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Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) took Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to task on Sunday over the passing of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package passed by Congress last week.
Sen. Johnson sat down for a radio interview with John Catsimatidis on Christmas to discuss the bill. He emphasized that the bill was “just more of the same,” as reported by Newsmax.
“I think what it primarily means is a continuation of the same. What I continued to see during this entire debate, what was so disconcerting, was the whistling past the graveyard nature of the debate. We are over $31 trillion in debt, there is no end in sight,” the Wisconsin senator began. “The only rationale for Republicans to vote for this – I think this was the rationale that many have used – was that we got what we wanted in defense spending.”
“We should have allowed the House to come into the next Congress with a Republicans majority,” he continued. “Unfortunately, the arrogance of our [Senate GOP] leadership who said, ‘We know better than House members. We’re going to pass this and take this off your plate. We’ll get religion next year when it comes to fiscal sanity. I’m not buying it and unfortunately, our supporters aren’t going to buy it either.”
When asked about whether Sen. McConnell’s rationale to secure defense spending was sound, Johnson explained that the Kentuckian “was calling it a great win that we broke the parity. Democrats have always required that if you increase defense spending by a buck, you have to increase domestic spending. To declare that a victory, to say that’s a win, that’s like a football team just lost a game 60 to 0 and they kick a field goal in the waning seconds and they say that the field goal was a big win. No, we just got our you know what handed to us.”
‘VOTE NO ON THE OMNIBUS’: HOUSE REPUBLICANS OUTRAGED AT SENATE GOP FOR SUPPORTING DEMOCRAT SPENDING SPREE
“Democrats got trillions of dollars of spending. Their excess partisan spending sparked inflation,” he stated. “Republicans aren’t helping matters by voting for more deficit spending.”
Sen. Mike Lee also took to the airwaves to criticize McConnell. In an interview on Sunday on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM, Lee explained that he had enough of the party leadership turning their back on the grassroots.
“Our party leadership turned on Republican voters, turned on the Republican base, turned on most Republican senators,” Lee explained, as reported in The Hill. “It has happened before, but this is one too many times. For me, this is the final straw.
“As Republicans scratch their heads over their disappointing midterms, they ought to consider that voters don’t see much of a defining difference with Democrats,” he added.
The passing of the omnibus bill was a clear betrayal of Republican voters and the Senate GOP’s unwillingness to trust House Republicans to pass a budget for the next fiscal year was a slap in the face to voters who elected them to represent their interests. Sens. Johnson and Lee are right about their thoughts on the omnibus bill. If Republican leadership continues to fail to listen to the voters, then the party will never be able to succeed electorally.
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Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) took Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to task on Sunday over the passing of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package passed by Congress last week.
Sen. Johnson sat down for a radio interview with John Catsimatidis on Christmas to discuss the bill. He emphasized that the bill was “just more of the same,” as reported by Newsmax.
“I think what it primarily means is a continuation of the same. What I continued to see during this entire debate, what was so disconcerting, was the whistling past the graveyard nature of the debate. We are over $31 trillion in debt, there is no end in sight,” the Wisconsin senator began. “The only rationale for Republicans to vote for this – I think this was the rationale that many have used – was that we got what we wanted in defense spending.”
“We should have allowed the House to come into the next Congress with a Republicans majority,” he continued. “Unfortunately, the arrogance of our [Senate GOP] leadership who said, ‘We know better than House members. We’re going to pass this and take this off your plate. We’ll get religion next year when it comes to fiscal sanity. I’m not buying it and unfortunately, our supporters aren’t going to buy it either.”
When asked about whether Sen. McConnell’s rationale to secure defense spending was sound, Johnson explained that the Kentuckian “was calling it a great win that we broke the parity. Democrats have always required that if you increase defense spending by a buck, you have to increase domestic spending. To declare that a victory, to say that’s a win, that’s like a football team just lost a game 60 to 0 and they kick a field goal in the waning seconds and they say that the field goal was a big win. No, we just got our you know what handed to us.”
‘VOTE NO ON THE OMNIBUS’: HOUSE REPUBLICANS OUTRAGED AT SENATE GOP FOR SUPPORTING DEMOCRAT SPENDING SPREE
“Democrats got trillions of dollars of spending. Their excess partisan spending sparked inflation,” he stated. “Republicans aren’t helping matters by voting for more deficit spending.”
Sen. Mike Lee also took to the airwaves to criticize McConnell. In an interview on Sunday on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM, Lee explained that he had enough of the party leadership turning their back on the grassroots.
“Our party leadership turned on Republican voters, turned on the Republican base, turned on most Republican senators,” Lee explained, as reported in The Hill. “It has happened before, but this is one too many times. For me, this is the final straw.
“As Republicans scratch their heads over their disappointing midterms, they ought to consider that voters don’t see much of a defining difference with Democrats,” he added.
The passing of the omnibus bill was a clear betrayal of Republican voters and the Senate GOP’s unwillingness to trust House Republicans to pass a budget for the next fiscal year was a slap in the face to voters who elected them to represent their interests. Sens. Johnson and Lee are right about their thoughts on the omnibus bill. If Republican leadership continues to fail to listen to the voters, then the party will never be able to succeed electorally.
You Can Follow Sterling on Twitter Here