Joni Ernst Discusses Her No Vote on the Omnibus Bill

(Des Moines, IA) U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) discussed her no vote on the 2018 Omnibus bill that passed in the U.S. Senate last Friday and was signed by President Donald Trump.

Caffeinated Thoughts, during a press gaggle held at the end of her tour of the Bridgestone Tire Plant in Des Moines, asked her view of the Senate filibuster and whether it should be eliminated for appropriations bills. Congressman David Young (R-Iowa) earlier this week said the U.S. Senate should do away with the filibuster during an interview on The Caffeinated Thoughts Podcast.

She responded:

I think our appropriations process has been broken for a very long time. For forty-four years, forty-four years, we have been doing continuing resolutions and omnibus bills. This should not happen in the United States Congress. So, 2200 pages plus for an omnibus bill? But I had less than 24 hours to read. I haven’t read the entire bill yet, we are a week after the vote. So I did vote no. It’s the wrong way to do business.

But, there is, as I see, light at the end of the tunnel. In the budget that was passed earlier this year, there was language included that was signed into law that establishes a joint select committee for reforming the budget appropriations process. So it is four Republicans, four Democrats, from the House and the Senate. I am one of the four Republicans from the Senate assigned to that joint select committee. I am very passionate about making sure that we get our budget process under control, and that we do start doing appropriations bills the way we should.

Ernst during the entire time talking with the press discussed President Trump’s recent firing of Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, her tour of Bridgestone and some of the concerns they have, as well as, a town hall in Sioux City on Wednesday where guns was the dominant topic. Watch the entire press gaggle below: