[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]











                          BUDGET PROCESS REFORM
                           MEMBER DAY HEARING

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               ----------                              

           HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., DECEMBER 6, 2023

                               ----------                              

                            Serial No. 118-8

                               ----------                              

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget








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                         BUDGET PROCESS REFORM 
                           MEMBER DAY HEARING

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

           HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., DECEMBER 6, 2023

                               __________

                            Serial No. 118-8

                               __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget








    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]









                       Available on the Internet: 
                            www.govinfo.gov 
                            
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                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
                 
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                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                  JODEY C. ARRINGTON, Texas, Chairman
RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina         BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania,
TOM McCLINTOCK, California             Ranking Member
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania          JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas            EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia    DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan
BEN CLINE, Virginia                  SCOTT H. PETERS, California
BOB GOOD, Virginia                   BARBARA LEE, California
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan               LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
A. DREW FERGUSON IV, Georgia         JIMMY PANETTA, California
CHIP ROY, Texas                      JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah                 SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
DAVID G. VALADAO, California         ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota,
RON ESTES, Kansas                      Vice Ranking Member
STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma          DAVID J. TRONE, Maryland
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan            BECCA BALINT, Vermont
MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota        ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, 
RUDY YAKYM III, Indiana                  Virginia
JOSH BRECHEEN, Oklahoma              ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York

                           Professional Staff

                      Gary Andres, Staff Director
                  Greg Waring, Minority Staff Director 
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                  
                            C O N T E N T S

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                                                                   Page
Hearing held in Washington, D.C., December 6, 2023...............     1
    Hon. Jodey C. Arrington, Chairman, Committee on the Budget...     1
        Prepared Statement of....................................     4
    Hon. Brendan F. Boyle, Ranking Member, Committee on the 
      Budget.....................................................     7
        Prepared Statement of....................................     9
    Hon. Carlos Gimenez, U.S. Representative for Florida District 
      28.........................................................    12
        Prepared Statement of....................................    14
    Hon. David Rouzer, U.S. Representative for North Carolina 
      District 7.................................................    17
        Prepared Statement of....................................    19
    Hon. David Rouzer, U.S. Representative for North Carolina 
      District 7, submission for the record......................    21
    Hon. David Schweikert, U.S. Representative for Arizona 
      District 1.................................................    23
    Hon. David Schweikert, U.S. Representative for Arizona 
      District 1, submission for the record......................    25
    Hon. David Schweikert, U.S. Representative for Arizona 
      District 1, submission for the record......................    26
    Hon. William Timmons, U.S. Representative for South Carolina 
      District 4.................................................   357
        Prepared Statement of....................................   359
    Hon. Kat Cammack, U.S. Representative for Florida District 3.   361
        Prepared Statement of....................................   363
    Hon. Zachary Nunn, U.S. Representative for Iowa District 3...   367
        Prepared Statement of....................................   369
    Hon. Brian Mast, U.S. Representative for Florida District 21.   372
        Prepared Statement of....................................   373
    Hon. Victoria Spartz, U.S. Representative for Indiana 
      District 5.................................................   374
        Prepared Statement of....................................   376
    Hon. Mike Kelly, U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania 
      District 16................................................   377
        Prepared Statement of....................................   379
    Hon. Mike Kelly, U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania 
      District 16, submission for the record.....................   381
    Hon. Mike Kelly, U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania 
      District 16, submission for the record.....................   382
    Hon. Matthew Rosendale, U.S. Representative for Montana 
      District 2.................................................   383
        Prepared Statement of....................................   385
    Hon. Matthew Rosendale, U.S. Representative for Montana 
      District 2, submission for the record......................   387
    Hon. Matthew Rosendale, U.S. Representative for Montana 
      District 2, submission for the record......................   388
    Hon. Bob Good, U.S. Representative for Virginia District 5...   389
        Prepared Statement of....................................   392
    Hon. Blake Moore, Member, Committee on the Budget, submission 
      for the record.............................................   396
    Hon. Warren Davidson, U.S. Representative for Ohio District 
      8, submission for the record...............................   398

 
                    BUDGET PROCESS REFORM MEMBER DAY

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2023

                          House of Representatives,
                                   Committee on the Budget,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:04 a.m., in Room 
210, Cannon Building, Hon. Jodey Arrington [Chairman of the 
Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Arrington, Norman, Smucker, Good, 
Estes, Fischbach, Yakym, and Boyle.
    Chairman Arrington. The Committee will come to order.
    I want to thank the audience for coming. It is a sign of 
strength and tremendous support for this budget reform process, 
which is part and parcel to restoring fiscal responsibility in 
our Nation's capital.
    To me, that is the overarching goal for all of us, is to 
rein in the deficit spending that is driving the unsustainable 
national debt, to reverse the curse that James Madison talked 
about. A public debt is a public curse and the worst of its 
kind, he said, in a Republican form of government. We have to 
reverse the curse, but we can't do that with the current 
culture and the current process, and to my friend from Miami, I 
would just say--who is a businessman, a local leader--people 
are more important than process, and ultimately, as Tom 
McClintock has articulated, the people of this institution have 
to have the political will to do the necessary and now 
extremely painful things, politically and otherwise, to right 
this ship and put our Nation on sound financial footing, but 
process matters, and if you have a broken process, you will get 
bad outcomes most of the time. Process is nothing more in my 
mind than a set of incentives, and incentives drive behavior, 
and what we need, to my Ranking Member from Pennsylvania, the 
Keystone State, is to encourage Members to conduct themselves 
in a responsible way when it comes to this process so that we 
can get the right and responsible outcomes for the taxpayers.
    For 50 years--this week actually--this week, 50 years ago, 
the Budget Committee passed what would become the Congressional 
Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. For the first 25 
years it worked, budgets were passed on time, there were joint 
resolutions signed by the President, and things were rocking 
along. The last 25 years I would argue, it almost never worked. 
In fact, here are just a few list of grievances, and by the 
way, these are bipartisan grievances. No party, when they had 
power and control of either chamber, has lived up to the 
responsibility of administering the process as it was intended. 
We rarely pass budgets and when we do, we almost never do it on 
time. Too often we waive spending caps and sequestration, pay-
fors, and other offset measures, and when we do, we often use 
gimmicky pay-fors that aren't real, and quite frankly, some of 
the gimmicks we use, Carlos, would land our citizens in the 
private sector in prison on account of accounting fraud. Half 
the time we don't reauthorize programs before we appropriate 
money to them. Not exactly a best practice in responsible 
budgeting. Reconciliation, which is a tool to reconcile the gap 
between revenues and spending, a gap that today is $2 trillion 
in one year. More than all of discretionary spending, and in 
ten years, according to CBO, it will be double that and we will 
accumulate $20 trillion in ten years, half of which is interest 
payments alone.
    Well, reconciliation was a tool by which this Committee and 
Congress could close that gap. Well, guess what? Congress has 
used reconciliation a number of times. When Republicans had 
total control, when I got here as a freshman, and just recently 
when Democrats had total control, both of them used 
reconciliation to jam partisan bills through that only made the 
deficit worse. So they didn't use it for its intended purposes, 
but for its self-serving purpose.
    We hyper focus on 30 percent of the budget, discretionary 
spending, and we rarely, Mr. Gimenez, give even ten percent of 
our time to the 70 percent of the budget that is on auto spend. 
We call it mandatory spending and that spending may be 70 
percent of the budget today, it is 90 percent of the growth 
over ten years.
    Okay. I think, suffice it to say, as some of my folks back 
in West Texas will say, it ain't working. So let's figure out 
how we can put those incentives in place, and let's get to a 
point where the American people can have confidence that we are 
running the People's house and the People's business the way 
they run their businesses, their families, their local and 
state governments. It is just that simple.
    I want to thank Rudy Yakym. He is a rising star, a new 
Member of Congress from Indiana's Second, and he has put a lot 
of thought into this. The first time I met him on the floor of 
the United States House he informed me of his intention to do 
something about this broken budgeting process and about our 
spending problem and the national debt that is being driven by 
that spending problem, and we were able to recruit him to the 
Budget Committee and I have asked him to be the Task Force 
Chair on the Republican side to lead the efforts to reform this 
process and to work with Members in other Committees of 
jurisdiction and across the aisle to identify the best ideas so 
that we can bring a package to our respective caucuses, and 
hopefully we can pass it out of both chambers and take a 50 
year old process that isn't working and make it work better 
again for the American people, the people we serve. I would say 
there is low approval and low confidence--the bar has been low, 
sadly--by the American people. I want to prove to them that we 
can rise to their expectations and be responsible stewards.
    So, Rudy, thank you for your willingness to lead the 
efforts on our side. I am grateful for you and I am grateful 
for Carlos Gimenez and for the many Members who will come today 
to present their ideas.
    With that, I yield as much time as my Ranking Member may 
need for opening remarks.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Arrington follows:]

