Mike Braun is the antithesis of the culture of spending that exists in the current Congress, and to him the infrastructure bill that may come to a vote soon, is everything he’s been preaching against since his campaign for the Senate. He’s critical of everyone who approves of borrowing to get the bill paid for, including fellow Republicans.
“It’s delivering on a fairly popular subject, infrastructure. And, it covers a lot of areas where there is need,” said Braun, on a call with reporters from DC Thursday. “You still have to be honest that it’s not based upon true pay-fors.”
Braun has suggested other ways besides borrowing to pay for the roads, bridges and broadband and many other projects included in the $1 trillion, 2706 page bill, which could end up with amendments before the process is over and a vote is taken.
He said fellow Republican senators, which includes Indiana’s Todd Young, are willing to let some of the fiscal concerns go because they have indulged in the long-held DC traditions of deal-making to get what they want out of the bill, which Braun has classified as “pork”.
“They just think it’s more important to at least have a bipartisan effort on a popular area and they’re not being honest about the pay-fors,” he said, adding that Republicans who have been a part of that deal-making and spending culture would be hypocritical to speak badly of the legislation at hand.
“The folks that are pushing it know who’s gonna vote for it. That looks like it’s gonna speed itself up.”
Braun criticized the pacing of the impending vote.
“Just here in the last few hours it looks it could all cascade into getting done over the next three to four days,” he said.
Ever mournful of the current proceedings, the senator said the process could be more deliberate, slower, and could be done with proper budgeting.
“It is a new frenzy almost in trying to force all this spending through the system and I don’t think it is of all that urgency,” he said. “Infrastructure to me, next to defending the country, should be two things that are important in the federal government and you do it with budgeting. You hold all the places that you’re gonna allocate money to to be accountable for it.”
Braun said he believes Democrats believe government is a “growth business”.
“The sad thing is is there will be a sugar high in the economy because all the folks that benefit from this, of course, want it. In my two and a half years of being here, that’s acorss the board and that’s on both sides of the aisle.”
Braun said he’s hopeful that the taste for spending will soon grow sour to the majority of Congress, as the country spends by the trillions and builds unprecedented debt.
“I hope that there’s some type of abatement.”
4 comments
The only abatement for this situation is going to be audits so we have HONEST elections and can vote the Dems and RINOS out.
Without meaningful election integrity reform, the ruling class will keep cheating their way and and ignoring the will of the people.
Braun his clueless. The federal government is monetarily sovereign. It’s a currency issuer, not a currency user. It has a monopoly on the creation of dollars, and, subject only to the risk of inflation, can create an infinite supply of dollars simply by entering numbers on electronic spreadsheets. It could — again, subject largely to the inflation constraint — “fund” its operations without “revenue” from taxation or “borrowing.”
The federal government’s “borrowing” is wholly unnecessary, and is undertaken primarily to give individuals and corporations a risk-free place to park their money for the long, short, or intermediate term. It’s a safe haven that only the federal government, as a currency issuer, can provide. The federal “debt” is thus little more than a trillion dollar private sector savings account.
Braun appears to know nothing of this. His absurd obsession with the meaningless question of how the federal government will “pay for” things makes him unqualified to serve as a Senator, or to hold any public office. The federal government pays for things by changing the balances in the bank accounts of the people and corporate entities that provide goods and services to the government.
He should stop prattling endlessly about stuff he doesn’t understand, and resign in disgrace.
OK folks. Dust off your copy of the US Constitution, if you have one. Look at Article I which covers the Congress then look at Section 8. There you will find the 18 specific enumerated powers The People and The States loaned or granted to the US Congress to perform their duties. A large majority of the new spending bill and for that matter the rest of the over blown US Government is not to be found in those enumerated powers. Therefore ALL Senators and Representatives who vote for this bill have violated their oath of office and should be removed at the very next election. This included the RINO phony named Todd young. Wake up people. Look at the basic rules and act accordingly. All those freebies that are basically illegal are not worth giving up your hard won liberty for.
Todd Young needs to go away. Young sponsored legislation called “Yes In My Back Yard” which aims to abolish single family zoning by giving the Federal bureaucrats more control over local zoning laws. Good bye suburbia!
Primary that RINO! He is a big government fraud!