Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is none too thrilled about his fellow Republicans’ failure to approve cutting billions of dollars from the budget, and he let the GOP know it.
Paul had introduced an amendment to the GOP’s 2018 budget that would eliminate the $43 billion that blows past the spending cap set by Congress in 2011. Paul said that should the GOP vote yes on his amendment, he’d vote in favor of the budget.
However, while the budget passed, the majority of the GOP voted against Paul’s amendment in a 5-95 vote with only Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) voting in favor. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas briefly considered voting in favor of Paul’s amendment, but ultimately decided not to.
Paul took to Twitter to express his anger at his GOP colleagues, tweeting that “nearly all Republicans just failed a litmus test on cutting spending.”
Nearly all Republican Senators just failed a litmus test on cutting spending.
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 19, 2017
President Trump once again singled out Paul in a tweet, saying that every member of the GOP had voted for the 2018 budget with the exception of Paul. He did add that he would vote for tax reform, however.
The Budget passed late last night, 51 to 49. We got ZERO Democrat votes with only Rand Paul (he will vote for Tax Cuts) voting against…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2017
At a time when we’re so deep into the trillions in debt, it’s amazing that only a handful of GOP senators would keep to the spending plans they themselves made. $43 billion may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the $20 trillion we’ve racked up, but every little bit counts.
I’ll echo Patterico by commending Paul for sticking to his guns here, along with the four other senators that unpopularly followed him. At a time when Republicans control everything from the Oval Office to the House floor, cutting spending should not be a difficult task. This is what we elected them to do.
Sad.
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