Jodey Arrington

Mr. ARRINGTON

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, the minority leader regurgitated a talking point from the Democratic Party we have heard now for years. We heard it prior to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The gentleman said that 83 percent of the tax cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act benefits would accrue to the top 1 percent of income earners. The Washington Post, which is no bastion of conservative journalism, gave him two Pinocchios for that one and called it a zombie claim. They called it galling. PolitiFact agreed with them and said that it was flat-out misleading. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), who is also a member of the House Budget Committee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman from Georgia. Mr. CLYDE: Mr. Chair, GAO alone estimates that the fraud in Medicaid is at least $50 billion a year. Mr. Chair, I include in the Record this report from the GAO, which states $50 billion a year of improper payments. [From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Mar. 26, 2024] Improper Payments: Information on Agencies' Fiscal Year 2023 Estimates (Q&A Report to the Subcommittee on Legislative Branch, Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives) Why This Matters Improper payments--those that should not have been made or were made in the incorrect amount--have consistently been a government-wide issue. Since fiscal year 2003, cumulative improper payment estimates by executive branch agencies have totaled about $2.7 trillion. Reducing improper payments is critical to safeguarding federal funds. We have reported on improper payments in our audit reports on the U.S. government's consolidated financial statements since fiscal year 1997. We have found that these payments represent a material deficiency or weakness in internal controls. Specifically, we have noted that the federal government is unable to determine the full extent of its improper payments or to reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce them. House Report 117-389, which accompanied the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2023, includes a provision for GAO to provide quarterly reports on improper payments. This is our fifth such report, and it provides an overview of federal agencies' improper payment estimates for fiscal year 2023. Additionally, we discuss agencies' compliance with legal requirements for reporting and managing improper payments. Key Takeaways In fiscal year 2023, federal agencies estimated a total of $236 billion in improper payments, a decrease of about $11 billion from the prior fiscal year. About $175 billion (or 74 percent) of these improper payments were overpayments. The total fiscal year 2023 improper payment estimate does not include some programs that agencies have determined are susceptible to significant improper payments, such as the Department of Health and Humans Services' (HHS) Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). In fiscal year 2022, 14 of the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) fully complied with applicable improper payment criteria, as reported by their agency inspectors general. What are the federal agencies' estimates for fiscal year 2023 improper payments? Agencies reported about $236 billion in improper payment estimates for fiscal year 2023. This amount represents a decrease of about $11 billion from the fiscal year 2022 estimate (see fig. 1). Our analysis of agency data shows that 14 agencies reported improper payment estimates across 71 programs. As shown in figure 2, about 79 percent ($186 billion) of the government- wide total of estimated improper payments that agencies reported for fiscal year 2023 is concentrated in five program areas: HHS's Medicare, comprising three programs ($51 billion); HHS's Medicaid ($50 billion); the Department of Labor's Unemployment Insurance--Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance ($44 billion); the Department of the Treasury's Earned Income Tax Credit ($22 billion); and the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program Loan Forgiveness ($19 billion). As seen in figure 3, most of the total $236 billion in government-wide improper payment estimates for fiscal year 2023 consisted of overpayments. The remaining improper payments consisted of underpayments, unknown payments, and technically improper payments. It should be noted that the fiscal year 2023 improper payment estimates do not include certain programs that agencies have determined are susceptible to significant improper payments. As a result, the government-wide total potentially does not represent the full extent of improper payments. For example, the $236 billion total does not include HHS's TANF program. HHS reported that it does not have the authority to obtain the information it needs to estimate or report improper payment amounts for this program. In April 2022, we recommended that Congress consider providing HHS the authority to require states to report the data the agency needs to estimate and report on improper payments for TANF. As of February 2024, Congress has not acted on this recommendation. How many programs reported substantial declines in improper payments? Our analysis of PaymentAccuracy.gov data found that eight programs experienced substantial declines in reported estimated improper payments for fiscal year 2023 (see table 3). Agencies attributed these declines to factors such as terminating certain programs and implementing mitigation strategies. In addition, variability arising from the improper payment estimation process could potentially explain a portion of the reported declines.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chair, let me also pay respects to my ranking member. He is a great guy. He has been a really good partner. We have done some really important things together on a bipartisan basis. In fact, we passed more bipartisan legislation to fix the broken budget process which doesn't serve either party in this institution well. Mr. Chair, I give him equal credit, if not more credit. When you are the minority, there is tremendous pressure not to work with the majority. He is an American first. We may disagree, but I know where his heart is. Let me answer the question to the ranking member. The $5 trillion is a CBO score. That is a 10-year budget window score just like the $2 trillion that we have as a goal to reduce reckless, wasteful, and fraudulent spending. Mr. Chair, the reconciliation process is generally to reconcile the House and Senate budgets but more than a process for matching up revenues and outlays. This exercise, more importantly, is reconciling the difference between the American people's interest, expectations, and values in a Federal Government that has totally lost its way, forgotten who it serves, and too often has failed to faithfully, fairly, and efficiently execute the laws of the land. Mr. Chair, if we learned anything from the November election, it is that the American people want a strong country. They want a competent leader and commonsense policies, and they want all of us to put America first. That is what this budget resolution does. I like to think of this budget resolution as a promissory note to our children to preserve the land of liberty and opportunity by safeguarding it from an unwieldy government with unbridled spending, taxing, and regulating that threatens to destroy it. Mr. Chairman, I said this in the Budget Committee, and I am going to say it now to close: The era of wasteful, woke, and weaponized government is over, and this budget resolution will be its tombstone. Here lies one of the darkest chapters in American history: open borders, record crime, lawlessness, feckless foreign policies, cost-of- living crises. Enough. It is time to reverse the curse. It is time to reverse the reckless spending and failed policies and do the first and most important job of the Federal Government: Keep the American people safe. That is exactly what we intend to do, and that is exactly what we deliver with this framework. Mr. Chairman, I include in the Record three statements from organizations supporting this legislation.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), our Agriculture Committee chair and my friend.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chair, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Smith), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Rogers), who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from the State of Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I can't believe my ears of Democrats criticizing the audacity of Republicans here in Washington, our Nation's Capital, giving the hard-earned money back to the people, letting them keep more of their money as they have suffered 4 years under record inflation, record interest rate hikes, and record consumer debt. How dare Republicans give money back to small businesses and working families so that they can pay the bills and provide for their families? Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves), the ``Show-Me'' State, our House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure chairman.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), my good friend and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg), my friend and the chair of the House Education and Workforce. Committee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith), my good friend from the Cornhusker State who is also chair of the Ways and Means Committee's Trade Subcommittee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman from Nebraska.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), my good friend and the chair of the House Financial Services Committee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards), also a Budget Committee member who helped us draft this budget framework.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McDowell), a Budget Committee member and good friend.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I remind the gentleman that the last 4 years, President Biden and my Democratic colleagues set a record of $8 trillion added to the national debt. If you add the $5 trillion in interest expense, well, I don't know that anybody is going to ever accomplish that feat. That is $6 billion borrowed a day, and during that reign of reckless spending, they added $116,000 to the debt burden that our children will bear into the future. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte), also a Budget Committee member.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman), also my colleague on the House Budget Committee.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think God has had mercy on this country, and he is giving us a shot now to turn this country around and to give it back to the American people; to return to commonsense policies, to put the American people first, and to clean up the mess in Washington, D.C. We have seen the exposure of the waste and the woke and the bloat, and it is immoral to hand our country like this to the next generation. We are long overdue to get our fiscal house in order, Mr. Chairman. The American people deserve to keep more of their money. The American people deserve fiduciaries in Congress who will take care to steward their tax dollars. The people who need these programs that we created for the most vulnerable deserve to have the programs without having folks siphon off moneys or people that are ineligible draining those programs. We have got a lot of work to do. We won't be intimidated by the rhetoric. We won't be scared into paralysis anymore as a Republican Party. We are standing up with our President and fearless leader, Mr. Donald J. Trump. We know the American people are behind us 100 percent. We are leaning in, and we are going to save this country. We are going to give our children a fighting chance at the blessings of liberty and the land of opportunity. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman), a member of the Budget Committee, my good friend who is a fighter for our freedom and fiscal sanity.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H. Con. Res. 14, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ARRINGTON

