America Must Restore Fiscal Sanity
Floor Speech
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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Kentucky, who truly is an expert on fiscal policy and truly understands the situation that we are in, in our country.
We just simply cannot afford to continue down this path and expect that there will not be consequences: consequences for us and, if not for us, certainly for future generations. At the least, we are mortgaging the future of our kids and our grandkids, and it is completely irresponsible.
We just came back, all of us, to our districts. I can tell you, I spent most of the weekend out talking to people across the district, and they are very concerned about the impact of this President's policies and the policies of this Congress on their daily lives. I have constituents who are choosing each week whether they can buy groceries or whether they can buy gas for the car.
I spoke just recently to one constituent who had been out of the workforce for about 10 years. This individual, by the way, had 13 kids, which I thought was amazing, but he had been out of the workforce for 13 years and just took a job because he can no longer make ends meet because of the policies of this President and the rising prices that have been created by the policies of this administration.
They are angry that the President had a White House party to celebrate the passage of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. This celebration, of course, just recently was broadcast amid a backdrop of the plummeting stock market and upon the news just that morning of another month of record-high inflation.
No matter how the President wants to talk about it, no matter how Democrats want to talk about it, Madam Speaker, he says that inflation has leveled off, but we are still at 8.5 percent above what prices were just 12 months ago. That is something we haven't seen in our country for about 40 years. This was after Democrats and the President were saying this would be transitory inflation.
You would think if we are in a hole, at some point, we would stop digging. Instead, the President and congressional Democrats, while they are patting themselves on the back, continue to spend taxpayer dollars.
Just last night, President Biden was on ``60 Minutes,'' arguing that he deserves some credit, again, for his fiscal policies while inflation is at another 40-year high.
The President speaks fiscal responsibility, yet every action that he takes only balloons our debt and balloons our deficits. It is far past time for his wasteful inflationary spending agenda to come to an end. The American people, the constituents in my district, can no longer afford the policies of this administration.
Tonight, for the next 45, 50 minutes or so, I am proud to welcome some of my Republican colleagues, including fellow members of the House Budget Committee and others who share the deep concerns that were just outlined by Congressman Barr. You will be hearing from others their concerns about the fiscal state of our Nation and the trajectory that we are on.
Over the next hour, we are going to take stock of this administration's reckless budget agenda and some of the drastic consequences that we are hearing about from our constituents.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Joyce), who is a great member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. We won't argue tonight about which committee is the best committee. I serve on the Ways and Means Committee. But John is a dear friend of mine, a wonderful Member of Congress, and I am very, very proud to serve with him. I am proud to count him as a friend. He is doing a fabulous job as a member of that committee and Member of Congress.
I look forward to his insights on how the Biden administration's policies have resulted in this record-high inflation. I would like to hear what his constituents are facing in the 13th District of Pennsylvania, which is directly adjacent to mine. I thank Dr. Joyce for joining us this evening.
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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his words. It is clear that he is in touch regularly with his constituents and is hearing some of the same things that I have heard.
The gentleman mentioned the real wage drop about $3,500 per family due to the policies of this administration. It is as if someone is taking a month's worth of salary, and families have to do without that month of salary.
By the way, that comes on the heels of policies under the previous administration that led to--after decades of stagnation--a $6,000 average household increase in income. Which is more compassionate? The gentleman is exactly right. We know the impact of these policies. We must stop. We must implement policies that work for the American people. That is why I was so frustrated.
By the way, I have a news flash: Naming a bill something doesn't mean it is so. Just recently, the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Studies now are saying it will not impact inflation, it will most likely increase inflation.
Let's just dig in on some of the policies that are included. $745 billion in new spending, over half of which is for the Green New Deal agenda. That includes $3 billion for, ``environmental and climate justice warriors,'' and $245 billion in Department of Energy loans for other friends of the left.
As gas prices increased 50 percent over the course of last year, President Biden's solution was to raise taxes on American oil and gas producers. So we know that this will continue to affect constituents. They will continue to pay the higher price of gasoline at the pump.
At this time, President Biden and congressional Democrats thought it would be a good idea to combat inflation by offering tax credits for high-end electric vehicles.
