Thread by @RepMTG

I agree with my conservative friends in the Freedom Caucus on some of the flaws in the Fiscal Responsibility Act and I’ve never wanted to raise the debt ceiling on debt that I never voted to create,..

🧵1/19

..but I came to Washington to make changes and this bill actually provides a tool (an idea from @RepThomasMassie) that gives us a chance to make those fiscal changes.

2/19

The only power Republicans currently have is barely one-half of Congress, which is only one-third of the federal government. Democrats control the rest.

3/19

I’ve been saying all along that the fight I will fully engage in is appropriations because appropriations is where everything is funded or defunded, and when your only real power is the ability to fund or defund, I’m all in to use that power as much as possible.

4/19

In this debt ceiling bill, there is a tool provided to us that requires the House to pass 12 separate appropriations bills from the 12 different appropriations sub-committees, and if we can’t get them passed then we automatically pass a funding CR with an automatic 1% cut..

5/19

..to funding.

Here’s how it works.

In the past, the 12 appropriations bills would get put together in bill packages, anywhere from 3’s to 6’s all the way to one big vote for all 12. That was done so leadership could force everyone to vote for all 12 funding..

6/19

appropriations even if they didn’t agree on several of the appropriation bills. Conservatives hated this because they couldn’t vote no on bad appropriation bills and vote yes on just the good ones, they could only vote yes or no to all of them.

7/19

Add on top of this the pressure of a government shutdown if they didn’t get appropriations done by the end of the year. We have all watched the dramatic saga on the news where Congress is in session on Christmas Eve being pressured to vote to fund the government..

8/19

..(pass appropriations bills) or they couldn’t be home to watch little Johnny open his presents on Christmas morning and senior citizens wouldn’t get their social security checks.

So they held their nose and pressed the green button and here we are.

9/19

By the way, dirty little tricks like these in the swamp are a big reason why we are nearly $32 trillion in debt and facing this ridiculous debt ceiling issue to begin with.

10/19

But with the Massie CR tool in this bill that will get signed into law, the 12 appropriation bills will be separate and if we don’t get them passed because conservatives like me refuse to vote for garbage then we don’t have to deal with the pressure cooker campaign of a..

11/19

..government shutdown because an automatic funding CR gets passed and the government gets funded at 99% with a 1% spending cut for the American people. That remains in place until we accomplish the hard work of passing 12 good separate appropriation bills.

12/19

For me, along with other strong conservatives like @Jim_Jordan, @WarrenDavidson, @RepThomasMassie, and many others, we see this as an opportunity to make real changes when we are fighting with practically both hands tied behind our backs.

13/19

And with the very real reality of Chuck Schumer passing a clean debt ceiling raise in the Senate with another Ukraine supplemental attached, passing the Fiscal Responsibility Act that gives us the new appropriations tool and cuts $2.1 Trillion in spending, we understand..

14/19

..the urgency to pass this bill.

If you are still having trouble understanding, just use your imagination and focus more on what we can defund in appropriations with this tool & how we can apply the Holman rule, which allows us to not fund federal programs and employees.

15/19

And I have to inform you these tools are being given to our entire conference by @SpeakerMcCarthy and the leadership team.

I completely understand the skepticism because I had it too, but things are different.

16/19

I ran for Congress because I felt like the Republican Party was broken, but in the past 5 months our Republican conference, that barely has 218 votes to do anything, passed the strongest Border Security bill in history, America First Energy bill, Parents Bill of Rights..

17/19

.., Protecting Speech, Protecting Women and Girls in Sports Act, and many other truly conservative bills.

I am truly excited at the thought of what we can accomplish if Americans give us full control with the White House, House, and Senate.

18/19

I know what every hard working American knows. Rome was not built in a day and problems don’t get solved overnight. It takes tenacious hard work and a commitment to never give up.

This is a game of inches and I intend for all of us to win.

19/19