As the clock continues to count down to a potential government shutdown, one Republican senator is calling out his House colleagues who he believes put together an “absolutely ridiculous” continuing resolution.
“Merry Christmas, American taxpayer. We’re going to buy you a Corvette now. You can’t pay for it for 100 years, but we’re going to buy you a Corvette. It’s absolutely ridiculous what we’re doing here,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said on “Mornings with Maria,” Wednesday.
On Tuesday, House Republicans released the 1,547-page text of a short-term extension of fiscal year (FY) 2024 government funding levels to give lawmakers more time to agree on funding the rest of FY 2025.
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It’s the second such extension, called a continuing resolution (CR), since FY 2024 ended on Sept. 30. The legislation has health care provisions aimed at lessening the influence of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), and legislation aimed at revitalizing Washington, D.C.’s RFK Stadium and the surrounding area.
Other earmarks – being dubbed “Christmas tree ornaments” – include duty-free Haitian apparel imports, lithium-ion battery legislation and $50 million allocated towards President-elect Trump’s inauguration.
Sen. Tuberville put the onus on Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who told his colleagues he was anticipating a “clean” CR free of unrelated policy riders. Their deadline to reach an agreement is midnight on Friday.
“We should get a clean CR. Mike Johnson promised that,” he said. “We need help for American farmers because the farm bill has been kicked down the road for two years… we’re going to lose 50,000 farms in the next probably six months, 50,000 more. And we lost 150,000 in the last three or four years.”
“And then, of course, the disaster aid for North Carolina. The Biden administration absolutely has dropped the ball on this,” Tuberville continued.
Although he had a 40-year career in college football, ‘coach’ Tuberville ripped the idea of sprucing up RFK Stadium: “To go out and build stadiums in D.C., hell, they can’t even cut the grass in the medians up here. It’s a disaster.”
Speaker Johnson defended the funding bill despite opposition on “Fox & Friends,” Wednesday: “We decided, even though we don’t normally like short-term, stopgap funding measures, it made sense here. Instead of doing Chuck Schumer-Biden spending for 2025, we pushed this decision into March.”
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Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
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