Fine print belies promises
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December 18, 2013 |
By Congressman Raul Labrador
Last week, I voted against a budget plan to
raise taxes and increase government spending by
$63 billion over the next two years.
The budget plan – which passed the House and is
awaiting action in the Senate – was sold to the
American people as cutting the deficit by $23
billion over the next 10 years. But if you look
at the fine print, what it does is make promises
of future spending cuts in exchange for actual
spending increases today.
Those spending increases gut the hard-won
spending cuts Republicans fought for during the
debt ceiling battle of 2011, otherwise known as
the “sequester.” The “sequester” – which ended
up generating bipartisan support, and was signed
into law by President Obama – forced necessary
and long-overdue cuts in discretionary spending.
And while it wasn’t perfect, it was a big step
forward in the fight to get our $17 trillion
debt under control.
The “sequester,” however, was never going to be
the final answer. After all, the biggest drivers
of our debt aren’t discretionary programs, but
entitlement programs, like Medicare and Social
Security.
That’s why Republicans made a promise to the
American people that we would use the sequester
to fight for real entitlement reform.
Last week, I advocated for keeping that promise.
I told my colleagues – both Republican and
Democrat – that we had a historic opportunity to
find common ground in order to save Medicare and
Social Security.
But they decided to go in a different direction.
They decided to kick the can down the road while
making empty promises to the American people.
To me, that didn’t make any sense.
I continue to believe that cutting spending and
reducing the debt are vital components to
bolstering our economy and preserving the
American Dream. Since Republicans took control
of the House in 2011 – and made fiscal
responsibility one of our top priorities –
government spending has shrunk by the largest
amount in decades and the deficit has been cut
in half.
Meanwhile, the economy has grown at a faster
rate and the unemployment rate has fallen. This
is in sharp contrast to the doomsayers who
claimed that cutting spending would weaken our
economy. In truth, the opposite has happened.
The deal that passed the House this week was a
bad one, plain and simple.
We could have done better, and we should have
done better. But the fight for fiscal sanity
will continue. And I pledge to keep being a
leader in that fight. |
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