The only way to tackle the national debt is to go back to the basics and have Congress appropriate everything, Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told Newsmax on Wednesday.
Zinke, who voted against last week's debt ceiling deal, told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" that the legislation "had a lot of good in it, the problem is it did not address the debt."
A retired U.S. Navy commander, Zinke emphasized that "you're never going to address the debt unless we look at appropriations and Congress does their job and goes back to appropriating everything."
He explained that "75% of the budget is on auto drive. Congress doesn't even review it. When you have 75% of the budget on auto drive and Congress doesn't do its job, this is why we have the financial crisis we're in. We have to appropriate everything and go back to the Constitution, Article 1, Section 9."
Zinke declined to attack House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who engineered the bipartisan deal with President Joe Biden to get the debt ceiling bill passed, with the congressman saying that on this issue, "I'm going to agree to disagree with him."
But he added that "this is a very serious ball game, and we are now at halftime. The next play is appropriation ... and I sit on the committee."
Zinke stressed that "appropriations is the key to getting our financial house in order."
He said that McCarthy, "like any performer, any leader, he has to perform," adding that Republicans "are going to do what the people sent us here to do."
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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