The house is continuing the debate on four spending bills totaling nearly 800 billion. And lawmakers taking more than 50 amendments. Joining us on capitol hill is kelly following this. Thank you for being with us. Whats included in the defense spending bill and what are you looking out for today . Just for your viewers, weve already plowed through three of the four spending bills, an amendment to bid on the bills. Military construction v. A. , legislative branch and mel tear water. Now were turning to the defense spending. The fourth and the four spending bills up for dakota as part up for debate. They made 54 amendments in order. Some of them just have a member cutting spending and then putting it back so they can talk about something thats important to them. But the house leadership which has really compressed the rules process for these spending bills took all the majorities that lawmakers wanted to submit, traditionally would submit in the floor and processed them to prevent any controversial amendments. There were several related to transgender people being in the military. Is there money in the spending plan for a boarder wall . There is. There is money in the border wall as part of the rule. This is a little bit of a parliamentary gimmick. When the house chases to adopt the rule, theres a provision that automatically ads a provision which provides about 1. 57 billion for various Border Security projects. This this amendment they stress some of this is for a border wall. But as we saw at the rules committee on wednesday, there was a lot of debate about whether this was a fence, whether this was a wall. The gist of it is that President Trump is calling this 1. 6 billion border wall money. And even though it funds three different projects, one of them is a levy across the rio grand. One is fencing, and then theres the security fencing. Theres also money for planning for the larger wall project the president promised on the campaign trail. All of this is being character rised as wall money. And it goes into the bill immediately once the rule is adopted. Let me go back to the issue of transgender. The statement yesterday via twitter, which by all accounts caught capitol hill and the pentagon by surprise. How are the democrats trying to deal with that during the spending bill debate. After that tweet came out that caught a lot of people off guard, not only republicans, but also democrats submitted amendments to this defense rule thats being considered that would have spoken in some way about the idea of transgender individuals being banned from the military, or there was a lot of desire from house republicans, some of the very conservative members, to insert a provision in the bill that would prevent the department of defense for paying for these surgeries for transgender individuals. When trump went on twitter and decided to say that was a ban of all transgender individuals in the military, a number of democrats including representative jarod pole us of colorado presented an amendment at the rules Committee Level to make an amendment in order that would have prohibited the department of defense from doing anything to implement this stated ban. Now, of course, the whole environment around that has kind of changed with the joint chiefs of staff and the department of defense saying that theyre waiting for more information before they implement this, but for your viewers knowledge on the bill, none of those amendments were made in order. This demonstrates how leaderships clamping down on the appropriations process has kept some of these flash point controversies from derailing the legislation in the house. These are four of 12 appropriation Bills Congress needs to approve before the end of september. Will the house approve everything today . Where do things stand in the senate . The house is expected to pass this. The republicans have this bill. It was written by the republican conference. Designed to garner support from republicans so they can move it out of the house and on to the senate. Its important to note that this 790 billion approximate spending bill violates current budget law. If this were to be enacted. If the house passed it and then the senate and president signed it into law, it would trigger sequestration cuts. Across the board spending cuts designed to prevent congress from spending over certain levels for defense and nondefense that are already written into the budget law that governs how Congress Spends its money. What they really need to do, and everyone knows this, and the democrats have really been resounding this over and over again. Theyve been repeating that there needs to be a budget deal before all this appropriations action happens. The house, republicans then say no, actually, this is us laying down our principles. We know well have to come to a deal on the budget later. The key is there has to be a change in law. President trump says were going to spend this amount of money because currently the house bill exceeds that by about 70 billion. Finally, what about the agreement between the House Speaker paul ryan and mark meadows that allowed the house to take up the four Appropriations Bills and when will lawmakers take up the remaining eight . Theres been a lot of talk about which factions of republicans prevented the consideration of a full 12bill mini omnibus instead of the fourbill mini bus. I think all eyes are on september given that thats when by september 30th, thats the end of the fiscal year. Thats the deadline they need to pass something to keep the government funded. Its likely that when they come back, they can add the eight bills to this fourbill mini bus. Again, the budget issue remains. There has been no change in budget law. So the levels that this bill is written to are not ones that would be able to be implemented. They would not be able to be enacted. Instead, it would trigger cuts. So theres no likelihood that any of these bills become law until the congress decides how they want to raise these budget caps. And finally, briefly, the house still on track to recess after tomorrow . Theres a few things left including theyre trying to push some veterans legislation. Theyre trying to move through with an intel authorization. Theyre looking to finish up by tomorrow. As part of this rule, thats going to be adopted on the defense debate, theyve also allowed themselves suspension authority. Not just for thursday but also for friday. Which signals they plan to be there at least through the end of the week. The goal is to get out for recess after that. Kelly who covers the budget and appropriation process on capitol hill for cq role call. Thank you for being with us. Thanks a lot. We didnt cut our way to surpluses in the 90s. We didnt tax our way to surplus in the 90s. What we had in the 90s was a circumstance where the Clinton Administration and the gingrichled house and also the senate came together to get some welfare reform and spending restraint to keep spending flat while the economy grew and revenues caught up to spending. Thats how you get to surplus. Thats why youre seeing so much focus on this administration in getting economic growth. You cant cut your way or tax your way to a balanced budget, but you can keep your growth on spending and grow a balanced budget. Watch our interview with Mick Mulvaney on on friday at 8 00 p. M. On monday President Trump spoke to thousands of boy scouts at the National Scout jam bborj. President trump talked to the children about the election and health care debate. Thank you, everybody, t