House Republican Slams His Own Leadership For Bypassing 72 Hour Rule to Quickly Ram Through Trump Tax Bill
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Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) tore into his own party on Wednesday over GOP House leadership moving to bypass the rule to give members of Congress 72 hours to read any piece of legislation before a vote. Massie was referring to the ongoing negotiations on President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” – a sweeping tax and spending bill.
“Major provisions of the big beautiful bill are still being negotiated and written, yet we are being told we will vote on it today,” Massie wrote on X, adding:
Shouldn’t we take more than a few hours to read a bill this big and this consequential?
A social media user replied to Massie, asking, “Wasn’t that a promise, too? that y’all would get 48 hours to read new bills before voting??” He responded, “Yes, it’s in our rules that we will have 72 hrs to read every bill. Yet it’s been circumvented this week by a “manager’s amendment” which substantially changes the bill but should only contain technical clarifications. And a rule called “same-day rule” has been also suspended.”
Massie has raised Trump’s ire with his refusal to support the current bill’s levels of spending.
“I don’t think Thomas Massie understands government. I think he’s a grandstander, frankly. He’ll probably vote. We don’t even talk to him much. I think he should be voted out of office,” Trump said of Massie earlier in the week, adding:
And I just don’t he understands government, if you ask him a couple of questions, he never gives you an answer. He just says, ‘I’m a no.’ He thinks he’s going to get publicity. And you have that. You have that, they’ve got some, too. Go ahead.
Massie, who has long been known for voting against most legislation, made his opposition to Trump’s bill clear on X.
“The Big Beautiful Bill will add $20 trillion of federal debt over 10 years, and that’s according to the authors of it. But there’s another huge problem: it will increase the price of the $36 trillion of debt we already have, as bond buyers realize we aren’t fiscally responsible,” Massie wrote while sharing a news report about Moody’s cutting the country’s credit rating.
Massie later added, “Monday, on news of the BBB, 30-year US treasuries rose to 5% and 10-year US treasuries rose to 4.52%. That’s the price WE pay to finance the national debt when old notes mature. We’re approaching $1.5 trillion of annual interest payments… over $4,000 per US citizen per year.”
“Perspective: the part of the Big Beautiful Bill that renews the TCJA tax cuts will benefit each family on average by $1600, but the policies changed or left in place by the BBB will be obligate [sic] each family of 4 to $16,000 of interest payments on behalf of the federal government,” concluded the Kentucky Republican.
