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. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, my thanks to the ranking member for the time.
Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this package of appropriations bills.
As the ranking member of the Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, I have great respect for my colleague, Chairman Mike Quigley. We work well together, and that is saying something because he is a Cubs fan, and I am a Cardinal fan.
The bill we are debating today, Madam Speaker, is packed with unjustifiable spending and ignores our unsustainable fiscal trajectory.
In light of unprecedented pandemic spending, it was my hope that this fiscal year we would prioritize making the tough choices necessary to chart a responsible fiscal path forward. Instead, the Financial Services division of the bill proposes a 20 percent increase in discretionary spending over fiscal year 2021 and numerous agencies funded receive a double-digit percentage increase over last year.
Those numbers are unconscionable, Madam Speaker, when you consider the fact that this country is well over $28 trillion in debt.
I noted with interest the comments of the overall chairwoman when she talked about the moral test of government. Madam Speaker, to me the moral test of government is for us to do our work and to take care of the urgent needs of our country, but not burden future generations in the course of doing so.
Furthermore, my colleagues on the other side continue to call for trillions in new government spending, and a new GAO report came out just recently that says more than $1 trillion of the spending that we have commissioned through the coronavirus phenomenon remains unspent. Not just that, this spending has created an inflationary spiral that is affecting every taxpayer budget in my district.
There are also several controversial policy changes included in the FSGG division, such as allowing D.C. tax dollars to fund abortions and removing the prohibition on Federal employee health benefits funding for abortions. These policy changes are no-goes and make this bill and minibus, as a whole, dead in the water.
Again, I oppose this package of appropriations, including the Financial Services division due to the radical increases in spending and these partisan policies.
But, Madam Speaker, I do look forward to working across the aisle with both my counterparts in the House and in the Senate to come up with a bill and a compromise that will actually work for America.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Hern), my friend from Tulsa.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry), the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), who is all the way from Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina, the ranking member on the Education and Labor Committee.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Boebert), a freshman from Silt, Colorado.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) from Columbus, Indiana, and a respected member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on both sides.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen), my friend who serves on the Agriculture and Education and Labor Committees, from a city unlike any other, Augusta, Georgia.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Hern).
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, you have heard from Members of Congress from all across our country, and there was a purpose in me identifying their hometowns.
These are people who represent real American lives, and they are in touch with their constituents on a daily basis, in Augusta, Georgia; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina; Silt, Colorado; Lincoln, Nebraska; Columbus, Indiana; and in my hometown of Rogers, Arkansas. They all understand when the Federal Government is on a spending spree because they feel it in their own pockets.
We are feeling it today with unrivaled inflation that is the result of trillions of dollars of taxpayer money flowing into this economy. The money that is going to the cities and counties, it was so much money that we had to do it in two tranches. Some of it has gone out this year, but there is so much that we have to wait until next year to send out the remaining $185 billion or so--money that these counties and cities didn't ask for and, in many cases, don't even need. In fact, they are taking suggestions on how best to spend it.
Yet, here we are today, talking about a bloated discretionary bill that is going to further burden future generations by adding to deficits and debt.
Madam Speaker, the interest on our debt this year is going to approach $350 billion. Let me say that again: $350 billion net interest on the debt, which would pay for more than half of the titles that we are debating here today of around $600 billion.
Madam Speaker, I urge support of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and rise in opposition for a number of reasons, some of which we will detail in a more articulate way here as the debate continues. But suffice it to say that we have thrown a lot of money at the economy of the United States of America. While I realize that part of our function in government is to fund the discretionary programs of the U.S. Government--and that is an important function of our Committee on Appropriations--we have seen the other side take the opportunity to capitalize on a real crisis moment in our country, that being the coronavirus phenomenon.
Trillions and trillions of dollars have gone out the door, fueling inflation and creating real problems for people at home who are experiencing rising costs in virtually everything that a consumer would purchase, from gasoline to groceries. You name it, those costs are escalating.
It is not for any reason other than the fact that we have poured trillions and trillions of dollars into the economy while at the same time these very same policies have caused a lot of people not to work. We have incentivized this notion that they could stay at home and made it more lucrative than actually going to work.
The people that we are going to ask to make things, build things, and produce things are the very people that haven't been functioning. As a result of that, the supply chain has been weakened. So, now, because of simple supply and demand, there are fewer products, and those products are going higher. As I say, simple supply and demand philosophies.
