The 1,582-page (apparently bipartisan) omnibus spending bill announced last night adds up to a cool $1.1 trillion. As Bloomberg reports, lawmakers notes “not everyone will like everything in this bill,” and we can see why. There is no IMF funding, nothing that “blocks Obamacare,” the IRS gets a reprimand – barring them from targetng groups based on their ideological beliefs, preserves language that blocks Federal funding for abortions and spending any money to legalize marijuana. But, perhaps the most critical aspect of the bill is the NSA is required to give Congress number of phone records collected, reviewed during last 5 yrs, including estimate for records of U.S. citizens (among other things). Will that be one step too far for the administration?
Via Bloomberg:
Amendment to omnibus spending bill requires NSA to give Congress number of phone records collected, reviewed during last 5 yrs, including estimate for records of U.S. citizens.
NSA would have to provide unclassified report describing all spy programs that collect bulk data, including cost of programs, types of records being collected, kinds of data NSA plans to collect in future
NSA would have to file second unclassified report listing terrorist activities disrupted with aid of bulk phone records, detailing whether necessary information could have been obtained by other means
While this may be too much for the adminstration to bear, the Treasury is not happy that they can’t provide the standard reacharound to the IMF…
The Treasury Department has been seeking for months to boost the U.S.’s share, or quota, at the Washington-based IMF by shifting about $63 billion from an existing credit line. The U.S. is holding up the 2010 agreement by all of the IMF member countries, then totaling 187, to double the fund’s lending capacity to about $733 billion.
Holly Shulman, a Treasury spokeswoman, said in a statement that the department was disappointed that Congress had failed to include the quota funding, adding that “the IMF is critically important to U.S. economic and national security interests.”
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/W-dKGDXIvoA/story01.htm Tyler Durden