Conservative House Members Say No More Deficit Spending

On Friday, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) sent a letter with 20 of his colleagues to President Trump urging him to oppose any additional coronavirus relief packages while our country awaits the full impact of the last three phases, including the most recent $2.3 Trillion CARES Act. Among the signers of the letter are Republican Study Committee Chairman Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), renowned budget hawk Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), and others.

Chairman Biggs’ letter builds on the groundwork laid by Rep. Ralph Norman’s (R-S.C) letter sent to congressional leadership prior to the passage of the CARES Act, which called for fiscal restraint and budget caps in connection with any coronavirus relief.

Similar to Rep. Norman’s letter, Chairman Biggs’ letter focuses primarily on fiscal restraint, saying, “However, while our nation will win the war against the coronavirus, it may not win the war against our mounting debt. Even before the CARES Act was signed into law, the national debt stood at $23.6 trillion, which equates to nearly $73,000 for every citizen—man, woman, and child. Now we will add at least $2 trillion to this already unsustainable sum.”

Unfortunately, there are already calls both inside and outside of Congress to move forward on a fourth and even a fifth round of COVID-19 legislation. One can be certain that such a possibility will be promoted by those with leftist wishlists and dreams of socialism, so proponents of even basic capitalism must be ready to push back. As the authors of this wise letter point out, “Most of the relief funding from Phase 2 and Phase 3 has not even been distributed yet.” It would be irresponsible to throw more money and more government at our nation, as the letter notes, “before we have seen the results of the previous three rounds of spending.”

Thankfully, this letter — in highlighting some of the larger ramifications of unnecessary government involvement in stifling our whole nation — gives hope and life to some smarter forms of government response than misguided “stimulus” spending. For example, it implores that “[a]ny further emergency relief or stimulus bills, if necessary, should be solely designed to restore and grow the U.S. economy with as little long-term government intervention as possible.”

Restoring and growing the economy are key points if our country is to rapidly recover from the havoc that the novel coronavirus has wreaked on us. As the great President Calvin Coolidge said, “The chief business of the American people is business.” To that end, the federal government should allow businesses to prosper, by eliminating regulations that burden the private sector from reaching its full potential. Far too often, government regulations — written and implemented by out-of-touch and self-interested Washington bureaucrats — do immensely more harm than good.

The Trump administration has done an excellent job of rolling back some of these regulations that have specifically gotten in the way of private-sector coronavirus relief, but it can and should do more.

As is evident, there are leaders inside of Congress and inside of the administration who know that less is more when it comes to government intervention, and many of them can be found on Chairman Biggs’ letter. We hope, as many others do, that President Trump takes the advice from those who want the best for our nation and rejects further rushed, secretive, and bloated phases of coronavirus “relief,” and instead lets the economy and private sector work for all of our good.