GOP Sen. Braun: Senate ‘Kicking the Can Down the Road’ on Debt

During a Thursday interview on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) addressed the potential government shutdown as the Senate pushes to pass a stopgap spending bill.

Braun lamented that the Senate was “kicking the can down the road” by not balancing the budget.

“Maria, this place has got so dysfunctional,” Braun declared. “I’m on the Budget Committee. Imagine Bernie Sanders, the chair of the Budget Committee. I don’t know that he’s ever done one, but we will, through this process of kicking the can down the road, probably have that procedural vote. If we keep doing that, I’m going to demand if we’re going to have that vote to maybe put some people on record. Do we want to have a balanced budget? Do you want to endorse the insanity of how the biggest business in the world is run — kind of by the seat of its pants. So it will happen. It’s happened every year since I’ve been here. You delay it further and further every year.”

“It’s about now $5 trillion, and they’re real good at making things mandatory spending,” he added. “About 65% of our budgets — Medicare, Medicaid, other things they declare mandatory. You know what that means? It isn’t subject to budget analysis. It automatically perpetuates. I’m just giving you a few of the ways that this place runs, and literally by the seat of its pants. The American public needs to say enough is enough. He demands a balanced budget amendment.”

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