Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, thank you to my friend from the Show Me State and the ranking member and our fearless leader on budget.

Speaking of show me, I would like for somebody to show me why this is good for the American people, Mr. Speaker.

We all want to help our fellow Americans. We all want to help our country get back to its feet from this pandemic and the unintended consequences from government actions, but this resolution is a disaster in and of itself on so many levels, Mr. Speaker.

Let's start with this spirit of unity and peace and bipartisanship. This President, one after another, has taken more executive actions than all three Presidents combined that have killed jobs, that have undermined the security of the American people, and now, the first major legislation is to use reconciliation to ram this through.

This isn't about relief and recovery, Mr. Speaker. This is about a Trojan horse to sneak policies that would not otherwise go anywhere in this Chamber because it couldn't. There are Federal wage mandates, when our small businesses are sucking air trying to get on their feet, make payroll, provide a service. And we want to kill 4 million more jobs. That is a CBO estimate. That is in healthy times. That is in good times.

This isn't a recovery relief bill. It is a massive bailout and a windfall to poorly managed cities and States. My colleagues are asking $350 billion. Census data shows that we have lost State revenue to the tune of $37 billion. What is the $350 billion going to go to, Mr. Speaker? I ask my colleagues.

It is to bail out cities and States with poor management who have been reckless and irresponsible in their behavior and they want the taxpayers to bail them out.

They are asking 10 times the amount of what they need. It is irresponsible. This is a series of bad policies. These are barriers, not incentives, to recovery.

There is $500 billion, a massive redistribution of wealth to people who are unaffected by COVID, to people who are in this country illegally, Mr. Speaker.

This resolution increases the unemployment insurance so that 80 percent of the people are actually being paid more on unemployment than at their previous job. Are you kidding me?

Please, tell me this is not a recovery bill, Mr. Speaker. Look, we don't need another job-killing Federal mandate, reckless spending, liberal, partisan wish list. We need to open up this great country's economy, get our kids back to school, and bring America back.

Please work with us to do that for the sake of this country.

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