Lawmakers early Tuesday unveiled a wide-ranging, $1.65 trillion spending bill for fiscal 2023 ... kicking off a sprint to pass the bill before Christmas in the last act of the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Both sides argue why this bill was critical to keep the federal government open. Interesting that is not what the bill does. Instead, it spans 4,155 pages and funds trillions of new spending. You can also argue why everyone freaks out about shutting down the government for a couple of weeks over Christmas instead of adding additional money to the already bloated government budget. Cuts are what are needed. But what is needed most are bills of less than 100 pages, actually more like 10 pages. Monstrosities like this mean that whatever is in this bill is much more frightening than the summaries explain, because no one has been able to read the thing! But, these huge bills are not built this large by necessity. They are done purposefully to include details that legislators do not want the American people to see. The one new spending category that concerns me the most is the electoral college changes. Given the Democrats have been pushing to federalize our elections, the details of this section could prove very damaging to our 'republic'.

According to The Wall Street Journal, below is what we can expect next and what is in and out of the Omnibus bill.

Democrats introduced the bill in the Senate, where a procedural vote is expected Tuesday to kickstart the floor process. Leaders are hoping all 100 senators will agree to speed up the normal legislative clock, because under regular order, final passage wouldn’t occur until Friday, when the current continuing resolution runs out. The impending passage of a spending bill later this week is helping to fuel opposition to Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) in his run for House speaker. “You can either pressure the Senate rationally to reject a massive, budget-busting, national-debt-increasing, spending omnibus bill, or you can quietly acquiesce to the spendthrift ways of the Senate,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) wrote in a recent Washington Examiner opinion article. Mr. Biggs is challenging Mr. McCarthy for the speakership in a long-shot bid.  What Is and Isn’t in the 2023 Government Funding Package.

• increased defense funding by $76 billion.
• Domestic spending totals $772.5 billion in non-defense discretionary spending, up almost 6% from $730 billion from the prior year,.
• $45 billion for Ukraine and allies, an increase from President Biden’s $37 billion request.
• $40 billion to help communities hit by hurricanes, storms and wildfires.
• kept annual funding for the Internal Revenue Service essentially flat.
• Lawmakers included a bill known as the Electoral Count Reform Act, which would overhaul an 1887 law governing how Congress counts and ratifies presidential elector votes in response to the 2020 election results. The bill would make clear that Congress’s role in ratifying states’ Electoral College votes is ministerial and that the vice president’s role is merely to count the votes publicly. It also would dramatically raise the threshold to sustain an objection to a state’s electors from one House member and one senator to one-fifth of both chambers.
• A bipartisan bill that would expand incentives for retirement savings made it into the package. Lawmakers have been working for months to reconcile House and Senate versions. The legislation would raise the starting age for required minimum distributions from tax-deferred accounts, encourage enrollment in retirement plans and expand savings incentives for low-income households.
• The bill includes an extension of the Special Immigrant Visa program which offers green cards to Afghans who worked for the U.S. military through 2024 and creates an additional 4,000 visas for them.
• creates a permanent program to help low-income families to buy extra groceries to supplement traditional summer meals programs, aimed at helping 29 million children. The bill also establishes flexibility for alternative meal delivery for rural areas such as grab and go, mobile delivery, backpack programs or shipping meals.
• The popular video app TikTok will be banned on all government-issued smartphones and other devices.
• Maine’s lobster industry will get a break in the bill through a provision delaying until 2029 the implementation of new, stricter regulations aimed at protecting the tiny population of North Atlantic right whales.

What didn’t make it in the omnibus bill?

• Marijuana banking
• a measure that would steer federal money toward projects to restore habitats for struggling species.
• No deal came together and the business tax changes will take effect as scheduled unless Congress acts.
• despite broad bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House, was a law meant to eliminate the disparity in federal sentencing between drug offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine.