U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) recently slammed congressional efforts to give U.S. lawmakers a raise as the government scrambles to reach an agreement on a continuing resolution to continue funding the government and avoid a shutdown.
On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted against continuing resolution (CR) to temporarily fund the government. Lawmakers have until Saturday morning to pass legislation funding the government to avoid a partial shutdown. Every Republican member from Alabama supported the continuing resolution, which was opposed by U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham).
The Trump-backed CR failed even though it lacked several provisions in the original that gave Trump and surrogate Elon Musk pause. One of which was a $100 million pay raise for Congress.
SEE: Trump-backed CR fails in House, supported by Alabama Republican members
The Trump-approved version did not include the pay raise. However, ongoing negotiations and a final budget could mean the raise eventually goes through.
This week, Tuberville, who has consistently opposed the CR, also bashed the idea of a congressional raise, saying the American people "surely have not" received $100 million worth of value from Congress.
"I think that if you were looking at our approval rating, it's about 12% to 15%, that's embarrassing," Tuberville said. "We don't do a whole lot for the American people. All we do is spend money. We don't we don't answer questions. We don't give people a better life."
"There's more regulations every day. You know we've got all this climate hoax that they're trying to push on American people, which is nothing but a tax, folks. That's all it is; It's a tax," he added. "So there's a lot of things that we can do other than working on a raise for the people up here in Congress. The problem I have with that is it should be incentivized. If we do what's right for the American people, if we cut back on the budget, if we save the American people as taxpayers their money, if we don't have to pay $3 billion a day in interest, we'd be doing her job then. But right now, we're just adding onto it. People want to continue to make careers out of politics; I don't know why because it is something that we're not looked up to very well right now. Kids want to be firemen, and they want to be astronauts, and they want to be coaches or whatever. You don't hear very many of them say they want to be a politician. It just goes to show you know the thoughts about Congress right now. But no, we should not be voting anybody a raise."
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