‘Do Your Job’: Chip Roy Urges McConnell to Block New Spending Until Next Congress

Speaking on the House floor Wednesday, Republican representative Chip Roy urged Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to put the brakes on major spending packages until the new GOP House majority can weigh in next session.

“I’m looking at Mitch McConnell when I say this: do your job, Leader McConnell! Do your job and follow the wishes of the American people who gave a majority to Republicans in the House of Representatives,” Roy said. “And let’s STOP this bill”

A number of House Republicans including Roy have spoken out vehemently against the omnibus spending bill currently pending in the House, which Reuters reported could be about $1.5 trillion. McConnell set a deadline of December 22 to pass it in order to avoid a government shutdown.

“This is jamming through a bill at the eleventh hour to get the political priorities of the current Democratic majority and a handful of Senate Republicans are happy to do it so they can get pork,” Roy said, noting that it would ramp up spending by an additional 10 percent. “The American people are the ones who get screwed in this deal.”

The congressman accused the proponents of the omnibus bill of manipulating its purpose, calling it defense appropriations when he claimed it really amounts to reckless and enormous discretionary spending. There are over 7,500 earmarks from the House and Senate totaling $16 billion in 2023 appropriations bills that could end up in the final agreement, Bloomberg Government reported.

“At what point are we going to do the work of the American people in the people’s House? At what point are we going to actually debate? At what point are we actually going to amend? At what point are we actually going to live within our means and stop writing checks we can’t cash?,” Roy asked the members on the floor.

A recently released Rasmussen national survey found that the majority of American voters – 55 percent – want the newly elected Congress, not the lame duck Congress steered by Democrats, to decide government funding.

Similarly, 62 percent of voters want the new Congress to be given an opportunity to review budget legislation before the chambers move to advance it. Joining in Roy’s suspicions, 73 percent of voters believe that a government spending measure passed by the current Congress will include”wasteful spending” and “favors to special interest groups.” The poll was conducted between December 1 and 4 with 1,200 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is +/- 2.8 percentage points for the sample.

Governor Ron DeSantis said on Fox News Wednesday that the GOP should “punt” the spending issue to the new Congress, when it will have leverage to obtain a more favorable outcome. During his time in the House, DeSantis routinely rejected omnibus bills even as both parties were and continue to be “addicted” to them, he said.