Chairman Arrington on Squawk Box: Republicans are prepared for Reconciliation 3.0
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) joined CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning to discuss the status of the current reconciliation bill and preparation for Reconciliation 3.0.
On preparing Reconciliation 3.0 to fund defense and target fraud:
"We support our troops. We know the Democrats aren't going to help us. I mean, they were prepared to shut the Homeland Security down through the rest of the fiscal year and not pay our Coast Guardsmen, our ICE and Border Patrol agents, etc. So, I'm anticipating that we're not going to get a lot of help and we need to support our troops, give them the resources they need to finish the fight and come home safely and successfully. Maybe some down payment on modernization and future readiness. Then we need to declare war on fraud in this country in the people's government because hundreds of billions of dollars are leaking like a sieve out of the many, many programs.
"We buttoned up Medicaid pretty tight. We did the same thing with SNAP, but there are about 75 other means-tested welfare programs in this government like the earned income tax credit, which is a cash welfare program that loses 30 cents on the dollar. There’s a lot of savings we can put against the offset for spending on defense. And then I think there’s still some affordability."
On addressing waste, fraud, and abuse in safety net programs:
"With just 15 agencies and departments, not all departments and agencies, including TANF, which is another big welfare program, and 64 programs only, we have $186 billion in improper payments. That's not the hundreds of billions in fraud that the Government Accountability Office is saying that we have. So those are two separate things. One’s waste, one’s fraud, and then you have the abuse of illegal immigrants also drawing down taxpayer services from these safety net programs. All I’m saying is there’s hundreds of billions of dollars still on the table in terms of fraud, waste, and abuse.
"I hear the fearmongering. This is why no one does anything about it up here because they'll have this false narrative that we're throwing poor people into the streets or taking food from the mouths of hungry children. And it scares everybody, so they don't do the right thing to protect tax dollars, the sacred treasure of our citizens that are paying for the light bills in here.
"By the way, they’re generous people who are paying for the safety nets for people who need them. And they don’t begrudge doing it. What they begrudge and what they resent is that we don’t have the discipline nor the courage to go after it until recently."
