[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                   EXPOSING THE WOKE, WASTEFUL, AND 
                          BLOATED BUREAUCRACY

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________


             HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 11, 2023

                               __________


                            Serial No. 118-3

                               __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget






                 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]





                       Available on the Internet:
                            www.govinfo.gov

                               ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

53-463                    WASHINGTON : 2024











                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                  JODEY C. ARRINGTON, Texas, Chairman

RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina         BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania,
TOM McCLINTOCK, California             Ranking Member
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania          JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas            EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia    DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan
BEN CLINE, Virginia                  SCOTT H. PETERS, California
BOB GOOD, Virginia                   BARBARA LEE, California
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan               LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
A. DREW FERGUSON IV, Georgia         JIMMY PANETTA, California
CHIP ROY, Texas                      JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah                 SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
DAVID G. VALADAO, California         ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota,
RON ESTES, Kansas                      Vice Ranking Member
STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma          DAVID J. TRONE, Maryland
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan            BECCA BALINT, Vermont
MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota        ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, 
RUDY YAKYM III, Indiana                  Virginia
JOSH BRECHEEN, Oklahoma              ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina

                           Professional Staff

                      Gary Andres, Staff Director
                  Greg Waring, Minority Staff Director








                            C O N T E N T S

                                                                   Page
Hearing held in Washington, D.C., May 11, 2023...................     1
    Hon. Jodey C. Arrington, Chairman, Committee on the Budget...     1
        Prepared Statement of....................................     4
    Hon. Brendan F. Boyle, Ranking Member, Committee on the 
      Budget.....................................................     7
        Prepared Statement of....................................     9
    Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee, Member, Committee on the Budget, 
      statement submitted for the record.........................    13
    Ms. Rachel Greszler, Senior Research Fellow on Budget and 
      Entitlements, The Heritage Foundation......................    19
        Prepared Statement of....................................    21
    Mr. Myron Ebell, Director of the Center for Energy and 
      Environment, Competitive Enterprise Institute..............    38
        Prepared Statement of....................................    40
    Ms. Paige Agostin, Policy Director, Center for Renewing 
      America....................................................    44
        Prepared Statement of....................................    46
    Mr. Indivar Dutta-Gupta, President and Executive Director, 
      Center for Law and Social Policy...........................    50
        Prepared Statement of....................................    52
    Hon. Lloyd Smucker, Member, Committee on the Budget, 
      Submission for the record..................................   103
    Questions submitted for the record...........................   125
    Answers submitted for the record.............................   126










 
                   EXPOSING THE WOKE, WASTEFUL, AND 
                          BLOATED BUREAUCRACY


                              ----------                              


                         THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2023

                          House of Representatives,
                                   Committee on the Budget,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in Room 
210, Cannon Building, Hon. Jodey Arrington [Chairman of the 
Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Arrington, Norman, McClintock, 
Grothman, Smucker, Burgess, Carter, Cline, Good, Bergman, 
Ferguson, Roy, Moore, Estes, Bice, McClain, Fischbach, Yakym, 
Brecheen, Edwards, Boyle, Higgins, Schakowsky, Blumenauer, Lee, 
Doggett, Panetta, Wexton, Jackson Lee, Trone, Balint, Scott, 
and Espaillat.
    Chairman Arrington. Good morning, everybody. The hearing 
will come to order.
    Welcome to the Committee on the Budget's hearing regarding 
woke, wasteful, and bloated bureaucracy. It is a mouthful.
    Now, I would like to yield myself such time as I may 
consume for an opening statement. I am going to try to speak a 
little just off the cuff here, because this is something I have 
been thinking about for a while and something we have been 
discussing as a Committee for now, a few months.
    We are in a real mess financially. We did a Fiscal State of 
the Nation hearing and I think we all agreed, even though we 
may not agree on exactly how to address it, we agreed that the 
financial health of our country is in decline, and that the 
deficit spending and debt trajectory is absolutely and 
completely unsustainable and we have to do something about it.
    I think the debt ceiling proposal that Republicans passed 
out of the House is a good first step. It is just a step, but 
it is an important step to getting our fiscal house in order, 
and it reflects the principles that will be reflected in our 
budget resolution. Rein in the spending, rightsize the 
bureaucracy, and encourage growth, get our economy off high 
center, get out of this nosedive into recession, and get us 
back on the path to prosperity once again.
    I have said this to my friend, Mr. Boyle, Republicans have 
contributed to this over time as well, and I don't think 
anybody, as a lawmaker or a leader of this country, has any 
credibility if they don't understand that fact, but let me say 
this, we have never experienced in the history of our country 
the avalanche of spending like we have seen and witnessed in 
the last two years--$10 trillion of spending, six of which has 
been added to our national debt, all of which has contributed 
to record inflation, soaring interest rates, an economy that is 
sliding quickly into recession and getting us closer--and I 
don't think anybody knows exactly when--the problem is when you 
tip over the precipice into a sovereign debt crisis, all bets 
are off at that point. We are borrowing a trillion and a half 
today as a government, and the gap in funding our government 
will be three trillion if we just keep the policies we have 
now, in ten years. So if you undermine the currency and our 
ability to borrow, it looks really bleak, and that is why we 
have to have a sense of urgency, Democrats and Republicans, to 
deal with this, and that is why I hope and pray that the 
President and our colleagues in the Senate and my Democrat 
friends will come to the table and let's raise the debt ceiling 
responsibly, by allowing our Nation to pay its bills, protect 
the good faith and credit of the United States, but at the same 
time address this out of control spending that has put 
hardworking American families in a real bind, like a real bind.
    Think about this--this statistic is startling to me--an 
average family of four is paying $13,000 per year more to 
purchase the same goods and services they did in January 2021. 
$13,000--over $1,000 a month. Six out of ten Americans are 
living paycheck to paycheck y'all. 45 percent--I read this 
yesterday, Ms. Greszler--45 percent of Americans say that if 
they had an emergency that cost more than $1,000, they can't 
survive it. We see savings down, we see credit card debt and 
consumer debt up at the highest levels. This is a crisis, this 
is a cost of living crisis, driven by inflation and inflation 
has been driven by, in large part, spending.
    So, I encourage my friends and colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle, work with us and encourage the President to do 
what three out of four Americans expect him to do and all of us 
to do. Three out of four say the President ought to negotiate 
fiscal reforms in the debt ceiling. He has done it before. That 
is the thing, Ralph, he has done it before in 2011, the last 
major rightsizing of the bureaucracy and the reining in of the 
spending that was excessive, was led by none other than Joe 
Biden as Vice President, and he was proud to do it, as he 
should have been, and he did it as a Senator. So this isn't 
unprecedented. This isn't unusual. In fact, I would say it 
would be unusual and even irresponsible if we don't do 
something to pay our bills and rein in the spending at the same 
time, in a very sensible way, in a very straightforward way, 
and I believe that is what the Republicans have done in the 
House by passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act, and now I hope that 
our colleagues will respond responsibly and in kind.
    Here is the bottom line, our Federal Government is 40 
percent bigger today than it was in 2019 as we were going into 
an unprecedented pandemic. So coming out of the pandemic, CBO 
projected we would be spending in discretionary spending, 
hundreds of billions of dollars less than we are spending 
today. President Obama's last budget had us spending less than 
we are spending now, his last budget projected that. Folks, 
there is bloat, there is excessive spending, there are programs 
and policies that need to be repealed, and if we do that, we 
have got a fighting chance to bring down inflation and to give 
our children a more hopeful future with respect to our Nation's 
finances.
    Look, I could go through this list here because I have got 
a speech, Brendan, but I want to share something with everybody 
that is hot off the press here. CBO gave us a mid-year, mid 
fiscal year, report, seven months into the fiscal year. Here is 
their report: we are borrowing at a 236 percent higher rate 
than we did this time, over that time frame rather, last year. 
That is $400 billion more borrowing this year, over the first 
seven months, than last year. The biggest driver of the 
spending, or drivers--(1) 40 percent increase in interest 
payments. Chuck, our interest payments this year will be half a 
trillion dollars. We will triple that with just the current 
policies. In ten years, we will be spending $1.5 trillion in 
interest payments. Not a single soldier will benefit, not a 
single senior, not an anti-poverty program, not infrastructure. 
We get nothing for it. It is up 40 percent, guys, in the first 
seven months of this year, over last year. The other driver is 
56 percent or $48 billion in increased spending at the 
Department of Education because President Biden did what I 
believe is unconstitutional, certainly an overreach, and very 
reckless, to cancel almost $700 billion of student loans, 
basically having lower-income families, many of whom just said 
I can't go to college because I can't afford it, basically 
writing off the debt for upper and middle income folks and 
increasing inflation with respect to college tuition. So that 
is a driver, and then, of course, inflation has impacted 
Medicare's trust fund, it has impacted the Social Security 
trust fund. Medicare now is up 15 percent as a result, that is 
$61 billion, Social Security spending up 11 percent, that is 
$73 billion. We are accelerating this insolvency problem for 
important senior safety nets. Guys that came out just two days 
ago.
    I won't go through the army of IRS agents, I won't go 
through the excessive and expensive and unnecessary climate 
policies, hundreds of billions, I won't go through the 
expansion of healthcare to people who already had healthcare 
and make hundreds of thousands, half a million dollars a year. 
Makes no sense. It is wasteful. It is unnecessary.
    I certainly can highlight some of, what I would refer to 
as, progressive Democrat or woke earmarks--$3 million for the 
LGBTQ museum, $2 million to promote dirt bike culture in 
Baltimore, $1.2 million for pride centers in San Diego, $3.6 
million for the Michelle Obama Trail in Decatur, Georgia. If 
the folks in New York want to build an LGBTQ museum, have at 
it, but the people in Lubbock, Texas ought not to underwrite 
it.
    Let's get back to our core function. We are washed in 
waste, folks. We are in a sustained inflation crisis, and we 
got to get this thing back on track, and we got to do it soon.
    So, I welcome our witnesses. Our mission is to restore 
fiscal sanity in this place, and to get our house in order and 
to make sure that our country's future is not bleak, as it is 
today, but bright, because we are doing what every American is 
doing, tightening our belts, changing our spending habits, and 
paying our bills.
    So, with that, Mr. Ranking Member, I will let you have as 
much time as you may consume because I consumed more than I 
thought.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Arrington follows:]

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    Mr. Boyle. All 20 minutes?
    Chairman Arrington. Ten, I will give you half of what I 
took.
    Mr. Boyle. Mr. Chairman, in all seriousness now, I have to 
say, at first, I am disappointed, you only used the word 
``woke'' twice. I had bet the over because I know how much my 
Republican friends love using the word ``woke''. If we had a 
dollar for every time they use the word, we would be able to 
pay off the National debt. Still, to this day, I have no idea 
what exactly the word means, and I can't say I am terribly 
interested in finding out.
    I am more interested in responding, though, to the 
Chairman's principled viewpoint on where this economy is, and I 
couldn't disagree more, and here is why: his very pessimistic 
assessment of doom and gloom--that the debt has doomed us, and 
that Americans are struggling today more so than at any time in 
our history--that perception runs completely contrary to all of 
the evidence in front of us. Right now, in America, we have 
lower unemployment than at any time in my lifetime, and I am 
46. You have to go back 55 years to the last time we had an 
unemployment rate this low. He brought up inflation, which has 
been a challenge. The good news is, as the data showed 
yesterday, for eight consecutive months inflation has dropped. 
Inflation--which of course was caused worldwide coming out of 
the pandemic--inflation is lower in the U.S. than in the UK, 
Germany, France, most of our peer countries, and the average of 
OECD countries.
    We are such a marvel, as I pointed out when we had a good, 
vigorous debate on the House floor last session week, over the 
DOA Act, that the Economist magazine, just a couple of weeks 
ago, devoted their entire cover and a leading article to just 
attempting to explain the marvel of the American economy. It is 
brought up to me by colleagues of ours who serve in other 
Western parliaments of some of our respective NATO countries, 
attempting to figure out why it is that the U.S. growth rate is 
better than our Western peers? Why our unemployment rate is 
better, and why our inflation rate is lower.
    Now, do we have real challenges still? Absolutely. I come 
from blue-collar Philadelphia. I am well aware of the 
challenges that ordinary Americans face. We help people in our 
constituent service offices every day with real challenges, but 
the way to help them is not to pass a bill, as the House of 
Representatives did two weeks ago, that, according to Moody's, 
would lead to 800,000 fewer jobs by the end of next year and a 
greater likelihood of a recession. Again, quoting from Moody's 
report. That is not the way to go. The way to go is not to 
threaten the full faith and credit of the United States. We 
have raised the debt ceiling 103 times since 1940, the majority 
of which were under Republican presidents. We voted, including 
myself, three times under the most recent Republican president, 
and do you know, that in those three debt ceiling increases, 
two of the three did not cut spending, they increased spending 
in that very vote. So, we cannot suddenly change our views on 
this based on the political party of the occupant of 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue. That is unfair to the American people and 
risks our economic growth. The kind of things that were in that 
DOA bill--that I hope we will have a real discussion about 
today--would have devastating consequences.
    And by the way, while we had, I thought, a very good 
vigorous debate and discussion on the House floor two weeks 
ago, that always stayed on message and there was no invective 
from either side--and I appreciate the Budget Committee Members 
on both sides who participated--that said, what about regular 
order? We should have had a hearing on that bill in this 
Committee before it went straight to the floor. I tend to 
remember swearing in day taking a whole week--and my wife and 
daughter missing my actual swearing in because they had to head 
home because it took place after midnight Friday night into 
Saturday morning--and that one of the big topics was supposed 
to be a desire to return to Committee work in regular order 
before things were rushed to the floor. Unfortunately, that did 
not happen.
    So I hope today, two weeks late, we can take this 
opportunity to have essentially the Committee hearing on the 
bill that passed two weeks ago, even though it is clear that 
that bill will be DOA in the Senate. Nonetheless, what is in it 
reveals the priorities of those who wrote it, and we have to 
ensure that the devastating consequences that would result if 
that bill were to ever become law--we have to make sure that 
those consequences are known to the American people.
    So with that, despite you generously offering me more 
time--I did use five and a half minutes--I will yield there. I 
look forward to hearing from the witnesses as well as our 
colleagues.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ranking Member Boyle follows:]

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    Chairman Arrington. I thank my good friend from 
Pennsylvania. In the interest of time, if any other Members 
have opening statements, I would ask that you submit it for the 
record. I will hold the record open to the end of the day to 
accommodate those Members who may not yet have prepared written 
statements.
    [The information follows:]

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    Chairman Arrington. Once again, I would like to welcome our 
witnesses this morning. Today we will hear from Ms. Rachel 
Greszler, Senior Research Fellow on Budget and Entitlements at 
The Heritage Foundation, Mr. Myron Ebell, Director of the 
Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise 
Institute, Ms. Paige Agostin--did I get it right? Ms. Paige 
Agostin, who is the Policy Director at the Center for Renewing 
America, and then Mr. Indivar Dutta-Gupta--from a West Texan 
you are not going to get any better than that. We welcome you. 
Mr. Dutta-Gupta is President and Executive Director of the 
Center for Law and Social Policy, and we are honored that you 
would take time out of your busy lives to share your insights 
with us.
    The Committee has received your written statements. They 
will be made part of the formal hearing record.
    You will each have five minutes to deliver your oral 
remarks and I now yield five minutes to Ms. Greszler.

STATEMENT OF RACHEL GRESZLER, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW ON BUDGET 
          AND ENTITLEMENTS AT THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

    Ms. Greszler. Thank you for the opportunity to be here 
today.
    My name is Rachel Greszler. I am a Senior Research Fellow 
in Economics, Budget, and Entitlements at The Heritage 
Foundation. My remarks today are mine and don't necessarily 
represent those of The Heritage Foundation.
    So paying the correct amount of taxes to the Federal 
Government is not optional. The IRS now has an extra $80 
billion to make sure that Americans are properly paying their 
taxes. Meanwhile, the Federal Government spent $245 billion of 
taxpayers' money last year--that is $1,800 per household--on 
improper payments, but instead of increased audits, most 
government programs get rewarded with bigger budgets. This 
double standard should not exist.
    Last year, one out of every six Medicaid dollars and one 
out of every four CHIP dollars represented an improper payment. 
That is enough to purchase health insurance for 15 million 
individuals. In the Earned Income Tax Credit, one out of every 
three dollars was an improper payment. What that means is that 
for the government to properly transfer $1 to an individual, 
they have to take a dollar and 46 cents from somebody else. I 
estimated that more than 40 percent of the pandemic 
unemployment insurance benefits, that is $357 billion in total, 
went to individuals who were not unemployed, and while the 
media did pick up on international crime rings, even Chinese 
state sponsored hackers stealing Americans' identities and 
taxpayers' money, there is little attention and zero 
consequences to government programs that regularly squander 
taxpayers' dollars.
    Any solution to reducing improper payments will require 
both verifying identity and eligibility, and imposing 
accountability, and that includes consequences. Most improper 
payments come from failure to verify that people are who they 
say they are and that they are eligible for the benefits that 
they claim. According to this year's GAO report, 59 percent of 
improper payments were the result of agencies' failures to 
obtain the data needed to verify payments. Another 25 percent 
was the result of non-existent or inaccessible data. So better 
data is crucial, but it will be meaningless if agencies aren't 
held accountable when they fail to steward taxpayers' dollars.
    For example, Federal agencies already are required to use 
the Do Not Pay database, but what they do is they ping that 
database, they send out the payments, and then afterwards they 
get the results from that database when the money has already 
gone out the door.
    To improve integrity and accountability across government 
programs, I propose the creation of a Taxpayer Integrity 
Office, or a TIO, within the Treasury Department, and that TIO 
should have five responsibilities: one, improving eligibility 
and ID verification; two, strengthening information sharing 
across government; three, maintaining competitive, responsive, 
and secure systems; four, establishing and enforcing reasonable 
standards for agencies to follow; and five, and most 
importantly, is enacting meaningful consequences for agencies' 
failure.
    Finally, while improper payments are a major problem, they 
are a symptom of the bigger disease, which is improper Federal 
spending. When the Federal Government expands its role into 
areas of people's lives that are better addressed within 
households and businesses, by state and local governments, or 
by charitable and religious organizations, that is government 
bloat that comes at the expense of personal freedom and 
opportunity. The Federal Government spent $4.2 trillion last 
year on transfer payments. That is over $32,000 per household. 
It's also nine out of every ten dollars the Federal Government 
collected, and two out of every three dollars the Federal 
Government spent. Bigger government means even bigger improper 
payments. As this chart will show, Federal payments have 
increased at three times the rate of GDP, that is the middle 
yellow line there. Improper payments have increased at four and 
a half times the rate of GDP since 2005. At these current 
rates, improper payments plus interest costs could total $4 
trillion over the next ten years. Constantly expanding 
entitlement programs without any consideration of what they 
will cost is unsustainable, and taking people's money and 
requiring them to jump through bureaucratic hoops to get things 
that the government thinks they need, makes it harder for 
ordinary Americans to earn a living and to pursue what is best 
for them and their families.
    So to reduce improper Federal spending and empower people 
instead of bureaucrats, policymakers should replace tax credits 
with lower overall tax rates, enact universal savings accounts 
to make it simpler and more accessible to save, reject new 
entitlement programs, and reform existing ones.
    Thank you.
    [The information follows:]

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    Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Ms. Greszler. Now we will 
yield five minutes to Mr. Ebell.

 STATEMENT OF MYRON EBELL, DIRECTOR FOR THE CENTER FOR ENERGY 
    AND ENVIRONMENT AT THE COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

    Mr. Ebell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 
Boyle, for inviting me to testify today.
    My name is Myron Ebell and I am Director of the Center for 
Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. 
We concentrate on regulatory issues from a free market 
perspective, and so our work is endless.
    I want to congratulate you, Chairman Arrington, on your 
leadership in passing H.R. 2811, the Limit, Save, Grow Act. I 
think this, as you said, is an important first step, and I 
think it puts the forces of fiscal sanity on the offensive in 
Washington for the first time in a long time.
    I want to just say that I believe, and I say this in my 
written testimony, that the most important part of the spending 
cuts that you have, is the repeal of Senator Manchin's so 
called Inflation Reduction Act, particularly the energy 
subsidies, which are huge. This is not only wasteful spending 
of money that the Federal Government does not have, it is not 
only handouts to special corporate interests. Subsidies distort 
markets, and that's why CEI opposes all mandates and subsidies 
in the energy sector. I think we oppose all mandates and 
subsidies. I may be going too far.
    There is one thing about most subsidies, conventional 
subsidies, they actually lower the cost of the product or 
service that is being subsidized. So, for example, if Mexico 
subsidizes tortillas so that poor people can get enough to eat, 
that will lower the cost of tortillas. The perverseness of the 
energy subsidies is that they have the effect of lowering the 
cost of one particular product or contributor in the energy 
sector while actually raising total costs. This is perverse. So 
we subsidize corporate interest to build huge wind factories 
and solar factories, that lowers the cost of wind and solar, 
but it actually raises the price of electricity. We see this 
throughout the world. Germany has gone the furthest. They have 
the world's highest electric rates--maybe Denmark, but they 
have gone just as far. The consequence of this is even worse 
than raising the cost of electricity. The massive mis-
investment in wind and solar and other handouts--but I don't 
have time to go into all of them--the cost is also that it is 
destroying our energy infrastructure. How is that so? While 
massive mis-investment in wind and solar, there has 
consequently been massive underinvestment in conventional 
dispatchable sources, and let me use the example of Texas 
rather than California, which is--usually we point to 
California, but let me talk about Texas for a moment. In 1999, 
Ken Lay of Enron convinced Governor George W. Bush to support a 
renewable electricity standard for Texas. Since that time--to 
take advantage of the subsidy--since that time, Texas has had 
massive overinvestment, mis-investment in wind, massive 
closures of coal fired power plants, massive underinvestment in 
dispatchable gas plants, and now the Texas legislature and the 
governor are trying to figure out what to do about it because 
Texas faces a reliability crisis, and the answer that many 
people in the legislature seem to be coming up with is, well, 
we will keep taking the wind and solar subsidies and we will 
now subsidize gas plants. This is crazy.
    The other thing, I just like to close with, is it took 150 
years to build the electric infrastructure, it took 150 years 
to build the oil infrastructure, and President Biden claims 
that we are going to transform it in a so-called clean energy 
transition in a decade. This is impossible. This is a train 
wreck.
    Thank you.
    [The information follows:]

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    Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Mr. Ebell, and now we will 
yield five minutes to Ms. Agostin.

 STATEMENT OF PAIGE AGOSTIN, POLICY DIRECTOR AT THE CENTER FOR 
                        RENEWING AMERICA

    Ms. Agostin. Chairman Arrington, and Ranking Member Boyle, 
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today.
    Late last year, the Center for Renewing America released a 
proposed budget that sought to provide a strategic vision 
indelibly linking the efforts for getting our Nation's finances 
in order with removing the menace of woke and weaponized 
bureaucracy which is aimed squarely at the American people.
    The main thing I hope to leave with you today is a 
conviction that the woke enterprise is in fact a cultural 
revolution bent on destroying America. The Federal Government 
is now a main distribution channel of it, and if you do not act 
soon, we will not have a country left.
    So first, what does woke mean? Historically, woke meant 
being aware of racial injustices. However, decades later, woke 
is now identity based neo-Marxism, and its goal is to destroy 
American society. The woke adopt the view that our society is 
structured to oppress the marginalized and that differences 
between groups are attributable to this systemic oppression. 
The required solution is to abolish those oppressive norms in 
the name of equity. That is, equal outcomes regardless of 
merit. In some, the woke stoke division among Americans based 
on identity in order to tear down the Republic, eliminate 
capitalism, marginalize religion, and rupture the nuclear 
family.
    As I mentioned, our budget proposal took an in depth look 
at each department and found that the Federal bureaucracy is a 
significant funder of this woke cultural revolution. It is the 
framework by which the bureaucracy operates. It is how it 
structures its programs and makes funding decisions, and what 
trainings and guidelines it adopts, and because the bureaucracy 
is so big and spends trillions of dollars, private businesses 
are happily coerced into the same mission.
    Just a small sample of what we found in health and 
education and foreign aid. The Department of Health and Human 
Services and the National Institutes of Health actively push so 
called gender affirming care, which is cross sex hormones and 
surgical mutilation, even for minors. NIH funds human fetal 
tissue harvesting from aborted babies for medical research, and 
CDC spent nearly $6 billion to address so called COVID health 
disparities through the lens of health equity, 25 states allow 
Medicaid to pay for chemical castration via hormone therapy, 
and 23 states pay for irreversible and mutilating genital 
surgery, and the Biden Administration's Section 1557 rule would 
require all insurance to cover chemical castration and sex 
change surgeries or be deemed discriminatory.
    Federal grants often have a specific woke purpose, but they 
also serve as a taxpayer funded lifeline to civil institutions 
committed to spreading the woke dogma. The University of 
Maryland Medical System performs gender transition surgeries on 
boys and girls at the earliest onset of puberty as young as 
nine and ten years old, and received a $3.5 million grant to 
increase mental health and advanced gender affirming care, or 
take $4.7 million in a CDC grant to the National Minority AIDS 
Council for Training and Technical Assistance. That 
organization engages in pro Black Lives Matter activism and 
promotes radical gender theory. Three CDC grants, totaling $8 
million, went to Access Matters, which is based in 
Philadelphia, for so called family health care. That 
organization says its abortion services are provided through 
the lens of equity, which means explicitly pushing abortion on 
vulnerable minority populations.
    The Department of Education, often under the guise of 
culturally responsive learning and social emotional learning, 
is an active adversary of parents and citizens concerned about 
the inherent race essentialism of CRT and gender theory. 
Through its Equity Assistance centers, it trains teachers to 
incorporate critical race theory and gender transition of 
children without parental knowledge. It also provided more than 
$60 million through its SEED program to morph teachers into 
essentially progressive activists. The Department's cultural 
learning was featured in its K-12 History and Civics Education 
Competitive Grant program, which reminds applicants that 
America is systemically racist and emphasized both Ibram 
Kendi's ``How to Be an Antiracist'' and the factually 
challenged ``1619 project''.
    Lastly, at least for this testimony, the State Department's 
diplomatic programs remain geared toward exporting woke 
ideology abroad. Millions of dollars go to support programs 
like gay pride parades in Prague, LGBTI activists in Senegal, 
LGBTQIA+ social events in Australia, and drag theater in 
Ecuador. Woke is the umbrella ideology, and it uses all manner 
of terms and concepts like equity and inclusion. Every dollar 
should be examined to determine what, in fact, the country is 
spending money on. This should absolutely not be an exercise in 
austerity wherein every program must take a hit.
    Wokeness is now essentially a taxpayer funded secular 
religion crafted by secular elites to supplant the Nation's 
Judeo-Christian traditions that have stood the test of time. It 
is dangerous, existentially dangerous, for Congress to continue 
funding the priorities of a neo-Marxist ideology that seeks 
only to destroy that which has come before.
    Thank you.
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    Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Ms. Agostin. Now we yield 
five minutes to Mr. Dutta-Gupta.

   STATEMENT OF INDIVAR DUTTA-GUPTA, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE 
    DIRECTOR AT THE CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL POLICY (CLASP)

