[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 100 (Monday, June 13, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H5476-H5482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           REVERSE THE CURSE: RESTORING FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Brown of Ohio). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Arrington) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, tonight we are going to talk about a 
subject that gets too little attention in this Chamber and too little 
debate and consideration among lawmakers. Yet the storm clouds are 
gathering, and an epic crisis looms large over the future of our great 
Nation. Our mountainous and unsustainable national debt is the most 
significant, in my opinion, long-term threat to our economic prosperity 
as well as our national security. We have sown the wind of fiscal 
irresponsibility, and our children will reap the whirlwind of economic 
calamity. We will rob generations of Americans of the freedoms and the 
opportunities that we have enjoyed and have been so blessed with.
  Madam Speaker, we all take an oath, but there is an unwritten 
covenant between lawmakers today and our Founding Fathers and our 
future generations of Americans, and that unwritten sacred promise that 
all American leaders have subscribed to is to leave this Nation better 
than we found it.
  I believe the question is still hanging out there. The jury is still 
out on whether our Nation's leaders today in this generation are 
willing to make the sacrifices necessary to take on what I believe is 
the greatest challenge of the 21st century, and that is this 
unsustainable, unconscionable, and even immoral fiscal path that we are 
on. It is a collision course with a disastrous future.
  We have to do something. We have all the reforms and policy 
solutions. But what we don't have and what I have not seen in now 6 
years in this Chamber is the collective political will to do something 
about it. It is very simple.
  Madam Speaker, I am honored to be joined by fellow lawmakers who I 
know share these sentiments. One such man hails from Ohio's Sixth 
District. He is a dear friend, he is a patriot, and he is a veteran. He 
has served on the Budget Committee. He is the co-chair of the Problem 
Solvers Caucus, a task force on addressing our broken budgetary 
processes and getting our arms around the debt and reining this in.
  Madam Speaker, I am so glad he has joined us tonight. I yield to the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson).
  Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for 
yielding.

[[Page H5477]]

