The Federal Budget

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Hensarling for yielding. We all owe him a great debt for the work that he does in getting us this kind of information about what is happening with the budget. He has been a tremendous leader not just in the Republican Study Committee, where we talk about these things a great deal, but here on the floor, bringing the attention of the American people as well as the Members of Congress to these issues.

I say over and over again, when I get a chance to do so in small groups and in large groups, that what we have to refocus on in this Congress is the role of the Congress and the role of the Federal Government. What has happened in this country is we have allowed the Federal Government to get its tentacles into all kinds of issues that it has no business being in.

The Founders of this country were very, very concerned about the role of the Federal Government and wanted to keep a weak Federal Government and strong State governments. It made sense to do that. One of the ways that they did that was to spell out clearly what the responsibilities of the Federal Government would be and then say everything not mentioned here remains with the States. That is the 10th amendment of the Constitution. And we do not pay enough attention to that amendment, I think, on a day-to-day basis in this body; and we need to be doing that because we have gotten involved in things we should not be involved in.

The number one role of the Federal Government is to provide for the defense of this country. However, what has happened is that over time Members of the Congress and the executive branch have decided that we should be like Santa Claus to the country and we should get involved in many, many other kinds of programs. We are very much involved in education. We are very much involved in health care through Medicare and Medicaid. We have the Social Security program, which is, I think, a cruel hoax on the American people. We have told the American people that we will provide for their retirement through the Social Security program; and as my colleague, Mr. Hensarling, has pointed out, we keep getting sobering information about the requirements we have established for ourselves and what mechanisms we have for taking care of those requirements.

We have created, in the lexicon of our government, some terms that we need to get out of our lexicon. The word ``entitlement'' is something that is used a great deal. There is no such thing as an entitlement from the Federal Government, but we have created that over the years by our interest in creating power for ourselves here in the Congress. And it is a very insidious thing that has happened, which we need to do something about.

We also talk all the time about mandatory spending. Mandatory spending is talked about in terms of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. These are programs that are put on automatic pilot, and nobody ever deals with them. Oh, every year somebody comes up with a study such as Congressman Hensarling mentioned, and then people get nervous and then they stop talking about it.

Our colleagues on the other side talk all the time about the deficit. But day after day after day, they talk about both the deficit and then how we are not spending enough money on various programs. We cannot have it both ways, but yet we continue to try to have it both ways, and we have tried to convince the American people that we can have it both ways. But we cannot do that.

There is a big difference. The difference is that the folks on the other side think they know how to spend your money better than you know how to spend your money. Republicans have the opposite opinion. They think that you know how to spend your money better than the government knows how to spend your money. And to do that, we have made tax cuts in the last few years. I was not here when the major tax cut was made in 2001, but it is really responsible for why our economy is growing as well as it is growing. We have these terrible situations looming out there on the horizon, but the economy right now is doing well, and it is a direct result of the tax cuts, letting the people keep more money in their pockets. Frankly, we have got to do more of that. We have got to cut back on Federal spending. We have got to get the Federal Government out of many of the programs that it is involved in and set some priorities.

Our number one priority has to be the defense of this Nation because State governments cannot do that and local governments cannot do that. We have to do that at the Federal level. That is our number one priority.

Then if we have funds to do other things, we must set our priorities based on what are the proper roles of the Federal government. Frankly, those roles are very narrow. We have to get back to a situation where we examine every program that we fund in the Federal government against those priorities and against what is outlined in the Constitution for us to do.

I am really proud again to be a small part of this presentation tonight where my colleagues are going to present the facts about where we stand with the budget and what we need to do to get our fiscal house in order in this country. We have seen socialism fail in Europe and in other countries. We know it doesn't work, and yet there are people in this country who think we can keep spending without regard to ever having to come to account for that spending.

I am happy to tell you tonight you are going to understand some of the things that we are doing that are creating our problems and what we might do in this country to solve this problem of overspending and get ourselves back on track that will lead to economic healthiness, instead of economic sickness in this country.

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