Committee on Appropriations

Lewis Opposes Temporary CR – Demands Immediate Action to Reduce Government Spending

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Appropriations Ranking Republican Jerry Lewis today announced his opposition to a temporary stop-gap government funding measure scheduled to be voted on by the House today. The legislation – called a “Continuing Resolution” (CR) will extend the Democrat Majority’s high levels of funding for federal agency budgets until December 18, ostensibly until Democrat leaders can muster votes for a massive, trillion dollar “omnibus” package to fund the entire government through the next fiscal year.

Ranking Member Lewis stated his strident opposition to both the CR on the floor today, as well as any attempt to pass a flawed and costly omnibus measure:

“As I have made clear time and time again, I am strongly, unequivocally opposed to any potential omnibus spending bill the Democrat leadership may be planning to bring to the House floor before the end of the year. Likewise, I remain adamantly opposed to extending the CR for the balance of the fiscal year at current spending levels which are, frankly, too darn high.

“Instead of this last ditch effort by the Democrat majority to give themselves more time to spend taxpayer dollars, Congress should extend the CR until the next Congress. This would allow the new House Republican majority to begin putting our Nation’s fiscal house in order by completing the Fiscal Year 2011 Appropriations bills at 2008 levels, saving taxpayers $100 billion. In addition, we should immediately pass my bill, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Rescission Act” (HR 6403), to rescind billions of dollars of unspent federal “stimulus” funding and apply it to deficit reduction.

“At a time of historic deficits, record debt, and ten percent unemployment, I believe we owe our constituents more than the status quo. The message from the American people is loud and clear – they want us to stop the explosion of government spending that is hurting our economy and our financial future,” Lewis said.