#shorts On 12/20/2022, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was joined by Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in a press conference to oppose the $1.7 trillion, 4,000+ page omnibus spending bill and argue in favor of additional amendments. Sen. Johnson offered an amendment to eliminate all earmarks, totaling $9.8 billion in spending, from the omnibus bill.

“But the fact that nobody talks about the numbers, I mean, in total, the macro numbers. I thought it was interesting last week, because I was asking my colleagues and quite honestly a number of you reporters, just the simple question – do you know how much we spent last year? And the blank stares I got from most people. I’m still asking that question. I think people are getting a little educated, so now they’re starting to answer it but the answer is 6.3 trillion dollars last year. To compare that to before the pandemic, in 2019, we spent 4.4 trillion. This, the discretionary side, less than 70% of what we spend, is gonna be 1.65 trillion dollars, which is 23% more than the 1.3 trillion dollars we spent in 2019. Again, that is a massive increase.”

other clips of this published longer video is here: https://youtu.be/vS8Lc22bfWc
Massive omnibus spending increase: last year $6.3T vs $4.4T in 2019; 23% more than $1.3T than 2019