Republican Study Committee's Blueprint to Save America

Floor Speech

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Mr. TIFFANY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership and giving me the opportunity to speak here tonight.

Mr. Speaker, while it is not surprising that Congress' budget process is a total and utter failure, the good news is that there are solutions to cut down on excessive spending, balance our budget, and prevent the world's largest economy from self-destructing.

The American people know this. When you go back home and talk to the American people, they know what is going on here is wrong. They know that the family checkbook only goes so far. Choices have to be made. They know the American family's checkbook out here in Washington, D.C., should live under the same constraints.

The solution is not to propose a budget with the highest sustained levels of spending since World War II, as President Biden has done, or to spend taxpayers' dollars at a faster pace than at any point in history, as Congress has done the past 2 years. The solution is to stop spending like there is no tomorrow and be fiscally responsible.

With inflation at a 40-year high, gas prices shattering new records, and home prices surging, as the gentleman from Oklahoma said, I believe every effort must be made to rein in wasteful Washington spending and ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being thrown down the drain.

Simply put, instead of spending money as fast as Joe Biden leaves for a Delaware vacation, it is time for fiscal responsibility in Washington. This includes implementing good-government reforms, like balancing our budget for the first time in over 20 years, which this budget by the RSC does.

I thank the chairman for including a piece of legislation that I introduced called the Agriculture Civil Rights and Equality Act, ACRE.

You might remember last year, Democrats in the American Rescue Plan provided billions in debt relief assistance to some farmers, while excluding others, based entirely on the color of their skin. That is detestable. That is un-American.

The ACRE Act will ensure that this never happens again by explicitly barring the USDA from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any person, in whole or in part, based on race. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to finance unfair, unconstitutional racial quota systems.

One of the main reasons I ran for this office is the same reason that I ran in 2010. In Wisconsin, we had a $3 billion deficit. We all remember, after the 2008 election, the policies that were put in place in the ensuing 2 years were disastrous for America. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The same thing is a rewind from back in that period of time.

I told my constituents we can fix the budget problems we had in Wisconsin. Some people said: Yeah, we hear that all the time. I said: You give us a decade, and we will get it done. We did exactly that.

Over the three terms that I sat on the budget writing committee in the State of Wisconsin, if you look at where their budget is now as a result of the little bit of work that I contributed to, along with my colleagues in the State legislature, we fixed those budget problems in Wisconsin. Now there is the largest rainy day fund in the history of Wisconsin. This past budget returned $2 billion to the taxpayers of the State. That is fiscal responsibility.

We can do the same here in Washington, D.C., but it is going to require the will to do it. We can do it over the next decade, as the chairman said. We get to balance in 7 years here. This is what the American people are looking for. They want us to be fiscally responsible because it will lead to more opportunity and prosperity here in America and ensure American liberty for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I urge both Democrats and Republicans to say ``yes'' to the RSC budget, because it is good for America.

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