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Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz accused Democrats of pushing the appropriations bill and “lying” to Americans amid lengthy voting sessions on the party’s social spending and tax bill.
In an exclusive interview with Sunday Mornings Futures, Cruz claimed the bill would “kill manufacturing jobs,” “hit small businesses,” and “push up gas prices.”
On Saturday night, the Senate launched what is commonly known as a “llama vote” on the Democratic social spending and tax bill. This was more than 11 hours after the rare weekend session.
The voting lama is the final step before the final passage of the Senate’s budget adjustment process. Democrats are using that process to bypass the 60-vote filibuster threshold to pass legislation in line with their party line.
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Marathon sessions include voting on dozens of amendments to bills proposed primarily by Republicans.
Cruz told host Maria Bartiromo that when she joined the show, the senators had been up all night and were still voting.
“The Democrats are pushing for a really horrible bill,” he warned.
The first Republican amendment included provisions on energy, climate, the IRS, and more. Democrats seem ready to vote down those Republican amendments, even if they endorse them, in order to prevent Republicans from poisoning the bill.
Social spending bills currently include over $400 billion in spending and over $700 billion in taxes.
The Lama vote capped more than a year of settlement talks by Democrats that sought to advance President Biden’s “build better” bill worth more than $3 trillion last year. A new version of the bill called the “Inflation Reduction Act” has since been significantly scaled back.
A Texas senator argued that the bill “imposed billions of dollars in new taxes on US oil and gas production.”
“Now that we have introduced an amendment to try to get rid of these new taxes, all Democrats are worried and saying they want to lower gas prices. I just voted,” he told Bartiromo.
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Texas senators also said Democrats, including Senators Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Maggie Hassan (DN.H.), wanted to lower gas prices for Americans. He accused him of “lying”. Put a gas tax on producers and make consumers pay more. “
“That’s the end result they want, and their voting record proves it,” he claimed.
Cruz also noted that the bill would double the size of the IRS.
“These IRS agents are designed to track you,” Cruz argued. It is designed to target small businesses and working families.”
“Democrats make the IRS bigger than the Pentagon, the State Department, the FBI and the Border Patrol combined,” he continued. “This is a massive power grab.”
Senators then accused Democrats of voting against the “common sense amendment.”
“Introduced an amendment not to create 87,000 new IRS agents. All Democrats voted against it,” he said.
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“I just submitted an amendment that says Joe Biden and the federal government cannot sell oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve to the Chinese communists. All but four Democrats voted. No.”
“They are determined to break through this terrible bill,” he stressed.
Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.