Stop spending! Use unspent billions to rebuild after Helene



Our nation is suffering from record spending, debt, and deficits, which have triggered inflation. This is why Treasury yields are spiking even as the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates. Despite the record spending, we won’t have enough money to rebuild the communities devastated by Hurricane Helene without passing a supplemental disaster spending bill that will push us farther into debt. Or is there another option?

Before inflation hit hard, I promised my wife we would remodel our old kitchen. In a sense, I had already appropriated the funds, but inflation crushed our finances before we could spend them. Like any family, we canceled the project and used the money to cover basic expenses. Unlike the federal government, we can’t spend all our savings because we need to reserve them for an emergency.

Shouldn’t it be obvious that the residents of North Carolina deserve priority over Ukraine?

Congress, on the other hand, loves to spend every last penny available, with no regard for the certainty that natural disasters will occur. AccuWeather has already estimated that rebuilding from the hurricane could cost $110 billion. Congress will undoubtedly pass a supplemental spending bill during the lame-duck session, if not sooner, to help those who lost everything — a goal we all support.

But should our government act like any other family and cut wasteful spending to cover the cost of the disaster bill? There’s no better place to start than with unspent appropriated funds.

A major factor bankrupting us is the collection of bills passed under Biden, combined with the trillions in fiscal and monetary spending in the immediate aftermath of COVID. These bills include the 2021 COVID relief bill, the American Rescue Plan; the trillion-dollar infrastructure law of 2021; the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act; and the Green New Deal, known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

How much of that funding has already been spent?

According to a Politico analysis, less than 17% of the $1.1 trillion provided by those laws for direct subsidies on “climate, energy, and infrastructure” had been spent as of April. This means that, even two years after the passage of these bills, roughly $900 billion remained unspent as of this spring.

Sensing the possibility of Trump’s return to office next year, the Biden administration has accelerated the spending rate since April. “The Biden-Harris administration is focused on sprinting through the next few months, with a relentless focus on execution,” said Ali Zaidi, Biden’s climate czar, in an interview with Politico last week. “We’re implementing the largest climate investment in world history and pursuing a regulatory agenda that has secured public health and environmental gains.”

We should be able to find enough unspent funds between all these bills to repurpose and provide sufficient funding for the people of Western North Carolina to rebuild. In fact, despite the Biden administration racing to spend IRA funding, $331 billion, mainly from the infrastructure bill, cannot be spent until future fiscal years and hasn’t been promised to any specific vendor. That amount more than covers the entire cost of the hurricane.

Additionally, as of April, $92 billion in COVID funds remained unspent, with $53 billion yet to be earmarked. Republicans pledged to rescind these funds in the FY 2024 budget but backed down during the final appropriation bill’s passage.

Then consider Ukraine funding. Much of that spending has gone toward weaponry for a war that will not yield positive results for anyone involved, yet funds allocated for the new fiscal year remain unspent. Shouldn’t it be obvious that the residents of North Carolina deserve priority over Ukraine? Shouldn’t we first redirect unspent green energy funds meant for wealthy corporations toward disaster relief?

Democrats argue that these are vital programs, but so is my kitchen remodeling. Just as Americans must prioritize during a crisis, so must the federal government. If they spend all the funding and pass a new disaster bill without offsets, it will burden all Americans with higher prices for essential goods and services.

As for Republicans, if they can’t fight to retract even a small portion of the unspent funds for programs that never should have been funded, what are they campaigning for this November? They have no right to talk about inflation if they can’t use any leverage to enforce modest cost-cutting, which every family does daily.

'Free' college? Green New Deal? Socialist health care? Study finds it's impossible to pay for them by only squeezing the rich

Progressives have recently put forward a lot of high-priced policy proposals, but a new study released Wednesday finds that it's "arithmetically impossible" to pay for the "progressive agenda" by only raising taxes on the wealthy.

The report, authored by David Burton, Heritage Foundation senior fellow in economic policy, ran the numbers on long list of popular progressive policy promises and found that it's impossible to cover their total costs by taxing only people who make over $200,000 per year.

Burton took estimated costs from a list of proposals, including the Green New Deal proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y, government-backed health insurance supported by 2020 Democrats like Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vt., and taxpayer-funded college tuition proposed by Sanders, and came up with a total aggregate price tag of $48 to $92 trillion over 10 years.

Burton then added the lower cost estimate to the current projected baseline spending level for the next 10 years and found that implementing those four agenda items would put the U.S. somewhere between 3rd place to Finland and France in government spending (on the low end) and spending that would "dwarf" the levels of "any other developed country."

