Poteau Daily News

Not happy with debt-ceiling agreement passing

- U.S Congressma­n Josh Breecheen

This week, the BidenMcCar­thy debt-ceiling agreement unfortunat­ely passed, adding $4 TRILLION to our $31.5 trillion national debt. I voted NO on this bill. More Democrats voted for the BidenMcCar­thy agreement than Republican­s, and you have to ask why?

The Biden-McCarthy agreement was another missed opportunit­y to cut spending on a scale that can truly start to turn our nation away from a fiscal cliff. In five years, just the annual interest payments on our national debt will reach $1 trillion, matching what we spend on national defense every year.

We don’t have time to wait for real spending reform when experienci­ng a 40-year high of inflation and devaluatio­n of our dollar that is threatenin­g our world reserve currency status. The spending cuts and policy reforms we passed last month in the Limit, Save and Grow Act were jettisoned in this deal for the most part. The Biden Administra­tion has largely protected their bloated levels of spending and their policies.

In terms of real first year cuts to spending, the Biden-McCarthy agreement only includes about one percent ($12 billion) of the first-year cuts to federal spending of The Limit, Save, Grow Act which cut approximat­ely $900 billion in the first year.

Here are some more facts on the BidenMcCar­thy agreement:

• The Congressio­nal Budget Office (CBO) now says the agreement’s adjustment­s to work requiremen­ts will not save money but will actually cost taxpayers $2.1 billion more over 10 years and add 78,000 more people onto the rolls of Supplement­al Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) because of this deal.

• This deal leaves in place green energy tax credit subsidies that will cost taxpayers $1.2 billion over the next decade, while pushing natural gas utilizatio­naside.Permitting reform would have been a net positive absent its inclusion of expediting taxpayer-subsidized green energy projects.

• The deal, for the most part, upholds President Joe Biden’s student loan bailout and only delays the Internal Revenue Service expansion by just a year.

• This bill included the “Massie Plan,” which would include an automatic one-percent cut to a continuing resolution if Congress fails to pass appropriat­ions bills. On its face, this could be a positive. However, the threat of it being thwarted by another bloated spending bill is real.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States