Arrington Opening Statement at "Exposing the Woke, Wasteful, and Bloated Bureaucracy" Hearing

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"This is the first hearing of our committee since the House passed Republicans' debt ceiling proposal - the Limit, Save, and Grow Act. This bill is a responsible and important first step to getting our fiscal house in order and beginning to extinguish the inflationary firestorm caused by President Biden's reckless spending and failed economic policies. Nobody can look at the balance sheet of our federal government or the nonpartisan CBO's budget outlook and not be deeply concerned about the rapid deterioration of our nation's financial health. Over the last two years, President Biden has financed his radical agenda and vast expansion of the federal government with an unprecedented $10 trillion in spending -- $6 trillion of which has been added to the national debt - all of which has resulted in our current inflationary and recessionary economy and bleak fiscal outlook. Unfortunately, instead of acknowledging the consequences of their policies and working with Republicans to include fiscal reforms in a debt ceiling deal, my Democrat colleagues have chosen to respond with false choices, fear mongering, and phantom funding cuts. While the American people have been forced to tighten their belts and change their spending habits as a result of Biden's spending-induced inflation, Senator Schumer and President Biden are fighting tooth-and-nail for the status quo. And what has the status quo given us: skyrocketing prices, shrinking paychecks, soaring interest rates, a culture of dependency, and an overall weaker economy and a more vulnerable nation. If you factor in the impact of record inflation on working families, Americans have effectively received a major pay cut. In fact, the average family of four is paying over $13,000 per year ($13,186) more to purchase the same goods and services as they did in January 2021 - over $1000 a month when 6 out of 10 Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. And I believe the American people are connecting the dots between Washington's out-of-control spending and their cost of living crisis. That's why I'm not surprised that 3 out of 4 Americans - including nearly 60% of Democrats - expect President Biden to negotiate a debt ceiling increase that includes spending reductions.
Here's the bottom line: our federal government is 40% larger today than it was at the beginning of Covid and, according to CBO, we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars more in discretionary spending than they predicted in 2019. My Democrat colleagues will claim this was justifiable COVID spending, but when you look closely, it's clear that Washington is spending a lot of money on a lot of things that the federal government should not be funding--bailouts and handouts outside of the core mission of government, growing the bureaucracy and injecting divisive wokeness into every aspect of government."

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