Federal spending is out of control. Over the lastdecade, Presidents and lawmakers from both parties have triggered an explosionin our national debt from $5.8 trillion to more than $14.4 trillion – nearly a150 percent increase! As our leaders in Washington continue negotiations overthe debt limit, NTU needs YOUR help to make sure we solve this problemonce and for all.
Our President and his allies keep ignoring thedanger signs that America’s fiscal policy is failing. In recent weeks theAdministration has been encouraging Congress to rush through an increase to thedebt ceiling of $2 trillion or more. That strategy is nothing more than a nakedattempt to allow Washington to rack up trillions in new deficit spendingwithout any structural reforms. As NTU President Duane Parde has asked, “Whatgood is increasing the debt ceiling if nothing is done to curb the recklessspending that will perpetually test any limit on borrowing, no matter howhigh?”
To fight back, NTU, along with a broad coalition ofconservative groups, have three demands that must be met before agreeing to anyincrease in the debt ceiling:
- Cut– Immediate and substantial cuts must be made to reign in our deficit in theshort term;
- Cap– Durable statutory spending caps must be passed that would reduce federalspending to its historic range of 18-20 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP);and
- Balance– The House and Senate must send to the states for ratification a BalancedBudget Amendment to the Constitution that contains a spending limitation and a “super-majority”vote requirement in Congress for raising taxes.
House and Senate leaders appear ready to ignorethese commonsense fixes and agree to a debt limit increase in return for relativelymodest spending cuts. That’s simply not enough. Without structural changes likea Balanced Budget Amendment, Washington will continue to throw money it doesn’thave at problems it only manages to make worse.
We must remind the folks in Washington that the debtceiling has already been raised 10 times in the past 10 years. Each agreementto increase the limit has come with promises that the federal government willget its house in order, that this time things will be different, but every yearthe promises get broken and business as usual continues. America can no longerafford such backsliding. Using realistic assumptions about future policies, thenon-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that debt as a share of GDPwould soar beyond its historical peak by 2023 and would reach 190 percent in2035. To ensure that taxpayers are protected over the long term, NTU is workinghard to make spending restraint and a Balanced Budget Amendment part of anydebt limit compromise. But make no mistake – this is THE major, unified pushthat fiscal conservatives will be making in connection with the debt ceilingvote. If you intend to act at all on this issue, NOW is the time! Contact yourRepresentatives and Senators TODAY. Tell them to sign the Cut, Cap, and BalancePledge in order to put America back on the road to fiscal health.
Please Sign The NTU Pledge by Clicking Here
To find out more you can visit https://cutcapbalancepledge.com/pledge.php. Please don’t delay ... Congress will be moving on this issue very soon!