The Fiscal State of the Nation

Washington, D.C. - The House Budget Committee held a hearing on May 7, 2025 on the “Fiscal State of the Nation.”  Rep. McClintock is a member of the committee, and he delivered remarks and questioned the hearing witness about three numbers: 46, 64 and 94.  There has been a 46% increase in inflation and population over the last ten years, with a 64% increase in revenues and a 94% increase in spending over the same time period.

House Budget Committee
May 7, 2025

For four years, I unsuccessfully warned my Democratic colleagues that you cannot spin the economy.  Every person knows EXACTLY how the economy is doing in their own lives and any politician who tries to tell them otherwise just looks foolish.  The Democrats tax, spend, regulate and waste policies led to a four-year decline in real wages and no matter how they tried to spin it otherwise, people knew better.

Now that same warning applies to our side of the aisle.  The only economic indicator that matters is how Americans answer this simple question next year: are you better off today than you were two years ago?  We can’t answer that question FOR them.  All we can do is to put in place the policies that will produce a noticeable improvement in their quality of life.

I think we will. DOGE has revealed the staggering amount of sheer theft of public resources going on just below the surface of our government bureaucracies, and this has to stop.  The sooner we can stop the thieves, shut down the scams and recover the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money with recissions, the better.  

The Biden socialists imposed nearly $2 trillion dollars of regulatory burdens on the economy, driving up costs and suppressing productivity.  Those have to be rolled back and they are.  

By opposing extension of the TCJA, the Democrats are advocating the largest tax increase in American history that will take another $1,500 a year in annual taxes from a family that earns just $75,000 a year. Republicans must stop them, and while we enact additional tax and spending cuts.  And that’s what the reconciliation battle is all about.

For four years, the Democrats facilitated and encouraged the largest illegal mass migration in history, gleefully admitting 8.5 million unvetted and impoverished illegal aliens into our country, costing American taxpayers $160 billion a year to support and flooding the labor market with cheap, illegal, labor which suppressed family wages.  This is all coming to a screeching halt.

And finally, we have the trade situation.  And we need to be clear on this: tariffs hurt the economy of whatever country imposes them, there’s no way around that.  Their ONLY justification is to leverage trading partners to lower THEIR trade barriers – benefiting both countries.  I hope and pray this is the direction the President is heading.  IF he isn’t, it will be one of the most tragic acts of self-sabotage in recorded history. BUT IF he is, we could see within a few months the beginning of a new age of global free trade and the explosive economic growth that that can produce.  A few weeks ago, I told him that the sooner we could start getting recission bills and bilateral free trade agreements, the better, and he said he wanted to send us a lot of both.

Spending restraint and frugality; $2 trillion of regulatory liberation; tax relief to give families breathing room again; an end to illegal immigration and its enormous costs to taxpayers and working families; and a new era of global free trade – these are the policies that we have to have in place by summertime.  If we’re successful, then within a year I think we could see the greatest economic expansion in recorded history.  Republicans won’t need to spin the economy, every family will be feeling it and that’s what I think the Democrats fear most.

Now Dr. Winfrey, the Democrat witness told us that the source of all our fiscal distress were the Trump tax cuts. But three figures seem to put the lie to that claim: 46, 64, and 94. In the last ten years, we’ve seen a 46% increase of inflation and population combined. We’ve seen a 64% increase in revenues AFTER the Trump tax cuts. So the revenues far exceeded inflation population growth combined. The problem, the third figure, 94%, that was in the increase in spending in the same period. And the Democrats are telling us, just do more of that. What are your thoughts? 

Link to hearing video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9E3XU1Y6OE