Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blasted the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill and announced proposed amendments to the bill in a press conference on Tuesday.
“I brought along the 1.7 trillion, 4,000+ Pelosi-Schumer omnibus spending bill that’s being fast-tracked through the Senate. This process stinks. It’s an abomination. It’s a no good rotten way to run government. We’re standing up and saying NO,” Paul said in a public statement.
I brought along the 1.7 trillion, 4,000+ page Pelosi-Schumer omnibus spending bill that's being fast-tracked through the Senate. This process stinks. It's an abomination. It's a no good rotten way to run government. We're standing up and saying NO. pic.twitter.com/Wom6xKEeQh
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) December 20, 2022
“I brought with me the Omni, 4,155 pages. When was it produced? In the dead of the night. 1:30 in the morning when it was released. Now, people argue that it’s conservatives’ fault. ‘You don’t have the Christmas spirit.’ Somehow you’re holding up government. Well Whose job is it to produce this? The people in charge of spending. The people in charge of both of the parties. When did they know that this would be necessary? Well, it’s in the law. September 30th. You got nine months, almost ten months to produce a plan, to have a spending plan,” Paul said.
“They weren’t ready on September 30th, so they voted themselves 90 more days. They weren’t read last week either, so they voted themselves another week and now we have it at 1:30 in the morning. This morning. But what’s the clamor? The clamor is to vote. ‘Vote now. Let’s get it done. Why are you standing in the way of spending?'” the Kentucky senator stated.
“Well the real question is this: What is more dangerous? What is more dangerous to the country? $1.1 trillion in new debt or as Republican leadership likes to say, oh, but it’s a win. It’s a big win. We’re getting $45 billion for the military. So which is more important? Which threatens the country more? Are we at risk for being invaded by a foreign power if we don’t put $45 billion into the military? Or are we more at risk by adding to a $31 trillion debt? I think the greatest risk to our national security is our debt,” he added.
“$6 trillion entity and they want 24 hours to process this, and then they want to go forward. I will be demanding two amendments. One, that this goes against the budget rules. The PAYGO rules say, you can’t do this. You can’t have all this new spending unless it’s offset. We will also be demanding that the PAYGO rules are increased. Instead of taking 60 votes to evade the rules, we’re going to ask that it be a two thirds vote to evade the rules,” Paul said.
The American people don’t want this. They’re sick and tired of it,” he added. “They are paying for it through the nose with inflation. Adding a trillion dollars to the deficit will simply fuel the fires that are consuming our wages and consuming our retirement plans. It’s a terrible system. Someone needs to stand up. We’re standing up and we’re going to say, no.”
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson made a statement about the exorbitant earmarks included in the omnibus bill.
“An amendment that I’ll be asking for and that Senator Schumer agreed to last week, would be to eliminate all the earmarks,” Johnson said in a statement which followed Paul’s.
“There are $9.8 billion dollars worth of earmarks. Thousands of individual projects here, both Democrat and Republican. It’s interesting to note on the Republican side, we actually have a conference resolution that we don’t support earmarks. Well, we’re supporting over $4 billion worth,” Sen. Johnson said. “Democrats are getting $5.4 billion worth of earmarks. This is the gateway drug to the massive deficit spending, to the mortgaging of our children’s future. It has to stop. Which is why I’m going to offer an amendment to eliminate all those earmarks in this massive omnibus spending bill.”
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