But here we are today, basically adding about 20 percent across the spectrum of these seven titles of discretionary budget. A lot of these are very, very good programs, programs that we have all supported in the past. But with the amount of money that has gone to the coronavirus phenomenon, and the fact that a lot of that money has not been spent--I think the report this week by the GAO was $1 trillion of unobligated funds out of coronavirus. Here we are, adding insult to injury by compounding the problem by adding more to the nondefense discretionary side of the budget.
Now, we will reserve the argument for a little later on what we are doing to national security by not pumping dollars into national security against the known threats that we have around the country. But as I said, we will save that argument for another day.
We are going to argue and continue to argue that this is spending way too much money. The American people know that. That is why there has to be an adult voice in the room to bring these subjects to the light of day, and that is what our purpose will be today.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa), a distinguished Member--and may I say a freshman Member, although he is a returning Member from before--a respected member of Committees on Foreign Affairs and the Judiciary and the former chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform in the Congress of the United States.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, as a testament to the gentleman's amendment, I am a proud cosponsor of that particular amendment and I am pleased that he has offered such.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good), who is a member of the Budget and Education and Labor Committees.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao).
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), my friend from Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, a general, who is a very respected member of the Foreign Affairs and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I have three amendments that I am asking our colleagues to support. They are bipartisan amendments.
The first is a redirection of $3 million to the Centers for Disease Control for Lyme disease. I would point out to my colleagues that I have been working on Lyme disease issues since 1992, and we tried very hard for years to get a federal working group up and running. And in 2016, we did it.
The Health and Human Services Tick-Borne Disease Working Group found that there are about 300,000 new cases of Lyme every year. The higher estimate or guesstimate is 476,000 cases each year. It is exploding all over this country, particularly in the northeast where the chair, obviously, comes from, as do I. It is highly endemic in New Jersey. This additional money brings the total to $24 million for CDC to work on issues related to Lyme.
Amendment 51, the second amendment, has do with LymeX. It provides $5 million, through give and take, and underscores that we really believe the LymeX Innovation Accelerator will help find new diagnostics, research, and treatments.
What the working group found and then what an NIH document produced by Secretary Azar, and others, found, was that we really don't have a diagnostic that works. We don't have a Lyme testing capability that is reliable and affordable.
And, finally, years ago I founded, along with my good friend and colleague, Mike Doyle, the Autism Caucus. We have been leading it for over 20 years. We have done a number of bills, including the Autism CARES Act, that have become law. Amendment 52 would provide $10 million to help the CDC's developmental disabilities account to expand the Autism Developmental Disability Monitoring Network, or ADDM, and at least nine new sites could be established.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, the ADDM network has been incredible in tracking children and young people to help us understand the prevalence. You can't combat something if there is no solid data. This ADDM network has been a tremendous asset. This amendment would expand it. So I thank my friend for yielding and I thank the committee chair for her support. I thank the Rules Committee for having made the amendments in order. It will make a difference.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I will just take the remaining few seconds of my time just to say this. As an appropriator, I am not a big fan of how all of this is being choreographed and structured, but I also recognize that time is not on our side. People witnessing this event, probably are not real sure what these en blocs are all about, but it is a simple way to save a little bit of time.
Frankly, I think we ought to get back to regular order, where we can have a full-throated debate, an open rule, if you will, and just talk about each one of these very important issues one by one, and truly represent the will of the American people. That is what the Congress is here for. It was what it was built for.
However, I do recognize that given the political circumstances we are in today, and the fact that we don't have a lot of time, that this is what we are left with.
Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the en bloc and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I won't belabor the point that I made a few minutes ago that I am not a big fan of this process, but there does come a time in the process where we come to some agreement on things, and I guess we are at that stage of the game.
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pearland, Texas (Mr. Weber).
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tipton, Michigan, Michigan's Seventh District (Mr. Walberg), a valued and respected member of the Education and Labor and Energy and Commerce Committees.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from San Angelo, Texas (Mr. Pfluger), a very distinguished member of the freshman class of this Congress, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security Committees. I am proud of his service to our country in uniform as a pilot of that F-22.
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Mr. WOMACK. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the distinguished Republican leader of our conference, all the way from Bakersfield, California.
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