The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate must vote on a $1.66 trillion spending bill by midnight Friday to avoid a government shutdown.
Kentucky Senior Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority floor leader, was crucial in getting the bill over the line in the Senate on Tuesday during a procedural vote, but not before Kentucky Junior Sen. Rand Paul expressed disdain for the bill both on the Senate Floor and on social media.
“The bipartisan government funding bill before this body is imperfect but strong,” McConnell said on the floor. “It will make huge new investments in our Armed Forces while cutting non-defense, non-veterans baseline spending in real dollars.”
McConnell also said that given the current makeup of the Senate — 50 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and three independents that caucus with Democrats — means that both sides accepted the nature of a give and take.
The bill includes $585 billion in military spending and more than $772 billion for programs for Americans. There are new rules to help Americans save for retirement, increased police funding, the allocation for future pandemic defense, disaster relief funds, a TikTok ban on government devices, and another round of spending for Ukraine.
“Month after month, year after year, competitors such as China are methodically pouring money and planning into upgrading and modernizing their own militaries,” McConnell said. “They are constantly probing new ways to expand their military, intelligence, economic, and political reach — indirectly or directly threatening American forces and our allies’ and partners’ forces.”
Another important domestic spending provision includes money for overhauling the 135-year-old Electoral Count Act because former President Donald Trump tried to subvert unclear areas of the law to disrupt the transfer of power.
The new bill makes the role of the vice president in the process of counting electoral ballots strictly ceremonial. Trump tried to convince his Vice President, Mike Pence, to reject the ballots, which led to an insurrection in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
While the bill received bipartisan support, passing the Senate 70-25, some Republicans, including Sen. Paul, disagreed with the spending in the bill and the manner in which Congress received the bill.
Arriving at nearly 1:30 in the morning on Tuesday, the 4,155 would be impossible to read by the vote later on Tuesday, according to Paul, who posted a picture of himself to Twitter later that day with the bill.
Regarding military spending, Paul said that the rising debt threatens the country’s security.
“We now have a $31 trillion debt,” Paul said on the floor. “We’re adding over $1 trillion a year. And yet Republican leadership says this is a victory because we’re getting more military spending. But it’s a victory at what expense? Are we actually more secure? Are we safer? Is our national security more protected by spending more on the military? Or is our national security actually more threatened by incurring more debt? I would argue the latter. $31 trillion in debt is the number one threat to our national security.”
Sen. Paul isn’t the only Kentucky legislator to be at odds with McConnell over the bill — Rep. Thomas Massie also disagreed with McConnell’s comments in a press conference after the vote.
“I’m pretty proud of the fact that with a Democratic president, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate, we were able to achieve, through this omnibus spending bill, essentially all of our priorities,” McConnell said.
Responding to McConnell’s comments, Massie said, “If all the Republican priorities are in the omnibus, then unfortunately, balancing the budget is not a Republican priority anymore.”