John Walsh

With this fiscal 2015 omnibus appropriations bill, Congress is failing to address its fiscally and constitutionally irresponsible budgeting and appropriating process that is currently yielding annual federal deficits measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars that contribute directly to the dramatic growth of our already $18 trillion national debt.

Senator Cruz raised a constitutional point of order that the bill violates the Constitution's separation of powers because the bill would fund President Obama's executive action on amnesty.

The federal government has no constitutional authorization to determine the value of employees' labor in the private sector, whether in the absolute sense or relative to other wages. Wages instead should be determined by the market.

This proposed constitutional amendment would effectively repeal the free speech provision of the First Amendment, since restricting the amount of money that may be spent on political speech would restrict political speech.

most of the $3.6 billion requested by President Obama would be used to expand his amnesty program of deferred action for childhood arrivals, an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress' power to "to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization."

Transfers local transportation infrastructure projects to the states.

Would force employers to pay for contraceptives (including abortifacients) even when they object on religious grounds.

There is no constitutional authorization for federal workforce-training programs. This is not to say that workforce training is a bad thing, but such programs are best handled by the private sector, which would surely provide more and better jobs if the federal government were to siphon less money out of the economy for programs to improve the economy.

Fischer's record indicates that he is supportive of central bank inflationary policies that create economic havoc. Moreover, the Federal Reserve, America's central bank that creates money out of thin air, is unconstitutional.

Opposing the nomination of such a high-ranking establishment operative to be point person for implementing the unconstitutional ObamaCare law should be a no-brainer for Constitution-supporting senators.

Any debate on the Senate floor that could prevent a federal minimum wage increase is a good thing. A federal minimum wage is unconstitutional, since nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government authorized to dictate how much private businesses pay their employees for services performed as part of a private, voluntary contract. Furthermore, many studies have demonstrated that minimum wage increases always lead to more unemployment among the poor and unskilled workers, the very people whom the wage increase is ostensibly intended to help.

By paying people unemployment benefits, the federal government is essentially subsidizing unemployment. That the federal government does this in the first place is bad enough, but any extension of said benefits is even worse. At a time when government debt is nearly $17 trillion, paying unemployment benefits is fiscally irresponsible. Furthermore, the U.S. Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to provide unemployment benefits to workers. This type of welfare should be handled on the state or local level, if handled by the government at all.

Provides $150 million for direct aid to Ukraine.

Childcare funding is an unconstitutional activity of the federal government.

The federal government should live within its means, suspending the debt limit is even worse than raising it, and most of the spending responsible for the ballooning national debt is unconstitutional.