Conservatives are not happy with the omnibus spending bill passed in the Senate and signed into law by President Trump. Key among those is Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). Three days later, and he was still fuming about the "deeply disturbing" process on Mark Levin's Fox News show on Sunday.
“[M]ost of the American people are effectively disenfranchised from this process because their elected senators and representatives are outside of that room where a small handful of leaders is negotiating this bill in private,” Lee said. “By the time it comes out into public, there isn't time to debate it, discuss it, amend it, to improve it.”
“There isn't time to receive adequate feedback from the American people, and the members themselves who are being asked to vote on this are themselves not fully aware of what's in it,” he said. “It's wrong.” (CNS News)
The 1.5$ trillion spending bill includes little funding for the president's proposed border wall, a campaign pledge that got tons of conservative voters on the Trump train, yet continues to fund Planned Parenthood, and sanctuary cities.
Trump himself was reluctant to sign it, pledging he'd never do it again. This time, however, our military might depended on it.
"We were forced to have it to fund our military," he said.
Senators only had 17 hours to lay their eyes on the omnibus - barely enough time to even skim the 2,232-page bill, let alone read it. Levin and Lee reflected on how, despite a Republican Congress and a Republican president, we are still left with "the biggest spending bill in modern history."
The Atlantic suggested that the bill "actually fulfilled—or even exceeded—many of the funding requests of his Democratic predecessor" Barack Obama. Top Democrats like Chuck Schumer applauded its passage.
More than a few of Lee's fellow senators, many of them members of the House Freedom Caucus, agreed.
This #omnibus bill is the swampiest thing I’ve ever seen in Washington (and I’ve seen a lot of garbage come through Congress). Will @POTUS @realDonaldTrump sign it or veto it?
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) March 23, 2018
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) even offered a depressing visual.
Well here it is, all 2,232 budget-busting pages. The House already started votes on it. The Senate is expected to soon. No one has read it. Congress is broken... pic.twitter.com/izvJlUEgUM
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 22, 2018
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