WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation, along with conservative movement partners Heritage Action, Club for Growth, and the American Conservative Union (ACU), sent a letter this week to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy calling on both Republican caucuses to resist congressional Democrats’ push for a massive omnibus spending deal soon to be unveiled on Capitol Hill. This omnibus would pave the way for President Biden to implement his radical and unpopular agenda with billions more in federal spending.
The letter—signed by Heritage President Kevin Roberts, Heritage Action Executive Director Jessica Anderson, Club for Growth President David MacIntosh, and ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp—calls on House and Senate Republicans to insist that any omnibus spending deal guarantee that Biden end the national emergency declared on March 13, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and rescind every single COVID-19 vaccine mandate, including those currently in force for members of the U.S. military, health care workers, and government contractors. Americans fired for choosing not to receive the vaccine should be immediately restored to their job.
The authors write: “This emergency declaration greatly empowers the executive branch to take actions that are no longer or were never necessary. We cannot continue to govern by emergency. More than two years into the pandemic, Americans have learned how to live with this virus and it is time to allow individual freedom to be restored.”
Billions in assistance to Ukraine will likely be included in the massive spending package, as U.S. partners fight to repel the ongoing Russian invasion. Key figures on Capitol Hill are expected to use the crisis as a bargaining chip, tying support for Ukraine to members’ willingness to sacrifice America’s financial future on yet a massive, reckless, and wasteful spending proposal. Supplemental assistance to Ukraine should not be held hostage to Pelosi and Schumer’s political whims, and could be approved now, rather than as part of an omnibus.
“Radical, reckless spending is finally catching up with us, and working Americans are the ones paying the price for our elites’ addiction to endless federal spending,” said Roberts. “Unchecked federal spending is driving record inflation, empowering and expanding the administrative state, and funding extreme causes and Washington’s favored pet projects. Meanwhile, Americans across this country are paying record prices at the gas pump and in grocery stores, leaving jobs that now pay less than federal unemployment benefits, and watching Washington take more control of their daily lives.
“Our representatives on Capitol Hill should reject any omnibus spending bill. It’s time for Congress to make much-needed cuts to federal spending. Lawmakers should require the Biden administration to officially end the COVID-19 emergency declaration so that employers can rehire workers fired as a result of the president’s unconstitutional COVID-19 vaccine mandate. These are just some of the first steps to restore fiscal sanity to Washington.”
For more on how we can reduce wasteful federal spending, get inflation back under control, and decrease the size of the administrative state, check out Heritage’s 2022 Budget Blueprint.
