the House of Representatives Thursday, federal lawmakers attempted to block Washington, DC’s marijuana legalization ballot initiative, which was backed by seven in ten voters. But advocates now say there are potential loopholes that will allow DC Council to implement the voter-approved initiative anyway.

Advocates, particularly the Drug Policy Alliance and the DC Cannabis Campaign, argue that the language in the congressional spending deal is ambiguous. And others say DC Council could use alternative sources of funding to pass the legalization initiative to Congress.

For all the Sturm und Drang of the bill’s passage last night, there’s a simple reason House Democrats ultimately provided the votes to pass the CRomnibus, and always were going to provide the votes to pass the CRomnibus: they didn’t have a better alternative. If the CRomnibus collapsed, what came next would have been worse for Democrats.

(Confused about what the CRomnibus is, or why it has that name? Head here.)

Congress is debating a $1.01-trillion spending bill — dubbed the “CRomnibus” — to fund the federal government until next September. The 1,603-page bill is packed with all sorts of provisions that would alter bank regulation, campaign finance, and even environmental policy.

On the environment, perhaps the most significant aspect of the bill is what it doesn’t do. Over the past few years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been proposing a flurry of new rules to address climate change and regulate air pollution from coal-fired power plants. And congressional Republicans have long vowed to rein in the EPA. But this spending bill doesn’t really touch any of those major rules. That fight has been pushed back for another time.

Congressional negotiators reached a deal this week that would extend most government funding through fall 2015 — learn all about it here. But since this is basically a must-pass bill, party leaders have thrown in several provisions that little or nothing to do with funding the government, but are instead gifts to important interest groups or constituencies. Here are 5 of the shadiest.

Previously, the limit on giving to a party committee was $32,400 per individual per year. Under the new proposal, a donor can give money toward earmarked funds - for presidential conventions, party headquarters buildings, or recounts - that will be subject to separate, higher, contribution limits. By directing his or her money in that way, a donor will soon be able to give $324,000 to a party each year, if this bill is signed into law. The provision was negotiated by top aides to Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, report Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan of Politico.

House and Senate negotiators have crafted a $1.013 trillion deal to fund most of the government through 2015 (well, with one exception). The bill, which weighs in at more than 1,600 pages (full text here), will avert a government shutdown. But it’s also loaded down with non-funding “policy riders” — including one that has Sen. Elizabeth Warren very, very annoyed — and is the kind of giant, secretive, backroom deal that Republicans have railed against in recent years.

Here’s what to say if you’re asked about it.

Tuesday night, Congress unveiled a bill that will fund most of the federal government through September 2015. Overall, the bill keeps funding levels relatively constant. But it quadruples the amount of federal money going to crime victims: from $745 million this year to $2.36 billion in 2015.

If this seems like an uncharacteristic move from a Congress that’s generally made cuts to service programs, it’s because it is. But the catch is that Congress isn’t actually giving more tax dollars to victim services. It’s just allowing the federal Crime Victims Fund to spend more of the money it already has — about 67 percent of it, compared to 25 percent in recent years.

Lurking in the omnibus appropriations bill that will prevent the government from running out of money and shutting down is a provision that has nothing to do with government spending. It has to do with financial regulation — and it’s gotten Elizabeth Warren pissed.

The omnibus would repeal Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that passed back in 2010.

After Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010, new rules required school lunches to get much healthier than they’d been in the past. Pizza could still be a school lunch staple — but it would have to be whole grain pizza.

What counts as a whole grain is complicated. Starting this school year, all grain products served in school lunches — anything from pizza crust to sandwich bread to rice — are supposed to be “whole grain-rich,” meaning either whole grains are the main ingredient (in bread) or that whatever flour product they use is at least half whole-grain flour (in pizza, corn dogs, and other dishes that aren’t just grains.) It’s a confusing issue, as this USDA flowchart demonstrates:

On Tuesday night, Congressional negotiators reached a deal that will fund most of the government until the fall of 2015, if it passes. But the bipartisan compromise is about more than just government funding — one section, headlined “Other Matters,” would give political parties the ability to raise a lot more money:

This provision would allow party committees to raise ten times as much more money from individual donors as current limitations allow, according to an analysis by Matea Gold of the Washington Post.

House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a bipartisan compromise to extend funding for almost all of the government until the fall of 2015 — check out the full bill here. Overall, the deal keeps the level of domestic spending basically the same.

DC’s marijuana legalization initiative obtained more than 69 percent of the vote in November. The initiative would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to two ounces of marijuana, grow up to six plants, and give marijuana to other adults 21 and older. It wouldn’t legalize, regulate, or tax sales, because voter initiatives in DC can’t have a direct impact on the local budget.

Through the Home Rule Act of 1973, Washington, DC, can elect a sitting local government composed of a council, mayor, and other local agencies. But the Home Rule Act also made it so each bill passed by the local government requires congressional approval. And Congress can block DC’s laws through budgetary requirements, as they are doing with the legalization initiative.