Burton then looked to tax numbers and concluded that even if the government were to confiscate 100 percent of the incomes of everyone making over $200,000 annually while also confiscating all the income of all corporations, it would raise "at most" $34.6 trillion. That amount is "between only 37 percent and 72 percent of the cost of the progressive agenda," depending on the cost estimate.

"Even using lower cost estimates, confiscating every dollar earned by every taxpayer with incomes of $200,000 or more would only pay for about half of the progressive agenda," the report's summary says.

"And that figure is based on the false assumption that people would continue to work, save, and invest when subject to a 100 percent flat tax," Burton continues. "The reality is that progressive promises can only be funded by increasing taxes on the middle class from three to 10 times their current level or, for a limited time, by dramatic and unsustainable increases in federal borrowing."

That all translates to astronomically higher taxes for hardworking families and/or astronomically higher debt for their children to deal with.

The Heritage findings run contrary to the widespread assumption that America's fiscal woes could be addressed if we just put the screws to the wealthy for more revenue. That's far from the case. In fact, if the government were to tax every American billionaire for everything they were worth, we’d have enough revenue to make about a 14 percent dent in the national debt or fully fund a 4.75 trillion federal budget for just under eight months.

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Rand Paul mourns 'death' of Tea Party, blasts both parties for budget 'abomination' on Senate floor

In an impassioned speech ahead of an expected Wednesday vote on a budget and debt ceiling deal, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., took to the Senate floor to criticize the legislation for its outright fiscal recklessness and lambaste both parties for their roles in crafting it.

Paul's speech began as a eulogy for the Tea Party movement, the fiscal legacy of which would be eviscerated by the provisions of the proposed deal.

"Can you hear it? Can you hear the somber notes, the feet shuffling, the solemn tones? Can you hear it? It's a dirge, a funeral march; it's the death of a movement," Paul said. "A once-proud movement with hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall, it's the death, it's the last gasp of a movement in America that was concerned with our national debt."

"Today's vote will be the last nail in the coffin; the Tea Party is no more," Paul continued. "Adoption of this deal marks the death of the Tea Party movement in America. Fiscal conservatives, those who remain, should be in mourning; for Congress — both parties — has deserted you."

A vote on the bill was initially expected Wednesday, but Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said after Paul's speech that the vote would happen on Thursday instead. Timing of a vote, however, remains unclear at the time of publication.

In his speech, Paul went on to castigate both major political parties for putting this deal together, saying, "The media says, 'Oh, there's not enough compromise in Washington.' Exactly the opposite of the truth! There's too much compromise in Washington; there's always an agreement to spend more money."

As an alternative to the deal, Paul proposed a compromise that would allow for an increase of the debt ceiling in exchange for "significant spending cuts, caps on spending, and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution." A balanced budget amendment simply requires that the federal government to pass a balanced budget every year. On Twitter, the senator claimed that 98 percent of the government would be funded under such a requirement.

Paul also specifically criticized his Republican colleagues in the Senate, some of whom he predicted would vote for his amendment to reform the deal, but ultimately also vote to pass "the deal that will bankrupt our country."

"But before we make this about Republicans," Paul added, "let's remember that there's not a Democrat in Washington that cares about the debt."

"The difference between the parties are the Democrats are honest. They are very honest, they don't care about the debt; look, they're all over the states falling all over themselves trying to give health care to illegal aliens," the Kentucky senator said in reference to the 2020 Democratic primary field.

"Today's vote will be a vote for a monstrosity — an abomination," Paul added.

Paul's full speech can be found on C-Span.

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Pelosi's latest spending shenanigans are exactly what people hate about the DC Swamp

On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., joined his fellow House conservative Chip Roy, R-Texas, in blocking a house leadership effort to send a disaster spending bill to the president's desk without scheduled debate or a regular roll call vote.

The objections got the two criticized by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as "heartless," to which Massie responded by pointing out that Pelosi showed her real level of concern for the bill by sending a House freshman to take her place behind the gavel that day.

So what's actually going on here?

Massie and Roy objected to requests to move the bill forward by "unanimous consent." Despite all the procedural requirements that typically exist for a bill to become law, Congress can get a considerable amount of business done as long as nobody in the chamber objects. The way the unanimous consent process works in the House is fairly straightforward: After getting clearance from leadership, a member requests unanimous consent of the chamber to do something like consider a bill or change debate time. If there's no objection, the motion goes through.

If the vast majority of the chamber's members aren't in town to object (like on post-Memorial Day recess), it's a lot easier for the requests to go through.

If just one member objects to the request, then the consent is no longer unanimous, which usually means whatever you're trying to do is going to need a vote. But because we're talking about Washington, D.C., here, one of the things that can usually get across the finish line with little to no objection in Congress is unbudgeted disaster spending without spending offsets elsewhere.

