{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://kevinbrady.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398683", "House Slashes IRS & EPA Funding, Fully Funds Troops During Wartime", "2014-12-11", "2014", "2014-12", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Kevin Brady", "B000755", "kevinbrady.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "This is all about a unified Republican Congress challenging the President s immigration amnesty early next year on our turf, under our rules. This gives us a much better shot at ending it,\r\n          share:\r\n          f \r\n          t \r\n        \r\n      \r\n      Washington, DC  In an effort to stop the Presidents executive actions granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, House Republicans today passed legislation which provides only three months of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, setting up a fight with President Obama over his controversial immigration amnesty for early next year.\nThis is all about a unified Republican Congress challenging the President s immigration amnesty early next year on our turf, under our rules. This gives us a much better shot at ending it, said Texas Republican Kevin Brady. The House has already passed two laws stopping the President from offering executive amnesty but the Democratic-led Senate refuses to take them up. Separating Homeland Security funding sidesteps the Presidents government shutdown trap next year.\nThe bill  strongly opposed by liberal lawmakers like Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren - shrinks the operating budget of the federal government to 2009 levels and maintains most of the sequester cuts while restoring necessary funding to Americas military men and women in the ongoing war on terror.\nNine stable months of funding for our military during wartime is essential, while a short-term funding bill would be harmful to our troops and make it more difficult to stop the Presidents executive amnesty, continued Brady. Were slashing the EPA staffing levels to the smallest in 25 years and cutting the IRS budget to protect Americans from their political agendas and economic damage. The bill blocks funding for the Presidents Affordable Care Act, as well as ObamaCare taxpayer bailout for the insurance companies. Were giving our hardworking troops a much-needed pay raise and making sure they have the resources to face the ever-growing terrorist threat of ISIL.\nAdditional conservative measures include prohibiting funds being used to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay, cutting $10 million from the ACA rationing board, blocking the White House from tapping a slush fund to operate ObamaCare, rescinding $41 million in VA bonuses, while providing additional funds to ease the backlog of veterans waiting for disability decisions.\nThe measure also maintains all pro-life and Second Amendment provisions, specifically preventing implementation of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty.\nThe EPA budget is going to be cut for the fifth consecutive year, and were going to stop the new job-killing Clean Water Act regulations for farm ponds and irrigation ditches. The Vice President isnt going to get his pay-raise, but we will make sure our highway projects and the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund are funded. Were going to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression and our embassies are going to have the protection they need. And were going to stop the Department of Energy from forcing manufacturers to stop producing incandescent light bulbs, but require the President to give us a cost estimate with every Executive Order.\nThere will always be more red tape we can slash, more spending we can cut and this bill is a step in the right direction. I look forward to working with Senate Republicans in the next two years to roll back Washington so that Americans once again have an effective, efficient federal government that they can trust, concluded Brady.\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://kevinbrady.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398683"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.380150904878974, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}