Ranking Member Hoyer: It is Intentional to Marginalize the Work of the Congress and the Appropriations Committee

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05), Ranking Member of the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered opening remarks at the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee Markup of the FY 2027 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) bill. Below are a video and transcript of his remarks:

Click here to watch a video of his remarks.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is an unusual process, to say the least. We have had essentially two hearings, and only one department had - other than GAO - to testify, and that was Mr. Kupor of the OMB - excuse me, OPM. This bill cuts from the previous fiscal year revenue. [In] this bill, we have no 302B allocations at this point in time. I'm not sure, Mr. Chairman, where the - our number came from, but, we have not adopted a 302B allocation, although I understand there is some plan to do so and that this bill is within the suggested. But we haven't passed it. So, I'm going to be offering an amendment later today which funds an increase in the IRS enforcement.

"The IRS budget in 2010 was $10.2 billion. If it were to be funded at the rate that it was funded in 2010, it would be $18.3 billion. Obviously, a lot of progress has been made in terms of mechanization. And that figure is probably not an accurate figure, but it's clearly indicative of how robustly the IRS enforcement and other aspects of taxpayer service were funded during the course of 16 years ago. So, we believe that this budget substantially underfunds many of the objects which are critically important. Now, we don't know because we have not had Secretary Bessent, which is the one large department that we fund. We fund a lot of other very important enterprises, including GSA, and OPM, and OMB, and the White House, none of whom have testified before our committee. So, we had no opportunity to ask questions, to determine what the priorities should be, to determine what is not being done by the cuts that have been suggested. And so, to some degree, we're flying in the blind. Now, this is our bill, and I know all of us have read this and have taken it to heart. This is the report, the bill, and the - I'm not sure exactly what this is. What's this? That's a section-by-section analysis, which - just for me, apparently, the Chairman says.

"What is the point I'm making? The point I'm making is this process is backwards. What, theoretically, this subcommittee does - and I know our Chairman is here, and our Ranking Member said numerous times during the course of the passage of the budget for last year - which still hasn't been completed, obviously - that they relied on the work of the subcommittee and the expertise of the subcommittee. Mr. Chairman, respect - the big Chairman - respectfully, this subcommittee, if its experts have not been given the information [they] need at this point in time, and I think you probably - well, I don't want to speak for you, but we're flying blind, because we have not had the overwhelming majority - 90 plus percent of the agencies we fund - testify before us to justify the expenditures that they're asking for and tell us what the trade-offs are. As a result, this is essentially a pro forma session. And I raise that issue because I think it impacts the result, the substance. Yes, it's process, but the substance is affected because we have not had the opportunity to question, to learn, to make a decision on what the tradeoffs are, what the alternatives are. And again, we have not adopted the 302B.

"The problem without adopting 302B [with] this subcommittee in particular - and I've been on it for a very long time, as all of you know and Mr. Womack chaired this - okay, we get a very low - we're on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to resources necessary. And I'll make this - when we have the real markup in the full committee - I'll make this point that we are substantially underfunded in terms of what we expect the agencies under our jurisdiction to do. Now, the Chairman has gone through and given us the information and digest what this bill will do. And obviously we do fund the agencies at some level, but we don't know whether that level is sufficient, and we haven't asked questions of the people who we've assigned to run those agencies whether it is or not.

"So, Mr. Chairman, as you know, as I've told you, at the end of the discussions that we're having, I will offer an amendment to increase IRS enforcement so that whether it's the Big, Bad Bill [or] Good Bill, depending upon your perspective, that we'll know that people are, in fact, at least paying that which they owe under law, not any increases. But we have so decimated IRS enforcement, frankly, to some degree, on both sides of the aisle. We want to fund an enforcement that, as I've told you in the last year, 6/10 of a percent of the returns over $1 million are audited. 6/10. Which means if I have a return over $1 million, I am 99.4% sure that nobody's going to look at it, because of the lack of personnel to affect that end. If that is true - and I believe it to be true - then I have no incentive to be very worried about paying what I owe, and particularly at that level. And we're all concerned about the debt. I'm concerned about the debt. I think we look at a small percentage of the expenditures, and the Chairman has said that, Mr. Womack has said it, who chairs the Budget Committee. If that is true, we're looking at 15% to solve a $38 trillion problem or $39 trillion problem. That's unfair to the appropriators and it is dishonest with the American people.

"So, Mr. Chairman, I'm concerned about a - and you and I have discussed this. We haven't had the opportunity to have the hearings that we need to do the work that the Chairman and the Ranking Member talked about the subcommittee doing. I don't think we've done that. I don't think we've had the opportunity to do it. I don't think it's anybody's - let me put it this way, I think it's [somebody's] fault, but not here. And I think, frankly, it is intentional. It is intentional to marginalize the work of the Congress generally and the Appropriations Committee specifically. So, Mr. Chairman, we'll have this markup, we'll report it out, and we'll consider other amendments in the big committee. But I think it's unfortunate that we've been put in this position. Thank you."