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Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) released a statement after voting against the $1.7 trillion government appropriations package. “Here’s the main reason I voted against the budget,” he stated, “Inflation. As I’ve said before, inflation is ravaging the American Dream. It’s a cancer on the American Dream, and we’re not going to get control of it until Congress stops spending so much money.”
He shared that tat he believes they have to slow down the rate of growth of spending and debt, “Now, look, I’m not naive. There are many people here in Washington, not just on the Democratic side—there are many big-government Republicans as well—and their attitude is, ‘We can’t possibly spend enough money.’ If they ran out of money to spend and couldn’t borrow anymore, they would think about taking out a reverse mortgage on Alaska to get the money. But there are enough Republicans on Capitol Hill for us to be able to slow the rate of growth and spending, and this bill didn’t do that,” he said.
He also said that there is a question that has to be asked, “What’s the best way to achieve the best budget? Do we sit down and do it now, or do we wait until we have a majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives? And I said all along, we should wait,” the release stated.
“Here’s what it comes down to: Would you rather have Nancy Pelosi decide what the federal budget is going to be, or would you rather wait until he’s sworn in as Speaker of the House and have Kevin McCarthy? And that, to me, is a no-brainer,” he said, “and there was never any doubt in my mind that the prudent decision, in terms of controlling spending, was to wait for Kevin McCarthy [instead of] allowing Speaker Pelosi to make the decision.”
The senator has consistently fought the spending that he claims has fueled inflation under President Biden’s administration. In addition to his vote, he has voted against $5.6 trillion in other spending including:
- H.R. 1319, the $1.9 trillion 2021 coronavirus package,
- H.R. 2471, the $1.5 trillion appropriations package,
- H.R. 3684, the $1.2 trillion mislabeled infrastructure package,
- H.R. 5376, the $740 billion spending bill that has aggravated inflation and
- H.R. 4346, the $240 billion semi-conductor bill.
Watch Kennedy’s full statement below:
