A Missed Opportunity for Reform

Tired of massive budget deficits, record debt, the expanding role of the federal government, and regulatory overreach, the American people elected a Republican majority in the House of Representatives in 2010. This majority has allowed us stop many bad ideas. However, the U.S. Senate and the White House continue to block House-passed legislation to put America on a better path.

In 2011, Republicans rightfully rejected President Obama’s call to increase the debt limit without any spending cuts or reforms. We insisted any increase be paired with an equal amount of spending cuts. This hard fought negotiation resulted in the Budget Control Act, which cut spending immediately, capped future spending, and included no tax increases.

While far from the solution to our debt crisis, the Budget Control Act changed the debate from how much to spend, to how much to cut. It sought to force negotiations on future spending by requiring lawmakers to reach an agreement on budget cuts and reforms or be faced with automatic across-the-board cuts known as sequestration.

Congress was not able to agree to a long-term deficit reduction plan by the deadline established by the Budget Control Act and sequestration went into effect last year. Everyone agrees there are better ways to cut spending, but sequestration did what it was intended to do – reduce the deficit, and force a conversation about budget priorities and needed reforms.

Unfortunately, I believe we took a step backwards with the budget agreement passed in December and the appropriations bill passed this week. These bills increased spending to ease the short-term pain of sequestration, with promises of greater reforms and cuts in the future.

I appreciate the hard work of leaders on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate to find common ground and consensus. Divided government requires negotiation and compromise. However, the spending levels included in the Budget Control Act were passed on a bipartisan basis and signed by President Obama – and therefore should not have been renegotiated.

This agreement itself further demonstrates why it is so hard to actually cut spending. It is easy to promise spending cuts and then delay those cuts before they go into effect.

Moving forward, we need to have a real debate about the future of entitlement programs. Without reforms popular programs such as Medicare and Social Security will not only be unavailable to future generations, they will bankrupt our country. In fact, without reform the Disability Insurance portion of Social Security, a program directly funded by workers’ payroll taxes, will be exhausted and unable to pay full benefits as early as 2016.

We also can reduce the deficit by encouraging economic growth and private sector job-creation by repealing the President’s health care law, passing comprehensive tax reform, negotiating new trade agreements, promoting American energy generation from all sources, and removing burdensome and unnecessary regulations.