The Economy
Floor Speech
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Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, Democrats in Washington are playing a high- stakes game with our Nation's finances. Congress just keeps passing bill after bill that adds trillions of dollars in spending to Washington's credit card.
First, there was the $1.9 trillion ``Bidenomics'' stimulus bill that fanned the flames of inflation and paid people not to work. Then there was the $1.2 trillion so-called infrastructure bill that was supposed to be entirely paid for, but wasn't. And now the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that paves the way for passing a wish list of progressive priorities, like the Green New Deal and other pricey partisan pet projects.
You might think the reckless spending spree would have come to a stop after reaching the Nation's debt limit in July. Wrong.
The Democrats are now plotting to suspend the debt limit in order to pass what would be the most expensive bill ever passed by Congress.
This reckless borrowing and spending is driving up the prices of everyday goods as well as our national debt and, if Democrats have their way, the taxes of hard-working Americans, too. With the Federal fiscal year ending in mere days, another trillion-dollar spending bill will probably be rushed through at the last minute to avoid a government shutdown because Congress put off doing its work on time yet again.
The Democrats have their hands full with multiple financial crises, all of their own making, and their solution to each of these is the same--to spend more money we don't have--which only confounds the underlying problems. More spending results in higher taxes, increased prices, and even more debt.
The scenario reminds me of this popular meme of a guy playing UNO, in which the whole aim of the game is to rid your hand of all of your cards. I love this game. I played it as a little girl at my grandma's house. I played UNO with all of my cousins.
OK. So, in the meme, he is seen holding a wildcard that presents him with a choice: Perform an action--in this version, to ``cut unnecessary spending''--or draw another 25 cards from the deck and, most certainly, lose the game.
In the next frame, the man, who represents the Democrats here, is holding a handful of cards because he would rather do anything but what the card actually suggests.
Unfortunately, the consequences of dealing with Washington's budget are much more dire than losing a game of UNO. Instead of drawing cards, the Democrats are selecting to borrow more to finance totally unnecessary and completely indefensible--and often bizarre-- expenditures rather than simply cutting waste out of the budget.
Just like you can't win UNO without getting rid of the cards in your hand, we will never get control of our debt until we discard the waste in Washington's bloated budget. It may sound a bit oversimplified, but it isn't. To demonstrate the point, I brought my own deck of cards with me today.
OK. So these are UNO cards, all right? Every one of these cards lists a current government expenditure and its cost to the taxpayers. Each represents a real choice Congress will make in the coming days. In each scenario, the Democrats are likely to choose taxing and borrowing to pay for the spending rather than to trim the unneeded expenditure. So let's pick a card, any card, and see if that is a good deal for the taxpayers.
So let's see. UNO card No. 1: ``Cut the pork or draw 25.''
After a decades-long moratorium on congressional earmarks, the House of Representatives has revived the corrupt practice of earmarking tax dollars for politicians' pet projects. More than 3,300 earmarks, consisting of $9.3 billion, have been proposed by Members of Congress just this year, which includes purchasing Santa gifts in Indiana and building fish markets in the Virgin Islands. We could save billions by pulling pork off the menu, but the Democrats are going to go with the drawing of 25 more cards instead.
OK, let's try another one. OK.
``End welfare for politicians or draw 25.''
Every year, millions of taxpayer dollars are diverted into a special account that exists solely to subsidize the campaigns of politicians running for President. The program has doled out more than $1.6 billion for parties and politicians to date, and there is currently $400 million sitting in the account. We could save the $400 million by pulling the plug on this welfare program for politicians, but, once again, the Democrats will choose to draw 25 more cards.
OK. The next card: ``Put the brakes on boondoggles or draw 25.''
Washington continues to bail out transit boondoggles across the country that are billions of dollars over budget and decades behind schedule, like, of course, folks, the San Francisco Bay Area subway extension to Silicon Valley, California's high-speed rail project, and Honolulu's elevated rail line. The Democrats are proposing $10 billion more to support the high-speed rail projects alone. We could save tens of billions of dollars by canceling these gravy trains that are taking taxpayers for a ride, but you can probably guess what the Democrats' play will ultimately be: to draw 25.
So, folks, let's lay the cards on the table. The Democrats' borrowing-based budgeting is a real house of cards because you simply can't borrow your way out of debt. The bills will eventually come due in the form of higher taxes and drastic cuts to government services, and it will be the taxpayers who get lost in the shuffle. Because the Democrats control both Chambers of Congress and the White House, it may seem that the deck is stacked against our taxpayers, but I have a card up my sleeve.
Folks, let's put it in reverse and go in a different direction. Instead of just throwing in the cards and going along with the Democrats' demand to borrow another penny, let's first go through the budget, line by line, and determine what is a priority and what isn't.
It is time to make Washington start living within a realistic budget, just like every other family in America is expected to do. That may be a wild idea to the big spenders in DC, but taxpayers know that is how to play your cards right. So, instead of picking up more debt, let's skip--let's skip--the spending that isn't needed until we are sure Washington isn't wasting a single dollar.
UNO.
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