Fiscal and Economic

Let’s get this straight: the small shopkeeper who’s just lost their entire savings because of the lockdowns will get the same $2,000 grant as the government bureaucrat who’s been enjoying a steady paycheck at home for the past ten months...

Just how long is the road we keep kicking this can down? This is another continuing resolution that extends federal spending until December 11, 2020, in order to get past the election. It’s a good bet we’ll see another one to get past the inauguration. And then to get past summer recess. What’s not a good bet is that this Congress will deal with the horrendous deficit it has created by ignoring its budget responsibilities.

When we passed the Paycheck Protection Program, I warned that serious flaws would deliver a windfall to businesses that do not need it, at the expense of those that do. That is exactly what happened, exhausting the fund within days...

The anguish in people’s voices as they call our office every day is heart-breaking. Many are wondering how they can pay their bills, whether their job will still exist in a week, whether their retirement savings have been decimated or whether they’ll lose the shop they’ve spent their lifetimes and life savings to build.

This bill trades a temporary tax reduction for a permanent tax increase...

These bills guarantee a $1 trillion-plus budget deficit for the current year, which moves our nation much closer to a debt crisis in the near future. Think of it as $8,000 added to an average family’s credit card debt. I have a long list of policy objections to both bills, but my biggest concern is the cumulative damage that trillion-dollar deficits are creating for our nation. These bills would increase our debt trajectory ANOTHER $600 billion above what we’re currently projecting for the next decade. This is simply unsustainable and courts a debt spiral as the capital market begins to question our ability to confront it. The bi-partisan support for this bill is an urgent warning that neither party seems interested in even TRYING to address our looming debt crisis. Even the booming Trump economy can’t compensate for the long-term damage this collapse of fiscal discipline is creating for our country dead ahead and evokes Madame de Pompadour’s concession, “apres nous, le deluge.”

Our country faces two dangers that have proven fatal to other countries: the collapse of our borders and the collapse of our finances. This bill doesn’t solve our border crisis and it makes our fiscal woes worse. It provides only $1.375 billion of the $5.7 billion necessary to complete the border wall at a time when 60,000 foreign nationals are illegally crossing into our country every month. Further, it hamstrings the use of this money with restrictions on the type of wall that can be constructed, confines it geographically, orders massive breaks in coverage and subjects it to local delays. Worse, it places new restrictions on law enforcement in trying to enforce our existing immigration law. Furthermore, the President has statutory authority to re-reprogram more than $13 billion in military construction funds for border wall construction without such restrictions. With or without this bill, he will still need to invoke this authority. While the measure doesn’t solve the border crisis, it irresponsibly increases overall spending at a time when revenues are essentially flat, moving us closer to a trillion-dollar annual deficit which economists warn is risking a debt spiral and ultimately a sovereign debt crisis. Countries that can’t defend their borders or that bankrupt themselves aren’t around very long. This bill fails to defend our borders and brings us closer to catastrophic fiscal insolvency.

This bill funds Interior and related agencies through the end of the fiscal year. Setting aside the current impasse over border security, the bill is ill-advised on its merits. It plusses up almost every request made by the administration, with the notable exception of PILT funding that compensates rural communities that are slammed by excessive federal ownership of land in their jurisdictions. It reduces funds approved by the Republican House last year for hazardous fuels reduction, national park maintenance, and water infrastructure...