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Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I rise today with great concern to talk about the bloated budget that President Biden has put forward and, really, what it says about his vision for the future of our country, because a budget is a vision.

As my Republican colleagues and I will highlight today, this budget is the latest edition in his tax-and-spend agenda. It also fits the standards my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have set by passing inflation-causing, deficit-raising legislation, like the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. This budget has no chance of becoming law. And that is the good news here and great news for our constituents back home because this misguided proposal would saddle American families with more taxes, more waste, more debt, and more government intrusion that our constituents just do not deserve. The bad news is--at least for this administration--that the unveiling of this budget shines a spotlight on the priorities of the President, his administration, and his party.

This should alarm all of us. Case in point, this $6.8 trillion proposal has been released at a time when so many Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities, interest rates are soaring, our national debt is climbing at an alarming rate, and small businesses are struggling to make ends meet.

While the Biden administration and our Democrats on the other side of the aisle expect families to make concessions in their everyday lives-- like spending less at the grocery store, putting off buying your first home, or purchasing an electric vehicle to avoid rising gas prices-- they are attempting to spend nearly $7 trillion, with a ``t'', of hard- earned taxpayers' dollars, pile on to our national debt, and massively expand the scope and authority of Federal Agencies, like the IRS, which they massively expanded just several months ago.

What exactly is President Biden's tax-and-spend proposal? Let's dig in just a little bit. President Biden makes his priorities clear with his proposed changes to base discretionary funding for Federal Agencies. That is the baseline.

The Environmental Protection Agency--I have a lot to do with this Agency because it comes right into my Committee on Environment and Public Works--gets a staggering--the most of any other Agency--19- percent increase in funding year to year. But the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation--remember, Homeland Security is the one that deals with immigration and the crisis at the southern border and the flow of drugs and other things--and the Small Business Administration--where in my State, if you don't grow as a small business, you are not growing--they are all facing budget cuts.

The White House priorities could not be clearer. And when it comes to taxes under this budget proposed by the President, Main Street mom and pop businesses would feel strained like never before.

We just lowered the taxes in our State. It is the biggest tax cut ever in the State of West Virginia. Yet we are looking at taxes on small businesses and capital gains taxes. The corporate tax rate goes up. Taxes on American energy would increase. Retirement taxes go up. The Medicare tax would increase, and the personal income tax would go up to the highest level in decades.

What President Biden fails to realize is that the brunt of his tax hikes would be felt by those who own, invest in, or operate small- and medium-sized businesses. Maybe, that is why he doesn't put any extra money in the Small Business Administration.

This is a direct violation of his pledge to not raise taxes on small businesses.

The National Federation of Small Businesses issued a statement last week warning that the tax increase--and it is called the National Federation of Small Businesses. They are small businesses. They say that this ``would further harm Main Street.'' It would ``crush Main Street's ability to grow and create jobs.''

The National Federation of Small Businesses believes that the Biden administration should increase focus on policies that will ``provide certainty and promote economic growth to allow our small businesses to create jobs and raise wages.''

My Republican colleagues and I could not agree more. It is my hope that the President and congressional Democrats will continue working on previously bipartisan tax issues that spur innovation and are pro- growth.

Just last week, as I said, our State passed historic tax cuts that signed into law by our Governor, Governor Justice, in the Mountain State. I wish our Federal Government was following this example. Instead, President Biden has chosen a different path that an analysis from the Tax Foundation found would create negative effects on savings, investments, and have economy-wide repercussions. The analysis continues that this brazen increase in taxes would ultimately harm our workers, international competitiveness, and domestic investment.

We talk about international competitiveness all the time. Why are we trying to move in a direction where our competitiveness would be less effective? In short, moving top tax rates in the United States beyond international norms reduces our economic growth.

You might ask yourself: Does the spending ever stop under President Biden and this budget?

Well, ironically, it does when you look at our own Department of Homeland Security, which secures the interior of our Nation. It is facing a budget cut under this proposal.

The President has consistently said that his budget is a reflection of his priorities. You see millions of people coming across our southern board with no deterrence. But nothing runs more true than that this is his priority--to continue that practice. And the refusal and inability to secure our border and stop the scourge of illicit drugs from entering our communities is not the priority of this administration.

The President's budget requests 350 new border agents, less than a 2- percent increase in our agents, while our border runs rampant with illegal crossings, and policies like title 42 move closer to sunset.

This budget proposes a contingency slush fund--there is nothing taxpayers like better than a slush fund--a slush fund for surge capacity at the border. In other words, give me the money now because I know we are going to have more people coming over, and I want to have the money to pay for it in advance because I don't want to come back to Congress to pay for it because Congress knows we have a problem and they won't give me the money to pay for it in an emergency. So I am going to get it up front.

It would be impossible for DHS to use this funding to mitigate our crisis at the border because, by the time they receive these dollars, these illegal crossings would have occurred.

We all have priorities, and President Biden made his clear. Securing our southern border is just not one of his priorities.

We see, clearly, President Biden's priorities yet again when it comes to military spending. We just had a drone shot down yesterday, I believe, by the Russians in the Black Sea. The President's budget shortchanges defense for more reckless spending. It is just a 3-percent increase--a 3.2-percent increase--in our military and national security. This comes at a time when inflation in the President's economy is high and our dollars are stretched thinner and thinner.

We hear about the supply chain. We hear about different materials we can't get, how much more expensive they are, and how much longer the wait is. So adversaries overseas increase their defense budgets. Now is not the time for us to delay that much needed modernization and reinforcement that we have put ourselves on a pathway for the last several years. Now is the time to invest in the advanced capabilities and the industrial base capacity that we expect and need for future generations and make our national security a priority.

According to the President's budget proposal, our addiction epidemic doesn't seem to be a top priority either. The President's proposed budget summary lacks a sense of urgency around this epidemic and the fentanyl crisis. This is a crisis in my State and in the Presiding Officer's State, as well, and in all States. My State has been disproportionately impacted by this. In the budget summary, fentanyl is only mentioned twice, opioids are mentioned 4 times, and climate change is mentioned 42 times--42.

In 2022, West Virginia lost 1,135 West Virginians to fentanyl overdoses. What we lost to overdoses, many of those were fentanyl overdoses--a large majority.

President Biden, I implore you to put more emphasis on the communities facing our streets every day that deserve to be our national priorities.

This budget proposal from the Biden administration makes obvious the motivations and priorities of the White House and the Agencies. In Washington, clarity comes at a premium price. So I will give them credit for that.

But by touting this budget proposal and claiming that it cuts the deficit by raising taxes shows that, no matter what, the Democrats aren't interested in cutting spending.

I mean, put yourself in the country's shoes, as a family. What do you do when you see your credit cards maxing out and times are getting tough? What do you do? You pull back. You stop spending however you can do that in your own home.

My Republican colleagues and I stand in direct opposition to what the President is doing with his budget. So through my remarks on the floor today and the subsequent speeches by my fellow Republicans, we will continue to highlight the errors in the President's budget. We will also stress the need to strike balance, restraint, and regular order.

What does regular order mean to people who are watching this? That means we go through committees and we compromise, and we talk to Republicans and Democrats and get together.

The Presiding Officer and I are on the Appropriations Committee. She is a chair, and I am a ranking member. We do a lot of talking during this process. That is what we need to do.

I intend to fulfill my obligations on the Appropriations Committee and, hopefully, we can get this to regular order. Right now, we need to set priorities in a budget and spending plan that reflect the real needs we see every day on every street in this country.

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