Senate Republican Leader calls for consideration of alternatives, safeguards, transparency and an opportunity for the American taxpayers to review what would be the largest spending bill in American history; ‘Americans are left with more questions than answers about this unprecedented government spending,’ McConnell says



LOUISVILLE – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Monday regarding a proposed Trillion-Dollar Spending Bill planned for early January:



“As Congress and the incoming administration address the critical issue of strengthening the economy, I believe it is imperative that we do so in a bipartisan manner, but also that we do so in a way that proves to the taxpayers, who are footing this bill, that Washington is not wasting their money. We should have a simple test: will the yet-unwritten, reportedly trillion-dollar spending bill really create jobs and grow the economy—or will it simply create more government spending, more bureaucrats and deeper deficits?



“We all want to continue working together to strengthen the economy; this Congress has taken bipartisan steps all year. But we need to find the right mix of tax relief and other measures to grow the economy. This will require the consideration of alternative ideas, public Congressional hearings and transparency—not a rushed, partisan take-it-or-leave-it approach.



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-The largest spending bill in history requires tough scrutiny; Americans should have at least a week to review the bill before its consideration by Congress-

“A trillion-dollar spending bill would be the largest spending bill in the history of our country at a time when our national debt is already the largest in history. As a result, it will require tough scrutiny and oversight—taxpayers, already stretched to the limit, deserve nothing less.



“The American people should have at least a week to review what will likely be the largest Washington spending bill of all time. When you’re going to spend a trillion dollars and add hundreds of thousands of new government employees to the federal payroll—as the President-elect’s economic advisor claimed over the weekend—surely the taxpayers should be able to review what it is they are paying for.



-Spending $1 trillion requires safeguards, hearings to protect taxpayers, prevent fraud-

“Surely the Democrat leadership in Congress doesn’t plan to spend a trillion dollars of taxpayer money—nearly $10,000 in new debt for everyone who pays federal income tax, charged to the credit card for our children to pay—without safeguards, without appropriate hearings to scrutinize how tax dollars are being spent. And surely they will allow members of Congress and the American people to follow President-elect Obama’s admonition to ‘go through the federal budget—page by page, line by line—eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.’



“Without proper oversight and safeguards, a trillion-dollar spending bill invites fraud and waste on a massive scale. We must take great care to ensure that fraud and other misuse of taxpayers’ funds don’t result from such a large spending bill.



-Speed vs. oversight; it’s not ‘free money’-

“I understand the Democrat leadership would like to move this as-yet unwritten, trillion-dollar spending bill in less than two weeks (between January 6th and 20th). But it has not yet been explained how the trillion-dollar spending bill can receive adequate oversight and review in such a short period of time. Taxpayers are in no mood to have a single dollar wasted, but it’s not yet been explained how their tax dollars will be protected and not wasted in a rush to spend their money. The American people need to know if their money is going to be spent on Mob museums and water slides. The taxpayers know, even if some politicians don’t, that it’s not ‘free money,’ as one funding requestor recently put it.



-What is stimulus, what is just more spending?-

“We must also make distinctions between what is ‘stimulus’—defined by Speaker Pelosi earlier this year as ‘timely, targeted and temporary’—and what is merely more government spending on favored projects we don't need with money we don't have.



-More questions than answers-

“But as of right now, Americans are left with more questions than answers about this unprecedented government spending and I believe the taxpayers deserve to know a lot more about where it will be spent before we consider passing it.”





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