A Step in the Right Direction

Our country is barreling down the tracks in the wrong direction. Record spending by the Biden Administration over the last two years has fueled record inflation, rising prices at the gas pump, grocery store, and just about everywhere else. American families who were already struggling to get by are now barely treading water.

Sky-high interest rates, the unresolved supply chain crisis, and the nonstop flood of regulations coming out of Washington have put the American dream far out of reach for most families. It’s next to impossible to buy a new car these days unless you want to place an order and wait a year. Building or buying a home is almost unthinkable for many as regulations and supply chain constraints have sent construction costs skyrocketing. Don’t even get me started on interest rates.

The bottom line is this, we’re heading in the wrong direction and we’re running out of time to right the ship.

The House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act, temporarily lifting the debt ceiling while enacting the largest spending cuts in American history, enacting critical permitting reform, and clawing back wasteful spending. All told, it will cut the deficit by $2.1 trillion over the next 6 years, while continuing to provide for our national defense, and protecting Social Security and Medicare—all without raising taxes.

It’s an important first step in the right direction. Washington hasn’t cut spending for over a decade—this bill does that. The President has never been ordered to offset the costs of burdensome regulations before—this bill does that. Congress almost never claws back funding that’s already been appropriated. This bill claws back more than $28 billion in unspent COVID-19 funding.

It also implements critical permitting reforms that I’ve been pushing for years. These reforms will help ensure infrastructure and development projects get done faster, costing fewer taxpayer dollars. These spending cuts, clawbacks, and permitting reform are all going to help put the American dream a little more within reach for families.

Despite what you might have heard, this bill isn’t a spending bill—that happens in the appropriations process. Instead, this bill caps what Congress and the President can spend.

While those caps are a good starting point, we still have a lot of work left to do. There’s still plenty of wasteful spending that needs to be cut to truly get this inflation crisis under control. There’s still plenty of work that needs to be done to solve the supply chain crisis. And there’s still plenty we can do to help bring the American dream back within reach.

Sincerely,

Sam Graves