Biden White House Once Again Ignores Budget Deadline, Committee Republicans Demand Answers for Failing Agenda
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, marks the legal deadline, under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, for President Biden to submit his Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget. Last year, the White House set a record for the latest a Presidential budget request has ever been transmitted to Congress in modern history. House Budget Committee Republicans joined today in sending a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) raising over two dozen questions about the President’s now once again late budget submission for FY 2023. Specifically, Committee Republicans cited numerous policy promises and statements the Biden White House has made over the last year, asking if such promises would be appropriately accounted for in the President’s Budget. Further Committee Republicans asked whether the President’s FY 2023 budget plans to acknowledge or address the fallout and harm from various policy decisions already put forward by Democrats as well as whether the President plans to repurpose policies from his FY 2022 budget that have both directly and indirectly contributed to the national crises now facing all Americans. “President Biden is fond of saying show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value. If the President’s upcoming FY 2023 budget is any reflection of his first year in office, it would appear his Administration will continue to value reckless spending, record high consumer prices, a defenseless border, and the largest expansion of the federal government in half a century,” said House Budget Committee Republican Leader Jason Smith (MO-08). “The American people who have suffered at the hands of the President’s failed policies deserve answers sooner rather than later about whether his next budget will set a different course for the nation or whether it will continue those same policies that have led to one crisis after another.” Accompanying the letter is a robust list of key facts outlining the various actions taken by the Biden Administration during its first year in office. Democrats enter the FY 2023 budget cycle with a dismal track record. The FY 2022 budget adopted by Congressional Democrats last year spends $68 trillion over 10 years. If combined with what Democrats have spent since taking the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019, total spending would be more than every single tax dollar paid by all Americans in U.S. history. The latest data shows that inflation is now at the highest level in forty years, fueled by trillions in reckless government spending enacted by President Biden and Washington Democrats last year. The letter from House Budget Committee Republicans questions how the Biden Administration will address the consequences of its failed policies in the FY2023 budget, including on such critical topics as: Inflation
“Will the President’s FY 2023 budget reflect more realistic inflation, economic growth, and job creation assumptions given that since introduction of the President’s FY 2022 budget inflation has climbed to a forty year high, economic growth has dramatically underperformed that which the Administration predicted its policies would deliver, and job creation is at the baseline predicted to occur absent those policies?”
Build Back Better
“On numerous occasions the White House has commented that the full $5 trillion Build Back Better (BBB) bill would be fully paid for and cost “zero dollars.” Will the President’s FY 2023 budget request reflect a fully paid for Build Back Better plan?...If offsets for the BBB are in the form of tax increases on the American public, will those tax increases be ones already widely rejected by the Democrat majority in control of Congress?”
COVID-19 Spending
“Given that Congress has already enacted $6 trillion in spending related to the COVID-19 pandemic – of which $2 trillion was enacted by the Biden Administration and billions of dollars subsequently diverted, including money meant to develop COVID-19 testing, to deal with housing illegal immigrants at the southern border – will the President’s FY 2023 budget include a request for yet more billions of dollars for so-called ‘COVID-19 relief’?”
Border Crisis
“Given the current national security crisis at the southern border, will the President’s FY 2023 budget request once again freeze funding levels at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – particularly after reports that DHS was having to shift resources among operating budget accounts, including agent payroll, to cover the rising cost of responding to the surge of illegal immigrants?”
China’s Role in COVID-19
“Given the mounting evidence about the origins of COVID-19 and that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been clearly involved in covering up or at the very least brazenly withholding information about the pandemic’s beginnings, will the President’s FY 2023 budget provide for or allow for funding of viral research in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)?”
“It is imperative that the Biden Administration provide answers to the above questions either in advance of or in the process of presenting President Biden’s FY 2023 budget. The Administration’s budget request to Congress must not ignore the present challenges facing the country, and the American people would be best served by a budget request from the President that speaks to the concerns working families are facing each and every day,” conclude House Budget Committee Republicans in the letter. Click HERE or the image below to read the full letter and key facts and figures.
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