KERNEN: “For more on the spending bill, let’s bring in Senator Chris Coons, he’s a member of the Appropriations Committee. Senator, it’s good to have you on. You’ve seen all the — and happy holidays, merry Christmas — you’ve seen all the — I don’t know, the commentary from different sides that this has actually become kind of a ritual where you wait until you know people want to get to go home and you really put a lot of stuff in at the last minute, whether it’s earmarks or whatever. 1.6 trillion. You had, what, 4 trillion over the last two years and 31 trillion now we owe? Is this all okay, senator? Do you ever look at it and say, ‘We’ve overdone it?’”
COONS: “Well, Joe, I voted for the omnibus and I’m proud to support it, but I don’t like the process. A bipartisan group of senators on the floor of the Senate were talking about how we can change this process going forward because frankly, as you said, when it comes to the floor the last few days and the last few hours, that doesn’t give us enough time to fully scrub and understand what other members have put in it. I understand that I am responsible, and so is my colleagues, the congressional delegation for the congressionally directed spending for Delaware, but I don’t know exactly what every other member of the Senate has put in the bill. So, frankly, it’s important for us to change the timing to get back to following what’s in the law in terms of having open hearings early in the year, not late in the year. One of the things about these earmarks or congressionally directed spending, the current process requires every single one of them to be transparent, to be assigned to a specific member, we have to sign off on them. And as you just heard in the introduction there, we have to have them supported by a municipal government or a nonprofit. They cannot in any way benefit a donor. Those were some of the excesses from 20 years ago that led to earmarks being eliminated. I think there are some really good investments in this omnibus bill, which is why I voted for it: a significant increase in local law enforcement, the funding to bring advanced manufacturing of semiconductor chips back to the United States, infrastructure funding that will help modernize our economy and create high-paying, good jobs, and a significant increase in pay for the men and women of our armed forces. So, there were a lot of positives in this bill, and I voted for it and I’m hopeful that the House will pass it today as well.”
KERNEN: “Nothing is perfect, I understand that.”
[Emphasis mine. If Coons doesn’t like the process, why is he willing to vote for its product — especially without reading it? — Ed]
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