Press Releases

 Today, Rep. Jodey C. Arrington (TX-19) took to the floor to voice his strong opposition to Democrats’ multi-trillion tax-and-spend bill and to urge his Democratic colleagues to stop this radical legislation. 

Watch Rep. Arrington’s speech here.

A transcript of Rep. Arrington’s remarks as delivered is included below. 

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t for the life of me understand why my Democrat colleagues insist on passing this multi-trillion-dollar monstrosity of a tax and spend bill that not only I, but the American people believe will be an economic and societal disaster on so many levels. The American people have spoken, Mr. Speaker, in countless polls and surveys and elections, not just in Virginia, New York, and New Jersey, but in my State of Texas, where House seats had flipped from Democrat to Republican for the first time ever. And as recent as last week, a Democrat changed parties to Republican because they cannot explain the current policies that are destructive to the ends of recovery and support the American people’s freedom and our way of life. They’ve said, as clearly as they can, no more big government control over our lives. That’s what they said in Virginia. No more socialist spending our country into bankruptcy. No more growing the government at the expense of our freedoms, and our children’s future. 

Virginia, blue state, a third of the electorate said the economy was their number one issue. Biden won that by 10 points. They voted for a Republican Governor. Two-thirds of the American people in recent polls have said that the Biden economic plans are bad, and they have no confidence in his policies. They connect his policies with the current economic conditions. The majority of Americans attribute the inflation to Biden’s failed policies just like they do the disastrous border and the debacle in Afghanistan. And in the generic ballot. The generic ballot among registered voters, there’s a 10-point spread, if the elections were held today, between Democrats and Republicans. That’s the highest in 40 years ever recorded. 

“The American people are speaking, and they are crying out to their country’s leaders, ‘relent, relent,’ but they have made the connection, and between the policies and the disastrous effects in their lives and in the life of their country. Enhanced unemployment benefits, in other words, paying people more to be on unemployment than to be at work coupled with wasteful partisan, multi-trillion-dollar spending packages under the guise of COVID relief, have created an economic ‘firestorm.’ Runaway inflation, real wages seven of the nine months this President has been in office have gone down. Real wages have gone down. There’s been an inflation surge to the point of double-digit inflations in the last month, which have put us over the year at a 30-year high. Gas prices are up 50%. And we are almost a million jobs short of what President Biden promised as a result of that blue state bailout that he called COVID relief. 

“This is the solution that the Democrats are offering. Let’s raise prices even more and lower wages by taxing the American people. Let’s further extend our recession by chasing jobs overseas and putting the highest tax rates in the developed world on the job creators of the United States of America. Let’s burden small businesses with higher taxes and less people willing to work. Let’s drive labor participation further down by removing a work requirement. Let’s trap more people in poverty – in a cycle of dependency on government – by removing the incentives to work. Let’s wipe out 20% or 30% of the workforce by thrusting a big government mandate that is unconstitutional overreaching and would destroy any prospects for recovery. 

“This was supposed to be, Mr. Speaker, about income inequality. But if you read the tax bill, and I don’t know how my progressive colleagues can look the American people in the eyes with a straight face and say that this is not a swampy special interest package of the century because they have tax breaks for the wealthy by raising the SALT deductions, they give tax breaks to green industry, to unions, to plaintiffs’ attorneys, to media corporations. That’s all legitimate. That’s all true. If you look close enough, that’s what this is about. Not to mention they stuffed the stocking with early Christmas presents for progressives and political allies of the Democrat Party. Amnesty for 8 million people while our Southern border is melting down? Unionization of every employee, every employer, every state in the country. Obamacare subsidies for people making hundreds of thousands of dollars, the list is too long. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the indulgence. I implore my Democrat [colleagues] to relent and stop this and let’s get back to work on behalf of the American people.”

###  

Congressman Jodey Arrington is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives serving the Nineteenth Congressional District of Texas. He serves as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.