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    Mr. Boyle. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few 
thoughts.
    First, as you know, while there are a number of things 
obviously we are going to disagree on, as we have talked about 
a lot in hearings and then outside of hearings, we both fully 
agree that the budget process is completely broken. It has 
existed for a half century, and we are so far beyond the way it 
was originally designed to work that it is at the point where 
there is widespread bipartisan agreement--not unanimity, I 
would point out--but widespread bipartisan agreement both 
inside the Capitol as well as outside, that we need real budget 
process reform.
    And look, I am a pragmatist. The reality is there is a 
Republican House and a Democratic Senate. If we are really 
going to achieve and make our mark to last not just a year or 
two, but many years to come, and fix this and have a permanent 
solution, it is not going to be a partisan Republican bill, 
even though I know that would be the instinct for any majority 
to pass. It is just not going to fly in the Senate and not 
going to become law. If we really want to fix this process, it 
needs to be truly bipartisan.
    Now, I know that we have had recently several hearings 
about a debt commission, and I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your 
genuine passion for that, but I think it is great that we are 
getting into budget process reform. I think there is a whole 
host--even though I have talked before about skepticism I have 
about commissions, I have to say the one area where commissions 
I think have done good work--although they ultimately didn't 
get their ideas over the goal line--the one area where they 
have done good work is in budget process reform. You served on 
the most recent commission, the one in 2018. My predecessor, 
Chairman Yarmuth, served on that as well. There are a number of 
good ideas here that I know had bipartisan support in that 
commission five, six years ago that I am very interested in. We 
have talked about some of them before--biennial budgeting to 
look at--several other things that I think are very much worth 
exploring. There is some help from the outside, some 
academics--again, both from the right and the left, and also 
nonpartisan--who I think can offer real value to us and focus 
on that.
    I also will say again, just as the Chair has a great 
passion for a debt commission, I have a real passion when it 
comes to reforming our debt ceiling. We are playing with 
dynamite. We can survive and have survived government 
shutdowns, even though they are costly, they hurt our GDP, they 
lead to lower job growth. CBO has documented every single one 
has led to an increase in the deficit, but we have been able to 
survive government shutdowns. We are not able to survive a debt 
default. So making sure as part of our budget reform 
exploration and work, making sure that debt ceiling reform is 
part of that is absolutely critical. Because while--and this 
has been the pattern over the last dozen years--while at the 
moment the debt ceiling isn't front and center, it will be back 
in front of us in almost exactly a year, about 13 months from 
now.
    So hopefully, and I would urge this Committee that really 
over the next--well, of course, we are going to have the 
Christmas break and holiday break, but once we get back in 
January, I do think the work of this Committee should really be 
dedicated toward widespread bipartisan budget reform, and I 
look forward to working with you in that effort, Mr. Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Ranking Member Boyle follows:]

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    Chairman Arrington. Well, I want to thank my Ranking Member 
again for his leadership and the bipartisan sentiments and his 
rightful understanding that we have to do this together if it 
is going to be lasting, and I know you are sincerely committed 
to that, and I appreciate the thoughts that you have had on the 
debt ceiling and other areas.
    By the way, Derek Kilmer and the former Chairman from 
Kentucky, both Democrats, were committed with Steve Womack, who 
was one of the chairs of that super committee, and you are 
right, there were several things that we agreed to, and the 
Senate pulled the plug on it in the eleventh hour, just like 
Simpson-Bowles had the plug pulled on it in the eleventh hour. 
Timing is everything. I think we have got a great opportunity.
    Now from Indiana's second, and our Task Force Chairman, the 
great Rudy Yakym.
    Mr. Yakym. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful for 
this opportunity to chair the Task Force and for your 
leadership on this Committee, as well as our Ranking Member, 
Brendan Boyle.
    Additionally, thank you to all of my colleagues for being 
here today to share your valuable thoughts and insights on this 
critical issue.
    Nearly 50 years ago, Congress passed the Congressional 
Budget Act of 1974, which established our current process for 
funding Federal agencies and programs. Fifty years later, our 
country looks much different. In 1976, our total budgetary 
authority was $420 billion. In 2022, our total budgetary 
authority was $6.5 trillion. Congress itself looks much 
different today as well. We operate more often in divided 
government with much smaller majorities than we have 
historically, and all of these factors illustrate why it is 
important that we evaluate our budget process and determine 
what is serving the American people well and what is not.
    It has been over 25 years since Congress enacted all 
appropriations bills before the beginning of the fiscal year. 
This leads me to believe that changes need to be made to our 
process. The inability to pass appropriations bills on time has 
led Congress to passing continuing resolutions days, if not 
sometimes hours, before funding runs out. This continual 
funding chaos contributes to constant overspending, high 
inflation, and the recent downgrades of the United States 
credit rating. This does not serve the Hoosiers I represent or 
the American people well.
    I am a businessman by background and have seen firsthand 
how process design and adherence to such processes sets a 
business up for success or for failure. The budget process in 
Congress is no different. We need to thoughtfully and carefully 
evaluate our budget process' success and its shortcomings and 
update it to create the best results for the American people. 
Committee Member Days are an important opportunity for our 
colleagues not on the Budget Committee to share their ideas and 
help determine the best possible solutions and how to address 
them.
    I look forward to hearing testimony today from my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle and working together to 
determine the appropriate reforms to the budget process and set 
it up for success, as well as working together to restore 
fiscal responsibility to our Nation's capital.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. I thank the gentleman from Indiana, and 
now we are going to move to the most important part of this 
hearing. It is a Member hearing, and we are grateful, as we 
know, that our colleagues have other responsibilities and serve 
on a number of Committees with jurisdiction separate and apart 
from budgeting, but I have talked to you, Carlos Gimenez, on 
the floor a number of times, and you are as passionate as 
anybody I know about righting the ship and fixing this broken 
process.
    With that, I yield to you three minutes, but I am going to 
be pretty generous because--I don't know why we don't do five, 
but I will give you three, and if you are on a roll, I might 
just let you keep going.

