Congressman Rokita has never voted for a spending bill in the House that would create an immediate budget surplus
INDIANAPOLIS – Congressman Rokita must not have considered his own paycheck when creating his new policy that he and his peers in Washington shouldn’t get paid if they don’t balance budgets, as he’s never voted for a spending bill that doesn’t add to the national debt during his tenure in Washington.
In a radio ad released this week, Congressman Rokita upped the ante on his previous “no-budget-no-pay” position, now proclaiming that “if Washington politicians don’t balance the budget, they shouldn’t get paid.” His new position would cause financial hardship for Washington politicians like himself – Congress hasn’t run a budget surplus since the Clinton Administration, so under his rule, Congressman Rokita ought to have never received a dime of his congressional salary.
The new “no-balanced-budget-no-pay” policy wouldn’t even have seemed to be something that Congressman Rokita agreed with were it in not his own ad, as it’s utterly out of step with his own voting history on spending bills. Congressman Rokita has never voted for a spending bill that would create a budget surplus.
Indeed, not only have past spending bills that Congressman Rokita has supported failed to meet this new “no-balanced-budget-no-pay” rule, so too do the annual budgets fashioned by the Budget Committee which Congressman Rokita sits on as the Vice Chairman. Starting with the budgets crafted by then-Chairman Paul Ryan, these proposals have gained notoriety for ending Medicare as we know it and containing massive cuts to mandatory and discretionary spending that would negatively shock the economy.
Now, these bills are generally regarded as extremist messaging documents rather than serious proposals. Yet despite their hard-line philosophy, neither the Ryan Budgets nor their descendants would balance in their first year if enacted, meaning that they, too, would fail to meet Congressman Rokita’s new standard.
“Congressman Rokita’s hypocritical ‘no-balanced-budget-no-pay’ claim is just another instance of him setting rules for others that he has no intention of following himself,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “Sober-minded folks on both sides of the aisle are having serious conversations about how to tackle our national debt while Congressman Rokita goes on air and demagogues. This foolish policy that he himself wouldn’t even meet is just one more reminder that Congressman Rokita will say or do anything to get elected.”
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