On the recordSeptember 29, 2022
I thank my good friend, Mr. Arrington. I wish I had a witty sports rejoinder from Michigan to Texas, but I utterly lack that. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the deeply troubling state of our Nation's finances. As Mr. Arrington has pointed out, at this moment, the U.S. public debt stands at nearly $31 trillion or 122 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. Total debt service on this as of August of this year was $677 billion, which is more than we spent on national defense in the 2017 fiscal year. To put it another way, this current administration, despite all of this, does not seem worried. In fact, they are enacting policies that will only grow and exacerbate this problem. This administration, with the assistance of the Senate and House counterparts, passed both the American Rescue Plan and the oxymoronically named Inflation Reduction Act through reconciliation with absolutely zero communication across the aisle. Still, not satisfied with what they have been able to spend on a strictly partisan basis in Congress, the administration has arrogated to itself sweeping fiscal powers under a national emergency which it continues to extend, not because the actual emergency persists, as the President has mentioned that the pandemic is over, but because they need the money. And that is what the administration has chosen to do. Our question is: With these emergency powers, what is their goal?…