    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Thank you, Chairman Arrington, Ranking 
Member Boyle, and Members of the Committee.
    My name is Indi Dutta-Gupta, and I am President and 
Executive Director of the Center for Law and Social Policy, or 
CLASP. CLASP is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit, using 
research and analysis to promote effective policy solutions to 
end poverty and advance racial and gender equity.
    This morning, I will discuss why many people rely on 
Federal programs to achieve economic security and why the deep 
cuts mandated under the McCarthy debt ceiling bill would 
undermine the Nation's well-being. Finally, I will discuss the 
importance of raising revenues and the dangers of failing to 
raise the debt limit.
    So first, why do people rely on Federal programs for 
economic security? Well, the United States suffers from an 
unusual number of low wage, low paid jobs, ranking 39th out of 
42 OECD countries. As a result, many who benefit from support 
programs are simply workers paid too little to make ends meet. 
Others experience low incomes due to the hazards of life, 
including illness, disability, death of a family member, 
outliving savings, underemployment, intimate partner violence, 
and caring for a loved one. Fortunately, a vast array of 
rigorous empirical studies has demonstrated that individual 
programs and our social protection system overall helps 
families with low incomes stabilize their lives, maintain 
employment, advance in the labor market, and help their 
children thrive. Unfortunately, our still very high prevalence 
of economic insecurity harms us all. Allowing child poverty 
alone to persist costs us nearly $1.5 trillion dollars 
annually.
    Unsurprisingly, the McCarthy bill's deep cuts would 
undermine the Nation's well-being. The House debt ceiling bill 
would set dangerously low caps on appropriations that would 
grow harsher over time. If House Republicans later exclude from 
the caps defense spending and veterans medical spending, even 
as defense and veterans' health costs grow, virtually all other 
appropriated spending would need to be eliminated. Let that 
sink in. Supports on the chopping block include child care, 
which supports parents while they work or go to school to 
improve their employment prospects, post-secondary education 
and workforce development, which can offer credentials required 
for better jobs and supports our small businesses, and food 
safety, public health, and basic transportation programs that 
benefit all of us. The bill would also use work reporting 
requirements to limit access to Medicaid, Snap, and TANF, 
programs that help families, including more than a million 
veterans, access opportunity, and thrive. Extensive evidence 
proves that such work requirements do little to promote work, 
but they do increase hardship, harming many who merely fail to 
meet and overcome the red tape these requirements create.
    So instead, revenues must be part of the answer. The United 
States is a low tax country, ranking 32 out of 38 OECD 
countries, and tax cuts have actually propelled us to our 
current debt levels. The Bush tax cuts, their extensions, and 
the Trump tax cuts alone are responsible for most of the 
increase in the ratio of debt to economic output since 2001, 
and more than 90 percent of the increase if we exclude the cost 
of combating COVID-19 and the prior recession. Yet the McCarthy 
bill would reduce revenues by cutting the IRS budget and making 
it harder to collect taxes owed by the wealthy and 
corporations.
    We face serious dangers if we fail to raise our arbitrary 
debt limit. A default could spark a financial crisis, causing 
millions of job losses and decimating retirement savings. It 
would make borrowing more expensive and reduce families' 
abilities to build wealth through home ownership, through 
education, or through entrepreneurship. Millions of people 
would immediately feel the impact of a stop in government 
spending through delays in Social Security, veterans' 
disability payments, and more. A recession, which the proposed 
cuts could trigger, would harm everyone, particularly workers 
paid the lowest wages, young people, and communities of color, 
many of whom are among the last hired and first fired.
    The House passed bill is an ideological wish list that 
would also wreck our economy. Congress should not pass any deal 
that increases hardship, never mind one that asks struggling 
families to foot the bill so the richest corporations and 
households can evade their taxes. Instead, Congress should 
raise the debt ceiling on its own now and get to the work of 
investing in our families and communities, which make our 
Nation strong.
    Thank you.
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    Chairman Arrington. I thank Mr. Dutta-Gupta and all of our 
witnesses. We are going to go into the question-and-answer 
session.
    I want to start by yielding myself five minutes, and I am 
going to focus on the economic policies and consequences side 
of this discussion.
    Mr. Ebell, my colleagues may have a different view of the 
economy and the path we are on and the projections that we have 
received from nonpartisan groups like CBO. I believe things are 
really bad, and I think they are going to get a lot worse if we 
don't change. GDP is at 1.1 percent in this first quarter, it 
is down from the last quarterly report, which was down from the 
last quarterly report, because of interest rates, and interest 
rates are coming at us in hikes that we haven't experienced in 
a while because of inflation, labor participation rates are 
low, et cetera, et cetera.
    But you talked about regulations. That is one that I don't 
think--that is a side of policies and economic impact that I 
don't think we quantify enough or discuss enough, the 
deleterious effects on our economy. $400 billion is what I 
understand, sir, $400 billion in additional regulatory cost in 
two years from this administration. My understanding it is 
twice the clip of President Obama and six or seven times the 
amount of regulatory burden and cost of the previous 
administration, President Trump. What do you say about 
overregulating and its adverse impacts on us at this point, 
coming out of a recession and having the prospect of growth and 
jobs and higher wages and all the good things that come with 
that?
    Mr. Ebell. Thank you, Chairman Arrington. Yes, I agree with 
you. The three dampers on economic growth and prosperity are 
overtaxing, overspending, and overregulating, and my colleague 
at CEI, Wayne Crews, is the real expert on this, on regulation. 
He has spent his entire career trying to quantify and identify 
the costs of regulation.
    In the energy sector, we see that regulation is a huge 
damper on the use and the production of energy, and I would say 
this, if you want to look at a place to get some economic 
growth, what I would call the Trump energy dominance agenda is 
what we need to return to. It turns out, because of the shale, 
oil, and gas revolution, that America is the world's energy 
superpower, and the so-called clean energy transition is an 
attempt to take us back to the days when we were incredibly 
dependent upon foreign countries for our energy.
    We used to run several hundred billion dollars of deficits 
in importing oil every year. We are now an oil exporter and a 
gas exporter. Instead of that, what the clean energy transition 
proposes is that we become almost entirely dependent upon China 
for the critical minerals that are used in windmills, solar 
panels, and electric batteries. So we are going in the wrong 
direction right now. I think your bill is a good step, moving 
us back in the right direction.
    Chairman Arrington. Let me follow on that comment about 
wind and solar.
    My district actually produces more wind than any district 
in America, by the way, but we also sit on top of the Permian 
Basin, so we get to say that we produce all of the above, but I 
am concerned about the distorting effect that you talked about 
with respect to reliable and affordable sources of energy--by 
the way, sources of energy we may need if we were ever to go to 
war, for example, with China. We would also need financing for 
that war, which I am very concerned that we wouldn't have.
    One of the elements of the Green Energy Corporation 
subsidies, one element of my concern is that they are three 
times higher than what they were marketed and sold during the 
IRA. The other piece is much of the component parts, if not the 
majority, of solar and wind are coming from China. I read an 
article where China was going to benefit by, to the tune of 
$125 billion. Can you make a quick comment there? And then I am 
going to move on, let my Ranking Member ask questions.
    Mr. Ebell. You are absolutely right, there is a lot to be 
said about this, but we have traded energy independence for 
being dependent upon a potential adversary for everything that 
keeps our economy going, which is the stuff that moves and 
produces energy.
    Chairman Arrington. Thank you for your quick comment. Now, 
Mr. Boyle, I will yield five minutes for your questions.
    Mr. Boyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 
the witnesses.
    Indi, you mentioned something in your opening statement 
that I was very glad to hear because you rarely hear it either 
on Capitol Hill or just in the media as part of this discourse, 
and that is the great missing tax revenue. 2001, George W. Bush 
tax cuts, which weren't paid for, 2003, George W. Bush tax 
cuts, which also weren't paid for, their extension, which was 
done on a bipartisan basis about a decade later, and then, of 
course, the 2017 Trump tax cuts. All told, are you able to put 
a number on just exactly how much missing tax revenue there is? 
And of course, as you pointed out, you think about that--too 
often around here we hear about the spending side, but we don't 
hear about the whole other half of the equation, which is the 
revenue side. So want to make sure that if we are going to 
really talk about deficit and debt, we talk about both sides of 
the ledger.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. That is right. Thank you, Ranking Member 
Boyle.
    We have in many ways, as I mentioned, propelled ourselves 
into our current ratio of debt to our economic activity because 
of these tax cuts. Just to put it in perspective, in a decade 
or so, we would actually have seen that ratio decline were it 
not for these tax cuts and their extensions, so----
    Mr. Boyle. The debt-to-GDP ratio.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. The debt-to-GDP ratio would actually 
decline. So the tax cuts on their own have added about $10 
trillion to the debt since 2001, which is, I think, what you 
are getting at.
    I will just emphasize quickly that in the United States, 
the overall taxes paid as a share of our economy and our 
economic activity is much closer to middle income countries 
and, like Mexico even, than it is to our wealthy peers who have 
higher living standards than the lower tax countries. So I 
think what we ultimately all want is higher living standards 
for the American people, and if anything, our low taxes are 
getting in the way of that here. We are not trying to reduce 
people's ability to have those high living standards, we want 
to reduce the cost of living that they face.
    Mr. Boyle. And this is before we even look at the 
disproportionate impact of those tax cuts in terms of where 
most of that money was going. I mean, the most recent round of 
tax cuts, the one for which I was here, the Trump tax cuts, 
officially called the TCJA, CBO estimated 83 percent of that 
going to the top one percent by the end of the ten-year window.
    Let me transition real quickly, though, to the debt 
ceiling, because this is something I have worked on for a long 
time, and while I think many people are now coming to 
understand the devastating consequences of default, I think 
there is a part of the conversation, though, that has been 
missed, and that is while the question of whether we default or 
not is binary, that obscures there is a whole continuum between 
then and now in which we could also suffer consequences even if 
we ultimately raise the debt ceiling by the deadline.
    So I was wondering if you could talk about what happened in 
2011. We did suffer the first ever credit downgrade in American 
history. One of the three credit agencies downgraded us, which, 
according to the Government Accountability Office, cost us over 
$1 billion dollars in extra borrowing costs. So I wonder if you 
could speak to that.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. That is right, and I will just add that 
households suffer. Their household wealth fell by almost $2.5 
trillion dollars over the second and third quarter of 2011. As 
a result, consumer confidence fell, mortgage spreads increased, 
and it led to hundreds of dollars a month in increased 
borrowing costs for new borrowers. So approaching the debt 
ceiling just makes it harder for Treasury to issue regular 
debt, and that creates a lot of uncertainty and increased costs 
throughout financial markets as well.
    Mr. Boyle. I would also just share, in the 30 seconds I 
have left, based on conversations I have had, I feel quite 
confident that unfortunately the other credit agencies will 
downgrade us if this debt ceiling drama plays out much longer, 
and that, of course, has so many impacts. You just described 
what happened in 2011 in terms of household wealth. I fear this 
time it would, in fact be worse. It is all the more reason that 
we solve this now.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the Ranking Member.
    I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from South 
Carolina, Mr. Ralph Norman.
    Mr. Norman. We got two different worlds up here. We really 
do. We are diametrically opposed in our viewpoint, in our 
thinking.
    Congressman Boyle, you mentioned about regular order on the 
border bill and on the bill we put up to the Senate to cut and 
rein in spending. It didn't go through regular order. I was one 
of the 20 that objected to bills, we held out until things do 
go through regular order. Reason these two bills didn't, on the 
spending bill that we presented to the Senate, this 
administration has not cut $1. He has made his thoughts known, 
no cuts, clean debt ceiling raise, which is insane. A lemonade 
stand run by a 12-year-old can find cuts, at least $1. This 
administration doesn't. What does his budget do? Biden's 
budget, $2 billion more, just a few, to increase regulations of 
the firearms industry, $512 million to provide money for 
abortion services to the Department of Health and Human 
Services, $3 billion for ``marginalized communities'' to 
promote advanced gender equity and equality. It goes on and on. 
So that is why the two bills didn't go through.
    On the border bill, there is no reason to have a debate. 
This administration is opening the doors to every country in 
the world to come into the United States, which has never been 
done, and the sad part about it, when the cities start 
hollering, like New York did, that they are out of money, they 
are going to come to the Federal Government. Guess what? The 
Federal Government has no money to spend.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta, I heard your comments, which really were 
amazing, that you would make the statements that you have made. 
Just raise the debt ceiling, corporations need to pay more 
taxes. Have you ever run a small business?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. I run a small nonprofit.
    Mr. Norman. Nonprofit. Have you ever had a business where 
you had to hire employees?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. That is what I do.
    Mr. Norman. No. Your agency is supported by the profits of 
companies and the small businesses. Am I wrong? Yes, I am 
right.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. It is supported by foundations, individual 
donors.
    Mr. Norman. Here is what I suggest you do, get out on Main 
Street America, explain how the inflation, which has increased 
14.9 percent, how are they handling that? Explain how food 
prices are up 17 percent, how are they handling that? Gas 
prices, 37 percent. From abandoning our natural resources and 
buying from countries from OPEC that hate America. Let them 
explain that to you. Real wages have decreased by 3.5 percent 
because of inflation. Why do you think the rating for this 
administration is so low? His policies are insane, and it is 
tearing the country down.
    Now we have a lot of hot air and wind up here too in 
Congress. We are going to take action on cuts and thank God the 
leverage on the debt ceiling. Finally, the Democrats in the 
Senate have got some consequences. Let them not put forward 
their plan. I heard not one plan that you offer. It was just 
criticisms. Let them put it in writing, as businesses have to 
do, on what their plan to solve this crisis.
    Now, I assume corporations--I don't know whether you 
understand it or not, but corporations don't pay tax. It is the 
people that pay the tax. Corporations don't pay it. So I think 
that where we are right now, if your house is on fire, you 
don't rearrange the furniture around the pool, and that is what 
this Republican led House, which is in charge of the purse 
strings, is going to do one way or another, and I am tired of 
the talk. We are going to put it forward.
    I have yet to hear a plan by this administration to offer 
any solution other than just spend more money. It is an insult 
to the American people and it is an insult to our military, and 
what they are attempting to put us in a bind by more spending 
is going to shipwreck this country, along with every other 
thing that this administration has done.
    Ms. Greszler, I was very impressed with your proposal about 
putting together a group to oversee the fraud and abuse. Would 
you go into how we would implement that and real quickly? We 
got 35 seconds.
    Ms. Greszler. Yeah. That is a Taxpayer Integrity Office 
within the Treasury Department. You could use the existing 
funding that is there, and the biggest thing is that they need 
to have the authority to impose the consequences.
    Mr. Norman. A thought would be to put a panel of business 
people who have no agenda, who don't have to answer to the 
lobbyists, who can say, this makes sense, and question 
everything. That is what this country needs now more than ever. 
Thank you all for what you are doing.
    Mr. Ebell and Paige, I wish we had more time, but you are a 
voice of reason and a voice we are going to consider. Thank you 
so much. I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Mr. Norman, and we now yield 
five minutes to the gentleman from New York, my friend, Mr. 
Higgins.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, let's 
make very clear that the U.S. economy is not in decline, it is 
healthy and it is growing. Under President Biden, for the past 
24 months, 14 million jobs have been created, the unemployment 
rate is at 3.6 percent, the lowest in 54 years, the projected 
inflation rate at this time next year will be 2.5 percent--
normal based on historical trends. Under the previous 
administration, 3 million jobs were lost, including 300 
thousand manufacturing jobs. That woke publication, Fortune 
magazine, said that under the Trump Administration was the 
greatest job loss since Herbert Hoover.
    The United States economy is $23 trillion. It is nearly one 
quarter of the world economy. U.S. Treasury bonds are the 
safest, most reliable investment in all the world. The U.S. 
dollar is the go-to currency in the world, 75 percent of U.S. 
bonds are owned by Americans, local banks, local businesses, 
local governments, Social Security, Medicare, and Federal 
pensioners. America made a promise to its own people and the 
institutions who dared to invest in the country's economic 
growth. Again, these bonds are the safest investment in all the 
world. Why would you want to stiff your own people and destroy 
your own currency and destroy your own economy?
    The 14th Amendment, Section Four of the United States 
Constitution is as clear as it can be. The validity of the 
public debt shall not be questioned. This is not a political 
negotiation, this is a moral and legal obligation to be 
honored. The budget is a law enacted by Congress, and that law 
is the debt ceiling. The U.S. needs to pay its obligations, and 
if Kevin McCarthy wants to petition the United States Supreme 
Court to allow the United States of America to default on its 
obligations to its own people for the first time in the United 
States' history that is on his speakership and on his party. We 
are a better country than that.
    Yes, there is a debt problem. I understand that. What is 
the contemporary historical example as to how you deal with 
debt? You deal with debt through growth, growth of the economy. 
From 1992 to 2000, you had 4 percent economic growth each year 
sustained over an 8-year period. We didn't have a budgetary 
deficit; we had a $300 billion budgetary surplus. We paid $400 
billion to reduce the overall debt. America is better than 
this. It is a constitutional obligation that we pay our debts, 
particularly when 75 percent of those are to our own people. 
When there is financial crisis in the Nation, when there is 
financial crisis in the world, American debt and the investment 
in it is referred to as a flight to safety because it is a 
safe, sound economic investment.
    Mr. Gupta.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Well, I appreciate that, Representative 
Higgins.
    I will just add by saying this is sort of the equivalent of 
taking out a mortgage. The bank knows you can pay for it, 
believes you can pay for it, it is happy to give you the 
mortgage, and you come to them and you say, I have a side 
agreement with my family that I am just not going to pay. It 
doesn't make sense. We can have a good conversation about 
reducing debt, stabilizing debt, which by the way, the 
President's budget does stabilize debt over time, but we should 
take off the table the threats to raising the debt limit itself 
because of the potential economic calamities, obviously there 
are constitutional questions, but I think it makes a lot of 
sense to look at, including our military spending, which we 
have been told is going to be off the table under these caps. 
So we are looking at instead a very small slice of spending, 
mostly non-defense discretionary spending, and the biggest 
chunk of that is veterans medical care, and that is being taken 
off the table from what we have heard as well. So that is a 
different conversation.
    But the U.S. economy, I want to note, has grown and people 
are working. We actually have the highest employment to 
population ratio, which is now above the prior peak on record, 
except for the late 1990s and 2000, when we also had a booming 
economy.
    Mr. Higgins. I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Mr. Higgins.
    We now yield five minutes to the gentleman from California, 
my friend Mr. McClintock.
    Mr. McClintock. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    First of all, I agree with Mr. Higgins, which is why 
Republicans just voted to raise the debt limit by $1.5 
trillion, but I remind him that if your family is spending 
itself into debt and you need to ask the bank for an increase 
in your credit card limit, you damn well better have a serious 
discussion about what has gotten you into this mess and make a 
plan to get out of that mess. That is what the Republican bill 
does. If the Democrats don't like it, they can strip all of the 
measures out in the Senate and send it back to us and then it 
goes to conference and we have discussion, that family 
discussion. That is what this whole Capitol building is all 
about, discussing our differences and reaching a common 
direction on behalf of the American people.
    Now, to answer the Ranking Member that the term woke is not 
one of the right, it came from the left. It is a toxic 
combination of socialism and racism, and the reason that the 
left doesn't like it being used today is because it has already 
been discredited in the eyes of an overwhelming majority of 
Americans. I am sorry, but his party has made that bed and now 
they are going to have to sleep in it.
    Once again, I would warn him that you cannot spin the 
economy. Everybody knows how the economy is doing in their own 
lives and trying to gaslight them never works. Whenever the 
left is taking control, you see the same economic pathologies, 
rampant homelessness, sky high taxes, failing businesses, and 
ultimately fleeing families. I have seen that myself. I live in 
California, and if you just look at the census numbers, you can 
see what people believe is a better environment to raise their 
families.
    What my Democratic colleagues don't seem to understand is 
that government cannot put a dollar into the economy that it 
first hasn't taken out of that same economy, and it can do so 
in only one of three ways that I know of. You either raise 
taxes, that reduces the current standard of living, it 
suppresses productivity, borrowing, that crowds out to capital 
what would otherwise be available to loan to consumers to make 
consumer purchases, or businesses to expand jobs, incurs 
enormous interest costs and ultimately has got to be paid back 
anyway through future taxes, which reduces people's future 
standard of living, and then finally you have inflation, 
pushing money into the economy that is unsupported by 
productivity and that in turn reduces the value of the dollar 
and increases prices.
    Can any of our panelists tell me any other possible way 
government spending can be paid for? I guess it turns out all 
that free money isn't so free. It is actually very expensive 
and people are paying it back every day at the gas station, at 
the grocery store, and in their paychecks.
    So the central question then is what we are spending? Now, 
we just heard that raising taxes to fund more social programs 
is sound policy. They always tell us that socialism is caring 
and sharing and taking care of each other and capitalism is dog 
eat dog selfishness. They have got it completely backwards. 
There is only one way to prosper in a free society, you have to 
figure out what somebody else needs and figure out how to get 
it for them better than they can do it for themselves. That is 
true whether it is sweeping a floor or designing an advanced 
microchip. Socialism is taking what one person has made by 
helping others and giving it to someone who has not. It is 
true. If I take a dollar from Peter and give it to Paul, Paul's 
got an extra dollar to spend, he is $1 better off, but Peter, 
of course, has one less dollar to spend, and that is why 
socialism is so destructive, because you have now robbed both 
Peter and Paul of a dollar of incentive to help each other, 
Peter because he no longer profits by helping others, and Paul 
because he no longer needs to. That is why socialism 
consistently produces poverty and misery wherever it is 
practiced. It destroys the natural incentives in a free society 
that encourages people to help each other the most efficient 
way that they can.
    And here is the rub. A free market is an amazingly 
democratic process because every consumer, everyday, votes with 
every dollar they spend on what the economy will produce and 
what prices they are willing to pay. When government takes that 
dollar out of the economy, it transfers that decision from the 
consumer to the government. Instead of consumers deciding what 
they need, government makes that decision for them. So instead 
of using the dollar you have earned to support your family, 
government takes that dollar and spends it on an LGBT museum. 
Capital would otherwise go to its highest and best economic 
use, instead is used for its highest and best political use, 
something that is radically different.
    Mr. Ebell, what do subsidies do to stuff the economic 
ballot box and cause consumers to make inefficient decisions 
that they would never make if they were getting accurate price 
information?
    Mr. Ebell. Thank you, Representative McClintock.
    That was an outstanding summary of how the economy works 
and what is wrong with government intervention and government 
taking taxes and spending it on things that don't create 
wealth.
    And I think Mr. Higgins mentioned that the economy grew at 
4 percent in the 1990s, and that is because the policies were 
much closer to what you advocate than to what some others 
advocate. The economy was still benefiting from the Reagan tax 
cuts, the historic Reagan tax cuts, and I would point out that 
during most of the 1990s, the Republicans were in control of 
both the House and the Senate.
    So to say----
    Chairman Arrington. The gentleman's time has expired. I 
appreciate the response, but we need to keep this moving.
    Mr. McClintock, thank you, and now I want to yield five 
minutes to Ms. Schakowsky from Illinois.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Well, I am going to actually try and get a better 
understanding of woke, a word that actually I have never used 
in a sentence myself, although I hear it a lot out there and 
heard it today, and unfortunately, I think it was also in the 
name of this hearing.
    I have just yes or no questions for every one of our 
witnesses, and maybe this will clarify our priorities. To me, 
it seems as if veterans have earned and deserve comprehensive 
healthcare. That has been a promise that we have made to 
veterans, and now we know that we do not have thousands and 
thousands of nurses that are needed for the Veterans 
Administration to take care of them.
    So my yes or no question is do you think that hiring more 
nurses to provide for our veterans is woke and wasteful and 
bloated? Yes or no?
    Ms. Greszler. I can start and just say that I think that we 
need to get nurses hired. One thing you could do first is to 
just not allow nurses who work at the Veterans Administration 
to work for the unions instead of treating veterans.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Well, it is really--I have a number of 
questions. So do you think that we should hire more nurses? I 
understand that you have qualifications to make sure that we--
--
    Ms. Greszler. First you should use the nurses you have to 
treat veterans instead of to work for unions.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Can we go down the line?
    Mr. Ebell. It is not my issue area. Thank you.
    Ms. Agostin. Not necessarily.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Not at all. Not at all, and remember, 
nearly a million veterans also participate in Medicaid and 
could be caught up in the work reporting requirements of the--
--
    Ms. Schakowsky. Okay, so was your answer that it is not 
woke to take care of our veterans?
    Ms. Agostin. Not necessarily. It could be woke, though. 
Happy to give you more details.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Okay. So there was recently a--recently we 
learned the Department of Labor found that there were 102 
minors, children who were working in very dangerous meat 
packing plants. They were doing some very dangerous work.
    So my question is, do you think that it is woke or wasteful 
to allow the Department of Agriculture and the Department of 
Labor to actually make sure--and spend money to be able to make 
sure that we aren't having children that are working, some as 
young as 13, in dangerous workplaces? Yes or no?
    Ms. Greszler. No, I think that those laws need to be 
pursued to protect children, but also the border laws need to 
be enforced because a lot of those were stolen identities.
    Mr. Ebell. No, but I think you have added wasteful to woke, 
which raises new questions. So----
    Ms. Schakowsky. Well, that was in the title of our hearing. 
It was about wasteful----
    Mr. Ebell. Yes, but you wanted to ask about woke, not--you 
have now added wasteful. Wasteful and woke are two different 
issues.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Okay. My question is on woke and wasteful, 
the words that were in our hearing.
    Yes, do you think so?
    Ms. Agostin. I think the Department of Labor spends 
millions of dollars through all different kinds of programs, 
including job corps----
    Ms. Schakowsky. Should we protect child labor?
    Ms. Agostin. Should you protect child labor?
    Ms. Schakowsky. Children, children from doing dangerous 
child labor.
    Ms. Agostin. Yes, you shouldn't let children do dangerous 
child labor.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Is it woke to do that?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Absolutely not.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Let me see my time. Well, it looks like--I 
had a number of questions, but it seems to me that when we look 
at the important things that government regulation can do to 
make sure that our workers are safe, that our children are 
safe, that our railroad workers, which I was going to talk 
about, are safe, is very, very important. This is not about 
being woke. This is about being sensible and doing the right 
thing for our American people.
    And I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentle lady from Illinois.
    I now yield five minutes to my friend from Virginia, Mr. 
Cline.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Contrary to what you are hearing today and what you might 
hear coming out of the White House press room, the fiscal state 
of our great Nation is in desperate need of a reality check, 
and facing this looming fiscal crisis, House Republicans have 
risen to the occasion. We passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, a 
package of fiscal reforms and pro-growth policies to protect 
the full faith and credit of the United States, but ensure that 
we will not accrue debt as we have over the past few decades.
    Without providing a solution of their own, the White House 
has resorted to false statements, alleging, for example, that 
the Limit, Save, Grow Act would cut veterans benefits despite 
there not being a single line in the bill to substantiate the 
claim.
    But while the President refuses to negotiate, the House 
Budget Committee is pushing forward to identify meaningful 
areas to reduce spending in a Federal Government that is 
growing increasingly, yes, woke and weaponized.
    Often overlooked as a source of potential savings, improper 
payments from government programs amounted to over $247 billion 
last year. That is nearly 15 times the total of this year's 
budget for Customs and Border Patrol, and as we know, there is 
a crisis in Customs and Border Patrol that is under-resourced, 
undermanned, and understaffed.
    Let me ask Ms. Greszler, this was a primary point made in 
your testimony. How is this able to happen year after year? How 
are we not able to get a handle on this?
    Ms. Greszler. There is simply no accountability. It doesn't 
matter how much in improper payments goes out the door, all 
that is done is there is a report, it is measured, it is sent 
in. Nothing happens. You get more money. A lot of these are 
entitlement programs. They are entitled to get the dollars no 
matter what, and as I pointed out, in some cases, that means 
you have to take $1.46 to deliver $1 in benefits.
    Mr. Cline. In one of the more egregious examples of 
improper payments in your testimony, you showed that more than 
550 million claims for unemployment benefits went to people who 
were not unemployed. To what degree do you think that the rapid 
expansion of these benefits throughout the COVID pandemic 
played a part in this? And have you noticed any other 
contributing factors to increased rates of improper payments in 
your research?
    Ms. Greszler. Yeah, I think that the Federal unemployment 
pandemic programs created a perfect storm. The state systems 
were already outdated, but then the Federal Government stepped 
in and they imposed these standards on the states that they 
could not follow through with. Essentially, anybody could 
qualify for an unemployment insurance benefit. You simply had 
to say, I have been affected by COVID-19. There were no income 
checks, and the impetus was told to the states, get the money 
out the door quickly, we will check it afterwards. Well, we 
have seen what has happened is that they are not checking it 
afterwards, and it is very difficult to get the money back once 
it is out the door.
    One of the most egregious ones is the only one I can point 
to is a rapper in California who made a YouTube video called 
EDD for California's Employment Development Department, and he 
is sitting there with a video showing the stacks of EBT cards 
and saying, hey, you got to go sell cocaine, all I got to do is 
file a claim. So, yes, they got him, but they are not getting 
the Chinese state sponsored hackers, they are not getting the 
international crime rings, and so we are bringing in a couple 
of million, maybe even a billion dollars here and there, when 
$357 billion went to people who were not unemployed.
    Mr. Cline. And it is having an impact on our ability to 
fight the international drug trade, secure our border, and any 
other number of important priorities of this government.
    Mr. Ebell, nonsensical climate regulations also present 
prime opportunities for reductions in spending. For example, 
the EPA received $10 billion for Fiscal Year 2023 to enact 
regulations such as their new WOTUS Rule that burdens farmers 
and by proposing stringent tailpipe emission standards to 
target an overwhelming majority of passenger vehicles. Further, 
the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy received 
$3.2 billion for Fiscal Year 2023 to go after Americans' gas 
stoves, washing machines, refrigerators, light bulbs. How do 
these regulations impact an American's freedom to choose what 
they want to buy in an open market? And would the outcome of 
these regulations result in disparate impacts for low-income 
families?
    Mr. Ebell. Thank you, Representative Cline.
    I think you have raised a very important issue that 
deserves its own hearing and I hope that you will be putting 
some riders in appropriations bills in your other Committee 
assignment.
    Mr. Cline. We are working on that.
    Mr. Ebell. Yes, all of these rules and regulations on 
efficiency standards, on appliances, cars, furnaces, air 
conditioners, are raising costs which reduces people's choice 
because they find that they can't afford what they really want 
or need. Without the regulation, they would be able to afford 
it. So choice is a huge issue here, and I think the American 
people are getting fed up with all of the--the gas stoves hit a 
nerve, but some years ago--Mr. Burgess knows--some years ago, 
so did the incandescent light bulb ban.
    Mr. Cline. Right.
    Mr. Ebell. So this has been going on a long time and there 
is a lot of work to do here.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you.
    Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Mr. Cline.
    I now yield five minutes to the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. 
Blumenauer.
    Mr. Blumenauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I would like, if I could, Ms. Greszler, back in the old 
days when Paul Ryan and I were on the Budget Committee, 
Heritage was very helpful in working with us, crafting some 
proposals to limit unnecessary agricultural subsidies. Is there 
still some interest in Heritage in exploring opportunities to 
save money there?
    Ms. Greszler. Absolutely. A lot of our crop insurance 
subsidies are going to some of the wealthiest farmers. I think 
ten percent go to the top one percent of farmers who have an 
average gross income of $1.5 million per year across the board. 
These subsidies are distorting the market, but absolutely you 
could put some income limits on those, and I would also like to 
point out that a lot of those subsidies are going to farmers 
who are producing--I think 70 percent are to corn, soybean, and 
wheat and not to the more nutritious foods.
    Mr. Blumenauer. Thank you. I don't always agree 100 percent 
with The Heritage Foundation, but I really appreciate the 
intellectual honesty dealing with unnecessary subsidization, 
and some of these, as you point, actually go to foreign 
companies. It is an area, Mr. Chairman, that I would hope that 
this Committee could actually--when we get down to actually 
working on solutions, I hope this is an area that we can work 
across the aisle with a wide variety of philosophical 
positions, where the facts will lead us and save substantial 
money.
    Some people are talking about limiting access to nutrition 
by having greater limitations. I have pointed out to this 
Committee that there are almost 20,000 farmers who have 
received an average of a million dollars a year on subsidies 
for 37 consecutive years. I think it is easier for us to deal 
with that than just going on simply piling on regulations on 
poor people.
    I appreciate Mr. Norman talking about two worlds. Sometimes 
it is a little jarring if you just listen to what goes on here. 
We are in two different worlds. Unfortunately, the world of our 
economy and our finance is a little more reality based and they 
will punish us and already have if we are going to be reckless 
with dealing with our responsibilities. I think there are 
opportunities to be able to deal meaningfully with the deficit 
in ways that can actually bring people together rather than 
divide them. I think it is a good idea to actually collect 
taxes that are due and not paid. That is not a tax increase on 
anybody. It deals with the efficiency and fairness of our tax 
system, and there are hundreds of billions of dollars that 
could be collected if people remembered to report their income.
    I was taken by my colleague from Virginia's point that 
there is not a single line in this budget that speaks to a 
specific cut that the Republicans have advanced. That is right. 
That is why what has been offered is not a plan. There are no 
specifics in terms of what they want to step up and do. There 
is just, in the aggregate, 22 percent reduction with all the 
exclusions that they are carving out. Well, that is not how you 
budget. You can't get away with that. You can't imagine those 
things away.
    I really think if we get down to things like border 
enforcement, air traffic control, Social Security, food safety, 
workplace safety, I mean, these are things you can't imagine 
away. They are specifics. There are costs associated, and if 
you are going to cut them 22 percent or more, there are real 
consequences, and that is why I would like us to circle back 
and deal with things, not wishing savings, but being specific, 
and the agricultural subsidies, I think, is something that is 
specific that we ought to be able to agree with. Collecting 
taxes that are already due and owing is fair to businesses who 
play by the rules, and I think we can get serious in terms of 
making some significant adjustment if we deal with these things 
that bring us together rather than divide us.
    Thank you very much.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank my friend from Oregon and would 
just say I am always open to making sure incentives are 
responsible, no matter where they are in the marketplace or who 
they apply to and that we reduce waste no matter what the 
program or the constituency, agriculture included.
    So I thank the gentleman for his comments.
    I will now yield five minutes to Mr. Bob Good, my friend 
from Virginia.
    Mr. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of 
our witnesses and for your testimony, both written and 
expressed today.
    I do want to just start with Ms. Agostin, and I appreciate 
all the fine work done by CRA and I appreciate your testimony 
regarding the current Federal spending that is not simply 
unnecessary, unjustified, unconstitutional, or wasteful, 
borrowing from our kids and grandkids, but it is actually--you 
made a very compelling case about so much of it that is 
literally harmful and intended to transform America into a 
Marxist global estate envisioned by the radical left that 
frankly hates the Founders, hates the Constitution, and hates 
the basic ideals and values that are central to our country.
    The Limit, Save, Grow Act, or what I like to actually call 
``shrink Washington, grow America'', will take a meaningful 
broad-based fiscal approach to top line spending cuts, as you 
know, and some caps and then some significant target 
eliminations of pet projects like climate, IRS expansion, COVID 
spending and student loans, but I would like just a few 
additional thoughts from you on how we would take a razor-sharp 
scalpel approach to the most egregious and harmful spending via 
the appropriations process this fall. Really as we work on it 
now to vote on it in the fall.
    Ms. Agostin. Thank you, Congressman Good, and I think you 
are exactly right. We have done a good job today talking about 
the financial crisis that is upon us, but there is another 
equally great crisis facing the American people and that is the 
woke and weaponized government that is aimed squarely at them. 
In-so-far as you do deal with the debt limit, you absolutely 
must maintain the about $130 billion in cuts and find that from 
the woke and weaponized spending, and my advice to you would be 
look at the Department of Education and HHS, because what is 
happening to children in this country is the perfect display of 
what woke and weaponized government is doing to people, and 
when you send your kid to the public school systems, they have 
gay porn in the libraries, they have teachers that are asking 
them if, are you sure you are a boy or girl today, and changing 
their pronouns without their parents knowing about it, and then 
putting them on a path to radical gender affirmation where you 
have cross sex hormones and then eventually genital mutilation, 
and what that does to a child--and if you listen to the 
detransitioners, this will give you the perfect insight--is 
make them a permanent pharmaceutical patient for the rest of 
their life. There is no way for them to ethically consent to 
any of this and this is being done in the schools without the 
parent's knowledge. This is why you have $3 million to 
Montessori schools to train three-year-olds on antiracism. Why 
would you need to tell a three-year-old something about the 
color of their skin and divide them based on oppressor versus 
oppressed so that you put them on this path to adopting the 
woke ideology, and by the time they get to college, they can't 
even tell you what a woman is.
    So, yeah, look at the Department of Education and HHS.
    Mr. Good. Well said, and you could expand so much more, as 
you know, and this is all with everyone's tax dollars 
irrespective of their beliefs on it. The liberal progressive 
Bill Maher said when he was a child he wanted to be a pirate. 
He is glad no one poked out his eye and cut his leg off, and it 
is unbelievable we let children diagnose themselves and then 
adults perform this surgery to permanently maim and harm them 
accordingly.
    Ms. Greszler, President Biden has tried to say, hey, we are 
going to default if we don't raise the debt limit. I would just 
like your thoughts on the veracity of that claim that we would 
have a default. Isn't it true that it would just force 
prioritization of payments and we would only have a default if 
Treasury chose to have a default?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes, it is true that Biden and Treasury have 
the authority to prioritize those debt payments first to 
prevent a default.
    Mr. Good. Yeah, we sent--I led a letter with ten of my 
colleagues to Secretary Yellen a couple of months back asking 
her, when are you going to run out of extraordinary measures? 
What is your plan to ensure we don't have a default and how 
will you prioritize payments? And of course, she would not 
answer any of those questions because it defeats the narrative.
    But isn't Biden really afraid of defaulting on his radical 
agenda and his priorities of climate extremism, the Green Raw 
deal, perpetuating COVID spending, expanding and empowering the 
IRS, promoting again the things that Ms. Agostin has spoken to 
so eloquently this morning.
    Ms. Greszler. Yes. I think that it just points out that you 
would have to make those difficult choices, and when you look 
at things like one of the President's own actions that added 
$5.4 billion in additional cost to taxpayers for taxpayer 
finance select private union pension plans, which by the way, 
sent $36 billion to one single union pension plan on January 
12, five days before the U.S. hit the debt limit, and so you 
can see the types of things that might have to be at least 
delayed.
    Mr. Good. Well, thank you. My time is out, but I will tell 
Ms. Agostin we have got 500 targeted cuts that my colleagues 
and I have sponsored already to deal with the appropriations 
process, and the Dems, Ms. Greszler will not--they will end up 
signing and agreeing to Limit, Save, Grow because it would 
force $100 billion a month in cuts rather than $131 billion 
over the course of a year, and I yield back Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Ferguson [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Good.
    The gentlelady from California, Ms. Lee, is now recognized.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, to the panel.
    First of all, let me just say to my colleagues, you all 
have a warped definition of woke. Marion Webster's Dictionary 
defines woke as aware of and actively attentive to important 
societal facts and issues, especially issues of racial and 
social justice. In other words, it is basic decency. It means 
treating all Americans fairly, regardless of their skin color, 
background, religion, or gender identity, and I should know 
because they actually quoted me in that definition of woke from 
a speech that I gave, and I said, but we will succeed if we 
reject the growing pressure to retreat into cynicism and 
hopelessness. We have a moral obligation to, yes, stay woke, 
take a stand and be active, challenging injustices and racism 
in our communities and fighting hatred and discrimination 
wherever it rise.
    So, as an African American, your testimony, Ms. Agostin, 
scares me to death because you said, based on your definition 
of woke, that we won't have a country left. We won't have a 
country left if, in fact, we want a country that ensures 
equality for all. That is outrageous. That is what America 
stands for.
    Mr. Gupta, let me just ask you about the value of the 
Federal Government and the American taxpayer investing in 
diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and how these 
investments lead to equal opportunity for everyone in this 
democracy where every American should have a shot to the 
American dream, where you know and all of you know that 
marginalized people in this country, people of color, poor 
people, don't have that path to the American dream.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Thank you, Representative Lee, for the 
question and your contributions to this discussion, and I 
appreciate you bringing up what I think should be a shared 
principle. Let's go back to the Declaration of Independence. At 
the time, they meant it in an exclusive way, but they wrote, 
all men are created equal. If you believe that today and you 
see that based on group identity and other lived experiences, 
these extraordinary disparities, for example, that a median 
white household has nine times--eight or nine times the wealth 
of a typical black household in this country, and if you 
believe that our systems are fair, then how could we see those 
outcomes, right? Does anyone here believe that merit varies by 
race? That ability varies by race? I don't think anyone here 
believes that.
    So what we know is sometimes unintentionally, but sometimes 
very knowingly, we do have a lot of disparities by race, and 
educating people like my six-year-old and my ten-year-old about 
this history, about just basic facts, actually helps bring them 
together. It actually helps them understand each other. It 
helps build a multiracial vibrant democracy that will allow us 
to compete with other countries rising throughout the world, 
that will allow us to have the strength of everyone's talent 
and potential.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you very much, and let me ask you very 
quickly about the default on America Act in terms of the harm 
that this could wreak on the American people. In fact, let me 
just give you a couple of facts. In Speaker McCarthy's own 
district, mind you, these cuts would jeopardize Social Security 
payments for 75,000 people--that is in our Speaker's district--
would risk the health benefits of 285,000 people in Speaker 
McCarthy's district, it would threaten the retirement savings 
of 89,000 people in Speaker McCarthy's district, and this is 
just one year impact of these cuts. Can you speak more on the 
long-term impact of these cuts?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yes, I appreciate the question, 
Representative Lee, and I will just add that this underscores 
that prioritization of debt service payments over everything 
else is still default. You are defaulting on the American 
people, on promises, on obligations that have been made to them 
that they can count on right now, that they have been able to 
count on. So the consequences could be tremendous in the long 
run, undermining our credit rating and the ability for the 
United States government to borrow as freely as it can right 
now.
    I just want to remind folks that there is no bank, there is 
no one telling us that we can't borrow. We are only telling 
ourselves that. In fact, people are ready, willing, and able to 
help us finance our investments because they know that the 
American economy has been so dynamic, so successful for so 
long, we will continue to in the future. So this would simply 
be an own goal that would harm us potentially for decades to 
come.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, and just for the record, in my own 
state of California, not specifically Speaker McCarthy's 
district, which we just went through--which I just went 
through, the whole state of California, if in fact these budget 
cuts were enacted, we would have 2.6 million people at risk of 
losing Medicaid coverage, we would eliminate preschool and 
child care for at least 35,000 children, and reduce access to 
outpatient care at Veterans Affairs medical facilities by 
approximately 2.3 million visits. So these are impacts on 
people's daily lives. These aren't just statistics, these are 
real, everyday challenges that people are going to have to 
have, will have, if in fact, these cuts are enacted. So what 
are they going to do? How do you see their lives?
    Mr. Ferguson. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Lee. Okay, well, thank you, and I will submit the 
question for the record to get a response. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Ferguson. Thank you. Thank you.
    I will next yield myself five minutes.
    Thanks to each of the witnesses for being here and giving 
us your insights and your valuable time. We are grateful for 
that.
    I have heard from my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle when they talk about the resilience of the American 
economy, and we are doing better than Europe, we are doing 
better than other areas, and I think the foundation of that is 
based in the fact that with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act we 
created a vibrant economy where it made America the most 
advantageous place in the world to invest, to manufacture, and 
to sell around the world, and the things that have made this 
economy very, very resilient, and even to the point that they 
have been able to withstand the massive amount of public 
spending, is the fact that we have made American business and 
Americans competitive and we have made them more competitive 
than other places in the world, and so I just want to say that, 
yes, I agree, the American economy is resilient, and I do think 
that it is a direct result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that 
have allowed Americans to invest in their people, American 
business to invest in their people, and to invest in their 
systems and to become more efficient so we can win around the 
world.
    Now, with that backdrop, we are seeing some things happen 
that are eroding even the greatness of the American economy 
right now. When I look at--and, Mr. Dutta-Gupta, please, with 
my Southern accent, I hope I said that correctly--you said that 
corporate America should pay its fair share, correct? And yet 
with the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill, 
we see green energy tax credits that now are going to go to the 
level of about $1.2 trillion and about 90 percent of those are 
going to go to the very corporations that you want to pay their 
fair share of the taxes. So you are going to then--and what my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle have done is given a 
massive tax break to the wealthiest corporations to advance 
their own agenda.
    Mr. Ebell, does that sound right? Am I off base with that?
    Mr. Ebell. There are many ironies involved in the position 
of the taxers and spenders, and you have revealed one. In fact, 
a huge amount of the Federal budget is devoted to giving 
handouts to the corporate special interests and rewarding the 
people who have the right agenda. This is a real drag on the 
American economy, and it depresses, ultimately, investment by 
private individuals in businesses that could actually create 
jobs and create wealth. So, yes, you are absolutely right. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Ferguson. Thank you, Mr. Ebell.
    Next, I want to go to something. As we have talked about 
this debt limit right now and what is happening. It is amazing 
to me that the Biden Administration continues to go down the 
road of relieving, of forgiving student loan debt.
    Ms. Greszler, can you draw out a diagram of what happens 
when, for this latest tranche, $42 billion, who actually pays 
for that $42 billion? Because currently, right now, students 
and American workers that have those loans, about 17 percent of 
the folks in the country, are responsible for paying that back. 
As soon as that is wiped off the books, explain to us how that 
impacts the rest of the taxpayers and the debt, if you would.
    Ms. Greszler. Well, it is already affecting the debt. 
Caused us to approach the debt limit sooner and will cause us 
to run out of money and extraordinary measures sooner, because 
we are going on three years now that people who hold those 
student loans have not been required to make any payments on 
them. So continuing to do that is just pushing us closer to 
that limit.
    Mr. Ferguson. Okay, so as we are then having to--because 
once you take the mandatory spending side out of the equation 
and then you defend the Nation, which is our number one 
responsibility, we are basically borrowing money for everything 
else. So we are going to borrow more money to pay off the debt 
and then we are going to pay a higher interest rate on that, 
which is going to exacerbate the problem, which means that we 
are not going to be able to take care of our most vulnerable, 
and at some point it is going to drive in to Social Security 
and Medicare. Is that a fair statement?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes, and if we want to protect the most 
vulnerable people, then we should be at least asking those who 
have the highest incomes, those who have achieved a college 
degree, to pay back the money that they borrowed.
    Mr. Ferguson. Thank you.
    One final thing. A lot of discussion here on the definition 
of woke. People can make it up, do whatever they want to with 
it, say however they want to with it. Bottom line, I can tell 
you what American people don't want, they don't want the 
Federal Government or other entities telling them how to think, 
what to think, and why to think, and they especially don't want 
somebody--they don't want their tax dollars being used for that 
purpose.
    With that, I will yield back.
    Next, I will call on my colleague from Texas. Mr. Doggett, 
you are now recognized.
    Mr. Doggett. Thank you very much.
    With the clock ticking on the few days that are remaining 
to avoid the Republican default on America and the severe 
economic consequences that will result from failing for the 
first time in American history to uphold our full faith and 
credit of the country, this gathering occurs about the woke and 
the wasteful. Well, I think the real waste here is the waste of 
time in the Republican willingness to follow the call of 
President Trump just last night to drive our economy off the 
cliff. Instead of their much ballyhooed promised budget, they 
offer us today talk about woke policies. They don't really know 
what woke means, but it sounds a little bit black, and it 
appeals to the white nationalists who are so important in their 
base as they send a message to signal that they don't want to 
do anything about historic injustices to people of color. Well, 
before it is too late we need Republicans to wake up, to wake 
up to the reality, to be aware, to get woke about the true 
dangers of default, to overcome their fear of providing this 
Committee a budget that outlines the specific cuts that they 
are demanding to educational opportunity, to environmental law 
enforcement, to dealing with contaminated food and contaminated 
air and water, to secure our border, and to counter the growing 
influence of China.
    The Republican failure to present the budget that they had 
promised is not an accident, it is a vital strategy. As one of 
our colleagues just said this morning, there is not a single 
line in their bill that cuts veterans' healthcare. It is just 
that the effect of their bill is to cut that very health care 
by about 22 percent or greater, and it is deliberately hidden. 
They recognize that if they expose specific cuts like that, 
they will be rejected by the American people.
    So, without a budget, both Representative Arrington, our 
Chairman, and Speaker McCarthy can engage in a rhetorical 
slight of hand, implying that they will not be making these 
devastating cuts, all they are going to do is return the 
spending to the level of last October. Well, it is a slight of 
hand because we recognize that fiscal year 2022 spending levels 
were set back in 2021, and we are now talking about 2024 
spending, 3 years later, and there has been a little inflation 
since then. They don't want to apply that policy to national 
security because they recognize it would not provide the level 
of security our country needs, but they are so eager to apply 
it to healthcare security and educational security that are so 
very important to our country.
    Mr. Chairman, Mr. Arrington, I would have a great deal more 
confidence in your stated claim of restoring fiscal sanity if 
you had not already committed yourself, along with many of your 
Republican colleagues, to actually exploding our deficit and 
our national debt. You are sponsoring yet another massive tax 
cut that is estimated to cost about $2 trillion or more, and 
that is the same approach that got us into this mess in the 
first place, helping those at the very, very top of the 
economic ladder and adding more and more debt as you have done 
in the past. It was George W. Bush who took us off the course 
that President Clinton had set with a balanced budget and a 
path to reducing the debt. Then his failed war in Iraq, so 
costly in lives and in trillions of dollars, all done on 
borrowed money. Then the Trump tax giveaway. After their 
embrace of Trump, the self-described king of debt, they raised 
the debt limit three times. Their newfound interest in debt 
today seems more aimed at destroying health, education, and 
environmental law enforcement that they never supported in the 
first place.
    Let me just ask you, Mr. Dutta-Gupta, what will be the 
effect on college students if, as you say, the cuts could be 
even as much as 33 percent if the Republican Default on America 
Act is adopted?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Thank you, Representative Doggett. That is 
a great question, and as you said, we have to make a bunch of 
assumptions here to figure out how this would work, but if we 
do assume that there is a cut of that size, that means that 
low-income students in particular would have limited access to 
college. There are a number of grants and funding streams that 
help them afford college, which, by the way, has gotten 
increasingly expensive. Most of the folks in this room probably 
didn't have to face the cost of college that people do today. 
So, it would undermine our future. It would undermine our 
ability to grow a strong workforce that can compete with the 
rest of the world.
    Mr. Doggett. Thank you.
    Mr. Boyle. I am 10 seconds away from seizing power, so.
    Dr. Burgess [presiding]. I am in charge here. Yeah, 
Alexander Haig. I recognize Mr. Roy from Texas.
    Mr. Roy. Thank you, Chairman Haig. I appreciate that. Ms. 
Greszler, let me ask you a question. True or false we currently 
are bringing in about 19.6 percent of GDP in terms of revenues 
into the Treasury right now.
    Ms. Greszler. Correct.
    Mr. Roy. So, this idea that somehow that the tax problem is 
the problem is completely absurd, correct?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes. Historical levels of revenue are 
actually lower, two percentage points lower than we are 
bringing in now.
    Mr. Roy. And right now, we are at levels that basically 
have only been matched two other times in history, World War II 
and in 2000, right after the .com explosion, correct?
    Ms. Greszler. Correct.
    Mr. Roy. In other words, it is a complete lie to say that 
tax policy is causing the problem that we have with respect to 
deficit spending right now. Rather, it is a spending problem. 
True?
    Ms. Greszler. Correct. Taxes are significantly higher. It 
is the problem that spending is about five percentage points 
higher than GDP, and typical, 25 percent versus a little over 
20 percent.
    Mr. Roy. Correct, and the reason we are having the hearing 
we are having today is because we have an explosion of the 
Federal bureaucracy, a bureaucracy that is at odds with the 
wellbeing of the American people by empowering bureaucrats to 
go after them. For example, putting a man in prison for 
building ponds on his ranch, an estate in West Texas. I mean, I 
am sorry, in the western United States. Is that not right, Ms. 
Greszler?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes. I think the problem is when the size of 
government gets bigger and we are talking about American 
exceptionalism, that has been because typically America has 
taken less from individuals and businesses.
    Mr. Roy. Right. Ms. Agostin, is that correct about what has 
happened to this man who lost--went to jail because of what 
happened out there with the EPA?
    Ms. Greszler. I am not familiar with that.
    Mr. Roy. Right. Sorry.
    Ms. Agostin. That is correct, Mr. Roy.
    Mr. Roy. Right. Okay, and so, we have got the Secretary, 
Yellen calling the President's budget a fiscally responsible 
proposal and said Republicans want to focus on cutting 
spending. Yes, yes, guilty, guilty. We would like to cut 
spending. Year one, our bill would cut the deficit in year one 
by over a trillion dollars. Yet President Biden's budget would 
increase spending next year by $500 billion to $6.8 trillion 
and increase the deficit by $300 billion. Ten years, our bill 
would cut the deficit by $4.8 trillion. The President's budget 
reduces the deficit by hiking taxes by $4.7 trillion, causing 
outyear decreases in spending through taxes.
    Yellen says our spending reforms are draconian. We are 
simply cutting topline discretionary spending to 2022 levels, 
and if we do that, we can keep our non-defense discretionary at 
the same level as that MAGA extremist Barack Obama proposed for 
Fiscal Year 2024 in his final budget. Literally, the same as 
that MAGA extremist Barack Obama.
    You know, that draconian pre-COVID bureaucracy, that pillar 
of efficiency and effectiveness of bureaucracy before COVID, if 
we return the spending to that, that somehow is going to leave 
the American people without the ability to function. Completely 
and patently absurd. Leveling charges of cuts against VA is a 
page out of the Democratic playbook we have all seen far too 
well where they want to scare the American people. Say that 
somehow these great experts in Washington, if they don't come 
to their defense, that they are going to starve on the streets, 
but the fact of the matter is, the American people prosper best 
when the Federal Government's woke bureaucracy, weaponized 
bureaucracy, wasteful bureaucracy, gets the hell out of the way 
of the American people.
    What I would say is that the most egregious problem with my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle is that they say that 
our plan will hurt the poor and minorities, but is it not true 
that we repeal Biden's $80 billion IRS expansion, the IRS which 
the New York Times reported, I would ask Mr. Dutta-Gupta, do 
you not agree that the New York Times reported that black 
taxpayers are at least three times as likely to be audited by 
the Internal Revenue Service as other taxpayers? Do you know 
that the New York Times reported that? Yes or no?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, absolutely. More IRS resources would 
let them redirect the focus----
    Mr. Roy. And that CBS----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta [continuing]. To the bigger tax gap from--
--
    Mr. Roy [continuing]. And that CBS----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta [continuing]. Corporations and 
partnerships.
    Mr. Roy. Reclaiming my time. That CBS, IRS audits the poor 
at five times the rate of everyone else, as the analysis finds. 
The fact of the matter is, it is absurd, the attacks on our 
responsible effort that the President is ignoring.
    The rich, Biden claims that we want to cut spending so we 
can, ``cut taxes for the rich.'' But is it not true, Mr. Ebell, 
that 78 percent of the electric vehicle tax credits are claimed 
by the filers, making $100,000 or more per year, and we repeal 
that. A tax for the rich, true?
    Mr. Ebell. Yes, Representative Roy. The problem with the 
subsidies is that they go to people who already own two or 
three vehicles and they want another one because it is 
fashionable.
    Mr. Roy. And that 90 percent of the green energy tax 
subsidies, which we repeal, go to corporations that make over 
$1 billion per year, not to mention Chinese companies. True?
    Mr. Ebell. I believe that is true, yes.
    Mr. Roy. Right. This is the truth. The American people know 
it. Our Democratic colleagues passed the biggest giveaway to 
the rich that we have seen in years last August in the so-
called Inflation Reduction Act. They are the party for wealthy 
corporations and elites. We are the party for hardworking 
Americans. We are trying to get the government out of the way 
to improve their lives, and that is what we are going to do 
despite Biden's resistance.
    Dr. Burgess. I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. 
Panetta, for five minutes.
    Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I admit a part of 
this hearing I appreciate because it is on an issue that is 
important to me and that is obviously improving the functioning 
of our government bureaucracy. I think all of us, all of us, I 
don't care what side of the aisle that you are on, all of us 
want to make the Federal Government work for our constituents.
    Now, I think we can also all admit that there are numerous 
examples where our bureaucracy is wasteful and duplicative and, 
yes, can be better streamlined. For example, I was pleased that 
this administration put out a permitting reform objective to 
get infrastructure and energy projects built faster and give 
taxpayers more bang for their buck and believe we must work 
together on this front.
    Now, we have to have serious conversations. Of course, we 
can be serious about spending, and yes, we need to be serious 
about revenues as well, and we can start by marking up a budget 
resolution in this Committee. I was critical of my own party's 
failure to do this, and I won't let this majority off the hook 
either. Now, I hope we can get some real discussion about how 
to improve our bureaucracy and of course, of course, like I 
said, make the Federal Government work for our constituents.
    Now, there are areas in which we can reduce waste. The 
Government Accountability Office releases a report annually 
highlighting opportunities to reduce fragmentation, overlap, 
and duplication in Federal programs, as well as chances to save 
money and increase revenue. The GAO has found that tens of 
billions of dollars can be saved if we took actions to reduce 
fragmentation and duplication. To the government's credit, 
agencies have taken GAO's recommendations to save additional 
funding.
    Now, many of the GAO's recommendations include investments 
in programs to improve the administration, service, and track 
overpayments, but note that in some of these cases, spending 
money actually reduces cost. Mr. Dutta-Gupta, are there areas 
where a little more investment can make a program work better 
and more efficiently?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Absolutely Representative Panetta, and in 
fact, one of the things that is missed by the focus on improper 
payments is how many people who could benefit from a program 
also don't access them. So, we can do a lot better, and I will 
just note that there is a lot of government spending that 
absolutely has a return on investment for American taxpayers. 
That includes, especially the American Rescue Plan's child tax 
credit expansion, which has a nine-to-one return on investment, 
which, if we would talk about a businessperson, or someone in 
the private sector, you wouldn't hesitate to make a virtually 
guaranteed nine-to-one return on investment, but we got to get 
those programs back. We lost some of those and make sure that 
everyone gets them so we could make programs a lot more 
effective and efficient.
    Mr. Panetta. Mr. Dutta-Gupta, I had some constituents at my 
office yesterday and they have been having a difficult time 
dealing with one of our favorite bureaucracies, the FAA, and 
what they noticed is that there has been sort of a brain drain 
at the FAA and that basically there is sort of high turnover 
causing a major slowdown in their aircraft certifications, and 
what we are seeing is that more experienced staffers are 
replaced with less experienced staffers. In other cases, they 
have to get up to speed on a project all over again, wasting 
the efforts of the previous staffer. Heck, I have seen this not 
just with the FAA but the Army Corps of Engineers, as well.
    So, the issue, like I said, isn't limited to one 
bureaucracy and it can impact agencies that serve people in 
every part of government. So, what can we do to ensure that we 
have well-staffed agencies that work effectively, and 
efficiently, and like I said, help make the Federal Government 
work for our constituents, Mr. Dutta-Gupta?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. There is a lot we can do and there are 
other agencies, as you pointed out, including the Social 
Security Administration, which is struggling with the workload 
as our population ages and needs human beings to interact with 
to get their benefits, but one of the things we should do is 
not arbitrarily and preemptively limit, sort of across the 
board, our non-defense discretionary spending.
    We can do a lot more to make government work more 
attractive, and remember, if there is a default here, 
government employees will also suffer with wages not paid. So, 
we need to do a lot more to recruit, to continue to staff 
adequately, and that will improve the experiences that the 
American people have interacting with our government.
    Mr. Panetta. Let's hope so. Thank you. I appreciate that 
and I yield back.
    Dr. Burgess. The Chair thanks the gentleman. The gentleman 
yields back. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you to our 
witnesses for being here today. Our job in the Federal 
Government is to protect taxpayer dollars and ensure that they 
are used responsibly and effectively, but President Biden seems 
to have lost sight of that fact, the fact that every single 
dollar that is spent by the government is a dollar that was 
taken from the American people through taxes, and it is less 
money that Americans get to use for a down payment on a house, 
to put food on their table, and sending their kids to college. 
The Biden Administration's complete disregard for taxpayer 
dollars is illustrated in its never-ending plans to increase 
government spending with zero accountability.
    Today, I want to begin my focus on the government's 
staggering amount of improper payments. The nonpartisan 
Government Accountability Office estimates that in 2021, Fiscal 
Year 2021, the Federal Government made $247 billion of improper 
payments. If improper payments were its own line in the Federal 
budget, it would be the sixth largest line behind Social 
Security, Medicare, national defense, Medicaid, and interest on 
our debt.
    But it gets worse. The Government Accountability Office 
also states, and I quote, ``this estimate is likely understated 
since it doesn't include improper payments related to COVID-19 
funding.'' The Department of Labor's Inspector General 
estimates that improper payments for pandemic unemployment 
programs accounted for $191 billion, and outside experts 
estimate that it could be as high as $400 billion. I am glad 
that the House is considering the Protecting Taxpayers and 
Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act, which incentivizes states to 
investigate and recover fraudulent unemployment insurance 
claims.
    My first question for Ms. Greszler, regarding the amount, 
the reported amount, found that one-in-five Medicaid payments 
were improper. A business would never survive if one-in-five 
checks sent out were in error. A family would never make it 
financially if 20 percent of the bills they paid were in error. 
How do improper payments of this size, how are they permitted 
to continue year after year?
    Ms. Greszler. There is no consequence for having those 
improper payments. They simply can continue to go on and on and 
to just collect the funding because it is an entitlement.
    Mr. Yakym. Do you think that the Federal Government has 
taken any meaningful steps to reform improper payments and hold 
our Federal agencies accountable for the improper payments that 
take place?
    Ms. Greszler. No.
    Mr. Yakym. Why not, from your perspective?
    Ms. Greszler. There are some recommendations. They have 
largely gone ignored, but there is no accountability. What is 
their incentive to do that? The money will be there no matter 
what if they send the improper payments, and in some places, it 
is difficult to impose the consequences if it is an entitlement 
because you would be taking away from something they have a 
legal authority to, but that is where I think we need to impose 
accountability on the States, especially in those programs that 
are administered through the States.
    Mr. Yakym. All right, thank you. Also, Ms. Greszler, there 
are dozens of instances where the Federal Government has 
duplicative programs in offices. In 2022 alone, the GAO 
identified 16 new instances of overlap between Federal 
programs. Would you agree that duplicative Federal programs are 
a clear illustrator that our bureaucracy, our Federal 
bureaucracy, has gotten out of control?
    Ms. Greszler. Absolutely, and that is also a disservice to 
the individuals those programs are supposed to help because 
they don't know which door to walk into.
    Mr. Yakym. I want to just cite a few examples of some of 
these duplicative government programs that have just recently 
been uncovered. For example, there are 21 Federal agencies that 
have programs related to the role of diet in Americans' risk of 
chronic health conditions. There are five Federal agencies who 
research alternate technologies for radioactive materials. The 
Department of Interior has three separate systems that 
separately collect data on oil and gas development. There are 
three different programs at the Department of Justice that 
investigate law enforcement's use of force, and the Department 
of Homeland Security and the Department of Treasury both have 
programs regarding trade-based money laundering.
    All of these are programs that should be funded, but at the 
same time, we shouldn't have so many duplicative programs and 
so many people in our Federal Government that are doing the 
same thing and doing the same job. With that, Mr. Chairman, I 
yield back.
    Dr. Burgess. The gentlemen yields back. The Chair thanks 
the gentleman. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from 
Vermont, Ms. Balint.
    Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The United States 
cannot become a deadbeat Nation. We have never failed to pay 
our bills, and to do so now would have dire consequences on 
American families, including the ones living in my district in 
Vermont.
    As my colleagues have noted, we never had a hearing or a 
markup on H.R. 2811. We never got a budget. All we have got is 
this vague plan that was passed, and we have to try to make 
sense of that. So, let's take a look at that. The Republican 
bill would potentially cut funding to low-income students at a 
time when we are talking about allowing people to get ahead. As 
a former teacher, I can tell you that cutting $4 billion for 
schools that serve 26 million low-income kids is going to lead 
to a cascade of negative impacts for those millions of kids and 
their families.
    The Republican bill would slash mental health supports for 
students, and at a time when we can all agree that we have a 
mental health crisis in this country, we should be investing 
more in this area and not making cuts.
    The Republican bill would also make college more expensive. 
A 22 percent budget cut would likely eliminate Pell Grants 
altogether, and it would reduce the maximum award by nearly 
$1,000 for the remaining recipients. So, we should be making 
college, again, more affordable, not less affordable for 
regular families.
    And the list goes on and on in this vague plan that nobody 
will allow us to, you know, put our finger on exactly what is 
going on in here. They left it intentionally vague. As a former 
teacher and as a parent, this is very alarming to me. Mr. 
Dutta-Gupta, can you highlight for us what the impact of the 
Republican cuts would be on America's public schools?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Thank you, Representative Balint, and I 
will just start by noting, as you did, that we have a serious 
youth mental health crisis in this country. Nearly one in six 
youth ages 12 to 17 reported experiencing a major depressive 
episode in the past year. Among teen girls in 2021, the data 
show that nearly one in three seriously considered attempting 
suicide, and without adequate support for students and 
teachers, these statistics are only going to get worse.
    Unfortunately, we see cuts, as you mentioned, also to 
higher education, including Pell Grants, which are very well 
targeted overwhelmingly to folks with lower and moderate 
incomes. Nearly 97 percent go to household, students in 
households with family incomes at or below $60,000 a year in 
2020 and 2021. So, that is well below the median income in the 
United States.
    This will also hurt our public institutions, our public 
two-year and four-year colleges, and institutions, but I will 
just sort of finally note that this is really undermining our 
Nation's prosperity, because we know that these are 
investments. They are investments. Wherever you believe the 
money comes from, they absolutely do have a return on 
investment. So, I really hope that folks can come together in 
Congress and understand that this non-defense discretionary 
