Fiscal Responsibility

Summary:

Thirty years ago, Sherrod Brown flagged the national debt as the greatest threat America faces. Since he’s been in Congress, the national debt has increased by $17 trillion. He’s talked about it for decades, but on his watch it’s only gotten worse.

Unlike Frank LaRose’s record of balanced budgets, tax cuts, and spending reductions, Brown opposed a Balanced Budget Amendment and has voted for every massive spending bill since going to Congress in 1975.

As a conservative reformer and problem-solver, Frank LaRose is uniquely qualified to fight for Ohio’s fiscal values in the United States Senate.

Bipartisan Budget Busters

Frank LaRose believes federal spending is out of control, and Sherrod Brown has been part of the problem for nearly 50 years. Brown first took office four years before Frank was born. In that time, the U.S. government’s spending has ballooned to a quarter of our gross domestic product, up by 40 percent since 2019 alone due to unprecedented amounts of stimulus spending and an explosion of funding for non-essential bureaucracy. It’s projected that simply making the interest payments to service the debt will soon exceed what we pay for national defense and cost $1.4 trillion by 2033 – an amount that could swamp every other budget expense.

Democrats and Republicans together share the blame for this reckless behavior, and it presents an unacceptable threat to free markets and national security. It must be restrained.

Restraining Big Government

Frank is a passionate defender of free market capitalism. He grew up supporting a family business established a century ago in Akron by his great grandfather, Thomas LaRose. The commitment to responsibly making payroll and balancing the books isn’t a theory, it’s a family tradition. That’s why he believes big government growth should be restrained – to keep the public sector from killing the private sector small businesses, job growth and competitive wages that help families pursue the American Dream. Frank will take that conviction to the U.S. Senate.

A Record of Fiscal Responsibility

As a state senator, Frank did the hard work to balance Ohio’s budget – every time. When he first went to the state senate, he voted to cut spending by $8 billion. Frank also helped launch a new initiative to expose government waste and bust up job-killing bureaucracy. During his tenure, he streamlined state government and demanded efficiencies that allowed for nearly $6 billion in tax cuts. Frank’s core economic principle is that money is best spent by the people, not the government. Today, the tax cuts he helped enact have saved Ohioans nearly $12 billion over the past decade.

Ohio vs Washington

Frank also championed legislation calling on the U.S. Congress to adopt a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Today, the contrast of state balanced budget requirements and the staggering amounts of debt being racked up in Washington could not be clearer.

Despite the excessive trillions in spending, virtually every problem Washington tries to address gets worse. Education test scores are down. Crime in many communities is rampant. Affordable housing is harder to obtain. Americans are enduring the worst energy crunch since the OPEC oil crisis in the 1970s. Yet funding for federal agencies and departments set up to address these and so many other problems have skyrocketed in just the last few years. Family budgets are pinched while agency budgets are riding high.

Bottom Line

Sherrod Brown has had nearly 50 years to get Washington’s reckless spending under control. He failed miserably. His reckless record of spending, debt, taxes, and regulations have led our nation to its worst economic crisis in decades. As a conservative reformer and problem-solver, Frank LaRose is uniquely qualified to fight for Ohio’s fiscal values in the United States Senate.