Senator Rubio Rips Pork-Laden Omnibus Bill

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl) voted against H.R. 2055, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012, which passed the U.S. Senate on Saturday, Dec. 18th, 2011 in an attempt to avoid a government shutdown once again. The last minute deal was necessary due to the gridlock in the U.S. Senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid has refused to allow votes on the numerous spending bills sitting on his desk for months. Senator Rubio joins Senator John McCain who took to the Senate floor to voice his strong objections as to how this bill was rammed through without following proper authorizations procedures. Senator Rubio released the following statement explaining why he voted against H.R. 2055:

“This massive 1,200-plus page bill represents everything that is wrong with Washington. Our country faces major economic challenges, but Congress wasted the whole year stuck in partisan gridlock only to pass a funding bill that solves none of our problems, just to avoid a government shutdown. This plan spends too much, wastes precious taxpayer dollars to fund a menu of job-killing regulations, anti-life provisions and earmarks, and has been ushered through Congress in a highly secretive and non-transparent manner that didn’t allow for consideration of even a single amendment. I cannot support it.”

In the following Marco Rubio constituent mailbox video we see just how fed up Americans truly are with the current state of DC and the big government debt-spending that continues unabated.

Almost all House Republican measures to reign in spending that were included in H.R. 2055 as it passed through the House were somehow craved out by the Senate. The Senate did leave the Republican light bulb ban stoppage measure in the final bill. Senator Jim DeMint came out with a scathing letter about just what has transipred in the U.S. senate once again, titled, A Shameful End to the Year.In it we see the following truths exposed:

The hard choice Democrats have given Republicans has paid off for the big-spenders again.

Refusing to work together to cut spending, Democrats demanded that Republicans compromise with them to increase spending, or shut down the government.

As a result, Congress rammed through a 1,000-page, trillion-dollar omnibus spending bill that lumped 9 different appropriations bills in a single package at the very last minute rather than debating, amending, and voting on these bills in a transparent manner.

As was reported here, this last-minute spending spree to supposedly avoid a government shut-down is beng done by design by Senate Democrats, and Senator Jim DeMint appears to agree with that assessment:

It’s become a cynical yearly tradition in Washington to delay the big-spending votes until just before Christmas. After all, it’s how Democrats in the Senate passed ObamaCare. Members of Congress are now hurrying home after the vote without much talk, but it should not be forgotten. It represents a shameful end to a year that began with many bold assurances.

Conservatives must win a majority in the U.S. Senate in the 2012 elections if we are ever to reverse the course of big government debt-spending that threatens to throw America off of the debt-cliff she is standing on the edge of. It is blatantly obvious that Democrats refuse to curb their debt-spending addiction, to the detriment of our great nation.