As the fiscal year comes to a close, conservatives urge Congress to adopt substantive red lines for government-funding measures that elevate the needs and well-being of the American people above the self-interested priorities of well-connected power brokers and lobbyists within the Beltway. Millions of our fellow citizens are suffering from historic inflation and energy prices driven by far-left ideologues in the Biden administration.

The United States is now in the middle of the Biden Economic Recession because of misguided and harmful policies inflicted upon the American people by an administration in thrall to progressive orthodoxy. It is imperative that Congress be the voice of working men and women, families, and the long-suffering taxpayers bearing the brunt of Washington’s destructive decision-making.

Congressional lawmakers should ensure that any government-funding measures or omnibus spending bills:

• Freeze Discretionary Spending Levels: The House recently passed a $1.6 trillion deeming resolution to permit a $132 billion increase in baseline discretionary spending. Since then, year-over-year inflation has risen to an astounding 9.1 percent. Working and middle-class Americans are struggling to pay for basic necessities driven in large part by profligate federal spending. At a minimum, Congress must freeze discretionary spending at current FY2022 levels.
• Reject A Lame Duck Omnibus: Lawmakers should reject any attempt to pass FY2023 omnibus spending bills during a lame duck session of Congress. This would only enable the passage of costly progressive policies inflicting additional and unnecessary pain on American workers, taxpayers, and consumers. Deferring FY2023 appropriations to the 118th Congress increases opportunities to enact fiscal restraints and slow inflation.
• Unleash American Energy: Congress must leverage appropriations measures to secure policy changes that unleash American energy and provide relief to the American consumer. This includes repealing harmful renewable subsidies, dismantling costly and unreliable green energy initiatives in federal agencies, initiating rapid deployment of base load power plants, and statutorily overturning regulations that inhibit reliable energy production, consumption, and development.
• Prohibit Taxpayer-Funded Abortion: Congress should ensure that taxpayer funding of abortion remains prohibited and the conscience rights of healthcare professionals maintained. Federal taxpayers must not be required to subsidize abortion, especially in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision. The Biden administration has signaled its radical intentions through the creation of a Department of Justice abortion task force designed to target pregnancy care centers while attacking states that pass laws that protect women and unborn children. Congress must not support any spending measure that funds this authoritarian task force and should instead ensure that such efforts are shut down.
• Secure the Southern Border: With some 71,000 Americans dead from fentanyl overdoses in just the last year, nearly 900,000 “got-a-ways” that have entered the United States and disappeared since FY 2021, and apprehensions equivalent to the entire population of Wales in just the last year, Congress must refuse to advance any appropriations measure that fails to enact the policies necessary to secure the southern border. This includes requiring the installation of border barriers, requiring ICE to remove illegal immigrants through interior enforcement, and statutorily reinstating Trump-era border protocols such as Title 42 removal authority and the Remain in Mexico program.
• End Destructive COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates: Medical providers and the U.S. military are facing critical labor and recruiting shortages with thousands of our best and brightest terminated or facing discharge for refusing to receive a vaccine in violation of their conscience. This is compounded by recent admissions from top health officials that the vaccine has shown diminished effectiveness at preventing COVID-19 transmission. The hypocrisy must end. Congress should overturn these tyrannical and self-destructive mandates in any funding measure.
• Dismantle and Defund Recent IRS Spending Authority: The Biden administration’s recent $80 billion spending binge to hire roughly 87,000 new agents (perhaps even more if the 2021 Treasury Report plan is followed) is just another burden stacked on top of hardworking Americans. It is reprehensible that Congress would compound record inflation and $30 trillion in national debt by forcing middle-class Americans to fund the very bureaucrats who will target them. This new power and funding must be dismantled.

Conservatives encourage lawmakers to make use of every opportunity to fight for the American people.

Congress should not fund government policies that brazenly harm American workers and families. Mandates that curb the freedoms of our selfless first responders and punish the very service members who swore an oath to defend us must also be abolished. We urge congressional lawmakers to stand firm in the funding battles on the horizon and fight for the very people who have entrusted them to lead us out of this cascading policy nightmare.

All organizations listed for IDENTIFICATION purposes only.