Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted the $1.4 trillion spending bill that passed the House and Senate this week and was signed into law by President Donald Trump on Friday.
The 2,313-page piece of legislation spends $1.4 trillion and will fund the government until September 30, 2020, through most of what is anticipated to be a combative election season.
“Deals cut in the dead of night,” Cruz asserted in a Twitter video message this week that summarized some of the provisions in the spending package:
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The spending bill the Senate is voting on tomorrow is lobbyist boondoggle that belongs in an ashtray. pic.twitter.com/fa9euZLMYQ
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) December 19, 2019
The senator said the spending deal benefits the “lobbyists who are bankrupting this country,” and told CBS 11 it represents “lobbyists’ Christmas present.”
“While you were with your family, shopping for Christmas, the lobbyists were spending and spending,” Cruz said in his video message.
“Nobody’s read it,” Cruz said as he puffed on a cigar. “There isn’t a person alive who has read this piece of garbage.”
Cruz called out some of the items in the bill that were included without debate and a separate vote. He noted, for example, the spending deal “extends the Export-Import Bank for seven years.”
The bank, which provides loans to promote the foreign purchases of U.S. goods, is “one of the greatest corporate boondoggles – corporate welfare,” the senator asserted.
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The massive spending bill also raises the tobacco purchasing age to 21.
Cruz ridiculed this provision, citing that soldiers can be drafted at age 18, but “God help you if you want to have a smoke.”
The senator pointed out the spending bill also “funds government research on gun control.”
“Can’t you wait for the report from the Centers for Disease Control … bogus studies that are going to be used to take away your constitutional rights,” Cruz stated.
The senator added that the spending bill:
– continues tax breaks for “so-called” renewable energy
– fails to stop sanctuary cities
– fails to defund Planned Parenthood and fails to end Obamacare
While a pro-abortion rights amendment proposed by New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen – one that would have undermined Trump’s pro-life policies overseas – was not included in the final spending package, America’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood, remains funded by taxpayers.
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Pro-life organization Live Action observed that, since the spending deal fails to end Obamacare, its sex education program, known as PREP, will still receive $75 million, and $3 million of the PREP funding will go to Planned Parenthood.
Live Action added:
Additionally, Planned Parenthood will continue to receive millions more through [Medicaid] reimbursements and discretionary funds. In their 2017 Annual Report, Planned Parenthood indicated that 34% of their revenue came from “Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants.”
Congressional spending packages for FY2020 don’t include any provisions to further curb the millions of taxpayer dollars going to America’s abortion giant.
“This pile of trash belongs in an ashtray,” Cruz said in his video message.
On Thursday, the senator released a statement after voting against the bill.
“With a $23 trillion national debt, this 2,313-page spending package that Congressional leaders unveiled just days ago represents everything Americans hate about Washington,” Cruz said, adding:
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Though there are several good provisions included in the final bills that I was proud to fight for, including a well-deserved pay raise for our men and women in uniform and additional support for our Armed Forces and veterans, this $1.4 trillion spending monstrosity plunges our nation even further into debt – haphazardly spending taxpayer dollars on the priorities of lobbyists and Democrats at the expense of the priorities of the American people, from funding Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, and Obamacare, to raising the tobacco purchasing age to 21.
“This ridiculous, rushed, end-of-year spending process, year after year, is an example of government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyists,” he said.
Story cited here.
