Fiscal Responsibility

We have a debt ceiling for a reason. It is one of the federal government’s best pathways to address our nation’s very serious debt and deficit crisis. Our fiscal predicament demands we enact appropriate reforms to strengthen and grow our economy, cut wasteful spending, and reject massive tax increases.

This week, after the White House spent months refusing to come to the negotiating table, risking default by insisting the only way forward was to raise the debt ceiling with no strings attached, the House passed the largest spending reductions in U.S. history. This bill, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, is projected to reduce the federal deficit by $2.1 trillion over the next six years, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This is a significant step toward fiscal sanity.

I am encouraged this bill protects Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ benefits while enacting immediate spending cuts and caps on future spending. Furthermore, this bill would rescind nearly $1.4 billion from the IRS, a provision originating from a bill I introduced with Rep. Michelle Steel to prevent IRS from auditing families and small businesses. We must continue to address Washington’s spending problem, but this bill is a great start and sets House Republicans up to do more through the budget and appropriations process.

Further, while the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the legal challenge to President Biden’s unconstitutional student debt cancellation scheme in Biden v. Nebraska, the Fiscal Responsibility Act wouldput an end to student loan forbearance after August 30 – regardless of the outcome of the court case. This student loan forbearance began in March 2020 alongside the initial COVID-19 shutdowns to ensure temporarily unemployed workers didn’t default on their loans. The Biden administration’s continuation of this policy through today, when our economy is fully open with 9.6 million unfilled job openings is inexcusable.

In order to ensure work-capable Americans connect with the millions of available, good jobs, the Fiscal Responsibility Act will also modernize Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work requirements to direct funds to those who most need them and increase accountability for states abusing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) loopholes. This will help get Americans off the sidelines of our economy and back into the workforce while preserving these programs for those who truly need them. It also claws back $29 billion in unspent COVID relief funds, preventing states from sitting on huge slush funds to be utilized for their pet projects, and implements important reforms to speed up critical infrastructure projects while Congress works on more comprehensive permitting reforms. These are all pillars of our Commitment to America agenda, and I’m glad these wins were included in this bill.

We must put our country on a more sustainable fiscal path. Our debt and spending crisis cannot and should not be punted to future generations, which is why I voted in favor of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. This bill includes spending reductions, implements reforms to government assistance programs, claws back unspent COVID relief funds, and makes significant progress toward our goals of cutting red tape and getting Americans back into the workforce.

No bill is perfect, but the wins in this bill are significant – especially considering President Biden initially refused to consider anything except a so-called “clean” debt ceiling increase, which he did not get. More work needs to be done – one bill didn’t get us into this mess and one bill won’t get us out – but the Fiscal Responsibility Act is a strong step in the right direction.

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