STATEMENT OF HON. CARLOS GIMENEZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                   FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    Mr. Gimenez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Ranking 
Member. Thank you for allowing me to give some of my ideas.
    I am not a businessman. Actually, I was former mayor of 
Miami-Dade County, the fifth largest county in the United 
States. I had about $10 billion in revenue, 28,000 employees, 
and I was a strong mayor of Miami-Dade County, so I was a CEO.
    Budgeting is not hard. It isn't. Budgeting is how much 
money do you have, and that is how much money you spend. The 
hard part is how you prioritize that, and unfortunately, I 
don't believe since I have been here that I have seen us really 
prioritize the money that we have.
    And so there is no silver bullet to the budgeting process 
that we have. The structural deficits that we have, there are 
no silver bullets. We need to look at a number of things, and I 
am just going to give you some of the things that I did when I 
was the mayor of Miami-Dade County, I walked in on a $2 billion 
operating budget--and I say it is a $10 billion budget because 
it is more than that, it is a CIP, et cetera, but actually, the 
actual operating budget was somewhere around $2 to $3 billion, 
and I walked in about 20 percent deficit my first year. So what 
are the things that we did? One of the things that we did is we 
looked at the bureaucracy, and I don't think we have looked at 
the bureaucracy here throughout the entire Federal Government 
to see if we need all the people that we have and we have 
employed, and I am sure a lot of people here are not really 
happy for me to say that, but that is just the facts. Most 
bureaucracies have more employees than they actually need, most 
bureaucracies have employees that actually create more jobs, 
more work for other employees, not really doing the work of 
what is in the benefit of the people, and so I think we need to 
establish some kind of a panel that looks across the board at 
the Federal bureaucracy and see where we can save money there.
    When contracts are approved by the Administration, are they 
overly generous? All the pay raises, et cetera, et cetera, all 
that costs money. So that is another piece.
    In terms of revenue, we have $3 trillion in regulations 
that we have piled on year after year, decade after decade. We 
should be looking at a regulation reduction panel. What will 
that do? Well, if we can reduce \1/3\ of the regulations that 
we piled on over the last ten decades or so, maybe that is $1 
trillion dollars back in the pockets of American businesses and 
American citizens. That will also spur growth and unleash 
American entrepreneurship. That will help us grow the economy, 
grow more revenue, and so that is another way to tackle this 
problem.
    And at the end of the day, we are going to have to make 
some hard choices. If you really want to balance the budget, we 
have to be frank with the American people and say we are going 
to make every effort to reduce the bureaucracy to the level 
that we think we need in order to run government, we are going 
to reduce regulation so that we can unleash American 
entrepreneurship and grow the economy at a faster rate than we 
project now, and then really look at how we can prioritize the 
things that this government should be doing, and maybe we are 
doing some things we shouldn't be doing, that we have taken on 
some tasks that really belong to the states or belong to 
counties, to cities, or governments shouldn't be doing at all.
    And so those are going to be the tough choices that we have 
to make if we are going to be serious about reducing the 
deficit here.
    [The information follows:]

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    Chairman Arrington. Representative Gimenez I have taken 
note of the bureaucracy challenges, the regulatory costs that 
affect growth, and just prioritizing, which is something we 
rarely do. We just plus up the last year's spending in a four 
corners omnibus spending deal. I mean, this is the first time I 
know in recent history where we have actually done effectively 
zero based budgeting because we have put a lot of pressure.
    We have had folks in our caucus expect that. We are not 
supposed to ask questions to you all, but I am going to do it. 
I am just going to ask you one quick question. That is a lot of 
work. That is a lot of work----
    Mr. Gimenez. Yeah.
    Chairman Arrington [continuing]. That we tend to avoid in 
Congress.
    Mr. Gimenez. Yeah.
    Chairman Arrington. What kind of results did you yield, in 
your last comments, in terms of digging into the bureaucracy, 
prioritizing--I am talking about as CEO----
    Mr. Gimenez. Yeah.
    Chairman Arrington [continuing]. Of the local government, 
Miami-Dade, what was the outcome of all that?
    Mr. Gimenez. The outcome was that we reduced the workforce 
by ten percent and didn't skip a beat, we also got concessions 
from our unions, labor unions. So we had a ten percent cut, and 
by the way, when we got that ten percent cut, I cut my own 
salary 50 percent. So I led by example, and so I didn't ask 
anybody to do something I wasn't willing to do myself.
    And then there were some things that we were doing that we 
didn't do anymore, and so we cut some services that weren't 
that vital, but for the most part, the services stayed the same 
or actually increased. Fire, police, those things that are 
important, the things that we have to do, garbage pickup, 
parks, et cetera, all those were untouched, but we were able to 
balance because we have to balance. See, that is where also I 
find is incredible here, you don't have to balance here. Well, 
all state governments have to balance, and all city governments 
have to balance and all county governments have to balance. I 
don't have a choice. The problem is we have a choice here, and 
if we didn't have that choice, then we would be forced to make 
a lot of these decisions.
    One further question before I go, and thank you for 
indulging me. The CBO scores. Have we done analysis of CBO 
scores in the past and have they been accurate or have they 
missed the mark? Because I will bet you that CBO scores miss 
the mark every single time, and they don't miss the mark by 
being, gee, we overestimated the cost of this. They always seem 
to miss the mark by underestimating the cost of things, and so 
am I wrong with that? Or is that something that you see over 
and over and over again?
    Mr. Boyle. I can answer that. First, it is nice to meet 
you. Good opportunity to do this, I think. Newer Member, I 
assume, and haven't had the opportunity to work.
    I am sure you support--I always say every year around this 
time, my idea is that Miami should be the Nation's capital for 
three months a year, January through March. But----
    Mr. Gimenez. We can set that up for you, don't worry.
    Mr. Boyle [continuing]. The other nine months, I would like 
it back in my hometown of Philadelphia, representing 
Independence Hall, as I do, but in terms of CBO, I mean, the 
famous physicist Niels Bohr once said, predictions are hard to 
make, especially about the future. So the professionals, the 
nonpartisan professionals of CBO do a wonderful job, but we 
should recognize just how challenging their job is. They have 
missed the mark on a number of occasions, but I have not, 
sincerely not noticed a pattern to them missing it.
    For example, in the 1990s, when you look at CBO projections 
that were made in the early to mid 1990s, they badly 
understated what the growth of the economy would be. In 1993, 
1994 they projected deficits and debts. They completely 
underestimated just the growth of the economy and the growth of 
tax revenue that would come with that, and at the same time, if 
you looked at CBO projections from 2006, 2007, they completely 
missed, as everyone did, the Great Recession, and their 
projections were that the economy would be much stronger in 
2009 and 2010, than it ended up being.
    So I would say they have missed on both sides.
    Mr. Gimenez. My question really wasn't so much about a 
particular year, it was about a program. So major programs like 
Medicare, et cetera, Social Security, the programs that really 
put us in this bind.
    Chairman Arrington. Yes.
    Mr. Gimenez. Were they underestimated at the time? I know 
Social Security was back in the 1930s, but Medicare was like in 
the 1960s and all. Did they drastically underestimate the cost 
in the future for America?
    Chairman Arrington. It is a good question. I think they are 
limited in their tools. We should look at as part of this 
process, CBO's methodology, the tools they have, and 
transparency, quite frankly. Not saying it is not a difficult 
job, but I think I am a continuous improvement kind of guy. So 
I think it is a great question on those major entitlement 
programs that are driving the spending side, and we will look 
at that for sure.
    Mr. Gimenez. It is water under the bridge, but it is 
something to take a look at so that if we were considering any 
kind of major project, we would say, hey, maybe we ought to add 
a factor to this because it is always somewhat underestimated.
    And again, thank you for indulging me past the three 
minutes. I really appreciate it.
    Chairman Arrington. Yes, it is the way I like to do it, but 
I am getting all kinds of pressure and pulls and mean stares, 
but I love it Carlos, and you taking time to do this. I 
appreciate it. Thank you, and the next colleague of ours is 
from Wilmington, North Carolina. If we can understand him with 
this thick accent, then he is going to, I know, contribute to 
this process.
    I am going to ask Rudy Yakym to make his way up here to the 
captain's chair, and I know Ralph Norman had a comment. I would 
like Mr. Norman to make a quick comment as we set up for Mr. 
Rouzer's testimony.
    Mr. Norman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    No, I would just say that there is nothing more important 
than getting prioritization, like Carlos said, and every dollar 
up here has got an advocate and it is tough to get weaned from 
things that shouldn't have been.
    So, David, thank you for your comments to be and appreciate 
your involvement.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Arrington. Thank you, Mr. Norman.
    With that, Mr. Rouzer, welcome and thank you for your ideas 
and comments. The floor is yours.

 STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID ROUZER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

    Mr. Rouzer. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking 
Member Boyle for holding today's hearing on how Congress can 
create a better budget process to help address the current 
state of spending in this country, including holding this 
institution better accountable for its actions that increase 
the deficit and the debt.
    So I would like to suggest three ideas for the Committee's 
consideration, and I will be candid and say that these are just 
top of the head ideas, but I do think they will help lend to a 
constructed debate.
    Number one, a change to the country's fiscal calendar, 
number two, holding CBO more accountable, and, number three, an 
accountability mechanism for lawmakers on votes of major 
spending that increases our deficit and national debt.
    So, first, I believe we should consider modifying our 
fiscal calendar to February 1 to January 31. According to the 
Federal Times, starting in 1842, the fiscal calendar was July 1 
to June 30. It was later changed to the current October 1 to 
September 30 fiscal year in 1977. Ironically, from what I have 
read, both changes to the calendar were intended to provide 
Congress with more time to pass appropriations legislation to 
avoid continuing resolutions. Our current fiscal calendar and 
the Executive Branch's inability to effectively deliver the 
President's budget proposal to Congress on time are not 
conducive to the current fiscal year structure. Often, the 
President's budget is not delivered until March or April, the 
House and Senate then have three to four months to agree on top 
line spending, pass their respective bills through each 
chamber, and begin the conference process just shortly 
thereafter. It is a system, quite frankly, set up for failure.
    Consequently, we often come back from the August recess and 
have to pass a CR, many times multiple CRs, which then lead to 
a bloated end of the year omnibus, or several bloated 
``minibuses'', as we call them. It can also lead to a very long 
and damaging long-term CR.
    So I recommend a February 1 to January 31 fiscal year. It 
allows the President to deliver a budget on the current 
schedule, gives the House and Senate the calendar year to pass 
their own bills with a conference report to be voted on 
following the holidays.
    My second suggestion would shift Congress from complete 
reliance upon the CBO in order to better establish a better 
projection of what legislation will or will not cost the U.S. 
Treasury. How many times have we seen projections that proved 
to be way off the mark once the law was in place? And, let me 
put it this way: if we each had a GPS that more often than not 
provided incorrect directions, we would toss it immediately, 
but let me be clear, the intention of this idea is not to 
dismantle the CBO, but the intention is to state that perhaps 
we need other instruments for which we can evaluate the CBO and 
improve it.
    For the sake of time, I am going to slip down here to the 
third suggestion, which I think is probably the most important. 
I suggest we have a mechanism of accountability for votes we 
cast that increase the deficit and debt. For every vote that 
scores an increase in annual spending over $20 billion, $200 
billion over a 10-year window, and/or converts discretionary 
spending to mandatory spending should require a subsequent vote 
of acknowledgment that by enacting such legislation, spending 
will add to the debt requiring that the debt limit will have to 
increase. If a subsequent vote of acknowledgement is required 
by the House following the passage of bills that add to the 
deficit and debt, which by the way, could be conducted the same 
as approving the Congressional Journal, Members would further 
establish a more transparent public record of our 
acknowledgement that a bill will result in additional deficits 
and debt, or conversely, the Member could vote no and explain 
in the record why such Member either believes the scoring is 
wrong or the increase to the deficit and debt is necessary, 
such as in the case of war or other national emergency.
    So those are just a few suggestions.
    I yield back. I appreciate the opportunity to share.
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    Mr. Yakym [presiding]. Thank you Mr. Rouzer. We appreciate 
your time today and thank you for coming.
    The Chair will now recognize Mr. Schweikert.
    Mr. Schweikert.
    Mr. Schweikert. Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Yakym. Mr. Schweikert, thank you. Let me begin by 
saying thank you for coming. You have been a great champion of 
these budgetary issues and I know you have got a chart there.

    STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID SCHWEIKERT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

    Mr. Schweikert. Yes, it needs to be a chart.
    Look, I will do this actually fairly quickly because I am a 
bit of a heretic here.
    Yes, the budget process, the mechanisms, the complexities 
don't work. Fine, but that is not the primary driver of U.S. 
sovereign debt. Every dime, every dime of U.S. sovereign debt 
from today through the next 30 years comes from two places. 
Health care cost is number one, and this slide is already a 
year out of date. If you factor in the new interest rates, that 
top line could be as high as $130 trillion of borrowing over 
the next 30 years. Now that is not inflation adjusted, but just 
understand today Social Security is number one, gross interest 
is now over $1 trillion dollars, so it is number two, Medicare 
now is number three, defense is now number four. On the chart 
here is in eight and a half years, nine years, Social Security 
has about a $600 billion shortfall. Even if you do what the 
left has suggested of raise the caps, a couple of other things, 
at our best, we are working on modeling the math, it is still 
short. It still does not cover the shortfall, but even if you 
did what the left suggests of just raise all these taxes, you 
have now just taken away--functionally you are now maximizing 
out your tax rates to anyone. It is the concepts of the Laffer 
curve. You have maximized tax rates, you have no more capacity, 
and, once again, health care is three quarters of the borrowing 
over the next three decades. So almost everything people like 
me will come to this microphone and talk about of changing this 
in the process, doing a better job of this or that, over the 
next couple of decades, it is a rounding error, and that is 
really hard and really uncomfortable because the scale of the 
math is so difficult.
    A few months ago the Joint Economic Committee Republicans, 
we decided we would step on the landmine and talk about 
something we can do. I have tagged it. I am going to give this 
to you, ask you to put it in the record and, who knows, maybe 
you will have a staffer that will actually look at it. Chapter 
3 of the Joint Economic Report talked about obesity in America. 
Turns out it is a few trillion, and if you add in some of the 
economic effects, could be $7 trillion over ten years in 
savings and economic vitality and second degree, third degree, 
fourth degree effects, and it is also moral. If you take a look 
at some of the data right now, we may be about to enter into 
the fifth year of life expectancy in the United States becoming 
shorter. There is some data in there that shows one of the most 
powerful things you could do for income inequality for my 
Tribal populations, rural populations, urban populations, 
actually, is not transfers of money, it turns out it wasn't 
even education, though education was way up there, it was 
health. We are financing, and this is where I become a heretic, 
and I am sorry, it is uncomfortable, we finance through 
nutrition support programs, the way we do them, or the way we 
do agricultural policy, the way we do these things, you got to 
look at the base numbers. We are making ourselves sicker, and 
it is the driver of the debt.
    And with that, I yield back.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Schweikert.
    The Chair will now welcome Mr. Timmons.
    Mr. Timmons, thank you for coming today. You are now 
recognized for three minutes.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM TIMMONS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Arrington, Ranking Member Boyle, and Members of 
the House Budget Committee, today's hearing cannot come at a 
more critical time for our Nation's fiscal future. It is past 
time for leaders of our Nation to come together and solve the 
tough problems we can no longer ignore.
    As Members of this Committee are fully aware, Washington 
has a spending problem. We currently have $33.8 trillion in 
debt, our debt-to-GDP ratio is 122 percent, the highest it has 
ever been. Next year, for the first time in our Nation's 
history, our interest payments on the national debt will be our 
number one expenditure. Social Security will be insolvent by 
2033, and our health care system is fundamentally broken. We 
spend twice as much as the average country per person on health 
care, and our obesity rate is three times the average, which 
does not bode well for our future health care spending either.
    Our fiscal situation is not the fault of a single political 
party or Administration. It is the collective shame of 
generations of politicians who continually kick the can down 
the road and choose political expediency over what is right for 
the future of our country, and it is no secret why. Interest 
groups from both sides of the aisle have preemptively started 
political attacks alleging the other side wants to take 
seniors' benefits. This is false. If we do nothing, in ten 
years, there will be a 23 percent reduction in Social Security 
benefits across the board due to insolvency. This is clearly 
unacceptable.
    The issue of the national debt affects every American, 
regardless of political affiliation. No one party, scholar, or 
economist can solve this problem. Either the fiscal commission 
is going to be successful or our country's doomed. A 
historically used tool to bring together the best and brightest 
to tackle the issues politicians are afraid to go near. By 
bringing together experts, economists, and Representatives from 
both sides of the aisle, a fiscal commission will foster 
bipartisan cooperation, setting aside ideological differences 
to focus on pragmatic long-term solutions. The structure is 
intended to transcend the political divide and elevate the 
public discourse. The creation of this commission is not merely 
an option, it is a necessity. Such a commission would be tasked 
with the critical responsibility of comprehensively evaluating 
our fiscal policies, identifying areas of inefficiency, and 
formulating strategic solutions to address the root causes of 
our escalating debt.
    As we all know, a root cause of our debt is mandatory 
spending. Medicare spending grew by 18 percent and Social 
Security spending grew by 11 percent just this year. These are 
vital programs and lifelines for millions of Americans, and we 
must strengthen and preserve them for generations to come 
without compromising the promises we made to our senior 
citizens in this country. This is not about sacrificing the 
welfare of our citizens, but rather about ensuring that these 
vital programs remain viable and robust in the face of fiscal 
challenges. Every day we fail to move forward with this effort 
represents a theft from seniors, those close to retirement, and 
future generations of Americans.
    If we are truly to address our Nation's fiscal solvency, we 
must have serious and uncomfortable conversations about the 
true drivers of our debt. Establishing a fiscal commission will 
force this body to finally face these issues head on, rather 
than continually placing more and more of a burden on the 
American taxpayer.
    Again, I want to express my gratitude for holding this 
hearing today. It is a step in the right direction for us to 
come together and have a serious discussion about the need for 
a fiscal commission, its mission, and begin the process of 
restoring our fiscal solvency and securing our Nation's future.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Timmons.
    The Chair will now recognize the gentlewoman from Florida, 
Ms. Kat Cammack, for three minutes.