category of spending has lots of critical funding.
    Ms. Balint. Thank you so much. I am deeply concerned about 
all of our students. That is why I ran for office. That is why 
I serve, and again, I will stress about all of our students.
    I just want to mention something that is deeply troubling 
to me. A Republican witness earlier noted a few Federal 
programs that support LGBTQ people, including kids, and as a 
member of that community, it is really disappointing to me that 
my Republican colleagues seem to delight in attacking the LGBTQ 
people and their families, and blaming us for all things, 
including, now, it turns out, the deficit.
    So, I just want to put this in perspective. Yesterday, I 
met for an hour with parents of trans kids from across this 
Nation, and they came from all over. All over, from 
conservative districts and states, just regular families. 
Parents came to share their experiences of what it is like in 
this moment, and you know what I heard over and over again? Why 
are members of our own government scapegoating us and our 
children? Why have we become the favorite enemy when we just 
want the same things that all American families want? We want 
to live safe, fulfilling lives, and we want to support and love 
and protect our children.
    It is morally bankrupt and deeply un-American to continue 
to attack these kids. It is time to do our job and pass a 
budget that supports and protects all of our kids, all of our 
constituents. I yield back.
    Dr. Burgess. The gentlelady's time has expired. The Chair 
recognizes the gentlelady from Michigan, Ms. McClain, for five 
minutes.
    Ms. McClain. Thank you and thank you all for being here 
today. I have listened to everyone, and I appreciate your 
comments and opinions. I want to start with one simple question 
because we have a deficit, we are up against the debt limit, 
correct? And what we are asking is can we tighten our belt a 
little bit? The President, right, oh, I don't want to 
negotiate, right? I want to pass a clean debt ceiling. Is there 
anyone on this panel that thinks the government runs so 
efficiently that there is not $1 we can save? So, everyone's in 
agreement? Okay. All right, just for the record, everyone 
agrees that there is probably a few efficiencies that we could 
find.
    So, what I find troubling, disheartening, and if it wasn't 
factual, kind of comical, is what my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle want to cut. The fear mongering is hilarious 
if it wasn't true. So, one of my colleagues, appropriations 
Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, sent a letter to the agencies, 
right? Asking them what cuts would look like in their 
department, right? Okay, so let me use my family. Hey, my 
husband comes home, hey, Lisa, we are way over maxed out on our 
credit cards. We have got to make some cuts. What I say is, you 
know what? Okay, great, I have four kids. I am just not feeding 
them. Now, I am still getting my nails done. I am still going 
to the gym, and my God, I am not discontinuing my wine 
subscription. The kids, they cannot eat.
    I mean, you would never do that, but that is exactly what 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing, and let 
me give you some specific examples. So, the AG Secretary, Tom 
Vilsack, said we would cut $1.4 billion of cuts to WIC. That is 
where your priority is. The first thing we are going to cut is 
WIC, my God. Now, forget about the $1.5 billion in tree 
planting. Nope, we are going to cut WIC. We are saving those 
trees.
    Okay, let me give you another one. Secretary Buttigieg, who 
has just done a phenomenal job, and I say that with quite 
sarcasm, says if this budget that the Republicans passed, here 
is what we would cut, FAA $2.6 billion in air traffic 
controllers. That is the first thing we are going to cut. 
Because, you know, anybody who has flown, everything is on time 
and nothing runs late, right? That is the first thing we are 
going to cut.
    Well, I have another idea. Instead of cutting my food, I 
would go to maybe, let's say, $1.9 billion that the FAA spends 
on heat island hotspots, not sure what that is, or gaps in tree 
canopy coverage. So, let's put people at risk, but let's make 
sure we protect regional greenways. Not sure what that is.
    My point here is if you truly want to care about the 
American people and truly want to get your fiscal house in 
order so we can actually protect American citizens, actually 
protect our most needy, actually protect our children, stop 
with the fear mongering. Because the first place we shouldn't 
go, is none of the children are going to eat. Well, when the 
first opportunity that the Democrats have in these agencies, 
appointed by this administration, start with the fear mongering 
on, oh, my gosh, none of the kids are going to eat, what I 
would suggest is, why don't we let the children eat and maybe 
plant a few less trees? I am not saying trees aren't important, 
but if you ask me, do I care about the children eating, 
especially the underprivileged children, or planting trees, I 
am going to tell you what I am going to pick every day of the 
week and twice on Tuesday. I am not going to start with the 
kids. So, I am curious, is that where you all would start?
    Ms. Greszler. If I could just say real quickly here, I 
think that the American people want to know if they are going 
to have $11,500 per household in new debt taken out for one 
year alone. They want to have a responsible plan to know that 
the next year might be at least a little less than $11,500, and 
I think that if we put it to the rating agencies to say what is 
going to be the better path forward? Are you going to downgrade 
or upgrade? That they would pick a plan that is responsible and 
sets at least modest limits over something that is just clean 
debt limit increase.
    Ms. McClain. Do you think it makes a difference if it is 
your money or other people's money?
    Ms. Greszler. Absolutely.
    Ms. McClain. Because I find it interesting that these 
agencies, the first thing they do is attack the most 
vulnerable. I find that very disheartening, and I don't know 
why they do it. I really don't, other than fear mongering, and 
if we want to get back to some serious talk and budget 
negotiations so we can provide for the next generation, we have 
to have some honest talks.
    That is where I think we are at. You can't say, oh my gosh, 
we are going to cut veterans' benefits by 22 percent. Where in 
the plan does it say that? I can't point to one line, not one 
line. Yet, that is the first place we should go. Maybe----
    Dr. Burgess. The gentlelady should conclude.
    Ms. McClain. Thank you, sir.
    Dr. Burgess. The gentlelady's time has expired. The Chair 
now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of 
comments about some things that have been said. First of all, 
the Trump tax cut led to economic development. First of all, 
the Trump tax cut led to a disaster at the end of the Trump 
Administration. The American Rescue Plan came in, and that is 
when the jobs came back.
    I get tired of being lectured by Republicans on the budget 
deficit. This chart shows that every presidential 
administration, Democratic administration since Kennedy left 
for their Republican successors a better deficit situation than 
they inherited, and every Republican presidential 
administration since Nixon, left for their Democrats, a worse 
deficit situation than they inherited, all without exception. 
Trump was on the way to doing that before the pandemic, and 
President Biden has already improved the budget since then.
    Now, Mr. Dutta-Gupta, you started to answer a question 
about why there was a discrepancy on who gets audited by taxes, 
and I think you were going to say that they don't have the 
money to actually go after wealthy people and that is what the 
money can be used for. Is that right?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. That is right. Right now, it is too easy 
and encouraged for the IRS to go after the poorest people, 
including communities of color, when they need a much stronger 
staffing and almost an army to go up against the armies that 
wealthy corporations who are responsible for most of our tax 
gap, by the way, meaning taxes owed that are not paid.
    Mr. Scott. Now, people are trying to make this a spending 
problem. Where would we be if there had not been a Bush and 
Trump tax cuts, if they had not passed? Where would we be on 
this budget chart?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, we would be including the Bush tax 
cut extensions, $10 trillion better off.
    Mr. Scott. $10 trillion better off. Would be back to the 
Clinton days where we would be almost in surplus. Is that 
right?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, we would be----
    Mr. Scott. But for the tax cuts. Now, you mentioned on this 
threat on the debt ceiling that the interest rates might go up. 
What does that mean to mortgages?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, it makes it much less affordable for 
people to own homes, start businesses.
    Mr. Scott. Like a $200,000 mortgage, one percent would be 
$2,000 extra every year.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah.
    Mr. Scott. For each percentage we go up, car notes, credit 
cards. What would that mean for a $30-some trillion debt per 
percent? What would it cost the budget?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. What would it cost the budget if the 
debt----
    Mr. Scott. If the interest rates go up one percent?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yes, that is a major driver of increasing 
debt service costs, actually. So, it could be----
    Mr. Scott. So, 300----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta [continuing]. $100 billion, 300----
    Mr. Scott. $300 billion----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta [continuing]. Billion dollars, yeah.
    Mr. Scott [continuing]. Per percent.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah.
    Mr. Scott. So, if it goes up two or three percent, you are 
into six, nine, maybe a----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Right.
    Mr. Scott [continuing]. $1 trillion worth of additional 
interest----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Right.
    Mr. Scott [continuing]. Because they are fooling with the 
debt ceiling. We have heard a lot about these vague, illusory 
cuts. Everybody's talking about it in general. I think it has 
been pointed out that veterans, there is no specific cut for 
veterans. There is no specific cut for anything. As a matter of 
fact, every time you say something's going to get cut, oh, we 
are not going to cut that. Do you cut the budget in general, or 
do you actually have to cut something? And we haven't heard any 
specific target of any meaningful, I mean, the one percent 
increase in interest that will take place because of the debt 
ceiling fiasco could be $300 billion. We have heard a couple of 
hundred million here and a billion here. They are not even 
going to be able to cover the debt service that they cause 
unless they start getting specific and talk about a budget. Is 
that right?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yes, and the data that have been discussed 
are across the board. It is not where the agency said they 
would go first. It is assuming across the board cuts.
    Mr. Scott. If you protect Social Security, Medicare, 
defense, veterans, what do you have to do to the others?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. You get close to having to eliminate the 
rest.
    Mr. Scott. Let me ask, Ms. Agostin, you talked about the 
education, you want to cut the education budget. If we get away 
from the culture wars and just talk about the budget, what part 
of the Department of Education would you want to cut?
    Ms. Agostin. I would cut all of the training programs that 
are teaching teachers to radicalize kids, the social, emotional 
learning, culturally----
    Mr. Scott. How much are you talking----
    Ms. Agostin [continuing]. Responsive----
    Mr. Scott. How much are you talking about?
    Ms. Agostin. Thirty percent at least.
    Mr. Scott. Thirty percent of the training or 30 percent of 
the Department of Education?
    Ms. Agostin. I would get rid of the SEED program. Get rid 
of the----
    Mr. Scott. How much money are you talking about?
    Ms. Agostin. Sixty million dollars for SEED.
    Mr. Scott. Sixty million?
    Ms. Agostin. For that one program.
    Mr. Scott. And we are talking trying to get hundreds of 
billions.
    Ms. Agostin. I am not saying that is the only thing. I told 
you that every single training program, do you know how many 
training programs are at the Department of Education for 
training teachers?
    Mr. Scott. We only spend a few billion dollars in training 
generally.
    Ms. Agostin. Okay. So, all----
    Mr. Scott. For everything.
    Ms. Agostin [continuing]. Of that training is now being 
done through the lens of woke ideology.
    Mr. Scott. So, how much money would you cut from----
    Ms. Agostin. And you should not spend that money anyway.
    Mr. Scott. How much money would you cut from the Department 
of Education?
    Ms. Agostin. I told you 30 percent.
    Mr. Scott. How much money are you talking, 30 percent of 
what?
    Ms. Agostin. Of their budget.
    Mr. Scott. Of the whole budget?
    Ms. Agostin. Well, the Congressman earlier said that the 
whole entire government is 40 percent bigger now than it was 
before COVID.
    Mr. Scott. Well, I am trying to get a straight answer.
    Ms. Agostin. So, I----
    Mr. Scott. How much money----
    Ms. Agostin. The straight answer----
    Mr. Scott [continuing]. Are you talking about----
    Ms. Agostin [continuing]. Is I am saying you should trim 
the Department of Education's budget by 30 percent.
    Dr. Burgess. I think 30 percent----
    Ms. Agostin. Cut it back----
    Dr. Burgess [continuing]. Has to be the final answer.
    Ms. Agostin [continuing]. To 2019.
    Dr. Burgess. The gentleman's time has expired. You can 
submit further questioning in writing.
    Mr. Scott. Well, I just want to point out that she 
wouldn't--the total Department of Education is a couple of 
hundred billion dollars, and she is talking about a percent of 
a little bit. We are trying to balance----
    Dr. Burgess. Again, the gentleman's----
    Mr. Scott [continuing]. And we are trying to balance the 
budget.
    Dr. Burgess [continuing]. Time has expired, and the problem 
is it is now my time. So, you are encroaching upon me, and that 
can't--I can't allow that.
    I appreciate that observation of 30 percent, and as Ms. 
Greszler pointed out earlier on the Medicaid dollars that are 
just being spent, the crank continues to turn. The dollars 
continue to go out the door at an interest rate that is now 
higher than what it was two and a half years ago. Mr. Gupta, 
the interest rate, and Mr. Scott was asking about the interest 
rate, the interest rate has what, over the last two and a half 
years?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Due to the Federal Reserve actions, it has 
risen significantly.
    Dr. Burgess. Yes, and the Federal Reserve action was in 
response to what, Mr. Ebell?
    Mr. Ebell. Inflation.
    Dr. Burgess. Well, and as a result of Federal spending.
    Mr. Ebell. And spending, oh, yes.
    Dr. Burgess. Which is what we are here talking about today. 
Look, and I know this ground has all been covered extensively. 
I did want to ask Ms. Greszler, we are right at the end of the 
Public Health Emergency, thank God. It is going to end midnight 
tonight. A figure that I am hearing is that 18 million people 
will lose Medicaid tomorrow morning. Is that accurate?
    Ms. Greszler. I haven't seen that. I don't know any reason 
why they would lose their coverage.
    Dr. Burgess. Yeah, and that is just it. These numbers get 
inflated and socialized. They are repeated until they are just 
now derived as fact. When, as you have pointed out several 
occasions this morning, that purported cuts to veterans, for 
example, purported cuts to other healthcare programs, in fact, 
are not what has been included in the Limit, Save, and Grow 
Act. Is that correct?
    Ms. Greszler. Correct. There are no specific cuts to these, 
but if you do want to drill down to getting at protecting 
veterans, you can absolutely protect veterans and you don't 
have to have any cuts, and you can actually still save money 
because 11 percent of all the payments that are coming out of 
the VA are improper payments. One of their programs has an 80 
percent improper payment rate. You are paying five times as 
much for long-term care services as veterans as you need to be. 
So, you can save money and still provide quality care.
    Dr. Burgess. And every dollar that is not well spent in the 
program deprives some other veteran of a service that they may 
need or increases their time on a waiting list. Is that not 
correct?
    Ms. Greszler. Correct.
    Dr. Burgess. Mr. Ebell, let me ask you a question. Title 42 
is in all the news. There is a different Title 42 in the--HHS 
had developed a different payment rate for some of their 
scientists, the special pay authority originally given by 
Congress to the Department of Health and Human Services, but 
EPA also used to be a part of the Department of Health and 
Human Services, so they have sort of continued that special pay 
authority that they have under the Public Health Service Act. 
Are you aware of this special pay authority that the EPA 
possesses?
    Mr. Ebell. Representative Burgess, I am vaguely aware of 
it, but I don't think I can offer any expert advice on it.
    Dr. Burgess. But suffice it to say, it was a special pay 
authority that was thought to be necessary to attract 
scientists to HHS when EPA was split off as a separate agency. 
You don't need special pay authority for, say, a beginning 
chemist in a lab at the EPA. We are looking at a time where 
every tax dollar that is spent should come under scrutiny. 
Something I have worked on for several years is to get 
rescission of that special pay authority for the Environmental 
Protection Agency, and unfortunately, as we have learned now 
coming through the Coronavirus emergency, some of that special 
pay authority was going to some of our very highly paid NIH 
scientists, and again, I think in retrospect, you would have to 
ask yourself, were those dollars well spent? And that is still 
an open question, but I don't think you could convince the 
American taxpayer that they would want to continue that.
    On the other component of improper payments, Ms. Greszler, 
I would stress an improper payment does not necessarily mean 
fraudulent. It simply can be a payment that was submitted that 
wasn't entirely accurate. But Medicaid stands out as one of 
those where the improper payment rate is strikingly above the 
overall average of improper payments in the Federal Government. 
Is that not correct?
    Ms. Greszler. That is correct. An improper payment is a 
payment made to the wrong person or in the wrong amount. About 
95 percent of those are all overpayments. Medicaid is most 
problematic, I would say, because it is administered by a state 
agency. They often aren't checking the eligibility for them, 
and also, it is just an incredibly complicated program, and the 
healthcare market is distorted by it being largely funded 
through the government. So, there is a whole host of things 
feeding into that improper payment rate.
    Dr. Burgess. Thank you very much. My time has expired. I am 
supposed to recognize any Democrat I see. Oh, I do see. I 
recognize Ms. Jackson Lee from Texas for five minutes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me lay the groundwork, Mr. Gupta, for 
what I would like to ask questions for. Moody Analytics 
estimates that the default on America--and a default would 
result in more than seven million jobs lost, an unemployment 
rate over eight percent, and a wipeout of $10 trillion in 
household wealth. Mortgage rates and consumer borrowing rates 
would increase and the status of the dollar as a reserve 
currency of the world would be at risk. I want Houston, Texas 
to be aware of that. I want Texas to be aware of that.
    In addition, if we had a default after talking about 
Democrats and their support of law enforcement, these 
Republicans will in fact cut the Department of Justice over $8 
billion and threaten 30,000 law enforcement. That is a threat 
to public safety, which I would like to put on the record, and 
we know that the Default on America bill has a threat. It has a 
trigger. It says that we will give you a dime, $1.5 trillion in 
debt, raising the debt, and then we got to come back again for 
whenever we meet that, or it gets, or maybe March. So, we are 
just playing daggers with the working families of America. Just 
daggers. We are just shooting them in the foot, and many people 
in the heart.
    Texas, for example, 1.6 million families in Texas get SNAP, 
and the roughly 5.746 million Medicaid would face a mountain of 
paperwork which in essence would weed out vulnerable children, 
which is what we need to be aware of. Let me tell my fellow 
Texans, deny 1,100 Texans admission to opioid treatment, if you 
talk about raising the mental health crisis or even crime, that 
is your pathway. Jeopardize air safety by shutting down at 
least 24 air traffic control towers in Texas. I represent Bush 
Intercontinental in Houston. Estimate 27,400 preschool children 
and childcare slots gone immediately.
    I remember during the pandemic standing in front of 
childcare centers begging for resources as parents were 
desperate to be able to find places for their children who were 
out of school.
    Strip food assistance from 994,000 Texans, threatening 
855,000 Texans with restrictions. Making college more expensive 
for 587,900 Texans. Raising housing costs in an already 
oversaturated market where people can't find housing for 40,000 
Texans.
    And so let me go directly, if you would, answer these 
questions and maybe very briefly, we are in the aftermath of 
the Trump tax cuts that we suffered. By the way, you know on 
the record, we raised as Democrats collectively the debt 
ceiling three times under the past administration. Give me 
quickly, because I have a SNAP question, a lingering effect of 
the dastardly Trump tax cut. Did it generate revenue into the 
economy, or did it give corporate America billionaires a fat 
cushion, maybe a soft pillow, if you will.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. It is yet another example of the failure 
of trickle-down economics. The Trump tax cuts failed to deliver 
the thousands of dollars of increase in incomes that were 
promised by the Council of Economic Advisors. They failed to 
deliver any meaningful increase in job growth, and 
unfortunately, delivered a huge amount of debt.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. And do you see--I started as you well know 
with the Moody Analytics--you see a truth in that mass loss of 
jobs and $10 trillion in household wealth, which are working 
families or middle-class families, you see value or veracity in 
that?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. That is right. Even getting close to the 
debt limit without raising it will have severe financial 
consequences.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Now, let's work on this. You know, here 
are some old issues that you might not have been around to 
hear, but you remember in early administrations, this whole 
thing about get to work. If you are on benefits, get to work, 
and that was supposed to be one of the saving graces of the 
economy. So, let me just get right to it. Does the increasing 
age limit do anything to help more people find work, or will it 
simply increase hunger? And as well explain it is not an 
employment program and able-bodied people get off anyhow 
because of state rules. Could you explain that, please, and why 
we are wasting time with the Default on America and making it 
worse for hungry people?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Adding new work reporting and 
documentation requirements will be counterproductive. It will 
not help people work. We have tried this repeatedly. We know it 
undermines people's ability to have that basic foundation they 
need to access opportunity, succeed in the labor market, pursue 
education, and support their family.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Are the people needing to get SNAP, 
children, who are the basic population of hungry people in 
America?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Absolutely.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. And what we are doing with Default on 
America is really undermining our own safety net, putting 
children in dangerous health conditions, as well as hunger 
conditions without having a viable program?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yes, and for those kids, the safety net is 
really a trampoline.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Have you seen massive fraud or waste?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. No.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. You are in the business so, you would----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. SNAP does an incredible job of getting 
payments right.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank you so very much for your 
response, and, Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for your 
indulgence. I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. I am always better at indulging my 
colleagues when they are from Texas.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Arrington. I have a really bad record about that. 
Thank you for your comments.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you.
    Chairman Arrington. Now, I will yield five minutes to my 
friend from North Carolina, Mr. Chuck Edwards.
    Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dutta-Gupta, do 
you believe that folks making more than $400,000 a year ought 
to be paying more taxes than they are today?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yes.
    Mr. Edwards. Do you believe that folks making less than 
$400,000 should be paying more taxes than they are paying 
today?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. I think you will probably have to do that 
if you want to do things like paid family medical leave and 
meet our Nation's caregiving needs.
    Mr. Edwards. And so, President Biden has told us over and 
over again that he intends to not ask folks making less than 
$400,000 to pay more. So, it sounds like you disagree with 
President Biden.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. While the President's budget may well 
stabilize debt as a share of GDP over the long run, I think to 
meet some of our Nation's crucial needs, including climate 
policy, some people between $250,000 and $400,000, who others 
here on your side have already described as wealthy, should be 
able to contribute more.
    Mr. Edwards. And so, I hear that you do disagree with what 
the President has been telling us about his tax policy.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. I would not. I draw the line at $400,000.
    Mr. Edwards. I find it interesting. I am going back to your 
testimony that you made comments regarding folks needing to 
work for, let's just call it SNAP benefits. You said for people 
who can't prove that they are working or exempt, it would 
create a particular hardship, and you go on to say that many 
people might even lose benefits even though they are working or 
should qualify, but then they fail to keep up with paperwork 
requirements. Are you familiar with what those paperwork 
requirements are?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yes, and in Arkansas, when they tried this 
for Medicaid, it bumped off so many people who actually were 
complying that Arkansas itself is now acknowledging that they 
failed.
    Mr. Edwards. And so, how often would someone have to 
complete paperwork to qualify for these benefits?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. That can vary.
