Thoughts on Addressing Economic Disparity
Floor Speech
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Mr. DAVIDSON. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman and the ranking member, the Speaker, and the minority leader. It is nice to have this committee to focus on such an important topic and to do it in a bipartisan way. I am sure we will have our differences of opinion, but I hope we find some common ground.
Frankly, one of the bills I have worked on for a long time is the People CARE Act. It would create a bipartisan commission for Republicans, for Democrats, and it would reform all 90-plus means- tested programs. We spend about a trillion dollars a year, and for reference, we spend about $750 billion on defense, so far more just on poverty assistance. Many of those programs aren't as effective as they could be.
It wouldn't cut any funding. It wouldn't even necessarily cut any programs, but the commission could redesign them to do things like end benefit cliffs. That is really important, because as people start to recover and as they start to get back into the economy and participate in the workforce--when they get a raise, when they get a promotion, sometimes when they get a job--they get put on a cold turkey program, they lose their benefits and it creates a lot of fear, and frankly, turns a safety net into a snare.
One of the things right now that is driving the challenges for the safety net is wages are going up. Now, that doesn't mean inflation is a good thing, by any means. Inflation is really hitting wage-earners really hard and retirees even harder, but it is changing how far a housing voucher will go, for example, or whether somebody gets a raise. They might not have updated the benefit program from the Federal safety net to recognize that and now they are facing a cliff.
We need to address the drivers of this inflation, and that goes to the destruction of the value of our money. The massive spending that we do, often in the name of compassion, is growing the wealth gap, this is fiscal and monetary policy. When we have big deficits, it grows inequality in the name of helping people.
There are so many more issues that I hope we get to, but it is an honor to serve with my colleagues and I look forward to hearing their ideas and growing from the experience.
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