Joni Ernst: Only in Washington, D.C. does the word “trillion” get thrown around so often and so easily.

Under the Biden Administration, there’s a lot of bad news coming out of Washington, D.C. The Administration’s failure to address, or even acknowledge, the crisis at our southern border; their neglect of skyrocketing inflation and rising costs of everything from gasoline to milk; and, of course, their march toward socialism as they continue their reckless tax-and-spend spree. While it’s easy to gloss over the details of these misguided policies, it’s important to understand the impact they will have on Iowa families—particularly when it comes to their pocketbooks.

 

Our national debt is nearing $30 trillion. Already this year, Democrats have spent $2 trillion of hardworking taxpayer money on legislation they passed without any Republican input or support, and hurt our economy by paying people more to stay home than get a job.

 

But they’re not done yet: while our families are already feeling the burden from rising costs of goods and services, Washington Democrats want to continue to spend at reckless rates. Their $3.5 trillion spending spree nears the total cost of the entire Second World War—the most expensive war in history—when adjusted to today’s dollar.

 

Only in Washington, D.C. does the word “trillion” get thrown around so often and so easily.

 

How much is a trillion? For reference, a stack of one billion dollar bills would be approximately 68 miles high—about the height of Jeff Bezos’ flight to space earlier this week. A stack of one trillion dollar bills would reach almost 68,000 miles into space. If an individual Iowan spent $40 per second, it would take them over 790 years to blow through $1 trillion. It truly is hard to comprehend how much money we’re talking.

 

It’s time for Washington politicians to come back down to Earth. The enormous costs of these proposals have real life impacts on Iowa’s farmers, families, and small businesses. We’ve already seen the prices of essential household items increase at the highest rate in nearly 13 years. The answer is not to raise taxes to continue to print and spend more money.

 

It’s also important to remember that the bills for the Democrats’ liberal wish lists are eventually going to come due—and it is Iowa taxpayers that are going to be stuck with the tab. The folks I meet with across the state on my 99 County Tour work hard and live within their means, and they want Washington to do the same.

 

Instead of a never-ending tax-and-spend spree, Congress needs to rein it in. A trillion dollars might not mean a lot to President Biden and his liberal allies in Congress, but it means a heck of a lot to the taxpayers in Iowa who are footing their bill. It’s time to put an end to the Democrats’ reckless, multi-trillion-dollar taxing and spending spree, and I hope there are some commonsense folks across the aisle who will agree.