Ingraham: Time for Republicans ‘to Stand on Principle Without Fear of a Government Shutdown’

Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” host Laura Ingraham took on the reluctance from congressional Republicans to use their power of the purse strings to take action on traditional conservative issues like stopping illegal immigration and abortion.

Partial transcript as follows:

INGRAHAM: Washington’s real March Madness, the focus of tonight’s ANGLE.

All right, when most of you here terms such as omnibus spending bill, no doubt your eyes glaze over, I get it, but this is what you need to know, it is a legislative scan because it involves packaging a lot of the federal government’s smaller spending bills into one gargantuan bill.

Then the whole thing can be passed with only a single vote in both the House and the Senate. So long gone are the days of the so-called regular order when appropriations were done the sensible way. Department by department, a lot more transparent that way with each bill being considered separately.

Under that scenario, Congress and the voters who elected them have more opportunities to either strip out the waste and fund only essential priorities. It makes sense, right? For years, we have heard leaders in both parties pledged to return to regular order, yet nothing ever happens.

And it is backed to these mind-numbing continuing resolutions, omnibus nightmares, and shutdown threats, and the result is usually a last-minute budget-busting cramdown. Sure enough, as spring kicks off, here they go again, and it’s really ugly.

Democrats are still in the minority. They are blaming the GOP’s poison pill provision for delaying any omnibus bipartisan deal, and, mind you, what Democrats call a poison pill, most Republicans call essential for law and order.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: They insist on poison pills and the rest. Hopefully, they will get serious, and we can get this done before it is the 23rd of March.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This budget had to be finished. They wanted to add 160, 170 poison pill amendments, none of which would ever survive a vote on their own on the floor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Democrats and Republicans have worked together to reject many of the poison bill pill riders from President Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Meanwhile, conservatives are in revolt, because they are free of all the old sequestration cap and big shocker, it increases spending.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This idea that all the bills come together in one big, what we call an omnibus — ominous might be a better word.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are looking at a trillion plus dollar deficit perhaps as early as this October when the numbers come out. You know that is under a Republican administration. We need to do better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have gotten this bad habit of thinking money here is free. It falls from the heavens and money is free. It is not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I love that. This means Republicans will need, of course, Democratic votes to pass my pass the measure in both chambers and this means more add-ons, more giveaways, more junk. It is a total mess. Do you remember what Trump promised? He promised to cut spending, to defund boondoggles, and, yes, to drain the swamp.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will immediately terminate President Obama’s two illegal executive amnesties and when he defied federal law and the Constitution.

The Trump administration will cancel all federal funding for sanctuary cities. We will end illegal immigration, keep the drugs from pouring into our communities. We are not going to allow them to are not going to fund as long as we have the abortion going on at Planned Parenthood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: But as of tonight, it looks like the stuff that should be funded by the Republican majority won’t be touched at all. Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, Obama’s executive amnesties, and this is my favorite, almost a billion dollars for a tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey.

It is a disguised earmark for Chuck Schumer. Nice going, Chuck and two of the most liberal states in America benefit. And that is the short list. It passes for a law. This Freddy Krueger-like omnibus bill will include over a trillion dollars in spending, $1.3 trillion.

And it will pass with scant debate or scrutiny. My friends, this is just sheer madness. It is time to stand on principle without fear of a government shutdown. It is time to educate the public about how both parties god off-board.

Yes, you have to compromise if necessary, but with full transparency, and, if possible, not on the core issues. You are the majority, after all. Start really helping President Trump drain the swamp. Don’t add to it. You’ll do the country good, and you just might surprise all experts in November. And that the ANGLE.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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