Published December 21, 2022
Conservatives are right to be upset over the omnibus spending package released Tuesday morning. They should back it regardless.
The package falls short of ideal in both substance and process. It expands domestic spending well beyond what it should, especially given the dramatic spending hikes Democrats pushed through in the past two years. The bill is also being foisted upon members at the last minute, once again preventing them from adequately scrutinizing a gargantuan legislative package. A functioning Congress would not routinely pass the world’s most important budgeting bill like a thief in the night.
But politics is always about the possible, and that’s where conservative opposition to the package falls short. The question isn’t whether this bill measures up; it is about whether there is a preferable alternative. The answer, sadly, is that there are no better ways forward.
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Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.
Image by Kevin McCarthy on Wikimedia Commons via public domain.
Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.
