A Fiscal Commission Won’t Solve the Spending Problem

Yesterday, President Obama issued an Executive Order creating a bipartisan fiscal commission with the expressed mission of "identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run." The commission would be charged with identifying and presenting policy recommendations "designed to balance the budget," including policies to cut deficits by increasing taxes and slowing the growth in entitlements. 

While the President’s commission may produce some helpful suggestions, it can’t be a substitute for Congress doing its job, which is to make responsible decisions with the taxpayers’ dollars. Congress must fulfill its responsibility to the taxpayers of being good stewards of their money. We will face some difficult choices, but the taxpayers should expect and desire nothing less from their Representatives.  Unfortunately, since taking over Congress and the White House, Democrats have an atrocious record of increasing spending, deficits, and taxes.  Since Democrats took control of Congress and started passing their budgets in 2007, the national debt has grown by 42.8 percent.  In 2009 alone, House Democrats passed a "stimulus" bill-which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now predicts will cost $862 billion-a $1.3 trillion health care takeover that raises taxes by more than $700 billion, a $873 billion national energy tax on every American, two omnibus spending bills totaling more than $855 billion, and increased non-defense discretionary spending by 12 percent.

Congress can’t sit back and wait to get recommendations from this Commission in December when the federal government is continuing to run such high deficits. Congress needs to start doing its job now with the budget and spending bills we will take up this year and begin taking steps to reign in spending.

If President Obama were really serious about reducing the deficit, he shouldn’t propose a budget that would result in more than a trillion dollar deficit and then set up the commission to try to reduce the deficit. Instead, he should use his budget proposal to submit solid ideas about reducing the deficit and make the tough choices he was elected to make.

More taxes to pay for this spending are not the answer to our problems. Real deficit reduction will require actual, significant spending cuts. The government is trying to do too many things for too many people. We need to slow down the entitlements, and get back to the principles of empowerment employed by our Founders. As long as I am in Congress, I will work to empower rather than entitle and protect America from digging deeper into debt.