U.S. Senator Mike Johanns says he supports the Senate Republicans’ decision to continue their moratorium on earmarks in the 113th Congress.
Johanns’ comments came last week during a conference call with Nebraska media.
Johanns says he’s looking forward to working with Senator-Elect Deb Fischer, who in January will take the Senate seat currently held by Ben Nelson.
But Johanns says Congress has a long list of important issues that need to be addressed before then, and at the top of that list is averting the Fiscal Cliff.
"We have a very limited amount of time to address a host of tax rate expirations and automatic spending cuts that kick in at the beginning of next year, on January 1st. So if we don’t act, Americans will face a tax increase in the neighborhood of $536 billion per year. That’s the deepest, single tax increase in American history.”
Johanns says the cuts will affect the average middle income family and includes popular provisions, such as the childcare tax credit.
He called on his fellow lawmakers to reduce spending in a thoughtful way. Johanns says failure to avert the Fiscal Cliff would likely cause another recession.