Reduce Exacerbated Inflation Negatively Impacting the Nation Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I thank the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee for her leadership on refuting this legislation.
After 2 years of rooting for economic failure and blaming President Biden for everything; for post-COVID global inflation, for the instability caused by supply chain breakdowns, and the phenomenal failure of Donald Trump's mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic, after all that, after all the whining and crying about inflation, Republicans finally have the chance to take center stage, right now, with their proposed solution to the problem of inflation.
The world has been waiting with bated breath. Would it be what Richard Nixon did, wage and price controls? Would it be what Herbert Hoover, that Republican did, total laissez-faire, whatever happens, happens?
Well, the long wait is over. The GOP has now debuted their big plan for dealing with inflation in America with H.R. 347, something called the REIN IN Act, which stands for the Reduce Exacerbated Inflation Negatively Impacting the Nation Act.
It is a bill for a mandatory reporting requirement related to executive orders that might apply to two or three executive orders a year.
You got that right: A reporting requirement related to a handful of executive orders every year is the GOP's response to inflation after barnstorming the entire country, claiming that they had some kind of solution.
Now, you might think it is the most brilliant thing since the invention of Social Security, which they opposed, or Medicare, which they opposed, or you might think it is the dumbest thing since Donald Trump's last trillion-dollar corporate tax giveaway.
But either away, it will have zero effect on inflation or deflation in the United States of America. Nothing. It is not going to have any effect at all.
Now, our friends in the GOP are interested in this session of Congress in tortured, inscrutable, incomprehensible acronyms.
So they can have the REIN IN Act, which they seem very connected to, but I want to suggest a better title that will still conform to their acronym. Let's call it the running on empty initiative based on no ideas none act. How about that?
The legislation was hatched without any hearing, and it shows. It has no legislative meaning and no potential economic consequences.
Even as reporting bills go, it is pathetically weak, as it doesn't even require publication of the report. They came up with a reporting requirement that didn't even require the report to be published.
Look, executive orders are not the cause of inflation, and there is no economic research suggesting they are.
The most conservative economists in the world will tell you that inflation is a complex, global phenomenon connected to prices, supply chains, supply and demand curves, and unemployment rate.
Since 2020, inflation has risen worldwide, exacerbated by supply chain delays caused by the pandemic and then Vladimir Putin's filthy war of aggression in Ukraine, which some of our friends over there support.
President Biden has created something like an economic miracle out of the chaos handed to him by Donald Trump.
After signing his massive tax giveaway, Trump's failed State dysfunctional response to COVID plunged America into its most severe economic contraction since 1946. Someone dispute that.
The unemployment rate rose to 14.8 percent under Donald Trump, the highest on record since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting data in 1948.
In 2021, Biden and the Democrats got to work. We passed the American Rescue Plan, which fueled a strong, equitable, economic recovery with historic reductions in unemployment, in poverty, in economic hardship.
Real GDP increased by 5.7 percent. The unemployment rate decreased to 4 percent, surpassing all forecasts. Wages increased by 5 percent with the highest increases going to lower economic income earners.
So Democratic policies have allowed the U.S. to absorb the shock of rising inflation engulfing the globe since 2020.
That is serious economic policy, what President Biden and the Democrats are engaged in, and they have a silly little symbolic messaging bill for a couple of notations they didn't even want to publish originally within the process of offering executive orders.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, we have created 12 million new jobs in America. How many million jobs do they want to erase over there in their desperate, sudden pursuit of inflation?
They raised the debt limit three times under Donald Trump. Now they talk about the debt limit all the time. They raised it three times, and they contributed under Donald Trump 25 percent of all the debt in the United States from George Washington to Joe Biden--25 percent of the debt under one President, Donald Trump.
They did that, and now they dare come talk to us about inflation, and the bill that they advance is one to have some people pass some more paperwork around.
Come on. Give me a break. Give us something better than the running on empty initiative with no new ideas at all.
We recommend a ``no'' vote. What real economic action requires is precisely what President Biden is already doing.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, actually, I have a question because it strikes me as a very sincerely and decently motivated amendment to a flawed bill.
But is there a reason to think that any of the current economic analyses of inflation and the current indicators that we use don't take into account the various factors that the gentleman specifies?
I yield to the gentleman for the purposes of a colloquy.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, reclaiming my time.
That makes great sense to me, and I am tempted to support the amendment. If the gentleman is correct, that points to a larger problem.
Is the gentleman telling us that the inflation rate today that is published by our government does not incorporate spending patterns in rural areas, for example?
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois for the purpose of a colloquy.
