The new
GOP
-led
House of Representatives
should focus on the following five priorities. By doing so, members can put our nation back on track to peace, safety, and prosperity for all.
Priority One: Secure the southern border
Since President
Joe Biden
took office, about 5 million immigrants have crossed into our country illegally. We have obliterated the record for the highest number of crossings ever recorded in a single month. The first 19 months alone of the Biden presidency led to a nearly 400% increase in border crossings than the final 19 months of the Trump presidency. The next Congress should act immediately on solutions that are proven to work. That means providing sufficient funding and support for the CBP and ICE to do their jobs. It means finishing the construction of former President
Donald Trump’s
border wall.
Priority Two: Reign in Big Tech
We have direct evidence of Big Tech suppressing conservative viewpoints. We have evidence of federal agencies actively colluding with companies to censor conservative voices. The political bias that exists in Big Tech is concerning enough, but the high levels of political coordination between tech companies and government actors in order to sway our elections is a concern the like of which we have not seen before in this nation.
The First Amendment was designed to protect citizens from government restrictions on political speech — but when the government works through private companies to enact its will, every freedom-loving citizen should be concerned. The next Congress must investigate just how much the government was directing private company actions in the lead-up to the 2020 election, the extent to which federal agencies have exceeded their domestic surveillance authority, and act to ensure that the right to free expression is preserved in the public sphere.
Priority Three: Expand School Choice
After two years of lost learning due to the forced COVID-19 lockdowns, children have finally returned to school — but in far too many cases, this has simply been a return to political indoctrination, such as critical race theory and gender ideology, rather than a return to true learning. Studies even show that students who live in states with school choice score higher on tests, are more likely to complete school, and can even expect an increase in lifetime earnings.
The next Congress should work to pass school choice legislation to allow parents, rather than government bureaucrats, to decide what sort of education their children receive. No child’s future should be determined by their zip code, and expanding school choice measures throughout the country would be a vital first step in breaking so many of our young children out of vicious cycles of poverty.
Priority Four: Protect Domestic Manufacturing
As China continues its mercantilist quest defined under its “one belt, one road” initiative, America needs a revival of domestic manufacturing. Through unfair trade practices, corporate espionage, and lax labor laws, China has only tightened its grip as the linchpin to the global supply chain. When we are reliant on other countries for the bulk of our goods, we are beholden to the world’s changing political, social, and economic trends. Let us not forget the lessons learned from COVID-19, when products and crucial inputs to goods across the spectrum were largely unavailable because we did not have the capacity to produce them domestically.
The new Congress must enact policies that incentivize the reshoring of factories and industry back home. It must also offer companies better reasons to keep their manufacturing footprint within our borders.
Priority Five: Balance the Budget
In order to control skyrocketing inflation and get the economy back on track, Congress must stop out-of-control spending and balance the federal budget.
When Republicans took the majority in 1994, House Speaker Newt Gingrich led the effort to successfully balance the budget for four consecutive years. When Congressional Republicans got to work in 1995, the
Congressional Budget Office
projected that cumulative federal budget deficits would amount to $2.7 trillion over the next ten years. But after a disciplined focus on controlling spending, reforming government, and balancing the federal budget, the Congressional Budget Office in 1999 projected that over the next decade, federal surpluses would total more than $2.3 trillion.
Reducing regulatory burdens on businesses, evaluating programs on a results-based rather than a process-based model, and supporting efforts that move people off welfare and into the workforce were key tenets of the Republican plan in the 90s to get spending in check. These principles are just as applicable now as they were then, and balancing the federal budget to get the debt back under control must be a top Congressional priority.
By focusing on these key priorities, the new Congress can abandon the failed solutions of the last two years and begin the important work of putting our nation back together.
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Ben Carson is the founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute and served as the 17th secretary of housing and urban development.
