[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 70 (Wednesday, April 26, 2023)] [House] [Pages H2042-H2044] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-26
Chamber: HOUSE
Mr. BERGMAN: I am grateful to be leading this Special Order to discuss the ongoing efforts to tackle our national debt and the looming debt ceiling crisis. Since my first day in office some 7-plus years ago, I have said that one of the single greatest threats to our national security is the Federal Government's reckless, uncontrolled spending. This is now more obvious than ever. To be clear, it is essential that the United States honors its debts and pays back every single dollar that we have borrowed.  However, this cannot come without reforms to fix the unsustainable and dangerous spending habits that threaten our long-term solvency. The Limit, Save, Grow Act, which I am happy to say the House approved only moments ago, is a good faith, middle-of-the-road approach to raising the debt ceiling while reining in--and I repeat--beginning to really rein in unnecessary, wasteful Federal spending. Included in the bill are popular provisions, which would reclaim billions in unspent COVID funds, now that the pandemic is over. It will also defund President Biden's army of 87,000 new IRS agents. It will strengthen the workforce, lower energy costs, and end the era, again, of reckless spending in Washington, D.C., all while protecting veterans, Social Security, Medicare, and national defense. I am grateful to be joined by several of my colleagues that are here tonight to further discuss this issue, and I urge the administration to come to the table, sooner rather than later, to address the debt ceiling and begin the necessary reining in of spending. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa). Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time this evening. Thank you to my colleague from Michigan for leading us on this and for being a fighter in the trenches on what we are talking about. Indeed, we are talking about the Nation's debt issues, the necessary measure we have of having to extend the debt limit as the dollars have already been committed. They have already been spent. We have to pay for them. The Limit, Save, Grow Act is, indeed, a responsible way to try and turn the tide on what had been much spending over the last few years that has extended our national debt to just unthought of numbers; over $31 trillion. In this measure that we are speaking of this evening here--really, since January, the Democrats and the President have tried to claim falsely that Republicans have no plan. We have been talking about a plan the whole time. The difference is they don't want to sit down and talk with us about how to meld their ideas with ours. This week we released our plan, and today we passed it. As always, House Republicans have consistently argued for reasonable, responsible debt limit increases, coupled with spending reductions in order to move toward eventually balancing this budget.  {time}  1830  It is absurd that the Democrats now demand unilateral increases to our Nation's debt and balk at Republicans for asking for something in a negotiation. Our plan, the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, saves American taxpayers $4.5 trillion over the next decade. It will limit Federal spending to fiscal year 2022 levels, which our government operated on just 4 months ago. It does allow for 1 percent annual growth in Federal spending over the next 10 years. For those that want to spend more, it is still built in but at a flatter rate, flattening the curve on spending. If we had been able to hold that for the last 10 years, we would be really close to a balanced budget. Also included in the bill are important clawbacks for $60 billion in unspent COVID funds. When people see that these unspent COVID funds are sitting there, then they covet them. You get everybody coming in asking if they can shift these COVID relief funds to some other pet project. That is not what was intended at the time we had a crisis, however much of that crisis might have been exacerbated by false information or what have you, but indeed, the opportunity to take $60 billion of unspent funds and pull them back, and indeed, have better conversations in a budget and appropriation process, not an emergency as was COVID, it would be much better for all of us. As we know, the pandemic is over. This money has not been spent, and it should be rescinded without delay. That is what we did today in this piece of legislation, the Limit, Save, Grow Act. Also included in the bill is our Lower Energy Costs Act, which has already passed this Chamber with bipartisan support previously. It lowers energy costs for American families and modernizes our outdated permitting process. The House Republicans' plan is economically sound, financially wise, and allows for a debt limit increase of $1.5 trillion to pay our bills. It is a reasonable, responsible plan that will benefit all Americans. This body deliberated on the merits of this legislation and has passed this legislation. The U.S. responsibly did its job on a debt ceiling to pay its already incurred bills. The profligate spending of the past years cannot become the permanent way of business of this House or of Washington, D.C. We cannot afford even more high-speed debt on bills pretending to be COVID fixes about infrastructure that actually isn't infrastructure, or masquerading as a fix for inflation. It is now on the Democrats in the Senate and the White House to meet with House Republicans at the negotiation table to actually come to a solution. The stall tactics by Senate Leader Schumer and President Biden to run out the clock and do a last-minute crisis debt limit bill with a Christmas tree of goodies that will only cause more crushing debt cannot be the way of doing business here. Never before in our Nation's history has a debt ceiling been raised without spending reductions to go along with it. It is a negotiation. This time should be no different. We must demand that the Senate come to the table and the White House negotiate. By us getting legislation out of this body here now, the ball is in their corner. It is time for them to look at our document and come up with their ideas and sit down and do as these bodies are supposed to do in front of the American people, not on Zoom, not behind masks, not remotely, but in front of everybody and make a product that we can all be proud of and at least live with and move towards balancing our budget longer term. This is what House Republicans are trying to do, not all the caterwauling we heard about, how it is going take away from this and that and the poor and every other group you can name here. It doesn't even touch all that. We have already spent the money. We have to have the debt ceiling increased and be responsible with the spending reductions as we go along. What could be wrong with that? I appreciate the effort of my colleagues, our leadership, and Speaker McCarthy to get this thing through and get everybody at the table on our side and hopefully be successful with the Senate and the White House to see the logic of what we are trying to do here. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Bergman for leading us here, and I am actually fairly excited and optimistic that we can get this document out.