Congress unveils $1.7 trillion 2023 budget bill- National & International News – TUE 20Dec2022

Congress unveils $1.7 trillion 2023 budget bill. Supreme Court blocks lifting of Title 42, for now. Germany sentences former Nazi typist, 97, for complicity in 10,500 murders.

NATIONAL NEWS

Congress unveils $1.7 trillion 2023 budget bill

It has become the norm to push approval of these bills to the end of the year, but in fact they are supposed to be finished by Oct. 1, when the government’s fiscal year begins. The last time Congress managed to pass all its spending bills this deadline was in 1996. Nowadays, what should be boring and routine budget negotiations become opportunities for protracted horse-trading and brinksmanship by lawmakers. 

After passing a continuing resolution to buy yet another week to negotiate, Congress has released its $1.7 trillion 2023 spending proposal. In addition to $858 billion for the Pentagon, the 4,155-page bill also contains $772 billion for domestic priorities. Senate Republican leader

Mitch McConnell was happy to take credit on behalf of his party for massively increasing the defense budget and shrinking the domestic spending in the bill, in direct defiance to President Biden’s priorities. Even after claiming credit for this victory, McConnell said it was likely that many Republicans would vote against the new bill. If this budget fails to pass, McConnell said he would push for yet another continuing resolution to push debate on the budget into the coming year. At that time Republicans will take control of the House and thus have even more opportunities to whittle away at domestic spending.

The domestic spending proposals include, among other things, $40 billion for US communities recovering from natural disasters. About $600 million of that is to address the water crisis in Jackson, MS.

The bill also increases funding for the Capitol Police, the agency charged with protecting lawmakers, by $132 million for a total of $734.5 million.

Non-budget items

The proposal also includes provisions that don’t have much to do with the budget. One of these provisions is a bipartisan reform of the Electoral Count Act. The reform would clarify the language of the laws governing how the US certifies presidential elections by clarifying that the role of the Vice President in the certification is entirely ceremonial. The hope is that this will prevent any future Jan. 6-style insurrections.

Another proposal would ban the popular video-sharing app TikTok from cell phones belonging to members of the federal executive branch, including Defense Department officials. Several national security agencies and watchdog groups have raised concerns about TikTok’s ties to China. TitTok’s parent company ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing. National security officials worry that China’s ruling Communist Party could use TikTok’s advertising-related data collection to gather information and even spy on Americans.

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Supreme Court blocks lifting of Title 42, for now

Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed the US to turn away asylum seekers at the border, was due to be lifted tomorrow after a court order last month. However, a group of 19 Republican state attorneys general appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. The group argued that lifting Title 42 might lead to disaster on the border and asked that the policy remain in place.

The court’s Chief Justice John Roberts granted the group’s request for a temporary stay on lifting the order. Robert’s decision offered no hint of a timeline for when the Justices would hear the appeal. However, the court did ask the Justice Department to file the Biden administration’s response to the appeal by 5 pm today. This suggests it’s at least possible that the court could rule quickly on whether or not to lift Title 42.

Meanwhile in El Paso, TX, Customs and Border Patrol are already processing and releasing about 2000 asylum seekers per day coming over the border from Juarez, Mexico. The city’s leadership have been seeking additional resources from the state and federal government to deal with the arrival of more migrants once Title 42 ends. So far, both the state and federal government has been slow to respond. Officials say there are at least 20,000 people in Juarez waiting for Title 42 to end. When that happens, officials say as many as 5,000 people a day may begin arriving. With limited space to shelter migrants in freezing overnight temperatures, city leaders want more help transporting migrants to their destinations of choice. 

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Germany sentences former Nazi typist, 97, for complicity in 10,500 murders

A court in Germany has found Irmgard Furchner, 97, guilty of complicity in 10,500 killings that took place during her time at the Stutthof death camp near Gdansk, Poland. Furchner was only 18 or 19 when she took work as a stenographer and typist at camp from 1943 until the end of the Nazi occupation in 1945. Because of her age at the time, she was tried in a juvenile court. Furchner received a two-year suspended sentence, meaning she will not have to serve any time in jail.

Throughout the camp’s operation from 1939 to 1945, experts believe about 65,000 prisoners died. These included Jews, non-Jewish Poles and captured Soviet soldiers. The camp employed a variety of methods to murder prisoners, including its infamous gas chambers.

Furchner worked directly with the camp’s commander as his secretary and handled correspondence and processed official orders regarding Stutthof’s detainees. Shortly before the trial commenced in September 2021, the then-96-year-old Furchner went on the run, but was found and detained only hours later.

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