Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who led the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) last year, hasn’t been enamored of the new Republican Speaker either. Gaetz and some other hard-right MAGA Republicans have been highly critical of Johnson — not surprising given that Gaetz predicted in November that Johnson could very well face a “similar fate” as McCarthy, though he did compliment Johnson, calling him “not swampy.”
But the “swamp” is back in Gaetz’s vocabulary and the Florida Congressman is hurling the MAGA diss at anyone involved in the $1.2 trillion spending bill — the minibus Gaetz calls #SwampOmnibus — that needs to pass this week to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Johnson is getting heat for neglecting a rule that requires a 72-hour period to read legislation, and Gaetz and fellow MAGA adherents like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are calling out the post-midnight release of a 1,000-plus page spending bill for its timing and its content.
The minibus was released at 2:32 am and is 1,012 pages of $1.2 trillion taxpayer dollars.
And we are supposed to be voting on it tomorrow morning under suspension with no amendments allowed with the super scary government shutdown deadline threat looming tomorrow at midnight.… pic.twitter.com/e6ehBiznRw
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) March 21, 2024
Greene rightly asserts that it’s impossible to get through the material responsibly — if one has that intent — but Gaetz appears to have a shortcut, using the search function and presumably entering the words “gender”, “LGBTQ” and “gay” to quickly identify what he considers to be objectionable programs that get support in the bill.
Having found some culprits, Gaetz tweeted about LGBTQ-supporting programs in New Jersey and Wisconsin that would receive “half a million in taxpayer dollars” each of the $1.2 trillion allocated. Gaetz says the New Jersey group “assists in finding gender mutilation surgeries for minors and harasses schools that prevent biological men from using women’s bathrooms, participating in women’s sports, and more.”
The #SwampOmnibus is full of insane earmarks that should be REJECTED.
For example, New Jersey Senators are asking for nearly HALF A MILLION in taxpayer dollars to fund a state organization that force-feeds the LGBT agenda in schools.
This group assists in finding gender… pic.twitter.com/tVMyDjECjx
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) March 21, 2024
The Congressman calls the funding “sickening.” In addition, Gaetz singled out $155,000 in funding that would go to an immigrant advocacy group in Connecticut, saying that the organization was undeserving of the money because its executive director didn’t appreciate President Biden’s use of the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe an allegedly murderous undocumented migrant.
Connecticut Senators want $155,000 in taxpayer dollars to go toward an organization called “Make The Road CT.”
Their Executive Director recently criticized Joe Biden for rightfully calling Laken Riley’s murderer an “illegal.”
No taxpayer dollars should go towards an… pic.twitter.com/DYZB5W3jzf
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) March 21, 2024
The organization, Make The Road Connecticut, says its mission is “to support immigrants to be active in their communities and to lift themselves out of poverty through legal and support services, civic engagement, transformative education and policy innovation.”