The 114^th Congress is underway. I want to share some of the bills I cosponsored and congratulate two Arkansas high school students for being selected as delegates to the U.S. Senate Youth Program. Read more in this “Week in Review.” 

• Arkansas Delegates to U.S. Senate Youth Program: Congratulations to Katherine Sanders of Cave City and Ashton Yarbrough of Bentonville on being selected as delegates for the 53^rd annual United States Senate Youth Program. While in Washington from March 7-14, Sanders and Yarbrough will join 102 other delegates in meetings with Senators, Congressional staff, the President, a Justice of the Supreme Court, leaders of cabinet agencies, an Ambassador to the United States and senior members of the national media. I’m excited to welcome them to our nation’s capital. 

• Keystone Pipeline: I cosponsored legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project. The Senate will begin debate on this legislation Monday. I recently toured Welspun Tubular, the Little Rock based company hired to produce hundreds of miles of pipe for the project. Company leaders estimate that 150 jobs will be created just to load pipe onto rail cars for shipment when the project gets the green light. The House passed this legislation today and I’m hopeful the Senate will follow its lead. 

• Supporting School Choice: I cosponsored a resolution supporting National School Choice Week and designating the week of January 25 through January 31, 2015, as "National School Choice Week.’’ As a former school board member I understand that state and local governments are best equipped to make education decisions for their communities – not Washington. I’m proud to support this resolution and the outstanding educational choices that Arkansas offers. 

• Hire More Heroes Act: I joined efforts to promote employment for our veterans while providing relief from the burdensome Obamacare employer mandate by cosponsoring the Hire More Heroes Act. Similar legislation passed the House this week. I cosponsored the same legislation last Congress. 

• Forty Hours is Full Time Act: Obamacare’s employer mandate has caused some employee hours to be reduced and pay cut because the law defines a ‘full-time employee’ as someone who works on average 30 hours per week. With the costs of health care skyrocketing, businesses that may want to hire more employees will instead spend more money meeting the requirements of Obamacare. This is why I am a cosponsor of the Forty Hours is Full Time Act. This legislation would change the Obamacare definition of full-time to someone who works an average of 40 hours per week. 

• Protecting the Separation of Powers in the Constitution – I cosponsored S.11, legislation that will rein in the executive overreach and restore the separation of powers by eliminating procedural hurdles to legal challenges when the president fails to faithfully execute the laws. Learn why this is necessary.

U.S. Senate Republicans announced their committee assignments for the 114^th Congress. I'm excited to once again be serving on the Agriculture Committee; Appropriations Committee; Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW); and Veterans Affairs Committee. I will also sit on the Rules Committee for this coming session of Congress. I am eager to begin working toward a more efficient and effective government when we take control of the Senate in January. 

Mark Smith and I discussed a number of topics, inlcuding the lame duck agenda and the President's immigration executive overreach, during this month's visit with KASU's morning program. If you missed it, you can listen to the full interview here.

If you visited the President’s website, you might think that Washington’s spending problem is under control.

Lines that suggest President Obama has “led the way on structuring the government to live within its means” and “the Administration has moved to eliminate wasteful spending, streamline what works, and modernize how government operates to save money and improve performance” would give you the impression that everything is rosy and going according to plan.

So, how then, does the White House reconcile that rhetoric with the fact that our national debt has now passed the $18 trillion mark? It appears by ignoring this alarming trend all together, and not commenting on it despite once saying it was “unpatriotic” to add $4 trillion to the debt.

Come January, Republicans will control both chambers of Congress, allowing us to put our commitment to cut Washington’s wasteful spending into action. I believe we can find a mechanism, like a Balanced Budget Amendment, that will stop the government from spending beyond its means. If Arkansas can be required to balance our state’s budget, there is no reason that we shouldn’t be able to require Washington to do the same.

The national debt is a threat to our sovereignty. Foreign holdings account for almost half of these obligations, and much of that is owed to countries that do not always share our values—such as China and Saudi Arabia. We must end the excessive spending and put our nation back on a fiscally responsible path. The road we are on right now certainly isn’t fair to future generations. We can’t keep kicking the can down the road. In fact, it has been kicked so far down the road it is out of view.