WASHINGTON — Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) presents himself as an advocate for cutting government spending and promoting fiscal responsibility. As vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, Schweikert regularly denounces excessive spending.
“You see tax revenues are up, but our expenses are up sharply,” he said. a lively speech in the House of Representatives In late July, the government said it needed to ensure fiscal stability. “We are spending faster than our revenues are increasing. As a result, we are running a deficit.”
“We have been borrowing and spending too much for decades,” Schweikert writes in and July opinion piece for The Hill. “The failure to get our finances in order and implement even a semblance of fiscal restraint has led us to where we are today.”
That’s basically all the guy talks about. His congressional website is full of press releases complaining about debt and excessive spending. He sharing posts on social media, denouncing the government’s “wasteful spending spree.” In August 2020, he boasted that he even won a prize for his efforts to promote fiscal responsibility.
“It wasn’t the debt ceiling! It was this agency’s failure to take our demographics and spending seriously!” was outraged during a speech in the House of Representatives in March 2023referring to what caused the US credit rating to be downgraded in 2011. (In fact, Congress Failure to raise debt ceiling (It was in the midst of an extreme partisan impasse that the downgrade was decided.)
But a look at Schweikert’s personal expenses shows that he himself used a lot of taxpayer money to send official mail. and his communications lately, a surge that coincides with his rise in Congress. And ironically, many of his taxpayer-funded letters are aimed at combating “fiscal irresponsibility” and “out-of-control spending.”
In this Congress alone, which began in January 2023, Schweikert has already spent more than $500,000 of taxpayer money on mass mailings and other unsolicited communications like text messages and digital ads. To put it in context, that’s nearly a third of the roughly $1.68 million he’s spent all its official mass communications since joining Congress in 2011.
Schweikert’s spending on mass mailings has particularly increased in 2024. From January to March, he spent more than $149,000 on mass mailings, more than all other members of the Arizona House delegation combined, according to a review of their spending. disbursement statements.
From April to June, which is the latest data available When it came to member spending, Schweikert was the third-biggest spender on mass mailings in Arizona’s congressional delegation, behind only Republican Reps. Eli Crane and Juan Ciscomani.
So what is he talking about in these…
