Knoxville News Sentenial - Federal Budget Cuts Must be Made, say Tennessee Lawmakers

News Article

By: Michael Collins

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann promised voters in East Tennessee he would work to end deficit spending and return the country to fiscal responsibility if they sent him to Congress.

Three months into his first term, the freshman congressman and other Republicans who are trying to keep similar promises are embroiled in a high-stakes budget showdown with Democrats -- one that could shut down the federal government.

"For far too long, through deficit spending and irresponsible spending, Washington, D.C., has basically wreaked havoc on our republic by spending far too much money," said Fleischmann, R-Ooltewah.

"It is not sustainable. It threatens our national security. It threatens our economy. It hurts jobs. … I think this issue is really the issue of our generation."

Lawmakers have until midnight Friday to reach a compromise on cutting the budget, or the government will run out of money and will shut down.

"At this point, it's almost inevitable that we're going to have some kind of shutdown," said U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Knoxville. "I hope it's not very long."

The stalemate is over the spending plan for this year. House Democrats failed to pass a budget when they were in the majority last year, forcing the government to operate on a short-term spending plan. Now that Republicans are back in power, they are pushing for billions of dollars in cuts.

Negotiators for House Republicans, the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House have been working toward $33 billion in spending cuts. But House Speaker John Boehner is now demanding an additional $7 billion in reductions and says his party won't settle for less.

No matter what figure the parties finally agree upon, the battle is just a prelude to a larger confrontation that is looming over spending plans for next year and years beyond.

A budget blueprint released Tuesday by the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., calls for cutting $6 trillion in spending over a decade, restructuring Medicaid and Medicare, and cutting the top tax rate for individuals and corporations.

Democrats blasted Ryan's plan as irresponsible while Republicans hailed it as an attempt to return the country to sustainable spending levels.

"This is the sort of bold action that the American people expect and deserve," said freshman U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, a Jasper Republican who was elected last year with strong tea party support.

"Our nation can't continue to spend money that we don't have, and borrowing from other countries is simply not a sustainable fiscal plan," DesJarlais said. "…The Washington practice of kicking the can down the road stops now."

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., applauded Ryan for "his acknowledgement that Congress needs a fiscal straitjacket in order for our country to become fiscally sound."

Duncan, who has been in Congress for more than two decades, has been preaching for years about the need for fiscal responsibility, and he thinks the message is finally taking hold. In the past, he said, whenever interest groups have come to his office, they have been seeking increases in federal funding.

"For the first time, though, over the last several months, almost everybody who has come in has said they realize that spending has to be brought under control, and they realize there have to be some cuts," Duncan said. "They have been requesting either that their funding remain level or at least not be cut very much. That's a big change."

Duncan said the $33 billion in cuts proposed for this year would amount to "a very, very small figure when you're talking about a total budget of over $3.5 trillion."

While he would like to see larger cuts, Duncan said he realizes that could be hard to get past the White House and Senate Democrats. "If it looks to me like that's the best they can get through, then I would lean toward voting for that," he said.

Fleischmann said he wants to see the final package before deciding whether he would support it. But even if Republicans don't get everything they want in this year's budget, they will continue the push for additional cuts and fiscal restraint in next year's spending plan, he said.

"If we do not address this, our children, our grandchildren and our entire society will literally continue to suffer," Fleischmann said. "It's just unsustainable, and it's bad for this country."

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