Bill Lee: “the budget deal before the Senate today is not just a horrible piece of legislation that is undeserving of this…”

“the budget deal before the Senate today is not just a horrible piece of legislation that is undeserving of this Chamber's support, it also represents the last gasping breath of a disgraced bipartisan beltway establishment on the verge of collapse. The bill is the product of an unfair, dysfunctional, and fundamentally undemocratic process--a process that is virtually indistinguishable from what we promised the American people a GOP- controlled Congress would bring to an end. We made that promise precisely because negotiating legislation behind closed doors without input from the majority of Members and then rushing it through to final passage without debate or opportunity for amendments violates our party's core principles. It also inevitably leads to bad policy. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 is a case in point. This bill would suspend the debt limit for 17 months and increase government spending beyond its already unsustainable levels. It would do so while failing to make reforms that would put us on a path toward fiscal sustainability. Many proponents of this budget deal challenge this claim. They say: Well, the bill isn't perfect, but while it isn't perfect it does include some meaningful entitlement reforms. The sales pitch we hear most often alleges that this budget deal will save the Social Security disability trust fund from insolvency, but we are never told exactly how this bill would do this. That is because, as always, the devil is in the details.…”