Marco Rubio Urges Senate to Delay Massive Omnibus Spending Bill

Sen. Marco Rubio criticized the massive spending bill drafted in the House of Representatives and blamed the political establishment for putting a bill together at the last minute and for trying to pass it before leaving Washington D.C. for the year.

“Look, this is a massive piece of legislation, over a trillion dollars in spending, it was just announced and everyone now has 48 hours to make a decision of what to do about it,” he said in an interview on Fox News today. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill on Friday.

Hours after Rubio’s comments, however, the Senate approved a unanimous consent to fast track the bill – ensuring that any senator would be unable to stall the bill.

Rubio criticized the bill for including funding for Obama’s Syrian refugee program as well as “a bunch of really bad stuff.” He indicated that he had already learned enough about the bill to oppose it, and signaled a willingness to slow the process down.

“I know enough to say we’re going to oppose it and I know enough to say that we should use every procedural aspect that we have to slow it down and perhaps force some changes on these things that we’ve been discussing,” he said, referring to the funding for resettling Syrian refugees in America.

Rubio revealed that conservatives in the House and Senate are trying to find ways slow the bill down so that Americans would have more time to react to the proposal that was led by Speaker Paul Ryan and House Democrats together with the Obama administration.

“I think if we can add some days to it, the way Sen. Sessions is talking about and maybe some others, that process of slowing it down allows more Americans to wake up to the reality of what’s in the bill and perhaps as a result demand that their elected representatives do something to make those changes on things like the Syrian refugees we’re talking about now,” he added.

He admitted, however, that it might be difficult to block the bill entirely since it was possible that Senators in both parties would be willing to vote for it.