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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HERN. Madam Speaker, last year we lost Senator Tom Coburn, a dear friend of mine, and a legend in both this Chamber and across the Capitol for his consistency and dedication to the fiscal responsibility of our country.

Tom taught me so much about the way our government works, about our broken budget process, and about the importance of spending American tax dollars wisely.

It is pretty clear that a lot of my colleagues have forgotten one monumental fact: that the Federal Government has no money of our own. Every dollar comes from the American people.

When we are in this Chamber debating spending another billion here and a trillion there, it doesn't come from some bottomless bank account. It comes from the hardworking American people, and we can never take that for granted.

I have with me today Senator Tom Coburn's black book, an outline of his deficit reduction plan in 2011 to get the United States on track to eliminate our debt and balance the budget.

My colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Lankford, has taken on Tom's mantle as the fiscal hawk of the Senate and now produces a similar report detailing the many, many line items of waste and abuse in the Federal Government.

In his memory, I helmed the Republican Study Committee Budget and Spending Task Force this Congress, and we produced what is still the only budget introduced to the House. My budget is not only a clear path back to black, as my friend Tom would say, it balances in just 5 years.

Our interest costs on the debt alone are expected to nearly triple in the next 10 years, making interest costs the third largest Federal expense behind Social Security and Medicare.

As our spending continues to rise, so, too, do the concerns of our constituents.

Our esteemed majority leader just criticized the Senate on their lack of passing appropriations bills. Speaker Pelosi has often said, ``Show me your budget, and I will show you your values.''

It is alarming to me the Speaker abandoning her responsibilities outlined in the Congressional Budget Act for the third year in a row.

This majority and their leadership do not care about American taxpayers, and they don't care about the fiscal health of this country.

When I came to Congress at the end of 2018, our national debt was $19 trillion. In just 2\1/2\ years, we are quickly approaching $30 trillion. Our debt has grown some 58 percent. Meanwhile, our economic growth has been somewhere around 2 percent.

In the past 12 months, our country has been devastated by COVID-19, both physically, mentally, and financially. With millions of Americans losing their jobs, businesses, or both, they turned to the Federal Government for help.

Since last year, Congress has spent $13.3 trillion of American taxpayers' money on government COVID relief programs. To date only $8.7 trillion of those funds have been spent, leaving us with $4.6 trillion of the American people's money in government bonds.

Pelosi and Biden are spending money as fast as they can without any oversight into the effectiveness of what has already been appropriated.

From day one of the Biden administration, President Biden and Vice President Harris have shown nothing but contempt for the American taxpayer, choosing to increase spending, increase taxes, and destroy jobs across the country. All they have to show for it is rampant inflation and continued unemployment.

What we are looking at today is a drastic expansion of Federal spending across the board. My colleagues across the aisle are throwing money at every Federal department and agency except for the defense of our people, of course.

Flagrant overspending is on the menu today. The Department of Energy will be increased by 7.6 percent; the Department of Interior's budget is expected to expand by some 19 percent; the Department of Labor by 17.6 percent, with $4.2 billion to bolster Biden's unemployment programs, preventing people from returning to work.

HHS is getting a 23 percent expansion, including $110 million to research the impacts of climate change and $400 million in Title X funding, which Planned Parenthood is now eligible for since Democrats are eliminating the Hyde amendment. The Department of Education will receive a staggering 40 percent increase in funding, and it just gets worse from there.

Every penny they spend comes at the cost of the American taxpayers.

When Oklahomans lose their jobs, Democrats will be to blame. When American job creation and wage growth halts, Democrats will be to blame.

That is why today I am offering amendments to each division of this package to do one simple thing: cut spending by 20 percent.

Speaker Pelosi doesn't want fiscal accountability, which is why she piled all these amendments into an en bloc, to ensure none of them pass.

Congress has spent recklessly this past year, and the American people are sick of it.

I want to thank my colleagues who have talked about these amendments, who have joined me in these amendments, who are wanting to speak today, and I urge adoption of this en bloc to rein in Democrats' reckless spending and ensure a fiscally secure future for generations of Americans to come.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HERN. Madam Speaker, I would like to spend my 2 minutes speaking directly to the American people.

We talk a lot in here to each other and about each other and to one another and behind each other's back, but I want to speak to the American people because they are the ones who need to call their Members of Congress. You understand that when you increase budgets 30 to 40 percent, and then my amendments are a 20 percent cut, that somehow that is destroying America? We know better.

You, as the American people, know that you have to create a budget. Your counties create a budget. The cities create a budget. Your States create a budget. The only place in this free United States of America that no budget was created for the last 3 years is here in the United States Congress.

My team on the RSC Budget Committee produced the only budget that was floor-ready for a vote, and the Speaker chose not to put it on the floor.

Why, you ask? Well, I am going to answer the question.

It is because the Democrats didn't want you to see what fiscal accountability and responsibility are.

They didn't put their own budget on the floor when they had control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They could have passed a budget without one single Republican vote. Ask your Member of Congress why they didn't produce a budget.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to be fiscally responsible and accountable to your money, the taxpayer's money.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source