Issue Position: Federal Spending

Issue Position

House Republicans have capped federal spending.

Federal spending has been out of control for too long. For four years in a row, federal deficits have averaged well above $1.3 trillion. This is unsustainable. To return the nation back to fiscal sanity, Pete Sessions supports spending cuts rather than any increases in tax rates.

As the chart to the right shows, the federal deficit has been too large for too many years. While both political parties share responsibility for the federal budget, most of the spending increases have occurred when Democrats were in control of House. [Chart on Congressman's web site]

When Nancy Pelosi took over as Speaker of the House in 2007, the federal deficit stood at $161 billion. Pelosi and her new Democrat majority immediately increased federal spending the very next year, spiking the deficit to $459 billion.
The financial crisis came and federal spending skyrocketed to $1.4 trillion in 2008. After that budget year, Barack Obama -- working with Democrat majorities in both the House and the Senate -- went on a spending spree, culminating in the failed 2009 economic stimulus bill, which cost taxpayers $831 billion, as well as the government takeover of health care - ObamaCare.

The Obama administration and Washington Democrats were particularly generous to the public sector. Federal workers are now paid 42 percent more than private-sector employees: $71,206 per year compared to $50,028 in the private sector. In Washington, D.C., the disparity is even greater: the 372,041 Washington-area federal employees are paid -- on average -- $94,047 per year.

In their last year as the majority in Congress, the Democrats increased federal compensation even more. They gave paid parental leave to the entire federal workforce, estimated to cost taxpayers about $1 billion over five years, a benefit rarely offered in the private sector. (That benefit still exists today, because any reform of federal compensation offered by House Republicans has been blocked by Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate.)

President Obama and the Democrats also went on a hiring binge. By the end of 2010, President Obama expanded the total number of federal employees by 273,000, a 14.5 percent increase, from the time he took office.

In the 2010 campaign, Pete Sessions led the effort by Republicans to take back the House majority in his position as Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). Under his leadership, the NRCC had its best showing for Republicans in more than fifty years, electing 89 freshmen Members of Congress, and switching 63 Democrat-held seats to the Republican column.

Republicans quickly went to work reining in federal spending, after removing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House and replacing her with John Boehner. Over the objections of Democrats, House Republicans voted for a spending plan called, "Cut, Cap and Balance." The plan would have made significant and immediate cuts to federal spending and cap the spending at those lower levels. With regulatory relief and lower taxes, the plan would have then balanced the federal budget by closing the deficit through economic growth.

Again, Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats stopped that proposal. House Republicans did not back down, however, forcing a virtual freeze on federal spending. As documented by the Congressional Budget Committee (CBO)*, this year's total spending by the federal government grew by the smallest amount in memory -- just one-tenth of one percent (0.1%).

While the new Republican majority has succeeded in capping federal spending, Congress must continue to take even more steps to control the unsustainable deficits, which, if left unchecked, will place too much of a burden on future generations of Americans. By hopefully working with a new President and a new Republican majority in the Senate, Pete Sessions and House Republicans are committed to taking those steps toward fiscal reform.

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