EarlPomeroy

Washington, Feb 4 - Congressman Earl Pomeroy said Thursday that a House vote today marks a key step forward in the effort to reduce the federal budget deficit.

Pomeroy, a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, has pushed in the House for years for adoption of budgeting rules called “pay-as-you-go.” The rules stipulate that if the federal government increases spending in one area of the budget, it must be offset by reducing spending in another area. The legislation passed on a 233-187 vote by the House today would enshrine that rule in federal law.

“Pay-as-you-go rules force the federal government to follow the same common-sense budgeting rules that any family would. If you remodel the kitchen, you’ve got to cut back on the vacation,” Congressman Pomeroy said. “The national economic recession and the reckless budgeting that the federal government followed in the last decade have put us in a deep hole. We need to restore discipline.”

“Pay-as-you-go” is a fiscal tool with a proven record of leading to sound, responsible budgeting. Last adopted in the early 1990s, it played a key role in turning the federal budget deficits that had become customary into a record federal surplus by the year 2000. Once the rule was allowed to expire in the early 2000s, the budget quickly returned to deep deficits.

“When these same pay-as-you-go rules were in effect in the 1990s, they gave the federal government the discipline to reach record budget surpluses. Once they were allowed to expire, our country was led into deep deficits,” Congressman Pomeroy said. “But now, as a matter of federal law, when the government spends additional funding in one place, it will be required to cut that same amount in another place. The path to fiscal sanity is going to take a lot of tough choices, but this vote is a big step in the right direction.”