By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Thursday, December 17 U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (R from Huntsville) criticized the compromise Omnibus spending bill to keep the government funded through 2016 that Congress is poised to pass before it breaks for Christmas. Brooks warned that the bill would quadruple H-2B visas and fund Syrian refugee resettlement in America.
Congressman Brooks said, “Tomorrow, Congress will once again be forced to vote on a hastily thrown together $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that is 2,009 pages long, that very few Senators and Congressmen have had the time to read much less fully understand, that no one was allowed to amend on the House floor, and that further undermines America’s solvency.”
Rep. Brooks said, “While I am thankful the omnibus bill increases funding for NASA’s Space Launch System and America’s national security, empowers Decatur’s United Launch Alliance to compete for critical defense space payloads, and reduces burdensome regulations on America’s farmers, these and other positive things could and should be done without increasing the risk of a debilitating American insolvency and bankruptcy, without using taxpayer money to empower President Obama to pay illegal aliens to break our laws and come to America, without increasing terrorism risks by paying Syrians to come to America, without forcing American taxpayers to pay for other peoples’ abortions, and without permitting President Obama to quadruple H-2B visas so that more foreign workers can take jobs from and undermine the wages of struggling American families.”
Rep. Brooks concluded, “Rather than instituting a deliberate, long-term budgeting process that provides certainty for job creators and minimizes America’s risk of a debilitating insolvency and bankruptcy, this omnibus bill makes matters decidedly worse. The dramatic expense, compounded by the increased security and terrorism risks forced on American citizens, is unconscionable. That is why I am voting “No” on this misguided legislation.”
When Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and the Presidency during the George W. Bush years, Democrats denounced them for not balancing the budget. In 2006 Democrats won control of both Houses of Congress; but the debt continued to grow. On July 3, 2008 then Senator Barack H. Obama (D from Illinois) famously said, “The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents – #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.”
Americans agreed and gave the Democratic Party mastery of both Houses of Congress and the Presidency that November. With absolute control of the government, they added almost $3 trillion to the debt and created new entitlements with Obamacare and Medicaid expansion. In 2010 voters gave Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives. They voted with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling. In 2014 Republicans were given control of the Senate as well. They have done nothing to curb the deficit spending that is growing the debt. We now have over $18.79 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $58,293 for every man, woman, and child. The debt is expected to top $20 trillion by 2019 and the Federal Reserve just raised interest rates, meaning that the cost of servicing that debt should climb.
Congressman Mo Brooks represents Alabama’s Fifth Congressional District.
