Providing for Consideration of H.R. Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), the chairman, for giving me time, despite the fact that I voted against the rule in the Rules Committee.

I respect that. I respect it immensely so that we can have a full and open debate here on the floor of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the gentleman from Massachusetts wax on, talking about governing. I would say to the gentleman that we don't govern; we represent. That is what we are supposed to do, anyway, represent the people of this country fed up with a government that is now 40 percent bigger since the beginning of COVID, a government barreling toward $36 trillion of debt, and an absolute devastating burden on the future of this country, on our children and our grandchildren, who are not going to be able to afford homes, not be able to go to school, not be able to afford food, groceries.

Talk about food programs, I don't hear a whole hell of a lot about what we are doing to devastate American families with rampant inflation because we keep spending money we don't have.

To my colleagues on this side of the aisle, my beef isn't that I don't understand the struggle with the negotiators against that kind of reasoning. My beef is that you cut a deal that shouldn't have been cut.

The fact is, at best, we have a 2-year spending freeze that is full of loopholes and gimmicks that would allow for increased funding for the Federal bureaucracy in order to receive a $4 trillion increase in the debt by January 1, 2025.

Mr. Speaker, we have permitting reform, which might have some good elements in it. The problem is, you have the Biden administration saying it will ``accelerate implementation of the historic clean energy and environmental justice investments in the Inflation Reduction Act,'' the very policies destroying the American way of life and making them unable to afford energy and afford their food.

We have watered-down work requirements that the CBO just said will actually increase the cost of SNAP by $2 billion, a supposed 1 percent automatic top-line reduction in spending at the end of the year that will actually make a Christmas omnibus more likely, and a 2 percent cut to Biden's $80 billion IRS expansion.

Administrative paygo, I am told, we are not going to do the REINS Act. We are not going to restrain the regulatory state. We are going to do a waivable administrative paygo.

Great. We will pass a bill next week. Yay us. It will die in the Senate.

Why aren't we using this leverage--a complete punt to SCOTUS on the Biden administration's unfair, half-trillion-dollar student loan bailout; billions in COVID dollars left untouched to fund things like vaccines and COVID-19 testing; and the loss of one of our biggest leverage points to force Biden to actually secure the southern border.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and to oppose this legislation.

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