    Mr. Edwards. Monthly?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. It can----
    Mr. Edwards. The benefits are----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. It can be to document work.
    Mr. Edwards. The benefits are established monthly, are they 
not?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Many benefits are established monthly, 
yeah. Some you can get a year, a trial.
    Mr. Edwards. And so, the answer to my question is monthly. 
Do you realize that folks that are working and raising their 
families and paying to feed their families today have to be 
involved in some activity? Plumbers are underneath houses 
working on fixtures and piping. Bricklayers are out all day. 
They are working with their hands, often in the sunshine. 
Welders have to do something all day to provide for their 
families. Factory workers have to be on a production line all 
day, and you are trying to tell this Committee that for folks 
to receive benefits, it is a hardship for them to complete 
paperwork once a month? I am not sure that I understand that.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, they are often struggling with 
substance use challenges, with violence, lots of challenges 
that maybe you or I are not facing, and the way that these 
systems are created----
    Mr. Edwards. Thank you.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta [continuing]. Make it hard to.
    Mr. Edwards. And so you recognize that what we have in the 
Limit, Save, and Grow Act is that able bodied, childless adults 
should work for their benefits, and you are trying to tell this 
Committee that you don't believe that they should work for 
that.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. The research shows that it is precisely 
giving the benefits that can often help them work, help their 
families do better. So, people need healthcare, they need food 
to be able to succeed in the labor market.
    Mr. Edwards. So, filling out a form once a month seems to 
be a real----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. It is much harder than that.
    Mr. Edwards [continuing]. A real hardship.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. And often rejected for inappropriate 
reasons.
    Mr. Edwards. All right. Thank you for that. Ms. Greszler, 
thanks so much for being with us today. I appreciated hearing 
your testimony. We have seen President Biden promise time and 
time again that the middle-class families, families making less 
than $400,000 per year, wouldn't be affected by proposed tax 
hikes, and yet he is allowing the Trump era tax cuts to expire. 
The numbers that I have read say that that means families will 
be paying, even less than $250,000, will be paying maybe $2,000 
more per year, and I don't believe that this boils down to pure 
tax policy for this administration. It is the latest trend in 
policies with an ideological bend. In your view, does the Biden 
Administration's $400,000 number send a message to Americans 
that at the end of the day, it doesn't pay to succeed?
    Ms. Greszler. I think it does, but more importantly, that 
$400,000 figure is not possible if you want to fund everything 
that the Biden Administration wants to, and we have had 
statistics done at The Heritage Foundation that show you could 
confiscate every single dollar of somebody earning over 
$200,000 and you would still not pay for half of the left's 
agenda.
    Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see my time has 
expired, so I yield.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from North 
Carolina and now will yield five minutes to Ms. Espaillat from 
New York.
    Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Arrington. Mister, I apologize.
    Mr. Espaillat. Yes. I don't want to be the subject of one 
of their testimonies. Mr. Gupta, the proposed cuts have been 
presented in a way that leadership has asserted they would 
protect certain areas and not cut those particular areas, 
including Social Security. They asserted that they will not 
touch Social Security, on many occasions they have said that. 
Defense, Homeland Security, and Medicare, some say they will 
not cut Medicare. If that occurs, of course, this will impact 
the level of cuts in other areas because you will have to sort 
of like make up the funding somewhere. What is your projection 
on the levels of cuts for other areas if they kept their 
promise and did not cut these areas?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. So, a lot depends. It is intentionally 
vague, and that means we have to assume a few things, but if we 
assume veterans' medical care, which on the non-defense side is 
sort of the largest single item for appropriations, is 
protected, and we assume growth that we meet the needs of 
veterans, we see the similar growth that we have had in defense 
in recent years, you may have to eliminate virtually all that 
is left.
    Mr. Espaillat. Do you feel that this massive budget cuts 
will have not just an impact on the quality of services and the 
services rendered to average Americans, but that it will also 
have an impact on the economy? What do you think is the impact 
of this scheme on the economy?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. That is right. Moody's estimates that 
several hundred thousand jobs would be lost. Our government 
does actually support our labor force, and ensures that we have 
high employment, especially compared to a lot of our peer 
countries, and these investments, including non-defense 
discretionary investments, support our economic activity across 
the board.
    Mr. Espaillat. What do you think the impact that it will 
have in more than just a budget cycle, let's say, in the next 
decade, if these cuts were perpetrated?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Well, we are already far below 47-year 
averages on the non-defense discretionary side. We have seen 
real harm, inability to keep up with needs. On Social Security 
Administration, for example, people have to wait a long time 
for disability benefits, retirement benefits, et cetera, but 
similarly on just basic safety functions of the government, and 
that will only worsen over time.
    Mr. Espaillat. Now, Mr. Gupta, I think you made a good sort 
of like assessment on the impact on the economy, but the 
Default on America Act would also impose work requirements on 
Medicaid recipients and increase work requirements for SNAP 
recipients, right? It is often the assumption that 
individuals--their assumption is that individuals are not 
working and relying on safety net programs to meet the basic 
needs. Which groups do you think this will hurt? How will this 
hurt America?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Well, it will catch a lot of people, even 
people maybe the Republicans don't intend to catch, because it 
turns out a lot of people who fail to meet these sorts of 
requirements actually might have been exempt. They might have 
been compliant, but when you are a student, say, working full-
time, and you should be exempt, but you are focusing on your 
studies, dealing with another agency and their requirements and 
documentation, this isn't about just going online and filling 
out a form. There is a lot of forced documentation. So, all of 
that would sweep a lot of people into this sort of dragnet.
    Mr. Espaillat. Why would you think the long-term effect of 
these increased requirements will have on the workforce and the 
economy? We are talking about the economy.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Right.
    Mr. Espaillat. That is why we are here. This is the Budget 
Committee.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Right. Counterproductive. I mean, we know 
Medicaid improves student achievement. We know kids who grow up 
in families that participate in SNAP do much better when they 
are adults than otherwise. So, this is completely 
counterproductive, pennywise, and pound foolish.
    Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Gupta. I yield back, Mr. 
Chair.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank Mr. Espaillat from New York, 
and will now yield to my friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Lloyd 
Smucker, for five minutes.
    Mr. Smucker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to just 
follow up, Mr. Dutta-Gupta, on the conversation that occurred 
there, and I will say, you know, there are some things I think 
we agree on. One, we want to try to lift people out of poverty 
and give everyone a chance to live their own American dream.
    There was just, in context, a group in my area--actually it 
was a Democrat mayor of the largest city in my district that 
did a study on poverty, and out of that came sort of an effort 
to bring together all the different organizations, and the 
report was called One Good job, and the intent, or sort of the 
end goal, was to connect as many people as possible with a 
great family-sustaining job. We also agree that, you know, I 
think we all believe we are fortunate to live in a country 
where there is a safety net for people who are not able to 
access and provide for themselves.
    But based on some of your comments, I just want to ask you, 
do you think everyone who should be working or could be working 
should be?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Absolutely. We should try to make sure 
there is a good job for all of them.
    Mr. Smucker. And how would, like people who are relying on 
government programs now, we want to move them, which was, 
again, the intent, the goal of this program. The success was 
measured by putting people on that ladder of upward mobility, 
by connecting them with a good paying job. How would you 
accomplish that for people who are not currently there today?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, that is a great question, and thank 
you, Representative Smucker, for the line of questions, so----
    Mr. Smucker. And I don't have a lot of time.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, so we do have employment jobs 
programs, some of which would actually likely be cut, 
unfortunately, under the bill, but it turns out that the 
programs themselves, by giving people that very basic 
foundation we all need, food, healthcare, actually does help 
them. We saw this with a child tax credit expansion. People 
spent money on things that helped them. Do more, work more, 
more childcare, for example, would be a great way for us to 
promote more employment.
    Mr. Smucker. So, I literally don't understand why you think 
that work requirements would work against that. Like, why would 
we not want to do everything we can to encourage people, who 
can, to take a job or to do everything they can to find a job? 
Why is that so bad?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, it turns out it expands bureaucracy, 
red tape. It bumps a lot of people off benefits who shouldn't 
be bumped off, even under the rules, and it just adds a lot of 
stress and would create a lot more challenges for people who 
are just trying to have that basic foundation. It is much 
easier to find a job and do well when you are well fed and you 
have got healthcare you need. You know, people who are 
accessing substance use disorder treatment, for example, they 
could lose that.
    Mr. Smucker. I think----
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. And that would help them get a job.
    Mr. Smucker [continuing]. I think your position misses the 
importance of incentives and of ensuring that we are trying to 
incentivize the right thing to help people access a good job. I 
want to get back, there is one other issue, Ms. Greszler, and I 
want to submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, if I may, CBO's 
April 2023 report titled, Expired and Expiring Authorizations 
of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2023.
    Chairman Arrington. Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    
    Mr. Smucker. That is here, the House and Senate rules 
require that all spending in appropriations bills be authorized 
by law, but this particular report by CBO reports that $1.7 
trillion in Fiscal Year 2023 in the omnibus included--the 
omnibus of $1.7 trillion included $510 billion in 
appropriations for unauthorized or expired programs. Is that 
any concern to you?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Smucker. Are you familiar with that?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes, I think that is over 400 programs that 
are currently----
    Mr. Smucker. Four hundred twenty-eight programs, I think.
    Ms. Greszler [continuing]. Unauthorized or expiring, and 
that is Congress's job to make sure that they are funding only 
the programs that have been authorized and that are still 
supposed to be funded. There is the Unauthorized Spending 
Accountability Act of 2023 that would be----
    Mr. Smucker. And I don't even understand how we can today 
spend it, because very clearly, House rule XXI prohibits 
spending for unauthorized or expired programs, yet we spend 
half a trillion dollars on this type of spending. Like, how is 
that happening and what can we do to stop it?
    Ms. Greszler. Well, it is happening because there is still 
funding being appropriated for them even though they are not 
authorized, and so, as I mentioned, the Unauthorized Spending 
Accountability Act of 2023 would essentially expire all those 
unauthorized programs after three years if Congress doesn't 
explicitly reauthorize them and fund them.
    Mr. Smucker. Do you think as an individual Member or 
Members together, do you think we would have an opportunity to 
object to unauthorized spending during consideration of 
appropriations bill? And if so, how would that be done?
    Ms. Greszler. Yeah, I think not just an opportunity, but an 
obligation that funds should not be going to programs that are 
unauthorized.
    Mr. Smucker. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
and yield five minutes now to Ms. Wexton from Virginia.
    Ms. Wexton. I thank the witnesses today----
    Chairman Arrington. Push, there you go.
    Ms. Wexton. Thank you very much to the witnesses for being 
here today. Federal workers are the backbone of our government 
and carry out important functions and services every day that 
keep our country running smoothly. It is unfortunate that my 
colleagues across the aisle hosting this hearing aimed at 
disparaging the Federal workforce during Public Service 
Recognition Week. What is worse than that are the cuts that 
they are considering.
    The proposal would be catastrophic for families across the 
country. It is designed to make it more difficult for Federal 
employees to serve the American people, almost as if they don't 
want government to function effectively.
    Pediatric mental health. The U.S. is in the middle of a 
pediatric mental health crisis, and as a mother, I am 
heartbroken that we are not doing more for our children. I am 
proud to have fought for programs to help address this mental 
health crisis, including getting more mental health 
professionals in schools, including the impact of social media 
on children's development and wellbeing, and the 988-suicide 
hotline.
    The proposed cuts threaten families' access to these 
crucial programs in the middle of a crisis. Mr. Dutta-Gupta, 
how would decreased funding limit access to care for our kids 
and our families? How would this decreased funding that the 
Republicans are proposing in their budget, how would that limit 
the options for--how does that limit access to care for our 
kids and families, please?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah, it would be significant. We are 
already facing the end of the continuous coverage requirement 
in Medicaid because of the end of the Public Health Emergency. 
We are expecting up to 15 million people to lose coverage. 
People need health insurance coverage to access the care and 
treatment that they need, and for young people and families, 
including those struggling with mental health challenges, it is 
often the only way that they can possibly be at their best, and 
I think that is what we all want. So, they need that coverage 
that is not being provided often in low paid jobs, and it is 
not being provided through any other means than these public 
programs.
    In some cases, they would have to wait until it becomes an 
acute crisis, which is the worst possible outcome.
    Ms. Wexton. It is not only bad for their health, it is also 
bad for the bottom line for sure.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. That is right.
    Ms. Wexton. The cuts could impact hundreds of thousands of 
children and cause them to lose access to childcare in 
preschool for nearly 6,000 children in Virginia. What impact 
would this have on children's wellbeing at large and largely 
within the economy with women in the workforce? What impact 
would this loss of childcare access have on women in the 
workforce as well as their children?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. One of the clearest findings in research 
is that childcare helps women succeed in the labor market. So, 
you would be undermining our labor force participation and 
employment to population ratios. Women disproportionately bear 
care burdens as we know, and childcare is really unquestionably 
valuable investment with a meaningful return for taxpayers and 
the country overall.
    Ms. Wexton. How about pre-K?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. You know, pre-K as well. I mean, we could 
lose hundreds of thousands of Head Start slots too, with a bill 
that has been passed by the House, and that has long-term 
payoff. Those investments, we know, dramatically improve the 
outcomes of kids who go to those programs. When they are 
adults, they graduate from school at higher rates, they go to 
college at higher rates, they do better in jobs, higher 
earnings, higher employment rates.
    Ms. Wexton. So, that is something we would encourage right?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah.
    Ms. Wexton. Yeah. The Inflation Reduction Act includes 
significant funding to help IRS employees address its backlog 
of unprocessed returns and provide better service. We are 
already seeing the benefits this year. I know that in our 
office we had very few complaints this tax season, which last 
year we had many. I am glad that the increased funding has 
really helped with that.
    We are also seeing a lot of cases that have been open for a 
long time be closed. So, I am very pleased to see that these 
new people that we have hired at IRS are actually working with 
customer service for a change. My colleagues across the aisle 
have tried to call these desperately needed funds back. How 
would this impact IRS's ability to modernize technology, reduce 
backlog, and increase approved customer service, Mr. Gupta?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. So, we are addressing a longstanding 
challenge at the IRS, so it would completely reverse some of 
the gains that are underway that improve people's experience 
interacting with IRS, reduce errors that others here have 
discussed today, reduce improper payments, and help more people 
get the payments that they are eligible for, including some key 
tax credits.
    Ms. Wexton. Thank you very much. One other question for 
you. Earlier this week, I met with a group of people from our 
ID and DD communities, intellectually, developmentally disabled 
communities, people who depend on SSI for, to live. What would 
happen if--what would happen if the Social Security, the cuts 
to Social Security that are being proposed by the majority, 
what would take place?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. They would have to wait longer and longer 
for eligibility determinations, redeterminations, possibly be 
denied life sustaining benefits.
    Ms. Wexton. Thank you very much, and those are most 
vulnerable people in our society. Thank you very much. I would 
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentlelady from Virginia, 
and now yield five minutes to my friend from Utah, Mr. Blake 
Moore.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairman, and Ranking Member. Mr. 
Ebell, I am going to start off with just a few questions and 
hope to get to some of the energy-related things that you 
worked on, but are we as high a debt-to-GDP as we were in World 
War II?
    Mr. Ebell. Representative Moore, I think we are at a point 
that is in the same vicinity. I think what we need to 
understand is World War II was an existential crisis. It wasn't 
just a phony claim of existential crisis.
    Mr. Moore. Or bad planning.
    Mr. Ebell. Or bad planning, yes.
    Mr. Moore. I like to highlight to a lot of my constituents 
that not a single, you know, it is just, it is bad planning. We 
are not dealing with a catastrophic World War III, right? We 
are not. Our revenues are as high as they have been, right? Our 
spending is far higher than it has ever been. Would you also 
agree that, with Larry Summers, former economic adviser to 
Obama, and Secretary of Treasury to President Clinton, that a 
$2 trillion bill done within a very, very short timeframe with 
no real offset spending is going to increase inflation?
    Mr. Ebell. Yes.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you. Okay. So, the other thing that I have 
noticed about this lovely place of Washington, D.C., I am in my 
second term, things are actually a lot more predictable than 
you would assume. When Republicans lost the Senate, control of 
the Senate on January 5, 2021, I said to many of my colleagues, 
we are going to see a record amount of spending this term. The 
same can also be true, and I think that they could expect, that 
my Democratic colleagues could expect, that when we won the 
majority in the House, oh, you are going to see Republicans 
push back on spending.
    That is not like earth shattering news. That should be 
predictable to everybody here. So, when the debt ceiling comes 
up and we push back and we put a bill that has an enormous 
amount of spending cuts in there, is that a surprise to 
anybody? Do you think that that should have been a surprise to 
anybody?
    Mr. Ebell. No, and I am a little bit dismayed by the fact 
that it is claimed that the Republican bill is somehow a denial 
of the debt ceiling crisis. The bill passed by the House raises 
the debt ceiling. I am not real happy about that, and maybe 
some of you, maybe you aren't either.
    Mr. Moore. It is hard for fiscal conservatives. It is going 
to be hard for people in Utah, which is one of the most----
    Mr. Ebell. But the fact is, the House is the only part of 
the tripart structure of our system that has addressed the debt 
ceiling.
    Mr. Moore. Do you think we should be at least exploring 
opportunities for restraint in our spending right now, given 
those realities? Our highest debt-to-GDP ratio. We have never 
had spending at what it is. We just came off of 2 years of the 
record spending. Do you think we should at least explore some 
constraints?
    Mr. Ebell. Yes.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you. Okay. Easy questions. I get that. I 
am not trying to be flippant, but I would love your perspective 
on one particular thing. With respect to the Inflation 
Reduction Act, there has been some--and I have looked into 
this--there has been some independent review of the cost of 
that bill. Is there an area that we could come together and 
say, yeah, that is far more expensive than what it was set out 
to do? It is also not going to target lower income individuals. 
If you give an EV tax credit to folks, those are wealthier 
individuals that can buy an electric vehicle and they are the 
ones that are going to benefit from that bill. Is there an 
opportunity to look at that bill and say, we can claw back some 
of this and find a way to restrain some of this spending?
    Mr. Ebell. Well, yes. As you know, I support, and CEI 
supports the complete repeal of all of the energy subsidies and 
handouts in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, but yes, if 
there has to be compromise, and I understand that legislation 
is a messy business, then I think you could put caps on, for 
example, the amount of money that will be expended for the 
various subsidy categories because they are all uncapped. They 
are open ended.
    Mr. Moore. Another thing that I find fascinating, from the 
years of 2011 to 2018 when Republicans had control of, at least 
the House, like you saw significant cuts to discretionary 
spending. Did our government continue to operate? Did we 
continue to provide services to people? Were we able to look in 
that budget and find areas to cut? Obviously, leading towards 
this concept that we can roll the clock back about 5 months, 
about when we were operating under Fiscal Year 2022. Roll it 
back to that timeframe and put some spending caps going 
forward. Is that completely unreasonable?
    Mr. Ebell. It is reasonable.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Utah. I now 
yield five minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Trone.
    Mr. Trone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We were called here 
today to talk about a woke government. Fascinating. Our 
government's barreling toward a default on its debt. Americans 
are dying in record numbers from mass shootings. Americans are 
dying in record numbers from suicides. Americans are dying in 
record numbers from drug overdoses. Yet, here we are to talk 
about wokeism, and women are living in fear of horrific limits 
on abortion access to their healthcare. We came to Congress to 
try and get stuff done and to help and focus on our Nation's 
most important problems. Frankly, wokeism, isn't it.
    I would also like to correct the record of the previous 
gentleman. We talk about the deficit. The deficit under the 
last year of President Obama was, give or take, $470-$480 
billion. Third year of President Trump, before COVID, before 
that hit, it increased a record amount more than it has ever 
increased. Under President Trump, the biggest increase ever to 
our deficit up to $980 billion because of a ridiculous tax cut 
to C-corporations from 35 to 21 percent, which effective rate 
is probably 10 to 12 percent. Why are our C-corporations, 
Google, Apple, eBay, paying 10 and 12 percent when our 
hardworking families are paying 15, 20, 25 percent? That 
doesn't make any sense.
    But President Trump, after last night's debate of lies, and 
lies, and lies, the Republicans can't seem to get out of their 
way on what is truth and what are lies, but we got to go with 
the facts. The facts are where we are in life. So, let's try 
and talk about the deficit with reality and not just make up a 
bunch of BS because it fits the talking points that some 
staffer gave someone that has never ran a business, never had a 
payroll, doesn't have any conception what the deficit really 
means.
    Last month, the Republicans released the exclusive, the 
Default on America Act. The debt ceiling was drafted. No 
hearings, no transparency. That is because it is a bad deal for 
working Americans. The Default on America Act would hurt our 
country, hurt our people, hurt our children, hurt our future, 
but extreme Republicans still voted to pass it.
    Mr. Gupta, on a brighter note, this week is teachers' week, 
teacher appreciation. What a great time to recognize America's 
teachers and the important role they play, but, but extreme 
Republicans have a funny way of celebrating. The Department of 
Education is estimated, from the Default to America Act, to 
lose $4 billion cut from schools serving low-income students, 
resulting in 60,000 fewer teachers, 60,000 less teachers. That 
is the Republicans' plan. That doesn't sound too good about our 
children, does it? Not to me.
    Your testimony explores how these critical programs such as 
Head Start--we all have to love Head Start. It works. We know 
it works. For our children and our families, this debt ceiling 
is going to result in hundreds of thousands of children losing 
access to these programs. So, in addition to hurting the 
children, hurting the families, how might these cuts have that 
