WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said this regarding his vote on the Senate’s COVID omnibus package:

“The dysfunction of Washington, D.C. was on full display as Congress combined covid relief with a massive omnibus spending bill three months past the deadline and into the current fiscal year. This monstrosity was 5,593 pages long, and passed only nine hours after the Senate first saw it. It will be weeks, maybe months, before we begin to understand all that has been included. I simply could not support this dysfunction, so I voted no.

“While I am glad a government shutdown was avoided and that financial relief will finally reach many who truly need it, the fact that this dysfunction has become routine is the reason we are currently $27.5 trillion in debt. This combined spending bill will drive our debt to over $29 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. I supported the CARES Act because we had to act quickly and massively to prevent an economic meltdown and to provide needed financial relief.  I also helped craft and voted for a bill in September that would have provided more than $600 billion in targeted relief, but Democrats simply voted no.

“We do not have an unlimited checking account. We must spend federal dollars — money we are borrowing from future generations — more carefully and place limits on how much we are mortgaging our children’s future.”  

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