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Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2025

Floor Speech

Date: April 9, 2025
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. SMUCKER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

I would first say it has been a great pleasure of mine to work with the chairman over the past few months. He has done an incredible job leading the Budget Committee and leading our Conference to a resolution passed out of the House that not only extended the tax cuts but secured the border. It unleashes American energy. It funds our military. All the priorities, all the mandates that the American people have given us and have given the President in this past election, it makes good on.

I will say first that it is, I think, important to every Member of the Republican Conference in the House and, I believe, every Republican Member in the Senate, as well, to extend those tax cuts, drive an economy that is working for Americans, and drive additional growth in the economy.

That is what came out of the House, and so I was very disappointed to see very different instructions to the Senate that I think are not serious.

I believe that we have to do these tax cuts. What I think is also important to every Member of the House--we know the fiscal trajectory that we are on, and we know this won't end well if we don't restrain our runaway spending. I think this is our opportunity to do it.

The $4 billion floor in spending savings in that Senate resolution just simply is not acceptable. There are those who argue that we will be working on this and will still come up with a good resolution, but to me, it is important we have the guardrails in the initial resolution.

I think there is a reason for the initial resolution. It is to set up the framework for what this reconciliation will look like.

Unfortunately, today--unusual for me--I will not be able to support this resolution on the floor. I will be voting ``no'' on this resolution.

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Mr. SMUCKER. Mr. Speaker, again, with what I started with, it is very important we get this resolution done. There is a better path forward. We have an amendment that could be passed in this resolution that would satisfy where the Senate is, where the House is. As I said, I can't vote for this resolution as it is, but there is a pathway forward here that is very important.

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