The budget deal reached this past weekend between Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress fails to include real spending cuts or to secure the border, warns Ryan Walker, the executive vice president of Heritage Action for America.
“The American people are begging Congress to secure the border and rein in the unprecedented government spending and woke policies that are making it impossible for them to afford basics, like groceries and gas,” Walker said in a statement Tuesday.
“As reported, the spending framework does neither. Conservative lawmakers should not support appropriations bills that perpetuate [President Joe] Biden’s destructive economic agenda while funding the ongoing invasion at our borders,” he added.
Heritage Action is the policy advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation, of which The Daily Signal is the news outlet.
Walker commended House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for small victories in the spending agreement in scaling back money for the Internal Revenue Service and pulling back spending on COVID-19.
The deal for fiscal year 2024 keeps discretionary spending at $1.59 trillion, about the same as in the deal reached last May by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and the Biden administration. Democrats gave up their push to spend $10 billion more on the IRS and $6.1 billion on COVID-19.
Walker said the top-line spending numbers in the deal are still too high for fiscal year 2024.
“While negotiating FY24 spending, any bill that addresses or funds the border or immigration policy—like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill—should include HR 2 in its entirety,” he said.
House Resolution 2 is the Secure the Border Act, which the GOP-controlled Congress passed in May, at a time, Republicans say, the Department of Homeland Security is failing in its border protection responsibilities.
The House majority is weighing a possible impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in connection with the border crisis.
“Lawmakers should not provide additional funding to the Biden DHS while allowing Secretary Mayorkas to continue encouraging asylum fraud, granting mass immigration parole and work authorization, employing catch-and-release, paying [nongovernmental organizations] to transport illegal aliens throughout the country, or enticing unaccompanied alien children (UACs) to come to the border by allowing them to stay in the U.S.,” Walker added.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., is the Republican point man for negotiating a border deal with the Biden administration. But the negotiations are hardly relevant, he contends.
“Finally, the House should move forward with securing our border, regardless of the Lankford-Mayorkas deal that’s percolating in the Senate,” Walker said, adding:
We know that deal will ultimately be tied to the White House’s supplemental-funding package, which sticks taxpayers with another $110.5 billion in reckless spending, most of which will be shipped overseas. Worse, the measure will be a ‘compromise’ on border security, negotiated by the very Cabinet secretary set to be impeached for actions and inactions on these very issues—Secretary Mayorkas. It’s time lawmakers stop pretending this bill is relevant to the conversation ahead of us and reject it outright.
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