Restaurant Revitalization Fund Replenishment Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. DONALDS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Missouri for giving me such latitude.

$55 billion that we don't have, folks. 42 billion, goes into this new--the reauthorization of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Another $13 billion going to target business owners who have less than 200 employees.

I know that there are restaurant owners and small business owners in the United States who are looking for relief every single day. They are trying to find a way to make ends meet.

How do I know this? Because in the beginning of my career, a lot of what I did was analyze the very business owners who are struggling in today's economy. And in today's economy, they are struggling for a myriad of reasons.

Number one, our energy prices. When the price of oil shoots up so drastically, it impacts transportation; it impacts how they get the material that they sell in their stores every single day.

Wage inflation, which is completely out of control in the United States. When wages go up, the costs of doing business goes up, no matter what any politician on Capitol Hill says.

So throwing more money at this situation, especially money that has never been appropriated; money that is going to come out of thin air, is not going to make matters better for small business owners; it is going to make them worse.

The ranking member on the Small Business Committee, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Luetkemeyer), has a bill, the ENTREE Act, that reauthorizes funds that have already been appropriated to be used to help small business owners who were caught in this lurch; money that they could use. It is paid for.

It will not put more dollars in circulation, which is one of the key issues we are having in our economy with respect to the inflation that is stifling small business. It is stifling working families. It is stifling seniors who are on fixed incomes.

But it is more than just money coming from Capitol Hill. It is the economic policy coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

When you have massive amounts of regulations that small business owners must comply with, two things occur: They spend more time devoted to compliance, or they go out of business. Or, I am sorry, there is a third; or they sell to a larger business.

We want small business owners to thrive in the United States. We need them to thrive in the United States. But it is not just money, folks. It is the rules that we force them to comply with.

And the last part--I started with energy; I am going to end with energy.

When energy costs go up in the United States, when they go up recklessly and willfully because of terrible economic and energy policy from the President of the United States, the lifeblood of our economy, which is small business, are the ones who feel it the most. They are the ones who are affected. They are the ones who struggle with it. They are the ones that can't get the materials they need. They are the ones whose workers are struggling to figure out how to get to work because gas is now $4.20 a gallon versus $2.20 a gallon.

We have to take a serious look about what we are doing from a complete economic perspective here on Capitol Hill.

And it is not just about new money. New money sounds good. Everybody likes getting new money. But new money rarely is the thing that fixes the problem. What really fixes the problem are sound policies that address our entire business economy, so that everybody can thrive.

What really makes sense is having a sound and sensible energy policy--where you have cheap and affordable, whether it is renewable, or whether it is fossil fuels--that people can rely on. That is the lifeblood of every economy.

And if we could ever get that stuff right, we might have enough sense on Capitol Hill to actually handle our spending problems.

If we can't get basic economics right, it is no wonder that Capitol Hill always spends far more than it possibly takes in.

We have a measure to actually help small business owners right now. It is called the ENTREE Act. Small business owners will get the help that they need. It will work. It will actually help us stop being reckless with money we don't have, which we, frankly, are borrowing from the revenues that small business owners have to pay in the future that they haven't even earned yet.

Don't pass this bill. It is not necessary. It is only more of the same. It is more of the problem. It is more inflation. It is the destruction of more purchasing power of the American people.

We must say ``no'' today. We need to reverse course in the United States.

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