Josh Brecheen: “This amendment is going to reduce funding for educational and the cultural exchange programs back to the 2019 levels.…”

“This amendment is going to reduce funding for educational and the cultural exchange programs back to the 2019 levels. This is a modest cut that will reduce spending by less than 3 percent, back to 2019 spending levels. It leaves $700 million for these programs. There is nothing inherently wrong with exchange programs. However, there is something wrong about continuing to increase Washington's spending on unnecessary programs when our national debt continues to climb $34 trillion-plus. This commonsense amendment simply returns spending for these programs back to pre-COVID levels. With this appropriations bill, we have already reduced 28 accounts to 2019 levels, with strong Republican support. I encourage my colleagues to continue this trend of returning to those pre-COVID spending levels and curbing unnecessary spending increases. To help my colleagues understand how bad Washington's spending problem is, the CBO projects our Federal deficit to be $1.9 trillion, an uptick of $400 billion. That had to be modified, if Members paid attention to what happened this last week with the CBO. It is going to grow to $2.9 trillion by 2034. An annual deficit of almost $3 trillion is facing us less than 10 years away. This excessive spending is going to drive the national debt to record levels and continue to exacerbate the inflation crisis that everybody in America is feeling. The devaluation of our currency because of excessive spending all ties together.…”