Federal budget a tough sell when it’s unaffordable

This week President Biden unveiled his Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) budget — nearly two months after he was legally required to do so. Under President Biden, Missourians are finding it more difficult and more expensive to put food on their tables, gas in their cars, and clothes on their backs.
None of this is happening by accident. Whether it is the inflation crisis, energy crisis, border crisis, a supply chain crisis, crime crisis, education crisis or others, all are the direct result of the policies President Biden has pursued – all rubber stamped by the one-party Washington Democrat rule in Congress. This budget submission from the President shows he has learned nothing over the past year – nothing about how his policies have failed working-class Americans – and he intends to double down on those very same policies. The President’s 2023 budget deliberately makes every crisis he created worse.
While American families are facing a $5,200 yearly inflation tax in 2022 – having just paid a $3,500 inflation tax in 2021 – the President intends to spend $73 trillion over the next 10 years, growing government spending by $8 trillion more than the Congressional Budget Office predicted for the same period and further fueling the inflation fire that is causing prices to spike and burning up wages. His budget hits American families and job creators with $58 trillion in taxes, including a nearly $1 trillion tax increase on families and socking job creators trying to recover from failed COVID policies with a $1.5 trillion tax hike as well. With our debt crisis having crossed $30 trillion, Joe Biden told Americans that he was going to get serious about tackling trillion-dollar yearly deficits, but the reality is his budget grows America’s debt an additional $16 trillion by 2032.

It is not just the sum of the spending, taxes and debt that are shocking. The individual policies this President is pursuing can only be described as radical and the opposite of the values so many Missourians hold. With record-high gas prices, he proposes $45 billion in new taxes on American energy producers. The President repeals the Hyde Amendment prohibition against taxpayer funding for abortion – breaking the long-standing, bipartisan promise that the government will not force pro-life Americans to subsidize abortions. To Americans who have lost a loved one, the President proposes a $48 billion increase to the death tax to make it harder for family-owned farms and small businesses to be passed down to the next generation. With illegal immigrants pouring across Biden’s open borders, the President actually proposes cutting core funding to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. And to gun owners, the president proposes adding 300 new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents to come after their guns.
The President says, “show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” For the second straight year, we see this President values a government that tells its citizens how to live their lives. He values an economy where Americans struggle to make ends meet and provide for their families. He values open borders and energy dependence. He values debt – a lot of it – $16 trillion to be exact.
The American people are not going to buy this budget – because, frankly, we cannot afford it.
Congressman Jason Smith (R-Salem) represents Missouri’s Eighth Congressional District. He can be reached by email at RepSmithPress@mail.house.gov.