There’s no bigger challenge facing our nation right now than crippling, 40-year high inflation. These difficult economic times are forcing families to make tough financial decisions every day, whether it’s buying fewer groceries, putting less gas in the tank, or canceling family vacations.
At the same time when millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, Washington Democrats and President Biden are fueling the inflation crisis by spending hundreds of billions of dollars to advance their radical agenda and reward their political allies. They still haven’t learned their lesson after they tanked the economy by passing their $2 trillion wasteful spending bill last year. And they are still talking about a new package that would add hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in new spending.
But that’s just the funding they’re trying to pass through Congress. Since President Biden took office, he has issued executive action after executive action to secretly put his radical agenda in place. Alarmed by this administration’s executive overreach, I asked the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to find out the real cost of his actions. What CBO found should concern all Americans: with the stroke of a pen and without any input from Congress, President Biden’s executive actions have cost taxpayers $532 billion.
So how did President Biden spend $532 billion in taxpayer funding?
Let’s start with handouts to the wealthy. President Biden spent $85 billion to continue a pandemic-era student loan payment moratorium benefitting higher income earners. An overwhelming majority of Americans - 87% - do not have federal student loans; 60% of student loan debt is held by households with incomes over $74,000. It’s unacceptable that President Biden is considering another handout to the wealthy, this time by spending an estimated $230 billion to cancel $10,000 worth of student loan debt for American households that earn as much as $300,000 per year.
Immigrants are also benefiting from President Biden’s executive actions. His administration wasted $20 billion to end the Trump-era public charge restrictions on immigration, which protected taxpayers from awarding welfare benefits to immigrants. On top of fueling the crisis at the border, his radical immigration agenda is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
As hardworking Americans have struggled to put food on the table and clothes on their backs, President Biden has spent billions of dollars to get rid of work incentives for individuals who receive government assistance. With the stroke of a pen, President Biden threw $11 billion in taxpayer funding down the drain by eliminating strengthened work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for able-bodied adults without dependents.
President Biden has been a disaster when it comes to supporting working families. Instead of wasting hundreds of billions of dollars to reduce work incentives and benefit the wealthy, President Biden and Washington Democrats need to focus on solving the significant challenges we face, like curbing inflation, securing the border, and getting our economy back on track.
Unfortunately, the left will stop at nothing to force their radical agenda on American families. They believe that they can protect vulnerable Washington Democrats in the November elections by passing their $5 trillion Build Back Broke bill – this time by breaking it up into smaller pieces.
The bottom line is that Americans do not want – and absolutely cannot afford – Washington Democrats’ reckless spending. As your voice in Washington, I will do everything I can to protect Missourians from the left’s wasteful spending and non-stop attacks on our freedoms, values, and way of life.
