Steve Womack

For the reasons stated previously, I urge rejection of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Community Development Financial Institutions stimulate economic growth and create and sustain employment opportunities in rural and low-income areas, like a lot of America. The CDFI fund ensures CDFIs are able to provide these underserved…

I claim the time in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Arkansas is recognized for 5 minutes.

Pro tempore, I move that the House do now adjourn. The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 3 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Tuesday, October 24, 2023, at 11 a.m. ____________________

The American public just--we are afraid to tell the American public the inconvenient truth because if you tell them what the problem is, they are going to want to know what the solution is

The challenge with Congress is that we create commissions and we create task forces and we look at problem sets, and we develop potential solutions, and then there is no real mechanism to give them the force of law

We just have to have some ability to be able to constrain Congress from moving past the moment to some future milestone and give it the force of law today

This whole discussion about the budget process, this whole discussion about the debt commission, this whole discussion about the fiscal condition of our country...

When you are this deep in the hole, you better consider every available option on the table or else you are never going to fix the problem.

If you are going to fix a $2 trillion deficit and indeed quit digging this hole deeper, you can't do it on discretionary spending.

What we wanted was to improve the process.

If our constituents knew, across the spectrum of this great country, that this was the near-term biggest national security and economic challenge facing our country, they would step up to the plate and say, I will do my part.

Ladies and gentlemen, it was an entirely different situation. Forget the fact that Republicans and Democrats were working better together, we were not in the fiscal hole we are in now.

This fiscal commission is going to force us. It is going to bypass leadership, it is going to get to the floor and actually be able to be voted on.

A bipartisan fiscal commission will not be easy for any single person on this side of the aisle or this side of the aisle to vote for.

Our fiscal situation is dire because of bad decisions made here over many years and it can only be corrected here.

We have not fixed the problem. We knew that baby boomers were going to start retiring at a very rapid rate in 2008.

The ultimate bipartisan commission in this Nation is called the Congress, and this Congress, as imperfect as it is, is where these decisions must be made.

I am so proud of you.

The strength of a commission is to bridge partisan divides.

I can only characterize this new commission proposal as the proverbial definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

A commission may be the best shot we have to help us get back on track.

If you can't do something like that, then what, pray tell, can you do to fix the bigger problem?

It is true, we are badly divided by partisanship because the American people are badly divided by partisanship, and what is Congress but a reflection of the people?

The problem is not the process, it is the people.