Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I thank the ranking member for the time. I would have been here a little bit earlier, but previous commitments kept me from speaking during general debate. I rise in opposition to this package of appropriations bills. I am the ranking member of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, and I have a great deal of respect for my chairman, Mike Quigley. We work well together. I appreciate the hard work that Mike and his team put in in trying to get a bill that we can come to agreement on. However, the bill we are debating is packed with unjustifiable spending that ignores the government's unsustainable fiscal trajectory and the historic level of inflation burdening all Americans, and we should be fixing that, not making it worse. As the pandemic wanes and inflation soars, I was hoping that we could begin reducing spending. Instead, the Financial Services division of this bill increases discretionary spending by over 17 percent. Many programs in the bill get double-digit percentage increases; some get triple-digit percentage increases. For example, the bill provides: An increase of 433 percent for election grants; A 20 percent for the White House; A 30 percent for the Federal Trade Commission; A $1 billion increase for the IRS; and A $1.6 billion increase for GSA. These increases are unconscionable when considering the U.S.' historically high debt, now in excess of $30 trillion, and inflation over 9 percent.…”