Disconnected State of the Union Address

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, last week, the President stood in this Chamber and declared the state of the Union is good and that our lives are better.

For the sake of our country, I wish that were so, but, unfortunately, we know it couldn't be further from the truth.

After 3 years of one self-inflicted disaster after another--border, crime spree, cost-of-living crisis, a more destabilized and dangerous world because of the weakness, the weak posture, the feckless foreign policies--we are supposed to believe somehow that life is better in America.

President Biden wasn't able to suspend reality even in a State of the Union speech. Why? Because the American people know better. They know that under the reckless spending and failed policies of this President, their country has become weaker and more vulnerable, both at home and abroad.

Madam Speaker, if you think that the State of the Union speech was disconnected from reality and the needs of the American people, read his budget. He just introduced it yesterday.

In the midst of record spending-induced inflation, interest rates, and the cost of living that is crushing working families, and a fragile and uncertain economic future for the American people, and the slide toward socialism, the slide toward a sovereign debt crisis, here is his answer:

Double down on the borrowing and the spending and the taxing.

In fact, his budget proposes the highest sustained levels of spending, borrowing, and taxing in the history of the United States of America.

Adding $16 trillion to the debt over 10 years, $5 trillion from hardworking tax-paying Americans to attempt to pay for it, taxes on energy and agriculture producers, taxes on working families, taxes on our job creators who are competing not just here at home but in the international marketplace.

Then he expands mandatory spending. Understand that we have 75 percent of our budget on auto-spend. That is the driver of the debt. If we don't rein in mandatory spending and grow this economy, we will never get out of this dangerous and unsustainable fiscal path that will end with irreparable harm to this country, that will end with our children being robbed of their freedom and their opportunities.

It will upend the Republic and our leadership in the world. The whole world order will change, and China won't have to fire a single shot. Madam Speaker, he expands mandatory spending because he wants more climate subsidies and clean energy, green energy tax giveaways to corporations. It is more cradle-to-grave welfare without work, trapping more people in dependence on government and generations in poverty.

This is his vision for America.

One thing that is not in there is any consideration for this current fragile economy or our children's future.

Madam Speaker, I am concerned as the budget chairman of the United States House Budget Committee. I am concerned as a family man with three children, who are hoping to have the American experience that we have had.

Madam Speaker, the Republicans put forward their budget, their blueprint, that would put this Nation on a path to balance. Instead of adding the $16 trillion in debt over 10 years, we take that debt away. We reduce trillions of dollars in debt, we reduce our debt-to-GDP which, by the way, is the highest indebtedness in the history of our country, surpassing World War II when we were fighting Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. We are in relative peace and prosperity, and we have higher indebtedness than we did in World War II, and it is going to get exponentially worse.

Today, our debt is 25 percent higher than the total economic output of the greatest and biggest and most robust economy in the world. It will be twice that in 30 years--$120 trillion on top of the $34 trillion debt that we are in now.

Now, if you can look at those CBO projections, if you can look at the unfunded liabilities 30 years in the future and not shudder to your core for the future of your country, then you are not reading from the same documents I am reading from.

Madam Speaker, look at the contrast between Biden's budget and the Republican budget. He says, show me your budget, I will show you your priorities. Look at his priorities and look at ours. I think you will understand that we choose economic freedom and fiscal responsibility and a bright future for our children.

God bless America and go west Texas.

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