Reclaiming Our Fiscal Future

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAVIDSON. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and the whole group of the Republican Study Committee for working on this budget proposal because, frankly, this is an incredible threat to our Nation's security. It is a threat to the U.S. dollar as our global reserve currency, and as the Fed continues to accommodate it, we are destroying the value of our dollar.

This is an essential duty of our body here in the House of Representatives, and so it is an incredible honor to have three of the bills that I have drafted be included in the proposal. One is the CBO Show Your Work Act. Frankly, the Congressional Budget Office is our accounting office.

Now, imagine if you worked at a firm and you were on the board, and you simply said, I want to see the books. And the accounting department said, no, we are not going to show it to you. They won't even show it to regular Members sometimes. They should show it to the whole public. They are doing the work on behalf of the public. It is not a trade secret. It is not proprietary. They model our economy, their scores have incredible consequences, and they need to show their work.

Another one is the Global Trade Accountability Act. President Trump rightly put a lot of attention on trade, and it is right that Congress would reclaim some of its authority. Because when Congress doesn't enact a law, it doesn't endure, it pivots from administration to administration. It pulls the authority back to Congress where it lies in the Constitution, and it puts the President on a shot clock. And, frankly, not the President so much as the people we initiate against; either come to the table and negotiate something within 90 days, or the authority goes away, and you have to change something. 90 more days. And, in general, until you agree, it is going to keep getting worse.

Lastly, we have the fair representation amendment, and that would say that when we apportion congressional districts, we apportion them based on the number of U.S. citizens.

Frankly, rural America is being disenfranchised by counting noncitizens when we apportion Representatives. Ohio is losing yet another Representative.

That is not a partisan issue. It doesn't break on party lines. Frankly, Texas and California benefit by counting noncitizens, but it is hurting a lot of our country by counting them.

There are factors in terms of how we allocate dollars. Instead of dollars per citizen, we are allocating dollars per capita, and that sends more dollars to urban districts and fewer dollars to rural districts.

It is important work. I thank the committee, and I thank, particularly, Mr. Hern for his work leading it.

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