During my time in Congress, Senate leadership and the President have blocked many of our attempts to implement long-term reforms and eliminate excessive spending in Washington, further worsening our nation’s debt crisis that threatens future generations. Today’s bipartisan agreement contains important policy changes to rein in federal overreach and provides targeted funding for critical programs. Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters worked hard to defeat today’s bill, but they failed, and the bill we passed lowers discretionary spending to pre-FY 2008 levels. The agreement remains consistent with the Ryan-Murray budget agreement caps, cuts $60 million in funding for the overreaching Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and blocks regulations that would stifle important energy projects, hurt small businesses and destroy jobs. It limits EPA’s proposed expansion of the ‘waters of the United States,’ which would subject Arkansas’s farmers and ranchers to costly and overly burdensome federal regulations and harm our state’s vital agriculture industry. The bill slashes over $345 million from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and puts restrictions on the job-crushing, bureaucratic Dodd-Frank law. Some claim that this bill funds the President’s illegal executive actions. That’s not true. Despite criticism to the contrary, this Congress has not and will not fund illegal activity, and this bill funds the law as written. I agree wholeheartedly that President Obama has used funds intended for a legal purpose for an illegal one. This last week, Congress took a big step to fight against the President’s illegal actions, and I am confident that the new Congress will continue fighting the President’s illegal executive overreach. Today’s bill is, of course, not perfect, but unlike a continuing resolution, this bill makes substantive changes to reduce spending and reject a government shutdown, which is bad policy, helps no one and wastes taxpayer dollars. With the incoming Republican majorities, I know my colleagues in the House and Senate will continue our work to uphold the Constitution, cut federal spending and save taxpayers’ money. tinyurl/k5zs7k4
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 03:29:24 +0000
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