Senator Johnson Opposes Stopgap Funding Bill that Increases Deficit

Statement

Once again, the Senate has failed to complete its work on time. While Congress is required to pass 12 appropriations bills to fund the government by September 30 each year, only one of these appropriations bills has been debated in the Senate. As a result, the Senate was forced to vote on a stopgap funding bill to keep the government running for seven additional weeks. This is not the way the Senate should be doing business.

I voted against the most recent Continuing Resolution for the same reason I voted against the Budget Control Act (the Debt Ceiling Agreement). We have increased our nation's debt by over $4 trillion in the last three years, and it now totals $14.7 trillion and is roughly equal to the size of our economy. This is a very dangerous level that limits economic growth and job creation.

In order to stabilize and reduce the size of debt in relation to GDP, we must begin to seriously control deficits by cutting and limiting the growth in spending. Neither the Budget Control Act nor the recent Continuing Resolution seriously addresses the problem. In fiscal year 2012, we are only cutting $7 billion from the discretionary portion of the budget. This is less than what we spend in one day, and is less than .2% of our $3,600 billion annual budget.

The fact that the Continuing Resolution also increases discretionary spending $2.65 billion to provide disaster relief - without offsetting that amount with lower priority spending - is another good reason to vote NO.

The Senate is schedule to get back to work on the 2012 budget on October 7. Until then, I will be traveling around the state and asking the people of Wisconsin for their views on how to get spending under control. I'll be relaying your messages to the Senate when this debate gets underway again.

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