Thune: Omnibus Was ‘to Clear the Slate’ for House GOP Majority

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Bottom Line,” Senate Minority Whip Sen. John Thune (R-SD) defended voting for the omnibus spending bill by stating that “we tried to clear the slate, clear the deck so to speak for the House Republicans, because they’re going to be dealing with the next budget year.” And also argued that continuing resolutions are bad for national security.

Co-host Dagen McDowell asked, “Sen., why did you vote though, for that omnibus spending bill? Because, again, that took the power out of the hands of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to really negotiate a spending package moving into the new year. And certainly, Sen. Richard Shelby (R) walked back to Alabama with $660 million in pork.”

Thune responded, “I think any of those spending bills end up that way. That’s why the process is broken and needs to be fixed, Dagen. It’s a process that literally lends itself to that. And it’s true when you do appropriation bills individually, but it’s even more so when you pile them up and try and do them at end of the year. I think we tried to clear the slate, clear the deck so to speak for the House Republicans, because they’re going to be dealing with the next budget year. And we also know as a matter of experience that, when it comes to national security, a continuing resolution is a really bad idea. For a lot of us, that was a national security vote. We did get defense funded, at a 10% increase over the previous year, [with] what we’re facing in the world today in terms of threats, that was really important to a lot of Senate Republicans. And his request, Biden’s request on the non-defense side was 14%. He got 5.5, granted, more than he should have. But any deal was going to be struck in a divided government with Democrats and Republicans. But I think it comes down, really, for a lot of Republicans who voted for it, it was a national security vote.”

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