Womack Remarks at FY25 Budget Hearing for the Treasury, OMB, and CEA (As Prepared)

The Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government will come to order. Welcome to our first subcommittee hearing on the Fiscal Year 2025 President’s Budget Request.

Appearing before the Subcommittee today are Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, and Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Jared Bernstein. I want to thank each of you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to be with us today. This will be an important discussion that should not be taken lightly.

We are here today to discuss the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request and our Nation’s economic outlook. And, I’m happy to share that this is the first time in over a decade that this committee has had a panel with the Treasury Secretary, OMB Director and CEA Chair.

Going forward, we hope to have you back more frequently. It is important for the American people to have more transparency into the financial direction of this country.

It is of my opinion that the reckless spending and out-of-control regulatory expansion driven by President Biden, his administration, and Democrats in Congress have pushed us into an economic downturn. Over the course of the Biden Administration, we have seen families struggle to put food on the table, gas in their cars, and roofs over their heads. This is not the American way.

President Biden has continued to ignore the hardships that his radical policies and irresponsible spending have unleashed on the American people, which is further evidenced by his Fiscal Year 2025 budget request.

This unsustainable trajectory is one of the greatest threats to America’s prosperity, security, and future generations.

Our nation’s debt grows every day. However, President Biden refuses to claw back wasteful spending, as seen by the $7.3 trillion price tag on his requested budget. This budget is absent of improvements to mandatory spending, which makes up 73% of our federal spending and remains on autopilot. Without implementing commonsense structural changes, that percentage will continue to rise, and the discretionary spending that funds our nation’s defense, biomedical research, infrastructure, and much more, will continue to shrink.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention President Biden’s regulatory regime, which has continued to harm small businesses, banks, and the taxpayers in Arkansas and across the nation. These burdensome and unnecessary regulations range from the SEC’s Consolidated Audit Trail whereby the SEC exceeds its statutory authority in collecting every American investor’s personally identifiable information without their consent or knowledge, to Treasury’s mature unredeemed debt, which remains unclaimed by millions of Americans because of Treasury’s unwillingness to turn information over to the states. This includes $214 million in my home state alone.

In conclusion, I will not be able to support the level of spending included in the President’s budget. Our Members are taking a hard look at the spending request line-by-line and will determine a level of funding that prioritizes putting our fiscal house in order, consistent with the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

I look forward to your testimony today and working with you on these important issues. I will now recognize my colleague and our Ranking Member from Maryland, Mr. Hoyer, for his opening statement.