Last week, Congress passed a massive spending bill that raises spending caps and ultimately increases our nation’s $20 trillion debt. Despite some positive provisions in the deal, including funding for our nation’s military, I could not support it.

Here’s why: Over the next two years, this deal raises spending by nearly $300 billion, including an increase to non-defense spending by $131 billion. It fails to pay for these spending increases and provides another debt limit suspension until 2019.
To be sure, the bill repeals Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, a group of unelected bureaucrats who impose price controls on the healthcare market. (Good riddance.)

The deal will also provide needed resources and long overdue stability for our brave servicemen and women. But as former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen noted, the most significant threat to our national security is our debt.”

However, when I came to Congress, I made a pledge to fix our nation’s unsustainable budget and get government spending under control. Ultimately, this budget deal goes against the fiscal conservative values I hold dear, the same ones I pledged to uphold to the people of Minnesota and this nation.

I will continue to support legislation that reins in government spending and will work with my colleagues to ensure that in the coming weeks, as Congress appropriates funding, we do so with the next generation of Americans in mind.