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Mr. RASKIN. I am sorry. By which definition?
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Mr. RASKIN. Reclaiming my time, I don't know what the reason for that is, and thank you for educating me. I wasn't aware of it.
I assume they are saying the inflation rate is higher in urban areas than it is in rural areas, which is, presumably, why they peg it to that. That might bring the inflation rate down.
Would the gentleman just give me a sense of how taking it into account might affect what is today the general inflation rate? Let's assume it is inflated because it is focused on the urban areas where the cost of living is higher. Would it reduce the overall inflation rate?
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois for the purpose of a colloquy.
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Mr. RASKIN. Reclaiming my time, this very constructive colloquy, I think, underscores the importance of actually having hearings in Congress. This is legislation that sprung out of someone's head somewhere and then appeared on the House floor without actually having a hearing where we could examine it.
The gentleman raises a profound point that might lead us to question inflation statistics generally. I just don't know. At this point, we are all guessing because we haven't had a hearing, and we don't know the facts of it.
Unfortunately, we are going to be sending people, including me, to the floor to vote on this amendment without really having any information about the background.
Obviously, we want to make sure that military personnel, farm households, and residents of rural areas are included, forcefully, if they are excluded now, even if that means bringing the inflation rate down, something I imagine President Biden would quite enjoy.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, the first thing I want to note about this amendment is that it now expands the definition of a major executive order to include those projected to cause an annual gross budgetary or economic effect of at least $1 billion, which includes those orders that would have a positive economic effect of $1 billion or more, thereby just adding a lot more paperwork, a lot more unnecessary bureaucratic entanglement.
The distinguished chair of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, I think, mentioned in passing the Biden administration's attempt to roll back some of the radical deregulatory program of the Trump administration, which undermined regulations favoring automobile safety, train safety, water safety, land safety.
Again, we have what appears to be another clever talking point by the GOP, and the whole country is now up in arms over what took place in East Palestine, Ohio. We see precisely what the human effects and consequences are of their radical, pro-corporate deregulatory agenda, dismantling the rules and regulations that protect public safety and public welfare.
That is really what is going on over there. It is not about having a couple of little analyses stuck onto an executive order every 4, 5, or 6 months. We know exactly what the real economic program is.
This bill is a camouflage, just like this amendment is, and I urge the body to oppose it.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I want to just clear up a couple of things.
First, I heard the very distinguished gentlewoman from Colorado mention job creators. I assume she was responding to President Biden since 12 million new jobs have been created under President Biden, whereas millions of jobs were lost under the prior President, who may be a favorite of the gentlewoman's.
I also wanted to make just a brief semantic point because the gentlewoman was making a grammatical error that I heard some of her colleagues make before. I believe she referred to a ``Democrat solution.'' I heard another Member talk about a ``Democrat Member'' and a ``Democrat plan.''
I just wanted to educate our distinguished colleagues that ``Democrat'' is the noun. When you use it as an adjective, you say the ``Democratic Member,'' or the ``Democratic solution,'' or the ``Democratic plan.''
I assume it is a good faith grammatical error the first few times, but after people are corrected several times and they continue to say it, it seems like it is an act of incivility, as if every time we mentioned the other party it just came out with a kind of political speech impediment like, ``Oh, the banana Republican Party,'' as if we were to say that every time we mentioned the ``banana Republican Member,'' or the ``banana Republican plan,'' or the ``banana Republican Conference,'' but we wouldn't do that.
So out of pure political courtesy, when it is an adjective, refer to the ``Democratic Congresswoman'' or the ``Democratic Member.''
Having said that, I would like to say that I favor the Boebert amendment. I think it is really the Raskin amendment because none of them apparently caught the fact that their reporting requirement wasn't to be published until I told them. I actually read the bill, and I said there is no publication of it. So this amendment follows through on the fact that I pointed out to them that their bill didn't even call for publication of the inflation information which they thought was so essential.
Madam Chair, I am afraid I am going to have to support the Boebert amendment, because I think I am the genesis of it.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I would ask if the gentleman would be willing to yield for a couple of questions?
Again, there was no hearing in committee, so I don't understand this. This might be a great idea, but I would like to figure it out.
It requires that any inflationary estimates prepared incorporate the inflationary impact of debt servicing costs, which seems perfectly logical to me.
But is there a reason to think that the current inflation rate, as defined by the U.S. Government, does not incorporate the inflationary impact of debt servicing costs?
Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman for the purposes of a colloquy.
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Mr. RASKIN. So that is true across the board in terms of all of the economic indicators that we read about, whether it is the OMB or the-- --
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I reclaim my time and thank the gentleman for his kind answers.
