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Lawmaker calls reconciliation bill costly, chaotic and corrupt
Summary
At a Senate Committee on Appropriations meeting a lawmaker criticized the reconciliation bill’s $70,000,000,000 price tag, saying it provides no funds for health care, housing or education, accused ICE and CBP of misconduct and called a reported $1,800,000,000 settlement an instance of self-dealing.
At a Senate Committee on Appropriations meeting, a lawmaker criticized the reconciliation bill, saying it would spend $70,000,000,000 without directing funds to health care, housing or education and called the measure "costs, chaos, and corruption." The speaker urged colleagues to join in addressing what they described as unprecedented self-dealing.
The lawmaker opened the remarks by framing the debate around three themes: "costs, chaos, and corruption," saying the package carries "Costs, $70,000,000,000" while leaving "not a penny going to health care, housing, education" or measures to ease gasoline prices for families. "Nothing that American families are suffering from," the lawmaker said, arguing those omissions demonstrate a mismatch between the bill's spending and everyday needs.
On immigration enforcement, the speaker said the measure contained "Not a single common sense reform for ICE or CBP," adding that those agencies "have been acting like secret police terrorizing communities across this country." The remarks attracted emphasis from the speaker but the transcript does not record responses or evidence presented to substantiate the allegation.
The lawmaker also described what they called a corruption problem in the package, singling out a billion-dollar expenditure as "a ballroom boondoggle worthy of Louis the fourteenth," and criticizing it as inappropriate for a democratic republic. The speaker went on to describe a separate settlement, saying that "Trump sues his own administration" and that the arrangement would involve giving "$1,800,000,000 to hand out to whomever you want," calling that "a world record in self dealing." No supporting documents or proponents for those characterizations were included in the transcript.
The speaker closed by urging colleagues across the aisle to "join us in tackling the issues that families face" and to confront what the speaker called a level of corruption "known no equal" in U.S. history. The transcript records only the speaker's statements; it does not show a formal motion, vote, or rebuttal during the recorded segments.
No formal actions, votes or amendments were recorded in the provided transcript excerpt. The record contains direct quotations attributing the speaker's claims and the lawmaker's call for colleagues to act.
