ALABAMA:Alabama’s senators and representatives have to answer this question between now and Sept. 30. By the end of the month, they 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 Alabama and everywhere else in America in 2011, when bipartisan majorities in Congress joined with President 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 over $14 trillion in 2011. Today, it’s more than $18 trillion a growth of more than 200 percent under just two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Under the law, the federal budget will still increase every year. The caps will rise by $240 billion in just the next decade, with $68 billion more flowing to defense over the next five years. The rest of federal spending will also rise. Over the same period, the two-thirds of the federal budget that goes to entitlements and interest payments will increase by 68 percent or $1.5 trillion.
