Congressional supporters of President Biden’s request to provide $60 billion–part of President Joe Biden’s $106 billion request, that also including money for weapons to Israel and Taiwan, and for border security, as well as to keep the war in Ukraine going—have changed their strategy. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted 67 to 32 to limit debate on a bill that has been pared down to $95 billion by removing the border security provisions in an apparent end-run around Republican opposition in the House. Donald Trump’s intervention against the Senate package last week was based mainly on opposition to its border security provisions.
With the procedural hurdle now cleared, one might think that the bill is headed for easy passage, but Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is doing everything possible to slow the process down. Paul called the bill “rotten,” and told reporters he wouldn’t agree to speed up the timeline for voting until “hell freezes over,” reported The Hill. “I’ll object to anything speeding up this rotten foreign spending bill’s passage,” he declared on the social media platform X. “It’s a terrible idea to put forward and pass a bill that tries to secure other countries’ borders before we secure our own. We need to address our problems here at home in a REAL way.”
