Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested that his Republican colleagues take a page out of the Texas Democrats’ playbook and stage a walkout if their Senate counterparts try to jam their $3.5 trillion budget package through without GOP support.
Graham (R-SC) said the massive spending plan is designed by Democrats to pass the chamber without one Republican vote using the parliamentary procedure of reconciliation, which will allow them to dodge the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
“The reconciliation package is not infrastructure. It’s big government, a liberal wish list, paid family leave, all kinds of new social programs unrelated to infrastructure,” Graham said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“But before Republicans beat up on the Democrats in Texas for leaving Texas too much. If for some reason they pass reconciliation, a budget resolution to bring that bill to the floor of the United States Senate, the $3.5 trillion bill, you got to have a quorum to pass a bill in the Senate,” he continued.
“I would leave before I would let that happen. So, to my Republican colleagues, we may learn something from our Democratic friends in Texas when it comes to avoiding a $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend package: Leave town,” said Graham, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.
Graham also took a shot at Vice President Kamala Harris who lauded the Texas Democrats who fled the state to fly to Washington, DC, to block a Republican-led voting reform bill as “courageous” and compared them to civil rights heroes.
“Hey, Vice President Harris, if you think these people are heroes, well, then I expect you to show up and pat us on the back,” Graham said.
He vowed to use “everything in my toolbox to prevent rampant inflation” and blasted the Democratic budget plan as “a tax-and-spend dream of the socialist left.”
“If it takes me not showing up to stop that, I will do it, because, if we pass that bill, you’re going to have inflation through the roof,” Graham said.
“And if they put legalizing illegal immigrants in that bill, you’re going to have a complete run on the border. It would be throwing jet fuel on a fire called illegal immigration. It would lead to an invasion of illegal immigrants if we put amnesty in the $3.5 trillion bill,” Graham said.
“So I’d do anything I could to stop that,” he continued.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he has scheduled votes on the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation and the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan on Wednesday.