On Budget Control Act, Will Congress Keeps Its Word?
Will Congress keep its word?
By MARC SHORT & ANDY KOENIG
Will Congress keep its word on the budget? Oklahoma’s senators and representatives have to answer this question between now and Sept. 30. By month’s end, they must pass a federal funding bill for the next year or face a possible government shutdown. Unfortunately, a growing number want a budget that abandons the modest, bipartisan spending levels Congress established four years ago.
They will break their promise to their constituents if they succeed. They made this promise to taxpayers in Oklahoma and everywhere else in America in 2011, when bipartisan majorities in Congress joined with the president to pass the “Budget Control Act.”
The law established reasonable annual caps on how fast Washington can increase spending on the one-third of the federal budget that doesn’t go to Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlement programs.
Both parties supported this law because government spending was, and is, out of control.