A Republican lawmaker revealed what would cause him to stand up to Donald Trump in a razor-thin GOP House majority.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) appeared Wednesday morning on CNN, where he told host Kasie Hunt that the GOP's one-seat House majority gave individual members tremendous leverage within the Republican caucus, and he said he'd be willing to flex that power if the president-elect pushed for what he believes would be reckless spending.
"I'd do it if it's morally correct, if it's something that I really believe in, if it's a, you know, if we continue down this path of economic destruction, spending our great-grandchildren's money," Burchett said. "Yeah, I will and I have, and we'll continue on that path until we regain some sanity. If we could just do like we do in Tennessee [with] single-issue spending bills. You know, it's a great way if you're in power, Democrat or Republican, you drop a 3,000-page spending bill on your desk two hours before [a vote], and all you do is read down, 'Oh, there's page 25, there's all the stuff I need,' or 'There's the lobbyist I need to grease,' or what have you, and then they vote for it, and that's why we're $36 trillion in debt."
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Congress returns this week for the final session of this term with a Dec. 20 deadline to avert a government shutdown, and Burchett said he would consider voting "no" on a continuing resolution that would temporarily fund the government into the first months of Trump's presidency.
"It depends on the situation," he said, "but if we continue on this path, it's inevitable we're going to destroy our economy and shut the government down anyway. You know, right now Americans are paying around $600 to $1,200 more a month just to survive, and the reason is we are doing that is because of our reckless spending. It's deficit spending. Every economist will tell you that is what causes the devaluation of your dollar, and and we just can't continue on this, this path. All we're doing is really just just buying our re-election and both parties are guilty of it."
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