Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3807, as amended. Here we are today to discuss yet another spending bill that will add to our Nation's debt and deficit and continue to spike…
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3807, as amended. Here we are today to discuss yet another spending bill that will add to our Nation's debt and deficit and continue to spike inflation; another bill that creates a new government program without regard to the effectiveness or management of existing programs; another bill that has been rushed to the floor without a committee markup or a CBO score.
In fact, the latest draft of this legislation was sent out last Friday night and has been amended since. This is not how we should legislate, Mr. Speaker. We must do a better job for our Nation's small businesses that create two out of every three new jobs in America.
I am sure I am not the only one who has experienced deja vu by my colleagues' agenda to spend now and think later.
This agenda is not working for Main Street America. The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council conducted a recent poll of small business owners and found that only 5 percent of small business owners report that ``Congress' policies are helping the economy and small businesses like mine.'' Just 5 percent, so that means 95 percent, Mr. Speaker, don't like what is going on.
While we are sitting here in Washington, D.C., deciding whether to spend more money for certain industries, Main Street is experiencing price shocks that have not been felt in over 40 years.
Inflation is burning through our Nation at a rapid pace. From food and shelter to gas and energy, prices in every category of life are increasing exponentially with no end in sight.
The Consumer Price Index stands at 7.9 percent annually, and the producer price index, which is the wholesale price index, is now at 10 percent. That makes short-term inflation look pretty bleak from the standpoint that if the wholesale price index is 10 and the CPI 7.9, we are going to have some more inflation, some high prices. There is no doubt about it.
American families are feeling the pain, Mr. Speaker. Businesses feel this pain. The Nation's smallest firms are suffering. In fact, small business owners are reporting that their number one problem is inflation.
The second most pressing issue for small business is the price of gas. These price shocks hit them every single day.
Today, we are considering injecting more money into the system, which will simply fuel the fire of inflation.
There is no doubt that small businesses suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that shut down Main Street. It has been just over 2 years since the CARES Act was signed into law. Since that time, we have spent approximately $6 trillion as a Nation to fight COVID-19.
Small businesses alone have received $1.2 trillion in forgivable loans and other grants. I am proud of the bipartisan relief that Congress provided small businesses throughout this pandemic, including the Paycheck Protection Program, which supported many small businesses, including restaurants, in keeping their businesses afloat and employees on the payroll.
The goal then was to quickly get dollars out the door to support our Nation's job creators during this time of crisis. But now, our Nation as a whole has learned much more about this pandemic. We have learned how to safely go about our lives.
This bill is a disingenuous attempt to posture to small businesses by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. If Democrats were serious about helping restaurants and small businesses, they would have called for an end to the ever-changing mandates and lockdowns that forced so many businesses to close their doors. They would have accepted my amendment during committee to adequately fund this program from the start. They would have considered my bill when it was introduced in July, the ENTREE Act, which responsibly refills the Restaurant Revitalization Program and is fully paid for, which this bill we are here for today is not.
When the government attempts to solve problems without the input of small businesses, they create more problems, Mr. Speaker.
Have my Democrat counterparts on the other side ever asked a small business owner if they are now capable of opening and operating safely?
Have they ever asked them whether they can now unlock their doors, turn on their lights, and protect their workers?
Have they ever asked them if they are able to now welcome customers and community members back into their storefronts carefully?
I have, and the answer from small businesses is a resounding yes.
Small businesses are some of the most innovative and nimble enterprises in America. They can pivot quickly, and most importantly, they can adapt to any situation with speed.
They are the entrepreneurs of our country that drive our country. They can figure out how to slice the bread thinner. They know how to do this. We saw this over the last 2 years.
At this time, small businesses need the freedom to operate independently without Washington watching over them. We must end the COVID economy of government handouts.
Furthermore, this bill creates another new grant program at the SBA. The SBA, in my judgment, is incapable of operating grant programs.
Let's briefly examine how they have performed over the last 2 years, Mr. Speaker. The Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, known as EIDL, is filled with fraud and identity theft issues. This is per the IG, the inspector general, in his report.
The SBA is a black hole when it comes to answering questions for constituent businesses. We have all had businesses in our district struggle with getting information for the grant application.
Frankly, this direct lending and direct grant program in the SBA has been a disaster with a 30 percent fraud rate. That is the IG report number. Yet, the SBA continues to defer EIDL payments.
The second program was the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program. The SVOG was signed into law in December 2020. Disappointingly, and after long delays, the SBA attempted to launch this program in April, 4 months later.
My colleagues and I sent multiple letters to the SBA regarding this delay. The night before it went live, SBA's inspector general sent out a warning signal. He said: SBA, you are not ready to do this. You are not up and running yet.
But did they listen? Of course not. They went ahead anyway, and within hours, the whole program crashed. The program then took 2 more months to launch.
This is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker. We have to do a better job than this. They have to do a better job than this.
The last program was the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. I would like to remind everyone that this program was woefully underfunded by my Democrat colleagues.
However, more shocking was the fact that congressional Democrats, the Biden administration, and the SBA prioritized certain businesses over others. The RRF program was fundamentally unfair. They picked winners and losers with American taxpayer dollars.
It was so bad, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals declared this program unconstitutional, Mr. Speaker. They declared the whole program unconstitutional.
The Court's majority opinion stated that the SBA injected explicit racial and ethnic preferences into the priorities.
