Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Missouri for yielding and for his leadership on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, for the first time in years, this Congress is actually debating a bill that will reduce spending from one year to the next. Let me repeat that: reduce spending from one year to the next. That is not something you hear around this town often.

Usually, the debate is: How much more money will Washington spend?

In fact, if Republicans were not in the majority in this House, that is exactly the debate that would be going on, how much more to spend, how many more taxes to raise because that is what President Biden wanted at the outset of this debate on the debt ceiling.

Just for a little background, let's be clear what the debt ceiling is. The debt ceiling is the Nation's credit card. For the last 2 years, you saw out-of-control, reckless spending to the tune of trillions of dollars where President Biden and his allies racked up so much debt that they maxed out the Nation's credit card.

We are at this point to address that problem.

Mr. Speaker, wouldn't it make sense at the same time that we are addressing the problem that President Biden created with years of spending money that we don't have that we also have an honest discussion and start solving the problem that caused the Nation to max out the credit card? That is what this debate has been about for the last few months. Frankly, I think it is a debate that has been a long time coming in this Nation.

Over months of debate, while no one gets everything they want, I think it is important that we talk about the things that we got, that we talk about the things that the American people will get out of this bill that will help start turning the trajectory of our Nation's spending in Washington, finally putting our country back on a path where we can keep this debate going.

This is the first step. Let's make no mistake about it, this bill doesn't solve all the problems that have been created over years and decades, but it starts to finally turn the ship of state in the right direction. It starts with real savings, over $2 trillion in actual spending cuts. That is in the bill.

Again, this is a very historic first step. It doesn't mean that is where we stop. It means that is where we start. You don't get the next round of trillions in spending cuts if you don't lock in the first $2.1 trillion that is in this bill.

Now, something else we do is we actually go and reclaim for the taxpayers of America what has been identified as $28 billion in slush funds floating around Washington, all under the name of COVID. President Biden himself actually said COVID is over.

We passed legislation here in this House under this Republican majority to end the pandemic so we can get our country and our economy back going again. Yet, there is $28 billion out there still unspent that liberals in Washington want to spend. If we don't pass this bill, they will spend that money in the name of COVID, even though COVID is over.

There is $28 billion that should go back in savings to the taxpayer. Well, guess what is in this bill, Mr. Speaker? Those $28 billion are reclaimed so the taxpayers get that money back. That is in this bill.

Let's talk about the IRS. In my years in public service on the State level or in Congress, I have never gotten a single call from a constituent going: Do you know what? The thing we really want you to do is go add more people to the IRS.

Yet, President Biden, for some reason, decided he wanted to more than double the size of the IRS. He wanted to go from about 80,000 people-- to add not up to 87,000, but to add an additional 87,000 people. According to the Congressional Budget Office, they confirmed that it would break President Biden's promise.

You heard it over and over again that if you make less than $400,000 a year, don't worry, you won't pay any more in new taxes. Well, maybe they are redefining what lower income means because if you are making less than $100,000, according to the CBO, those new IRS agents will be going after lower income family workers and the single mom that is working two jobs at a restaurant. That is who they will be going after.

We step in and say no, we have to end that madness--over a billion dollars in cuts to the IRS to stop them from doing just that.

Let's talk about another big area of savings. A lot of people take out loans--a loan to buy their first home. I know that is harder to do under the Biden economy because interest rates are so high because of the out-of-control spending in Washington. This bill finally starts to address that so, hopefully, interest rates can go down. Hopefully, families can afford to buy their first home again.

There is something else that people do. Usually, a first loan a lot of people take out is a student loan. I know I did when I was a student. I signed the document, and it helped me get through college. I also worked my way through college.

When I graduated, there was never a day where I thought somebody else, some single mom working two jobs, ought to pay that loan back instead of me. I paid those loans back, and most Americans have done that. About 13 percent of the American people take out student loans.

Yet, for some reason, the President decided that he thinks all Americans, 100 percent of American taxpayers, should pay the student loans of the 13 percent that don't want to pay them back. Is that fair? Does anybody think that is fair to all of those people who are working hard and barely getting by in a tough economy?

What we do is we actually start those loan payments back. That is $60 billion in savings just this year, in the first year, so that people don't have to carry the burden for something that somebody else said they would do.

This is America. We make our choices. If you want to take out a loan, you should have that ability, but you shouldn't expect somebody else to go pay it for you. Let's get back to the values that made this country so great.

We put real permitting reforms in place, something we haven't seen in decades. Anybody that is trying to build anything in America, if you are trying to build a factory, if you are trying to maybe add on to your farm, if you have got a barn and you want to add on to it, they find a puddle in the back and under Waters of the U.S., next thing you know, you have got five different Federal agencies where groups are suing to stop you from getting that permit, even though you have done everything right. You followed all the rules.

We finally fixed that. We created a one-stop-shop so that if you are trying to get a permit, if you are playing by the rules, somebody else can't go game the system to try to kill your project by going to one agency and you spend 2 years fighting that lawsuit, you win that one. The next day they file another lawsuit with another agency and another and another, and next thing you know, it is 10 years later, and you just give up and walk away. It happens all the time in America.

We will have a one-stop-shop, but we also put shot clocks on the unelected bureaucrats because, you know what, Mr. Speaker, if a Federal agency tells you that you have to get them some information back, they don't say, hey, get it to us whenever you want to. They give you a deadline and it is usually pretty soon, and if you don't meet that deadline, you don't get your permit.

But if you get them all the information, you might wait 6 months, a year, or longer to hear back from the Federal agency. These are people that work for the taxpayers of America. Shouldn't they have the same requirements and a shot clock on them that they put on you, the American people paying their salaries? That is in this bill.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, real work requirements. I don't think there has ever been a time in America where there are more jobs that are open, people looking for workers. You can go to a restaurant, if you want to take your family out for a nice dinner, and you will see a third of the tables empty, yet they are not seating anybody because they don't have enough workers.

Why is that? Because the Federal Government is paying millions of people right now not to work. Think about that.

In America, where everybody is looking for workers, the Federal Government is borrowing money from countries like China to pay people not to work. This is insanity.

For all the people out there that are working, they are paying that freight. Why don't we say, for people who are able-bodied, who are able to get back into the workforce--there is a social safety net for people who run on hard times. If you just choose to sit at home and turn down jobs, that is your prerogative as an American. Just don't ask someone who is working two jobs to pay for you to sit at home and turn down work.

By putting work requirements back in place, something Joe Biden himself voted for as a Senator, you also strengthen Social Security and Medicare, two programs that are going bust under President Biden's runaway spending that we shored up in this bill, actually strengthening those programs that are so important to the people who paid into it.

There is more work to be done, absolutely, and we will get to work tomorrow working on the next round of things we need to do to keep getting this country back on track, but we never get there if we don't start with the first step.

That is what we are doing here tonight. That is why we need to get this bill passed, and then go to work on the next reforms we have got to do to continue strengthening this great Nation, the United States of America. I urge passage.

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