Graham Vows To 'Tie Senate In Knots' Over $50K Left Out Of Budget Deal

[meegbear]

A Republican U.S. senator says he'll shut down the Senate because the budget deal in which Republicans demanded and got billions of dollars in spending cuts wipes out $50,000 -- that's right $50K -- for his home state.

Not all Republicans were celebrating Monday about the fine print of the $38.5 billion in cuts House Republicans managed to wrangle in last week's 11th-hour budget showdown. Tea Party loyalists who wanted tens of billions more cut from this year's spending were shaking their heads, and at least one senator was lamenting a budget omission he said would hit his state's economy hard.

In fact, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was down right incensed over the decision not to include a mere $50,000 for an Army Corps of Engineers study on deepening the Port of Charleston in his home state and vowed to "tie the Senate in knots" by holding up Obama administration nominations.

Graham started a string of angry tweets about the omission early Monday. By the end of the day, he had held a press conference on the issue in Charleston, S.C., and was blaming the Obama administration for failing to include the funding in its budget proposal released in February, arguing that 260,000 jobs are tied to the port.

"Obama Admin made a bad mistake not putting money for CHS port in their budget proposal," he wrote.

"No nominations go forward in Senate until we address CHS port," he tweeted, noting that the provision was not an earmark and applied to a dozen ports across the U.S.

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