Josh Brecheen: “This amendment is going to return funding for the General Services Administration, GSA, real property activities of the…”

“This amendment is going to return funding for the General Services Administration, GSA, real property activities of the Federal buildings fund back to fiscal year 2019 levels. It is a modest cut of $12.7 million. For context, this amendment would cut 0.5 percent of the entire bill. I will repeat that: 0.5 percent is what this amendment proposes. This is one-half of one percent. This amendment returns spending for this specific funding back to pre-COVID discretionary spending levels. To my colleagues, discretionary outlays by our Federal Government totaled $1.7 trillion last year, and last year's deficit was $1.7 trillion. That means 100 percent of discretionary spending is borrowed from our kids and our grandkids. That means 100 percent of all that we are discussing these last many weeks is borrowed money. We have to start cutting significantly. Can we not go back to fiscal year 2019 as a start? Is that not enough government that we experienced in 2019? This amendment cuts a modest $12.7 million from a $5.7 billion allotted amount for rental space that is not even being fully utilized by our Federal agencies. The Government Accountability Office, GAO, released a report titled Federal Real Property Preliminary Results that show Federal buildings remain underutilized due to longstanding challenges and increased telework. This report assessed 24 different Federal agencies' and departments' use of building space.…”