There are many reasons why the White House said today that the president would veto H.R. 2578, an appropriations bill that would fund the Justice and Commerce departments and NASA.
Among other things, the bill would limit the amount of funding the Justice Department can spend on body cameras for police officers, and it would reduce funding for NASA's commercial crew program that aims to contract companies such as Boeing and SpaceX to shuttle astronauts to space instead of relying on the Russian government.
Why do House Republicans want to increase our reliance on Russia?
Meanwhile, as the headline indicates, the bill which the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will consider today would also prohibit the administration from closing the infamous prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The White House also blasted controversial policy riders in the bill that would prohibit funding for the transfer of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to the United States. The administration also slammed provisions that would stop efforts to combat illegal gun trafficking and some that would limit the export of goods to Cuba.
'But didn't they just vote to do the same thing a few weeks ago' you might ask.
The answer is yes, they did.
This year's iteration of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) also contains provisions that would prohibit the president from closing the prison, among other terrible things, and for that reason the White House has stated that the president would veto the bill.
After the House passes H.R. 2578, they will pass an appropriations bill for the Housing and Transportation departments which the White House has also threatened to veto.
If you notice a pattern, it's not a coincidence. Each appropriations bill passed by House Republicans is tailored to conform to the fantasy budget framework they drafted earlier this year which calls for trillions of dollars of spending cuts and other insanities. Broken into smaller pieces, that budget framework finds its way into individual bills such as those mentioned above.
Doomsday clocks should be set accordingly as federal funding will cease on October 1st unless congressional Republicans give up on the idea of actually enacting their fantasy budget.
There's a very real possibility that we will face yet another government shutdown at a time when over 20 anti-govnerment imbeciles are running for the Republican presidential nomination.