America in Crisis

Floor Speech

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Mr. OBERNOLTE. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening deeply concerned about the pressures that have been brought to bear on America's supply chains and the effects that those pressures are having on inflation and on the constituencies that we represent.

Every day, I talk to members of the community from my district who are struggling in paying their bills. They are struggling because, just in the last year, they are being asked to pay over $20 more in my county to fill their gas tanks to get to work. They are being asked to pay substantially more for commodities like milk and eggs and bacon.

Madam Speaker, economists say that this inflationary pressure is greatly exacerbated by the irresponsible spending decisions that have been made right here in this Chamber in the last 18 months. That is important to talk about tonight, because we are considering the largest spending bill in the history of our country.

In fact, if you take the version of that bill that is in print and the spending it represents, combined with the extra Federal spending that has been approved over the last 18 months, added together, that exceeds the combined annual wages of every single American. I find that a stunning statistic. I am also very concerned about the possible impact that this spending will have on our national debt.

Now, the administration just this week has said that this spending package will be fully paid for and will not add a single dollar to our deficit. My response to that is: prove it.

Speaking charitably here, it strains credibility to believe that that would be the case. It is certainly not the case that the current version of the spending bill that is in print is fully paid for. But if the new version will be paid for, prove it. Wait to vote on the bill until the Congressional Budget Office has had a chance to score it and verify that that claim is accurate.

Madam Speaker, even if that is the goal, I would submit that America does not have a revenue problem. In fact, last year we collected more in tax revenue than in any year in our entire country's history. We do not have a revenue problem, Madam Speaker. We have a spending problem.

Even if you believe, as some of my colleagues do, that the problem is that we don't tax people enough and that we need to enact the largest tax increase in the history of our country, which is what this bill would do, then my question would be, why would we not use that extra revenue to shore up the social safety programs that are already in danger of failing, programs that people depend on, like Medicare and Social Security?

Why would you not use that extra revenue to pay down the $2 trillion of deficit that we currently have every year and the almost $29 trillion of national debt that we will be passing on to our children and their children?

Madam Speaker, I pray that we will get our fiscal house in order and stop this reckless Federal spending.

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