A Ballooning Deficit
By Rep. Dusty Johnson
August 27, 2021
This week, the House was called back for a special session. However, it was not to vote on legislation related to the heart-wrenching humanitarian and military crisis unfolding in Afghanistan. Instead, Speaker Pelosi called us back to vote on a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint.
To give you some context, the federal budget Congress passed for fiscal year 2021, which included all discretionary and defense spending, was $1.4 trillion. This blueprint is the highest sustained spending level in American history.
While there are some proposals I can get behind, such as lowering prescription drug costs, there are too many programs that significantly increase the size of our government. Among other things, this proposal expands Obamacare and Medicare, funds two years of tuition-free community college and universal pre-k, and develops a Civilian Climate Corp.
While some of these proposals sound enticing, the financial consequences are damaging. I believe in giving every American an opportunity to succeed, but I cannot agree to burdening our current taxpayers with paying more of their share and burdening our future generations by adding to our national debt. This much spending will spur inflation and drive-up prices, something that millions of Americans are already confronting.
Over the last decade, our national debt has more than doubled and we are now approaching $29 trillion. This package would add an additional $17 trillion to our national debt over the next ten years, bringing us to a total of $47 trillion. This is inexcusable.
In our personal lives, there are serious consequences if we are not responsible with our money. Yet, when it comes to the federal government, it seems this same logic is not applied. Let me be clear, it’s not just the Democrats who spend, both parties are guilty of adding to our ballooning deficit. We cannot keep spending ourselves into oblivion and racking up debt—the balloon will eventually burst.
I’m willing to take the hard votes. I’m willing to fight for comprehensive reform to our dysfunctional budget process. I’m willing to support a balanced budget amendment like the one enshrined in South Dakota’s state constitution. Most importantly, I am willing to say no to a $3.5 trillion budget.
Lmao are Congressional Republicans really going to try to pivot back to being deficit hawks as if they weren’t just a nonstop piggy bank for government spending the last four years?
Not accurate, Platonic.
“U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson said he has “grave concerns” about the $2.7 trillion budget deal’s impact on the country and was among the Republicans opposing it in the U.S. House’s vote on Thursday.”
https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/25/rep-dusty-johnson-sen-mike-rounds-president-donald-trump-budget/1828852001/
what would the “Civilian Climate Corps” do?
You spent four years approving tax reductions for the rich and record spending for military industries and now you will not vote for programs that will create good jobs for the common man.
I’ve never gotten a job from a poor person, have you?
If business isn’t thriving then the “common man” (another class warfare term used by Marxists such as yourself) won’t have someone to employ him or her.
Why don’t you tell your fell liberal friends to quit taking deficit-inducing stimulus money and get to work.
If the country fall, people like you are to blame.
Ah, the old trickle down economics line. How has that worked out? There is a really good story about a pizza place in Sioux Falls you may want to read. It is ripe with that corporate welfare you so proudly support.
Ah, yes. I too remember how those poors caused the greatest economic recession since the great depression with their overreach on the derivatives market. And how other poors had to bail them out. Oh, wait…… No, nevermind. Still the poors’ fault.
The stupidity of this comment is amazing, define poor person? Almost every boss I’ve worked for, and corporation I’ve owned has been in debt, that is how the system works. Their net worth was -$500K, and if you can leverage your credit to take risks and cash out before you are caught, that is capitalism. The stupid people like “Mr. Hardworker” above me can pay it back after walking away, and the best part is he’ll be convinced to blame some political enemy as the real cause. Yeah, those lazy people taking $300 a week to survive are the problem, LOL.
jad, those infrastructure jobs involve hard, manual, outdoor jobs.
These are the jobs that few US citizens want, least of all college graduates who are carrying a lot of student loan debt. This is why we need immigrants from Central America; they will do those jobs. But while they will spend some of the money they earn on food, housing, & transportation locally, they will send a lot of it to the families they left behind. Our money will leave the country as fast as it does when we buy foreign oil.
If an infrastructure spending bill were tied to a student loan forgiveness program, this might make sense. But it isn’t tied, so it doesn’t make sense..