North Shore Louisiana News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On May 31,  House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) spoke on the House Floor to urge his colleagues to support H.R. 3746, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, before its passage. Leader Scalise noted that – in response to the Biden Administration’s wasteful spending and inflationary policies – the Fiscal Responsibility Act imposes commonsense spending reforms and encourages pro-growth policies including work requirements. 

Leader Scalise’s remarks:

“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 it: reduce spending from one year to the next. That's not something you hear around this town often. Usually the debate is, ‘How much more money will Washington spend?’ And in fact, if Republicans were not in the majority in this House, that's exactly the debate that would be going on: how much more to spend [and] how many more taxes to raise, because that's what President Biden wanted at the outset of this debate on the debt ceiling. 

“And just for a little background, let's be clear what the debt ceiling is: the debt ceiling is the nation's credit card. And for the last two 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, and so we're at this point to address that problem. But Mr. Speaker, wouldn't it make sense – at the same time that we're 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's what this debate has been about for the last few months and frankly, I think it's a debate that has been a long time coming in this nation. And so over months of debate – while no one gets everything they want – I think it's 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 and finally putting our country 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 of the problems that have been created over years and decades, but it starts to finally turn the ship of state in the right direction. And it starts with real savings. Over 2 trillion dollars of actual spending cuts – that's in the bill. Again, [a] very historic first step, and it doesn't mean that's where we stop, it means that's where we start. You don't get the next round of trillions and spending cuts if you don't lock in the first 2.1 trillion [dollars] that are in this bill. 

“Now, something else we do. We actually go and reclaim for the taxpayers of America what's been identified as 28 billion dollars 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's 28 billion dollars out there, still unspent, that liberals in Washington want to spend. And if we don't pass this bill, they will spend that money in the name of COVID, even though COVID is over. 28 billion dollars that should go back in savings to the taxpayer. 

“Well guess what is in this bill, Mr. Speaker? Those 28 billion dollars are reclaimed so the taxpayers get that money back. That's in this bill.

"Let's talk about the [Internal Revenue Service]. In my years of public service, in the state level or in Congress, I have never got[ten] a single call from a constituent going, ‘You know what? The thing we really, really want you to do is to 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. To go from about 80,000 people – to add not up to 87,000 – but to add an additional 87,000 people and even according to the Congressional Budget Office, they confirm that it would break President Biden's promise. 

“You heard over and over again. ‘If you make less than 400,000 [dollars] a year, don't worry. You won't pay any more new taxes.’ Well, maybe they're redefining what lower-income means because if you're making less than 100,000 dollars, according to the CBO, those new IRS agents will be going after you. Lower-income family workers. The mom – the single mom [who is] working two jobs at a restaurant – that’s who they'll be going after, and so we step in and say, ‘No, we've got 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. You know a lot of people take out loans. A loan to buy their first home. I know that's harder today under the Biden economy, because interest rates are so high because of the out of control spending in Washington, that this bill finally starts to address. So hopefully interest rates can go down, so hopefully families can afford to buy their first home again, but there's something else that people do. Usually, the 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. 

“But 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's fair to all of those people who are working hard, barely getting by in a tough economy?

“And so what we do is we actually start those loan payments back. That’s 60 billion dollars 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 then 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's trying to build anything in America – if you're trying to build a factory, if you're trying to maybe add onto your farm if you've 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., [the] next thing you know you got five different federal agencies where groups are suing to stop you from getting that permit, even though you did everything right [and] you followed all the rules. So we finally fixed that. We create a one-stop shop so that, if you're trying to get a permit [and] if you're 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 two years fighting that lawsuit. You win that one, the next day they file another lawsuit with another agency, and another, and next thing you know it's 10 years later and you just give up and walk away. It happens all the time in America.

“By having a one-stop shop, but we also put shot-clocks on the unelected bureaucratsbecause, 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 it.’ They give you a deadline and it's usually pretty soon and, if you don't meet that deadline, you don't get your permit. But if you give them all the information, you might wait six 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's in this bill. 

“And finally, Mr. Speaker, real work requirements. I don't think there's ever been a time in America where there are more jobs that are open. People [are] looking for workers. You can go to a restaurant – if you want to take your family out for a nice dinner and you're seeing a third of the tables empty, yet they're not seating anybody, [it is] 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's looking for workers, the federal government is borrowing money from countries like China to pay people not to work. This is insanity, and for all the people out there that are working, they're paying that freight. Why don't we say for people who are able bodied, [and] who are able to get back into the workforce – there's a social safety net for people who run on hard times – but if you just choose to sit at home and turn down jobs, that's your prerogative as an American [but] don't ask somebody who's working two jobs okay for you to sit at home and turn down work. And by putting work requirements back in place, something [President] 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 shore up in this bill, actually strengthening those programs that are so important to the people who paid-in for. 

“There's 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's what we're doing here tonight. That's why we need to get this bill passed, and then go work on the next reforms we've got to do to continue strengthening this great nation, the United States of America.” 

Original source can be found here.