(SBA) - On June 18th, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) – the government agency tasked with monitoring our nation’s fiscal health – confirmed my serious concerns with President Biden’s reckless spending agenda. His administration’s fiscal policies have not only caused cumulative inflation to skyrocket by over 20% since he took office, but they have also accelerated our accumulation of debt to levels that are beyond unsustainable. Instead of changing course, he recently released his budget for Fiscal Year 2025, which has a $7.3-trillion price tag and looks to raise taxes on our families, farmers, and businesses to the tune of $5.5 trillion. Serving on the House Ways and Means Committee, it remains my mission to stop wasteful government spending, enact a balanced federal budget, and get our fiscal house in order for the sake of future generations.
According to the CBO’s analysis, our national debt will surpass $50 trillion in a decade, the debt will equal approximately 122% of our annual economic output, and federal deficits will eclipse $24 trillion over the next ten years. This report also found that our budget deficit for this fiscal year will swell to nearly $2 trillion – up from about the $1.6 trillion figure that the CBO projected just four months ago – and we will pay roughly $892 billion just to finance the interest obligations on our national debt. Similarly, government spending in general is set to grow to 23.9% of GDP this year, which is a significant increase from the 20.9% in Fiscal Year 2019. In short, government spending is growing, and our interest payments are growing with it – wasting precious tax dollars on financing interest instead of investing in priorities vital to our families, farmers, and businesses.
While many of President Biden’s trillion-dollar spending packages certainly contributed to our deteriorating fiscal health, his unconstitutional student-loan bailouts have also fueled this raging fire. The CBO estimates that his debt “cancelation” policies will cost taxpayers nearly $400 billion over the next ten years. I strongly oppose these bailouts. Iowans who never attended college, entered the workforce early, or helped put their kids through school should not be forced to pick up the tab for President Biden’s costly and unfair executive orders. Students who took out a loan to go to college are contractually obligated to repay it. It’s as simple as that.
As a strong, fiscal conservative, I’ve been vocal about my opposition to trillions of dollars in reckless government spending and crushing regulations that saddle our families, farmers, and businesses with higher costs. I’ve also called for a balanced federal budget so that we can begin to reduce our nearly $35-trillion national debt in a meaningful and fiscally responsible way without raising taxes on Americans. In addition to a balanced budget amendment, the first place that I believe we need to start to address our debt crisis is by requesting that the President of the United States delivers a balanced budget proposal to Congress. That’s why I introduced legislation to explicitly require the President to submit a balanced budget to Congress so that we aren’t spending money that we don’t have.
This report by the CBO is a warning sign for our economy and the long-term stability of our country. Our foreign adversaries – like China – will happily exploit our debt crisis to secure beneficial financial concessions down the road and cripple our status as the world’s strongest superpower. As a father of four, I also refuse to leave my kids with mountains of debt that will spell disaster for our economic prosperity today and in the future. As Iowa’s voice in Congress, I promise that I will continue to do my part to oppose reckless spending, stop burdensome regulations, call for a balanced federal budget, and put our country on a path towards fiscal sanity.
