Patrick McHenryChairman

Washington, February 28, 2017 - WASHINGTON - Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) delivered the following opening statement at today’s full committee markup of the Committee’s views and estimates on the budget for fiscal year 2018:

As we meet today to fulfill our obligation under House Rules to provide the Budget Committee with our views of the fiscal year 2018 budget, we must first examine the state of our economy.

While there are certainly signs that the American people have a newfound confidence that the economy will improve with different policies coming out of Washington, we still see that 8 years of Obamanomics have left us with an economy that still is not working for many working Americans.

In fact, more than 15 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed. Middle income paychecks are still below pre-recession levels. Approximately 35 percent more Americans are on food stamps.  Under the Obama administration, the national debt has grown by a staggering 88 percent.

As we look at the rapidly spinning national debt clocks to our left and right, and front and center, we see our debt stands at nearly $20 trillion. That’s more than $158,000 for every American household on average. It is as outrageous as it is frightening.

According to the Campaign to Fix the Debt, the typical American will lose $75,000 in income over a 30-year career as a result of this debt. That’s money they will never be able to use to send kids to college, or buy a home, or start a new business or create a job.

This level of debt is the highest at any time during our nation’s history other than World War II. Back then it was temporary and in response to a great mortal threat. Today’s debt is structural, it is unsustainable, and I also believe it is immoral. It is stolen from our children and grandchildren.  We can and must address this crisis before it is too late.

As the Director of the Office of Management and Budget – our friend and a former colleague of this committee – Mick Mulvaney put it, “For the first time in America’s history, the next generation could be less prosperous than the generation that preceded it. To me, and to the people in this room, that is simply unacceptable. We CAN turn this economy, and this country, around….but it will take tough decisions today in order to avoid impossible ones tomorrow.”

And as President Trump said, we have a “moral duty to the taxpayer” to rein in Washington’s out of control spending.

So today, as we await the President’s budget submission, our duty is to ensure the agencies and programs within our jurisdiction are accountable, that they are efficient and that they are effective when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.

While our national debt is not solely responsible for the slow economic growth our economy remains mired in, it is certainly a factor that depresses economic growth. Therefore, it is essential that we put our nation onto a sustainable fiscal path. We cannot simply call for more spending and more taxes that grows Washington’s economy at the expense of the Main Street economy.

Some try to portray any alternative to the status quo as austerity and pain when, actually, it’s the exact opposite. Austerity and pain are what await us if we continue down the current path of more and more deficit spending. Instead we must pre-empt austerity and pain by getting back to a healthy economy with greater growth, opportunity and prosperity for all.

So today we will work on our Committee’s Views and Estimates. They will help our Committee and help the Budget Committee guide our efforts to help low and middle-income Americans pursue happiness and achieve the American Dream of financial independence.

As we confront this task, we do so with the knowledge that it is neither fair nor compassionate to saddle future generations with ruinous debt.  It is neither fair nor compassionate to continue spending money we don’t have, for that ultimately makes it impossible to support the safety net for those who truly need it.

The answer lies in policies that promote a healthy economy and a federal budget that doesn’t grow faster than the ability of the family budget that ultimately has to pay for it. That’s how we can create a more secure and a more confident America.

I look forward to working with the all members of the Committee, and I look forward to working with the President and his administration, again, to build a healthy economy that offers every American greater opportunity to achieve financial independence.