On Thursday, the Senate voted to pass a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that included $45 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine among billions spent in other sometimes controversial areas.
Many Republicans railed against the recklessness of the process and gargantuan level of spending. The bill was 4,115 pages, meaning no one could have possibly read it.
As Sens. Mike Lee and Rand Paul complained earlier in the week:
They’re extorting the American people with a $1.7 trillion spending bill, giving their representatives no time to read, debate, or amend the bill. This is wrong. pic.twitter.com/stXJ5mZQs2
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) December 21, 2022
Still the bill passed with a large bipartisan majority, 68-29. All Democrats voted for it.
So did 18 Republicans. Here they are:
The 18 Republicans who voted for Senate omnibus:
Roy Blunt
John Boozman
Shelley Capito
Susan Collins
John Cornyn
Tom Cotton
Lindsey Graham
Jim Inhofe
Mitch McConnell
Jerry Moran
Lisa Murkowski
Rob Portman
Mitt Romney
Mike Rounds
Richard Shelby
John Thune
Roger Wicker
Todd Young— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) December 22, 2022
BASEDPolitics’ Brad Polumbo explained at Newsweek recently the madness of even thinking about supporting this spending bill, “Congress is spending $1.7 trillion of our money without most members of the House even fully reading the bill they’re voting on. The legislation is an astounding 4,155 pages and was released by leadership only hours before the first round of voting began. As Congressman Dan Bishop explains, to have read the bill by the time the Senate voted to begin debate, ‘you would’ve needed to read 4+ pages per minute, without a single break, for 16 hours straight.”
“Suffice it to say, few, if any, members of Congress actually did this,” Polumbo noted. “That’s right: Most of them, Republicans and Democrats alike, are voting away trillions of our dollars without even reading the bill they’re voting on.”
Many of the Republicans who voted for the omnibus also complained about it. Yet, they did what they did, we know who they are and that shouldn’t be soon forgotten.
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