Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), the distinguished minority leader.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for his extraordinarily insightful and significant remarks. The only exception I would take is when he referred to extreme MAGA. We actually had a colloquy about this yesterday with the good gentlewoman from Colorado. I had gently suggested that perhaps our colleagues on the other side of the aisle could stop referring to ``Democrat Congresswomen'' with ``Democrat plans'' and ``Democrat bills.'' ``Democrat'' is a noun. The adjective is ``Democratic.'' So it would be the ``Democratic Congresswoman,'' the ``Democratic bill,'' and so on. I said it grates on our ears the same ways it would grate on your ears if every time we invoke the name of your party, we said the ``banana Republican Congresswoman'' or the ``banana Republican Member'' or the ``banana Republican Conference.'' That, we would consider a breach of civility and decorum, so would we prefer to go back to something else. Yet, the gentlewoman from Colorado said, if I understood her correctly, that she would continue with her deliberate mispronunciation of the name of our party in its adjectival form. By the way, she took the opportunity to raise the whole question of MAGA, which I had not mentioned. She said, and when you call me MAGA, don't call me MAGA--call me ultra-MAGA. So when the minority leader referred to the extreme MAGA element, which appears to be driving the train over there, he should have called it the ultra-MAGA element out of deference to the gentlewoman from Colorado. I certainly will be able to honor her wishes in the future as she chooses to be described as ultra-MAGA. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chairman, now we move from the ludicrous to the absurd to the sublime. Yesterday, they wanted a report from the President upon issuance of an executive order for executive orders having an inflationary impact or having an economic impact of $1 billion. Today, they have gone to one one-thousandth of that. They want a report for every $1 million. The gentleman points out that I observed yesterday that it would apply to only a handful of executive orders, which is absolutely right. I wasn't arguing or wasn't concerned, as he said, that it applies to too few cases. I was just reflecting about how silly the whole exercise was. They didn't even seem to understand how few executive orders it would apply to, just like they forgot to put into the legislation a requirement that it actually be published, something that was remedied yesterday in the Boebert amendment. In any event, Mr. Chairman, now they want an inflationary estimate statement when there is an executive order that has $1 million economic impact, which, by my quick calculation here, is three one-hundred- thousandths of 1 percent of the $26 trillion U.S. economy. It is a fraction of the budget of the Oversight Committee itself. We may as well be saying we should register what the inflationary impact is of the majority and minority budgets in the Oversight Committee. Obviously, this is an exercise in futility, in silliness. They are finger painting on their own legislation, which itself is not based on any legislative process, based on any hearing, and it obviously does nothing to reduce inflation. That, however, is what this administration has been working on. Of course, they don't talk about unemployment anymore, which they used to talk about, because President Biden's administration created 12 million new jobs, whereas the last President destroyed millions of jobs. The economy has come roaring back under the Biden administration, just like the Biden administration is actually bringing inflation down. Example: Check out the Inflation Reduction Act. Everybody who is on insulin in America under the Medicare program is now paying only $35 a month. Now, we know that they opposed that. We know they wanted to repeal that provision. I think they still do want to repeal that provision, but that was a very concrete action, to lower prescription drug prices for diabetics within the Medicare program. They have been lowered across the board within the Medicare program. That is the kind of specific programmatic action that the Biden administration has undertaken, not a silly reporting bill, which some days is applying to a billion dollars, some days it is applying to a million dollars. There is no rhyme or reason to what they are doing. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman from Minnesota for yielding. Just to recap where we are from yesterday, the whole Congress eagerly awaited to hear what the big anti-inflation initiative would be coming from the GOP side of the aisle. In the past, Richard Nixon had offered wage and price controls. Herbert Hoover, of course, had dismantled all social spending. What was going to be the big plan coming from the Republican side? The big plan is to ask for the President of the United States, when he issues executive orders, to add inflation estimates. Of course, there is no study showing that executive orders have had any impact on inflation or deflation in the country, so it seems now we are on a real wild goose chase where people are pasting all different kinds of things on it. The gentlewoman from Minnesota actually comes forward with a very interesting idea, which would be a wonderful thing to talk about if we had a real hearing in the Oversight Committee about the subject. What she is saying is that a number of States, including my State, Maryland, have adopted the genuine progress indicator as a real index of social and economic well-being in their communities. What this does is it doesn't count negative things like the costs of car accidents and asbestos poisoning as part of GDP. Right now, there are so many negative things that are included as part of GDP. The genuine progress indicator has, I believe, 26 different factors that measure actual progress in social and economic well-being. If we are going to go down this road without a hearing, without any real analysis, and this is going to be the majority's approach to dealing with inflation, then, by all means, let's include the genuine progress indicator.