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Name is Dave Bozell with ForAmerica. I am your conductor today. The House passed last night, late into the night. After pulling sections of the spending bill, the section included so-called COVID relief part, which is a peanut amount of a pittance of $15.6 billion of your money.
McConnell is out there today saying we're so grateful that we were able to get concessions and by concessions, he means waving the $15.6 billion in COVID relief. Despite the fact that we have got untold billions of dollars that we haven't even spent on prior COVID relief bills. There's real debate is whether it's even necessary, given the fact that everyone's moving on from COVID-19.
So they stripped that portion of it. What remained was a monstrous 2,741-page piece of spending legislation that included aid for Ukraine. You've got to ask serious questions as to whether or not it'll even get to Ukraine in time or who we're even giving it to. 2,741 pages, this bill was finalized yesterday morning....
Senate Amendment to H.R. 2471, March 8, 2022
I've got a new rule for endorsing candidates. I'm not really interested in any candidate, Republican or Democrat. I'm kind of politically agnostic at this point, but if you want to run for public office, federal public office, I'm inclined to support you so long as you pledge never to vote for any bill that's longer than the standard Bible. The standard Bible is about 1,200 pages long and that's long enough.
This bill is bigger than Moby Dick, bigger than The Iliad, bigger than The Count of Monte Cristo, all famous works of literature. Every Harry Potter book combined is about 3,600 pages. So Harry Potter, the entire series has the spending bill beat....
So, the only thing I can think of is to say, look, I'm just not going to vote for anything, that's over 1,200. If it's longer than the standard Bible, don't bother me. Now, as to the particular, you got $14 billion, I think, yeah. $13.6 billion for Ukraine. Trump wanted to build a wall for $6 billion. These Republicans, particularly in the Senate, couldn't muster up the energy or the wherewithal, or the commitment to the effort to do that.
Republicans, come on, you couldn't muster up a positive vote for your president's wall, but you're just tripping over yourselves to send almost double that amount over to Ukraine. You don't even know where that's going or who it's going to, or what it's going for, or if it will even make a difference in time. I mean, the war might be over by the time it gets there....
The executive branch is just swinging a huge stick right now. We live in the executive order era, where the executive branch and the president's team swing the biggest stick. The next in terms of the tiers is the judiciary, because Congress basically has seeded its authority.
So, until Republicans break this nasty habit of using omnibus spending bills, this spending spree is going to continue. And I can't think of a better way than to just put your foot down and just say, look, all due respect to anything in need or to an emergency piece of legislation or to the priorities of the country. But surely, we can write bills that are less than the size of the of the Bible itself. Just stick to that mantra and that's something that the American people will grab onto as a message, it's easy to digest and it's easy to understand.