Chairman Arrington Talks Reconciliation 2.0 and 3% Deficit-to-GDP Budget Framework on CNBC’s Squawk Box
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) joined Squawk Box on CNBC to discuss the upcoming reconciliation package to fund the President’s defense priorities and the need for a 3% deficit-to-GDP budget framework to restore long-term fiscal sustainability.
On House Budget Committee’s 3% Deficit-to-GDP Framework:
"We've been looking at 10-year balanced budgets for decades. And we haven’t had a balanced budget in a quarter of a century. Today, if we’re going to balance in 10 years—that's $18 trillion. We'd have to do what we did in the Big Beautiful Bill every year for 10 years.
"So, I think any successful endeavor starts with defining success and setting achievable—ambitious—but achievable goals.
"And in this case, we’re talking about reframing where we take our crisis level annual deficits per economic output, which is about 6% of GDP, and put it on a glide slope down to 3%—here we’re growing the economy faster than our rate of deficit spending and inflation. That should put us on a better trajectory, a more sustainable one. And then, we can take it from there on a more ideal path to balance."
On a Reconciliation Package to Fund President Trump’s Defense Priorities:
"I start with the fact that the American people gave us this unified Republican leadership to lead and to advance the America First agenda.
"A big part of that is, again, supporting troops, securing the border, and ridding our government of this widespread fraud
"There’s a boatload of waste and fraud. Just look at watchdog groups’ reports—$180 billion annually in improper payments. You look at the earned income tax credit program—one program—it loses 30 cents on the dollar. That massive 180 billion in annual improper payments is three times the Homeland Security budget.
"And fraud's a whole other story. You've got low-income housing tax credits, for example—another sort of welfare program within the tax code that doesn't prohibit illegals from siphoning money off that and jeopardizing the sustainability of that program. We should do what we did in SNAP and Medicaid on the other 78 means-tested welfare programs at a cost of $1.5 trillion. If we did that, we could offset anything that we want to do that is a national priority, especially including supporting our troops in a time of conflict."
