Chairman Arrington Delivers Opening Remarks at Hearing Examining President’s Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request

Chairman Arrington Delivers Opening Remarks at Hearing Examining President's Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) delivered the following remarks at the hearing to examine the "President's Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request."

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Remarks as delivered:

"Russ, I don't know of a president in my lifetime that has inherited such a complete and utter mess as President Trump did in January of last year.

"One self-inflicted disaster after another for four years of the Biden-Harris administration, utter lawlessness, incompetence.

"A border that was wide open, millions of people, criminals, gangs, drugs that killed a plane load of Americans effectively every week, more people dying of the drugs coming across the border than the people dying from the Vietnam War.

"Again, all because of the dereliction of duty to uphold the laws of this land and a failure to do the first and most important job, which is to provide for the common defense, and the American people suffered.

"Our resources were drained, our safety was jeopardized, and there was no rule of law, the cornerstone of any civil society...

"And the result was we had a much more unstable world. I think we were made a mockery by our enemies.

"Finally, we saw unbridled spending, about seven to eight trillion in record deficit spending. You add in the additional cost of interest, that went skyrocketing. It's about $12 trillion overall. We had a weaker economy, recessionary economy, we had a cost-of-living crisis that we haven't experienced as a nation in almost a half a century...

"The list goes on. We taxed and regulated our job creators. And again, the most regressive tax in my lifetime was the 20 plus percent increase in prices for working families.

"Trump comes in. You and the team, in one year, secure the border, stop the flow, deport criminal aliens, broker a peace deal in the Middle East, provide the greatest investment in national defense in the history of our country, pulled down the drain and the drive of our deficit and looming debt crisis in mandatory spending by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse to the tune of about one and a half trillion dollars, constrained spending on the discretionary side, cut taxes, cut spending at historic levels, and opened up domestic energy production.

"We had lower interest, lower inflation. A growing economy. Wages are up. People putting more money in their pockets before my Democrat colleagues shut the government down over a COVID-era, fraud-ridden program to expand a failed underlying policy of Obamacare.

"That was the first shutdown before the shutdown that we're in today. We would have been at two and a half percent plus growth.

"We were made a mockery, derided for putting that assumption in our Big Beautiful Bill, but that's exactly what CBO said, where we'd be over the 10-year budget window. That's a trillion and a half dollars to reduce the deficit.

"So, there is a reason that CBO, in their recent report six months into this fiscal year, shows a ten percent reduction in our deficit. It's been decades since we've seen a ten percent reduction in our deficit because of growth.

"That's because of rooting out waste and bending the curve on mandatory spending and controlling cost and cutting wasteful and unnecessary spending on the discretionary budget, and because President Trump decided to lead on the world stage with respect to trade and give our workers, manufacturers, and farmers a head-to-head fighting chance at trade deals, and the revenue helped shore up our balance sheet.

"So, I'm pleased with what the President has done. I'm proud he's our Commander in Chief...

"Russ, thanks for being here. That's the context. I think this budget of yours shows, directionally, that we're going to continue to do that and double down on it. Right? We're reducing wasteful spending, investing in our defense, and continuing to promote the growth that we so desperately need, and all boats will rise on that prosperity.

"With that, I yield time to my colleague and Ranking Member."