This really is why we have hearings in Congress, because it feels like we are just posting a lot of graffiti on a wall here.
I don't know how the inflation rate is calculated. I don't know whether the import of this amendment would be to double count debt servicing costs because I don't know which government agencies actually incorporate debt servicing costs and which don't.
One thing I do know is that if the gentleman has the greatest amendment of the year, it is still basically irrelevant because it does nothing. In other words, it is not going to do anything to bring down anybody's debt servicing costs, which I agree are huge, unlike, for example, what the Biden administration has done in terms of student debt by acting dramatically to bring it down--even though there are people from across the aisle who are in court today, I believe, trying to get that thrown out and trying to bring everybody's student loan debt back up--that is real economic action.
In any event, what this is about is pure symbolism. In other words, they are asking for a reporting bill that will only apply if there is a $1 billion plus impact, and the good gentleman comes forward to say: Make sure, Mr. President, when you are doing your calculations, that you include debt servicing costs.
I don't know. You could take it or leave it. It doesn't do anything for people who are staggering under debt. The way that the Biden administration is trying to act, for example, is to deal with the problem of student debt or the way that we have acted to try to help people who are suffering under mortgage debt, that is real economic action.
I am just going to have to consider it carefully, given the information we have. But I will end with a plea for the good chairman of the Oversight Committee, the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky: We have to have hearings on these bills, so we know what we are talking about, because I feel like we are dancing in the dark here.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I just repeat my puzzlement from before.
Perhaps if Mr. Cloud would yield for another question.
What is the inflationary impact of debt servicing costs? Have there been any economic studies on that?
Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman for a colloquy.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I reclaim my time.
I think the gentleman raises a very interesting point. I would love to know the answer as to whether or not it is actually incorporated today in what the inflationary or deflationary effects are of debt servicing costs. Obviously, this bill and this amendment would not have any impact on what those debt servicing costs are, but I don't see much of a problem of adding this language to the hortatory nature of the legislation.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I will just end on this one with this thought.
The majority comes forward with a plan to say we want to know an estimated inflationary impact of an executive order, and then we have a series of Christmas tree amendments saying, make sure you include the cost to rural areas; make sure you include the cost of debt servicing. I would like to know the overall costs.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I want to speak in strong support of the gentlewoman's amendment. I thank Ms. Jackson Lee for her leadership in terms of real economic policy, which is about making the government an instrument of well-being and public good.
We know we have serious philosophical differences with our friends across the aisle. Many of them wanted to dismantle Social Security and Medicare. When President Biden arrived the other day, a lot of them retreated very quickly from it.
I would be delighted if someone wants to challenge me on that because we have all the quotations from all the Republican Senators and Representatives that said it was time to get rid of Social Security and phase it out, adopt means testing, increase the age, so on and so forth.
That is a real policy difference. What they have done here really falls under the category of symbolic politics. The good gentlewoman from Texas has done her best to make this meaningful, and I thank her for giving me the opportunity to say that.
Ms. JACKSON LEE.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I rise in favor of Mrs. Lee's excellent amendment here which makes both powerful economic points and powerful constitutional points.
The economic point is that Congress must act in order to bring down inflation, Congress must act in order to promote employment, and we have acted in partnership with President Biden to do just that in the Inflation Reduction Act, in the infrastructure act, and in a whole series of bills that we have used to bring inflation down and to dramatically lower unemployment in the country.
But she is making also, I believe, a very powerful constitutional point because part of what gets lost in the symbolism of this legislation--a mere messaging bill about having executive orders over $1 billion, which describes a handful in a year attached in an inflation description--what gets lost is that the Constitution in Article I sets it up so that Congress is the major definer of economic policy in the country.
It is Congress that is supposed to be laying and collecting taxes and impost and dealing with the debt of the country. It is Congress that regulates commerce among the States and with foreign countries.
So the failure to come forward with real productive legislation on inflation is also a surrender to the executive branch, and we don't need to do that.
So we should be working with the executive branch as we have done in the Inflation Reduction Act, with the infrastructure bill, in lowering prescription drug costs, and in lowering the costs for diabetics to get their insulin shots to $35 a month. That is the real pathway, not just a bunch of reporting bills.
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Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.
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Mr. RASKIN. As far as I understand, the amendment just adds one more unnecessary detail to the report, creating greater administrative burden and taxpayer costs that are still undefined. It is unclear why it is necessary. If it is necessary, it should be adopted across the board. But, of course, we had no hearing so we can't really understand what the merits of the proposal are, but right now, it just seems like a lot more bureaucratic paperwork.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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