During consideration of a bill on public lands (H.R. 1957), Senator Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) offered a substitute amendment to replace the bill text with that of the Great American Outdoors Act. The Senate also moved to waive its “pay-as-you-go” rule, also called PAYGO. This rule requires legislation that includes measures that would increase the national deficit to also include provisions that would offset those increases.
The Senate agreed to waive the PAYGO rule on June 15, 2020 by a vote of 68 to 30 (Roll Call 118). We have assigned pluses to the nays because profligate spending needs to be immediately brought under control and deficits eliminated to avoid fiscal disaster. Congress is failing to address its fiscally and constitutionally irresponsible spending habits that yielded an annual federal deficit of $3.1 trillion in fiscal 2020.
