Following the passage of the $1.3 trillion spending bill in March, Congressional Republicans were lambasted for increasing the federal deficit and sending the country even further into debt.
Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., said there’s no comparison between the GOP and Democrats, but that the GOP can do much better in the eyes of fiscal conservatives.
“Can any fiscally responsible person say the Republicans are hitting it out of the park? Or even getting a passing grade? And the answer is no,” Brat said in a Washington Examiner editorial board meeting. “We didn’t fight the fight.”
With respect to what case can be made that Republicans should retain control of Congress, Brat said, “Economics, alone, I think warrants a ‘yes’ because … without economic growth you don’t get all the other social goods that everybody else wants.”
He went on to say that it’s hard to get funding for education, transportation, or opioid programs when the gross domestic product is growing at 1.5 percent as opposed to 3 or 4 percent. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the first quarter of 2018 had a GDP growth rate of 2.2 percent.
Yet all in all, Brat still believes that the Republican party is far and away more fiscally conservative than any member of the Democratic party.
“The opposition has no agenda at all that I see,” he said. “[Nancy] Pelosi wants to raise taxes. They had marches in front of the Capitol to raise taxes. The Progressive Caucus had more votes than any other caucus on [last year’s] budget, and they voted — 107 Democrats voted — to raise taxes $10 trillion over a 10 year window, raise spending $11 trillion, and add more deficit and debt than we do.”
[Opinion: Dave Brat says the media haven’t learned a single damned thing from 2016]
