Brooks: GOP's 'debt-ridden' $1.1 trillion spending bill 'betrays America's future'

Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL5) speaks with Sen. Ted Cruz at his side. (Photo: Facebook)

WASHIHNGTON — Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL5) on Thursday said he will join Alabama Senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions in opposing that massive spending bill that Republicans are poised to pass through Congress.

Shelby and Sessions have both been openly critical of the legislation, particularly because it “funds President Obama’s entire immigration agenda,” but Shelby also protected thousands of Alabama jobs by inserting a paragraph in the 2,000-page bill that will allow Decatur-based rocket company to continue being the U.S. military’s best option for sending satellites into space.

“While I am thankful the $1.1 trillion omnibus bill increases funding for NASA’s Space Launch System and America’s national security, empowers Decatur’s United Launch Alliance to compete for critical defense space payloads, and reduces burdensome regulations on America’s farmers, these and other positive things could and should be done without increasing the risk of a debilitating American insolvency and bankruptcy, without using taxpayer money to empower President Obama to pay illegal aliens to break our laws and come to America, without increasing terrorism risks by paying Syrians to come to America, without forcing American taxpayers to pay for other peoples’ abortions, and without permitting President Obama to quadruple H-2B visas so that more foreign workers can take jobs from and undermine the wages of struggling American families,” said Brook.”

Brooks noted that Republicans have been able to reduce the federal deficit every year since they took control in 2010, but that will not happen again under their latest spending package, which Brooks says will balloon the national debt by hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Financial experts have repeatedly warned Washington of America’s increasing debilitating insolvency and bankruptcy risks if Washington does not cease its out-of-control spending habits,” he said. “Yet Congress will once again soon be forced to vote on a bill that was drafted by a select few, that was filed at the last minute, that is 2,009 pages long, that very few Senators and Congressmen have had the time to read much less fully understand, that no one was allowed to amend on the House floor, and that increases America’s already perilous $18.8 trillion debt by hundreds of billions of dollars. America elected a Republican House of Representatives in 2010. That Republican House has successfully reduced the size of federal deficits every year it has been in control. But no longer! Absent an unexpected economic boom, this debt-ridden omnibus spending bill, coupled with increasing debt service costs from expected higher interest rates, will likely cause America’s deficit to increase for the first time since 2011. That is the exact wrong way to go!”

“Making matters worse, this omnibus bill fully funds President Obama’s illegal alien amnesty policies and the importation of tens of thousands of Middle Eastern Muslims in America (the odds are some of whom will repay America’s charity with terrorism, mayhem, and death),” he continued. “President Obama’s effort to import 85,000 so-called refugees is at great cost to American taxpayers. In FY 2016 alone, that cost approximates $5 billion just for those 400,000 so-called refugees President Obama has imported in only five or so years. As Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions highlights, the net lifetime cost burden to American taxpayers for just the 85,000 so-called refugees President Obama seeks to import in Fiscal Year 2016 alone is a staggering $55.25 billion. This dramatic expense (paid for with money America does not have, has to borrow to get, and can’t afford to pay back), compounded by the increased security and terrorism risks forced on American citizens, is unconscionable.

“The omnibus spending bill assaults millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans by quadrupling H-2B visas offered to foreign workers, thereby flooding the labor market with foreign workers who will take scarce jobs from and suppress wages of struggling American families.”

Brooks concluded by saying Republicans are bypassing a chance to get the nation’s spending and immigration policies under control, choosing instead to be a rubber stamp for Democrats’ agenda.

“This omnibus spending bill is a missed opportunity,” he said. “Rather than shoring up America’s finances and halting out-of-control immigration policies that damage American workers, Congress handed the gavel to President Obama and funds his dangerously misguided policies for another year. Rather than instituting a deliberate, long-term budgeting process that provides certainty for job creators and minimizes America’s risk of a debilitating insolvency and bankruptcy, this omnibus bill makes matters decidedly worse.”