The US Congress passed the roughly $1.7 trillion omnibus government funding package, which provides a significant amount of domestic and defense spending, and President Joe Biden recently signed it into law in late December.

The piece of legislation introduced by House Democrats cleared the last hurdle from the Senate with bipartisan support. A large expense of the package includes $858 billion in funds for the military, along with $729 billion going to domestic programs. US Senator Chuck Grassley voted against the spending package. He says this legislation has excessive spending. 

“So my principle, on the spending, is whatever we spent to get us through the pandemic, we shouldn’t have to spend that money anymore. We’re back to normal. And there’s a lot of money in that bill that continues some of those things. There’s a lot of money that we appropriated that still hasn’t been spent, and if that money isn’t going to be spent, why can’t we transfer that to spending on a (southern) border?”

Grassley says the American people are struggling with rising prices and economic uncertainty largely due to federal policies but the government continues to spend hard-earned tax dollars with little to no oversight. The Senate passed HR2617 Consolidated Appropriations Act by a vote of 68 to 29.