In this case, congressional leadership's plan was to shuttle billions of dollars in federal disaster spending through a nearly empty House chamber during a ten-day recess at a House session that's supposed to be held "pro forma," or merely as a matter of form.

That's what Massie and Roy objected to. Even though the bill could have been passed months ago and despite the fact that FEMA currently has around $30 billion in unobligated funds it can use for the time being, it was apparently imperative to leadership that this bill not wait an extra few days to be debated and voted on like other important business that comes before "the people's House."

Finally, despite all the clamoring about how this is just a means to help areas ravaged by natural disasters, the bill covers considerably more than disaster relief, as Conservative Partnership Institute's Rachel Bovard points out:

The bill also contains $55 million for the Head Start program, $1 million for worker training programs, extends the insolvent National Flood Insurance Program without making any reforms for the 11th time, and modifies the federally subsidized crop insurance program to cover the production of industrial hemp. About $900 million is provided for Puerto Rico, even though the territory is already on track to receive up to $91 billion once the 2017 hurricane response cycle is through.

Isn't this exact sort of procedural hocus-pocus with the public purse thing just one big example of why the public's opinion of Congress' job performance is so low that a 26 percent approval rating earlier this year was actually a two-year high?

Seeing as this country is over $22 trillion in debt and looking at future of trillion-dollar annual deficits, shepherding important spending measures through without floor debate or regular roll call votes is not the kind of thing that's going to make that number go anywhere but down.

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The Democrat-media meltdown over Special Olympics funding is everything we hate about Washington

The current debate surrounding grant funding for the Special Olympics is an excellent case study of why our country will probably never get out of debt.

In case you missed it, there’s been a fair amount of outrage over the Department of Education's budget proposal to cut $18 million in federal grant money to the Special Olympics. The proposed budget states that “such activities are better supported with other federal, state, local or private funds.”

On Wednesday, Education Secretary DeVos responded to widespread criticism of the proposed spending reduction with a statement saying:

The Special Olympics is not a federal program. It's a private organization. I love its work, and I have personally supported its mission. Because of its important work, it is able to raise more than $100 million every year. There are dozens of worthy nonprofits that support students and adults with disabilities that don't get a dime of federal grant money. But given our current budget realities, the federal government cannot fund every worthy program, particularly ones that enjoy robust support from private donations.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., confronted DeVos on the proposed spending reforms during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Thursday and said that whoever came up with the idea for the cuts “gets a Special Olympic gold medal for insensitivity.”

DeVos responded to Durbin’s questions by saying that she wasn’t personally involved in that decision and that she hopes that the debate drives more private donations to the organization. She added: “Let’s not use disabled children in a twisted way for your political narrative. That is just disgusting and it’s shameful.”

Furthermore, according to a report at Politico, DeVos has even been an advocate against cutting the grant funding for years.

But Durbin’s not alone. Multiple congressional Democrats have used the news to score points against the administration.

Appropriations subcommittee chair Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., responded to the controversy by saying, "Our Department of Education appropriations bill will not cut funding for the program."

This is a classic case-study example of why we’ll never deal with our national debt crisis (and it IS a crisis).

As I’ve said before, the cuts have to come from somewhere, and the federal leviathan has become so massive and intrusive that there is literally no proposed spending cut that won’t affect someone in this country. And there’s no portion of the federal budget for which advocates can’t or won’t use emotional pleas to avoid spending reductions. But the cuts still have to come from somewhere.

And when emotional arguments are made about sympathetic subjects of proposed spending reductions, the headlines, press releases, and outraged social media posts pretty much write themselves.

So, let’s take the emotion out of this argument for a while. The question isn’t who does or doesn’t care about kids with disabilities; it’s whether or not it makes sense for a country that is over $22 trillion in debt and facing projected trillion-dollar deficits to fund any successful private charity, regardless of what its mission is.

Finally, since we went without a Federal Department of Education for the first 203 years of our republic, it’s more than valid to question whether or not we need to spend the operational costs of the agency itself. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has a bill to terminate it, by the way.

The Special Olympics is a great organization that does some important work. If the politicians and pundits who have used this story to light up the political scoreboard plan on still caring about the Special Olympics’ operating budget when the news cycle moves on to the next font of outrage, consider this an open invitation to join me at next year’s Polar Plunge.

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The reckless spending that taxpayers let Congress get away with

There are new Congressional Budget Office numbers out on the national debt, and America’s fiscal future is looking bleaker than ever. According to a new estimate, we’ll add $12 trillion to the total over the next decade, which CBO director Keith Hall calls “unsustainable.”