Now, interestingly enough, and maybe unsurprisingly, a lot of those electric vehicle manufacturers that were set to benefit from those new tax credits, immediately turned around and raised the prices of their vehicles, essentially wiping out the value of the credit.
Another way they thought that apparently would help inflation was to raise taxes on the middle class, including $53 billion in new taxes on Main Street and $10 billion in taxes on those making less than $200,000 a year. Then, adding salt to the wound, the bill spends $80 billion for the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents.
By the way, any of us in our congressional districts know that the IRS has a problem? I have talked to constituents in my district, who are still waiting for refunds from 2019.
So, I get that the IRS may need some additional funding to help to serve the American people better, but do you know there is 14 times as much money in this bill spent on increasing audits on everyday Americans, rather than improving--than the money that is in it for improving customer service there at the IRS?
There is a CBO analysis. The Congressional Budget Office that we all rely upon confirmed that those new agents will focus on extracting as many dollars as possible doing audits on the middle class, and despite the President's claims, half of those audits will be on those making less than $400,000 a year.
We could go on about this bill, and if we have a little more time maybe we will, but I am very pleased to yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter), who is a fellow member of the Budget Committee, passionate about fiscal issues here in our country. I always appreciate his fervor about these issues, and I am pleased to count him as a friend.
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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his comments. He has identified the problem and has some real solutions on how we can address this and how we can save the future for our kids and our grandkids. One of the saddest things about this is that the idea of the American Dream is that every generation can do better than their parents and their parents before them, and we have seen that for centuries here in the United States. That is at risk because of the fiscal policies that are in place here today.
I look forward to working with my friend, and we hope that the next Congress will be the Congress when we can begin to put this country on the right path.
Madam Speaker, I welcome our next speaker tonight, the next participant is my friend and fellow Pennsylvanian, Fred Keller, from the 12th District in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Keller plays an important role in oversight of the Biden administration as a member of the Education and Labor Committee as well as the Oversight and Reform Committee. I count him as a great friend and look forward to his thoughts tonight on what we are talking about, the administration's flawed understanding or lack of understanding of the impact of inflation on Pennsylvanians. We see it every day. He will discuss budget principles that can help us right our fiscal ship.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller).
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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his wonderful comments.
One of the things that is most frustrating about this is not only, as the gentleman just mentioned, the administration doesn't seem to understand the impact of their policies that have led to these rising prices and the pain that he is causing for people in our districts.
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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for being here.
We talked about what they have referred to as the Inflation Reduction Act. I think a better title for it is the Expensive Attempt to Distract Voters Act. We know the bill will not cut the deficit, and we know CBO has said that the bill will have a tiny effect on inflation. Penn Wharton Institute in my State estimates that the bill would increase inflation this year and next.
So how can you call a bill Inflation Reduction Act if it doesn't actually decrease inflation?
Then shortly after that, in fact, just 8 days later, you would think at some point, Madam Speaker, the President would stop the spending spree and that at some point there would be a connection made with all of the spending, the rising deficits and debt, and the rising prices.
But what did the President do just 8 days later?
He unilaterally--we think unconstitutionally--but unilaterally spent more than half a trillion dollars on blanket student loan forgiveness, much of which went to high-income earners. Madam Speaker, $500 billion, that is half a trillion dollars. One constituent in my district went out and talked to some workers in a foundry, and you should have heard what they said about this bill, Madam Speaker.
One of them said: Why should I or why should a plumber need to pay the tuition and the debt for a medical student, maybe a graduate medical student?
They are angry that they are being asked. They are working hard every day trying to deal with the rising prices, trying to make ends meet, going back to work out of retirement, and then the President comes along and says: We are going to ask you to pay for the 16 percent of Americans who have student debt.
It makes absolutely no sense to them and makes no sense when you are trying to implement fiscal policies that will tackle the rising prices and help the American people.
Madam Speaker, I welcome my next friend and colleague who is a fellow member of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Jay Obernolte of California. Mr. Obernolte also serves on the Natural Resources and Science, Space, and Technology Committees.
