U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis and some fellow Republican senators introduced legislation Thursday that pushes to balance the federal budget within the next decade.
The Sustainable Budget Act would create a bipartisan national commission to review the nation’s budget and recommend ways to reduce the deficit and balance the budget within 10 years.
“Congress has spent nearly $6 trillion in the last year,” Lummis said in a social media post about the bill. “Much of it was necessary to weather the pandemic, but I know that people in Wyoming are concerned that we have no plan to pay it back. We are on an unsustainable trajectory. It’s time to make some changes.”
The bill is co-sponsored by Republican U.S. Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Rounds of South Dakota and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, according to an article by conservative news outlet Washington Examiner, which had an exclusive interview with Lummis about the bill.
In the interview, Lummis expressed concern that the U.S. would spend more on debt interest than it does on defense.
Her proposed commission would work to find policies to improve the fiscal situation of the federal government in the medium- and-long term by balancing the national budget.
The commission would be chosen by a number of White House officials, including the president.
Specifically, Lummis wanted to look at “entitlement spending” in federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
The current national debt is $28.1 trillion.
