Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) slammed his fellow Republican colleagues for “falling in lockstep” behind Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ which narrowly passed the House last week.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Paul told host Shannon Bream that the bill doesn’t go far enough. He called the spending cuts in the current bill “wimpy and anemic” but said he will “consider” voting for it if the debt ceiling increase is removed.
“The problem is the math doesn’t add up. They’re going to explode the debt by — the House says $4 trillion, the Senate’s actually been talking about exploding the debt $5 trillion,” he said. “Now if you increase the debt ceiling four to five trillion dollars, that means they’re planning on two trillion this year and more than two trillion next year. That’s just not conservative.”
The senator then knocked Republicans for falling in line behind the legislation instead of voicing their opposition.
“They’re not cutting spending. Somebody has to stand up and yell, the emperor has no clothes! And everybody’s falling in lockstep on this,” he added. “Pass the big, beautiful bill. Don’t question anything. Well, conservatives do need to stand up and have their voice heard!”
Paul was not the only Republican senator to criticize the bill on Sunday. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) called the bill “immoral” and raised alarms about the national debt.
“My campaign promise in 2010, and every campaign after that, was to stop mortgaging our children’s future. It’s immoral, it’s wrong and it has to stop,” Johnson told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union.
Johnson added that there are enough Republican senators who are willing “to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill result in an increase in the deficit of $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years.
Fiscal hawks are not the only Senate Republicans opposing the House passed bill in its current form. Moderate Republicans are also voicing opposition to the bill’s cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps.
With a 53-47 majority in the Senate, Republicans can only afford to lose three GOP senators if they are to pass the bill.
