Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, for 2 years, Democrats had control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They took the reins of power as the Nation began to emerge from a pandemic that had upended our economy and the lives of all Americans.
Up to that point, Republicans and Democrats had worked together to pass multiple rounds of COVID relief with strong bipartisan support. That spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship came to a screeching halt when Democrats took total control in January of 2021.
Rather than viewing the pandemic as a challenge that required temporary measures to overcome, Democrats saw it as an opportunity to permanently expand the size and scope of government. That was the exact opposite of what we needed as a nation.
Our public debt as a share of the economy had soared to heights many would have viewed as unthinkable a few years earlier. What was sorely needed was a bipartisan focus on putting our fiscal house in order.
Instead, Democrats rammed through a nearly $2 trillion partisan spending bill that prominent Democrat economists warned risked sparking inflation. Then, as inflation soared to 40-year highs, Democrats doubled down on their reckless spending with additional legislation and executive actions adding trillions more to our national debt.
Thankfully, the American people had enough. They made their voices heard through the ballot box. Republicans were handed control of the House of Representatives based on a promise of a return to fiscal sanity.
Speaker McCarthy repeatedly called on the President to negotiate a fiscally responsible and timely debt limit increase. Unfortunately, President Biden proved not to be a willing dance partner. He sat idly by for nearly 100 days watching the clock tick down to default despite the urgent need to raise the debt ceiling and begin to put our fiscal house in order.
Speaker McCarthy thankfully never took no for an answer. He kept pushing and rallied House Republicans to pass a debt limit package to pair back spending excesses of the prior Congress and impose meaningful spending controls moving forward.
House passage of the Limit, Save, Grow Act put a reasonable and fiscally responsible offer on the table that President Biden couldn't ignore.
The bipartisan negotiations that ensued brought us to where we are today, a bipartisan agreement to address the debt ceiling while imposing meaningful brakes on government spending largess.
As is the case with any bipartisan agreement, neither side got everything they wanted. I would have preferred an agreement closer to the House-passed bill. But in a closely divided government, you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act is a step in the right direction after years of unchecked Democrat spending. It will impose meaningful caps on discretionary spending that, over the next 2 years, will produce hundreds of billions of dollars in savings.
The agreement also strengthens work requirements in social welfare programs and claws back tens of billions in unspent COVID funds.
On the whole, over the next 10 years, this agreement will produce $1.5 trillion in savings. However, for all these savings to be realized, Republicans in the House and in the Senate will need to stick to their guns and vigorously enforce the spending caps.
As the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, I am prepared to do my part to hold the line and expect the House chairman is prepared to do the same.
As I said earlier, this agreement is a step in the right direction. However, we have a long road ahead to put our debt and deficits on a sustainable path.
Even assuming all the savings in this agreement is realized, public debt as a share of our economy will exceed World War II era record levels in a matter of years, and annual interest costs will balloon to over a $1 trillion.
We have a moral obligation to the Nation's youth to leave them a country that is on solid financial ground. Passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act is a start, but much remains to be done.
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