Reclaiming Our Fiscal Future
Floor Speech
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma and appreciate his work on this important matter, and my colleagues on the Republican Study Committee.
I am happy to be working on a task force to advance healthcare freedom, personalized healthcare, the ways that we believe we can get the American people to see the doctor of his or her choice without having to see an insurance bureaucrat or a government bureaucrat and be able to get access to care. And that is all germane, by the way, to this question of spending.
I think it is really important here, and I am going to talk in a minute about how good I believe it is that we have a 5-year balanced budget that the Republican Study Committee has put forward, and proving that it can, in fact, be done.
But let's talk for a minute about the irresponsible budgeting and spending of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
Most Americans hear these large numbers and they don't know how to put them in context. What our national debt is, over $28 trillion. But nobody knows what that means. It doesn't mean anything to the average person. We divide it and we say how much it is per person or family. We got numbers here, $226,000 per taxpayer, $85,000 per citizen. People still don't know what that means.
If you set out to count the roughly $28.2 trillion debt we have now, how long do you think that would take, Madam Speaker? 900,000 years if you counted one per second; one Mississippi. It would take you 900,000 years to count to $28.2 trillion. It is just absurd.
We are literally destroying the fiscal health of our country by the second. We are destroying it by the second. Our children and grandchildren are going to inherit this. But what is the real problem? We are killing our economy in the process. We are killing the American Dream in the process. We are killing small businesses in the process.
We just spent $6 trillion appropriated in the process of spending. $6 trillion in a year in the name of COVID, as my friend from Oklahoma and my other colleagues well know. $6 trillion. Some of that was worthwhile. I think there was some PPP money in there that helps small businesses that I was happy to support, but $6 trillion.
Would it interest the Madam Speaker to know that we spent $4.1 trillion for all of World War II, in current dollars? All of World War II, from the very beginning, from Pearl Harbor all the way to the second bomb in Japan, $4 trillion over 3\1/2\ years.
We just spent $6 trillion in a year, effectively shutting down our economy, scaring the heck out of our children, forcing them to wear masks, shoving them into the corners of the classroom, forcing people not to go to the doctor of their choice, all so that Anthony Fauci could find himself on the cover of another magazine, while perpetuating a whole lot of myths that scare the hell out of the American people. That is just what occurred over the last year.
And what is the impact of that? Well, last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that year over year consumer prices rose 5 percent in May. Has anybody gone to go buy a sheet of plywood? Two times, three times, four times. Anybody talking to the builders in your districts? How is their pipeline looking down the road?
Did anybody go talk to the small restaurants and businesses out there? They are devastated, unable to hire people. Why? Because we are paying people more not to work than to work. How many people do you talk to that are in your district that say, well, I have got a help wanted sign up, but I can't get anybody to work.
How is that going to bring back the economy and bring back jobs and bring back opportunity and bring back prosperity for the American people? And, oh, by the way, how is it ever going to allow us to have any fiscal responsibility as a nation? And that is what we are talking about here.
And we are talking about a plan that Republicans are putting forward. Meanwhile, our Democratic colleagues have not passed a budget. We just had a deeming statement, or whatever it is we adopted, for $1.5 trillion, it just slid in this week. $1.5 trillion. It is like Monopoly money. Nobody even understands what we are doing here.
And so we have got a budget that we put forward that balances in 5 years. Why don't we debate it? For all the C-SPAN viewers out there, look how many people are in the Chamber. About, what, 10 of us. Ten Members, election certificates, in here. Why don't we have a bill on the floor and why don't we debate it?
How many Americans would love to hear that the people's House has not had an amendment offered on the floor of this Chamber since May of 2016 in regular order, an open amendment? Congressman Roy offers an amendment to a bill. Not since May of 2016, 5 years. It is all done in committee and rules and some smoke room in the back up here, just drop down, and we all go up and we vote ``yes'' or ``no'', and then we go out and give speeches. That is no way to govern. The American people know how to balance their own budgets at home. Businesses know how to balance budgets. Yet, this irresponsible government doesn't.
Madam Speaker, I would implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to follow the great work of the Republic Study Committee, and look at the budget that we put forward that balances in 5 years, bring it to the floor of the House, and allow us to have an open debate. Go through the Budget Committee, go to the floor, and actually have a debate about the fiscal health and responsibility of this country so that our kids and grandkids can inherit the greatest country in the world, rather than $30 trillion in debt, and leaving us crippled and unable to carry forward for the good of our country.
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