Heidi Alexander: “Because Federal spending and debt are at crisis levels, Republican Senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee are…”

“Because Federal spending and debt are at crisis levels, Republican Senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee are asking our Democratic colleagues to join us in supporting the Sessions-McCaskill freeze on discretionary Federal spending. Every Republican--every one of us--and 17 Democratic Senators already have voted for the Sessions-McCaskill amendment this session several times. The amendment would basically freeze Federal discretionary appropriations--both military and nonmilitary--which constitute about 38 percent of the Federal budget. This action by the Senate members of the Appropriations Committee is especially important this year because the Democratic Congress has refused to produce a budget. Here we are, at a time when almost every American is deeply worried about the level of Federal debt and the level of Federal spending, and the first thing we would expect the Congress to do before it plans for next year is to produce a budget that would be able to restrain this spending--both the discretionary part of it, the kind we appropriate year after year--and begin to deal with the entitlements--the mandatory spending that is on automatic pilot.”