  STATEMENT OF HON. KAT CAMMACK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                   FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    Ms. Cammack. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
Thank you to all of my colleagues on this wonderful, wonderful 
Committee. Your work is crucial in charting a path towards 
fiscal sanity for our Nation, so I thank you in advance for 
your work.
    Now, as we speak, the United States national debt is 
barrelling towards $34 trillion. Our window to restore common 
sense to our Federal budget is slowly closing, and we must act 
before our kids and grandkids pay the price for our 
government's abdication of fiscal responsibility.
    Now, as one of the youngest Members serving in the House of 
Representatives today, I am infuriated. I am disappointed. I am 
very frustrated. The fiscal sins that have been committed in 
the halls today and continue on are going to be paid by me, by 
my peers, by my generation. It is Millennials and Gen Z's that 
will pay the steep price for the lack of courage displayed by 
Members of this chamber. Continuing resolutions are nothing 
more than lazy rubber stamps of previous years' spending and 
priorities that do nothing to course correct the devastating 
path that we are on.
    Of course, no discussion about our Nation's fiscal health 
is serious unless we address the drivers of our debt, namely 
mandatory spending, which, as you and everyone in this room 
knows, is on autopilot. Without reforms immediately we will 
never be able to honor the commitments made by this government 
to our seniors and those most vulnerable. It is a conversation 
that is a much longer one, but a critical one.
    That being said, I would like to highlight a handful of 
proposals that we could implement immediately that would help 
restore our Nation's fiscal health.
    One, creating and implementing a structured national debt 
repayment plan. Two, realigning our budgeting process to start 
from zero, or as we all know it, zero based budgeting. Three, 
including CBO scores on regulatory costs before they are 
implemented, not when they come off the books, and, four, 
passing a balanced budget amendment.
    So first, a structured debt repayment plan would be a 
crucial step in tackling the national debt in a meaningful and 
intentional way. We can no longer leave this issue to chance 
and just hope it goes away. Eliminating the deficit and 
balancing the budget would be obviously the first step, but 
executing the concept of a long-term structured debt repayment 
plan is largely ignored and could be the trick to getting us 
back on track. Two variations of this proposal exist, but one 
that seems to work the easiest and make the most sense would be 
to peg principal payments of our national debt to a percentage 
of the GDP. This would allow for payments to ebb and flow 
amongst the cyclical nature of our economy and our revenues. My 
belief is that these payments would not be suggestions, but 
should be made mandatory, as we can no longer treat the fiscal 
health of our Nation as a discretionary issue. Only under 
circumstances such as economic crisis or a declaration of war 
could these payments be waived. These waivers would be 
congressionally authorized and only by a supermajority of the 
People's house.
    Furthermore, realigning the budgeting process from our 
current status quo of year-to-year budgeting to a zero based 
budgeting process is a no brainer. Every year we approach this 
appropriation process assuming that the previous year's funding 
levels are adequate and substantiated. We know that to be 
false.
    Including CBO scores on regulations is also a commonsense 
step. Regulations have a $2 trillion annual impact on our 
economy in enforcement and compliance costs alone. We have no 
actual figures that demonstrate what the government pays in 
these enforcement costs on regulations. In fact, when I spoke 
with the CBO Director, he said that they only score regulations 
when they come off the books as a cost savings, but no 
mechanism has been in place when they go on the books.
    And, lastly, as I mentioned before, we should pass a 
balanced budget amendment. In Congress we hold the power of the 
purse, and like any business, we must maintain a balance sheet 
where our costs do not exceed our revenues. We will have no 
path forward in paying down our national debt if we do not make 
these reforms now. We cannot garnish the wages of our children 
and our grandchildren. We have to take action immediately.
    I appreciate your work and this Committee's work in 
exploring the ways that we can change the course of our 
budgetary process for the better and with the American 
taxpayers in mind first.
    Thank you. I yield.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Ms. Cammack.
    The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. 
Nunn, for three minutes.

