Reverse the Curse: Restoring Fiscal Responsibility

Floor Speech

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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Arrington for yielding. I am so appreciative that he brought up the night that we broke bread and the excitement that I had. I did, I lit up knowing that there was a real concerted effort to be able to forge a path forward to solve our Nation's biggest problem.

Make no mistake: This is our Nation's biggest problem. This is a national security threat. This is something that affects every single American. I am looking forward, and I owe it to every constituent, to make sure that I am working on solving the problem.

I will not go back every couple years when we run for reelection and complain about how much debt we have. I put the task force together so I could explain where we are at, what the ideal State looks like, what it should look like, what we need to strive for, and what are some near-term recommendations for us to be able to accomplish.

You heard from Representative Cloud. I have a provision that he put forth. I have numerous workforce ideas. We have 11 million jobs. That is a participation rate that would create an enormous amount of revenue if we could get all of those jobs filled.

We have the opportunity ahead of us. There is a strong bipartisan collaboration going on led with your motivation, and I believe in it, and I am willing to work tirelessly because it is our Nation's biggest problem.

Among all my comments today, what I want to make sure that I highlight is that we have to look at the data at what works. We have to look in 2017--didn't solve every problem; we still have a spending issue that Republicans weren't able to address with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, but it got our taxes on a globally competitive scale. That allowed for us to keep companies and workers here in America, growing the economy, growing that revenue that is needed so badly.

What we did in 2017 was actually empowering Americans. What we have done in 2021--I greatly fear is what President Biden and the administration has focused on--is empowering government. In 2017 we empowered Americans. We empowered ingenuity. We empowered that to drive us forward. And in the last year we have been empowering government. The massive amount of government spending has directly led to the inflation that we are seeing today.

Few things impact the lives of our constituents as directly as the state of our economy. Utahns I know are desperately hurting. Grocery prices are out of whack. Gas prices--I will talk about that--they continue to skyrocket, reaching $5. I filled up for $5, the national average, in Utah, and it is predicted we could be at $6 a gallon in July.

The Biden administration's blatant economic mismanagement has put us on the precipice of a recession. We are seeing the effects of that. The indicators are already there. From the Consumer Price Index to the stock market to confidence indicators. We are seeing a recession come about as we have to raise interest rates to solve the self-inflicted mess that was created a year and a half ago when Democrats put in the American Rescue Plan masqueraded as the COVID bill, suppressed our workforce and rampant inflation. This has been mishandled at every turn.

The administration claimed that inflation posed a small risk and that the effects would be short lived, but Friday's Consumer Price Index report, which stated that the price of goods has increased 8.6 percent in the last 12 months, validated what I have been hearing for months from my constituents, that inflation is hurting us, and it isn't going away.

Due to inflation, the average household pays an additional $460 per month for the same goods and services that they purchased just a year ago at this time.

Last month, we experienced the highest inflation in 40 years, yet again breaking the Biden administration's inflation records.

Republicans sounded the alarm last year when Democrats in Congress rammed through trillions in partisan spending priorities. According to the Congressional Budget Office's ``May 2022 Budget and Economic Outlook,'' over the next 10 years our total deficits will equal $15 trillion with a deficit of $2.3 trillion in 2030 alone.

This isn't free money. Sooner or later, reckless spending like this will force tax increases on hardworking Americans. Inflation is already a tax on hardworking, lower-income Americans that we say we are trying to help, and it does not help. That is an extra $460 a month on average.

To reverse our poor economic outlook, I organized a debt and deficit task force, and I already spoke about that a little bit, but it is with a group of really concerned citizens. These are experts in their field, across industry, a group of people that want to do this because they have fear, they have seen this in their lifetime with stagflation before, and they want to be a part of this and advise me in my role and how I can share that with all of my colleagues in Congress to be able to do four simple things: Grow the economy; save and strengthen vital programs; focus America's spending; and fix Congress' budgeting process. That fourth piece is something that we have to come together on immediately, and I know there is bipartisan support to be able to do that.

This task force will continue to develop a clear vision for how we can best bring Utah's fiscally sound policies to Washington to relieve inflationary pressure on hardworking families. I will continue to share our framework of solutions with my colleagues in Congress.

The United States has a flexible economy with a wealth of natural resources and competitive demographics. We are the envy of the world, and we need to continue to remain the envy of the world.

For the sake of each and every Utah family, we must get our fiscal house in order. Our plan will help do just that. I sincerely thank the gentleman from Texas for the encouragement. As I entered into Congress to find a niche of something that I am so passionate about, I will continue to beat this drum until we make it work.

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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Moral hazard.

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