  This is such a huge problem. There are so many different paths we 
could go down with this discussion. It is so big of a crisis that it is 
almost impossible to get it all articulated well within one Special 
Order series.
  Madam Speaker, late last month, the CBO released its ``May 2022 
Budget and Economic Outlook.'' This is the first time the CBO has 
produced a baseline that properly incorporates the runaway, destructive 
inflation that is ripping through our economy today.
  According to the CBO report, inflation is not going anywhere anytime 
soon except up. This is a dramatic change from the insistence of the 
President, the Treasury Secretary, and my Democrat colleagues that 
inflation is merely transitory and is nothing to worry about.
  They are, in fact, so out of touch that they have begun to change 
their narrative. They now claim that Americans are financially 
prepared--get this--financially prepared to weather $5 a gallon 
gasoline, skyrocketing energy costs, and grocery prices that would have 
been unthinkable just 18 months ago.
  Now, I am not sure what Americans they are talking to, but they are 
not talking to Americans who live in Appalachia where I live--seniors 
who live on fixed incomes and others who struggle to make ends meet in 
this high inflationary period. But inflation is not just a sticker-
shock sensation. It will have ripple effects throughout the economy. 
Debt will continue to rise to 110 percent of GDP over the next decade.
  Don't be fooled by President Biden's propaganda claiming victory on 
debt reduction either. CBO projects that deficits will be $2.4 trillion 
larger over the next 10 years. The more President Biden continues to 
pour gasoline on the inflation fire with his failed policies, the more 
that number is going to keep growing.
  Madam Speaker, we must get our fiscal house in order. The American 
people have to live by a budget, and the American government should 
live by a budget, too. The United States does not have a revenue 
problem, we have a spending problem. And the first step in fixing this 
problem is to fix our broken budget process.
  That is why I am proud to be a cosponsor of H.R. 2575, the TRUST Act, 
to establish special rescue committees to begin developing 
recommendations and legislation to protect and ensure the longevity of 
Social Security and Medicare. These are some of the country's main 
drivers of our debt. They are mandatory spending programs that are 
absolutely out of control. Doing nothing about it is not an option.
  I am also, as was mentioned, the co-lead on a bipartisan debt and 
deficit working group as a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, and I 
am willing to work with anyone, Republican or Democrat, to find real 
solutions to ensure Medicare and Social Security are around for our 
children and our grandchildren to benefit from in the years to come.
  Madam Speaker, this is a big problem. I look forward to hearing what 
my colleagues have to say tonight. We need bold ideas to address the 
fiscal crisis that looms in front of us.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I thank my dear friend from Ohio and 
echo his sentiments. We must get our fiscal house in order.
  It is shameful. I would say, a case in point, to the cries from our 
citizens, citizens who say that this body and politicians in both 
Chambers, in Washington, play by a different set of rules. Do you know 
what? They are right. There is no further you have to look than at our 
budget and appropriations process.
  We haven't had a budget in the last 4 years under the leadership of 
our Democrat colleagues, but quite frankly, both parties have been 
guilty. I think, over the last 50 years, we have only gone through 
regular order and passed a budget in all 12 appropriations and run the 
people's House the way our States and local governments and our 
families run their fiscal affairs.
  They don't get to waive pay-fors. They don't get to borrow infinitum.
  This place is so broken, and it is going to catch up to us. You don't 
feel the pain until you feel the pain.
  When the dominoes fall, you cannot borrow and spend your way out of 
that situation and that particular crisis, like we have seen with COVID 
and others prior to it.
  We have a champion for this issue, fiscal responsibility, restoring 
that in our own Conference as well as the broader United States 
Congress, a fellow Texan, a man who I am proud to serve with from 
Texas' 21st District, and a member of the House Judiciary Committee and 
Veterans' Affairs Committee.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding. I 
know that he cares deeply about this issue and spends a whole lot of 
time working across the aisle and with our own Conference, trying to 
get this body to focus on this issue of spending. Frankly, that is on 
both sides of the aisle.
  We are sitting here now, $30.5 trillion of debt. That is a number 
that nobody in America can possibly understand what that means. We talk 
about it. We say it. We put charts up, but nobody knows. $30.5 
trillion, if you set out to count to that, one Mississippi, it would 
take you 967,000 years. I mean, think about that. It is patently 
absurd.
  Yet, we are going to rack up another trillion and a half here in the 
next year, and then another couple of trillion. We are just going to 
keep piling it on. Interest rates are going up, and interest rates are 
going to keep going up, so that debt is going to pile up even further.
  The American people know this. They can't live their lives that way. 
Yet, here we are in this body, this so-called people's House, and we 
haven't had a single actual debate on spending in this body the entire 
time I have been here, much less this year.
  We just passed another milestone in this great body, the United 
States House of Representatives, in which we just spent the sixth year 
in which not one amendment was offered on the floor of this body in 
open debate, not one amendment.
  Has any rank-and-file Member of the United States House of 
Representatives been able to come to the floor and offer an amendment? 
You wonder why this place is broken?
  I mean, we just passed that milestone yet again. You never get a 
chance to have open debate here in the so-called people's House.
  I gave a speech a little while back from this podium on this floor 
that I called the United States House of free stuff because that is the 
way people view this body.
  Oh, we just got another check we can go write, another bill we can 
pass. It sounds good. It has something great in the title. You are 
talking about infant formula. Oh, you better vote for that. You can't 
vote against a bill that has infant formula in the title. Doesn't 
matter what it does. Doesn't matter if it will make it worse. Didn't 
matter what the power of the government is.
  If you put ALS in the title, don't vote ``no'' on an ALS bill. Well, 
then you hate people with ALS, right?
  Don't vote ``no'' on any bill that has something in the title. United 
States House of free stuff.
  Yet, this week, what are we going to vote on? We are going to have a 
bill, H.R. 7606, which will likely come up, that will give $400 million 
to ethanol producers. Never mind that that jacks up 30 cents a gallon 
on the price of gasoline.
  We are going to have a bill that has $12.7 billion over 10 years on 
wildlife recovery. Man, we are really being great stewards of the 
public trust here in the United States House of Representatives.
  That is the problem. That is what is broken, and the American people 
see it. They see that we are here not doing the work of the people 
because we never actually debate, vote, and figure out something, roll 
our sleeves up and say: ``Do you know what? We have X trillion dollars 
of income so we can only spend X trillion.'' We never do that.
  That fundamentally is what my friend from Texas is getting at, what 
my colleagues are here on the floor talking about.
  I would ask the Speaker where my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle are having any conversation whatsoever about only spending that 
which we take in. But, no, we can never have that conversation in the 
United States House of free stuff because it is a hell

[[Page H5478]]

of a lot easier to go out on the steps and go preen and posture to a 
bunch of people in the media, saying about how evil people are if they 
dare vote against spending money we don't have.
  Madam Speaker, we should do our job, both sides of the aisle, to stop 
spending money we don't have.
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I say a hearty amen to my fellow Texan 
who has put his money where his mouth is. Certainly, he has put the 
votes of his constituents where his mouth is and has taken a stand.
  It is not fun to be voting against things that have these wonderful 
titles that are going to do these grandiose things for the country. But 
the question is, who is going to pay for it?

