The Daily 202: Winners and losers in the spending bill

The Daily 202: Winners and losers in the spending bill

2. Defense contractors: The Pentagon gets $144 billion for new hardware, including missile defense. It’s the biggest increase since the Iraq war was launched 15 years ago.

3. Dean Heller: The Nevada Republican is the most vulnerable senator up for reelection in 2018, and he blocked efforts by the Energy Department to revive the unpopular nuclear storage program at Yucca Mountain. The ads write themselves.

6. Big Bird: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will get $465 million in federal funding. Appropriators also rejected Trump’s push to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.

7. The integrity of our elections: “While a Democratic push to win provisions protecting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III did not succeed, the bill does include hundreds of millions of dollars to combat potential interference from Russia or others in the November midterm elections,”  Mike DeBonis and Erica Werner report. “The federal Election Assistance Commission will receive $380 million to dole out to states to improve their election-related cybersecurity. And the FBI is set to receive $300 million in counterintelligence funding to combat Russian hacking."

7. Transparency: The bill was released late on the night before the House votes to pass it. Negotiations were conducted behind closed doors, and dropping it at the 11th hour leaves little time for people to scrutinize the many handouts to special interests until after they’ve gone into effect. This is no way to run a government. (Here’s the full bill if you want to peruse it yourself.)

But, but, but: There are two notable exceptions. The Congressional Research Service now must publish online all the reports it prepares for lawmakers. The Secret Service will be required to release an annual report on travel costs for people under their protection, specifically adult children of the president. This is designed to expose how much taxpayers are spending to safeguard Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump on their overseas business trips.

The FDA said it has seen an uptick in an “unusual” cancer linked to breast implants in the past year, with the number of reported cases rising from 359 to 414. Health officials noted that the death count has remained unchanged. (New York Times)

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