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WASHINGTON- Today, in an attempt to shield themselves from the criticisms of their recent massive spending bills, House Democrats forced legislation to set up their versions of a 'pay-as-you-go' budgeting system for the US Government.
On the surface, as budget deficit reached $1 trillion earlier this year, this effort seems to be just the thing needed to create fiscal restraint in Washington; however, it is riddled with so many loopholes, any legislation, from health care reform to a second 'stimulus bill' can be deemed exempt from this provision in an effort to ram it through Congress. After passage, Congressman Henry E. Brown, Jr. (R-SC) made the following statement:
“My Republican colleagues and I have been calling for the President and the Democrats in Congress to show fiscal restraint, but the legislation passed today has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility and is, in fact, little more than a ploy to distract Americans from the fact that deficit spending is off the charts.
The stipulations in this legislation allow spending to continue to grow by excluding all discretionary spending, which makes up 40 percent of the federal budget, from pay-go requirements.
According to CBO, the Democrat’s 'PAYGO' bill, because of these exemptions, would fail to generate enough cuts in spending to make up for the costs of the recent massive spending and could actually result in even higher deficits: “…if the system envisioned in H.R. 2920 was used in place of the current Congressional rules or a more stringent statutory PAYGO system, the legislation’s enactment could lead to larger future deficits.” – CBO analysis, 7/14/09
I was proud to support yet another sensible Republican alternative, one that would have actually addressed the already outrageous amount of spending by implementing real caps on discretionary spending for the next five years, established new limits on all spending, including mandatory and discretionary spending, and set a cap on annual deficits. These are solutions that helped bring our deficit under control in the past, and they should be part of any deficit reduction solution.
Unfortunately, Republican solutions were ignored yet again, and another Democrat backed bill was forced through Congress with little or no chance of becoming law.”
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