ABILENE, Texas (BIGCOUNTRYHOMEPAGE) – On this week’s edition of Big Country Politics, News Director Manny Diaz spoke with House Budget Chairman and District 19 Congressman Jodey Arrington about life on the hill.

Just last week, Arrington said that Congress needs to lift the debt ceiling and impose fiscal controls ‘immediately’ without waiting on a fiscal 2024 budget resolution.

“I know that there are some Democrat colleagues of mine that care about the national debt and the unsustainable path that were on mainly because of our out-of-control spending. But the president so far has refused to come to the table,” Arrington said. “We have laid out options to negotiate, the speaker has recently sent out a letter to the president and outlined a few things from reducing our discretionary spending from 24 levels to 22… Republicans are going to continue to demand that we act responsibly as a congress and as a nation.”

On the topic of spending, the Biden administration has announced another $2.6 billion in weapon aid to Ukraine. Arrington shared that while it is good to help Ukraine, he is not happy with how the budget has been spent.

“We certainly have an interest in supporting the Ukrainians appropriately with lethal weaponry to defend their sovereign country… However, the first thing I would say is how much money is being spent and where that money going, I take great issue with,” Arrington said. “The last package had half of the money going to the Department of State and I’ve watched. Unfortunately, I’m cynical about this now, but I’ve watched as my Democrat colleagues and this president have used crises, like covid, as a trojan horse basically to expand more government and some of their progressive policies.”

Texas Senator Ted Cruz recently had it out with Homeland Security Chief Alejandro Mayorkas who refused to call immigration at the border a crisis. It’s evident from what community members see coming from the border that there is something going on that needs drastic attention. Arrington said that Mayorkas, President Biden, and the administration are supposed to provide for the safety and security of Americans, but have “fanned the flames of chaos and make it worse.”

“No one takes Mayorkas seriously, he has no credibility and quite frankly neither does the president when they make such wild claims lie the border is secured while their own data show that we have record number of illegal crossings, record number of apprehensions, record number of migrants dying in the desert,” Arrington explained. “People who have been apprehended who have a criminal record in this country of ours who have been deported, that’s up over 400 percent. It’s a disaster on all levels.”

Now that Republicans are in power of Congress, Arrington shared that Texas should have the right to curb the issues on the southern border by detaining and deporting criminals to keep Texas safe.

“The state of Texas has the constitutional sovereign right of self-defense, it’s written into the constitution. When there’s an invasion like the drug invasion by the cartels and there’s an imminent threat to the people of Texas, it is the right and the duty of the state of Texas to shut it down,” Arrington added.

Last week, China and Brazil agreed to completely ditch the American dollar for trade, a thing that Arrington said can jeopardize the American economy and security. The currency has dropped in the global reserve from 75% to 59% since 2000.

“What I’m trying to tell every American is, the more debt we take on, the more unsustainable our financial situation is, the less confidence other countries have to put their money in a dollar. Or basically, to invest in America and allow us to use that credit to support funding our government,” Arrington shared.

He said the best way to reduce this is to cut reckless spending to stay on a sustainable path. Arrington also spoke on the topic of former president Donald Trump’s indictment.

“I can’t speak to the merit of the case, but I can say there’s overwhelming evidence that President Donald Trump has experienced more political persecution than anyone in modern history,” Arington expressed. “Look at the record of Alvin Bragg and the way he’s applied justice to let people off the hook, not hold criminals accountable, and then he pursues a cold case that’s several years old. I got to tell you, it reeks of political bias and weaponization unfortunately of our justice system.”