In a series of enormously popular posts on social media, liberty-minded Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky dissected what he called the “sad excuse” for legislation more commonly known as the omnibus spending bill. The record $1.3 trillion, 2,200-page monstrosity, which would keep the federal government running for six months, funds abortion giant Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, potential gun bans for millions of Americans, ObamaCare, border security for foreign governments, military support for mass-murdering communist dictators, and countless other unconstitutional schemes.
On the other hand, it does not fund President Donald Trump’s sought-after border wall, prompting him to threaten a veto before he caved and signed it. Democrats, meanwhile, are celebrating the massive bill. In fact, Senator Paul pointed out that even though the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the White House, the omnibus bill “could have been written by President Obama and liberal Democrats.” He is right, except even the Democrats did not go as far as congressional Republicans in terms of destroying America with debt and unconstitutional, lawless government.
After President Trump threatened a possible veto, Senator Paul urged him to follow through, noting that almost nobody had even read it. “I ran for office because I thought the Obama spending and trillion dollar annual deficits were a real problem for our country and now Republicans are doing the same thing,” Paul fumed on social media.
But there was a silver lining, Paul said. “Victory for conservatives today is that all of America now knows what a budget busting bomb this bill is,” he said as grassroots conservatives across America rallied against the legislation and the Republican-in-Name-Only (RINO) congressional leaders responsible for the debacle. “Hopefully, today’s battle will embolden conservatives to descend on Congress and demand Constitutional government.”
Tweeting a picture of himself with the massive bill, Paul said: “Shame, shame. A pox on both Houses — and parties. Here’s the 2,232 page, $1.3 trillion, budget-busting Omnibus spending bill.” He then started combing through the bill, posting a series of incredible revelations on social media that congressional leaders in both parties would have preferred to keep quiet.
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Early on, Paul ridiculed the “ever wasteful” and totally unconstitutional $6 billion National Science Foundation (NSF). “Remember the $350,000 NSF spent asking if Japanese quail are more sexually promiscuous on cocaine?” Paul wondered, highlighting just one example of the outlandish waste that reigns supreme at the outfit. “I’m upset that we’re spending like every Democrat that we criticized.”
Other disgraceful funding provisions highlighted by the senator include $12 million for “scholarships” in Lebanon, $20 million for a “Middle East Partnership Initiative Scholarship Program,” $10 million for “disadvantaged Egyptian students,” $12 million in military funding for the mass-murdering communist dictatorship enslaving Vietnam, $5 million for the “Vietnam Education Foundation Grants,” $3.5 million in “nutrition assistance” to the murderous communist regime in Laos, and $15 million in “developmental assistance” to the mass-murdering communist regime enslaving China — money that will likely have to be borrowed from Beijing before it can be sent back to Beijing for spending on “development assistance,” whatever that is. And that is just the start of the wasteful spending that will be flowing to hostile foreign regimes and international organizations they control.
The bill spends $10 million, for instance, on trying to get women in Afghanistan — a traditional, patriarchal society — into law-enforcement jobs. It also allocates money for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a radical United Nations outfit that today exists primarily to peddle propaganda in support of the debunked man-made global-warming hypothesis. Almost a quarter of a billion dollars would go to “promoting democracy in Europe,” an especially bizarre idea considering that America’s Founding Fathers abhorred democracy and preferred a republican form of government based on the rule of law. Despite the U.S. government’s decades-long role in facilitating the genocide of Christians across the Middle East via so-called “foreign policy,” the bill allocates funding to “international religious freedom,” too.
A broad range of UN agencies, schemes, programs, and affiliates will also get funding — even though Trump’s budget request sought to defund some UN agencies entirely while slashing funding for others. For example, Trump had asked for a small decrease in funding to Contributions to International Organizations, one of the various slush funds that distributes American tax dollars to the UN dictators club and its tentacles. Instead of cuts, Republican lawmakers actually boosted the funding to that fund to almost $1.5 billion. Perhaps even more outrageously, the omnibus provides over $50 million for International Family Planning and Reproductive Health, another slush fund that promotes abortion, promiscuity, contraception, perverted sex “education” for children, and more. Over $10 million will go to UN “environmental” programs, in addition to $7 million for “International Conservation.” Millions more will go to the “Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe.” And almost $3 billion is allocated to international “disaster assistance.”
Other outrages highlighted on social media by Senator Paul, who only went through less than a third of the bill before giving up, include:
• “Page 278. (1954 to go!) $961 million to destroy our chemical weapons. Who was it, exactly, who convinced our government to pay billions to develop weapons we now find deplorable?”
• “$9 billion for Govt Services Admin that oversees federal properties. Fed government spends $1.7 billion a year to maintain 770,000 empty buildings while continuing to buy new properties.”
• “Page 447: a little over $30 billion for Department of Energy. Wonder if anyone would notice if we had no Dept of Energy. Put oversight of nuclear waste in DOD and let supply & demand be our Energy policy.”
• “Page 376 of terrible, rotten, no-good budget busting bill: I found it! I found it! Border security, what President Trump wanted! no … wait a minute section says Defense can spend what funds it determines to enhance the border security of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia.”
• “Page 365: Overseas contingency operations. aka military slush fund that circumvents budget caps. All told, we’ve spent over a trillion dollars in this budget busting category.”
There were a handful of provisions Senator Paul found that were both constitutional and good policy. For instance, the bill prohibits spending money in violation of the War Powers Act, although Paul suggested that common-sense measure would not be obeyed as the U.S. government remains embroiled in countless illegal wars. The legislation also prohibits spending federal money intervening in medical marijuana issues in states that have ended prohibition of the plant for medicinal purposes. Finally, the legislation prohibits funding for torture.
But despite those tiny victories, which will almost certainly be ignored by the rogue federal government, Senator Paul slammed the bill. “When I ran in 2010, when we had that Tea Party tidal wave, we were opposed to President Obama’s spending and we were opposed to Obama’s trillion-dollar deficits,” Paul said in a media interview. “This bill will give us a trillion-dollar deficit this year.”
Trump expressed outrage, too. “I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded,” he said. On the campaign trail, he vowed to end DACA, the amnesty scheme for illegal immigrants created by Obama using his illegal “pen and phone” decrees. Speaking at a press conference, Trump slammed the legislation, and vowed never to sign another similar one. But, he said, he signed this one because it would supposedly help strengthen America’s military.
Conservatives and constitutionalists in Congress slammed the bill and urged a veto. Representative Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) of the Freedom Caucus highlighted record spending levels, no wall/border security, full funding for Obamacare, funding for lobbying group and baby butcher Planned Parenthood, full funding for sanctuary cities, and the fact that lawmakers had barely 24 hours to read a 2,300 page bill. “This Omnibus is so far from what the forgotten men and women of America voted for,” he said. Other members called the legislation an “insult to the American people,” a “bad day for fiscal conservatives and responsible governance,” and more.
Even some globalist neoconservatives feigned outrage. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a member of the anti-American Deep State swamp known as the Council on Foreign Relations, urged Trump to veto the bill. “I am just down the street and will bring you a pen,” said Corker, a globalist who is retiring rather than lose the upcoming election. “The spending levels without any offsets are grotesque, throwing all of our children under the bus. Totally irresponsible.”
Meanwhile, Democrats have been openly celebrating the bill as a major accomplishment. In fact, some Democrat lawmakers are already using the gargantuan spending bill in campaign ads. “Washington’s a mess but that’s not stopping me from getting bills to help Montana signed into law by President Trump,” Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) says in one recently released ad. Far-left Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) celebrated the gun-control schemes in it. While urging his colleagues not to celebrate too loudly yet, even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who never met an unconstitutional and oppressive Big Government scheme he didn’t want to borrow money for, could barely contain his glee about the omnibus.
In fact, it seems like every extremist Democrat and globalist had something in the bill to celebrate — while voters and taxpayers, and future generations, will end up with the bill for it all. Already, the federal government has racked up more than $20 trillion in odious debt, not including the estimated $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities. And unfortunately, the American people’s elected representatives will continue to drive America over the cliff unless and until the people understand the Constitution and the precarious situation the nation finds itself in. Patriotic and liberty-minded citizens must redouble their efforts if the criminal insanity in Washington, D.C., is going to be reined in. The alternative — a crisis of epic proportions that could destroy liberty and the nation — must be prevented.
Photo: AP Images
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook.
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