The Truth About the Fiscal Responsibility Act

There’s been a lot of confusing information going around about the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which was negotiated by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to bring Republican priorities to the president’s desk. With many people across Eastern Washington contacting me about the legislation, I wanted to set the record straight and answer one very simple question: What’s really in the Fiscal Responsibility Act?

You can review the full text of the legislation, a section by section summary, and a list of the conservative wins we secured here:

Read the Bill Text

Section By Section Summary

List of Conservative Wins

Additionally, here are responses to some of the most common concerns:

C: The FRA doesn’t go far enough to limit government spending and should have included far more cuts.

A: The FRA is the largest deficit reduction and largest rescissions bill in history. It blocks trillions of dollars in new rules and regulations from the Biden administration, and it is the first bill to ever tie a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts.  Those are all important wins, but I agree that we must do more. 

We now have momentum to continue fighting for spending restraint and reduction. The FRA has set the stage for further efforts to cut our deficit.

C: The Fiscal Responsibility Act is a bad deal for Republicans.

A: Republicans got wins in this bill, and the Democrats got nothing. Republicans don’t control the Senate or the White House, and yet this deal consists of major federal permitting reforms so America can be in the business of developing energy and building infrastructure again, expanded work requirements for people on SNAP, and major spending cuts and limits on spending for the next six years.  

Frankly, without this agreement, Senate Democrats would have likely pushed through a clean debt limit extension without any Republican wins. Default was never an option. A default would have disastrous impacts on our economy. I believe that given the circumstances, it was important to secure these Republican wins and get them signed into law. But please rest assured, my fight for fiscal responsibility is not over. I will continue working hard to secure other much-needed reforms to get our fiscal house in order, including a Balanced Budget Amendment and my Unauthorized Spending Accountability Act. 

C: A debt default wouldn’t be bad.

A: Defaulting on our debt should never be an option. The most immediate impact we’d all feel would be from skyrocketing interest rates that lead to mass layoffs because employers can’t afford to pay their loans and still make payroll. Then we’d be in a situation where seniors can’t get health care because Medicare has stopped reimbursements. On top of that, Social Security checks would not be sent, our troops would be waiting on their paychecks, veterans would go without disability benefits, and vulnerable kids in the Children’s Health Insurance Program wouldn’t be able to see a doctor. This is not the American way. 

C: The bill only repeals a portion of funding for IRS agents, not all of the 87,000.

A: This legislation rescinds funding for President Biden’s army of IRS agents for an entire year. While this is not a perfect solution, it gives us more time to find a way to permanently prevent this administration from going after hard working Americans and small business owners.

I agree that the president should be more focused on getting inflation under control and our economy back on track – not auditing people trying to make ends meet. That’s why the very first thing I did this Congress was help pass the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act (H.R. 23) to block the Biden administration from hiring the full army of 87,000 new IRS agents. Now we need to get this bill through the Senate and keep the pressure on to reverse this backwards policy once and for all.