Chip Roy: Not one additional penny for federal tyranny

America is not right.

America is not right because she is being pulled apart — pulled apart by Democrat politicians intentionally breaking down America’s long-standing norms, her institutions, and her economic and military superiority. Too harsh?

Dangerous cartels are pouring fentanyl and trafficked human beings into our communities and undermining national sovereignty through a purposefully uncontrolled, wide-open southern border. Bureaucrats at the IRS, FBI, and “public health” agencies are running amok, targeting taxpayers and political opponents and firing Americans quite literally for making their own health care decisions.

Our self-inflicted energy crisis is sending prices through the roof, weakening our grid, and sabotaging national security. Health “care” has been handed over to insurance companies and is too expensive and increasingly unattainable for millions because of a politically motivated focus on “coverage.” Our schools are literally teaching children to apologize for their country under the tenets of critical race theory and to reject the “radical” idea that there is a difference between man and woman. And even our military is facing a recruitment crisis in the wake of the incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan because it is increasingly prioritizing wokeness over lethality.

Yet the GOP needs to look in the mirror, too.

Republicans too often join Democrats to write blank check after blank check to fund every last bit of this radicalism, fueling rampant inflation in the process. Worse, they offer only “big talk” political campaign rhetoric and tepid, aging ideas more suited to advancing corporate and defense industry largesse. And big corporations are happy to oblige – profiting off crony capitalism and knowingly advancing an environmental, social, and governance movement that is actively destroying small businesses, free enterprise, and liberty. And all of this is steamrolling a working class who are left to wonder what happened to their country.

Enough.

Republicans must prove to the American people that we will no longer be complicit in this deconstruction of America. But it is simply not good enough to say, "Trust us and put us back in charge." We have to mean it. We must stand up. And we must demonstrate that we will fight for the people who sent us to Washington after telling them we would.

We can do just that, one final time before the upcoming election, by pledging to our constituents that we will not provide one more penny to fund the tyranny carried out by the Biden administration.

The tools to take action are readily available to us – it’s just a matter of Republicans finding the collective will to use them. Article I of the Constitution grants Congress absolute authority over federal spending. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, wrote, “This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people …”

Federal funding for fiscal year 2022 expires on September 30, and Congress will have to decide whether to pass either short-term funding with a “continuing resolution” or a full appropriations package for 2023. But neither of these bills can pass without Republicans' votes.

Here’s how this will work. Democrats will say something like, “We can’t pass appropriations by September 30, so we’ll do a short-term continuing resolution until mid-December, throw a little money at Ukraine, etc., and then we can handle this after the election.”

Republicans must loudly and emphatically reject this business-as-usual approach. Don’t hide behind Ukraine or whatever the “emergency” of the day may be, and do not cower in the corner fearing that we may be “blamed” for a government shutdown. Just say no.

Therefore,House and Senate Republicans should pledge to reject any continuing resolution that expires prior to the first day of the next Congress, as well as any appropriations package put forward by Democrats this year, whether it’s before or during the upcoming “lame-duck” session.

This would empower the American people to decide – through the November elections – how taxpayer dollars should be spent by the new Congress that begins in 2023.

Any member of Congress who wrings his hands about this approach should be prepared to explain to the American people why he supports funding a bureaucracy that is fundamentally at odds with their freedom, security, and prosperity.

Republicans should explain why they are willing to give nearly $60 billion to petty tyrants like DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who lied to Congress when he claimed DHS had “operational control” of the border. Border Patrol has apprehended over 3 million illegal migrants since President Biden took office, 1 million of whom have been released into the interior U.S., with roughly 900,000 known “gotaways.” And cartels are trafficking increasing amounts of deadly fentanyl, which caused 71,000 “overdose” deaths in 2021, into our communities and schools.

Perhaps Republicans should explain why they are in favor of providing$13 billion in annualfunding to an IRS that just received an $80 billion windfall to hire 87,000 new agents. Voters also may wonder why Congress continues to give $11 billion to the FBI each year without demanding that it not target parents for voicing concerns about their kids’ schools at the behest of a radical organization that equated them to domestic terrorists.

Speaking of schools, Congress still gives about $80 billion to a Department of Education that pumps money into schools that are failing our children and filling their minds with radical racial and gender ideologies. Not to mention student loans – where we will be giving a middle finger to hard-working Americans who paid off their federal loans or never took them in the first place by forcing them to pay hundreds of billions to pay off other peoples’ debts.

Do Republicans approve of the “public health” agencies – over $6 billionto fund the NIAID run by Tony Fauci – that forced schools to shut down altogether, doing immeasurable harm to children at all age levels? Or the nearly $9 billion given to a CDC that pushed for businesses to close and for masks to be worn at all times, which are just two of the colossal mistakes the agency made in its COVID-19 response?

And do Republicans support giving nearly $10 billion to the EPA to press its regulatory boot on the necks of American energy producers while families are struggling to fill up their gas tanks and pay their power bills? Or the billions in subsidies to weather-dependent renewable energy sources that make grids – in states like Texas, of all places – less reliable, or the millions in tax credits we provide to rich liberals so they can buy $70,000 electric vehicles and then preach to you about it?

These are just a few ways that federal bureaucrats use bipartisan congressional funding to undermine the well-being of Americans every day. Step one is for Republicans to refuse Democrats the ability to pass another massive appropriations package this Congress. Step two is for Republicans – if Americans grant us the majority in the House next year – to aggressively expose the federal bureaucracy and demand commonsense reforms and policies for the benefit, not the detriment, of the American people.

Not one additional penny for this radical Congress and administration.

Chip Roy represents Texas' 21st Congressional District.