























Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that the more Republican senators learn about the aims of the money, the more amenable they’ll be to including it in the broader package. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., told Semafor he is generally supportive of the ballroom and increasing White House security funding, but said he wants to learn more about what the money will be used for. Senators “won’t allow this to go forward unless they have answers to those questions,” Young added.
“I actually think a ballroom is probably needed. That’s probably the most defensible place in America for a large ballroom to be built,” Young said. “But in terms of the amount of money that will go into the ballroom, it’s fair to debate that.”
But Paul, who chairs one of the committees working on the legislation, said his “preference is no more taxpayer money” for the ballroom. Instead, he supports authorizing the project and letting Trump use private money for the project. “The president asked to be allowed to use private money. I think we should stick with what he asked for,” Paul said.
“There have been three or four attempts on the president’s life. And that’s extremely serious and we’re in a heightened era of political violence. But the ballroom itself should be paid for with private donations as the president indicated,” said Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine. She indicated she needs an explanation about whether the $1 billion would actually fund construction of the ballroom.
Paul’s committee will be the only Senate panel that votes on the larger package. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, postponed his panel’s vote scheduled for Tuesday because it’s “easier” to use Paul’s Homeland Security Committee to advance the package, he said. The White House security money technically falls under Grassley’s committee.
Republicans can afford to lose up to three votes on the party-line bill. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, opposed the budget resolution setting up the immigration funding bill in April along with Paul, who wouldn’t say how he planned to vote on the underlying bill if the security funding was included.
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理,仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。