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Budget Deal Rejects Fiscal Discipline in Failure of Leadership

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Budget Deal Rejects Fiscal Discipline in Failure of Leadership

(Washington, D.C.) – Congress is set to vote on a budget deal with the president that would suspend the national debt limit until 2017 and increase federal spending by at least $80 billion over the next two years. This deal negates the bipartisan budget compromise signed into law by President Obama in 2011, which imposed caps on federal spending for the next 10 years. In this new agreement, Republicans and Democrats disregarded their previous commitments to fiscal restraint and made a deal to increase spending immediately, and issued a new promise to impose spending cuts far in the future. 

Daniel Garza, Executive Director of The LIBRE Initiative, released the following statement:

“We’ve been here before. In 2011, Congress and the president decided to kick the can forward in order to avoid cutting spending. The current budget deal uses the same trick a second time around. With the annual deficit set to soar in the next few years, it is more important than ever that our elected officials adhere to their promises to curb the growth of the debt going forward. Instead they are using budget gimmicks and rhetorical tricks to rationalize a return to inflated spending. This is a failure in leadership, and it puts Americans on the hook for greater spending and debt.

Latino families are particularly hurt by this bad deal. As a community, we are a decade younger than the nation as a whole, and our children and grandchildren will bear the cost of this added debt. Latino workers will ultimately pay higher taxes because of it. And as Washington puts off the hard decisions, we face a greater risk of a financial crisis in the future.”

For Interviews with a LIBRE representative, please contact Brian Faughnan, 703-678-4581 or Josh Rivera, 202-763-4428

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