A Small Taste of GOP Success

Hurrah! Republicans, despite a Democratic president and Senate, a tiny House majority and intraparty squabbling, pulled off some victories in last week’s $1.2 trillion spending bill, while also averting a government shutdown.

The most obvious win: The GOP managed to cut off funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency though March 2025.

UNRWA went bad decades ago, routinely fostering radicalism and resentment among the Palestinian populace it was set up to aid. And Hamas fully penetrated UNRWA’s Gaza operation, with multiple UN employees participating in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack and others helping divert food and fuel from regular Gazans to the terror group.

Hamas rockets have turned up in the agency’s schools multiple times; the terror group’s tunnel network had a major nexus beneath UNRWA’s headquarters. The agency

should be disbanded, and certainly doesn’t deserve a dime of US taxpayer money.

The bill also beefs up border security, funding 2,000 new Border Patrol hires along with $125 million for overtime pay and increasing detention bed capacities to 41,500.

Smaller wins include shutting down the House Office of Diversity and Inclusion, $3.3 million in aid to Israel and a funding freeze for the IRS, as well as a cutoff of cash for the UN’s Israel-bashing Commission of Inquiry.

Yes, the sprawling spending bill mostly continues Washington business as usual, but fiscal conservatives lack any practical way to shift that course for now. Scoring a few meaningful markers is a solid statement of intent to bring bigger change soon.