The two-year spending deal agreed upon by House GOP leaders and the White House may keep the government up and running, but it represents yet another last-minute band aid on the massive national debt. Once again, our leaders in Washington have made the best political move at the expense of future generations of Americans.
Fox News reports:
The agreement was panned by two prominent conservative groups, Heritage Action and the Club for Growth. The two organizations issued a joint statement saying the deal was "brokered by a lame-duck speaker and a lame duck president [and] represents the very worst of Washington – a last minute deal that increases spending and debt under the auspices of fiscal responsibility."
The measure under discussion would suspend the current $18.1 trillion debt limit through March 2017. The budget portion would increase the current "caps" on total agency spending by $50 billion in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017, offset by savings elsewhere in the budget. And it would permit about $16 billion to be added on top of that in 2016, classified as war funding, with a comparable boost in 2017.
We can’t expect things to change anytime soon. Who has time to work out a fiscally-responsible budget deal when there’s so much work to do for the next election cycle? Why decrease our national debt when this generation of Congresspeople likely won’t be around to answer for their reckless spending?
This is -- it must be -- the rationale behind our leaders’ decisions in D.C. Fortunately, the American people don’t need their approval to change the status quo in Washington. An Article V Convention of States can propose constitutional amendments that enshrine fiscal responsibility in the law of the land. Neither Congress, the President, nor the Supreme Court has any control in the process. Article V is the Founders’ tool to fight overreach and overspending -- it’s time we use it, before it’s too late.
