Supporting the Big, Beautiful Bill

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Moore is a dear friend not only to me but to my children. My children don't know him well. They have met him, but the reason he is a friend to my children and to your children and grandchildren is because he is fighting for their future.

He cares about this Nation. He believes that we are on an unsustainable fiscal path and he believes that if we don't intervene, we will not only jeopardize our economic strength but our national security, our global leadership, and God forbid, a sovereign debt crisis certainly would rob our children of their freedom and opportunities in this great land.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Moore for his leadership on the committee. I thank him for his strong voice and vision and most of all for his courage to do the right thing not only for our citizens and our constituents of today but for generations of Americans, who, by the way, will inherit the whirlwind of our recklessness in terms of the unbridled spending and unsustainable debt if we don't step up in this historic moment.

Let me comment on some of the things that Mr. Moore was mentioning in his remarks.

Let's do a comparison and contrast with our Democrat colleagues when they had control of both Chambers and the White House. They, too, used the tool of budget reconciliation to advance what was their partisan Democrat agenda.

Over the last 4 years under the Biden-Harris administration and Democrat control, they added $8 trillion to the national debt.

They did it by expanding the Federal Government, offering ObamaCare to people making hundreds of thousands of dollars, price-fixing in the drug markets and having premiums go up on seniors.

They did it by expanding the IRS by 80,000 IRS agents and by offering tax subsidies to green energy corporations to the tune of $850 billion.

When they had the tool of budget reconciliation and unified Democrat leadership, that was what they offered to the American people: more spending, more debt, more government, and less freedom.

We have the tools and unified Republican control of both Chambers, and we are investing in border security and defense because we believe the safety and security of the American people is job number one, like providing the common defense is the first and most important job of the Federal Government.

Secondly, we are spending money to allow hardworking American families to keep more of their money and to incentivize investment, growth, job creation, and wage increases. We have been sputtering along because of the failed economic policies of my Democratic colleagues in the Biden-Harris administration and their unbridled, reckless spending.

There is your comparison. One gives you more government with more spending and debt, and the other has a complete offset with a modest reduction in deficit spending, a 10-point reduction in debt to GDP. We have the largest tax cut, the largest spending cut, the largest investment in border security and defense in the history of this country, and the most significant commitment to unlocking American energy resources in our Nation's history.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of what we did in this bill. There is so much to talk about, but some of the myths and false claims that are propagated to suggest that this bill will somehow increase the debt are totally false and using a baseline, a CBO score, with a growth assumption based on the policies and laws of the last 4 years.

I think 1.8 percent growth is actually generous considering the last 4 years and the economic policies of our Democratic colleagues. What we did was we assumed a growth rate not based on CBO, JCT, or any other predictive modeling. We said the best way to predict future achievement is past performance.

What did President Biden have as an annual average growth rate? What did President Trump achieve? On average, Biden was at 2.7 if you control for COVID. If you control for COVID, then Trump had a 2.8 percent annual average. Since World War II, the annual average has been a little over 3 percent.

We picked a conservative number, but we know we will outperform it with good energy policies, work incentives, deregulation, America First trade, and locking in low taxes from TCJA.

That 2.6 annual average, that conservative growth assumption, will yield $2.5 trillion over the 10-year budget window. If you stack the spending reforms--which, by the way, are the deepest cuts by two times in our Nation's history. If you add the two, you totally offset the cost of border, defense, and any cost associated with reducing taxes.

It is fiscally responsible. It will do the two things that you primarily need to do in order to restore the fiscal health of this country, put it on a stable path, and prevent or stave off a debt crisis of some magnitude. It grows the economy. It deals with economic growth, which brings revenue to the Treasury.

Mr. Speaker, 1 percent growth over the projections of CBO is $3 trillion against the deficit, and it starts to bend the curve on deficit spending.

Now, is this going to save the country from a debt crisis in the future and address the $120 trillion unfunded liabilities in 30-year accumulative projected debt? No, but this is the first in my lifetime, probably since the post-World War II era--when we were coming out of this same level of indebtedness, with a debt to GDP of around 120 percent--it is the first time since then and in my lifetime that we have taken a meaningful step with growth and spending reforms to start bending the debt-to-GDP curve and start turning this Titanic before it sinks and we do irreparable harm to our Nation and our kids' future.

We have to rinse and repeat this process. There are no silver bullets. There is no one reconciliation bill. Even in generations past, coming out of comparable debt after World War II took two decades, and that was an easier exercise in reducing spending because it was mainly defense after a war.

We are talking about entitlement spending. We are talking about a lot of promises made to a lot of people. We are talking about $2 trillion that we are borrowing now annually to pay for those promises, 50 cents on the dollar of which is just servicing the debt or our interest payments.

Mr. Speaker, we have work to do. Nobody knows that better than Mr. Moore. No one also has called out the fact and reality that at some point, with some of the larger mandatory spending programs, we are going to need Democrats and Republicans to join forces to put the Nation first to solve the problems of sustainability and solvency of programs like Social Security and Medicare that our seniors depend on so that they can have peace of mind and so that our children can actually expect the same safety nets and the same opportunities in this country.

It will take tremendous political courage. Nobody has that more than my friend, Blake Moore. He speaks the truth, and he has said this is his top priority since he was sworn in in his first term. He has made good on that pledge and promise.

I believe that if we continue to do the things that we are doing in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and we join forces like Ronald Reagan did with Tip O'Neill, which was the last time that Social Security and the solvency were addressed, I think, quite frankly, it is an opportunity made for President Trump. He is the greatest dealmaker we have ever had in the Oval Office.

When I was a freshman and he was recently elected, he did what nobody thought we could do. He revamped and restructured our biggest trade relationship and trade agreement with our two biggest partners, Canada and Mexico, which was known as NAFTA. Then, we had USMCA, and our trade activity and our jobs and wages in agriculture and manufacturing have gone up since, and we had overwhelming bipartisan support.

I have seen President Trump in action. I believe this will be not just a tremendous legacy. I think it would be the biggest legacy. Let's reignite growth. Let's rein in some of the spending and root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in these programs. Let's reinvest in our sons and daughters in uniform who do the most difficult and dangerous jobs.

Let's look not where the puck is but where the puck is going, as they say in hockey. Why would I know anything about hockey? I am from Plainview, Texas. We don't play hockey in west Texas, but I always loved that analogy. You have to skate to where the puck is going.

While we are doing these things in the short run, in this budget window, in this decade, let's look out and be leaders. Let's address those things that we know are coming, and that debt crisis that looms large.

Let's extend the hand of bipartisanship to our friends and Democratic colleagues, again, for the sake of this country, like my hero who inspired me to get involved in politics, Ronald Reagan, did back in the day.

I said that I want to be like that guy, and it was for a lot of reasons. I just got back from the economic forum out there in California and saw the museum. I was reminded of what a statesman leader he was and how he was the right person to work with Tip O'Neill and our Democratic colleagues to do something really big that hasn't been done in 40-plus years.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Moore for the opportunity to address our colleagues. I thank him for his leadership, his Conference leadership and on the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. It is an honor to work with him.

God bless our great country. Let's get that One Big Beautiful Bill Act and that America First vision that is wrapped in that reconciliation bill to the President's desk. Most importantly, let's make it a reality for the people we serve and for the country we love.

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