Scalise: Dems' Omnibus Spending Bill is Bad For Taxpayers

Interview

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox News Channel's Hannity last night to discuss how Democrats' far-left $1.8 trillion omnibus spending bill is a disaster for the American taxpayer. Whip Scalise called out Democrats for refusing to work with the incoming House Republican majority to fund the government and for giving lawmakers little to no time to review their 4,000-page bill. Whip Scalise emphasized that Democrats' omnibus spending bill doubles down on their open-door, pro-amnesty immigration policies, but includes money to help other foreign nations secure their borders.

On Democrats' $1.8 trillion omnibus spending bill:

"We're whipping against this bill. But we're also exposing just how many bad things are in this bill. And I think that's where the country is getting engaged. And, you know, you just mentioned through Chad Pergram that [Senator] Lee is going to attempt an amendment to try to reverse what the administration is doing, letting Title 42 expire. I hope [Senator] Lee is successful.

"But there's absolutely nothing in this bill for border security. Hundreds of billions of dollars -- nobody can tell you what's in it. It was just filed, and they're going to vote on it in [the] dark of night. It would be ironic but appropriate that they were trying to vote on it at 3:00 in the morning. This is a bad bill for taxpayers. But we've got to change the way that business is done in Washington.

"It's what we ran on. We won the House majority on that, but you see them running this thing through by dark of night with billions in things. They're doing border security in foreign countries, and they're impeding border security in our country. Everything about this is the wrong way to go. I hope they reverse course."

On Democrats' failure to properly fund the government:

"[Using a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government until January, when Republicans have control of the House] is a third option that would at least keep things going but not have all of this pork, all of this new spending that nobody can explain. Nobody can tell you what is in it because they were just throwing things in. It was like a Christmas tree being thrown together and lit up right at the end of Christmas, and it's a lot of coal. It's not a lot of gifts right now."

On the need to reform Washington's broken appropriations process:

"One of the things we've talked about is actually changing the way the entire appropriations process works. You know, and as Majority Leader, I've already laid out a schedule -- working with [Congresswoman] Granger, who's going to be the Chair of the Appropriations Committee, so that we can actually pass all of the bills through the House before summer [and] get them over to the Senate.

"But we need to lay down a marker early that the Senate has to do their job and not wait till the midnight hour. This has become a problem that's going on for years now, where the Senate waits until September 30th. They just do [continuing resolution] after [continuing resolution] -- short-term funding bills -- because they know they can wait until Christmas Eve, throw something together in this big omnibus bill where they have everything under the sun that nobody can read.

"We have to change that way of doing business and we have to lay that marker down early.But we built a calendar where we can get our work done earlier too. And make it clear to the Senate [that] we're not doing this. Things are going to change -- I wish they would change right now. And that's why we're actively working against it and exposing all of these items that are in the bill that people are still to this day just finding out about."

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