Government Operations and Politics

WASHINGTON—Today, members of the Blue Dog Coalition released a comprehensive plan to help restore fiscal discipline in Congress. The Blue Dog Blueprint for Fiscal Reform outlines an extensive list of priorities that help reduce our budget deficits and begin to bring down our national debt. Today, the national debt is more than $22 trillion—an unprecedented amount. On the current path, next year, the federal government will spend more servicing interest on the debt than all federal funding that supports children in the United States.

Today, the Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications, Rep. Lou Correa (CA-46) issued the following statement on H.R. 1, For the People Act of 2019, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives. H.R. 1 included several Blue Dog Coalition priorities, such as securing our elections, redistricting reform, increasing transparency on Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) funding, and increasing oversight to prevent government leaders from misusing tax dollars on lavish flights and unnecessary military air travel.

The Democratic Blue Dog Coalition has endorsed H.R. 270, Government Shutdown Impact Report Act of 2019, which was introduced by Rep. Tom O’Halleran (AZ-01), the Blue Dog Coalition Co-Chair for Policy.

Yesterday, the Lugar Center and Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy announced the 2017 Bipartisan Index Rankings for members of Congress. Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition, ranked in the top spot on the 2017 Bipartisan Index out of all members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) was the highest-ranked House Democratic freshman. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Blue Dog Co-Chair Rep.

Today, the co-chairs of the fiscally-responsible, Democratic Blue Dog Coalition—Reps. Jim Costa (D-CA), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), and Daniel Lipinski (D-IL)—released the following statement on the government shutdown: