U.S. Rep. Paul Broun will vote against a balanced budget the House will consider this week, saying it doesn’t go far enough.
“It fails to seriously address runaway government spending, the most pressing problem facing our nation,” the Georgia Republican wrote in an op-ed piece Tuesday for The New York Times.
Broun argues the budget offered by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, also a Republican, encourages spending by only slowing the rate to 3.4 percent each year, compared to the president’s path of 5 percent per year. It would spend $41 trillion over 10 years compared with the president’s $46 trillion.
“I cannot vote for something that would trick the American people into thinking that Congress is fixing Washington’s spending problem, when in actuality we’d just be allowing it to continue without end.”
Broun is a member of the House Tea Party Caucus and is planning to run for an open Senate seat in the Peach State as a fiscal conservative.
House Speaker John Boehner said in a press conference Monday that Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” has the only chance of getting a majority of votes in the House this week among several budgets that will be considered. The House also will vote on budgets introduced by House Democrats, the Congressional Black Caucus and the conservative Republican Study Committee.
Ryan credited House leadership for allowing competing proposals to come to the House floor. He contrasted the House with Senate Democrats, whose budget increases taxes by $1.5 trillion, and President Barack Obama, who has yet to submit a budget.
“We’re at least bringing budgets to the floor this week,” Ryan said at the House leadership press conference with Boehner. “At least we’re showing leadership.”
Broun argues for eliminating federal agencies such as the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, as well as phasing out the federal highway financing system and repealing Obama’s healthcare law.
He also incorporates his Balanced Budget Amendment, which failed to reach the two-thirds necessary for passage in the last Congress.
“Rather than nibbling around the edges as the Ryan proposal does,” Broun writes, “we must do all of this and much more now. There is a ‘Path to Prosperity,’ but Mr. Ryan’s budget isn’t it.”
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