Rep. Pat Fallon rips $1.7T omnibus, vows House GOP will stop bloated spending bills

Rep. Pat Fallon, Texas Republican, slammed the newly passed $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, vowing that House Republicans will put a stop to such last-minute funding packages when they take over the House next month.

“The adults in the room will finally be in the majority in the House of Representatives,” Mr. Fallon said Monday on Fox News. “We only guarantee certain things when you control one of the three levers of government. One of the things that we can guarantee are these trillion-dollar spending bills outside the regular budgetary process will end.”

His pledge came a day after he blasted the package as “an absolute piece of garbage” and a “gross dereliction of duty” on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

The House voted 225-201 Friday to approve the fiscal 2023 budget deal, preventing a government shutdown through September, with all but nine House Republicans voting against the package.

Eighteen Senate Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also voted for the bill, much to the chagrin of some conservatives.

“It’s going to do unfortunately more harm than good,” Mr. Fallon said. “What we have here is the lame-duck Democrats at the very last minute shoving a 4,155-page bill right down our throats. It includes $787 billion of non-emergency discretionary spending.”

He ticked off what he called the “worst provisions,” including $12 billion in additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service; $299 million in added revenue for the National Labor Relations Board; $3 million for “bee-friendly highways,” and $3 million for the New York Historical Society for its American LGBTQ+ Museum Partnership Project.

“This is going to add as you just mentioned also $2.65 trillion to our debt over the next 10 years, which is about $20,000 per family,” Mr. Fallon told Fox host Julie Banderas.

He called it “ironic” that the bill includes an additional $12 billion for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP] welfare benefits “because of inflation.”

“So the very spending that caused inflation, they’re continuing in kind of a vicious cycle which will never end,” he said.

Republicans won control of the House in the November midterm election, albeit by a narrow 222-213 margin.