Fiscal Responsibility
Over the years, Democrats have shown our commitment to restoring fiscal responsibility by taking actions that have reduced our national deficit while investing in the American people’s priorities. During the 117th Congress, House Democrats delivered the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, which will reduce the deficit by over $300 billion while lowering health care and energy costs and taking action on climate change. In sharp contrast, Republicans jammed their 2017 Trump Tax Scam through Congress without a single hearing, gifting trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax handouts to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations while leaving our nation with ballooning deficits. They have repeatedly held our economy hostage to benefit their irresponsible ideological agenda, whether creating artificial “fiscal cliffs,” shutting down the government, or bringing our nation to the brink of defaulting on its obligations. With other landmark legislation delivered during the 117th Congress, including the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act, Democrats have worked to invest in economic recovery, job creation, all while cutting the deficit in half last year. Democrats are committed to continuing our work to restore sound, long-term fiscal management so future generations can afford to invest in opportunities, secure the American Dream, and ensure workers have the tools to Make It In America.
“Thank you, Madam Speaker. First I want to of course associate myself with the remarks from [Rep. David] Dreier and [Rep. David] Price, who have done such terrific work in the spread of democracy, but also to lament the tragic loss of life and the courage displayed by our men and women in our foreign service and who are deployed abroad to represent the United States, its democracy and its principles.
“Hopefully [a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff] will come together before the end of the year. I've been working on that. Others have been working on that. Contrary to what I heard Mr. Cantor say, the President of the United States in the 32 years I've been in Congress, has spent more time working with Republicans and frankly with Democrats in the White House around his conference table to try to get to an agreement. The Republicans walked away from the Bowles-Simpson plan. They walked away from the [Vice President] Joe Biden talks. Mr. Cantor himself walked away from those. And they walked away from the [Speaker John] Boehner- [President Barack] Obama agreement. So I'm hopeful that we will come to agreement. I think Moody's is correct - if we don't, we will undermine confidence and undermine credibility of the United States. We need to come to agreement. We need to sit down together and reason together and adopt a balanced plan. That's the trick.”
Recently, House Republicans have spent time playing the blame game and attempting to distance themselves from the devastating effects of the upcoming sequestration, designed to force Congress to enact a long-term plan to restore our nation’s fiscal health. But a look at the not-so-distant past shows that sequestration was approved with 174 Republican votes and House Republican leaders were praising the process just a year ago, even claiming credit for the majority of the deal:
As the Republican budget once again takes center stage, we here in the Democratic Whip Press Shop wanted to make sure you saw the latest round of criticism for their misguided plan that would raise costs for seniors while protecting tax breaks for the wealthy.
But don’t just take our word for it.
“Mr. Speaker, when the sponsors of the bill talk about auditing the Federal Reserve, they don't mean a traditional audit.
A look at the morning news isn’t flattering for House Republicans. Not only did their “confrontation over compromise” approach to raising the debt limit take our nation to the brink of default and result in our nation’s first credit downgrade, but it also cost American taxpayers $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2011 alone:
Lately up here on Capitol Hill, the GOP has engaged in quite a bit of revisionist history on the sequester, hoping the American people will conveniently forget that 174 House Republicans (including all of the senior leadership) voted for a measure that Politico said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was “the chief Republican architect of
The sequestration cuts scheduled to take effect were designed as a worse-case scenario to encourage a bipartisan agreement to address our fiscal challenges. If these cuts are carried out on January 2, 2013, they will have a devastating impact on our national security, critical domestic programs, and our economy writ large. The best solution to sequester is a big, bold and balanced plan – an idea supported by a bipartisan range of experts and officials.
Not content to trash a sequester mechanism House Republicans themselves voted for, Congressional Republicans are now taking their obstruction a step further, with their ludicrous attempts to pin the pending “fiscal cliff” squarely on Democrats, even as they refuse to yield an inch in their drive to protect tax cuts for the wealthy at all costs.