Friend,

Earlier this week, we wrote to you about the disastrous bipartisan budget deal that recently passed the House. Party leaders quietly negotiate these deals amongst themselves and with the White House, hoping people back home won’t realize what’s going on behind closed doors. The Senate could vote on this bill as early as today, so we’re here to make sure you do know.

Make no mistake: The entire Washington Establishment is united behind increasing our already unsustainable $22 trillion national debt, spending so much that annual interest payments alone may soon exceed even our defense spending.

Buying everything you want may be easier at first and more fun than prioritizing spending or putting money in the bank, but we expect our elected officials to be good stewards of taxpayers’ dollars and to look out for our country’s future. Instead, leaders are sacrificing the prosperity and security of future generations for short-term political gain.

This is immoral. But you can’t hold those officials accountable if you don’t know the truth—and they prefer to keep you in the dark. They’ll tell you, as the president has, that this spending is to help veterans, or to help some other sympathetic group or cause, to stop you from questioning what’s really in the bill.

What they won’t tell you is:

- The deal suspends the debt ceiling for two years, rather than raising it by a specific dollar amount (as used to be the practice), giving the government free rein to rack up untold amounts of additional debt until the limit kicks back in. This is quite convenient for politicians who don’t want to be held accountable, since there won’t be another vote on this until after the 2020 elections.

- Even on paper, the bill offsets less than a quarter of its roughly $320 billion in new spending, and none of those offsets will even materialize for another 10 years. In other words, Congress is channeling its favorite Popeye character, Wimpy, and saying “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” The same politicians who have regularly busted through the spending caps established in 2011—and are doing so again with this bill—expect you to believe that a decade down the road, they’ll stand by and let billions of dollars in cuts go into effect.

- Even if politicians stick to the offsets, that will do nothing to address the fact that this budget deal increases discretionary spending to near record levels, all while mandatory spending continues on autopilot. It's been estimated that this bill alone could result in over $1.5 trillion in new debt over the next decade.

- Once again, this budget deal was crafted by congressional leaders and the president behind closed doors, without input from the hundreds of other members also elected to represent their constituents in Congress. The bill was made public less than 72 hours before the vote, Justin and his colleagues weren’t allowed to offer amendments, members were given little time to genuinely debate the bill, and they were told by party leaders to take it or leave it. This isn’t compromise—it’s a con job.

You can count on Justin to keep fighting against this kind of irresponsible process and policy, and we’ll continue keeping you informed about developments like this that party leaders would rather you not know.

Thanks, as always, for your support <[link removed]>!

- Team Amash



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Justin Amash for Congress - 1500 E Beltline Ave SE, Ste 250, Grand Rapids, MI 49506, United States
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