Debt Ceiling

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, America has seen a number of horrendous financial crises before, but none that have so quickly developed as the fiscal crisis this White House created with trillions of dollars' worth of drunken spending and tax proposals in just the first 7 months of control.

The most glaring, almost parody-level, example is the administration's $3.5 trillion and growing, newly labeled, human infrastructure package, which is nothing more than a rosy-sounding title for socialism.

The results of these radical tax-and-spending policies, what are they? A sluggish economy, inflation, and one of the most dramatic expansions of the welfare state in recent history. Recently, the Department of Labor reported that consumer prices climbed for the third straight month, jumping 5 percent in June, the largest increase in 13 years.

Every day, we see inflation impacting hard-working Americans. In fact, this past weekend, we held five townhall meetings in Kansas, and thanks to this administration's economic policies, runaway inflation has replaced COVID at the top of the mountain of concerns for people of my home State.

In Kansas, we are paying more than $1 more per gallon at the gas pump, 40 cents more per gallon of milk, and almost 20 percent more for a home than we were at this time last year. While wages have increased, inflation continues to outpace them by more than two-to-one. I have heard loudly and clearly the concerns from Kansans, and especially from small business owners, the backbone of our economy, about the impact of the Democrats' reckless summer tax-and-spending spree.

One tax proposal, the elimination of stepped-up basis, would be devastating to small businesses and family farms, as that provision allows them to hand down their family business from one generation to the next without paying a costly tax burden.

Under the administration's plan, the average farmer would have a new tax obligation of nearly a quarter of a million dollars, as cropland values in Kansas have risen 220 percent since 1997, not to mention the economy-killing policy of eliminating 1031 exchanges and taxing capital gains at ordinary income levels.

On the spending front, this administration continues to pursue unsustainable and irresponsible spending policies that are actually ruining our economic recovery. Further, they want to increase the debt limit without implementing any spending reforms. This is going to crush our children and grandchildren, leaving their generation to pay for the social sins of this generation.

Instead of getting our fiscal house in order and curbing back on massive government spending, this administration and Democrats in Congress are working to pass trillions more in reckless spending under the guise of infrastructure.

Pre-COVID, we had the greatest economy in my lifetime. That came about because we lowered people's taxes, we lowered regulations, and we lowered energy prices. We need smart, targeted investments, not radical spending that leaves this country at a disadvantage and kills jobs.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source