Providing for Consideration of H.R. National Apprenticeship Act of Providing for Consideration of H. Con. Res. Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, and we are thrilled that he is on the Budget Committee.

The rule puts in motion a process to spend trillions of dollars on a progressive wish list, all under the appearance of pandemic relief. And for what?

We know all five of the last COVID-related pieces of legislation were done on a bipartisan basis. In the last few days, we have seen a framework from 10 Republican Senators laid out to get to a solution.

The fact that we are moving forward with this process just goes to show that yesterday's White House meeting was just a photo-op for the President.

Sadly, the Democrat majority seems to want to go a partisan route in both the House and Senate because they know there is not a bipartisan consensus in this country for the socialist policies they want to include, giveaways to their base, the far left and the coastal elite.

Just look at what is being discussed by Democrats on how they plan to use the budgeting process known as reconciliation, a mechanism traditionally used to control spending and address the debt. They now talk openly about granting mass amnesty; growing the control government has over your healthcare; adding new burdens, rules, and costs on the very small businesses that they have shut down; and bailing out their political allies whose policies destroyed local economies.

All of this they want to somehow hide from the American people with the label of essential items for pandemic relief.

And the rule we are debating right now rewards this process. It is the first step in allowing Washington Democrats to jam this radical agenda through Congress at lightning speed.

I ask the Chair, where was the rush to help American families when the Speaker was holding up support for direct aid to working-class families all spring, all summer, and all fall, eventually dropping her price tag and objections only after the first Tuesday in November? The first Tuesday in November happens to be election day.

I have always kept one motto in my heart as I approach this job: Put people before politics. Unfortunately, what we are seeing from the Democrats is the exact opposite; it is all politics.

In more than 30 years, a budget has not originated in the House that has not first gone through the committee process. This is truly a first. The Budget Committee has yet to even meet, to organize, to set our rules, and to ratify an agenda of oversight of the new administration.

So why are we standing here right now? Why are we moving ahead like this when the President, in his inaugural address, called for unity and spoke about the power of our example? The answer is simple: So that Democrat leaders can spend more on a bunch of programs, ideas, and systems, which they have dreamed about throwing taxpayer money at since they took control of this Chamber 2 years ago.

Mr. Speaker, I will close with this. The Democrats talk about unification, the need to unify as a Congress and work together, the need to unify as a country and learn to respect one another again for the good of America. But when their actions don't match their words, the value of every word they say from that point forward becomes meaningless.

The actions of the Democrat majority, to start a process which will only end in more divisive partisanship, is the exact opposite of what our country is asking for right now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source