Enough is enough. If you judge the future by the past, as my dad once said, it is clear the SBA is unable to properly and prudently manage grant programs and safeguard American taxpayer dollars.
Not only does the SBA have a disastrous past of administering grant programs, but any new dollars flowing will add fuel to the inflation fire.
I want to be clear; this bill is supposedly paid for by recovered funds. At best, this is an IOU, Mr. Speaker. It is not a real or immediate offset. I agree that we need to track down and hold fraudsters accountable, and I applaud that process. I support it entirely. But this process takes time, and it is not going to get all those dollars back.
For example, according to testimony provided by SBA's inspector general at a hearing in January, the total recoveries by his office in fiscal year 2021 was $4.2 billion. In the same testimony, and in collaboration with Secret Service, the inspector general reports that they have seized another $1 billion in the EIDL program. And lastly, and, again, according to the IG, financial institutions returned approximately $3.1 billion in fraudulent funding. That is not near enough to cover the $55 billion that this program wants to spend.
Now more than ever, small businesses need to escape the overbearing reach of the Federal Government.
If we want to help small businesses, then we need to stop this out- of-control spending. We should prioritize lowering taxes so small business owners and their workers can keep more of their hard-earned money. We must reduce regulations that bog small businesses down with paperwork and compliance costs.
I would argue that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is the reason we have the good economy we have today because we continue to allow the business individuals to keep their hard-earned dollars and invest them as they see fit, whereas, if we tax them to death, those dollars come out of the system, and we limit their ability to drive our economy.
We simply need to move on from this COVID economy.
In my judgment, this is an irresponsible bill. I urge my colleagues to oppose it. This is about economic independence.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the majority leader's remarks. I also support trying to help restaurants. That is the reason we are here this morning.
But I do have a bill that is paid for that this one does not do. And I think that the preferences that were allowed that were shown to be unconstitutional is the reason we are here this morning, so we can find a way to fund the rest of those folks, which I think is important for our communities. And I agree, and I appreciate those remarks by the leader.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams), the vice ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and a small business champion in his own right.
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what ruthless, idiotic ideology the gentleman was just talking about, but I think capitalism is a pretty good ideology with which to generate the kind of activity it takes to make an economy go. I think we saw the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 has done that job.
Whenever they talk about the largest increase in employment history, it is pretty easy to have a low bar when you start talking about where we were in the pandemic. The bar you should be talking about is where we were prior to the pandemic, and we are still below that number.
Mr. Speaker, it is exciting for me this morning to be able to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), who is the ranking member of the Small Business Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax, and Capital Access.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on each side?
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Donalds), one of our newest members on the committee.
Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Van Duyne), who is the ranking member on the Small Business Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations. In that position, she has been leading the way in protecting small businesses.
Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close.
Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, we discussed this bill thoroughly this morning, and I think everybody understands that we have a $42 billion section of it that is wanting to help restaurants. I thoroughly support trying to get restaurants back on their feet.
In fact, it has been mentioned a number of times, we have an alternative bill called the ENTREE Act that actually fixed the constitutional problem that existed because the bill as originally structured, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, was incorrectly structured. It prioritized groups over something else and was quite unconstitutional.
It was underfunded. I told everybody at the time that the bill came through committee that was the case. I offered an amendment to try to fix it, and it was defeated. Today, here we are trying to fix a bill that I said wasn't structured right, it was underfunded, and we tried to fix it.
I have a bill to do that. It is paid for. This bill suddenly has no chance because it has never even been in committee yet. We can't get a hearing on it.
Why? Who knows?
We have known for a long time we had this problem. Suddenly, last Friday this particular bill shows up, and now, all of a sudden, we recognize we have a problem. We have said this for a long, long time, 6 months or more already.
Number two, we have a second part of this which hasn't been discussed very much this morning, which are the hardest-hit industries. We have $13 billion there. I can guarantee you, Madam Speaker, this isn't going to come close to fixing that problem. If you open this up to every single business that has been hard hit, we are going to wind up being back here--which is fine--but I am just telling you right now this is not going to fix it.
I think one of the comments made earlier was that this bill is about economic resilience. I think our businesses are resilient. That is why our economy has continued to bounce back. But it is not going to be resilient if we strangle it with higher inflation, pouring more money into this, higher energy prices, and more regulation.
This is about freeing up the entrepreneurial spirit of our people and our small businesses that drive this country, taking those burdens off, lowering inflation, quit spending money we don't have, and give them the support they need instead of choking them off with all these other sorts of things.
We have a bill before us that can fix this if we allow it to come up. But we are not doing it this morning. Instead, we have a bill that is poorly structured again. I guarantee you, Madam Speaker, it is not funded correctly either. We are trying to find a way to claw back money which we don't even know for sure if we can. We have got some so far, but we don't have enough.
So where is the rest of it going to come from?
It is going to be printed. That is not how we should operate as a Congress. That is not what the American people expect of us. They deserve better than this.
Madam Speaker, let me just close by saying that enough is enough.
Whenever we don't let alternatives be heard, to be able to hear the voice of the minority and to be able to be heard, then we don't have a bipartisan atmosphere that this body should be operating under.
When you have one-party rule and you throw bills on the floor without going through proper order, this is what you get--another bill that is poorly structured, that is not going to have a chance in the Senate because nobody has worked together to find a way to solve a problem which we all recognize exists.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.