  I don't even call the $30 trillion of debt ``debt.'' I call it what   
Tom McClintock once mentioned in a budget hearing. It is a deferred tax 
on our children. It is so easy for us to pass these bills and not 
consider the incalculable cumulative cost.
  But there will be a payday someday. As James Madison said, ``A public 
debt is a public curse.'' We are not blessing our children. We are not 
giving them the benefit of the quality of life that we have known as 
Americans second to no other nation and society in the world and in the 
history of the world. Yet, to do nothing and to keep this runaway 
freight train of fiscal irresponsibility running off the cliff is to 
curse them. Indeed, it is to curse them, as James Madison said.
  Another friend and colleague and a new Member of Congress, but not 
new to public service, is Peter Meijer from Michigan's Third District. 
He serves on the Committee on Homeland Security and the Committee on 
Foreign Affairs. We appreciate his deep concerns and convictions on 
this issue facing our country.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Meijer).
  Mr. MEIJER. Madam Speaker, I thank my dear friend from Texas for 
yielding.
  When I was in middle school, we had a textbook for U.S. Government, 
and it showed our debt. The line went up and the line went down over 
administrations. It spiked in World War II. It was coming down in the 
nineties. This is the debt, mind you, not the deficit, the debt. There 
was a little dotted line anticipating we would have the debt fully paid 
off by, I think, 2002.
  Now, some things got in the way around the turn of the millennium, 
and that number has spiked. Now, we are at those World War II highs.
  As many of my colleagues have alluded to, this is a bipartisan 
affliction. Deficit spending knows no party preference. But the idea 
that, in just a few short years, we tripled that debt--well, added 50 
percent, went from $20 trillion to $30 trillion, $5 trillion of that in 
the last 2 years alone.
  We were facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Those were dark and frightening 
days, and this body reacted swiftly, reacted in good faith. Yet, the 
good faith became a good excuse to just keep spending, keep spending, 
keep going. That catches up.
  The inflation that we are experiencing right now has many fathers. 
You have the challenges of unwinding over a decade of quantitative 
easing, and that money printer just rolling on and on.
  We have the American Rescue Plan, which many of us in this body, 
probably many of us here behind me tonight, were warning about the 
inflationary impacts that were dismissed at the time, except for a few 
brave economists on the left. Larry Summers was pointing that out, but 
we just kept going.
  Now, the American people, the consumers, are feeling that impact. 
They see it every time they drive past the gas station.
  I just filled up my gas tank. For the first time, it cost me over 
$100. That has never been the case. I know many who have more than a 
20-gallon tank are experiencing that even worse.
  The question on behalf of constituents we talk to is: What are you 
going to do? What are you going to do in Congress about this?
  The challenge is inflation, debt spending. These are challenging 
issues, right? You can't put the genie back in the bottle. I mean, 
maybe we could accelerate the creation of a time machine and go back 
and show what occurred and what the consequences were of those 
policies, come back into this body to February 2021 with the American 
Rescue Plan, or even go back to when that middle school textbook I had 
was written, showing the dangers.
  But just in the time I have been here, our cost to service the debt, 
that 10-year Treasury bond, has tripled in terms of what this impact 
will be on us fiscally.
  We talk about the budgets that we pass, that spending. That is only a 
third of how much money is going out the door.
  I applaud my colleagues who are working on the TRUST Act and other 
efforts to just come to some bipartisan consensus because this will be 
something that impacts all generations.
  I am acutely aware of that, looking at young families and the burden 
this is putting on them, and just how much that debt very rapidly is 
going to be a long-term drag on our fiscal growth, on our economic 
vitality that underpins our standing in the world and our position as a 
superpower.
  If we don't get that house in order and get it in order fast, and 
start laying down the groundwork--it doesn't have to be bold right 
away. It will need to be bold eventually. But, by golly, we need to 
start heading down that right path and that right path soon.

  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan, my 
friend, for his comments. I am, again, proud to serve with him, and he 
brings such reason and common sense. He is right to say that it is not 
a partisan issue and that the debt and those things that have led to 
this massive $30 trillion, over 120 percent of the size of our entire 
economy, exceeding World War II with our entire debt--and by the way, 
in peacetime. He is right.
  We have to have an honest conversation with ourselves before we have 
an honest conversation with the American people, and both parties have 
contributed to this mess. Until we decide to accept that and take 
ownership of it, we will never lead us to the path of restoring that 
responsibility, that good footing, and the prospects of having saved 
this country and our children and grandchildren from the disastrous, 
calamitous future if we don't. I appreciate his approach to it.
  We are reaching out to our colleagues, our Democrat colleagues, to 
fix some of these broken systems, the perverse incentives that let us 
get away with this reckless and irresponsible process that we call 
budget and appropriations. Nowhere else in the world can you do what we 
do.
  But the results are indisputable. You get a broken process, a 
dysfunctional system like we have, and you are going to get broken 
outcomes.
  Look no further than the debt clock, and look no further than CBO's 
10-year forecast: $16 trillion more over the next 10 years of just the 
public debt. It went from almost a trillion in annual deficits leading 
up to COVID, and now the average will be $1.6 trillion in annual 
deficits over the next 10 years, leading up to 2032, where we will have 
$2.3 trillion in annual deficits. The interest we pay on the debt just 
to service them, think about this.

                              {time}  2100

  We will spend more to service the debt to pay the interest, which you 
get nothing for. You get no infrastructure. You don't get a farm bill 
with strengthening of the food supply. You don't get a better or bigger 
army to put on the field against the threats around the globe.
  We will see a tripling of the interest payments that will exceed in 
10 years, cumulative, over $8 trillion, but the annual amount will 
exceed what we spend on national defense. We get nothing for this 
interest. It is the largest growing mandatory spending item in the 
budget.
  Woe to the country if we don't take a hard look in the mirror and if 
we don't decide to muster the political courage to take this on for the 
sake of our kids and for the sake of our country.
  Now, one of my closest friends in Congress who claims to come from a 
State that does more agriculture than the Lone Star State, which 
already discredits him from the outset, but I don't want to see the 
numbers because I would be afraid if he were right. I would be afraid 
to go back to Texas. We are just going to say Texas is bigger in every 
way, including ag production.

