Departing Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker lambasted the Senate’s budget proposal as “a hoax” that has “no impact on anything whatsoever” ahead of a vote on the bill that is a critical step towards the GOP’s tax reform push.
“The only thing about this that matters is preparation for the tax reform,” Corker said Thursday, The Hill reports. “Other than that, these amendment votes, everything about this is a hoax. A hoax. It has no impact on anything whatsoever.”
Since he won’t be seeking re-election in 2018, Corker has been more open with his criticisms, mainly focusing his comments on President Donald Trump. Republicans frequently criticize the congressional budget process for not working as it is intended, but Corker took the criticism a step further.
“If I were chairman of the budget committee, I would dismantle it. I would move to end it immediately in its current form,” Corker said.
Corker’s comments reflect years of conservative criticisms of the budget, which appropriate trillions for domestic and defense programs, but don’t touch the so-called mandatory welfare spending programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment benefits. The Heritage Foundation projects that mandatory spending accounted for 64 percent of all government spending by 2020.
“Unless we create a real budget process, which this is not, our country’s fiscal situation will continue to go down the tube, and we have no mechanism to control real spending, 70 percent of which is mandatory, that’s not even covered by this,” Corker said.
The budget bill is several months late, as the 2018 fiscal year began Oct. 1. Congress passed a continuing resolution in September, and will vote on the more complete budget Thursday afternoon.
Corker will, however, vote for the bill only to move toward the goal of reforming the tax code.
“Yeah, I’m voting ‘yes’ on this meaningless piece of legislation that does one thing,” Corker said.
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