Spending Cuts and Debt

Below is a full replay of my telephone town hall, which took place on Thursday, July 30th. During this call, I covered a wide variety of issues including our COVID-19 response, our economy and jobs, our federal spending and national debt, along with several other important topics. Read more »

Within the National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) is a separate fund known as the Overseas Contingency Operations (“OCO”) fund. Originally used to finance the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, OCO funds are managed by the U.S. Department of Defense and State Department to support the global war on terror and other international military operations.   Over the last two decades,… Read more »

This Friday afternoon, top-ranking liberals in the House of Representatives are trying to finalize a 5th piece of COVID-19 legislation. They’ve nicknamed it “CARES 2” to coattail on the popularity of the original CARES Act, which passed overwhelmingly in late March. This is unfortunately not the bi-partisan effort it should be. Negotiations are taking place behind the scenes and most of… Read more »

The recent CARES Act definitely had some spending that shouldn’t have been included as part of a COVID-19 response package. So yesterday, I co-sponsored a bill to claw back over $27 billion from that legislation. Let’s dispense with the obvious first: Every bill is a compromise, and every member of Congress must decide whether – considered in its entirety – the good of that legislation… Read more »

Let’s take a married couple with two kids. $36,000 is their family's share of what the federal government will BORROW this quarter alone (April – June). That's based on news released late yesterday from the U.S. Treasury. Obviously in response to this pandemic, significant spending has been required to protect our nation and keep our economy from total collapse. However, we cannot forget… Read more »

“Unrestricted aid” – remember this phrase, because it’s going to be a major point of contention in the coming weeks. As Congress looks into a possible 5th piece of legislation in response to this pandemic, there’s now a growing push for the federal government to send over half a TRILLION dollars in unrestricted aid to states and local governments. By “unrestricted” I mean no conditions… Read more »

“Pork” or “pork barrel spending” is what it’s often called. More formally it’s known as earmarks.   Congress actually banned earmarks back in 2011, but now some Democrats are trying to resurrect them. Moments ago I introduced a bill in the House that would stop this effort in its tracks and make permanent the federal ban on earmarks, because they’re a horrible way to… Read more »

With all the talk about this impeachment nonsense, you may not have heard that the House will be voting on two bills today (Tuesday) which would fund the federal government through the end of its fiscal year. Around 5:00 PM yesterday, these bills – totaling more than 2,300 pages – were posted for Members and staff to review. Apparently, we're supposed to read and make an informed… Read more »

Earlier today, I introduced new legislation in the House called the "AFTER Appropriations Act." This is a powerful yet easy-to-understand bill that aims to help curb wasteful spending. Up in Washington, a request to eliminate spending on items that have previously been approved by Congress is known as a "rescission request." While Congress is the branch of government that authorizes… Read more »

On Thursday, U.S. Congressman Ralph Norman (SC-05) introduced the "AFTER Appropriations Act," which would require Congress to vote on Presidential rescission requests within an expedited time frame.   Under current law, the President can submit recommended rescissions to Congress to eliminate unnecessary or wasteful spending. Congress, however, is not required to act on those… Read more »