This Week in Congress

This week the House passed the first joint budget with the Senate since 2001. For far too long Senate Democrats have hindered our ability to put forth common sense solutions to lower our nation’s debt, balance the budget, cut taxes for American families, and get our nation’s economy back on track. With the new Republican Congress we have managed to accomplish all of these goals. This budget balances in ten years without raising taxes, makes necessary reforms to our tax code to make it simpler and fairer, calls for a full repeal of ObamaCare, and provides for a strong national defense.

In addition to the budget, we also passed the first two appropriations bills for this year. On Thursday, we passed the FY 2016 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act. This legislation provides critical funding for our military and military bases around the world to ensure they are equipped to carry out their missions successfully, while providing housing and services for the families of our men and women in uniform. In addition, this bill also boosts funding for our nation’s veterans and provides the resources necessary to improve the unacceptable failures of the VA.

On Friday, the House passed the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Act of 2016. This legislation provides total funding at $633 million below President Obama’s requested amount and responsibly allocates the funds necessary to build infrastructure and defense programs critical to our nation’s safety.

Later on Friday, I was delighted to celebrate my dear friend and colleague Congresswoman Louise Slaugter's portrait unveiling in the House Rules Committee recognizing her service from 2007 - 2011 as Rules Committee Chairman.