By Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Dave Brat, Rod Blum, Tom Garrett, Paul Gosar, and Trent Franks The most fundamental role of Congress is to balance the national budget and eliminate our national debt. We have a deadline of Dec. 8 to authorize government spending or else "non-essential" government functions will be temporarily halted. Will we finish the work mandated by federal law, or will we use legislative duct tape and bailing wire to meet the deadline? Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed twelve appropriations bills and sent them to the Senate. This was the first time in fourteen years we have done this as required by law. The Senate has done nothing, ignoring this legislation like it has more than three hundred other House-passed bills this year. And now we are told we must pass yet another stop-gap spending bill so we can keep the federal government going. Uh-oh -- looks like duct tape and bailing wire again. Why should we pass yet another short-term spending measure instead of acting on the budget the House has already passed? These short-term measures, known as continuing resolutions, have been used more than one hundred times since 1996. They are used to avoid actually budgeting -- something every family in America does day-in and day-out. Without the direct accountability of a budget, Congress will continue to spend our nation into oblivion. Without passing a responsible budget, including spending cuts and no increases to non-defense discretionary spending, we will continue the swampish, upside-down, out-of-whack, only-in-D.C. type of spending that will bankrupt this nation. Ten years ago, our national debt was an incredible $9 trillion. Just one decade of ineptitude has produced a debt that is now more than $20 trillion. Each American's portion of the national debt is nearly equivalent to $63,000, meaning a family of four has a total liability of almost $252,000. Given that the median household brings in about $60,000, this means the average family federal debt share quadruples their annual income -- and that's before taxes. What's more absurd is that Congress routinely raises its debt limit instead of addressing the problem of skyrocketing federal expenditures. We've raised our debt limit 78 times since 1960 -- effectively robbing the next generation of trillions in the process. Another complication is that we pay more than $260 billion in interest costs annually. Of our $20 trillion debt, more than $6 trillion is held by foreign countries. What if those nations decide to call our loans? This path is unsustainable and perilous. We receive an incredible amount of revenue, and yet we somehow overspend every year. We don't have a revenue problem -- we have a spending problem. Congress needs to address the elephant in the room and start cutting wasteful spending. We owe it to every American -- particularly our grandchildren -- to pass a real budget, to cut spending, to decrease our debt, and to stop borrowing money we cannot afford to repay. We should not continue our death spiral through short-term spending gimmicks like "continuing resolutions." Some will say that producing an honest budget would be historic. They may be right. But they are only correct because Congress has habitually neglected its foremost constitutional duty. This year, the House passed twelve appropriations bills and sent them to the Senate for action. It's past time for the Senate to take action on those bills. No more legislative duct tape and bailing wire! We can't afford them anyway.

By Trent Franks In August, I explained that special counsel Robert Mueller is in clear violation of federal code and must resign to maintain the integrity of the investigation into alleged Russian ties. Nothing in that regard has changed. What has changed is that there is mounting evidence making it even clearer that this investigation is compromised. What a coincidence: Information from the grand jury was leaked (the whole point of a grand jury is secrecy) last Friday to CNN that an indictment was coming Monday, causing every political pundit in the country to surmise about Russia/Trump ties and fueling the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump won the 2016 election because of Russian influence (and not because he campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin). This, just as the GOP is on the brink of passing landmark, historic tax reform? Then, the big reveal occurs Monday morning -- it's a nothingburger. Paul Manafort has been investigated by the FBI since 2014. The FBI has been looking to charge him long before Trump was even on the political map. When Manafort's ties with a Russia-friendly Ukrainian politician became clear in August 2016, Trump immediately fired him. Then, the FBI raided Manafort's house over the summer and warned him then that he had a pending indictment. The 12-count indictment does not even mention the Trump campaign. If the American public has an insatiable appetite for Russian collusion stories, why don't we begin looking at one that's a little more substantiated: the Uranium One scandal. The Obama administration, knowing that Russia was extorting and bribing its way into the U.S. atomic energy industry, signed off on a deal allowing Moscow-backed Uranium One access to U.S. uranium reserves. While that deal was made, the Clinton Foundation received $2.35 million from Uranium One, and Bill Clinton got $500,000 for one speaking engagement. Now that's a story worth looking into.

By Rep. Trent Franks The North Korean dictatorship boasted that they have tested a hydrogen bomb underground in September. Such a hydrogen bomb has the power to destroy Manhattan, killing 8.5 million New York City residents in a couple of seconds. But, there is a prospect potentially even more deadly and terrifying. A hydrogen bomb, exploded within Earth's atmosphere over a central location like Kansas could potentially mean "lights out' for the entire contiguous U.S.A. The electromagnetic pulse emitted from such an explosion in the atmosphere could destroy electronic devices for thousands of miles. This could include all the devices we regularly depend upon that require electronics to function -- vehicles, our water and plumbing systems, heating and air conditioning, refrigeration… just to name a few. Imagine if all of that suddenly stopped working. Without power, cities and population centers would become death traps since power is required to pump water and sewage, keep hospitals running, etc. Former CIA Director James Woolsey once warned that, in a worst-case scenario, 90% of the American population would ultimately die if an attack like this would occur. The phenomenon of nuclear blasts emitting Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) when they explode was first discovered/observed during the Starfish Prime event back in 1962 when a nuclear weapon was detonated 900 miles west-southwest of Hawaii. (We now know all nuclear weapons emit an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) when they explode). The EMP from the blast knocked out about 300 street lights, set off burglar alarms, and damaged a telephone company microwave link. It was realized EMP could destroy electronics. As of now, we do not have sufficient hardware fixes to prevent such a detonation from damaging or destroying our electric grid. We have already observed North Korea is capable of placing a warhead-sized payload into orbit, and we have observed they have detonated a 200 kiloton plus yield nuclear weapon. It is clear that they have all the components necessary to launch a major EMP attack. They have also threatened to do just that. Intent plus capacity equals threat. North Korea, Iran, Russia and China have all assimilated EMP attack into their military creeds. So what can we do? First, we need to strengthen and harden our national electric grid. To do so is not as expensive as the risk -- as Bryan Gabbard and Robert Joseph explained, the cost of hardening equipment to increase resilience could be as little as 3 percent more than existing capital investment for electrical grid upgrades. Since the grid is always being upgraded, we would just need to invest a little more to make sure this added defense layer is included. We must simultaneously ratchet up our missile defense capability and technology at flank speed. The House-passed NDAA includes an amendment I introduced to begin the development of a space-based missile defense layer; it passed with bipartisan support and it is my hope the Senate accedes to the House-passed language. A space-based missile defense layer would provide us with the ultimate high ground and ensure we could shoot down an enemy missile as it ascends -- when it is most vulnerable. This "boost-phase defense" is a capability we currently do not have. Furthermore, we must increase our Ground-Based Interceptor inventory to 100. These GBIs are currently the first and last line of defense against any nuclear missile attack directed toward the American Homeland. It is also imperative that we do what is necessary to dismantle North Korea's nuclear capability and prevent Iran from gaining such capability. These dangerous and escalating situations cannot be allowed to continue on their present path under any circumstances. The time for naiveté is over. Congress must act now to allocate the appropriate funds so we can be prepared for an EMP attack on American soil.