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I reclaim my time and thank the gentleman for his kind answers. This really is why we have hearings in Congress, because it feels like we are just posting a lot of graffiti on a wall here. I don't know how the inflation rate is calculated. I don't know whether the import of this amendment would be to double count debt servicing costs because I don't know which government agencies actually incorporate debt servicing costs and which don't. One thing I do know is that if the gentleman has the greatest amendment of the year, it is still basically irrelevant because it does nothing. In other words, it is not going to do anything to bring down anybody's debt servicing costs, which I agree are huge, unlike, for example, what the Biden administration has done in terms of student debt by acting dramatically to bring it down--even though there are people from across the aisle who are in court today, I believe, trying to get that thrown out and trying to bring everybody's student loan debt back up--that is real economic action. In any event, what this is about is pure symbolism. In other words, they are asking for a reporting bill that will only apply if there is a $1 billion plus impact, and the good gentleman comes forward to say: Make sure, Mr. President, when you are doing your calculations, that you include debt servicing costs. I don't know. You could take it or leave it. It doesn't do anything for people who are staggering under debt. The way that the Biden administration is trying to act, for example, is to deal with the problem of student debt or the way that we have acted to try to help people who are suffering under mortgage debt, that is real economic action. I am just going to have to consider it carefully, given the information we have. But I will end with a plea for the good chairman of the Oversight Committee, the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky: We have to have hearings on these bills, so we know what we are talking about, because I feel like we are dancing in the dark here. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I reclaim my time. I think the gentleman raises a very interesting point. I would love to know the answer as to whether or not it is actually incorporated today in what the inflationary or deflationary effects are of debt servicing costs. Obviously, this bill and this amendment would not have any impact on what those debt servicing costs are, but I don't see much of a problem of adding this language to the hortatory nature of the legislation. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I want to speak in strong support of the gentlewoman's amendment. I thank Ms. Jackson Lee for her leadership in terms of real economic policy, which is about making the government an instrument of well-being and public good. We know we have serious philosophical differences with our friends across the aisle. Many of them wanted to dismantle Social Security and Medicare. When President Biden arrived the other day, a lot of them retreated very quickly from it. I would be delighted if someone wants to challenge me on that because we have all the quotations from all the Republican Senators and Representatives that said it was time to get rid of Social Security and phase it out, adopt means testing, increase the age, so on and so forth. That is a real policy difference. What they have done here really falls under the category of symbolic politics. The good gentlewoman from Texas has done her best to make this meaningful, and I thank her for giving me the opportunity to say that.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I will just end on this one with this thought. The majority comes forward with a plan to say we want to know an estimated inflationary impact of an executive order, and then we have a series of Christmas tree amendments saying, make sure you include the cost to rural areas; make sure you include the cost of debt servicing. I would like to know the overall costs. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I want to just clear up a couple of things. First, I heard the very distinguished gentlewoman from Colorado mention job creators. I assume she was responding to President Biden since 12 million new jobs have been created under President Biden, whereas millions of jobs were lost under the prior President, who may be a favorite of the gentlewoman's. I also wanted to make just a brief semantic point because the gentlewoman was making a grammatical error that I heard some of her colleagues make before. I believe she referred to a ``Democrat solution.'' I heard another Member talk about a ``Democrat Member'' and a ``Democrat plan.'' I just wanted to educate our distinguished colleagues that ``Democrat'' is the noun. When you use it as an adjective, you say the ``Democratic Member,'' or the ``Democratic solution,'' or the ``Democratic plan.'' I assume it is a good faith grammatical error the first few times, but after people are corrected several times and they continue to say it, it seems like it is an act of incivility, as if every time we mentioned the other party it just came out with a kind of political speech impediment like, ``Oh, the banana Republican Party,'' as if we were to say that every time we mentioned the ``banana Republican Member,'' or the ``banana Republican plan,'' or the ``banana Republican Conference,'' but we wouldn't do that. So out of pure political courtesy, when it is an adjective, refer to the ``Democratic Congresswoman'' or the ``Democratic Member.'' Having said that, I would like to say that I favor the Boebert amendment. I think it is really the Raskin amendment because none of them apparently caught the fact that their reporting requirement wasn't to be published until I told them. I actually read the bill, and I said there is no publication of it. So this amendment follows through on the fact that I pointed out to them that their bill didn't even call for publication of the inflation information which they thought was so essential. Madam Chair, I am afraid I am going to have to support the Boebert amendment, because I think I am the genesis of it. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I would ask if the gentleman would be willing to yield for a couple of questions? Again, there was no hearing in committee, so I don't understand this. This might be a great idea, but I would like to figure it out. It requires that any inflationary estimates prepared incorporate the inflationary impact of debt servicing costs, which seems perfectly logical to me. But is there a reason to think that the current inflation rate, as defined by the U.S. Government, does not incorporate the inflationary impact of debt servicing costs? Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman for the purposes of a colloquy.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I rise in favor of Mrs. Lee's excellent amendment here which makes both powerful economic points and powerful constitutional points. The economic point is that Congress must act in order to bring down inflation, Congress must act in order to promote employment, and we have acted in partnership with President Biden to do just that in the Inflation Reduction Act, in the infrastructure act, and in a whole series of bills that we have used to bring inflation down and to dramatically lower unemployment in the country. But she is making also, I believe, a very powerful constitutional point because part of what gets lost in the symbolism of this legislation--a mere messaging bill about having executive orders over $1 billion, which describes a handful in a year attached in an inflation description--what gets lost is that the Constitution in Article I sets it up so that Congress is the major definer of economic policy in the country. It is Congress that is supposed to be laying and collecting taxes and impost and dealing with the debt of the country. It is Congress that regulates commerce among the States and with foreign countries. So the failure to come forward with real productive legislation on inflation is also a surrender to the executive branch, and we don't need to do that. So we should be working with the executive branch as we have done in the Inflation Reduction Act, with the infrastructure bill, in lowering prescription drug costs, and in lowering the costs for diabetics to get their insulin shots to $35 a month. That is the real pathway, not just a bunch of reporting bills.

Mr. RASKIN. So that is true across the board in terms of all of the economic indicators that we read about, whether it is the OMB or the-- --

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, the first thing I want to note about this amendment is that it now expands the definition of a major executive order to include those projected to cause an annual gross budgetary or economic effect of at least $1 billion, which includes those orders that would have a positive economic effect of $1 billion or more, thereby just adding a lot more paperwork, a lot more unnecessary bureaucratic entanglement. The distinguished chair of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, I think, mentioned in passing the Biden administration's attempt to roll back some of the radical deregulatory program of the Trump administration, which undermined regulations favoring automobile safety, train safety, water safety, land safety. Again, we have what appears to be another clever talking point by the GOP, and the whole country is now up in arms over what took place in East Palestine, Ohio. We see precisely what the human effects and consequences are of their radical, pro-corporate deregulatory agenda, dismantling the rules and regulations that protect public safety and public welfare. That is really what is going on over there. It is not about having a couple of little analyses stuck onto an executive order every 4, 5, or 6 months. We know exactly what the real economic program is. This bill is a camouflage, just like this amendment is, and I urge the body to oppose it. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. I am sorry. By which definition?

Mr. RASKIN. Reclaiming my time, I don't know what the reason for that is, and thank you for educating me. I wasn't aware of it. I assume they are saying the inflation rate is higher in urban areas than it is in rural areas, which is, presumably, why they peg it to that. That might bring the inflation rate down. Would the gentleman just give me a sense of how taking it into account might affect what is today the general inflation rate? Let's assume it is inflated because it is focused on the urban areas where the cost of living is higher. Would it reduce the overall inflation rate?

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois for the purpose of a colloquy.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois for the purpose of a colloquy.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Chair, actually, I have a question because it strikes me as a very sincerely and decently motivated amendment to a flawed bill. But is there a reason to think that any of the current economic analyses of inflation and the current indicators that we use don't take into account the various factors that the gentleman specifies? I yield to the gentleman for the purposes of a colloquy.