Providing for Consideration of H.R. Fraudulent Joinder Prevention Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding time.

This is my eighth year in service on the House Budget Committee. For the last 7 years, every year, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget has come to the House Budget Committee and has presented the budget of the President of the United States--the President of the United States, who has been duly elected by the people of this country for two terms.

Now the House Budget Committee decides that it wants to break 40 years of tradition and not allow the administration to present the President's budget to not just the committee, but also to the country. This isn't just unprecedented, this is disrespectful to the members of the committee and the Members of this House. It is certainly disrespectful to our President and the office of the Presidency. And above all, it is disrespectful to the American people who expect their elected leaders to at least review the budget of the President they elected.

As I have said before, the American people have elected President Obama twice. They did it for a reason. One of the reasons was that we were facing one of the greatest financial crises in the history of this country. The record since President Obama has taken office is pretty good. During his time in office, he has overseen one of the most monumental recoveries in our Nation's history.

Consider some of the things that have happened over the past two terms of the Obama administration. Over the last 6 years, 14 million new jobs have been created; unemployment is now down to 5 percent; our budget deficit is at the smallest it has been in 8 years, down $1 trillion from the year President Obama took office; corporate profits are up more than 165 percent; the Dow Jones average has doubled; the S&P 500 has more than doubled, up 140 percent; the NASDAQ has tripled, rising 222 percent; more than 16 million Americans now have health coverage who previously didn't; and new business formations are running at their highest rate in 17 years.

With that record of economic leadership, you would think that not just the American people, but certainly the House Budget Committee members would want to hear what this President has to say about his vision for the economy going forward and for the budget of this government. But no, once again, for the first time in 40 years, we don't have time or, apparently, the interest to listen to what the President has to say.

I shouldn't say ``we.'' This is the Republicans on the Budget Committee.

Budgets are the way we prioritize our values and our preferences for future action. I know why the Republicans don't want to hear the President's budget, because they don't want the American people to compare what the President would like to do with what their own budget will do. Now, we don't know exactly what that Republican budget is going to look like this year, but we do know that the Republican budget is going to resemble the Paul Ryan budget of 2012 and 2011.

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Mr. YARMUTH. That budget was so distasteful to the American people that his running mate in 2012, Mr. Romney, was forced to disavow it. We can make our own judgments, but we can't make our own judgments if we can't see and we don't let the American people see the administration discuss their priorities versus the Republican priorities.

This really is an insult, once again, to the American people that Republicans are too scared of the contrast that will be presented to even allow the President's budget, the constitutionally elected President of the United States, to have his budget discussed in front of the American people. It is shameful.

I urge my colleagues to reject the previous question.

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