With the national debt moving above $30 trillion and Congress considering a new Omnibus funding bill, on Thursday, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., led some of his GOP colleagues in a letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, demanding that the Senate receive an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office detailing the inflationary impacts of this funding bill and have ample time to review the legislation before voting.
U.S. Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wy., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Mike Braun, R-Ind., Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. and Mike Lee, R-Utah, signed the letter which is below.
Dear Majority Leader Schumer:
Last month, our nation hit a grave milestone, surpassing $30 trillion in federal debt. This steadily rising debt has been fueled by decades of reckless spending and a total lack of accountability to the U.S. taxpayer in Congress. Now, as America drowns in debt, we are facing yet another crisis driven by reckless government spending – record-breaking inflation. Across the country, families are feeling the pressure of skyrocketing prices, which are eating into their income like a new vicious tax on everything from gas to groceries. It’s time to demand change. We must take measures to put America back on the path to economic prosperity and that begins with passing a balanced budget that best serves the needs of our nation and the American people.
Now that Congress has once again punted the ball with another continuing resolution, our attention is rightfully and finally turning to passing appropriations to direct federal spending for this fiscal year. Appropriating funds is the most basic duty of Congress, but during many of the past several years, Congress has cut corners by passing massive “omnibus” spending bills with little time to review or digest the spending and policy, let alone determine how such spending will impact our nation’s financial and economic wellbeing. This must end. Last time the Senate considered an omnibus spending package, in December 2020, senators were handed a massive $1.4 TRILLION bill, that was nearly 5,600 pages long, and given just hours to look through the bill before it was brought up for a final vote. That is insane and shows just how broken Washington is. We know that reckless government spending only makes inflation worse, and while our country is experiencing historical price hikes, we cannot allow another massive spending package to be rushed through Congress without proper consideration and scrutiny.
Today, we are demanding that Congress do better. We must allow appropriate time for Senators to review any appropriations or omnibus package. Giving each of us the opportunity to read the bill is a reasonable and commonsense request that must be accommodated. We are also calling for a comprehensive review of this bill, once finalized, to be conducted by the Congressional Budget Office so that it may provide Congress and the American public an estimate of the bill’s current and future impact on inflation, the federal debt, and any potential impact on the long-term solvency of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds.
Until we can fully understand what is in any potential omnibus bill, its impact on the fiscal strength of the United States, and how it will influence our nation’s growing inflation crisis, we should not vote on it. Doing so would be unconscionable and a dereliction of our duty to act as informed representatives of the taxpayers and every family we so proudly serve.
We look forward to working together on a responsible spending bill that delivers on our commitments to uphold the interests of our nation’s taxpayers and protects the financial wellbeing of the United States. American families deserve nothing less.
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