By Justin Amash



The heralding of the 2013 House Republican budget as a victory for fiscal responsibility is a worrying sign for our Republic. At a time when Americans are demanding a credible, bipartisan plan to balance the federal budget, congressional leaders have offered a partisan document that leaves tough choices and compromises to a future Congress.

I voted “no” because I could not in good conscience support it.

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Each day, because politicians are afraid to say “no” to donors, big corporations, defense contractors, unions and other special interests, we spend $10 billion and take in only $6 billion. The $4 billion difference — enough money to buy lunch for every American every day — is borrowed, some from Americans who lend the government their personal savings by buying bonds, and some from foreign governments and investors.

Democrats and Republicans agree that if we continue on this path, we will go bankrupt. Many of the rich will stay rich, but the poorest and most vulnerable Americans will face rampant inflation and devastating, abrupt cuts in federal programs.

As a conservative, I applaud the GOP budget for presenting good ideas about reforming health care costs, simplifying the tax code and changing spending priorities. But beyond the good ideas, the budget accomplishes little now while making lofty promises about what we hope to address in the future.

Although Republicans claim the budget contains big cuts, they are using “cuts” in the Washington sense of increasing spending less than planned. This would be like a family that currently earns $50,000 and spends $75,000 claiming that they are “cutting back” next year because they are budgeting to spend $80,000 when they had hoped to spend $85,000.

The numbers speak for themselves. For 2008, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to $933 billion in discretionary spending. The new GOP plan proposes to spend more — $1,028 billion. It spends more overall than President Obama’s first-term average and much more than President George W. Bush’s.

Even assuming an economic uptick, Chairman Paul Ryan projects the House budget will add hundreds of billions per year to our debt through 2022 and later. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the GOP plan will keep adding to our debt until nearly 2040, which would reduce economic growth and virtually ensure higher taxes and more inflation.

Equally concerning is that the House budget literally violates the law and made no effort to earn bipartisan support. In August, Congress passed and the President signed the Budget Control Act, which raised the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion and promised to limit federal spending through discretionary spending caps and a congressional “Super Committee.”

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If the Super Committee didn’t find more than a trillion dollars in savings, federal spending was supposed to be cut automatically, across-the-board. The thinking was that Republicans’ favorite spending (military) would be cut, Democrats’ favorite spending (social programs and so-called entitlements) would be cut, and the threat of automatic cuts would spur the Super Committee to action.

Shortly after voting against the debt ceiling deal, I wrote in an op-ed that the deal was a promise to work on the debt later and that Washington's reputation for keeping promises is not good. Predictably, the House budget rejects the automatic cuts required under the Budget Control Act in 2013, and it won't meet the law in future years because it exempts military spending from reductions and instead grows the defense budget. It's hardly surprising that not a single Democrat voted in favor of the GOP plan.

The United States spends nearly as much on defense as all other nations of the world combined. And, contrary to popular belief, U.S. military spending actually is higher now than it was under the Bush administration. I strongly support defense as a top federal priority, but borrowing money from China to pay for Western Europe's air force is not making us safer.

Ironically, if Republicans simply adopted the military spending levels of George W. Bush, we likely could win the support of enough Democrats to pass critical reforms to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — the three largest non-defense budgetary items. Each party cannot continue to pretend the other party doesn’t exist and then shrug when asked why nothing good comes out of Congress.

Party leaders like to lament that it’s not politically feasible to compromise toward a balanced budget because the American people really don’t understand the problem — we have to wait for public acceptance. But real political leadership involves educating and persuading people about the difficult choices we face as a nation. It’s time for those who have been placed in positions of influence to stop waiting and start doing.

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash is a Republican who represents Michigan's 3rd congressional district.