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OPINION
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Sinema helps Congress stick it to taxpayers
BY JD HAYWORTH Tribune Columnist
If you thought the “Christmas Rush” that you and other holiday shoppers faced was daunting, think again.
In Washington, an allegedly “lame duck” Congress churned furiously through fetid swamp water in a “Christmas Rush” of its own.
Smelling jet fumes, the dirty birds in charge of both the House and Senate hatched a scheme for a high-priced and low-down flight path out of town… and the “gift” they gave you will keep on taking.
Our kids and grandkids—not to mention today’s taxpayers—just got stuck with a huge holiday shopping expenditure: a $1.7 trillion 4,000-plus page “Omnibus Bill,” with interest payments on our national debt compounded by the nanosecond.
What the legislative leaders lacked in originality, they more than made up for in the astronomical price tag and the slapdash way in which this “buying binge” was formulated.
“Omnibus” translates to “everything, including the kitchen sink.”
“Ominous” is the rhyming well-worn one-word joke played on the American people with disturbing regularity. And, as so often in the past, the calculations were not mathematical, but strategic.
Democrats in the House, Senate, and White House knew that they could cram one bill full of pork, policies, and their priorities, then get enough Republicans to “roll over” so everybody could leave town and head home for Christmas.
Add to that conspiring “Capitol Gang” one newly-minted “Independent” from Arizona.
As explained a couple of weeks ago in this space, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s boldly proclaimed “independence” is instead disguised deference to the Senate Democrat leadership.
A sudden and shameful reversal on a key vote by Arizona’s senior senator reveals the Grand Canyon-sized gulf between Kyrsten’s rhetoric and the ugly reality.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced an amendment that would have preserved Title 42, the Trump executive action helping to stem the flow of illegals across our southern border.
Of course, the “Biden Bunch” is eager to rescind it, even though it would mean that the number of alien invaders would rise even higher.
Lee had high hopes that his amendment would pass, as he later told the Fox Business Network. “For eight glorious minutes, we had it won,” Lee said.
“Then, all of a sudden, [Democrat Leader] Chuck Schumer pulled a couple of members off the floor—Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. He twisted their arms—who knows what he told them, what he threatened them with – they came back and changed their votes.”
Not much imagination is needed to know what Schumer said to Sinema. Most likely, it went something like this: “Kyrsten, I like you personally. Politically, I want to do for you what Mitch McConnell did on the other side for Lisa Mur-
kowski. Wasn’t that something? “His Leadership PAC bought seven million bucks worth of ads to keep Lisa in her seat in Alaska. Of course, that was easier for him to do because Lisa remained a Republican. “I know Arizona is different from Alaska, and you did what you thought you needed to do…but it’s gonna be tough for me to keep the DSCC from sending money to a Democrat candidate for your seat. And it will be even tougher if you support this GOP Amendment. It will be easier for me to help you if you switch your vote to ‘no’ on this amendment, and then vote ‘yes’ on final passage.” Do we know for certain that Schumer said that? No, but we do know that Sinema switched her vote to kill that amendment, then voted for the entire Omnibus Bill…all $1.7 trillion of it. There is border security funding in that monstrosity, but none of it will be spent here. Instead, there’s $410 million to strengthen borders in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman. You read that right: money for middle east borders, but nothing for this border state in the southwest. And Uncle Sam keeps playing Santa Claus in the Ukraine. The Omnibus provides another $45 billion there, bringing the total to over $100 billion in aid to that nation. While it is true that Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States is also being invaded, and our southern border erased. Spending $100 billion here would fund 20 border walls, but Sinema remains silent on that type of expenditure to protect Arizona and America. Sinema has made it clear: her “Declaration of Independence” came at a heavy price to American taxpayers. But it remains a cheap stunt.
