Most lawmakers “aren’t serious about cutting spending,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.
When asked why Congress is hesitating to act on some of the major discoveries made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Massie said, “Most of my colleagues aren’t serious about cutting spending. That’s the problem.”
“How do we get them [serious]?” host Mike Slater asked. … “We hear people say, well, DOGE can’t do anything. They can just make recommendations. But you’re saying, ‘All right, well, let’s just take the recommendations and just put it in reconciliation right now.'”
“Correct,” Massie said, explaining that many of the things that Trump and DOGE are trying to do via executive order are “getting held up by judges.”
“And yeah, I would love to impeach those judges for this. And Mike Lee and I are talking about how you limit their jurisdiction through a law, but impeachment takes 67 votes in the Senate, so that ain’t going to happen. To get any positive change to the judicial system implemented takes 60 votes in the Senate, so that’s probably not going to happen either,” he said. “But there is this bill called reconciliation, which, frankly, is what’s consuming all of Congress right now.”
“We’re naming post offices and doing things that aren’t quite consequential outwardly, but inwardly, behind the scenes, there’s this big debate going on about reconciliation, because this is the one bill that we have that can pass the Senate with 51 votes,” he said, saying it is “probably going to be the most important bill we pass this year.”
Because it is going to have tax cuts and border security in it, it will be difficult for any Republican to vote against it, he explained. But the issue is tha some Republicans — such as himself — want more spending cuts.
“Those of us who are saying, well, you need to cut spending in this bill also. If you’re going to cut taxes, you got to cut spending too. Well, the problem –they’re hoping to roll those of us who want to cut spending, just, ‘Yeah, be quiet. Stay in the back. We’ll cut a little bit of spending, but because it’s got the wall in it, because it’s got tax cuts, we know the public pressure on you is going to be so great, you’re gonna have to vote for it. So just be quiet and quit asking for spending cuts,'” he said, explaining the problem.
“That’s kind of where we are right now in the House behind the scenes,” he said, noting that he and others who want to cut spending will become the bad guys in the narrative, despite the fact that they want to slash government even more.
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Breitbart · Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) – February 12, 2025When asked what kind of cuts he wants, Massie said, “Some of the stuff that DOGE wants to ferret out is just common sense and, you know, like the USAID waste and whatnot, but that’s not going to balance the budget.”
“We’ve got to make some big cuts to balance the budget. … I don’t want to mislead you. This is not going to be easy, and they don’t really call them spending cuts. Even what they’re doing, they’re saying that these changes, like, let’s say work requirements for able-bodied, single individuals who receive government assistance — that’s common sense. It’s not really a cut to say that we’re going to have work requirements, but it will end up saving tens, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars if you just put work requirements in there, because fewer people are going to apply for it,” Massie explained before noting another line of attack against himself and others who want to cut spending.
“Some of that will be the wall, and every ad that will ever be run in Chip Roy’s district or mine, if we don’t vote for reconciliation, is ‘They voted against Trump’s wall,’ and when, in reality, this is one of those giant bills that’s got border security, it’s got a renewal of the tax cuts, and it’s got some spending cuts, but the spending cuts are like a band aid on a huge wound, you know, bleeding out,” he said.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
