As midterms approach and a Republican victory in Congress hangs in the balance, Republican congressmen have pushed their colleagues to reject Democrats’ plans to increase government funding before the year is up.
Forty-two Republicans in the House and 14 in the Senate have joined in opposing Democrats’ plans for a continuing resolution that would extend government funding into the next congressional year.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, spearheaded an effort to combat this resolution in the Senate. In a “Dear Colleague” letter addressed to Republican senators on Monday, Lee writes, “We must not accept anything short of a ‘clean’ Continuing Resolution (‘CR’) that contains no additional spending or extraneous policy riders.”
The letter urges members of Congress to “stand strong against lame-duck spending” and warns that “caving to the Democrats will likely worsen inflation, prolong the current economic recession, and advance policies contained in the Biden administration’s progressive wish-list.”
Sens. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Ted Cruz, R-Texas; and Rick Scott, R-Fla., also signed Lee’s letter calling for a “clean” continuing resolution.
“Month after month for the last two years, Democrats and President Joe Biden have been able to advance their radical agenda while Republicans have largely been sidelined,” Scott writes in a Fox News op-ed with Lee and Cruz. The senators argue that their constituents are “sick and tired of watching Washington’s broken status quo continue while they deal with the consequences of reckless spending in Congress.”
The Republican senators note that a “clean” resolution wouldn’t cut current funding. It would simply “ensure that the federal government continues to operate as it must for the American people until a new Congress begins in 2023,” they write. “This is not some convoluted scheme to cause a government shutdown. This is about accountability and doing what’s right for American taxpayers. That’s it.”
House Republicans signed a similar letter on Monday, led by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. Roy has urged House Republicans to reject a continuing resolution that would raise current levels of spending or expire before Jan. 3 of next year, The Epoch Times reports.
As Congress convenes on Jan. 3, this would allow the continuing resolution to expire and would give a Democrat majority the chance to increase government spending through the rest of the fiscal year.
As Roy’s letter states, “Federal dollars are fueling rampant inflation and funding the Biden administration’s radical agenda.” According to the letter, Biden’s agenda includes “empowering authoritarian bureaucrats at agencies like the IRS and FBI, implementing open-border policies that are threatening our communities, [and] imposing COVID-19 mandates that shut down schools and are forcing our military service members out of their jobs.”
As the Sept. 30 deadline for federal funding approaches, Roy urges Republicans to “do what is necessary to ensure not one additional penny” will go toward the Democrats’ agenda. Lee similarly writes, “The American people cannot afford another Washington feeding frenzy. We must not let them down.”
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