Two Republicans voted with Democrats in the Senate yesterday to defeat a bill that would have cut $15 billion from the $1.3 trillion budget request passed in March.

Susan Collins and Richard Burr voted with every Democrat to deny a White House request to rescind less than one half of one percent of the budget.

Daily Caller:

"It is disappointing that the Senate chose to reject this common-sense plan,” White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said in a statement, “and the American people should be asking their representatives in Washington one simple question: If they cannot pass good-government legislation to recapture unnecessary funds, how can we ever expect them to address Washington’s staggering debt and deficit problem?”

The House approved the president’s request on June 6 along party lines, the day after Trump tweeted that clawing back the $15 billion was necessary to curb wasteful spending and get the government “back on track.”

Burr’s office told The Washington Post that the senator was disappointed with the $16 million proposed cuts to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and Collins was concerned about cutting the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by $7 billion as the White House requested. 

“I thought we all campaigned on cutting wasteful spending,” Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee said. “I thought our party was about lowering federal deficits by lowering federal spending. It saddens me to see people who campaigned on lower spending break their promise and vote with Democrats against President Trump.”

Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, vice chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said the rescission package was a distraction from the work the chamber is doing to pass an actual budget as the process is intended.

Never get in the way of a politician when he's wasting your money. They don't want to be "distracted" from coming up with ways to waste more of it.

To believe that every penny of that $1.3 trillion is vital to the continued health and well being of the American people is about as absurd as it gets. Admittedly, Trump's request was ludicrous to begin with. The government will spend $300 billion more over the next 2 years than previously allocated. That represents the largest single increase in federal spending in nearly a decade. The White House request to cut $15 billion of that doesn't pass the laugh test.

The vote in the Senate confirms what many of us have already figured out. The Republican party can no longer even pretend that it's concerned about deficits and the debt. They are as profligate as the Democrats and any attempt to identify as the party of fiscal sanity should be met with laughter by the voters.