Hoosiers demanded fiscal responsibility

Hoosiers and Americans have, for far too long, witnessed Congress “kicking the can down the road” to avoid having difficult conversations, the very conversations Hoosiers have around their kitchen tables daily.

Instead of looking at our nation’s priorities objectively and asking, “What’s most important to the people?” the political elite in Washington, D.C., have developed the unsustainable habit of putting off budgetary conversations until the very last minute and then passing a Continuing Resolution: quite literally a continuation of spending and priorities from a previous era.

Hoosiers demanded change last November; they expressed — in the campaigns and ultimately in the voting booth — a deep desire to end the status quo. “Politics as usual” doesn’t work for them or their families; the “same old same old” out of Washington is eroding America’s future and, with it, the future of every Hoosier family.

It would have been all too easy for me, a freshman member of the House of Representatives, to go along to get ahead. The Continuing Resolution had broad support after all. I could have easily blamed the previous Congress or the previous Administration. But, the “kicking of the can down the road” has to stop; politics as usual has to stop; the status quo has to stop.

I take the trust that my fellow Hoosiers invested in me very seriously, and a vote for the status quo is an insult to the change you demanded with your voices and votes last November. Fiscal responsibility and Congressional accountability are the hallmarks of the system we want, not the system we have.

I would not support a measure that failed to prioritize the issues most valuable to Hoosiers: ending overspending that has led us to $20 trillion in debt, resourcing our military appropriately for the challenges America faces, protecting our borders, investing in our communities with infrastructure, keeping the promises we made to seniors, seeding the future with better education, and the list goes on.

My vote was against the Continuing Resolution, but my message was this: Hoosiers want their priorities reflected in how Washington spends their hard-earned tax dollars, and I won’t vote for anything less than that.