[[Page H5479]]

  He is a Ways and Means Committee member, and this guy, he is 
passionate about our debt, our deficits, and getting our fiscal house 
in order. He is going to be helping lead the charge in the 118th 
Congress when the people, I pray, give our conference, Republicans, a 
chance to prove that we are serious on this: Ron Estes from the great 
State of Kansas.
  Mr. ESTES. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Arrington, for 
hosting this very important hour on this very important topic. I will 
concede that Texas is bigger geographically than Kansas and several 
other States as well.
  You know, it is important that we talk about this important issue, 
and I really appreciate the work that he does, and I appreciate serving 
with him on the Ways and Means Committee on so many of the important 
issues that we have to address for our country.
  Madam Speaker, tonight, as many Americans put their kids to bed, they 
are checking their schedules for the next day and doing a quick review 
of the bank accounts. They are deeply concerned about how they are 
going to be able to live with the crushing price increases in Joe 
Biden's America.
  We are talking a lot about the debt tonight. We are talking about, 
you know, how do you afford to make your payments on the issues that 
you have to address today? But also, how do you have to plan for the 
future, knowing how that debt is going to weigh down on people, weigh 
down on Americans, weigh down on them as individuals, but also weigh 
down on their kids and grandkids?
  You know, there is a lot of noise that happens in this bubble we call 
Washington, D.C., but everyday Americans have the same top concerns 
about the economy and rising prices.
  In fact, it has been a top concern for months now. Even last year 
during a townhall in October, 98 percent of the respondents said that 
they had seen an increase in the cost of regular necessities.
  Last week, I had an opportunity to speak with Treasury Secretary 
Janet Yellen about why it is taking the administration so long to 
recognize inflation as a problem. She complained about other challenges 
the Biden administration faced in January of 2021.
  Let's look at what really has happened over the last 18 months. When 
President Biden took office, he was met with a growing economy that was 
already recovering from a global pandemic. We were already seeing the 
debt being addressed and starting to work in that direction.
  The COVID vaccine that had been developed from Operation Warp Speed 
was being distributed around the world, as well as throughout the 
United States. We were actually starting to see inflation stabilized at 
a mere 1.4 percent, and filling up your gas tank only cost $2.39, 
thanks to American energy independence.
  Despite all the pandemic-related challenges that Americans have gone 
through over the past year; consumer sentiment was relatively high at 
79. But after a year of total Democrat control in the city, Americans 
no longer have a positive outlook on the economy.
  Our economy shrank in the first quarter. Americans are paying more 
for everything they buy on a regular basis. Gas has skyrocketed to an 
average above $5 per gallon, and consumer sentiment has dropped to a 
record low of 50.2. It is bad news for our country.
  Joe Biden and the Democrat policies are taking away the prosperity 
and the American Dream from families and small businesses across the 
country.
  You know, on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a 
staggering higher-than-expected inflation rate of 8.6 percent, but that 
is the year-over-year number. It really doesn't show the impact of 
inflation that has come up during the Biden administration, what a lot 
of people are calling Bidenflation.
  If we go back to January of 2021 when President Biden took office, we 
can see that month-over-month inflation is actually up a cumulative 
11.4 percent. Think about that. If you bought something in January of 
2021, it now costs 11.4 percent more than it did.
  That is a marketplace average. Some products have been a whole lot 
higher than that. You see it in gas. You see it in meat, bacon, and 
milk.
  Now, what does that mean for the average American? We are looking at, 
for the average American household, an additional $635 in monthly 
costs. As you can see, prices have continued to climb for American 
families each month, meaning that on average, each household has 
already paid an additional $5,000 for these failed policies under the 
Biden administration. Even if inflation stays the same, households will 
pay an additional $7,620 over the next 12 months.
  My Republican colleagues and I understand how devastating this is for 
Americans. We warned for months that kneecapping American energy 
production, while flooding the economy with Federal dollars and deficit 
spending, would create runaway inflation, as it has.
  Today, right now, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle could 
ease the burden on families by encouraging American energy production 
and stopping their pursuit of Big Government spending sprees. We would 
have a stronger economy and a stronger America through energy 
independence, an ability to balance the Federal budget, and a smaller 
government.

  These are the keys that will reverse course on a disastrous economy, 
and I would encourage my colleagues in the majority to disband this far 
left, extreme agenda to face the crisis they have created.
  As we have talked about tonight, the debt continues to increase, and 
we need to focus on that. We need to focus on lowering the amount of 
``free stuff'' that comes out of the United States Government and focus 
on what we need to do to help everyday Americans with the things that 
they go through and things that they have to deal with, their families 
and their small businesses.
  Again, I would like to close in thanking my friend, Jodey Arrington, 
for hosting this so that we can talk about, you know, the fiscal state 
of the country and what the problems are that we have to address going 
forward.
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I couldn't be more proud to serve 
alongside of Ron Estes. The people of Kansas are well served, letting 
him be their voice in the people's House.
  You mentioned the disastrous economic plan and policies of this 
administration. It is hard to believe what you didn't mention that this 
President and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle somehow 
think that the largest tax-and-spend bill is the solution. More 
spending. More spending. More flooding the market with Federal moneys. 
More expansion of welfare without work.
  We all want to take care of those folks who are working hard and 
still struggling. But, for example, the refundable tax credit, child 
tax credit, where we would be paying thousands of dollars per child, 
per person, with no requirement to work, to contribute, to have 
ownership in this society, it is reckless.
  And, quite frankly, it is heartless because those policies trap 
people in poverty. They don't lift them out. They trap them in a life 
of dependency on the government.
  We want Americans to be the very best that God has created them to be 
and have the best quality of life and a chance for a better life for 
their families. I thank my friend from Kansas.
  I am reminded of some great warnings from our wise Founders. Ben 
Franklin said, `` . . . when you run into debt; you give another power 
over your liberty.'' We are talking about robbing our children of their 
freedom, not just their economic opportunity and future prosperity.
  Thomas Jefferson said, ``To preserve our independence, we must not 
let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.'' Warning after warning.
  One of my favorites, our great father of this country, our first 
President, Commander in Chief George Washington, in his farewell 
address--think about it, penning a relatively short set of remarks, not 
only for those of his time, but for posterity, for future leaders of 
the greatest country in the world.

                              {time}  2110

  He gave three major warnings. He said: Be careful of foreign 
influence, be careful of the factions that will divide you within our 
own country, weakening our bonds of unity, as I stand under the ``e 
pluribus unum'' motto, out of many one, that unifying spirit that made 
this country exceptional.

[[Page H5480]]

  But he warned about fiscal irresponsibility, and just to paraphrase, 
he said: We must avoid the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning 
occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to 
discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not 
ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden, which we ourselves 
ought to bear.
  I mean, we are ungenerously throwing upon posterity a burden of debt 
that we are not willing to bear. We are not willing to take the tough 
votes and pay for this and reduce our debt and deficit spending and 
give the next generation a chance, a fighting chance to have what we 
have had in this great country.
  I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cloud), another freedom-
fighting Texan who serves the coastal communities in the Lone Star 
State, Oversight and Reform Committee member and proud Texan, the lone 
Texan on the Agriculture Committee. I have tremendous respect for him 
and his love for freedom, his love for the Lord, and his love for the 
people of this great country, from Texas' 27th District.
  Mr. CLOUD. Madam Speaker, I thank Jodey for putting this together. I 
have enjoyed sitting with him in many of the meetings that he has 
called to work on fiscal responsibility, reaching across the aisle to 
see about having those important conversations, realizing the heavy 
task ahead of us, but also how important it is that we take it on.
  We are $30 trillion in debt. I like how Jodey framed it because $30 
trillion is a hard number for us to grasp, but the idea that it is a 
deferred tax on our kids, it is nothing that we will have to pay, but 
it is a burden we are passing on to our kids in the name of spending 
today.
  Right now what we see happening in our Nation is families are 
struggling with inflation, inflation, and inflation. Right now many 
families are having to make the choice between food and fuel. You have 
families on a fixed income who suddenly their money doesn't go as far 
as it went, and they are having to make tough choices, sometimes 
between medicine and food.
  You have others who have saved their whole life, worked their whole 
life, thinking their money would stretch a certain distance, and 
suddenly their life savings is not worth what it was.
  The Washington solution, of course, has been to spend more money, 
exacerbate the problem, put more money out there that causes more and 
more and more inflation. Typically what we see happen from big-spending 
politicians is they try to get away with selling this idea to the 
American people that their personal compassion is defined by how much 
of other people's money we give away.
  That is the most absurd notion, the fact that we could spend other 
people's money and somehow go back to the American people and say, How 
much do I care about you? It is not our money to spend. Real compassion 
would be doing the due diligence to make sure that we are not just 
voting on a bill that has some warm and fuzzy title but that we are 
doing the due diligence to make sure that it is actually accomplishing 
the objectives it was set forth to do.
  When we start a program or we start an agency, we come back and we 
check and we see, are they meeting their benchmarks, are they actually 
accomplishing it? A lot of times in Congress we will pass a bill out of 
the best of intentions and find out later on that it is actually doing 
the opposite of what we intended it to do.
  Right now in Washington if you try to get a straight answer on how 
many programs or agencies exist in Washington, in our Federal 
bureaucracy, it is hard to get a straight answer, much less to know 
whether they are doing a good job or not, whether we are being wise 
with the taxpayer dollar or not.
  This is one reason I have authored and introduced here the Federal 
Sunset Commission Act. We have one in Texas. It has been effective at 
helping rein in government. It would bring every agency, every program 
before a commission and review it to see if it is something we should 
keep doing. Maybe there are a couple programs that are similar that we 
can consolidate, make them more efficient. Maybe there are some things 
that are just not accomplishing what they were set out to do. They may 
have been put out there with the best of intentions, but we need to 
stop it and give the taxpayer back their taxpayer dollars.
  You know, when you study how nations rise and fall throughout 
history, usually they crumble from within. Right now that is where we 
are at in the United States. We are not so much in danger of some 
invading force coming across our borders, but we have not been diligent 
to spend wisely. We have been irresponsible.
  We are the world's reserve currency, but we have not acted like the 
world's reserve currency. If we are not careful, we will lose that very 
important standing that has helped us have the freedom and prosperity 
and, frankly, to be a light, to be a city on a hill, to be a nation 
that advances freedom and liberty not only here at home but, frankly, 
across the world.
  Some years ago, it was actually under the Bush administration, there 
was an intelligence report that came out that said basically the 
greatest transfer in all of history of wealth and power is happening 
right now from the Western countries to the Eastern countries. They 
said it was almost inevitable. It was a virtual certainty is the way it 
was phrased that this transition would happen.
  They said it was happening for two reasons. They said it was 
happening because we are sending oil and gas revenues overseas and we 
are sending manufacturing overseas. So basically the elites were taking 
the wealth and hard work of the American worker and sending it to 
nations that have our not best interests in mind. And they call that 
good, sound policy.

  They said it was virtually inevitable. Well, in the last 
administration, we saw that we could, indeed, bring those oil and gas 
revenues back. We saw that actually brought peace and security to the 
world. We saw that we could begin to bring manufacturing back.
  If we release the American worker to do their job, to innovate, they 
can meet the challenges of the supply chain we face now. Let's get 
government out of the way and let them do their best work.
  There is a story in Scripture of a good king Hezekiah, and history 
will record that he was a good king, but later on in life he made a big 
mistake. He invited an enemy country to come see the storehouses, to 
see where the temple treasuries were, to see where all the gold and 
weapons were stored up. A prophet came to him a couple days later, and 
he said, guess what, everything that your ancestors have stored up will 
be taken away one day because of what you just did. And that was a 
tragic thing to hear. But what was even more tragic was his response 
when he said: Well, what you are saying is good because at least it 
will not happen in my lifetime.
  We have too many people in this House who when it comes to 
legislation are willing to sugarcoat, willing to acquiesce, willing to 
vote on that good and fuzzy bill because they know that the damage will 
not come in their lifetime, it won't come in their political career.
  We have got to do what is right by the American people; do what is 
right for generations to come; and do what we need to do to save this 
great bastion of hope and freedom for the world, the United States of 
America. Thank you for hosting this. God bless you.
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, wow, I have to really hold back here 
because I have other colleagues that have important things to say, but 
when I listen to my friend   Michael Cloud, I am inspired because he is 
a man driven by conviction. I have watched him, and I admire his drive 
for truth, his seeking out what is best for the country. That is his 
measuring stick.
  In an institution full of so much baloney and so many, pardon me, 
partisan hacks, it is nice to have somebody that just says, I want to 
do right by the Constitution, my constituents, and my kids. And that is 
what drives   Michael Cloud. I am proud to serve with Representative 
Cloud. I thank him for joining us for this discussion.
  We have another Kansan. I think we have had three Texans and two 
Kansans, so we are still winning, we are still up one. Tracey Mann is a 
new Member of Congress but not new to public service. He has led his 
great State as Lieutenant Governor.

[[Page H5481]]

  Now, he might boast more wheat and sorghum there in his district, but 
he will never be able to produce more cotton than Texas 19. I love that 
he is a champion for our producers, our ag producers, and I love that 
he is equally concerned about making sure we live within our means, we 
rein in our spending, and we reduce our national debt and get back to 
the fiscal footing that we all have confidence will be a gift, not a 
curse, and that we will, in fact, reverse the curse.
  We are going to get a chance in the next term. God willing, I think 
the people are going to give us the chance to lead. And lead we must, 
which will require courage, and I know you have it.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Mann), from 
the First District of Kansas.

                              {time}  2120

  Mr. MANN. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Arrington for doing this 
tonight. I thank him for being such a champion and continuing to raise 
this issue, which is incredibly important to all of the Midwest, the 
West Coast, the East Coast, our entire country, vitally important.
  I enjoyed the trip to west Texas the other day, and, yes, they grow 
more cotton than we do in Kansas, without a doubt.
  As mentioned already, we are more than $30 trillion in debt. We have 
added almost $6 trillion in the last 2\1/2\ years, mostly in the name 
of COVID. We spent more money in the name of fighting COVID than we 
spent to win World War II, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Let that sink 
in. It is absolutely mind-blowing.
  The debt is now $92,000 per American. For every American, your share 
of the American debt is $92,000. For my wife and four kids, our 
family's share is $552,000.
  When you rack up this kind of debt, you really only have two choices. 
When you spend out of your means, you can pass it on in debt or you can 
raise taxes. I am really concerned with the potential tax increases 
that this out-of-control spending will lead to.
  That is why I rise today, because America is facing an economic 
crisis, and Democrat leaders are failing to provide the American people 
with any real solutions. Instead, they are just making things worse. 
Two aspects of this administration's budget proposal will cause 
irreparable harm to the economy and health of rural America.
  House Democrats, for their part, want to distract the Federal Reserve 
with social policy while inflation is at a 40-year high. We have to 
solve this problem by decreasing spending, not by increasing taxes.
  In America today, farmers, ranchers, and ag producers are coping with 
problems that this administration has caused, like a broken supply 
chain, rampant inflation, and labor shortages. Now, the administration 
is threatening the stepped-up basis again and seeking to impose new 
capital gains taxes on the people who feed, fuel, and clothe us all. 
When the assets of family farms transfer to the next generation, the 
Federal Government should not jump in and impose taxes on the 
unrealized gain of these assets to pay for this out-of-control 
spending. This principle is called the stepped-up basis. It has a long 
precedent in the tax code, and President Biden wants to dismantle it to 
pay for all of this spending.
  Adding insult to injury, the President's budget imposes capital gains 
taxes on farms that have been in families for more than 90 years. Think 
about that. In 1940, the average cost of Kansas farmland was $50 an 
acre. Now, irrigated land is over $4,000 per acre. Imagine the capital 
gains tax implications on that history of ownership. This proposal 
would impose hundreds of thousands of dollars in new capital gains 
taxes on farmers, killing most farms overnight.
  In March, I introduced a bipartisan resolution, along with 82 of my 
colleagues, that supports the preservation of the stepped-up basis and 
opposes any efforts to impose new taxes on family farms and small 
businesses.
  The President's budget is an attempt to extort money from rural 
Americans to pay for his party's Big Government, socialist spending 
spree. The farm-killer tax and the elimination of the stepped-up basis 
aren't game changers for American family farms; they are game enders. 
Congress owes unwavering support to the American farmers, ranchers, and 
ag producers.
  A few days ago, the Department of Labor released yet another report 
of record-breaking inflation for the month of May, the highest in over 
40 years. House Democrats are responding this week by forcing a vote on 
a bill that would handcuff the Federal Reserve and force them to focus 
on social policy in addition to their statutory mandates of fighting 
high inflation and dealing with the unemployment rate, the missions for 
which the Federal Reserve was created. As if the economists at the Fed 
don't have enough to worry about, House Democrats now want to assign 
them the task of setting social policy. Unbelievable.
  President Biden and Washington Democrats are completely out of touch 
with the American people on this issue of inflation, and they are out 
of touch with the needs of rural Americans. They need to wake up to 
reality and get to work on providing real solutions to the problems 
that Americans are facing.
  Record spending and debt will lead to America's demise, and we cannot 
allow that to happen under our watch.
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Mann for 
bringing up the stepped-up basis repeal. Republicans didn't get a vote 
in this largest tax-and-spending bill that was called Build Back 
Better, that some have not so affectionately referred to as build back 
broke. Really, it adds, even according to CBO, trillions of dollars in 
new debt.
  Worst of all, the Democrats negotiated some of these provisions out 
before they passed it out of the House. One of them was the repeal of 
the stepped-up basis. Then, this President puts it back in the ``Green 
Book'' and says to the American farmers and ranchers, who put food on 
the table and give us food security, which is national security--we 
talk about energy independence; you wait until the pain is felt by the 
food shortage, a whole other level of concern when it comes to supply 
chain. Less than 1 percent, a fraction of a percent, we spend as a 
nation to have ag independence and have a stable ag economy through 
farm policies and a farm bill. This stepped-up basis, as I told 
Secretary Yellen, would create the largest fire sale of farm assets in 
the history of our country.
  Farmers are cash poor. If the next generation of farmers inherits a 
death tax, after paying taxes out the wazoo on every level--income, 
sales, franchise, you name it, they have paid it. It is an unfair, un-
American double tax, and they don't have the cash for it. It amounts to 
selling off the family farm because the vast majority will be forced to 
do that to pay more taxes.

  Mr. MANN. Which will lead to hungry Americans. When you are well fed, 
you have a lot of problems. When you are not well fed, you have one 
problem.
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Amen.
  Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Mann for his contributions to 
this important conversation with the American people.
  I am proud to have also met and befriended a gentleman from the great 
State of Utah. The first time we met, I talked about this bipartisan 
effort to get at the root causes of this broken budget process and 
reach across the aisle and simply force us, through the right 
incentives, to be responsible stewards, to get budgets out on time with 
budget outcomes that would reduce the debt. I remember that 
Representative Moore lit up at that dinner meeting and said: Sign me 
up.
  Ever since then, he has been on a mission. He has worked with his 
constituents, put a task force together. He is prepared, as he looks at 
joining the Ways and Means Committee, which, by the way, when you look 
at 70 percent of our budget on auto-spend--that is, entitlement, 
mandatory programs. The vast majority of those, certainly the big 
drivers of our debt, are under the auspices and the authority and 
jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee. I will heartily welcome 
him to the team in that regard. I appreciate his passion for this 
issue.
  Again, we will get an opportunity to serve and lead and govern, and 
we are going to need people like him to not only sound the alarm but 
assemble the team of people, the coalition of the willing, on both 
sides of the aisle, to do the right thing by the American people.

[[Page H5482]]

  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Moore), who 
represents Utah's First District.
  Mr. MOORE of Utah. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Arrington 
for yielding. I am so appreciative that he brought up the night that we 
broke bread and the excitement that I had. I did, I lit up knowing that 
there was a real concerted effort to be able to forge a path forward to 
solve our Nation's biggest problem.
  Make no mistake: This is our Nation's biggest problem. This is a 
national security threat. This is something that affects every single 
American. I am looking forward, and I owe it to every constituent, to 
make sure that I am working on solving the problem.

                              {time}  2130

  I will not go back every couple years when we run for reelection and 
complain about how much debt we have. I put the task force together so 
I could explain where we are at, what the ideal State looks like, what 
it should look like, what we need to strive for, and what are some 
near-term recommendations for us to be able to accomplish.
  You heard from Representative Cloud. I have a provision that he put 
forth. I have numerous workforce ideas. We have 11 million jobs. That 
is a participation rate that would create an enormous amount of revenue 
if we could get all of those jobs filled.
  We have the opportunity ahead of us. There is a strong bipartisan 
collaboration going on led with your motivation, and I believe in it, 
and I am willing to work tirelessly because it is our Nation's biggest 
problem.
  Among all my comments today, what I want to make sure that I 
highlight is that we have to look at the data at what works. We have to 
look in 2017--didn't solve every problem; we still have a spending 
issue that Republicans weren't able to address with the Tax Cuts and 
Jobs Act, but it got our taxes on a globally competitive scale. That 
allowed for us to keep companies and workers here in America, growing 
the economy, growing that revenue that is needed so badly.
  What we did in 2017 was actually empowering Americans. What we have 
done in 2021--I greatly fear is what President Biden and the 
administration has focused on--is empowering government. In 2017 we 
empowered Americans. We empowered ingenuity. We empowered that to drive 
us forward. And in the last year we have been empowering government. 
The massive amount of government spending has directly led to the 
inflation that we are seeing today.
  Few things impact the lives of our constituents as directly as the 
state of our economy. Utahns I know are desperately hurting. Grocery 
prices are out of whack. Gas prices--I will talk about that--they 
continue to skyrocket, reaching $5. I filled up for $5, the national 
average, in Utah, and it is predicted we could be at $6 a gallon in 
July.
  The Biden administration's blatant economic mismanagement has put us 
on the precipice of a recession. We are seeing the effects of that. The 
indicators are already there. From the Consumer Price Index to the 
stock market to confidence indicators. We are seeing a recession come 
about as we have to raise interest rates to solve the self-inflicted 
mess that was created a year and a half ago when Democrats put in the 
American Rescue Plan masqueraded as the COVID bill, suppressed our 
workforce and rampant inflation. This has been mishandled at every 
turn.
  The administration claimed that inflation posed a small risk and that 
the effects would be short lived, but Friday's Consumer Price Index 
report, which stated that the price of goods has increased 8.6 percent 
in the last 12 months, validated what I have been hearing for months 
from my constituents, that inflation is hurting us, and it isn't going 
away.
  Due to inflation, the average household pays an additional $460 per 
month for the same goods and services that they purchased just a year 
ago at this time.
  Last month, we experienced the highest inflation in 40 years, yet 
again breaking the Biden administration's inflation records.
  Republicans sounded the alarm last year when Democrats in Congress 
rammed through trillions in partisan spending priorities. According to 
the Congressional Budget Office's ``May 2022 Budget and Economic 
Outlook,'' over the next 10 years our total deficits will equal $15 
trillion with a deficit of $2.3 trillion in 2030 alone.
  This isn't free money. Sooner or later, reckless spending like this 
will force tax increases on hardworking Americans. Inflation is already 
a tax on hardworking, lower-income Americans that we say we are trying 
to help, and it does not help. That is an extra $460 a month on 
average.
  To reverse our poor economic outlook, I organized a debt and deficit 
task force, and I already spoke about that a little bit, but it is with 
a group of really concerned citizens. These are experts in their field, 
across industry, a group of people that want to do this because they 
have fear, they have seen this in their lifetime with stagflation 
before, and they want to be a part of this and advise me in my role and 
how I can share that with all of my colleagues in Congress to be able 
to do four simple things: Grow the economy; save and strengthen vital 
programs; focus America's spending; and fix Congress' budgeting 
process. That fourth piece is something that we have to come together 
on immediately, and I know there is bipartisan support to be able to do 
that.
  This task force will continue to develop a clear vision for how we 
can best bring Utah's fiscally sound policies to Washington to relieve 
inflationary pressure on hardworking families. I will continue to share 
our framework of solutions with my colleagues in Congress.
  The United States has a flexible economy with a wealth of natural 
resources and competitive demographics. We are the envy of the world, 
and we need to continue to remain the envy of the world.
  For the sake of each and every Utah family, we must get our fiscal 
house in order. Our plan will help do just that. I sincerely thank the 
gentleman from Texas for the encouragement. As I entered into Congress 
to find a niche of something that I am so passionate about, I will 
continue to beat this drum until we make it work.
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah (Mr. 
Moore), beating the drum and sounding the alarm is a big part of it. I 
think at some point it is hard to calculate and get your mind around 
the trillions of dollars that are amassing.
  We have added $7 trillion in additional debt since COVID alone. And 
what happens, I believe, is when you do that and there is no 
consequence, there is no trade-off, we are not hitting them in the 
pocketbook saying, we need more of your hard-earned dollars to pay for 
this stuff, and we are not cutting the favorite programs of our fellow 
Americans, so there is no pain.

  Mr. MOORE of Utah. Moral hazard.
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Moral hazard. We are sleepwalking off the cliff. The 
problem with this crisis is, as I said, when Humpty Dumpty falls and 
shatters it is going to be difficult to put him and the exceptional 
nature and the superpower leadership of this great country back 
together. There is just not a lot of time and heads up and warning 
before you go over the precipice.
  It is incumbent on us, as young fathers and young family men, to be 
able to take this on head-on with the courage that our Founders had who 
gave birth to this great country.
  Madam Speaker, I hear you rattling the gavel, so God bless America, 
and I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________