Meuser Introduces Fiscal Responsibility Legislation

Congressman Dan Meuser introduced a three-bill legislative package intended to bring fiscal responsibility back to the federal government.

Meuser’s “Stop Inflationary Spending Act,” “The Budgetary Accuracy in Scoring Interest Cost (BASIC) Act” and “The Require Employees to Uniformly Return Now (RETURN) Act” are all aimed at increasing transparency, accountability, and bringing spending under control in Washington.

“The fiscal discipline implemented in these three pieces of legislation aligns with the priorities of my House Republican colleagues and I to reign in the out-of-control spending in Washington,” Meuser stated. “These commonsense, easily implementable proposals are practical solutions to accomplish those priorities.”

The Stop Inflationary Spending Act:

• Requires The Congressional Budget Office to project the impact on inflation of any bill being considered under Budget Reconciliation.
• Ensures CBO would provide an estimate of inflation for the first five years after enactment of reconciliation legislation.
  
  

“The national deficit has exceeded $31 trillion, and inflation continues to concern American families, who wonder why Washington cannot stop its out of control spending,” Meuser stated. “We must understand the full economic impact of reconciliation bills before we spend any more money.”

When inflation was a significant concern in the 1980s, the CBO issued inflationary projections for individual bills. Restoring this practice for reconciliation bills that spend big is a commonsense reform that will curb Washington’s out of control spending and hold government accountable to the American people for spending taxpayer dollars and running up the national debt.

The Budgetary Accuracy in Scoring Interest Costs (BASIC) Act

• Requires cost estimates prepared by the CBO or the Joint Committee on Taxation to include the costs of servicing the public debt.

This would increase accountability and transparency for the federal budget process by requiring Congress to account for interest costs that are accrued through the serving of debt. This would increase accountability and transparency for the federal budget process. It updates CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation cost scoring requirements to include any debt costs created by legislative proposals.

"Publicly held debt is over 120% of the United States' GDP. The Basic ACT will bring greater integrity and transparency to the federal budget process," said Meuser. "It is vital to the success of our economy that we see the full and true cost of any new proposal. Only then can we begin to move away from years of misguided policies."

The Require Employees to Uniformly Return Now (RETURN) Act

• Prohibits the Internal Revenue Service from authorizing its employees to telework or spend the new $80 billion appropriation from the Inflation Reduction Act until the Commissioner certifies that the tax return backlog has been eliminated.
• Allows for telework options that existed for certain individual cases prior to the pandemic and includes a five-day grace period after enactment to allow employees to transition back to the office.

“The IRS has been terribly mismanaged by the Biden Administration and there are still unreasonable delays in processing returns, inconveniencing and upsetting taxpayers,” Meuser commented. “Under the Inflation Reduction Act, there were plans to double the size of the IRS, which have been addressed by the introduction of our ‘Family and Small Business Protection Act.’ When a department is failing due to poor management, the worst thing we can do is expand the workforce. This bill’s intent aims for a reasonable level of processed returns,” Meuser stated.