(Reuters) - U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, expected to chair the Senate Budget Committee next year, on Wednesday called on his fellow Republicans to press for a short-term spending extension that would give them leverage over President Barack Obama's immigration actions.
Sessions, who is from Alabama, told reporters Republicans should seek to deny funds needed to implementation any "unlawful amnesty" for undocumented immigrants ordered by Obama.
He said he and a number of conservative lawmakers prefer a short-term government funding extension into early next year, when a Republican majority takes over in the Senate.
They favor that option over a $1 trillion spending bill shaped partly by Democrats that would fund government agencies through Sept. 30. A short-term extension "would be smart for a whole lot of reasons," he said.
"Senator Reid shouldn't be entitled to bind the country next year when we've got a new Congress," he said, referring to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. Passing a spending extension is a priority for Congress in its post-election "lame duck" session.
Obama has vowed to take executive action to ease some restrictions on undocumented immigrants if Congress did not pass immigration reform legislation by year-end. Sessions said a Republican Congress next year could act to deny funding for the implementation of any such executive order.
"The president wants to create a massive system to provide millions of people, apparently, with lawful status, lawful ID cards, take law enforcement officers from their duties to enforce the law and have them process this legal status, which Congress has explicitly rejected," Sessions said.
"And if Congress disapproves of the president providing ID cards and all that for people who’ve been in the country illegally, they should not appropriate the money to fund it."
He said that as budget committee chairman, he would propose a Senate Republican budget that would "call for constraint in spending and reducing of deficits."
He said developing a spending plan would be up to the authorizing committees and the Finance Committee. Sessions said he admired outgoing House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's past proposals for reforming the Medicare health care program for the elderly but added that his ideas would need to be re-evaluated.
reuters.com
Sessions, who is from Alabama, told reporters Republicans should seek to deny funds needed to implementation any "unlawful amnesty" for undocumented immigrants ordered by Obama.
He said he and a number of conservative lawmakers prefer a short-term government funding extension into early next year, when a Republican majority takes over in the Senate.
They favor that option over a $1 trillion spending bill shaped partly by Democrats that would fund government agencies through Sept. 30. A short-term extension "would be smart for a whole lot of reasons," he said.
"Senator Reid shouldn't be entitled to bind the country next year when we've got a new Congress," he said, referring to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. Passing a spending extension is a priority for Congress in its post-election "lame duck" session.
Obama has vowed to take executive action to ease some restrictions on undocumented immigrants if Congress did not pass immigration reform legislation by year-end. Sessions said a Republican Congress next year could act to deny funding for the implementation of any such executive order.
"The president wants to create a massive system to provide millions of people, apparently, with lawful status, lawful ID cards, take law enforcement officers from their duties to enforce the law and have them process this legal status, which Congress has explicitly rejected," Sessions said.
"And if Congress disapproves of the president providing ID cards and all that for people who’ve been in the country illegally, they should not appropriate the money to fund it."
He said that as budget committee chairman, he would propose a Senate Republican budget that would "call for constraint in spending and reducing of deficits."
He said developing a spending plan would be up to the authorizing committees and the Finance Committee. Sessions said he admired outgoing House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's past proposals for reforming the Medicare health care program for the elderly but added that his ideas would need to be re-evaluated.
reuters.com
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