A GOP Lawmaker Is Sending Out Hilariously Ironic Taxpayer-Funded Mailers

WASHINGTON — Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) fashions himself as a champion of reducing authorities spending and selling fiscal duty. The vice chair of the Joint Financial Committee, Schweikert frequently rails in opposition to extreme spending.

“You see tax receipts are up, but our spending is way up,” he stated in an animated Home ground speech in late July concerning the want for fiscal stability. “We’re spending faster than those receipts are going up. Therefore, you get a deficit.”

“We have been borrowing and spending too much for decades,” Schweikert wrote in a July op-ed for The Hill. “The inability to get our fiscal house in order and implement even a semblance of fiscal restraint has led us to where we are today.”

It’s principally all of the man talks about. His congressional web site is filled with press releases complaining concerning the debt and extreme spending. He shares posts on social media decrying the federal government’s “wasteful spending spree.” In August 2020, he boasted that he’d even gained an award for his efforts to advertise fiscal duty.

“It wasn’t the debt ceiling! It was the failure of this body to take our demographics, our spending, seriously!” Schweikert fumed in a single Home ground speech in March 2023, referring to what triggered the U.S. credit standing to be downgraded in 2011. (In actual fact, Congress’ failure to boost the debt ceiling amid excessive partisan gridlock is what led to the downgrade.)

However a have a look at Schweikert’s personal spending reveals he himself has been utilizing a number of taxpayer cash to ship official mail and communications recently — an uptick that coincides along with his congressional seat changing into extra aggressive. And sarcastically, a lot of his taxpayer-funded mailers are about combating “fiscal recklessness” and “out-of-control spending.”

On this Congress alone, which started in Jan. 2023, Schweikert has already spent greater than $500,000 in taxpayer cash on mass mail and different unsolicited communications like textual content messages and digital advertisements. For some context, that’s near one-third of the roughly $1.68 million he’s spent on all of his official mass communications since he got here to Congress in 2011.

Schweikert’s spending on mass mailings specifically has actually ticked up in 2024. From January by March, he spent greater than $149,000 on mass mailings — extra on this than all different members of the Arizona Home delegation mixed, per a assessment of their disbursement statements.

From April by June, which is the newest obtainable knowledge on members’ disbursements, Schweikert was the third-highest spender on mass mailings within the Arizona congressional delegation, simply behind Republican Reps. Eli Crane and Juan Ciscomani.

So what’s he speaking about in these taxpayer-funded mailers? Fiscal duty!

“My top priorities as your congressman are to FIGHT FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND PROSPERITY and ALWAYS PROTECT TAXPAYERS,” reads a mass mailer that went out to Schweikert’s constituents in April.

“WORKING FOR FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY,” screams one other of his official taxpayer-funded mailers, this one from March.

In one other mailer from December 2023, Schweikert declares, “Congress must pass serious solutions that will ensure the federal government spends money responsibly.”

A few of his mailers discuss different points, like border safety and crime. However boy, does he love speaking about accountable authorities spending.

In nonetheless one other taxpayer-funded mass mailer in March 2023, Schweikert declares, “There is no single greater threat to the future of our country than out of control spending and borrowing.”

The Arizona Republican isn’t simply spending taxpayer cash on bodily items of mail to advertise his dedication to fiscal duty. In Could 2024, his congressional workplace paid to ship textual content messages to his constituents calling out extreme authorities spending.

“Do you know just how much the federal government borrows per second?” reads the message. “It’s Rep. David Schweikert here to let you in on our platform that sends a daily update with up-to-date spending numbers.”

“I believe through stopping wasteful government spending … we can build a healthier economy,” reads a part of a Fb advert Schweikert used taxpayer cash to put in June 2021.

Schweikert started spending dramatically extra taxpayer cash on mass mailers proper across the time his congressional district was redrawn in Jan. 2022 and have become tougher for him to carry.

In 2021, the Arizona Republican spent about $108,000 on taxpayer-funded mass mailings and communications. That quantity jumped to roughly $353,000 in 2022, declined considerably to the still-high quantity of about $250,000 in 2023, and is again as much as roughly $291,000 as of the top of June 2024.

Schweikert’s district, which covers the northern suburbs of Phoenix, is thought-about a toss-up within the November election. By all appearances, he’s been leaning on taxpayer-funded mailers for some free promoting within the midst of his powerful reelection marketing campaign.

There’s definitely precedent for members of Congress doing this: In 2016, Roll Name reviewed spending knowledge from susceptible lawmakers and located that they spent virtually 3 times as a lot on taxpayer-funded mail, on common, as these operating in protected districts.

Neither Schweikert’s marketing campaign nor his congressional workplace responded to requests for touch upon why he’s been spending a lot taxpayer cash on mass mailers recently, or how he squares his dramatic uptick in spending along with his proud status as a fiscal hawk.

Members of Congress are allowed to make use of taxpayer cash to ship mail that pertains to their official duties, nevertheless it’s unlawful in the event that they use this cash for political actions. In Schweikert’s case, a minimum of one among his official mailers as a congressman consists of partisan messages just like his marketing campaign language.

In March 2024, Schweikert spent taxpayer {dollars} on a mass mailer selling his work on “economic growth and prosperity,” “border security,” and on “reducing crime.” Right here’s what one aspect of his two-page mailer appears like:

In the meantime, the “issues” web page of Schweikert’s marketing campaign web site breaks out his priorities as a candidate: “economic growth and prosperity,” “reducing taxes,” “stopping illegal immigration,” and “protecting our freedom.”

A few of Schweikert’s different official communications appear blatantly political.

In August 2021, he spent taxpayer cash on a mass electronic mail titled “Pro-Life August Update,” during which he boasts of his assist for a invoice that will ban abortion nationwide, the Life At Conception Act. He’s cosponsored that invoice six instances, and that mass electronic mail went out at a time when requires a nationwide abortion ban had been extra political rhetoric than assist for a sensible risk. Texas enacted its excessive restrictions on abortion in September 2021, and the Supreme Courtroom didn’t overturn the nationwide proper to abortion till June 2022.

In one other taxpayer-funded mass mailer in August 2023, the Arizona Republican urged veterans to benefit from advantages supplied by the PACT Act, a regulation that gives expanded well being care to veterans uncovered to poisonous burn pits.

Schweikert voted in opposition to the invoice in March 2022, when the invoice initially handed the Home, and once more in July 2022, when its language in the end turned regulation.

He doesn’t point out that he opposed the invoice in his e-newsletter to constituents. In actual fact, he creates the impression that he supported it.

“I wanted to provide a few updates on my work this past week for the residents of Arizona’s First Congressional District,” Schweikert says within the e-newsletter. It prominently options a picture of a navy service member and offers particulars on how veterans can apply for PACT Act advantages.

“You don’t want to miss out on this opportunity!” he says later.

Schweikert is operating in opposition to Democrat Amish Shah, a former state lawmaker. Shah’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark.