Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the recognition, and I want to begin by commending Chairman Cole, his staff, and the Appropriations Committee for the fine work that they have done.

As we are looking at the Labor, HHS, and Education appropriations bill, we are looking at $156 billion for fiscal year 2018. My amendment would cut an additional 1 percent out of that number.

I think it is important to commend the work that they have done over the past couple of years. If you go back and look at the appropriations numbers in 2016, they were at $163.65 billion; 2017, down to $162.985 billion; and this year, at $156 billion.

I think that that work is to be commended. The leadership in this House, the chairman, Chairman Cole, and the work that they are doing is getting us on the right path. It is important that as we as Members of Congress do our job, it is important that we engage the

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rank-and-file employees that are there in these various agencies--over at the Department of Education and at Labor and HHS--and make certain that they are saving that one penny out of a dollar, because we hit a pretty dubious marker this week.

Our national debt now is at $20 trillion, and because of this, because of the responsibility that we have to our children, to our grandchildren, to future generations, because we realize, as Admiral Mullen said on July 6, 2010, the greatest threat to our Nation's security is our Nation's debt, we need to do a little bit more. And, of course, there are always good programs that we can stand here and talk about, and talk about what will not be funded if we do a penny on a dollar.

But the important thing to realize is future generations, my grandchildren that are now 8 and 9 years old, are paying for programs that we are refusing to address the growth in these programs. We are committing money they have not earned, taxes they have not paid, because we are $20 trillion in debt.

It is time to make these changes, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, we do always hear, well, you would take from this or that if you were doing across-the-board cuts. But just to my colleagues who are in the Chamber tonight and those who are watching, across-the-board cuts work at the local level and the State level because you look at that number that you need to hit and you get inside some programs more than others, and you find that penny on the dollar, and you find a way to yield a savings, and you examine what the priorities of a budget ought to be.

That is the heavy lift. And while we are doing it with the work we do here in this Chamber and that the appropriators do, it is important that, just as Governors in our States--both Democratic and Republican Governors, by the way--just as mayors in towns and cities across this country do on a regular basis, and many are doing right now because fiscal years are beginning October 1, just as they do that work, we need to do it.

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Do we need to look at entitlements? Yes, absolutely. I am for putting those issues on the table. I encourage our colleagues and our administration to do that. It is imperative because we are staring $20 trillion in debt. We are staring that in the face.

How do you look at your children and grandchildren and say, ``That is okay. That is okay. Paying for $20 trillion worth of debt is easy''? The answer is you don't, because it is not.

What it takes to address it is will. It takes resolve. It takes cutting back more than you have cut back before and examining programs that are essential. It is time to get serious about this. I encourage support of my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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