Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) had a long list of complaints about “woke nonsense” stuffed inside a proposed spending bill to keep the government funded but died on Wednesday night.
The ill-fated stopgap had several provisions, alongside continued funding of government through mid-March that attracted loud criticism from Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump, and ultimately tanked its support among Republicans. Mace issued a lengthy thread on X explaining provisions she took issue with in the legislation Thursday, which she said was more of a combination of continuing resolution and omnibus — a “CRomnibus.”
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As promised, here’s our breakdown of the massive CR. It funds censorship, includes enormous subsidies for industries who don’t need them, and includes a bunch of woke nonsense – a thread
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) December 18, 2024
“The difference between a CR and an omnibus: A CR is supposed to be ‘Continuing’ spending at previously appropriated levels (which were already too high),” she wrote. “An omnibus is a combination of the appropriation bills to appropriate funding at new levels for the duration of the fiscal year.”
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“A good way to think of this CR is that it truly is a ‘CRomnibus’ – because there is a 9 page CR and then there is new spending and hundreds of pages of other unrelated provisions,” she added.
Mace took issue with provisions unrelated to keeping the government open, including parts about “music tourism,” exempting members of Congress from Obamacare, and funding the Global Engagement Center — which has been accused of being an unconstitutional “censorship scheme.”
The opt-out of using Obamacare has long been a request from some lawmakers, after the Affordable Care Act mandated members of Congress and some staff use it, and the continuing resolution would allow members to use the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program instead.
The Global Engagement Center, which has come under increased scrutiny in recent years due to how it has issued grants to outside groups that have worked to suppress right-leaning online voices, got a year of extended funding under the stopgap, after the the State Department said it would close the agency.
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Most of Mace’s complaints revolved around changes to language about various types of people. The stopgap bill would have redefined “homeless individuals” as “individuals experiencing homelessness,” “out of school youth” to “opportunity youth,” and “criminal offender” to “justice-involved individual,” among other changes.
The definition changes buried in the continuing resolution follow terms left-liberal activists have pushed for in recent years, to reframe common terminology. Attempted changes to these terms have largely been mocked by conservative activists and centrists, but made their way into the proposed stopgap.
The South Carolina Republican also stated that much of the provisions tacked onto the continuing resolution should have been put up for a vote as standalone bills, saying they have “nothing to do with keeping the government open.”
“We should not pass over a thousand pages of substantive policy changes in the lame duck, 33 days before President Trump takes the oath of office,” Mace said. “It’s time to go back to following the law in the 1974 Budget and Control Act that requires Congress to pass a budget and fund it via 12 appropriations bills.”
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The government will shut down on Friday evening if legislation to extend funding is not passed before then, and Congress is rushing to pass legislation before the Christmas holiday next week. A government shutdown would effectively stop the government’s non-essential work, as their would be no funding to keep them going, but essential workers would have to stay on the job. Workers who must stay on the job do get paid, but their paycheck is issued for their work once the shutdown is over.
With the earlier proposed stopgap appearing to be dead, the next steps to ensure government funding ahead of the holidays are uncertain. House GOP leadership offered few answers as to what comes next Thursday morning.