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, you often hear me refer to West Texas as the Food, Fuel, and Fiber Capital of the World--where we feed, power, and clothe our Nation--but our greatest resource is the people who have made and shaped West Texas into the God-fearing and freedom loving place that it is today. The patriots of West Texas work hard and stand up for what's right. Perhaps no one embodies these values more than the man I honor here, an all-time great West Texan and Medal of Honor Recipient, Major George A. Davis, Jr. Maj. Davis was born on December 1st, 1920, in Dublin, Texas, before moving to the West Texas town of Morton, a little over 50 miles west of Lubbock. In 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Maj. Davis enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in Lubbock, Texas, as an Aviation Cadet. During World War II, Maj. Davis piloted a P-47 Thunderbolt with the 342nd Fighter Squadron, 348th Fighter Group. He heroically completed 266 missions, logged 705 combat hours, and shot down 7 Japanese fighter planes between 1943 and 1944, contributing greatly to Allied air superiority. Following World War II, Maj. Davis again returned to the skies, this time in Korea, where it is said he distinguished himself by going above the call of duty and displaying immense courage in the face of great risk to his life. On February 10th, 1952, Maj. Davis and his wingman encountered 12 enemy MIG-15 aircraft speeding toward allied fighter-bombers who were engaging the enemy. In an attempt to put himself in between the enemy combatants and our allied bombers, Maj. Davis rerouted his aircraft and dove directly into the MIG formation. While under fire, Maj. Davis destroyed two enemy aircraft, and instead of retreating, reduced his air speed to engage a third MIG-15 in defense of the Allied fighter- bombers. It was this last of many selfless and heroic decisions that led to Maj. Davis suffering a direct hit that took the life of this West Texas hero and sent his plane crashing behind enemy lines some 30 miles south of the Yalu River. His heroic and selfless acts in support of the mission and his fellow airmen in the face of formidable odds, provided enough cover to allow the allied bombers to successfully complete their mission and continue in the fight for another day. As a result of these acts of uncommon valor, Maj. Davis was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Now, over 70 years later, his fellow veterans are fighting to bring Maj. Davis back home to Lubbock so he can be the first veteran buried at the new West Texas States Cemetery. As one of only seven American pilots to ever become an ace in two different wars and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, three Silver Stars, the Purple Heart, and the Medal of Honor, Maj. Davis is an American hero. I implore my colleagues in Congress to do everything in our power to ensure his family can welcome him home to his final resting place in West Texas. On behalf of the 19th Congressional District of Texas, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Maj. George A. Davis, Jr. and his entire family for their tremendous sacrifice in service to our Nation. God Bless, and Go West Texas.

