In a House Appropriations Committee markup meeting on Monday, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) spoke about funding cuts in the Financial Services and General Government Bill.
00:00Mr. Chairman, let me start by making an observation, and I know I sound like a broken record.
00:08We have almost a full committee here, and we have people who have listened to all the testimony
00:17and have become more knowledgeable on this bill than other members of the Congress of the United
00:25States on either side of the aisle. And the reason for having subcommittees is to accomplish
00:29that objective. As you know, I don't consider this a markup because we don't mark it up.
00:37We don't take actions that offer amendments on both sides which feel perfect the chairman's mark.
00:47But that is how it's operated for some time now. And I really believe that we ought to return
00:57to a time when the subcommittees really did work, as opposed to waiting for the full committee.
01:04In any event, that's the way it's done.
01:09Last week, OMB Director Russell Vogt said, and I quote,
01:13the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan. That's in the context of the brief discussion the
01:23chairman, the big chairman, and I had as we closed our last markup.
01:30If it's less bipartisan, it will be less successful. That's the bottom line.
01:35When we had a four-vote majority and you have a four-vote majority, you know there's some things you're going to have to have bipartisan support for,
01:43and you're not going to get them done, and they need to be done.
01:47I imagine Vogt is awfully pleased with what he has seen from the appropriations committee recently, however,
01:53where we have votes, and on a very few of them, we have bipartisan agreement.
01:59But most of them are yes on our side, no on your side, or no on our side, and yes on your side.
02:06We keep seeing partisan bills come out of a broken appropriations process.
02:13I don't know, Mr. Chairman, Chairman Cole, whether you saw John Kennedy's quote,
02:19who's a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and he said this just days ago,
02:24we don't have an appropriations process. It's broken. It's been broken for a while.
02:30I would agree with Senator Kennedy on that observation.
02:34Our subcommittees have become largely irrelevant.
02:37With markups like this, one being a little more than a pro forma ritual.
02:42This deterioration started long before Trump, but it has accelerated under his administration.
02:48He and Vogt are trying to turn the entire appropriations process into an irrelevant rubber stamp.
02:56Frankly, I'm not sure what the purpose of the appropriations committee is
02:59if the administration is just going to impound, withhold, and redirect funding illegally
03:06as it sees fit, and then send rescission package for the rest.
03:11I know we just passed the rescission bill. It's the first one in 30 years.
03:14Republicans and Democratic presidents have been present.
03:19They have sent some rescissions down, but they haven't passed.
03:23Because we had passed bills in a bipartisan way, and we thought the levels were correct.
03:28I know some of my colleagues across the aisle agree with me, in principle.
03:33But we need to take action to stop this perversion of constitutional law
03:38and intent to the benefit of presidential sovereignty.
03:43Congress, it seems to me, should not and must not sit idle as doge chainsaws through the federal government
03:50and as Trump politicizes and weaponizes agencies under this subcommittee's jurisdiction,
03:56including the FCC, OPM, GSA, and others.
04:00While I'm pleased, as I told you, Mr. Chairman,
04:03that this bill leaves certain vital areas of funding largely intact,
04:07notably, as you pointed out, judicial security, public defender services,
04:11and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.
04:15But that is little comfort if the administration can now just withhold funding at will.
04:22Ours is not a suggestion.
04:23It is the law.
04:25When the president signs it, we have passed it in a bipartisan way.
04:29There are also cuts in this bill that will have consequences for the American people.
04:32This committee funds 96 percent of the federal government through the Internal Revenue Service,
04:40and yet our allocation accounts for less than 1 percent of the non-defense discretionary budget.
04:49Yet our allocations have shrunk even further for fiscal year 2026 by, as you pointed out, 1.7 percent.
04:58And I know that you struggled with that, and I appreciate the efforts you have made, and the staff has made.
05:09Larger agencies under the purview of other subcommittees can trim back grant programs
05:12and shift funding around to make ends meet when facing cuts.
05:16The only committee that has less money than we do is the Ledge Committee.
05:19Our agencies, however, have smaller budgets and thus have to pare back their most basic operations
05:26just to make ends meet, all to the detriment of the American people.
05:30I am particularly worried, as I'm sure the chairman is not surprised,
05:34about the 2.7 billion cut, or 23 percent, to the already insufficient fiscal year 2025 level
05:45for the Internal Revenue Service.
05:47That includes more than 2.4 billion, or 45 percent, cut below the fiscal year 2025 enacted for IRS enforcement.
05:59Now, you've given people a huge tax cut, particularly at the upper end.
06:03Evidently, it wasn't enough, however, to just cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals in America
06:10with their one big, beautiful bill.
06:13They want to continue to make it easier for those same high earners.
06:19And those who don't like average working people in America have us take the taxes out every week,
06:25every bi-week, every month.
06:28These high earners, to evade their taxes to the detriment of the hard-working middle Americans.
06:34IRS data suggests that every $1 invested in the enforcement yields $7 of revenue return.
06:42That's across the board.
06:43For the wealthiest Americans, Harvard, Treasury economists, and Treasury economists,
06:49found that when targeted at the top 10 percent of earners,
06:54$1 invested in IRS enforcement yields $12 in revenue.
06:59My colleagues across the aisle claim they're acting in the interest of fiscal responsibility,
07:03but the IRS cuts in their bill will cost taxpayers billions, billions of dollars, more than it will save.
07:11Some estimates of non-payment of owed taxes being owed is over $600 billion.
07:20That's not raising taxes.
07:22That's taxes owed, or more than the non-defense discretionary spending combined for every agent.
07:29These cuts will also undermine customer service for Americans trying to contact IRS about questions on their taxes.
07:36This legislation also, Mr. Chairman, maintains the pay freeze for civilian federal workers,
07:41which Russell Vogt instituted as part of his campaign to traumatize the people who make the federal government function
07:48and called them villains.
07:51What an absurd personnel policy that is.
07:54He slanders them.
07:57These civilian employees work side by side with their military counterparts, often performing the exact same task.
08:03They deserve a 3.8 percent cost of living adjustment and to maintain pay parity with our military service members.
08:11They're, after all, not members of Congress, who, of course, don't deserve a COLA adjustment, as we've seen.
08:16We are not going to find common ground on every issue, of course, that I've mentioned,
08:23but we need to find consensus on preserving this institution.
08:28When Russell Vogt says he wants less bipartisan appropriations process, what is he really saying?
08:35Is that he wants a weaker, more compliant, less functional Congress.
08:40I don't care if there's a Democrat or a Republican in the White House.
08:44I will always, hopefully, stand up for Congress's power under Article I.
08:49I want to say something, in addition to that, about the rioters.
08:55As you know, you pointed out a lot of them have been in there before.
08:59We've opposed them before.
09:01We're going to oppose them again.
09:02But I would hope that we could have a discussion about some of them.
