They added $20 billion to the president’s budget, stuffed roughly $17 billion in additional spending into the bill to fund our troops in harm’s way and are adding billions in extra spending to appropriations bills. And to pay for it all they approved a massive $392.5 billion tax increase on middle-class families and small businesses.
We shouldn’t be surprised. Every single House Democrat opposed last year’s Deficit Reduction Act last year, which produced $40 billion in entitlement savings for taxpayers. That effort was led by the president’s nominee for Director of the Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Jim Nussle, who at the time served as chairman of the House Budget Committee. Given Nussle’s record as a budget hawk, it’s easy to see why some tax-and-spend Democrats don’t want him at the helm of OMB.
There is no question that Republicans’ track record on fiscal discipline could have been better during parts of our 12-year majority. We learned our lesson. The complete lack of restraint by majority Democrats now draws a bright line between the two parties on spending taxpayer dollars: Republicans are committed to fiscal discipline. Democrats, clearly, are not.
House Republicans have pledged to sustain the president’s veto of any bills that contain excessive spending. We presented a balanced budget plan without raising taxes while proposing serious entitlement reform. We forced the majority to abandon their slush funds for secret earmarks and adopt GOP reforms making the budget process more transparent and accountable. And we saved taxpayers more than $1 billion by stopping a Democratic scheme to halt private collection of unpaid taxes.
Republicans want to work with Democrats to solve the looming entitlement crisis, but asking taxpayers to pick up the tab for nine costly new entitlement programs is irresponsible. It’s time for Democrats to take a hard look at America’s existing budget problems — and join Republicans in making the necessary reforms.
Originally appeared in Investors Business Daily