CONGRESS: YOU CAN DO BETTER --- AFP RELEASES STATEMENT ON OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL
Americans for Prosperity Disapproves of Congress’s Anemic Cuts
Calls Out Appropriators for Playing Small Ball with a Big Deficit
Arlington, VA - Congress, you can do better. That’s the message Americans for Prosperity is sending to Capitol Hill in response to the paltry spending cuts proposed in the so-called “megabus” appropriations bill.
“Appropriators must be living on an island: rather than proposing real spending restraint and reform, they’ve offered a handful of tepid changes and called it spending restraint,” says Tim Phillips, President of Americans for Prosperity. “The House of Representatives passed the only budget in Washington this year –the Ryan Budget – and now they aren’t sticking to the cuts. The American people expect much more from their elected leaders. We urge conservatives in Congress to vote against this spending package.”
AFP supports the House-passed Paul Ryan budget, which calls for at least $30 billion in discretionary spending cuts for FY2012. Instead of sticking to that blueprint, H.R. 3671 and/or the megabus conference report only cuts $6 billion, a mere 0.65 percent, from last year’s levels – and that doesn’t even include the $8.1 billion of disaster relief funding tacked on in companion legislation.
Furthermore, the megabus bill fails to make good on Republicans’ promise to fix the broken appropriations process. Instead of considering each of the 12 appropriations bills in open debate before the American people, Congress packaged them all together in two giant “omnibus” bills negotiated behind closed doors.
“The megabus bill shows that Congress is all talk and no action when it comes to tackling our spending crisis,” Phillips added. “Tough problems require tough solutions, but Congress is content to trim around the edges and avoid taking substantive action to put our fiscal house in order.”
AFP urges Members of Congress to vote against the inflated package and will include the vote in their congressional scorecard. Click here to read the key vote notification.
AFP released a policy paper in October proposing over $5 trillion in spending cuts, which you can read here.