 STATEMENT OF HON. ZACHARY NUNN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                     FROM THE STATE OF IOWA

    Mr. Nunn. Thank you very much. I want to thank the Chair, 
Mr. Arrington, for his incredible leadership on this, as well 
as Ranking Member Boyle for providing a forum for non-budgetary 
Members like myself to share our policy priorities for this 
jurisdiction.
    Mr. Chairman, I also want to commend you for your Committee 
on advancing a budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2024 that 
would reduce the national deficit by $16 trillion and balance 
our Federal budget within ten years. That alone is a step in 
the right direction.
    In my home state of Iowa, we operate with a commonsense 
approach. Just like farmers, small businesses, families, we 
balance our budget and our checkbook at the end of every month, 
and so does my home state of Iowa every year when it comes to 
our budget. In fact, in the Iowa legislature, when I have the 
privilege to lead, we balanced the budget each year when I 
served there, and it is something that I want to bring to D.C., 
the Iowa model. The idea that we can balance the budget with a 
balanced budget amendment, the commitment that we will not 
spend more than we take in in revenue, that we will not have 
unfunded mandates, and through the result of bipartisan 
leadership, both with our governor and our state legislature, 
we unleash the potential of every Iowan to be able to grow the 
economy, pay down our debt, and now serve as one of the best 
managed states in the country because of our fiscal priorities.
    My constituents sent me to Washington to bring common sense 
solutions to an institution that can't stop swiping the credit 
card and racking up our national debt. In Iowa, we have worked 
hard to live within our means and I am dumbfounded by a Federal 
Government that refuses to take this priority seriously. While 
constituents must balance their checkbook to afford basic 
necessities, especially with an inflation rate at 19 percent 
increase since the pandemic, our Federal Government has failed 
to rein in Federal spending, and I believe it is time to 
restore a sensible functional government that works for the 
American people, not one that is irresponsible in using the 
taxpayers' hard earned dollar.
    That is why in my first week of Congress, my very first 
bill was to introduce the Balanced Budget Amendment. This 
resolution would have prohibited the total outlays for fiscal 
years from exceeding our total receipts, i.e., more money 
coming in than going out. This resolution would also require 
the President to submit to Congress a balanced budget annually, 
not one bloated with partisan wish lists.
    Let's just look at the facts from the Administration's 
proposal, this year alone, Mr. Chair. Over the 10-year period, 
the President's budget would increase spending by $73 
trillion--with a T--or 23 percent of our overall GDP, the 
highest sustained level in American history. It would increase 
taxes by $58 trillion, or 19 percent, also the highest in 
American history. The deficit under this proposal would also 
increase by $16 trillion over ten years or, said a different 
way for our citizens back home, a $50,000 increase per American 
citizen. Let's not forget, this is in addition to the $100,000 
each individual American household currently owes in the 
national debt, which currently stands over $33 trillion.
    So, Mr. Chair, as I conclude here, I want to highlight that 
Washington is sacrificing the livelihood of our children, our 
grandchildren, and national security of our great country to 
claim partisan victories for reelection.
    I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle of this 
Committee to support each of the individual constituents' 
futures in my district and yours by making Washington fiscally 
sane. D.C. must live within its means, it must recognize that 
economic success comes from unleashing the hard work of 
Americans, and we must also recognize that D.C.'s primary 
responsibility is to protect Americans' national security, and 
this truly is the greatest national security threat we face.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Members of the 
Committee.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Nunn.
    The Chair will now recognize Mr. Mast. Mr. Mast, you are 
recognized for three minutes.

STATEMENT OF HON. BRIAN MAST, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM 
                      THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    Mr. Mast. I know this Committee takes very seriously that 
we work within our means, work within the means of We the 
People, and one of the places that we consistently do not do 
this year after year after year, and the numbers bear this out, 
is with emergency disaster supplemental funding. Whether that 
be for a volcano, a wildfire, a hurricane, a flood, a tornado, 
something else domestically in the continental United States of 
America, Alaska, or Hawaii, or whether we deal with something 
abroad in Europe, war in the Middle East, or somewhere else, we 
consistently, for whatever the reason is, we do not account for 
this. The 20-year average for the amount that we do not account 
for is $105 billion on average, every year for the last 20 
years, some years a little bit less, some years a little bit 
more. I think this is something that needs to be accounted for 
as we are looking, if we are looking at, for example, the 
Limit, Save, Grow Act. If the Limit, Save, Grow Act was $1.4 
trillion, then as we are accounting what each of the 12 
individual appropriation bills should receive, that number 
should have probably come down to $1.3 trillion from $1.4 
trillion. Why? Because year after year after year we are 
spending on average $100 billion more, $105 billion more than 
what we account for. Personally, in my opinion, I think we 
should create a thirteenth appropriation bill that specifically 
accounts just for disaster supplemental appropriations, both 
foreign and domestic. I know this moves into the world of what 
goes with the Disaster Relief Fund and what happens with State 
and Foreign Ops appropriations, but given that we are not 
accounting for this, I think it needs to be addressed.
    I would like to see the Budget Committee address this. I 
think there are a number of ways we could do it, but to not do 
it is simply irresponsibility against the commitments that we 
have made. Certainly as Republicans, what we campaigned on, 
which was strictly fiscal responsibility. We believe in it, we 
work towards it, and if we don't account for that at least $105 
billion that we are spending every year, not accounting for, 
then we are not really living up to the fiscal responsibility 
that we hope to meet.
    In that, I thank you for your time.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Mast.
    The Chair will now recognize the gentlewoman from Indiana, 
Ms. Victoria Spartz for three minutes.

STATEMENT OF HON. VICTORIA SPARTZ, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                   FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA

    Ms. Spartz. Thank you, Mr. Chair, my fellow Hoosier. I will 
be brief. I think this Committee needs to do a very important 
job, and unfortunately, we are not. We can talk about balancing 
something. Congress hasn't even tried to balance anything for a 
while. Our spending is on steroids and recurring because we are 
so weak, we are afraid to vote on it and really deal with that, 
and the rest of it, we cannot touch most of it. We cannot even 
pass appropriations bills. We keep increasing the amount of 
unauthorized spending for decades. So it is a very, very 
serious situation.
    Our growth in GDP will not be covering now even growth in 
interest and how much debt has to be refinanced in the next few 
years at this interest rate and slow down the economy, we will 
reach soon the point where half of our spending will be on 
interest, just interest on debt, and that is going to be the 
collapse of our economy, and the only way to solve it will be 
if we continue punting these issues, it is double taxes on the 
middle class because everyone here is afraid to reform 
anything. So doubling taxes on the middle class, which paid 
roughly about, if you add all taxes, 50 percent, now probably 
you will get to 80 percent. We will have socialism.
    Unfortunately, we had lots of discussions, lots of good 
things, and I appreciate your Committee had a hearing on the 
debt commission recently. There are a lot of good people here 
in the House who have been working and I think there are a lot 
of these proposals. I work with numbers of people and we try to 
reconcile the differences, but I think at least in the House we 
do have some bipartisan support, but the Senate is in trouble 
because the Senate only cares about elections, power, and 
unfortunately doesn't want to deal with it on a bipartisan 
basis.
    So I would urge my colleagues here, Republicans and 
Democrats in your Committee, to start really thinking about our 
country and what we are doing to our country and have at least 
a conversation. Our credit rating was downgraded just because 
we are not willing--we are so weak and worthless here that not 
willing to have a serious conversation that will be destructive 
for so many people, and inflation will destroy the middle class 
in our country and opportunities for people on lower income and 
people on fixed income.
    So I think this is a very serious national security crisis. 
I think the Budget Committee needs to also look at how we can 
reform. We did some reforms at the beginning of last century, 
then we did at the end, closer to the end of the century, but 
realized that it is not working. We are not budgeting here. We 
do a lot of presentations and hearings, but not really looking, 
and the number one function given to Congress by We the People 
is power of the purse and power of war because our founding 
fathers understood that is the only way American people can 
have accountability.
    I think this is a very, very important thing that we need 
to try to move the needle, and I hope we will have bipartisan 
support and support of this Committee, and I would be happy to 
help you in any way I can, and I appreciate the Chairman really 
leading the charge on this issue.
    Thank you.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Ms. Spartz.
    The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from the great 
State of Pennsylvania, Mr. Mike Kelly, for three minutes.

