Ruben Hinojosa

Provides funding for federal government operations at the fiscal year 2016 level through April 28, 2017 at an annualized "discretionary" rate of $1.07 trillion.

The authorizations in this bill go way beyond providing for our national defense. Our foreign military interventions in the Middle East in particular have exacerbated terrorism and undermined U.S. security. The creation of the Orwellian "Global Engagement Center," which was added to the NDAA without Congress being able to vote on it as a stand-alone bill, also falls outside the scope of legitimate national defense. Rather than agreeing to the version of NDAA they did, our lawmakers should have rejected it and passed instead a constitutionally sound version.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to be making environmental regulations. Such regulations on power plants will likely do nothing to actually help the environment, but will hurt consumers via higher prices and will almost certainly cause job losses in the energy sector. The EPA is an unconstitutional federal agency created by executive order, and Congress really ought to abolish it. Any action to limit the EPA's power is a good thing.

The U.S. government should not be subsidizing abortions. While it is certainly constitutional for the federal government to provide healthcare to federal employees, abortion is not healthcare. The federal government should not be using taxpayer money to pay for the taking of innocent life.

Providing federal training to state and local law-enforcement programs is not only unconstitutional, but also further federalizes the police system.

U.S. foreign aid is unconstitutional, and aid sent to Pakistan has undermined rather than helped the cause of freedom.

The so-called green-energy mandates squander military resources and undermine the purpose of having a military, which is to defend the United States and win our wars.

The federal government possesses no constitutional authority to set emission standards, ozone levels have been dropping anyway, and Americans need jobs.

The federal government should not be in the business of subsidizing energy production (which is unconstitutional), let alone picking "winners and losers" in the marketplace by propping up favored companies with grants and research money while others do not receive such help.

The Internet sector, like the broader economy, should be a free market, and the federal government has no constitutional authority to intrude.

Feeding the world is not a proper responsibility of the U.S. government. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there any authorization for the federal government to feed the American people, let alone citizens of other countries. Furthermore, offering "aid" to impoverished countries is often a means to prop up dictators who will bend to the will of the wealthy country in exchange for money. Such corrupt rulers have little regard for the welfare of their people, so the "aid" rarely finds its way to the people who need it most.

This is constitutionally exemplary for the House of Representatives to take legal action to uphold Congress' sole authority to legislate regarding naturalization and to make the point that the executive branch has the duty to enforce the laws made by Congress.

H.R. 3797 would ease emissions regulations threatening the viability of refuse coal power plants, which benefit the environment by utilizing coal-mining byproduct as an energy source. The federal government has no constitutional authority to regulate plant emissions to begin with.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance, to manage the healthcare industry, or to provide funds to organizations that terminate the lives of the preborn.

Both federal water regulations and the EPA are unconstitutional, and if the rule were to be allowed to go into effect, activities such as farming and real estate development would be greatly hampered, since farmers and developers would be subject to increased unconstitutional permit requirements and fines concerning their treatment of almost any "body of water," no matter how small.

With this omnibus bill members of Congress are failing to address their fiscally and constitutionally irresponsible budgeting and appropriating process that is currently yielding annual federal deficits measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars, as well as minimizing their accountability to the voters by combining all discretionary federal spending for fiscal 2016 into one gigantic "take it or leave it" bill.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved with education; nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is education listed as one of the government's enumerated powers. K-12 education, if publicly funded, should be run primarily by parents coordinating with local school districts rather than by a centralized bureaucracy out of Washington, D.C.

The federal government should not hinder existing power plants with regulations that stifle energy production and increase rates, there is no authorization in the Constitution for the federal government to interfere in the energy sector, and CO2 is not a pollutant.

The federal government should live within its means, suspending the debt limit is even worse than raising it, and most of the spending responsible for the ballooning national debt is unconstitutional.

The Export-Import Bank is a poster boy for corporate cronyism. The government finances or insures foreign purchases from U.S. companies that commercial banks are unwilling or unable to finance owing to the political or commercial risks inherent in the deals, leaving taxpayers on the hook in the event of default. Constitutionally speaking, the U.S. government should not be underwriting private businesses at taxpayers' expense, regardless of whether or not such businesses are small, "mom and pop" companies.

The federal government should not, and has no constitutional authority to, subsidize the killing of innocent human life.

All legislative powers in the Constitution are vested in Congress, not the executive branch. Mandatory rules issued by the executive branch might not be called laws, but they have the same effect as laws, and what they are called does not change the reality.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to interject itself into the education sector, and Common Core is intended to create a national curriculum leading to nationalized education.

The Constitution does not authorize the federal government to interfere in healthcare, let alone ration it by deciding who should and should not receive medical care.

TPA would facilitate the subordination of the national independence of the United States to regional blocs of nations in a process that is leading toward a world government.

The House held separate roll call votes on the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) sections of H.R. 1314.

This bill would cede national sovereignty over food-related choices and regulations to the WTO. Moreover, this bill would prevent American consumers from knowing where their food comes from.

This bill would further empower the unconstitutional Department of Homeland Security, erode the privacy protections enshrined in the Constitution, and gradually move the United States closer to becoming a police state.

The estate tax discourages upward mobility in America's middle class by making it prohibitively expensive to pass on a family business or farm to one's descendants. Even though proponents of the estate tax claim that its repeal would only benefit the super-rich at the expense of everyone else, the wealthy are often not adversely affected by the estate tax and can usually avoid it via accounting strategies and funneling money into tax-free foundations. In fact, in 2001 over 120 of America's wealthiest urged Congress not to repeal the estate tax.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance or to manage the healthcare industry.

The president is not a "king" or "dictator" who may make his own law. Under the U.S. Constitution, "all legislative powers herein granted" are delegated to Congress, and it is the responsibility of the president to faithfully execute the law.