On Thursday afternoon, the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill passed the Senate, by a vote of 68-29 with eighteen Republicans voting yes on the bill. The monolithic 4,155-page bill was just released late Monday evening. One wonders who actually read the massive documents before voting on it.
Rushing to vote on the bill before terrible weather hit Washington, DC, that would prevent them from returning home, the Senators were obviously focused on making this expensive, highly questionable bill happen. Potentially Thursday, the House will vote on the bill and be signed into law, before Friday night’s deadline ahead of a government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters-
“From start to finish, from top to bottom, this omnibus is bold, generous, far-reaching and ambitious,”… “It’s not everything we would’ve wanted, of course. When you’re dealing in a bipartisan, bicameral way, you have to sit down and get it done, and that means each side has to concede some things.”
- Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader
Adding to the $66-billion in taxpayers’ money, lawmakers have already approved for Ukraine, this bill includes $45 billion in additional aid for Ukraine. A virtual a blank check, without any accounting for funds spent, American taxpayers have given more aid to Ukraine in 2022 than Israel, Egypt and Afghanistan, combined in 2020. In fact, the amount of U.S. aid to Ukraine has also surpassed three of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in history, in just a few short months since the Ukrainian war began.
Select Republicans tried to stop the massive spending bill, but negotiations became difficult Wednesday after Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) Title 42 amendment, created an impasse in the Senate process. Hopeful that Congress would be forced to pass a short-term spending resolution (CR), to keep the government open, many critics of the bill were looking towards a continued standoff between Democrats on Lee’s amendment.
However, with a procedural tactic to side step Lee’s amendment, Schumer resolved the matter. Working with Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Jon Tester (D-MT) on Thursday morning, Schumer crafted a side-by-side amendment, to provide political cover for ten senators, enabling them to ignore Lee’s Title 42 amendment. The senators who backed the alternative amendment, for political cover, are up for re-election in 2024. They include Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Tester, and Sinema.
Reportedly, Schumer told the press, before the vote, that this tactic, would allow the spending bill to pass the Senate. Further, Schumer and his negotiating colleague, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), a public supporter of the massive bill, could then enable senators to go home before Christmas, which was their self-imposed deadline.
McConnell said Tuesday-
“Providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans. That’s sort of how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment,”
-Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY)
Well, there you have it everyone. Merry Christmas to every tax-paying American for decades to come – more spend then tax this nation, out of a future. This is in keeping with the Democratically run state of California, which pays for everything and everyone, driving business out and is essentially bankrupting itself. Where can the average American taxpayer go to relieve themselves of such gifts? Belize?
That conservatives tried to stop or stall this bill for further review is noteworthy, that Americans are stuck paying this bill is horrific. It is unfathomable that with Americans, desperate for help here at home while struggling financially to accommodate Biden’s’ 40+ year high inflation, that those “elected officials” in congress are “rubber stamping” a 4,155-page bill that likely none of them read from cover to cover. What an economic travesty of epic proportion.
Santa Clause, essentially sent the toys to everyone else, even across the globe and left America the whopping bill.
“Mankind does not reflect upon questions of economic and social organization until compelled to do so by the sharp pressure of some practical emergency.”
-R.H. Tawney