Tennessee Senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn voted against a $1.5 trillion spending bill that passed late Thursday. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann was in support.
Senator Hagerty said, “The process of drafting and negotiating this government funding package highlights everything that’s wrong with Washington. This work should have been completed last summer in a careful and transparent manner. Instead, it was negotiated in secret and released in the middle of the night, with no meaningful opportunity for review,
“Under the Democrats’ leadership, inflation has reached a 40-year high and gas is more expensive than it was in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis.
With one vote, the left was trying to smuggle through more wasteful spending. What’s worse, they tried to hold hostage critical military resources in their bid to get it passed. Tennesseans are tired of radicals in Washington wasting our hard-earned tax dollars, which is why I voted against this reckless spending bill.”
Senator Blackburn said, "This 2,700-page bill funds virtually the entire federal government in one fell swoop. This is legislative malpractice. Americans are facing three major challenges right now: soaring inflation, record-high gas prices, and a wide-open southern border. Yet, this bill unnecessarily increases social spending by billions of dollars, fails to take the steps necessary to reclaim American energy independence, and falls woefully short of providing the necessary resources to combat record-breaking illegal immigration.”