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Why I Support the Fiscal Responsibility Act
E-mail from Congressman Tom McClintock's office ^ | 30 May 2023 | Congressman Tom McClintock

Posted on 05/31/2023 7:59:37 AM PDT by old school

"If we are going to save our country, Republicans need to get a lot worse at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Passing the FRA would be a good start and set the stage for additional victories to come."

(Excerpt) Read more at mcclintock.house.gov ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: fiscal; mcclintock; responsibility; tom
I sent this guy an e-mail and called his D.C. office to voice my position on McCarthy's debt limit proposal; which, needless to say, is an emphatic "NO!" I received the preceding e-mail in response. It is clear that constituent voices don't matter to our "representative"; instead he'd prefer to baffle us with bullshit!
1 posted on 05/31/2023 7:59:37 AM PDT by old school
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To: old school
Yet another Act that's stupendously misnamed.

2 posted on 05/31/2023 8:03:30 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: old school

I saw Newt Gingrich on TV last night, and he said something similar. Newt was saying you have to take incremental steps to fiscal responsibility, and that’s what this deal with Biden is all about.

I’ve heard other commentators say that this deal is the best we could hope for, considering that Republicans control only one half of Congress and are up against a Democrat president. So there’s that.


3 posted on 05/31/2023 8:03:33 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Dilbert San Diego

you said..” best we could hope for”

All spending originates in the House.
The House passed a bill. Their job was done.
Never should have negotiated with ourself.
Wait and see the senate bill and then ..reconciliation.

Vacate the chair


4 posted on 05/31/2023 8:11:10 AM PDT by 1of10 (be vigilant , be strong, be safe, be 1 of 10 .)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

No way to do anything like this unless it’s an amendment. Newt proposed that back in the day of the ‘contract with america’ and if they had got it done, OH what a different America we would be living in right now!

You all are right. We can’t do it unless we have a good majority in both houses, and we had the white house. It would be good thing to add strongly to the republican platform though. I’m willing to bet most people are for it, including independents.

But you can’t just pass a law. It would just get ignored and/or overturned in the next congress. It has to be an amendment.

No reason the states would ratify it. All except the most blue states would support it. The only reason not to is because the gravy train of federal money would become a dry teet. So I guess I just contradicted myself because money is king.


5 posted on 05/31/2023 8:12:42 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
Newt was saying you have to take incremental steps to fiscal responsibility, and that’s what this deal with Biden is all about.

What incremental steps? We've been rushing headlong toward financial ruin throughout my life, led by Democrats and with the acquiescence of Republicans. Even a nation as rich as the United States can't continue to substitute BS for financial responsibility forever.
6 posted on 05/31/2023 8:15:11 AM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: Dilbert San Diego
"I’ve heard other commentators say that this deal is the best we could hope for, considering that Republicans control only one half of Congress and are up against a Democrat president. So there’s that."

Same exact argument I've heard before. And what was dine 2016-2018? A Congress that worked to subvert attempts to correct the course this country was on.
It's BS. You know it, I know it, and the people using that excuse especially know it--and they could care less.

7 posted on 05/31/2023 8:17:22 AM PDT by Tench_Coxe (The woke were surprised by the reaction to the Bud Light fiasco. May there be many more surprises)
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To: old school

” It is clear that constituent voices don’t matter to our “representative”; instead he’d prefer to baffle us with bullshit!”

Congressman Tom McClintock is now smack dab in the middle of his 14th year in Washington. At this point in his career, I would guess that his first priority is padding the bank account(s).
Constituents? You are correct, his main job is to baffle & confuse.
Oh, I almost forget and get re-elected.


8 posted on 05/31/2023 8:25:32 AM PDT by Tupelo (A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand)
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To: old school

I’m sorry. Here’s the text of the e-mail:

“In 2011, Congress faced an impasse on raising the debt limit. It was the first year of a new Republican House majority and the third year of a spendthrift Obama administration.

It’s a myth that the impasse caused Standard and Poors to downgrade the nation’s Triple-A credit rating. S&P had warned explicitly for months that Congress had to reduce its projected deficit by $4 trillion over ten years, or face a credit downgrade. Congress responded with the Budget Control Act, which suspended the debt limit and cut the projected deficit by less than half that amount. Standard and Poors promptly made good on its threat.

I voted against the Budget Control Act because it failed to preserve the nation’s triple-A credit rating. It seemed clear at the time.

Nevertheless, the BCA turned out to be the most meaningful – indeed, the only – true constraint on federal spending in the years that immediately followed. Although it made disappointingly small cuts in current spending, it included an across-the-board sequestration mechanism that kicked in automatically when Congress failed to enact the targeted deficit reductions.