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE KELLY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM 
                   THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

    Mr. Kelly. Thank you.
    This has been done before. So I have a copy of the Simpson-
Bowles, but the cover on it was the moment of truth. This is 
from 2010. So that moment of truth in 2010 has long passed. We 
are long past that time, and to be honest about this and 
listen, guys, I am going to talk to you as a Chevrolet dealer. 
I am not going to talk to you as a Member of this because I 
have dealt with debt my whole life. I understand how it can be, 
and I know exactly where we are. You all know exactly where we 
are. The question is, do we have the political courage to do 
what has to be done? And I hear people tell me, this is all you 
have got to do. Say, that is a great idea. Are you willing to 
step up and do it? And the question is, well, let me make sure 
I understand what we are doing before we go any further.
    I did bring some charts today, and I know David always 
brings charts, but we try to talk and I am at the dealership, I 
usually end up talking to people who are prospective buyers. 
Ninety-seven percent of what we sell is on time, and what I 
mean is there is a sales contract for that financial 
institution. One of the biggest things we have to understand is 
people's credit score. Now, when people talk to me about 
cutting the cost of operation, I don't use the figures that we 
use, like, we have $5 trillion worth of revenue this year, we 
are going to spend $6.9 trillion, and people say, I have no 
idea what it means. I say this is what it means. Somebody 
making $50,000 a year is going to go out and spend $69,000 a 
year and they say, oh my God, you can't do that.
    Well, we talk about getting this in order. Do you know that 
out of every single dollar that we take in, $0.73 cents of it 
is already spent. That leaves $0.27 for us to do something 
about, right? The mandatory is there. What is it? It is Social 
Security, it is Medicare, it is Medicaid, it is interest on the 
debt. So when people tell me you guys are going to have to get 
together and get this done, my answer is, I absolutely agree 
with you. I absolutely agree with you. Which programs do you 
think we should cut? And the answer is every program but the 
one I participate in. We are talking about just not the courage 
of Congress, we are talking about the courage of the American 
people to understand where we are right now.
    Now, we can sit back and we can talk and talk and talk, but 
I will tell you what, we are now at a position--in 2010--let me 
just read from the preamble because this is what they said at 
that time--if we do not act now, the country will be lost. 
Thirteen years ago. Trillions upon trillions upon trillions of 
debt increase since then and we have done nothing. This is not 
a criticism of the body, by the way, this is a criticism of a 
culture. We are a culture that likes to spend. The only thing 
that can rein in spending is strong management. Strong 
management comes from this body. I would just ask you, as you 
look at everything we talk about, do you have the political 
courage to do what needs to be done? The referendum, what we 
are going to have to do is going to be drastic and it is going 
to cause a lot of people a lot of pain because they have been 
used to it. They have been used to overspending without any 
responsibility to covering the cost of it.
    Mr. Smucker comes from the private sector as I do. There is 
no way in hell I could run the dealership the way this business 
is run. There is no business in the world that can be run this 
way. Not for a long period of time. Our size of our debt is 
unbelievable. This is a titanic moment for us because most of 
the debt is below the surface. You don't see it, but when we 
hit that, it is going to cause the country to go upside down.
    I really appreciate what you are all doing. Lloyd and I 
talk about this stuff a lot, Jodey and I talk about this stuff 
a lot. Politicians can't fix it. We come up with policy. The 
question is, we need people of courage that are able to stand 
up and do it.
    So I would just implore you all, listen to what it is we 
are trying to do. We all agree in the same thing. Is there a 
moment of truth? Yes, there was 13 years ago. The one today is 
far more challenging than the one they had then. I don't think 
we have implemented any of what they did before, and I know if 
we start talking about cutting, our phones will never stop 
ringing, our offices will be full every day with people that 
say, yeah, but, you know, you can't, you can't, you can't, you 
can't, and the answer is now if we don't, it is over.
    So thank you all. It is good to see you. I will see you 
later on today, but great initiative, great initiative. Let's 
see what we can do. Let's see if we can all come out of the 
huddle the same way, run the same play in the same kind.
    Thanks so much.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Kelly.
    The Chair will now recognize my friend from the great State 
of Montana, Mr. Rosendale.
    Welcome. You are recognized for three minutes.

   STATEMENT OF HON. MATTHEW ROSENDALE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MONTANA

    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Appreciate 
it. Appreciate everybody taking the time to organize this today 
so that we can help you. So that we can help you.
    I appreciate the opportunity to testify. I am here today 
not to talk about a new legislative proposal or new scheme to 
fix our broken budget process. Instead, I am proposing that 
Congress simply follows the law that it passed for itself 50 
years ago. After decades of recklessness shown by Congress, 
America now finds itself nearly $34 trillion in debt. Our 
government's fiscal irresponsibility is the single biggest 
threat to America.
    As Congress continues to ignore this threat, the situation 
only worsens. Earlier this year, the U.S. debt credit rating 
was downgraded for the second time in a year. This is a direct 
result of our refusal to address our debt. If we continue this 
trajectory, the U.S. will have to spend 50 percent of our 
annual revenue to pay the interest on the debt within five 
short years. Mr. Chair, I am not pointing fingers at anyone. I 
have made every attempt to assist in the reduction of our 
spending. I know how. When I ran my own agency in the state of 
Montana, I reduced my spending by 23 percent. When I had the 
authority to make the cuts, I reduced it by 23 percent. It does 
not require another Committee, it only requires discipline from 
this body. That is what it requires. Continuing down this path 
for any longer is completely unsustainable and will cause never 
before seen financial hardship in our country.
    You can see it on the charts here. Everyone is bringing 
these charts in. We know what the numbers are. Deficit this 
year: $1.7 trillion, national debt approaches $200,000 per 
household, the national debt is nearly at $34 trillion. We just 
cannot sustain this.
    Since 1974, Congress has only passed the appropriation 
bills on time four times. Congress has not passed the 12 
appropriation bills by the required deadline at all in the last 
26 years. No one can function that way. We need to simply 
follow our own mandates, and here it is, and we have heard some 
recommendations about how to change the timelines, but the fact 
of the matter is, if we followed this timeline and we produced 
the budget and then had the Appropriations Committees turn 
their work in--and they are prepared to do so, they are able to 
do so, they are capable--then we would be able to accommodate 
that. Although the Republican majority in the House took much 
needed steps to reduce wasteful spending this year--I have 
listened to everybody come before us, but 86 percent of the 
proposed spending reductions were prevented on the House floor, 
not by Democrats, but by Republicans.
    So please, install a mirror in this room so that the people 
could look at themselves in the eye and see what is causing 
this problem. Eighty-six percent of the reductions that we 
brought forward were defeated by Republicans. We struggled to 
get 75 to 125 Republicans vote for those reductions time and 
time again. Even if we eliminated 100 percent of the 
discretionary spending, we would still be adding roughly $500 
billion to the national debt each year, and that is all we are 
dealing with, the discretionary. Call it $1.6 trillion, okay? 
If we eliminated 100 percent of that, we would still be 
accumulating $500 billion a year to the debt every year.
    This unprecedented debt crisis means that going forward 
Congress will have to take the tough votes to lower our debt 
and restore our country's financial independence. The apparent 
unwillingness from some of the Republican Party to act in the 
interests of the American people and pay us 12 appropriation 
bills that spend within our means will only prolong and worsen 
the struggles the American people are facing every day. 
Additionally, we must address the mandatory spending, which has 
been on autopilot for far too long, and I know that the Members 
that are sitting here agree with that.
    Americans across the country balance their budgets and 
ensure their spending is within their means, and it is past 
time the Federal Government does the same.
    Mr. Chair, I am willing to do my part. This does not take 
another Committee. It does not take another Committee, it takes 
discipline. It takes commitment and public service that we all 
signed up to be here for, and that is to make sure that we 
preserve this Republic. We can do it. We must do it. I am here 
just to say that I will help you do it.
    Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for your 
interest. I yield back.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Rosendale.
    Chairman Arrington. Mr. Chairman, may I have a 30 second 
comment to my friend, Mr. Rosendale? May I comment on his 
remarks?
    Mr. Yakym. Please do. You are recognized.
    Chairman Arrington. I couldn't agree more, and I am 
encouraged and inspired by the passion of you and many Members 
that it is discipline and political will ultimately that must 
prevail in order for us to turn the tide of this deluge of debt 
that is going to bankrupt the country, to put it mildly and 
succinctly.
    I would say there is one big advantage of a debt commission 
that is bipartisan, and here is what it is. I don't think there 
is enough pressure from the electorate in any district in any 
part of this country on Democrat and Republican Members to come 
up here and follow through on what they say they are going to 
do with respect to spending and the debt. If we can have 
bipartisan agreement on the numbers and the projections and we 
can sound the alarm together and have a national campaign that 
wakes everybody up to this. As Abraham Lincoln said, without 
public sentiment, you can do nothing; with it, you can do 
anything. We need more pressure from the citizens of our 
country on the knuckleheads here in Congress that just 
apparently live in a different world altogether.
    So I see education and awareness as a valuable outcome of a 
bipartisan commission, but you are right, ultimately got to 
have the political courage.
    I thank you for your input.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Good. Mr. Rosendale, would you like to sit behind this 
a little bit longer?
    Mr. Rosendale. You just want to use my charts.
    Mr. Yakym. The Chair will now recognize Mr. Good from the 
great state of Virginia.
    My friend, Mr. Good, you are recognized for three minutes.