opposite effect on the economy? What are they going to do with 
the economy that, then what the Republicans claim they are 
going to do?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. It will slow our growth or even shrink our 
economy. It will reduce the foundation of our economy that the 
government does play a central role in ensuring.
    Mr. Trone. Bring our growth rate to a halt. Stop an economy 
that is growing. Stop an economy that has record folks working 
in the economy, the record low unemployment. Stop all of those 
awesome things that have happened. Instead, bring us backwards 
because they don't understand that a nation has to carry debt. 
As the Nation gets bigger, we carry more debt than we do in 
World War II. What a stupid question. World War II debt. What 
was happening in 1945, compare our economy today, in 2023 to 
1945, and somehow that is germane. It is not germane. Mr. 
Gupta, your thoughts?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. The United States can clearly afford this 
debt. People will be willing to continue to buy United States 
debt if we don't threaten the validity of it. It is one of the 
safest, if not the safest, investment in the world and in 
extraordinary demand and continues to be.
    Mr. Trone. You get bigger, you have more debt. My company 
at $6 billion has hundreds of millions more debt than we had at 
$1 billion.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. You can use it----
    Mr. Trone. That is the way it works.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. You can use it to finance investments. 
When you buy a house, you net.
    Mr. Trone. How you grow, how you build.
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. Yeah.
    Mr. Trone. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Maryland and 
yield five minutes to my friend from Minnesota, Ms. Fischbach.
    Ms. Fischbach. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and that last exchange 
just explains to me, you know, it is a perfect example of the 
absurd arguments that are being made to increase the out-of-
control spending. I did have some questions, but after sitting 
here for a while, excuse me, I just have to say a few words 
because the arguments that are being made, and I think that 
Representative McClain was talking a little bit about, you 
know, pleading with the other side to come and help us get this 
spending under control, but they continue to use these 
outrageous emotional arguments about the things that would get 
cut.
    They will not admit that we can do better, that we can do 
better. There are things that could be scaled back, that can 
be, let's face it, cut, in the Federal Government, there are 
places, but instead, what we always end up hearing about is, of 
course, they are going to cut, you know, food to children, and 
I think that that was one of the examples that Representative 
McClain used, and, you know, it is typical fashion for the 
Democrats to throw out the most extreme and emotional arguments 
that they can find because they are unwilling to admit that 
there is out of control spending.
    I have been here two years and all I have seen is Democrats 
spend money, the first two years I was here, and now, they are 
unwilling to admit and, you know, they can blame it on Trump, 
they can blame it on Republicans, whatever, but let's face it, 
we have to get this under control.
    There was a mention of this is going to hurt our children, 
this is going to hurt our future. The spending cuts were going 
to hurt them, but having this kind of out-of-control debt is 
going to hurt them even more and hurt the future of the 
country.
    Like I said, I had some questions, but I really felt the 
need to just get that out because the other side is just 
unwilling to admit it, just plain and simple. They will make no 
efforts to cut a dime because what they want to do is continue 
to spend, and spend, and spend, and spend. They feel like there 
is no responsibility to the taxpayers, to those middle-class 
folks, the lower income folks that they talk so passionately 
about, but they are paying for this debt, too, and we have to 
get it under control. We have to get spending under control.
    So, I feel very strongly that the American people want us 
to do this. They want us to get this under control. They 
understand that out-of-control debt, out-of-control spending 
does nobody any good, and I had to say that. I had to get it 
off my chest, because as I sit here, and I listen to these 
ridiculous arguments that we are going to starve children. We 
are going to do all kinds of horrible things.
    Then come to the table and help us figure out this issue, 
that is all I ask. If they don't want that to happen, then 
where are they? They claim all these horrible, horrible things 
but won't actually help, but won't actually admit that there is 
even a problem.
    They talk about, we could potentially, you know, we can 
afford this debt. It doesn't make sense. So, I ask, and I 
appreciate all of the witnesses being here, and all of you have 
put up with a lot of us all day long, and you have been here 
for the long haul. So, I appreciate that and I appreciate all 
your work, but I just, I had to talk a little bit about that 
because it has been so frustrating today to hear that they 
won't even come to the table and help. So, thank you, and I 
yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentlelady from Minnesota, 
and yield to another gentlelady from Oklahoma, my friend, Ms. 
Stephanie Bice.
    Ms. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 
Member Boyle. I first want to start out by saying that the 
comment was made earlier that obligations were made and that 
the United States needs to pay their debt, but let me be very 
clear, obligations were made by some. I was not one of those. 
In the last two years, $11 trillion worth of obligations were 
made. I did not agree with many of them, and it is sort of rich 
to sit here in this room and hear the other side of the aisle 
talk about how this didn't go through proper order, because I 
don't recall a single one of those very large bills, not only 
going through proper order, but not accepting amendments to be 
able to cut some of the wasteful spending that was in those 
bills. So, it is frustrating for me to sit here and hear, to be 
lectured by that.
    Now, my friend on the other side of the aisle brought up a 
great point. He said, it is Teacher Appreciation Week, and I am 
incredibly honored to have my sister-in-law as a teacher back 
home. Shout out to Lisa, you are doing an amazing job. Mr. 
Gupta, how much did Democrats appropriate in Fiscal Year 2023 
for the Department of Education?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. I don't know that.
    Mrs. Bice. One hundred seventy-five billion dollars. Do you 
know how much they appropriated in Fiscal Year 2023 for the 
Department of Energy, including loan payments?
    Mr. Dutta-Gupta. I don't, but I bet you do.
    Ms. Bice. Four hundred seventy-eight billion dollars. Seems 
to me that Democrats care more about climate change than kids. 
Let me make a couple of points on that particular issue. The 
so-called Inflation Reduction Act enacted last year, gave $271 
billion in tax credits to pay for green energy projects favored 
by Democrats' donor class. The preliminary JCT estimate, 
independent analysis keeps raising the price tag on that, with 
one recent estimate putting the green subsidy handouts at $1.2 
trillion. The debt ceiling is tied to spending. That is why we 
are in the position we are in, because we keep writing checks 
that the government can't cash. This has to stop.
    To the points that have been made by my colleagues McClain 
and Fischbach, and many others, you can't sit here today and 
tell me that there is not one single dollar that can be cut, 
and we have been told over and over, I hear it in the press 
every day that Republicans haven't done anything. Hogwash. We 
passed the debt ceiling with offsets because we recognize that 
this is an unsustainable path. We can't continue down the road 
that we have been going over the last couple of years.
    So, Ms. Greszler, interest rates have been hiked up ten 
times in response to Bidenflation. More Americans are unable to 
buy a home than they were a year ago. Can you talk about how 
interest rates are impacting the current situation with debt?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes, the interest rates are exacerbating it, 
and those interest rates were caused by excessive government 
spending, most of which was passed after the crisis was truly 
over, and the problem here in talking about from the other side 
saying that the Republicans' Limit, Save, Grow Act is not 
accounting for inflation, Americans are already paying for 
their own inflation. Their wages have gone up by over $5,000, 
but inflation has eaten away over $8,000. So, they are actually 
$3,000 poorer, and now, they are being asked to pay for the 
government's share of inflation, on top of that within the next 
year alone, $11,500 in added debt to every household.
    Ms. Bice. Mr. Ebell, Ms. Agostin, do you want to comment on 
that, too?
    Mr. Ebell. Yes. I appreciate your focus on the energy slush 
funds in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, and one of the 
things that you ought to focus on, you mentioned the Department 
of Energy. The Inflation Reduction Act raises the loan 
authority for green energy by $350 billion. That is a lot of 
Solyndras.
    Ms. Bice. Ms. Agostin, if you want to quickly comment on 
that as well, the interest rates issue.
    Ms. Agostin. Well, if you don't mind I don't want to 
comment about interest rates.
    Ms. Bice. Fair enough.
    Ms. Agostin. What I do want to say is to your sister-in-
law, I believe you said is a teacher. I just think that the 
teachers are as much a victim as the students when the woke 
ideology has totally overtaken the institution that is our 
education system. I don't think your sister-in-law wants to 
teach kids that America is systemically racist.
    Ms. Bice. Amen. To your comment about energy, I want to 
make a couple of points here, Mr. Ebell, if I may. The 
Inflation Reduction Act has given so much money to these sort 
of Green New Deal initiatives, including the estimates on the 
cost of electric vehicle battery production alone could cost 
upwards of $196 billion. That is 540 percent more than the 
initial estimate of $30 million--I am sorry, $30 billion.
    But the bigger issue here is China. China controls 50 
percent of the processing capacity of key EV battery inputs 
like lithium, cobalt, and graphite. We, through these policies 
that Democrats have passed in the last two years, are becoming 
more and more and more reliant on China, and that is a problem 
for the future. Mr. Chairman, thank you for indulging. I yield 
back.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentlelady and yield five 
minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Josh Brecheen.
    Mr. Brecheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, $1.4 trillion is 
what we will overspend, the Congressional Budget Office 
projects this year. That was the size of our gross national 
debt exactly 40 years ago. So, for all of us that can remember 
where we were 40 years ago, and to think about the optimism 
and, you know, it took us 200 years as a Nation to get to $1.4 
trillion gross national debt. We will overspend this year in 
one year what it took us 200 years to accumulate in debt, and 
then ten years from now, the Congressional Budget Office says 
that is just the interest payments on our debt.
    It was mentioned a minute ago. I am appreciative you take 
the $6.2 trillion spend, multiply it times 0.77, or 0.72, 
rather, you do find out that in 2017, that our government was 
30 percent less than the size that it is today. So, 30 percent 
less the size of government, totality in our spending 6.2 
comparative to 4.5, we were that much less in the size of our 
government. Then, if you look at our dollar, I have a little 
prop, right? Props are fun. We know that since 2017 that if I 
fold back about 20 percent of this instrument of purchasing, 
that is the devaluation of our currency since 2017.
    So, at the same time that our government's grown 30 
percent, we have lost 20 percent of the value of our spending, 
and it is amazing. It is not just the devaluation of currency, 
it is that the countries around the world. Someone said a while 
ago, I don't mean to be mean spirited, but we talked about the 
strength of our world reserve currency. In 1983, that was an 
accurate statement, but when you have Brazil, Russia, India, 
China, and South Africa going, wait a minute, we think we will 
create our own European Union type currency. What has caused 
many people to believe in quantitative easing for years has 
been the thought that the world reserve currency would save us 
in our petrol dollar. That is being questioned.
    So, man, we have got to take an honest look at the problems 
that are before us. It is really astounding that when we look 
at the spending and people say, well, it is about, you know, 
not spending enough here. The Democrat ideology is sacrificing 
our prosperity on the altar of the church of nature when it 
comes to what they are doing with going after what needs to be 
another .com type boom in America. We have got to cut and we 
have got to grow.
    I appreciate you bringing up a while ago that from 1992 to 
2000, there was a four percent economic growth GDP. Well, what 
is causing us to get in the one percent now in this first 
quarter? It is because we are fighting with our hands tied 
behind our back and China and Russia are laughing at us. We 
have become not work brittle, they are work brittle. They are 
not abiding by the Paris Climate Accord, and yet we are 
fighting with our hands tied behind our back because of a woke 
ideology, and we have got to grow past this and we have got to 
grow up, and we have got to stop appeasing radical ideology.
    Food prices up 17 percent in the last several years since 
2021, since the Biden Administration took over. Gas prices up 
37 percent. Real wages decreased 3.5 percent. Somebody today 
will spend, on average, $13,000 more to buy the exact same 
goods and services as they did, you know, prior to Biden taking 
office, as a family. The ability to buy a home, to get a 
mortgage because of rising interest rates, 15 percent higher 
than just a year ago. Small businesses struggling to find line 
of credit, more seniors seeing their lifetime savings wiped out 
because of this, and then top three tier type banks looking to, 
having to go under because of this system that we have created. 
It is a self-inflicted wound.
    All right, so I want to jump to Paige, you--Ms. Agostin, I 
apologize. You had mentioned earlier some of the egregious 
spending. I loved it. I love that you are trying to call us on 
the carpet as a Nation when some say there is no way to reduce 
spending.
    Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute 
of Health actively pushing so-called gender affirming care, 
which is cross sex hormones and surgical mutilation, even for 
minors. I wrote a letter to the NIH a week or so ago about 
this. A couple of suicides and it gets brushed under the rugs, 
and hundreds of young adults, minors, these are young children 
we are giving cross sex therapy to, hormone treatment, and you 
have suicides, and this is what the Federal Government 
prioritizes?
    So, I want to ask you a question. It is not just that. It 
is not just the hypersexualized culture. It is also where we 
are going backwards when it comes to race, and we are trying to 
drive ourselves back to a place to where we are incentivizing a 
focus on not being color blind but looking at color versus the 
content of your character. Can you speak to that?
    Ms. Agostin. Sure. If I may, there was somebody quoting 
Merriam Webster. I will just quote Kendi, ``If racial 
discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist.'' So, 
they redefine language as you do when you are embarking on a 
cultural revolution in order to reestablish systems of 
discrimination based on identity. Race being one of them.
    Mr. Brecheen. I am out of time, Mr. Chairman. I thank you 
for your indulgence.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma, 
and now yield five minutes for my friend from Wisconsin, Mr. 
Glenn Grothman.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I just got a few questions here. 
It seems our country is in a lot of trouble, and I would just 
like to focus on things that I think make that problem worse. 
Ms. Greszler, I want to focus a little bit on the Earned Income 
Tax Credit, something I have long disliked for a variety of 
reasons. One of the most embarrassing things Republicans have 
done, I think, in the last 40 years, but that tax credit, which 
is really a welfare payment, is this right that almost 32 
percent of the payments are improper every year?
    Ms. Greszler. No, it is incredibly inefficient, and it is 
costing $1.46 from one person to transfer that $1 of Earned 
Income Tax Credit to somebody else.
    Mr. Grothman. It is very inefficient, right? And 32 percent 
of the payments are improper, which I will believe because it 
is so easy to cheat on it. Is that accurate?
    Ms. Greszler. Correct.
    Mr. Grothman. Okay. Could you comment on, in general you 
think it is something we should keep going, or is it one of 
those places where we are giving a lot of money to people who 
maybe are only getting it fraudulently? And it discourages 
work, too, doesn't it? Do you want to lecture the Committee on 
how it discourages work?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes. In the phase-out ranges with that 
credit, it poses very high marginal tax rates that discourage 
people from pursuing either more work or from pursuing 
education that would allow them to further climb the career 
ladder and taking----
    Mr. Grothman. Is it true depending on your family size, it 
discourages you from making another $16,000 a year, or $20,000, 
or $26,000, or whatever, the well-informed will say, sorry, I 
can't improve myself more than, say, $25,000 a year or I am 
going to lose my Earned Income Tax Credit?
    Ms. Greszler. Yes. That program, combined with others, 
actually makes sense for people to not pursue better 
opportunities.
    Mr. Grothman. Well, thank you. Very good. That is what we 
want to hear. Next thing, President Biden's so-called American 
Rescue Plan expanded the child tax credit by removing work 
requirements and turning it into an unconditional cash payment 
per child. What effect on the moral fiber of this country will 
these changes have?
    Ms. Greszler. It is incredibly problematic, and there were 
studies that showed that for the lowest income children, that 
would actually make them worse off because it would reduce 
labor force participation, and this is not a partisan issue. I 
like to remind people, President Clinton quoted Robert Kennedy 
when he said, work is the meaning of what this country is all 
about. We need it as individuals. We need to sense it in our 
fellow citizens, and we need it as a society, and as a people. 
Work is crucial, especially when you have children in the home, 
to building those foundations for success, and today, what we 
are talking about, in some of the limits that have been put, 
the work requirements in the Limit, Save, Grow Act, those are 
not even targeted at individuals with children. Those are 
individuals without children, older ones, and when I have been 
looking at what is happening in the labor force today, 
employment among people who have no children under the age of 
18 at home is down by 1.6 percent. Employment of people who 
have children in the home is up by 1.3 percent.
    So, it is not the families with children that are 
struggling today. Their employment has improved. It is 
predominantly people who don't have children at home who are 
not working.
    Mr. Grothman. So, I want you to restate that in this 
fashion. They always talk about the booming economy and the low 
unemployment rate, but that unemployment rate doesn't take into 
account: people are sitting on their butt, not trying to get a 
job does it?
    Ms. Greszler. There are 2 million fewer people working 
today, and I do want to correct that for the record. The 
employment-to-population ratio is not higher than it has ever 
been. It is lower, and it is the equivalent of 2 million lower 
compared to February 2020.
    Mr. Grothman. Okay. So over time, under the Biden 
Administration, I think this is a goal of the Progressive 
Party, they like everybody dependent on the government, more 
and more people are just sitting it out because they can sit it 
out or working for cash, right?
    Now, we got to mix it up a little bit here. Ms. Agostin, 
the Biden Administration, a memo was released or a 
whistleblower put it out there, encouraging the investigating 
of Catholic groups because I guess they don't like people who 
take their religion too seriously. They decided to also slander 
Catholic groups and say that they were, you know, filled with 
White supremacists, or working with White supremacy. Did the 
administration offer any justification for this action within 
the, particularly within the--it would appear like among other 
things, it is going against the free exercise of the religion 
clause of the First Amendment.
    Ms. Agostin. Sure, and I think that is part and parcel of 
what this Department of Justice is. It is weaponized against 
the American people.
    Mr. Grothman. Right, and over time, this government, this 
big government is going to be used to go after political 
enemies in particular, not just political enemies, but 
religious enemies, as they always do in a totalitarian state. 
Thank you very much.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin 
and yield five minutes to my friend from Georgia, Mr. Buddy 
Carter.
    Mr. Carter. I thank the gentleman for yielding and I 
appreciate all of you being here and what an appropriate and 
timely hearing that we are having that is entitled, ``Exposing 
the Woke, Wasteful, and Bloated Bureaucracy,'' and nothing 
could be further from the truth. Thank you for that. This is 
something we needed to have, Mr. Chairman, and I do thank you. 
You know, I sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee and I have 
witnessed what has been going on with bloated, and 
bureaucracies, and it is very frustrating, especially when it 
comes to energy and climate, and I see this rush to green. 
Look, I have the honor and privilege of representing the entire 
coast of Georgia, 100 miles of pristine coastline, and it also 
happens to be my home, where I have lived all my life, and no 
one cares about the environment more than I do. So, I discharge 
this theory that we don't care about the environment. We do 
care about the environment.
    But at the same time, what I am seeing, why this 
administration has been nothing less than an all-out war 
against fossil fuels. Day one, this administration declared war 
against fossil fuels. You know, both parties share the same 
common goal and that is to decrease carbon emissions. It is not 
to decrease choices. The United States has decreased our carbon 
emissions more in the last decade than the next 12 countries 
combined while growing our economy. We have proven that it can 
be done, and even today, look at what is happening. The EPA's 
got a new power plant rule that will have significant new 
requirements on our baseload generation, more regulations. 
Unbelievable.
    I would submit to you that what is going on in our economy 
right now is self-inflicted. Day one, when this administration 
declared war on fossil fuels, price of gasoline went up, 
inflation went up, interest rates went up, and now we got the 
mess that we have got. Self-inflicted, unnecessary, and it just 
frustrates me to no end.
    Mr. Ebell, I want to ask you because you know a lot about 
climate policy and about free market environment. What type of 
consequences do you think that this administration and their 
policies have had on Americans, on everyday Americans, whether 
they make over $400,000 a year or whether they make less than 
$400,000 a year?
    Mr. Ebell. Thank you, Representative Carter. You know, I 
think the consequences of these policies are really bad 
economically on the American people. They are also bad 
environmentally. Economic growth and opportunity are the basis 
of environmental protection. So, when you degrade the economy, 
you will degrade the environment as well. So, I think they are 
hiding a lot of bad things behind the climate blob, green blob. 
They are saying, oh, we have to do all these things because of 
climate, but in fact they have very deleterious impacts on the 
environment as well.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you. Ms. Greszler, what about you? What 
is your opinion?
    Ms. Greszler. Well, I think that we are seeing the green 
energy agenda shift into other areas of the government as well 
and even threaten them. I know that the U.S. Army right now is 
facing a recruitment shortage, and then the same time that they 
are doing that they were submitting a 50-page report of their 
new green energy climate plan, and so, they are having to 
divert their resources towards fighting climate change instead 
of actually having the proper amount of army to protect the 
Nation.
    Mr. Carter. You know, in the first two years of the Biden 
Administration, Ms. Greszler, this government has spent over 
$500 billion in improper payments, but instead of seriously 
working to address that problem, President Biden's budget 
proposes to inject even more spending on some of the worst 
performing programs, such as Medicaid, which spent $80 billion 
improperly last year, a 15.6 improper payment rate increase. 
Again, another example of the Federal Government failing to do 
its job and not even attempting to fix it or get better. What 
are the consequences for taxpayers because of this lack of 
accountability?
    Ms. Greszler. Well, they are already paying about $1,800 
per year, but I think it is incredibly insulting to them and 
causes them to lose faith in their government when the Federal 
Government expects taxpayers to pay the correct amount based on 
a 7,000-page tax code, and then the Federal Government, when it 
is administering the programs that it designed itself, is 
spending $1,800 per household, per year, $245 billion in total, 
making improper payments.
    Mr. Carter. Well, I am out of time, but I do want to thank 
you all for being here, and I want to thank you again, Mr. 
Chairman, because this is a very appropriate and a very timely 
hearing that needs to be brought to the attention of the 
American people because this rush to green as if we don't care 
about the environment is ridiculous. We do care about the 
environment, but we also care about our economy. We also care 
about people being able to make it, make ends meet. That is 
what we want to do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will yield 
back.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank my friend from Georgia. I 
couldn't agree more. We love God's great Earth, and we are 
stewards of those natural resources, but we better be stewards 
of taxpayer resources, or everything that anyone cares about on 
any side of the political spectrum will be irrelevant because 
we will bankrupt the country.
    With that closing remark of mine, much shorter than my 
introduction, I might add, I want to thank the witnesses. You 
all did a lot of prep to come here, and you spent a lot of time 
with us. You have been generous. We appreciate your insights, 
your input, and God bless you, and we will close by saying that 
Members can submit written questions to be answered in writing. 
Those questions and your answers will be made part of the 
formal hearing record. Any Member who wishes to submit 
questions for the record may do so within seven days, and with 
that, the Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, the Committee was adjourned.]

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