Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Communications Director Douglas Heye said Thursday on Fox News that Congress’ failure to pass a revised spending bill is due to their botched “working appropriations process.”
House Republicans’ attempt to push through a revised spending bill failed Thursday evening, with a final tally of 235 to 174, as dozens of GOP members voted against the newly revised measure. On “Special Report with Bret Baier,” Heye recalled his time in Congress, saying that House Republicans are in a “bad situation” as they have been unable to reach an agreement on the new measure.
“Brett, I remember 12 years ago tomorrow, I was in a meeting in HC5 of the Capitol. Congressman Gowdy was there as well. When House Republicans, including leadership staff like myself, failed to get an agreement on what we called Plan B on the Bush tax cut expiration. That meeting started with John Boehner reading the serenity prayer. When you’re doing that, you’re not in a good situation,” Heye said.
“Clearly, this is where House Republicans are right now because they’re in charge of the House. But ultimately, this isn’t about Elon Musk or Donald Trump or House Republicans or Senate Democrats. This is about Congress and the failure that Congress has had this year and in past Congresses as well to have, it’s not very sexy, but a working appropriations process,” Heye added.
Heye went on to state that the initial 1,574-page continuing resolution (CR) was filled with provisions that were quickly criticized after its release Tuesday, including many that could potentially waste hundreds of billions of dollars.
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“When we’re not passing our appropriations bills, Congress is not doing what it needs to do to avoid these situations. It means the good things in this bill don’t get passed into law as well,” Heye said. “What was in the initial CR was about $190 million for pediatric cancer research. It’s the Gabriella Miller 2.0 Act. Congressman Gowdy voted for that bill in 2014. That’s been removed.”
“These are the kinds of things that are non-controversial that Congress should do, but they should do it because they’re doing their job. That’s the failure here,” Heye said.
Since Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson introduced the bill Tuesday, the proposal has faced significant pushback over concerns about how the government is utilizing taxpayer dollars. Prior to the final vote, Johnson told the press that he believed lawmakers were “continuing to do the right thing,”and said they were committed to “cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending out of the federal budget.”
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