> This could be an excellent use of the Presidential veto.

It would be insanity for the President to veto a spending bill needed to avert a shutdown because it included a provision the Administration has publicly supported and actively sought.

> Whatever your political leanings, omnibus bills are a terrible outcome

Omnibus spending bills are fine — the particular financial provisions of any one may be good or bad, but the concept is fine; they are a completely sensible way to set government finances rather than doing it piecemeal.

Non-germane law changes tacked on to an omnibus spending bill, especially one being passed shortly before the expiration of current spending authority, are, OTOH, a different issue.

>but the concept is fine; they are a completely sensible way to set government finances rather than doing it piecemeal.

No they are not fine, not has they are used today. Congress as normal has abused the power of these bill this being a prime example.

This is why we need a Constitutional Amendment to bring the US Constitution in line with 41 US States where the Single Subject Rule is enforced.

We also need to bring back the Line Item Veto

We also need a mandatory Public Comment period, I propose 1 day for every 10 pages of Text... so for this bill it would have required 223 days of public comment before a vote would have been allowed, instead of what 12 hours this one got from the time it was submitted until it was being voted on

The line item veto will never be back, it should never have happened. Congress writes laws, not the executive. I'm with you on the rest of that.

>>Congress writes laws, not the executive

and the executive approves them, that is the check. If they created a Single Issue rule it would not be an issue anyway, but if they are going to have the ability to pass omnibus bills then a check on that is the line item veto, no line item veto not omnibus they should go hand in hand

It changes the meaning of the law as written.

> if they created a Single Issue rule it would not be an issue anyway

The single issue rule does not stop omnibus spending bills (which is exactly what normal budget bills are.)

> EFF: You wrote pages about it, but failed to mention the president still needs to sign it. It's a pretty glaring omission...

Maybe you missed this line from the OP:

> All the bill requires now is the president’s signature.

If the president vetoes this bill it won't be over the CLOUD act, it will be because it doesn't fund his insane border wall.

Which he is considering doing right now.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/97716688749379993...

"I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded."

(edit: updated link to Trump's twitter post)

> "I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL [...]

Can someone explain to me how Congress cannot get DACA handled? The last polling I saw showed that it had near universal support among Democrats, and a solid majority among Republicans (about 80% overall for the general population).

It should be sufficient for the Republicans who are in charge of Congress to write a simple, clean, bill--hell, just codify the Obama executive order on DACA into law, since the problem Republicans seemed to have with that was that they thought Obama did not have authority for it, not that they thought it was a bad policy. That should sail through Congress easily.

Or, if they are worried Trump might veto if it is not attached to wall funding, instead of passing it directly they could explicitly give Trump the power to issue an executive order covering this. That wouldn't give him his wall, but it would give him the opportunity to issue an order similar to Obama's, and then take credit for personally saving those children for unjust deportation after the Democrats failed to pass a law.

DACA is the executive policy while the DREAM Act is the bill that Congress has yet to handle. Congress hasn't dealt with it because the Republican party was using it as a bargaining chip in the budget negotiations -- their voters see other issues as more important than DACA/DREAM while the Democrats want it passed.

The Trump administration made it a pressing matter in the negotiations by rescinding DACA in September 2017, but over the following months various District Court cases were filed and the judges ordered the government to continue the DACA policy. The administration tried to appeal those findings directly in the Supreme Court -- bypassing the appeals courts -- but it was unanimously rejected, effectively upholding the lower courts' rulings for now.

Since DACA is no longer under existential threat the Democrats have backed off of the DREAM Act in order to get other priorities through, and the Republicans are happy to let sleeping dogs lie.

A majority among nominal Republicans is not sufficient if there's not a majority among the Republican base that actually votes in primaries, especially with the knowledge that support of DACA will be spun by further-right primary opponents as "letting criminals stream across our border".

It doesn't serve either party's interests to actually "solve" anything regarding immigration policy. It's far more valuable to keep it as a hot button issue to virtue signal over in order to garner votes.

Or the new bipartisan Russian sanctions in the bill: https://www.thedailybeast.com/congress-snuck-new-russia-sanc...

Except Trump probably supports the CLOUD Act.

The Administration has backed the push for it (in part, to resolve an ongoing legal dispute with Microsoft, who also supports it), so it's pretty hard (though given Trump's other rapid reversals, not impossible) to see Trump causing a shutdown by vetoing the omnibus spending bill over it's inclusion.

>>Microsoft, who also supports it

proving once again the Microsoft does not care about the privacy of their users, and their lawsuit fighting this was not them standing up for their users as they claimed but instead was them pushing for a liability shield that would prevent users from using them

This should be the end of CLOUD services... Self Host or no Host should be the motto of the day

Found:

https://www.salon.com/2018/03/22/another-terrible-privacy-la...

http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/22/supreme-court-emails-store...

Although neither source the support claim.

Trumps "rapid reversals" are conventional negotiation tactics.

Want to get a better price on a car after you think you have your best deal already worked out? Show up for the purchase closing and say you've changed your mind. Most likely they'll offer you more not to walk away at that point.

That's assuming he even read the briefing on it.

Preferably in tweet length, as anything longer can't hold his attention apparently.

It was sponsored by sessions so I would guess yes

If there is anyone sticking up for sovereignty (aka borders) it's President Trump. Remember the TPP? How about his UN speech?

But what this really does is lets the US government work with a foreign government to bypass US laws and process to do whatever they want to US citizens. This feature is designed to be used creatively. Trump is thrilled about it.