Weekly Column: Setting the Priorities

Statement

One of my favorite authors, John Maxwell, wrote: "A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went." On March 25, the House passed a reform-minded and conservative budget that will serve as an outline of where your tax dollars should be going -- and to be clear, I believe more of those dollars should stay in your pockets.

The budget we passed was put together under one assumption: The money being used to formulate this budget is not the federal government's; it's yours. Therefore, we ought to spend every dime budgeted responsibly and respectfully -- as if it was our own -- free of waste, fraud, and abuse.

With that in mind, the House budget would eliminate $5.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years, allowing us to balance the budget within the next decade. Those are big cuts, but we have a big budget that has grown increasingly out of control and stands in the way of a healthy economy. We need to create economic opportunity, achieve genuine accountability and make the bold choices that are necessary to get more control over this budget.

Unlike the President's budget proposal, which calls for a $3.5 trillion tax hike without ever balancing, the House's budget is balanced without raising taxes. Rather than increasing your taxes, it begins to lay the groundwork for a fairer and simpler tax code that could lower your annual tax bill, enabling you to keep more of your hard-earned dollars at home instead of in Washington's pockets.

While spending has been cut, we've continued to make investments in areas that the federal government has a legitimate responsibility to do so. For instance, we increase defense spending above the President's levels, ensuring our men and women in uniform have every piece of equipment and knowledge necessary to successfully take on threats from the Middle East and elsewhere.

Conversely, in areas where control rightfully belongs in the hands of states or local communities, we introduce new limits on the federal government and even repeal programs that the federal government has no business managing, including the President's health care law.

These are our priorities and this budget will serve as an outline for the House to follow as we fund the federal government for FY2016. It's an important mark to make.

Both the Senate and the President have put out their own budget proposals. While the President's budgets have always included higher spending and additional taxes or fees, the House has leveraged its conservative budgets time and again to get spending cuts for hardworking taxpayers. Since I've been elected, we've been able to eliminate $165 billion in spending, which are the most significant reductions in modern history. We've also enacted the largest deficit control bills since 1981 -- with no new tax increases. It's progress, but we've got a long way to go to achieve a government that is effective, efficient and accountable.

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