Key Vote Alert – NO on Increased Spending Through Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, H.R. 2440

Club for Growth opposes the “Full Utilization of the Harbor Maintenance Fund Act,” H.R. 2440, and urges all Representatives to vote no. The legislation is expected to be considered soon in the House of Representatives under suspension of the rules.  The results of the vote will be included in the Club for Growth Foundation’s 2019 Congressional Scorecard.

Congress is addicted to deficit spending. The total deficit for FY2019 was $984 billion. CBO projects the deficit to exceed $1 trillion in FY2020. In July, the Bipartisan Budget Act set new discretionary budget caps that increased spending by a total of $324 billion for FY2020 & FY2020. Less than 3 months later, the House is once again working to pass legislation that will increase discretionary spending beyond the new budget caps and add billions more to the deficit.

The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF) funds America’s ports and dredging through the Army Corps of Engineers and is subject to annual appropriations. Because the HMTF has accumulated a balance of $9.3 billion in revenues, some Members of Congress believe they can easily increase the spending by about $10 billion over two years and nobody will care. The legislation even makes the funds available as a new cap exemption under Sec. 251(b)(2) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, which is the emergency designation often used to spend beyond the discretionary budget caps. The spending increase should be subject to offsets and abide to the discretionary spending budget caps, which are already excessive. Congress needs to stop saddling the American people with more debt. In fact, Congress should aggressively pursue legislation that decreases the federal deficit.

Club for Growth Foundation’s Congressional Scorecard for the 116th 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.