Michael believes we need to work together and make the tough decisions necessary to put our nation's fiscal house in order. Since his first days in the Senate in 2009, he has led the fight for a comprehensive, bipartisan solution to our nation's unsustainable long-term deficits.

Michael has pushed for a balanced approach that reduces the deficit and demonstrates that we are all willing to make the sacrifices necessary to cut spending while paying for the critical investments our country needs to succeed—just as our parents and grandparents did for us. That is why he voted against the eleventh-hour “fiscal cliff” package, which passed on New Year's Eve of 2013. That legislation—like so many other products of today’s Congress—represented the path of least resistance, rammed through without making any of the difficult choices elected leaders are supposedly sent to Washington to do. That is also why Michael fought so hard against the irresponsible tax plan in 2017 that is adding nearly $2 trillion to the federal debt in its first decade alone—a tax plan that completely missed the mark on what makes our economy stronger, while adding to our unsustainable fiscal burdens over the long run.

As a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, Michael has worked across the aisle on responsible, commonsense legislation to help secure our country’s fiscal future. He has pushed for policies that would make our tax code simpler and fairer, while raising the revenues necessary to finance our long-term obligations. In 2017, Michael introduced a bill to eliminate the threat of default by ending Congress’s ability to weaponize the debt limit for extreme partisan ends. In both 2018 and 2019, Michael voted against two budget agreements that made little to no effort to offset large increases in spending. Michael was the only senator to receive the non-partisan organization Fix the Debt’s “fiscal hero” award for voting against both the 2017 Republican tax law and the 2018 budget agreement.