Florida News-Press

 

To borrow a maritime phrase, the presidency of Barack Obama seems to be caught in “irons;” like a sail flapping in the wind and an inability to steer onto a course of any kind to catch a breeze. This has occurred because this president refuses to change course and is convinced that big liberal government can spend us out of an economic mess.

Many in Washington have followed the president into this liberal abyss, refusing to listen to the voters from last November and their message of “no more” spending and taxation. In the absence of executive leadership, the tough spending decisions have been left to us in Congress.

Last week, a steadfast group of House Republicans took a tough, but important, stand and voted against the budget deal to fund government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011. I believe that it didn’t cut spending to the point where we can balance the budget, which is necessary to get our nation’s financial house in order and which will reduce the price that our children and grandchildren will have to pay because of our current spending habits.

While Obama and Democrats in Congress continue to borrow and spend, we know that this path cannot be sustained. Instead of ensuring that we spend within our means, Congress simply increases the amount we can borrow — also known as raising the debt limit — every year that we overspend, in order to spend even more.

It’s this type of irresponsible borrowing — without real accountability — that has led to too many financial crises in this country and abroad. Until we break free from these spending chains, America’s economy will continue to be bound either to raise taxes on overburdened families and small businesses or to borrow and weaken the U.S. dollar to pay our nation’s bills.

In fact, just this week, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) put the U.S. government on notice that its credit rating could be downgraded because of the “very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us.” We can no longer afford to ignore the warnings. We must act to balance the federal budget and reduce our nation’s debt.

Republicans have an opportunity right now to take real steps to free ourselves from the chains of uncontrollable spending and massive debt. America is about to hit our current debt limit of $14.3 trillion and which means Congress will be asked to raise this limit once again. What’s the point of having limits on spending and debt if all we’re going to do is ignore these limits? 

Last November, Americans sent a message to Congress to break free from the spending habits that have created the largest debt in our nation’s history. Now is the time to demand that we balance the federal budget instead of kicking the can down the road and allowing our country to face even greater threats to our economic freedom. Republicans in Congress must stand united against borrowing any more money to fuel the liberal abyss Obama has created. Enough is enough.

 

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