House Appropriations Committee Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee Chairman-designate Mike Quigley delivered the following remarks in support of H.R. 264, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill. The legislation is a bipartisan bill to reopen federal agencies and ensure Americans receive their tax refunds on time:
Now that Democrats have taken the Majority in the House, we have shown our intention to govern responsibly and have already illustrated real leadership at every turn. A welcome change after fighting through two years of chaos and obstruction, which culminated in a reckless shutdown.
At the end of the day, the President’s beloved border wall is the issue solely responsible for this irresponsible shutdown; and it is an absolute disgrace and a disservice to all Americans to allow his broken campaign promise to hold all the other key funding bills hostage.
From delays in the processing of federal loan assistance applications for small businesses and the uncertainty created for taxpayers during tax season to regulatory agencies like the FTC not being able to pursue the vast majority of consumer protection investigations, I’ve seen firsthand how this shutdown is impacting communities around the country as the Chairman-designate of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Appropriations.
Due to the shutdown at the SEC, companies have been announcing delays and investors are concerned that IPOs for companies such as Uber will miss a key first quarter deadline.
We can put a stop to this chaos that is rattling our communities and our economy.
This bill before us today is fiscally responsible and makes hard choices among competing priorities. It provides a total of $23.688 billion in discretionary resources, an increase of $265 million over the fiscal year 2018 level.
The bill rejects the President’s proposed elimination of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund and cuts to the Small Business Administration - which provide necessary resources to spur economic growth, particularly in underserved communities.
The bill provides a pay increase for civilian federal employees in 2019, while putting a stop to the excessive raises to the Vice President and other high-ranking Administration officials.
In addition, the bill includes back-pay for federal employees furloughed during the shutdown.
One key feature of this bill is the total lack of controversial policy riders - this is a clean appropriations measure squarely under the jurisdiction of this Committee. But again, most importantly, this bill will re-open the Department of the Treasury, which includes the IRS, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Small Business Administration, and multiple other agencies that have a direct impact on the lives and livelihoods of American families, businesses, and communities.
By passing this bill, we will be able to get more than 130,000 workers back to work and receiving a paycheck.
It is long past time that we re-open government, and this bill does exactly that for a number of critical agencies that the American people rely upon every single day.
Source: U.S. Department of HCA
