Eighteen Republican senators joined hands with the solid wall of Democrats on Thursday and voted for the massive $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package.
The wasteful legislation passed, and it wasn’t close. Thanks to GOP support, the final tally was 68 in favor and 29 opposed. To make matters worse, the bill’s thousands of pages were rushed through before anyone had a chance to seriously read them.
No committees to go line-by-line on behalf of the American people to prune out billions in wasteful earmarks. Simply a rush to ram it through before Christmas and — more importantly — before the new GOP House majority is sworn in next month.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) tweeted a picture of the thousands of pages of federal mismanagement. This image highlighted his assertion that no one had a chance to examine what senators just passed.
Scott called the spending bill an “inflation bomb.”
The $1.7 trillion omnibus would funnel BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to woke pet projects from members like AOC & Hakeem Jeffries.
Then why are some Senate Republicans planning to vote for it?
Here are 55 terrible earmarks that NO REPUBLICAN should vote for🐖🧵:
— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) December 22, 2022
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) echoed Scott’s sentiments. He described the package as a “boondoggle” that will push prices and inflation skyward, and to protect “Texas and American families” he voted no.
Cruz further noted that it is the “height of recklessness” for the Senate GOP leadership to march in lockstep with House Democrats who were just swept out of power. Any leverage the incoming Republican majority had, Cruz correctly pointed out, is now lost.
Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney voted in favor of the sweeping package but said that procedural changes need to be made for future spending bills.
The next Congress, he said, must enable individual appropriations bills “to be voted on in regular order “instead of being combined in large catch-all measures. The current system, he asserted, forced lawmakers to accept bad provisions to pass the good.
Of course, not all lawmakers felt “forced” to accept the measure.
Over in the House, a group of 31 current and incoming Republican members signed an open letter to their Senate colleagues on Wednesday. These holdouts threatened to withhold their support for the priorities of any senators who approved the spending measure.
Along with protecting constitutional freedoms, the federal budget is the single most important task mandated to lawmakers. Romney, who did not display the courage of his convictions, was still right in that the system must be overhauled to eliminate its staggering and wasteful spending.
