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Congressman Josh Brecheen voted NO on H.R. 3746, the Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling agreement.

“Tonight, more Democrats voted for the Biden-McCarthy agreement than Republicans, and you have to ask why? The Biden-McCarthy agreement was another missed opportunity to cut spending on a scale that can truly start to turn our nation away from a fiscal cliff. In five years, just the annual interest payments on our national debt will reach one trillion dollars, matching what we spend on national defense every year,” said Congressman Josh Brecheen.

“We don’t have time to wait for real spending reform when experiencing a 40-year high of inflation and devaluation of our dollar that is threatening our world reserve currency status. The spending cuts and policy reforms we passed last month in the Limit, Save and Grow Act were jettisoned in this deal for the most part. The Biden Administration has largely protected their bloated levels of spending and their policies,” Brecheen continued.

“In terms of real first year cuts to spending, the Biden-McCarthy agreement only includes about 1% ($12 billion) of the first-year cuts to federal spending of The Limit, Save, Grow Act which cut approximately $900 billion in the first year,” Brecheen concluded. 

Fast Facts on the Biden-McCarthy Agreement:

• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now says the agreement’s adjustments to work requirements will not save money but will actually cost taxpayers $2.1 billion more over ten years and add 78,000 more people onto the rolls of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) because of this deal.   

• This deal leaves in place green energy tax credit subsidies that will cost taxpayers $1.2 billion over the next decade, while pushing natural gas utilization aside. Permitting reform would have been a net positive absent its inclusion of expediating taxpayer-subsidized green energy projects.

• The deal, for the most part, upholds Biden’s student loan bailout and only delays the IRS expansion by just one year.

• This bill included the “Massie Plan,” which would include an automatic 1% cut to a Continuing Resolution if Congress fails to pass appropriations bills. On its face, this could be a positive. However, the threat of it being thwarted by another bloated spending bill is real.