Americans are on the hook for this crazy amount of debt. Republicans want to return sanity to fiscal talks

The Republican solution to America’s debt ceiling problem is to return power back to where it belongs: with the American people. We seek to fundamentally transform the way Washington works. This isn’t a want, it’s a need. 

The broken status quo in Washington has failed and put American families on the hook for more than $31 trillion in debt. What we are proposing is commonsense reforms and accountability that returns power to American taxpayers and takes it out of Washington.

On the campaign trail every election cycle, we hear the same sentiment from politicians – the spending habits of Congress and the White House are out of control. 

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Unfortunately, once they arrive in Washington, that talk rarely turns into meaningful action. As the debt ceiling approaches, our message is clear: the only way to secure our nation’s financial future is to immediately stop Washington’s reckless spending spree, hold the Biden administration accountable for its gross overreach and rein in out of control bureaucrats.

Last week, House Republicans made clear that this is the way to move forward in addressing the debt ceiling. The proposal released by Speaker McCarthy won’t be popular with the Washington elites that have gotten rich on decades of government waste, but it is being totally embraced by the American people who are fed up with Congress not being accountable to them.

While the Republican solution works to end the tyranny flowing out of Washington by ending the reign of bureaucrats in the executive branch who are currently undermining Congress, President Biden’s proposed budget will add $1.4 trillion in federal spending for things like Green New Deal initiatives a massively expanded federal bureaucracy and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs. This nonsense is funded not only with massive amounts of new debt, but huge tax hikes. Biden’s budget alone outlines significant tax increases that add up to almost $4.8 trillion in new taxes targeted at American businesses – from a $77 billion death tax increase on family farms and other generational businesses to a $37 billion tax hike on American energy producers.

According to a non-partisan study by the Tax Foundation, Biden’s proposed tax increases would devastate workers, families, and businesses by reducing our nation’s economic growth by 1.3 percent, further decrease wages by 1.3 percent, and eliminate more than 335,000 full-time jobs. President Biden’s budget reflects the ongoing trend that President Biden and Democrats in Washington are willing to kill the American economy as we know it to implement their out-of-touch agenda. Democrats know that the American people don’t support their radical agenda, but they will do anything possible to strip power from the people so they can advance it. We say enough.

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The president is unwilling to work with Speaker McCarthy on the debt ceiling in an attempt to protect his liberal pet projects. This is a disservice to the people he is supposed to serve. Worse still, he immediately dismissed the plan because he is unwilling to do his job and work with Speaker McCarthy to chart a better way forward. It’s gross that this president continues to lie and hide from his responsibilities. So let’s talk about what is really in the Republican Plan.

The House Republican plan takes direct aim at President Biden’s executive overreach. The plan will return $90.5 billion in unspent COVID money and repeal the $80 billion Democrats approved for their IRS army and the trillions of dollars in Green New Deal credits that will put Americans out of work by driving innovation and production down with burdensome and costly regulation.

The Republican plan saves taxpayer money by ending the more than $100 billion in wasteful spending, identified by members of the House Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), which offers almost nothing to American taxpayers – like green projects that attack our energy sector or expanding agencies to weaponize them against anyone who disagrees with the leftist agenda.

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Importantly, the House Republican plan follows the lead of the Let’s Get to Work Act and places real work requirements on federal programs that encourage employment. With more Americans working, our economy will benefit and our society will be far more productive.

The Republican plan prohibits President Biden’s unfair student loan giveaways that punish hardworking folks who have paid their loans and those who never had loans in the first place. We cannot allow a transfer of debt from the elite to every hardworking American family. It’s un-American and we won’t let it happen.

To stop the Biden administration from making it even harder than ever for folks to live the American Dream, the Republican plan lifts the bureaucratic stranglehold on American industry by passing the REINS Act, tearing away the Democrat’s regulatory agenda that is suffocating business growth.

The Republican plan also ensures that Congress will do its job and address multiple programs that have expired authorization but are still receiving billions in taxpayer dollars. The Congressional Budget Office found that $461 billion in appropriations were spent on 422 expired programs. 

This is a flagrant example of Congress failing to review and properly reauthorize or terminate programs that fall under our purview. The lack of oversight on government spending over the past four years is what progressed our debt to this point. Change is not easy or comfortable, but cutting spending is the only option to secure our nation’s future.

By comprehensively addressing the needs and wants of the American people, this framework goes further to address the tyranny flowing out of Washington than anything we’ve seen in years. It is a courageous first step toward a better and more prosperous America.

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The truth is that there is a strong, conservative Republican Party all across America that is demanding action to put our nation back on the path to fiscal sanity. It’s essential that we focus on policies that shrink the power and impact that the federal government has on the everyday lives of Americans to allow families and businesses across our nation to thrive. 

The Republican plan moves America in the right direction. It is fiscally responsible, and, best of all, truly reflects how the American people want their government to run.

Republican Matt Rosendale represents Montana’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives.