The United States economy is reeling from rapid inflation that has been brought on by endless printing of money.
Politicians don’t seem to understand that the more that they spend without funding their plans, the worse off we will be.
But these GOP lawmakers are standing up against $16 billion in pork barrel spending as Congress debates a massive spending bill.
Earmark spending hits a staggering $16 billion in latest omnibus spending plan
It’s that time of the year – Congressional budget season – and things are really starting to heat up.
Earmarks were previously banned back in 2011 but last year Democrats brought it back.
Now they’re back in record numbers.
Earmarks in the 2023 spending bill total more than $16 billion dollars.
According to Romina Boccia of the Cato Institute, “if Congress extended all spending in the Continuing Resolution…the US would spend $1.707 trillion in discretionary spending,” she added that after mandatory spending “the federal government is projected to spend nearly $6 trillion this year.”
Some lawmakers aren’t taking the reckless spending any longer.
Several GOP Senators hold a press conference admonishing the reckless spending package
Senator Ron Johnson alongside Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Rick Scott hosted a press conference where they denounced the new omnibus spending package.
Johnson led the presser with a chart showing some basic numbers.
He compared running the government to running a business stating, “We are literally the board of directors of the largest financial entity in the world and we have to talk numbers.”
He showed the reporters the budget of mandatory and discretionary spending to be at $4.4 trillion dollars before the pandemic.
He said though he and his colleagues understand there was a pandemic, “over the course of the past three years we’ve been above by nearly $2 trillion each year.”
Johnson is concerned about the “temporary COVID relief spending” being considered “discretionary.”
Instead, much of the additional money that was scheduled for COVID spending was placed in the mandatory budget.
If the budget was at 2019 baseline then we would have a fully-funded bill
Comparing the budget for 2023 to 2019, he noted a $1.6 trillion dollar increase or 36 percent over 2019.
He says, “if that’s the case we will never balance the budget.”
Johnson says if you grow the $4.4 trillion “by a factor of population growth plus inflation, that number should be about $4.8 trillion.”
He then compared that to the $4.9 trillion generated by the federal government in 2021.
He said “if we exhibited some financial discipline here, that we could actually have in sight a balanced budget.”
He further explained that this would help with the pain of inflation and would bring Americans back to a better place.
Johnson says “we’re mortgaging our kids’ future” and this “has got to stop.”
Lawmakers need to realize that most Americans would absolutely agree with this statement.
The federal government needs to rein in wasteful spending before it’s too late.
US Political Daily will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
