U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) introduced a bill this week cutting spending by almost 30% and limiting funding for what he called “controversial grantees.”

These limits are part of the Labor-H bill, representing the largest non-defense discretionary spending in the federal budget.

Aderholt is chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services and Education. He insisted his bill would eliminate funding for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and Planned Parenthood.

“It also protects religious freedom and values by stopping the administration’s regulations that would require schools to allow biological boys to compete against boys in women’s sports programs and prohibiting any federal funding from going toward enforcing gender identity politics or forcing social, hormonal or surgical intervention to look like the opposite sex,” Aderholt said during a speech on the House floor this week. “The bill prohibits funding for controversial ideologies like critical race theory.”

“These radical views do not belong in public schools,” he continued. “Schools should be teaching our children how to think. Not what to think.”

According to Aderholt, the bill will roughly reduce funding back to “Trump-era levels.”

“These cuts trim the fat and force these government agencies to run lean and mean,” he explained. “There will still be plenty of money for these departments and agencies to do their critical jobs, but do it more efficiently.”

Aderholt pointed to high inflation as a reason the federal government needs to cut spending and lower the tax burden on American citizens. 

“Our nation remains mired in high inflation, which has only been worsened by the massive infusion of government spending, both during and immediately after the COVID pandemic,” he explained. “Inflation is a tax on every single American. Moreover, it is a tax borne disproportionately by low-income Americans. We cannot continue to make our constituents pay for our reckless DC beltway spending. At some point, we must stop the out-of-control spending spree we’ve seen over the past two years.”

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