By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Thursday, December 11, Congressmen Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) and Mike Rogers (R-Saks) both voted “No” on passage of H.R. 83, a $1.013 trillion, 1,600-page Continuing Resolution/Omnibus spending bill (nicknamed “CROmnibus”) that funds the government to the next fiscal year which begin on October 1.
Representative Brooks said that the Continuing Resolution funds what he calls the, “President’s lawless executive amnesty and further damages America’s perilous long-term financial stability. “
The House passed the CROmnibus on a narrow 219-206 vote.
Rep. Brooks said in a written statement, “My vote on the CROmnibus was a difficult one. Anytime the government spends more than $1 trillion, there are a lot of good things that will be funded. Notwithstanding those good things, I voted “No” on the CROmnibus because of the cumulative effect of these and other reasons.”
Congressman Mike Rogers said in a statement on Facebook, “President Obama has vastly overstepped his Executive Authority by unilaterally acting on immigration. While I support many of the bill’s important government funding features, it does not take a strong enough stand now to stop his illegal actions.”
Rep. Brooks said that “The CROmnibus spends more than $1 trillion, almost half of which America does not have, must borrow to get, and cannot afford to pay back. America recently blew through the $18 trillion debt mark. The CROmnibus spending exceeds previous spending caps, is financially irresponsible, and is not up to the financial challenges America faces. As such, the CROmnibus worsens the risk of a debilitating American insolvency and bankruptcy. I cannot endorse a spending bill that sends us further down a perilous path of financial ruin.”
Brooks also city the CROmnibus’s 1,600 pages length. Brooks said that it was revealed just two days prior to the vote, “And has not been read and fully understood by a single Senator or Congressman. The CROmnibus has thousands of line-items and hundreds of policy riders that require more deliberation and consideration than afforded by the process used by the Senate and House leaderships. Further, the CROmnibus procedure denies American citizens the opportunity to examine the legislation and participate in our democratic process by sharing their insight with their elected representatives in Washington. Congress should never be put in the position of having to pass legislation to find out what is in it. I decline to support this flawed process with my vote.”
Brooks also complained that, “The Senate and House Leadership barred Congressmen and Senators from offering amendments to the CROmnibus, thus making it a “take it or leave it” bill that undermines the democratic process and stifles the voices of Senators and Congressmen who have good ideas on how to improve the CROmnibus via the amendment process.”
Brooks also stated that, “A vote for the CROmnibus is a vote supporting President Obama’s unconstitutional Executive amnesty. President Obama has unilaterally and unconstitutionally ordered the granting of quasi-legal status, work permits and Social Security numbers to illegal aliens. In a Senate floor speech this week, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) revealed that the second phase of President Obama’s illegal alien amnesty plan involves giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship with accompanying voting rights, thereby diluting the voting power of American citizens while costing struggling American families jobs and lost wages. Not only does the CROmnibus fail to block President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty for illegal aliens, it affirmatively appropriates at least $948 million in support of illegal aliens. House leadership promises to ‘fight the President tooth and nail’ on his unconstitutional executive amnesty, stating that ‘this is the wrong way to govern.’ However, the CROmnibus is a tacit surrender to the President’s unilateral action and a missed opportunity to stop it.”
The Conservative Congressman from Huntsville said, “The separation of powers set forth in the Constitution between the Executive and Legislative branches is made more porous by the CROmnibus. America’s Founders knew firsthand the dangers of centralized government power. In Federalist #51, James Madison wrote that the best security against a gradual accumulation of powers by the executive branch is to give each branch of government the ‘necessary constitutional means . . . to resist encroachments of the others.’ The Legislature, with its power of the purse, has not only the ability, but the duty under our Constitution to resist encroachment of the Executive. By not acting today to defund executive overreach, the House committed a disservice not only to the American people, but to the Constitution itself.”
Brooks said that there are necessary NASA and defense programs that I support and which are included in this bill. However Brooks said, “We must remember what Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated numerous times: the greatest threat to our national security is our National debt. Congress has the power of the purse. We not only have the ability to rein in America’s disastrous spending habits, we have the duty to. Yet, once again, instead of acting in the best interests of the American people, the House failed to be financially responsible concerning America’s out-of-control national debt.”
The omnibus spending bill was passed in the House on Thursday and in the Senate on Saturday unchanged.
The National Debt is $18,014.5 billion according to USDebtclock.org. Total federal spending is over $3.5 trillion per year. Most of this spending is on entitlements including: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. rather than in discretionary spending like roads, defense, government agencies like NASA, EPA, Homeland Security, etc. Discretionary Spending has actually decreased over the last four years however the deficit is still $480 billion a year because of automatic increases in “non-discretionary spending”.
Congressman Mo Brooks represents Alabama’s Fifth Congressional District.
Congressman Mike Rogers represents Alabama’s Third Congressional District.
