‘Bad for Trump, Bad for America’: Meadows Comes Out Swinging Against Budget Deal

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, would love to think that the recently announced budget deal was a ‘done deal,’ another successful kicking of the can to enable a continued spending spree. North Carolina Congressman and Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, though, isn’t going to sit quietly by while the Swamp does what the Swamp does.

Congress must reject this budget deal, go back to the drawing board, and stop bankrupting America. Op-ed from the @freedomcaucus—https://t.co/EMaVKdXQWK

— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) July 25, 2019

“In the op-ed, Meadows slams the deal as “deeply flawed” and emblematic of a government that now suspends its own rules at the direct expense of hardworking Americans.

Any average American family knows: when you spend money on a credit card, you eventually pay the money back. When your credit gets close to a limit, you don’t respond by raising the limit and spending more — you make a concerted effort to bring your debt down, making tough budgetary decisions to avoid severe financial problems down the road.

You would think the same decisions forced on American families could be demanded of Congress and the U.S. government. It is not compassionate to bankrupt America. Unfortunately, that is the path our country is on. […]”

After all, why even have a institute a debt ceiling if Congress does nothing but reach it, raise it, and then race to reach it again. Rinse. Repeat.

This kind of behavior, in the face of the fiscal clouds looming on the American horizon, makes a mockery of responsible governance. It repeatedly confirms Americans’ sense that most politicians have no spine at all when it comes to following through on steps to actually get the spending of other people’s money under control.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling would be unbearable. But perhaps such unbearable consequences, or the imminent threat thereof, may actually convince congress to do something it has always been loath to do – cut spending.

It’s not so easy, they’d say, because all that spending is mostly coming from mandates related to entitlement programs. The same programs that nearly every politician, especially Republicans, says need reforms to be made sustainable. Yet it only gets because politicians would rather just raise the debt ceiling than make meaningful spending reforms a priority.

Meadows makes that same point:

“The bill is deeply flawed

So it is with the reported imminent budget caps deal. To Congress, the credit limit isn’t a real limit — it’s a minor obstacle that government insiders can quietly agree to work around. Worse yet, the deal proposed almost ensures that the debt ceiling agreed to will be insufficient for the spending that is part of the deal. Of course, America must agree to pay for money it has already committed to spend, but the point of the debt ceiling isn’t to debate whether or not America should default on its debt. The point is to force spending reforms so that default never occurs.” […]

It is true that bipartisan spending cuts are hard to come by. Unfortunately, the bipartisan path to bankrupting America has proven more politically expedient — again. While cutting spending would be the best path forward, it’s important to acknowledge that conservatives have not demanded spending reductions or bust in these negotiations. All we ask is to stick to the existing spending limits. If we can’t agree on significant spending cuts, at least we should agree to hold to the existing limits and avoid turning a dire situation into a potentially fatal one.

This is a bad deal for the president. It’s a bad deal for conservatives. Most importantly, it’s a bad deal for the forgotten men and women who voted to shake up Washington, D.C. when they sent President Trump to the White House. This is not draining the swamp — it’s feeding the swamp and entrenching the status quo.”

Political expediency is — extending debt ceiling fights out past the next election and splurging on spending all the while – is a sure way to achieve insolvency. While the Federal Reserve has its printing press, and the Treasury its bonds, economic reality does not subscribe to the fantasy of Modern Monetary Theory and the idea that debt doesn’t matter.

Debt matters. Spending matters. Taxes matter. And the failure of the Swamp to respect the men and women across the country that have to face this reality everyday without any prospects for simply raising their ceiling matters a great deal.

Read the entire editorial here. Further, encourage your representative to reject this business-as-usual deal and get to work for real solutions. Meadows, and other North Carolina congressmen like Ted Budd are standing against it already, but a lot more spine needs to ossify on Capitol Hill if there is to be any chance of interrupting the status quo.