"Now here we are, about to do what could be the most responsible financial thing this Congress has done, this House has done, in the whole last year. Could be 1.4 trillion dollars in cuts over the next ten years, and all we're doing is just stopping the automatic increase." ~ U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX)
Three cheers for Louie Gohmert! And congratulations to Congress for responsibly passing the Baseline Reform Act! The vote was 235-177...every voting Republican supported it, along with just four Democrats (bipartisan, right?!).
Now watch the Harry Reid-led Senate (and I wouldn't be surprised to see a few RINOs join him), who haven't accepted a single budget since Obama's been in office, predictably reject this legitimate call to reign in the automatic spending of baseline budgeting. Here's the typical Democrat response in the House, so you can also predict the power mad excuses we'll hear from the Senate (pay particular attention to the emphasis)...
"The concern is that this creates actually a very misleading picture of what we can purchase in terms of goods and services with our dollars, and it gets more misleading over time," House Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Thursday.
Now obviously, inflation exists. But each request of funding, per legislation, can accommodate for that through annual budgeting (which again, they're not doing) without automatic increases. That argument just doesn't hold up to the responsible practices of a Congress that should be living within not only its means, but ours. Time to turn the screws tighter on the Senate.
