By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Eastern Kansas Congressman, Derek Schmidt, defends his support of rescinding nearly $10 billion in spending already appropriated by Congress, saying the country simply cannot keep spending as it has.
Schmidt, a Republican, backs the Rescissions Act of 2025, which would claw back $9.4 billion already approved in the federal budget.
“The United States is $36 trillion in debt and sinking deeper by almost $2 trillion per year and there is no end in sight unless we begin to slow the rate at which the United States federal government is spending money we do not have,” Schmidt tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
Schmidt asserts the act gets rid of spending that is absurd.
“Why on earth were we spending money, literally, to put Sesame Street into television broadcasts in Iraq?” Schmidt asks. “I like Sesame Street as much as the next guy, but, my goodness, that is not an appropriate use of American taxpayers’ money.”
Other federal budget line items listed in the Rescissions Act include $6 million for “Net Zero Cities” in Mexico, $1 million for voter ID in Haiti, and $500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda.
Schmidt says the rate of spending by Congress is simply unsustainable.
“The people’s elected representatives in Congress need to step up and make the hard choices on how to try to, sort of, control this out-of-control spending that threatens our republic and threatens the future of our children,” according to Schmidt.
Schmidt calls the bill a good first step and appropriate.
“Budgeting decisions ought to be Congress’ to make. Congress needs to step up and say we can’t continue to afford to be all things to all people,” Schmidt says. “That is the appropriate to begin to slow down the out-of-control rate of federal spending.”