If you want to know how out of touch Washington politicians on both sides of the aisle are with hardworking Americans just take a look at the latest bipartisan budget deal.
Every responsible American family understands the simple facts of balancing their checkbooks. When times are tough, they cut back to make ends meet. They don’t max out their credit cards and then apply for more credit cards. They make sacrifices and work hard. It makes perfect sense that the American people expect Washington politicians to make the same kind of responsible budget decisions.
But if you look at Washington, you have to wonder if our representatives live in a fantasy world. This week, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray agreed to a budget deal for 2014 that increases federal discretionary spending to over a trillion dollars from the $967 billion spent in 2013 and obliterates the modest budget cuts agreed to under sequestration.
Republicans are trying to spin this deal as a good thing by pointing to new revenue increases and entitlement changes that will reduce the deficit over the next 10 years. But this is a classic Washington spin game: Increase spending now in exchange for the promise of deficit reduction later. We have seen this movie time and again and we all know how it ends. Washington is very good at making promises and even better at breaking them.
With a $17 trillion national debt, American taxpayers expect leadership from its representatives, especially our Republican representatives who claim to stand for fiscal responsibility.
Sadly, my opponent in the Mississippi Senate race, 35-year incumbent Thad Cochran, has refused to lead on the issue of federal spending. After years of voting to increase the debt ceiling, Sen. Cochran is now refusing to take a position on this disastrous budget deal. When asked whether he will vote for the Ryan-Murray deal, Sen. Cochran said, “I hope I don’t have to.”
It is exactly this kind of lack of leadership the American taxpayers are forced to put up with and it is the reason why we need to change Washington. And it is exactly why I am running for the U.S. Senate in Mississippi.
The American people deserve better than empty promises and bloated budgets. They deserve representatives with the courage and principle to stand up for our conservative values. They deserve a future that is filled with opportunity, not trillions of dollars in debt. And it is up to us to give it to them.
Republican State Senator Chris McDaniel is running for the U.S. Senate in Mississippi. You can find out more at www.mcdaniel2014.com.
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