The “budget” recently passing in the House with 70-plus Republicans voting in favor of it and the Senate voting in favor of this monstrosity of a budget 63-35 lets us clearly know that with the Republican majority in both [legislative houses], Congress is not doing their job.
Congress is calling it a bipartisan budget. Jeff Sessions states [that] in the bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, there is nothing so important in this legislation that it needs to be done in a hurry. People, we must be very suspicious of anything carrying the word “bipartisan” support because government is not supposed to operate without opposition. When it does, it runs right over our liberty, decreasing our freedoms and increasing the power of government.
Jeff also states there is no crisis requiring that we must pass it today. What about the possibility that we might have an unprecedented government shutdown? Would that be like the unprecedented shutdown that loomed over us last year, or maybe the one that loomed over us two years ago, or three years ago? It’s the exact same story year after year, and I was wondering when we were going to wake up to that. The word “bipartisan” in most circles means “watch your wallet,” but we could [take it] to another level and conclude it to mean “watch your liberty.” This compromise to come together is awful!
Thoughts were, in 2010, when Congress needed a conservative majority in the House, and in 2014, when they needed the same in the Senate, that this would be so that we could stop spending in government and that we would have a better control on the budget.
Out-of-control government is very destructive to the people, and now, here we have the Republicans who have joined in to increase government spending by more than $80 billion over the next two years.
“Bipartisan” must mean “equal splits between parties”: Republican and Democrat hawks get their cut; you increase my spending capability and I’ll increase your spending capability, and that is the problem. It has nothing to do with our liberty and nothing to do with the Constitution, but here we go! So much for a more conservative majority that’s going to fight for limited government!
For more information, see the commentary by Michael D. Tanner, CATO Institute, “Congress and the Budget: Danger Ahead.”
Robert Duff
Smyrna