House Freedom Caucus OPPOSES massive new Republican budget proposal

Last night Republicans introduced a huge spending bill that massively increases spending over the next two years:

DC EXAMINER – Congress was rushing Thursday to pass what analysts said would be the biggest bill, by total dollar amount, in U.S. history, setting the stage for perhaps $2 trillion in new spending over the next decade.

Republican leaders said it was a victory for the Pentagon, envisioning a massive boost in defense spending. Democrats said they won tens of billions of dollars for their priorities, including research, infrastructure and an overall boost in domestic spending.

The 652-page bill was announced just before midnight Wednesday, and the Senate was expected to hold a first vote on the bill just before noon Thursday— giving lawmakers little more than a minute per page, reading continuously without interruption.

Senators are expected to approve the bill, which has the backing of both parties’ leaders.

The tougher hurdle will be the House, where some Democrats object to the lack of action on immigration, while conservatives objected to the massive surge in domestic spending.

Did you catch that? The 652-page bill was introduced last night and Senators will be expected to vote on it this afternoon. Sounds like they are trying to ram it through.

They are trying to rush this through to avoid another government shutdown since that happens tonight.

The House Freedom Caucus posted on Twitter last night that while they support funding our troops, they can’t support the huge increase in spending:

THE HILL – The conservative House Freedom Caucus (HFC) on Wednesday came out in opposition to the GOP’s budget proposal that raises debt limits and does away with government spending caps.

The caucus tweeted its official position against the measure, citing the bipartisan Senate deal’s massive expansion of the federal government.

“Official position: HFC opposes the caps deal. We support funding our troops, but growing the size of government by 13 percent is not what the voters sent us here to do,” the caucus said.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (N.C.) predicted after a closed-door meeting with Republicans on Wednesday that the majority of GOP representatives would support the Senate bill, but that it would not pass without more Democratic support.

With key fiscal hawks in the House rejecting the plan, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will now need to earn dozens of Democratic votes for the bill to pass.

Rep Jim Jordan says he never thought Paul Ryan would go for a bill like this that increases spending by 250 billion dollars and will leave us with close to a trillion dollar deficit:


Here’s more on the bill from Reuters:

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives were expected to vote on a proposed budget deal on Thursday that would avert another government shutdown but that has angered fiscal conservatives who complain it would lead to a $1 trillion deficit.

The rare bipartisan deal reached by Senate leaders on Wednesday raises spending on military and domestic programs by almost $300 billion over the next two years.

The agreement would allow for $165 billion in extra defense spending and $131 billion more for non-military programs, including health, infrastructure, disaster relief and efforts to tackle an opioid crisis in the country.

It would stave off a government shutdown before a Thursday night deadline for a new short-term spending bill, and also extend the federal government’s debt ceiling until March 2019, putting off for more than a year the risk of a debt default by the United States.

The agreement, backed by Republican President Donald Trump, disappointed conservative House Republicans and outside groups. Republicans control both chambers of Congress.

“It’s not like Republicans aren’t concerned about disaster relief, or Republicans aren’t concerned about funding community health centers or dealing with the opioid crisis,” U.S. Representative Warren Davidson, a Republican, said in an interview with National Public Radio.

“But when you add them all up, it adds to an awful lot of spending. … It’s not compassionate to bankrupt America.”

Obama ran trillion dollar budget deficits and Republicans criticized him heavily. Now it appears Republicans are about to do the same thing.

Whatever happened to the old-fashioned idea of cutting spending?

And don’t look to Trump for leadership on fiscal issues. As long as the budget bill passes, Trump will support it because he’s getting what he wants with the military spending. I don’t think he cares much about the rest to be honest.

Here’s Mark Meadows on CNN this morning about this:


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