We spent some time earlier this year down at the border, which is another catastrophe I don't think we are going to be talking about tonight, but he has been a wonderful Member of Congress.
It has been great getting to know my friend, and I appreciate his being here this evening.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte).
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Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his wonderful comments outlining the problem that we are faced with here. It sounds like we are up here criticizing the administration--and certainly we are--but it is far beyond that. I think to address a problem, whether it seems like an abstract problem or something that will happen in the future--to address the problem we must first understand it and recognize that the problem exists. The policies of this administration do not seem to understand that there is a real crisis up ahead if we don't take steps now to change the trajectory.
Madam Speaker, I have a chart here beside me--and a few of the other speakers have mentioned this tonight--the amount of spending that this administration has incurred above the $4 to $5 trillion that we spend in the Federal Government every year--this is an outline of the major policies, starting with the American Rescue Plan and on and on. Student debt is the most recent. $4.8 trillion in less than 2 years in office-- $4.8 trillion.
It seems like the response of this administration to every problem is just to throw money at it, and it is money we don't have. The response is to print money and to take money to spend the money of our future generations. He did this with the American Rescue Plan--$1.9 trillion.
At that time, Democrat economist Larry Summers said that was the worst macroeconomic policy and a mistake that would end in double-digit inflation. He ended up being exactly right on that.
His response to helping veterans recovering from burn pits, which was once a strong bipartisan policy that I was proud to support--but his response was to throw $667 billion in new mandatory spending at the problem, ignoring bipartisan alternatives that were responsibly paid for and doubling the fiscal impact of the VA in the process--$4.8 trillion in less than 2 years in office.
So why are we talking about this tonight? Why are some--more and more--a growing number of Members in Congress concerned about this? Is there any hope? I would say that despite the current fiscal challenges that we face, hope is not lost. We can ensure that America's best days still lie ahead. I am optimistic that we can do that in Congress.
Is there any hope? I would say that, despite the current fiscal challenges that we face, hope is not lost. We can ensure that America's best days still lie ahead. I am optimistic that we can do that in Congress.
Wouldn't that be great if we look back 20 years from now and were able to say that that was the Congress that began to change America and that saved the future of America? We can do it if we decide that is what we will do.
We simply cannot afford the continued spending policies of this administration. We can't afford to continue on this destructive, wasteful path. We can't afford to delay and to kick the can down the road.
We need to begin to seriously recommit to fiscal responsibility by meaningfully reducing spending and reducing deficits while investing in policies that ensure growth. We need to reject any increases to mandatory spending.
Several other speakers mentioned this tonight, but we have budget rules in Congress that have simply been ignored for decades. We need to enforce our own budget rules that this body set for itself and set for the Federal Government and not simply look the other way as we routinely pass bills increasing spending, increasing mandatory spending, by billions of dollars.
There is a measure of our total debt that I think is worth looking at. Compare it to our total economic output as a Nation or the gross domestic product. Currently, we are at about 130 percent. Our debt is 130 percent of GDP.
That is projected to increase, as far as we can project at this point, about a trillion--we are 30 trillion now--increase over a trillion per year under the policies of this administration and previous administrations. That debt will eclipse 185 percent of GDP by 2052 on the current path.
We know how it ends. Every country in history that has spent more money than it had, that has overtaxed and overspent, has failed. It doesn't end well.
While we may think this is a problem far in the future that future generations can take care of, at some point, we will see the devastating impact if we don't change the trajectory.
If we don't reverse course, we risk the full faith and credit of the United States, which would put us under threat of a sovereign debt crisis and economic fallout that we have seen elsewhere in nations across the world.
It will take discipline. It will take reducing our spending. It will take investing in progrowth policies similar to those that we implemented just a few years ago that created the booming economy that we had at that time.
I appreciate the comments of a number of my colleagues here. I appreciate the interest in this crisis. It truly is a crisis.
I look forward to working with my colleagues to put forward a sustainable, forward-thinking budget next Congress that reduces Federal spending, implements those progrowth policies, and puts our country back to a sustainable fiscal future.
We can do it, and we must do it for future generations.
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