 STATEMENT OF HON. BOB GOOD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM 
                     THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

    Mr. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our 
Committee for holding this opportunity for Members to come and 
talk about one of the, I would suggest two greatest threats to 
our country along with our open border.
    We all know that the budget process has been broken for a 
long time and the American people are suffering the 
consequences. The days of no consequence spending are long over 
with record inflation, 40-year high inflation, 20-year high 
interest rates, gas prices, grocery prices, housing prices, 
utility prices, just breaking regular income Americans. 
Congress has not, unfortunately, demonstrated the intestinal 
fortitude to approach the budget with the necessary resolve to 
cut spending, to rein in the bureaucratic state, or remain 
accountable to the established budget process, let alone think 
about addressing the mandatory spending disaster on the 
horizon. I find it just very interesting so many of our Members 
in the Republican Conference even will say, gosh, it is not the 
discretionary, it is the mandatory, we have got to go after the 
mandatory, and they don't have a willingness to deal with the 
discretionary to earn the right, quite frankly, to reform 
mandatory spending.
    Currently, the national debt--we all know this--is at a 
historic high at $34 trillion, which equates to $260,000 per 
taxpayer, $100,000 per citizen. Interest on the debt has 
doubled under Biden, totaling $663 billion this past fiscal 
year. By 2027, it is projected interest payments on the debt 
are going to surpass defense spending. The national deficit 
this year is over $2 trillion. We are on track for a 12 month, 
$2.5 trillion. Worse, the Biden border crisis is costing us 
$150 billion annually on top of that, and yet assistance to 
Ukraine has topped $113 billion, with no oversight for that, 
and we have got the President and the Senate Majority Leader 
asking for another $60 billion for Ukraine and they don't want 
us to pay for it or have any offsets for that. You would hope 
that no Republicans, Mr. Chairman, would support supplementals 
without offsets, because that would demonstrate that the 
Republican Conference, the Republican majority, doesn't take 
serious the greatest fiscal crisis we ever have faced that we 
are under right now.
    Democrats broke the bank last Congress by spending over 
$550 billion in the name of environmental justice, and the 
President continues to ignore the established process of checks 
and balances by putting forth 850 Executive actions which have 
allowed his Administration to unilaterally enact $1.5 trillion 
in additional spending. Congress must approach the budget 
process reform with a commitment to cut spending, a 
demonstrated commitment to do so.
    A couple of suggestions. I would offer my nickel plan, 
which should be included as a guiding principle for the budget 
process because it requires the Federal Government to reduce 
its budget by one nickel for every dollar that it spends 
annually, and it would balance the budget in five years. This 
upfront cut would allow the budget process to address the 
excessive spending enacted by prior Congresses. My Article I 
Regulatory Budget Act would help Congress account for and 
address the out of control bureaucratic state. It is nearly 
impossible to balance the budget when unelected bureaucrats 
issue costly rules and spend money without proper oversight. 
For this reason, the budget process must include a framework, 
like my bill, again the Article I Regulatory Budget Act, that 
would require a regulatory budget detailing regulatory costs 
similar to the annual budget for taxes and government spending. 
It would ensure that all bureaucratic spending is accounted for 
in any future budget process. This tool would allow those 
working on the budget to have a comprehensive understanding of 
all federal spending, not just that which is enacted through 
regular order.
    Some additional reforms, the budget process should ensure 
that if a budget is not passed by April 1, then Congress is 
required to remain in D.C. until the job is done. We ought to 
also not allow the President to give a State of the Union 
address unless he has done his budget, as required by the first 
Monday in February. We ought to change the requirement for the 
congressional budget resolution to include requiring a 10-year 
debt service projection. How are we going to balance a budget 
or effectively address the budget process if the debt payments 
are not adequately accounted for? We need to change the 
requirement of the congressional budget resolution to include a 
baseline and a target debt-to-GDP ratio. What is acceptable, 
what is our target there? And change the requirements of the 
congressional budget resolution to require a markup of the 
budget within two months of the President's budget being 
published.
    I am proud of the work that our Chairman and our Committee 
has tried to do on this issue. I think that a debt commission 
is a good thing to do, but it is only as strong or as valid as 
the willingness of Congress to enact the reforms that we all 
know are needed. This is not easy, but it is also not 
complicated.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
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    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Good. I certainly appreciate not 
only your friendship but also our shared passion for restoring 
fiscal responsibility to the Nation's capital.
    I also want to thank our full Committee Chair, Chairman 
Jodey Arrington. As you well know, it has been 50 years since 
we have even looked at or evaluated or reformed any of our 
budget processes. I think this Task Force is an important step 
in doing that on a bipartisan basis, and doing so in a series 
of phases that allows us to get to a much better budget process 
that works not only for Washington and for the lawmakers, but 
more importantly, for the American people as we work together 
to restore fiscal responsibility.
    So I really want to take this opportunity to thank you for 
asking me to Chair this Task Force as we go through and reform 
our budget processes.
    Chairman Arrington. Mr. Chairman, will you yield me one 
minute?
    Mr. Yakym. At the discretion of the Chair, I will yield you 
one minute, yes, sir.
    Chairman Arrington. Well, you are the Chair for this 
purpose and it is a righteous mission and it is a very 
important endeavor. Fifty years, the results of the last 25 
have been horrible, tragic really, and while ultimately it does 
come down to now the party in power in the House, but both 
sides have just failed to live up to the discipline and 
political courage that has been talked about today. We don't 
have any more runway left. I don't know how much longer, but 
within this decade I believe, if we don't change course in a 
meaningful way with respect to our rising deficits and 
unsustainable debt, we are going to lose the country, and we 
can't kick the can down any further. I think your leadership 
and the efforts of our colleagues under your leadership to make 
sure that the incentives are right to motivate us through 
carrots and sticks, to get us to responsible budgetary outcomes 
to save this country, is critical, and so you have come to 
Congress at just the right time. It was clear to me that you 
had the leadership skills and the passion and the respect from 
your peers to lead this charge, and I expect big things from 
you, not only in this endeavor but in your future here in 
Congress. Thank you for your willingness to lead it and I am 
excited about the results of this and all of our efforts to 
restore fiscal sanity in our citizens' capital here in 
Washington, D.C, and I yield back.
    Mr. Yakym. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    That completes the Committee's business for today.
    I would like to thank all the Members who shared their 
ideas and recommendations before the Budget Committee. We 
appreciate your perspective and feedback.
    The Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 10:18 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
    
    
    
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