In the years that followed, I found myself defending the BCA’s sequestration provisions from bi-partisan efforts to bypass them. My vote against the BCA became the one I most regret over 15 years serving in Congress. True, it didn’t do enough to preserve our credit. But it did more to constrain federal spending than any other act since then.

I’m not going to repeat that mistake with the new agreement.

Like the BCA, there’s a lot for Republicans not to like in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. For openers, like the BCA, it only reduces current spending slightly, by clawing back tens of billions of dollars of unspent covid funds and other recissions. It’s a pittance compared to the unsustainable run-up in spending during the covid hysteria.

Like the BCA, this agreement suspends the debt limit until after the next election – perhaps as much as $4 trillion. That’s excessive, but the debt is not the problem. The debt is a direct result of over-spending. Once government has spent a dollar, the only choice is to raise taxes, print money, or borrow. In short, it’s the spending, stupid.

That’s the fine point of the matter. Like the BCA, the FRA places real constraints on future spending, making it the most important victory for fiscal conservatives in more than a decade. This agreement puts in place changes that will confine spending growth to one percent a year for the next six years if done by appropriation (the 12 annual spending bills) – and requires a one percent reduction if done by continuing appropriation (the omnibus abominations).

It will reduce welfare spending by increasing the work requirements for able bodied adults collecting SNAP and TANF benefits. By reducing environmental reviews to two years, it sets the stage for increased energy production, new water storage and forest management, highway construction – in fact, every infrastructure project now delayed by endlessly time consuming and ultimately cost-prohibitive environmental reviews. It will constrain future regulatory costs imposed by the executive agencies by subjecting them to offsetting regulatory savings. It prevents the administration from adding abusive IRS agents in the coming year. If the Supreme Court rules against the President’s arbitrary student loan forgiveness, as anticipated, it prevents the President from circumventing it by pausing repayments indefinitely. That’s nearly a trillion dollars in taxpayer savings right there.

Republicans shouldn’t compare it to the perfect. Our system of government was never designed to make perfect legislation. They shouldn’t compare it to the Limit, Save and Grow Act that was negotiated and agreed to solely among House Republicans. With both a Senate and President of decidedly different views, the outcome is always going to be a disappointment compared to what a purely-Republican bill would do.

Republicans should instead compare it to the alternative.

Clearly, this administration intends to use a failure to increase the debt limit in the most destructive way that it can, in a calculated effort to create panic in credit rating agencies and capital markets and then push through ruinous measures of their choosing. Events will unfold very quickly, and in a state of financial and political panic, the enormous gains made possible by this bill will be swept away.

If we are going to save our country, Republicans need to get a lot worse at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Passing the FRA would be a good start and set the stage for additional victories to come.”


9 posted on 05/31/2023 8:27:29 AM PDT by old school
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To: old school

This guy didn’t read the bill. The link to it is here. We got the shaft!

https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20230529/BILLS-118hrPIH-fiscalresponsibility.pdf


10 posted on 05/31/2023 8:31:35 AM PDT by eastexsteve
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To: old school
the FRA places real constraints on future spending, making it the most important victory for fiscal conservatives in more than a decade. This agreement puts in place changes that will confine spending growth to one percent a year for the next six years if done by appropriation (the 12 annual spending bills) – and requires a one percent reduction if done by continuing appropriation (the omnibus abominations).

I didn't think you could tie the hands of future Congress's.

11 posted on 05/31/2023 8:33:12 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: old school

MTG and Jim Jordan also came out for it. Lines drawn look much like the lines drawn over the speakership this last session.


12 posted on 05/31/2023 8:41:01 AM PDT by shadowlands1960 (We live in a world of intolerance masked as tolerance. RUSH LIMBAUGH)
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To: All

.
They look at it totally differently.

It’s manna from heaven to them. They have to act like they don’t like the Spending orgy. They aren’t good actors.


13 posted on 05/31/2023 8:47:42 AM PDT by AnthonySoprano (Statute of Limitations is going to elapse on Hunter Biden )
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To: All
4592-DE6-D-6-D31-479-C-90-AE-EF57-B3364839


They Loathe the base. Simple.



14 posted on 05/31/2023 8:55:04 AM PDT by AnthonySoprano (Statute of Limitations is going to elapse on Hunter Biden )
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To: old school

What victory, Congressman? We’re no longer getting 87,000 IRS agents, just 86,999? We’re only being fiscally irrespeonsible, not even mroe fiscally irresponsible?

This si exactly what Howard Phillips meant when he said that when the Democrats are in charge, we’re driving off a cliff at 100 MPH. At least the Republicans drive the speed limit, but you’re still going off the cliff. We need to turn the car around.


15 posted on 05/31/2023 10:44:15 AM PDT by TBP (Decent people cannot fathom the amoral cruelty of the Biden regime.)
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