Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2022

Floor Speech

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Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4502.

I would first like to thank Chairwoman DeLauro and Ranking Member Granger. While we have, obviously, disagreements at this stage of the game, that cannot stop us from working on behalf of the American people.

I also particularly want to thank Chairman Price for his friendship, for his openness and transparency, and for his integrity. He is committed to transparency, which is something that we should all expect from the agencies that we fund.

This bill includes funding and language requests from Members on both sides of the aisle. That was not a small task, but it keeps the best ideas coming forward to improve the way that, again, our government functions, and that is important.

I am pleased that the bill continues investments in our Nation's highways, rails, transit, and airport infrastructure, as well as we continue to make progress improving port infrastructure, which, obviously, is key for our supply chains.

The chairman once again also has made DOT safety programs a priority. Our roads, railways, and skies are safer due to our shared priority on safety.

Chairman Price's commitment to addressing homelessness and housing for the elderly and the disabled is evident in this bill. We share the goal of promoting affordable housing and providing a safety net to our most valuable citizens.

Now, again, while I support and applaud many of the decisions made in this bill, a $9 billion top-line increase, a 13 percent increase over last year, is just something that I cannot support.

Let me give you an example. I am concerned about the dramatic expansion of HUD assistance programs in this bill--well-meaning, but, in part, the problem is that those increases would need to be sustained in future years. This would crowd out our ability to make targeted, responsible transportation and housing investments in future years.

Our national debt exceeds $28 trillion, and it is only going to continue to grow under the majority's approach to spending, not to mention the fact that it seems that this approach is creating a huge, huge increase in inflation. It is an inflation factory that we see.

It is also clear that Members on my side of the aisle have made it clear that we cannot support bills that give excess increases to nondefense agencies, especially while reducing or shortchanging our national defense.

We all know that, to move forward, we need a bipartisan agreement on spending, and the time for that agreement is now so that we can make responsible investments that create jobs and expand opportunity without the dramatic increases that we are seeing in this Nation caused by the spending of the majority.

Again, at this stage, I cannot support the bill.

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