According to multiple sources on The Hill, congressional leaders unveiled their latest pitch for a government funding package at 2 A.M. on Thursday, leaving representatives with less than 48 hours to review the $1.2 trillion bill before the looming government shutdown deadline at midnight on Friday.
Montana Representative Matt Rosendale took to Twitter, expressing outrage at the lack of transparency and time for review. “The system is absolutely BROKEN,” he exclaimed. “It is disgraceful that they dropped the bill at 2 A.M. and won’t provide the 72-hour review period for the 1,012-page package, full of earmarks and a continuation of [the] Left’s reckless spending spree!”
The bill, which allocates $824 million for defense and $300 million for Ukraine, faces scrutiny for what critics term “pet projects,” including $2 million for abortion facilities, $1 million for “Amplify Latinx” business groups in Massachusetts, and $10 million for an Alaska Leaders Archive.
Convention of States endorser and president of The Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, condemned the bill, urging Congress to reject it. “Lawmakers are using arbitrary deadlines and shutdown politics to extort the American people and force lawmakers to vote for a bill they don’t have time to read,” he asserted. “The text may have been dropped under the cover of darkness, but nothing can hide the bill’s unbelievable abuse of taxpayer dollars and continuation of Biden’s dangerous border crisis.”
“Conservatives were told that the days of omnibus spending bills shrouded in secrecy were over,” he added. “But this process and the bill it produced are indistinguishable from typical Swamp behavior that’s taken our economy and country to the brink of disaster. If we want to change Washington, we have to start by breaking this cycle and rejecting this indefensible bill.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson defended the bill, claiming it “imposed substantial cuts to wasteful agencies and programs.” However, this stance faced dissent from within his own party, with Chip Roy, another Convention of States endorser, vehemently opposing the package.
“The American people do not accept what is in this bill,” he declared. “We cannot continue to do this. Americans want secure borders and fiscal sanity.”
Clearly, our federal government is hopelessly broken. To urge your state legislator to support Convention of States, a grassroots movement to impose limits on federal power, spending, and terms of office, sign the Convention of States petition below. With over $34 trillion in national debt and a deeply dysfunctional legislative branch, it’s time to rein in Washington, D.C., once and for all.
