McConnell blasts $3.5T budget deal

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters Wednesday that the Senate Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget deal is “wildly out of proportion to what the country needs now,” at a time he says inflation is “raging.”

McConnell’s comments were reported via Twitter by a reporter for Bloomberg and confirmed by his office.

His statement is the latest sign that the Democrats’ plan to move much of President Biden’s infrastructure agenda under the budget reconciliation process, which will allow them to bypass a filibuster, will encounter stiff Republican opposition.

McConnell told an audience in Kentucky last week that Republicans would wage a “hell of a fight” against the reconciliation package.

The GOP leader has also made rising inflation a top talking point.

“Just this morning we learned that runaway inflation is continuing to hit working American families and hit them hard. Consumer prices spiked in June considerably more than had been forecast. Inflation is up 5.4 percent year-on-year, the fastest jump in about 13 years. Stunningly, it’s up 0.9 percent just month over month,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

“What Democrats say they want to force through this summer through reconciliation would make our current inflationary mess look like small potatoes,” he warned.