House & Senate – “No” on Debt Limit Increase

Key Vote Alert

House & Senate – “No” on Debt Limit Increase

The Club for Growth urges all Representatives and Senators to vote NO on the so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act. The results of this vote will be included in the Club for Growth Foundation’s 2023 congressional scorecard.

The Club for Growth opposes the so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act, which suspends the debt limit through January 1, 2025. The American people deserve transparency with exactly how much debt Congress is approving in this bill, and a debt limit suspension fails to provide that transparency because unlimited debt can be added until January 1, 2025.  Although estimates vary on precisely how much debt will be accrued by 2025, an emerging consensus among budget experts estimates at least $4 trillion of new debt will be added to the national debt. This provision is not a policy provision, but is a political concession to President Biden to allow the Presidential Election to be completed before the next debt limit increase. President Biden should stop using the full faith and credit of the United States as a political wedge between the American People and the fiscal health of the U.S. economy.

Speaker McCarthy and House conservatives valiantly demonstrated how irresponsible and out-of-touch the radical left has become by highlighting the economic devastation wrought by unified Democrat government with excessive spending leading to Bidenflation. With the new Republican House Majority, House Republicans proved they could maintain a majority coalition and pass a bill that would increase the debt limit even though the Limit, Save, Grow Act was not perfect.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan agreement resulting in the Fiscal Responsibility Act continues a march slowly speeding off a cliff toward the fiscal crisis enabled by the unsustainable national debt. Similar to when President Biden and the Democrats named their Green New Deal scheme in August 2022 the “Inflation Reduction Act”, the “Fiscal Responsibility Act” is a misleadingly named bill which is not actually fiscally responsible because it continues trillion-dollar deficits every year in the future. Congress needs a plan to pay down the national debt, not a plan that kicks the can down the road. Washington must end trillion-dollar deficits, end the national debt crisis, and end Big Government. This bill does not accomplish that mission. Club for Growth strongly encourages Congress to live within its means with a balanced budget that ultimately results in annual surpluses in order to pay down the national debt.

The negotiation also fails to include the REINS Act, which Club for Growth passionately supports. Although the bill includes administrative PAYGO which could limit some burdensome regulation, the bill allows for the Director of OMB to waive the provision, and does not allow for legal challenges. Moreover, while the bill takes steps toward providing for strengthened work requirements in TANF and SNAP which could result in a higher labor participation rate, the bill does not include Medicaid work requirements.

The agreement with President Biden also leaves in place most of his massive expansion of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The woke and weaponized workers in the IRS and other federal agencies carrying out the Marxist schemes of the radical left are left in place to continue their evil crusade against the American Dream.

American families face an uncertain future caused in large part by the intrusion and growth of the federal government, which was exacerbated during the COVID19 pandemic. This bill fails to revert spending levels back to pre-COVID levels as projected by CBO in early 2020. Club for Growth unabashedly supports and champions economic liberty, opportunity, and freedom and stands with Members of Congress defending those principles. We encourage President Biden to abandon the radical leftists dragging his party toward socialism and resume negotiations that will end the national debt crisis.

Club for Growth Foundation’s Congressional Scorecard for the 118th Congress provides a comprehensive rating of how well or how poorly each member of Congress supports pro-growth, free-market policies and will be distributed to the public.