Are Americans Free From Huge Spending Bills?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns 1,500-page spending bills. The U.S. House of Representatives was set to vote on one such bill, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was forced to pull the bill. Rob Bluey at The Daily Signal reported that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were behind getting the bill pulled. 

Elon Musk isn’t messing around, and he just got a massive scalp to prove it. The billionaire owner of X started his day by posting a photo of the 1,500-page spending bill in Congress with this question: “Ever seen a bigger piece of pork?”

Scores of Musk posts and reposts followed Wednesday, sending members of Congress scrambling to quickly declare their opposition as calls and emails began flooding the Capitol.

By the afternoon, President-elect Donald Trump declared his opposition. And within hours, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pulled the bill he had unveiled just a day earlier.

“Elon just became the most powerful person in Washington, D.C., today,” social media influencer Wall Street May told The Daily Signal. “He proved he can flip enough votes in Congress to half a spending bill.”

That’s no easy feat given Congress’ annual ritual of busting the budget.

Congressional leaders, who were hoping to pass the so-called continuing resolution by Friday, turned out to be no match for Musk and the legion of other popular X accounts who railed against pork-barrel spending.

Musk’s relentless focus on the bill Wednesday was particularly salient given his role with Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, whose mission is to reduce waste and cut $2 trillion in spending.

Those goals would be harder to accomplish with a bloated spending bill that adds billions in new spending.

The continuing resolution, which would fund the government until March, was supposed to be lawmakers’ final vote before heading home for Christmas. Instead of a “clean” bill, however, Democrat and Republican negotiators loaded it with a hodge-podge of unrelated policy and additional spending, including a pay raise for members of Congress. [Emphasis added.]

Ramaswamy saw what was in the bill and made a video. Musk then shared the video with his followers. Ramaswamy said, “Congress is about to pass a bill that blows away your taxpayer money, but they made it over 1,500 pages long so you wouldn’t read it…. And the worst part is, they didn’t want you to know about any of it. That’s why they made this a last-minute jam job.”

Ramaswamy and Musk ask their followers on social media to contact Congress. Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) told Fox News’ Chad Pergram that lawmakers received the message.

The phone was ringing off the hook today. And you know why? Because they were reading the tweets, the X from Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, and they were telling me that they were, that they were listening to them. This shows the influence that President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy have in this process before they’re even in office.

Musk and Ramaswamy are already wielding great power, and the Trump administration is not officially in office yet. Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, recognized why Musk and Ramaswamy were opposing the bill.

Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk recognize that if they are empowered to somehow reduce government spending and reduce our deficit because, as Elon Musk says, deficit equals inflation, that’s the bottom line…. When we do deficit spending, we are printing money. We are causing inflation.

Musk put it succinctly: “Unless @ DOGE ends the careers of deceitful, pork-barrel politicians, the waste and corruption will never stop.” He has $277 million reason to help Trump be successful, and he threatened to spend more of his own money against any Republican that votes for the omnibus bill to get them out of office in two years.

Musk and Ramaswamy were not the only people who opposed the spending bill. Vice President-elect JD Vance put the following message on X: 

A statement from President Donald J. Trump and Vice President-Elect JD Vance: The most foolish and inept thing ever done by Congressional Republicans was allowing our country to hit the debt ceiling in 2025. It was a mistake and is now something that must be addressed. Meanwhile, Congress is considering a spending bill that would give sweetheart provisions for government censors and for Liz Cheney. The bill would make it easier to hide the records of the corrupt January 6 committee – which accomplished nothing for the American people and hid security failures that happened that day. This bill would also give Congress a pay increase while many Americans are struggling this Christmas. Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch. If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now, what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration?

Let’s have this debate now. And we should pass a streamlined spending bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want. Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling. Anything else is a betrayal of our country. Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CAL THEIR BLUFF. It is Schumer and Biden who are holding up aid to our farmers and disaster relief. THIS CHAOS WOULD NOT BE HAPPENING IF WE HAD A REAL PRESIDENT. WE WILL IN 32 DAYS!