Smith Floor Remarks: FY 2023 Deeming Resolution
As prepared for delivery.Thank you, Mr. Speaker
Today’s rule fits an all-too-familiar pattern of legislative laziness from my Democrat colleagues.
Once again, Washington Democrats are hiding their spending from the American people. They are smuggling their spending levels for the upcoming appropriations process into a rule for a totally unrelated bill so they don’t have to debate or defend their out-of-control spending habits.
Last year, Democrats did this exact same thing. The Chairman of the Budget Committee drafts a spending resolution — skips over his Committee – and then they toss it into a rule hoping no one notices.
At no point in the last four years of their Majority, have House Democrats actually marked-up a budget in the Budget Committee.
Time and again, House Democrats have acted with as little sunlight as possible because they don’t want to be held accountable for their record.
Americans know that Washington spending is driving inflation, and now Democrats are calling for even more. Last year alone, House Democrats voted for $7.5 trillion in new spending, including the $2 trillion so-called “Rescue Plan” that ignited the highest inflation in 40 years.
Since President Biden took office and one-party Democrat rule took over in Washington, inflation is up 11 percent. Gas prices have gone up 110 percent on their watch. President Biden’s 2021 deficit was the second highest in American history, $517 billion more than the Congressional Budget Office said it should have been.
Democrats don’t want to debate budgets. They certainly don’t want to debate the President’s budget – which would spend $73 trillion over the next decade — a 66 percent increase over the past decade. It would add $16 trillion in new debt with well over $1 trillion annual deficits every year.
Democrats don’t want to talk about budgets because they’re spending like they don’t exist.
If Democrats won’t show their cards, allow me. The resolution they’ve tucked away in this rule has over $1.6 trillion in discretionary spending next year — $132 billion or a 9 percent increase over the most recent FY 22 omnibus. It is $21 billion more in spending than even Biden’s budget.
Instead of hiding, I urge my colleagues to be crystal clear with the American people about exactly what they have in store for them – tax increases, high inflation, open borders, energy dependence, and an ever growing mountain of debt.
I yield back.
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