{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://arrington.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=690", "Arrington: The American People Believe Reconciliation Bill Will Be an Economic and Societal Disaster", "2021-11-16", "2021", "2021-11", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Jodey C. Arrington", "A000375", "arrington.house.gov", "arrington", "https://arrington.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx?DocumentTypeID=27", "scraper", "Today, Rep. Jodey C. Arrington (TX-19) took to the floor to voice his strong opposition to Democrats\u2019 multi-trillion tax-and-spend bill and to urge his Democratic colleagues to stop this radical legislation.\n\nWatch Rep. Arrington\u2019s speech here.\n\nA transcript of Rep. Arrington\u2019s remarks as delivered is included below.\n\n\u201cThank you, Mr. Speaker. I can\u2019t for the life of me understand why my Democrat colleagues insist on passing this multi-trillion-dollar monstrosity of a tax and spend bill that not only I, but the American people believe will be an economic and societal disaster on so many levels. The American people have spoken, Mr. Speaker, in countless polls and surveys and elections, not just in Virginia, New York, and New Jersey, but in my State of Texas, where House seats had flipped from Democrat to Republican for the first time ever. And as recent as last week, a Democrat changed parties to Republican because they cannot explain the current policies that are destructive to the ends of recovery and support the American people\u2019s freedom and our way of life. They\u2019ve said, as clearly as they can, no more big government control over our lives. That\u2019s what they said in Virginia. No more socialist spending our country into bankruptcy. No more growing the government at the expense of our freedoms, and our children\u2019s future.\n\nVirginia, blue state, a third of the electorate said the economy was their number one issue. Biden won that by 10 points. They voted for a Republican Governor. Two-thirds of the American people in recent polls have said that the Biden economic plans are bad, and they have no confidence in his policies. They connect his policies with the current economic conditions. The majority of Americans attribute the inflation to Biden\u2019s failed policies just like they do the disastrous border and the debacle in Afghanistan. And in the generic ballot. The generic ballot among registered voters, there\u2019s a 10-point spread, if the elections were held today, between Democrats and Republicans. That\u2019s the highest in 40 years ever recorded.\n\n\u201cThe American people are speaking, and they are crying out to their country\u2019s leaders, \u2018relent, relent,\u2019 but they have made the connection, and between the policies and the disastrous effects in their lives and in the life of their country. Enhanced unemployment benefits, in other words, paying people more to be on unemployment than to be at work coupled with wasteful partisan, multi-trillion-dollar spending packages under the guise of COVID relief, have created an economic \u2018firestorm.\u2019 Runaway inflation, real wages seven of the nine months this President has been in office have gone down. Real wages have gone down. There\u2019s been an inflation surge to the point of double-digit inflations in the last month, which have put us over the year at a 30-year high. Gas prices are up 50%. And we are almost a million jobs short of what President Biden promised as a result of that blue state bailout that he called COVID relief.\n\n\u201cThis is the solution that the Democrats are offering. Let\u2019s raise prices even more and lower wages by taxing the American people. Let\u2019s further extend our recession by chasing jobs overseas and putting the highest tax rates in the developed world on the job creators of the United States of America. Let\u2019s burden small businesses with higher taxes and less people willing to work. Let\u2019s drive labor participation further down by removing a work requirement. Let\u2019s trap more people in poverty \u2013 in a cycle of dependency on government \u2013 by removing the incentives to work. Let\u2019s wipe out 20% or 30% of the workforce by thrusting a big government mandate that is unconstitutional overreaching and would destroy any prospects for recovery.\n\n\u201cThis was supposed to be, Mr. Speaker, about income inequality. But if you read the tax bill, and I don\u2019t know how my progressive colleagues can look the American people in the eyes with a straight face and say that this is not a swampy special interest package of the century because they have tax breaks for the wealthy by raising the SALT deductions, they give tax breaks to green industry, to unions, to plaintiffs\u2019 attorneys, to media corporations. That\u2019s all legitimate. That\u2019s all true. If you look close enough, that\u2019s what this is about. Not to mention they stuffed the stocking with early Christmas presents for progressives and political allies of the Democrat Party. Amnesty for 8 million people while our Southern border is melting down? Unionization of every employee, every employer, every state in the country. Obamacare subsidies for people making hundreds of thousands of dollars, the list is too long. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the indulgence. I implore my Democrat [colleagues] to relent and stop this and let\u2019s get back to work on behalf of the American people.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-04-07T12:09:11Z", "2026-06-28T00:49:39Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://arrington.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=690"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0641408152878284, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}