It’s that time again. This is not about the miracles of Christmas. I am referring to the US Congress pushing a massive omnibus bill down on the throats of hurting Americans.
Yes, inflation is still high and eggs are $6 per dozen now. But what we really need to do is spend millions of taxpayer dollars on LGBT “pride centers” while putting even more money into that black hole that is the Department of Defense. It would be nice to have more spending on border security under such a bill. But nope. There’s an explicit disallowance.
Of course, there are.
Don’t think the Republican leadership will stand in the way. They are all in favor of it. Mitch McConnell even called the Omnibus a major victory for the right, suggesting that the GOP had achieved all of its priorities. Any rational person would question the value of the tradeoff and whether it was worthwhile. Unfortunately, not many people are able to do this.
Except for Rand Paul and other senators. He walked up to the podium today, armed with the entire 4,000+ pages of the Omnibus, and said what his spineless Republican counterparts won’t.
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 had the Omni (4,155 pages) with me. When was it produced? It was released in the middle of the night at 1:30 AM. People argue that conservatives are responsible for the release. They don’t believe you have the Christmas spirit and therefore you’re holding back the government. Who is responsible for producing this? The people are responsible for spending. Both people are responsible for managing both parties. They didn’t know this was necessary.
It’s already in law on September 30th. To create a plan and have a spending budget, you have nine months or almost ten months. They were not ready to go on September 30th, so they voted for themselves for another 90 days. They were not ready last week so they voted for themselves another week. It’s now 1:30 in the morning.
Paul goes on from there, discrediting the bipartisan argument that this bill should be passed immediately to act as a quasi-emergency measure. Republicans and Democrats had known for nine months that this plan was necessary. Instead of putting together smaller spending bills that were similar to appropriations and doing so responsibly, they made a huge bill of over 4,000 pages in the middle of the night and demanded it is passed within days. No debate. No amendments. You can eat the turd sandwich.
People like McConnell or Schumer insist it’s dangerous to not pass their garbage Omnibus package. Paul points out that what is more dangerous? Is it adding another trillion to the national debt, or is the military spending only a few million more? Due to the fact that our largest enemies are spread across thousands of miles of sea, financial collapse is much more likely for the United States than invasion.
This is not to suggest that military spending is inefficient. It’s to be noted that relying on military spending as a win while allowing all sorts of crazy domestic spending that were exchanged for it, is getting old. The Republican leadership continues to sing and dance the same tune every year. They don’t care about the country’s economic outlook. This could be about the national debt or the crushing inflation of the middle class caused by the continued spending of the budget.
Paul is part of a small group that has been consistent in this regard. The national Republican Party is not clean. He might be the best candidate of all, but it’s a shame he isn’t a real chance at the White House. Republican voters prefer to taste the steak rather than the sizzle.
