Biden Administration

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, as my colleague from Iowa just said, something mysterious happened just before the holiday weekend when the budget was released. So just before Memorial Day, the administration released its long-awaited fiscal year 2022 budget proposal.

Having reviewed the proposal, it is obvious why they chose this timing to do it--because they hoped most Americans would be too distracted by their backyard barbecues and tributes to fallen heroes to even notice how outlandish this budget proposal is. Thank God, Presidents only propose, Congress disposes because we have the power of the purse.

I have bad news for my Democratic colleagues about the release of this; that the American public won't have the wool pulled over their eyes as easily as this administration thinks so by putting this out late Friday before the holiday weekend. Americans will see this budget for what it is, a very unserious political document containing a laundry list of liberal wish list policies unmoored from economic or fiscal reality. It would be funny if not for the very serious issues we currently face in our country, and this budget makes them worse.

In response to the pandemic, Congress understandably took bold actions to help individuals keep the roof over their head and to help small businesses keep their lights on. As a result, our national debt exploded because of the pandemic. It now exceeds the entire output of our economy, and this budget is going to make that situation even worse.

As we enter the postpandemic world, we need to address the very real issues about rising debt and deficits posing for our country over the long term. Otherwise, to quote the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, ``a growing debt burden could increase the risk of a fiscal crisis and higher inflation as well as undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar.''

The President's budget completely ignores potential fiscal and economic challenges that we all know are on the horizon. Taking the concept of ``never letting a crisis go to waste'' to a whole new level, the Biden budget would put our country in a permanent crisis mode in terms of spending and debt levels.

In 2009, at the height of the financial crisis, the government spending peaked at 24.4 percent of GDP. Now, spending proposed under President Biden's budget would average even higher at 24.5 percent over the next decade. So what we had peaked in the 2009 year of the financial crisis is going to be just common for the whole next decade, and that is bad.

Moreover, the President's budget would set a new record for the debt as a share of the economy. According to the President's own rosy assumptions, debt as a percentage of GDP would reach 112 percent next year, shattering the World War II record of 106 percent of GDP. And by 2031, debt as a share of our economy would hit 117 percent of GDP. So how extraordinary a step this budget takes. At a time when inflation has been rearing its head, proposing sustained spending and debt at these levels is playing with fire, like pouring gasoline on a fire.

Even long-term Democrat economists and Obama administration alums, Larry Summer and Jason Furman, have begun to sound the inflation alarm. The President would be well-advised to start taking notice when leading economists like these two point to the dangers of inflation.

As problematic as the spending side of the budget is--and so far that is the only part I have covered--we now go to the tax side, and the tax side is equally dangerous. The President proposes enacting the largest tax increase in history.

Incredibly, even with the $3.6 trillion in new taxes he proposes, his budget still doesn't come close to putting our national debt on a sustainable path given the new spending. This shows his tax cuts aren't about fiscal responsibility. Instead, they are about punishing success and redistributing wealth.

Ultimately, this will prove disastrous for the economy and, of course, it is going to affect all Americans. Job-killing tax hikes will slow economic growth. These tax hikes will reduce business investment, and these tax hikes will result in lower wages and fewer jobs over the long run. As a result, then, the middle class is likely to suffer the most.

Higher taxes, excessive spending, and escalating debt are not a recipe for our economy to ``Build Back Better,'' those famous words of this President's economic program--``Build Back Better.'' Instead, they are just a recipe for government to ``Build Bureaucracy Better'' and at the expense of hard-working Americans.

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