Interviews

YASMEEN ALAMIRI, POLITICAL REPORTER | POSTED ON MAY 18, 2016 4:24 PM
The Republican Party is in the midst of a push to unify in the face of an anti-establishment wave rising as presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump marches closer to the general election.

One Republican lawmaker, Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, told Rare that the no matter what happens in the election, one thing is for sure: the Republican Party has a responsibility to reform the budget process so that the next generation of Americans is not saddled with a growing deficit. If lawmakers don’t address the budget in the short term, it’ll be a “guaranteed financial crisis,” Brat told Rare.

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“Despite Republican control of both the Senate and the House, the deficit is set to go up over $100 billion to the $530 billion range. Last year marked the highest level of federal government spending ever,” Brat said in a piece he published in the Washington Post.

He spoke to Rare following the publication of the piece, which calls on his Republican colleagues to stop fighting for a “bad budget deal that was negotiated behind closed doors by party leaders that blows through the budget caps.”

With federal spending at record highs, some have hoped that electing Donald Trump as a non-politician, and a businessman, could help. So, would it? We asked Brat, who said that especially on the “macro level” and global scale, Trump’s ideas could help the U.S.’ financial state. However, Trump would have to hammer out details of his financial plans for economists to be fully convinced, Brat said.

Brat, who defeated then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia in 2014 in one of the biggest upsets in congressional history, characterized the 2016 race for the White House as “chaotic.”

“I want Trump and Paul Ryan to get in a room with Newt Gingrich and hammer out a new contract with America. Put down on paper 10 things you’re going to do—not platitudes” but rather concrete policy proposals, Brat told Rare.