My fellow Americans, do you think that we should keep Pelosi-Biden-Schumer spending together with the same policies that have given us inflation, wide open borders, energy dependency, woke military, and woke education, all while paying for Ukraine’s war machine, government, and pensions?
Continuing the current spending levels and policies is called a “Continuing Resolution” (CR). Every time a CR is used to bypass the required budget process, the profligacy of Congress is displayed with a spending spree that makes a drunken sailor look responsible. Our spending deficit persists and increases, while our national debt grows to tottering heights.
But, that’s the plan of some of my colleagues in Congress. Instead of pushing to pass individual spending bills that might give us a chance to break the cycle of deficit spending and exploding national debt, they advocate the same economic death spiral that Congress—both parties—have given us for many years.
And, where does that leave us? Within a few years our interest expense will be more than our military spending.
Think about the proposal we are facing: spending at levels that exceed our federal revenue by almost $2 trillion—not including our interest charges; spending tens of billions more for Ukraine—without an exit strategy; spending billions more to accelerate the processing of the millions of illegal aliens crossing our southern border; and, billions to replenish our emergency fund.
Right now, there are thousands of illegal aliens crossing into America every day, bringing fentanyl and other deadly drugs. Human smuggling and sex trafficking is being aided and abetted by the Biden logistic team. And, our colleagues will provide billions to them. For what purpose? To stem the flow, to disincentivize the pipeline of people coming illegally into the U.S.?
No, those dollars will go to make sure illegal border crossers get into the country faster and to provide additional benefits for them. Yikes. That will incentivize even more illegal migration. It’s ludicrous.
A number of Republicans have been fighting to get Congress to follow the Budget Control Act of 1974. Congress is required to pass 12 spending bills every year by September 30, the end of the fiscal year.
While I am sure the House Appropriations worked hard, we still have two of the 12 bills that haven’t even been voted out of committee.
What?!
Even before the August congressional recess we knew that we were headed to another CR. We have tried to get our colleagues to follow our law and fulfill our budget responsibility.
But, while there have been some token verbal compliments for the idea of doing 12 single subject spending bills as we are required, most of our colleagues are rationalizing a CR.
We are traveling along a suboptimal path that leads to massive deficits and generational robbing national debt. If we won’t change our path, we will collapse soon.
As painful as the short-term solution may seem, a brief lapse in appropriations (many departments and agencies have money to continue, and the majority of federal programs continue), we will emerge on a better trajectory that will bend our way toward more responsible spending and slow the growth of the national debt.
My colleagues and I commit to continue pushing for the change necessary to save this nation.
U.S. Congressman Andy Biggs represents Arizona’s Fifth Congressional District and serves on the House Judiciary and Oversight & Accountability committees.