Mr. ARRINGTON

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to recognize a remarkable achievement in West Texas--the Food, Fuel, and Fiber Capital of the World. Punkin Center Gin, owned by Al Crisp, has marked a grand milestone by celebrating its one-hundredth year in operation. This family business underscores the resilience and history of our farming community in Dawson County. Punkin Center Gin opened its doors back on June 11, 1924, making it not only the oldest cotton gin in West Texas but also the second oldest in the entire state still in operation. Al Crisp's dedication to his family's agricultural legacy is clear. He is proud to maintain a century-old agricultural business in Texas where his ancestors have lived since before it was a state. He was quoted with a sentiment many share in the Lone Star State--``I'm Texas to the core.'' Like plenty of our region's farmers, Al values hard work and family. He has pushed off any centennial celebrations until after the harvest season, and he is committed to the future of Punkin Center Gin hoping to pass it down to his children. In West Texas, we take pride in fostering farmers of character who fuel and feed the rest of the country. On behalf of the 19th Congressional District of Texas, I thank Al Crisp, his family, and the team at Punkin Center Gin for their dedication to agriculture and our community. God bless them and go West Texas.

Mr. ARRINGTON

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we have a great injustice that has persisted now for four decades. Some of our hardest working fellow Americans who are public servants in certain States where they have non-Social Security covered employment--or to say it this way, where they have teacher retirement systems separate from Social Security, or firefighter retirement systems separate from Social Security--have what is called a windfall elimination provision in the Social Security law, which has shortchanged roughly 2 million hardworking public servants. Some people are still getting a windfall, but the vast majority are not getting what they earned and what they put into the Social Security system. So my colleague, Representative John Larson, who I serve with on the Committee on Ways and Means, and who I consider a dear friend and someone who I know is very passionate about fixing Social Security's insolvency, which looms large over the next 10 years, this is but one element of what is not working in Social Security for our retirees and Social Security recipients. To solve this inequity and injustice, some of my colleagues have decided they would just repeal the windfall elimination provision altogether. That sounds good, but it is going to cost $192 billion to do that. We shouldn't be constrained by cost to do the right thing, but to repeal the windfall elimination provision would go back to pre-1983 when we had a windfall to certain Americans in the same States where they had independent retirement systems, and we were spending more money for certain retirees than they put into the Social Security system. There was a great discrepancy and inequity between these individuals in these States and the vast majority of the tens of millions of other retirees across the country. So you had a teacher or a firefighter in certain States, like Texas, pre-1983 getting a windfall, large sums of money, over similarly situated people in other States. Firefighters and teachers are doing the same work, making roughly the same amount of money, but getting less benefits. What we should do is fix the inadequacy of the windfall elimination provision that was oversimplified and did not use the data that we have today and make sure that people are paid what they are owed in terms of their benefits, but not revert back to pre-windfall elimination provision, where we were spending tens of billions of dollars more than we needed to according to what people put in it. Why does that matter? Because we should have a system of fairness for every public servant in every State, every retiree who fits that definition. It is also because if we start just throwing money at this and allowing windfall payments to certain retirees, we are going to accelerate the insolvency of the Social Security trust fund. One outside expert says that we will accelerate that if we go to H.R. 82 and just pull the plug on the windfall elimination provision, as opposed to fixing it and getting it right. We will accelerate it by 6 months. We should be responsible in how we do this. We should consider retirees in every State, and we should also consider future retirees because what we do and how we solve problems doesn't just impact the people who have been shortchanged, and we need to deal with that, but we will impact future retirees, as well. I am simply asking my colleagues to do the right thing, address this inequity with WEP and our public servants, but do it the right way so that we don't compromise the integrity and the fiscal responsibility of managing the trust fund and put these public servants now once again at odds with the vast majority of public servants who are retired. Mr. Speaker, that is a mouthful, by the way. This is a complex issue, but what is not complicated is people who have been shortchanged need to get the money that they rightfully are owed by their government. I can start there and say that Democratic and Republican colleagues alike agree on that, but my bill will do it in a fiscally responsible way. I think this H.R. 82 is well-intended, but it is going to accelerate the bankruptcy of Social Security. That is not good for anybody, current or future retirees. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5342) to amend title II of the Social Security Act to replace the windfall elimination provision with a formula equalizing benefits for certain individuals with noncovered employment, and for other purposes.