My colleague Chris Pandolfo is right: A driving force behind this problem is public apathy about it: “Numbers and statistics are boring. They don’t go viral. Celebrities don’t talk about them, and numbers as big as a trillion are impossible to wrap our minds around.”

But this is only half of the equation. The other side is that Washington really likes spending, and both major parties are guilty of it. As Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., and CR’s Daniel’s Horowitz have pointed out, the problem is more about spending than about revenue supposedly reduced by GOP tax cuts.

Each party, of course, gets its spending fix through different means. Whereas Democrats like burgeoning entitlement programs but don’t like the idea of reforming them and subsidies for green energy products that aren’t yet economically viable, Republicans like market-distorting farm subsidies and are usually averse to anything that might somehow reform or reduce defense spending. (Meanwhile, the Pentagon failed its first-ever audit back in November.)

There’s also widespread hesitation to do anything to meaningfully reform Social Security and Medicare, both of which are hurtling towards insolvency at faster rates than predicted.

Then you have emergency spending, which falls more along geographical lines than ideological ones. States in disaster-prone areas surely can’t be expected to put money aside to address the natural disasters than naturally occur there. The preferred Swamp method to address this is through massive emergency spending bills with even less oversight and more expedience than regular spending bills.

Of course, there’s all the odd, wasteful things like federal funding to study the sex habits of quails on cocaine, or $18 million to prop up Egypt’s tourism industry, or $200,000 to put on plays in Afghanistan. Seriously, if you haven’t read the 2018 Waste Report put out by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., you’re missing out. These are smaller than the bigger-ticket items above, but the sheer number of spending programs is a reminder of just how vast and complex the administrative state has gotten. That’s yet another front of the debt fight.

And all this is assisted by the mistaken cultural assumption that attention to a specific issue is best measured in the amount of taxpayer money dedicated to it. But when you have a hammer, the old saying goes, every problem looks like a nail. There are indeed a lot of misidentified nails in the D.C. Swamp.

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Trump and Congress to cut spending NOW?

Facing backlash after passing a $1.3 trillion spending bill that funded all of the Democrats' priorities, Republicans in the House of Representatives are working with President Trump to use an obscure budget law to roll back some of this egregious spending.

In the Washington Examiner, Joseph Lawler reports that President Trump and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., are strategizing to use the 1974 Impoundment Act to cut spending.

Congress could approve any spending revocations Trump proposes with a simple majority in both chambers. That allows Republicans more flexibility than in passing the spending bill, a process that was subject to a Democratic filibuster in the Senate and thus required negotiations with Democrats.

A congressional Republican aide said conservatives have been lobbying for Trump to use the Impoundment Act. “It’s a good opportunity to take advantage of a law passed decades ago and that hasn’t been used recently,” the aide said.

An administration official said rescissions are being discussed and that the White House is a few weeks away from developing a package of potential cuts.

The maneuver would effectively allow Trump and congressional Republicans to take back some agency spending that has been authorized as part of the omnibus spending bill, which was negotiated between Republican and Democratic leadership.

At this point, any conceivable cuts to government spending would be welcome. But there are a few caveats here that conservatives need to understand before congressional Republicans turn around and tell voters they are fiscally responsible.

First, while it's likely a spending cuts package could pass through the House of Representatives, there is no guarantee that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., can put all 51 votes in the Senate GOP conference together to move President Trump's spending priorities through the Senate. When President Trump proposed a conservative budget  last year, it was greeted as "dead on arrival" because RINO senators like Susan Collins, R-Maine, Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., objected to cuts to their favorite pet programs. With just 49 voting Republicans against the 49 Democrats in the Senate because Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been absent due to illness and retiring Sen. Thad Cochran's replacement has not been sworn in yet (that comes Monday), it only takes one liberal Republican to sink any spending cuts. There is more than one liberal Republican in the Senate.

Second, this strategy may wind up as just another show vote in Congress. The time to fight to cut government spending was before passing the largest spending increase in American history. The Republicans digging up this obscure 1974 law today couldn't be bothered to fight for President Trump's priorities in the weeks leading up to the omnibus. And the 2,232-page omnibus itself was introduced by GOP leadership less than two days before the government shutdown deadline, leaving representatives without time to read the bill. Elected officials were also barred from offering amendments that could cut spending. And if President Trump was serious about cutting spending, he should have vetoed the omnibus and told Congress to send him a bill that actually reflects what Republicans told voters they would do with their majorities.

Third, if Republicans actually find the votes to send something to President Trump's desk, whatever they cut will, by necessity, be so miniscule and so uncontroversial in order to pass that ultimately it won't matter, as the nation careens toward a fiscal crisis.

Republicans have already betrayed voters. It's difficult to believe they're acting in good faith without demonstrable proof that they're willing to fight to keep their promises on spending.

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