Mike Lee to Congress: Do you even liberty, bro?

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah (A, 100%) went on an awesome, 12-minute Facebook Live rant Friday morning to condemn the process behind the omnibus spending bill Congress passed earlier this week.

Wednesday, Republicans in Congress caved to President Obama and the Democrats and voted 72-26 to pass the budget continuing resolution, funding the government with every demand for more spending the Democrats pushed for.

As The Daily Signal’s Philip Wegmann reports, Sen. Lee blasted congressional leadership for negotiating the continuing resolution in secret without input from individual members.

“We have two people running the show, two people writing this continuing resolution, two people negotiating in private — in secret, if you will — what the bill is going to be,” Lee said, referring to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 42%), and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. (F, 2%).

Lee lamented that the regular order of bringing 12 individual, smaller appropriations bills before the Senate floor for debate has been lost. “At the end, the democratic process is thwarted — thwarted quite dramatically as a result of this,” he said.

Sen. Lee was one of only 14 Republicans to vote against the continuing resolution. Such a “No” vote is difficult, Lee explains, because elected representatives are presented with a “binary choice” of either voting for spending they disagree with or shutting down the government.

“We’re told unless we vote to fund everything in government, even programs that we find morally reprehensible, even programs that we find constitutional, even programs that we find excessive or inadequate or in gross need of supervision from the legislative branch, we’re told you can’t vote to fund anything.”

“This process is bad, it’s wrong,” an impassioned Lee declared. “It is fundamentally performing a great disservice to the American people.”

The senator from Utah warned that this harmful process will continue until the American people hold their elected representatives accountable at the ballot box. He pleaded for voters to send more people to Congress who will fight this sort of last-minute, secret spending agreements, who will stand up to leadership.

“It will continue unless or until such time as we have more members willing to say, ‘No. Heck, no. I’m not voting for this on my watch, not ever. If you give me this sort of process I will vote no because my constituents demand more, they expect more, and they deserve better.’”

“It is time, my fellow Americans, to expect more,” Lee said. “It’s time to expect freedom.”