NEW YORK:Nevada’s senators and representatives have to answer this question between now and Sept. 30. By the end of the month, Congress must pass a federal funding bill for the next year or face a possible government shutdown. Unfortunately, a growing number want a budget that abandons the modest, bipartisan spending levels Congress established four years ago.
They will break their promise to their constituents if they succeed. They made this promise to taxpayers in Nevada and everywhere else in America in 2011, when bipartisan majorities in Congress joined with President Barack Obama to pass the Budget Control Act. The law established reasonable annual caps on how fast Washington can increase spending on the one-third of the federal budget that doesn’t go to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs.
Both parties supported this law because government spending was and is out of control. The numbers are astounding. The national debt increased from less than $6 trillion in 2001 to more than $14 trillion in 2011. it’s more than $18 trillion a growth of more than 200 percent under just two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.More to the point, every taxpayer in Nevada now owes more than $154,000.
As this number grows, it slows economic growth, makes tax increases on the middle class more likely and threatens Americans’ well-being for generations to come.The Budget Control Act is a small but necessary first step toward addressing this looming crisis. Its caps have contributed to recent decreases in annual federal deficits, which fell from $1.3 trillion in 2011 to an expected $426 billion in 2015. They are also partially responsible for the consecutive decreases in federal spending in 2012 and 2013 a feat last seen in the mid-1950s.
