Mike Lawler, a Republican Congressman-elect, stated that the U.S. Congress needs to step back and have a “come to Jesus” moment regarding spending.
While speaking on the Sunday edition of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Lawler, who recently managed to snap up the seat previously held by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Sean Patrick Maloney in the midterms, stated that Congress needs to cut down on all the insane levels of spending which keep tacking more onto the national debt, while keeping the necessary social programs such as Medicare and Social Security sustainable.
“There’s no question our debt is out of control,” stated Lawler to the show’s host, Jake Tapper. “I mean, we’re talking about over $30 trillion. We need to get spending under control. Under the Biden administration, we have increased spending by over $4 trillion. There’s no question that this is unsustainable. And so, certainly, there are levers of power within Congress, and debt ceiling votes are one of them. At the end of the day, we have to pay our debt and we have to ensure that the government is functional and operating. But I think there really needs to be, frankly, a come to Jesus on this when it comes to spending. Both parties have been guilty of this over recent years. And we need to be serious about tackling our out-of-control spending and debt.”
In the same vein, Lawler explained just how critically important it was to ensure the longevity of Medicare and Social Security. “We need to ensure that the trust fund is sustainable,” he stated. “And so I think we need to evaluate what needs to be done. Frankly, I think there should be a blue-ribbon commission, much like was done back in the ’80s, a bipartisan commission, to evaluate the long-term aspect of Social Security and Medicare. But we have a responsibility to fulfill our commitments there. And so my objective is to make sure that they are sustainable for the long term.”
This coming month, Congress is slated to gather a budget resolution to once again fund the government until a to-be-determined point next year. Democrats throughout both houses are wanting to push through quite a bit to raise the federal debt ceiling prior to the Republicans taking back control of the House of Representatives in the coming Congress. Many Democrat leaders have not yet planned to issue a vote for the bill yet due t concerns that they currently have not secured enough votes to strongarm the legislation entirely through.
