Hoyer Opening Remarks at Full Committee Markup of FY26 Financial Services and General Government Bill
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05), Ranking Member of the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered opening remarks at the House Appropriations Full Committee Markup of the FY26 Financial Services and Government (FSGG) bill. Below is a video and transcript of his remarks:
Click here to watch a video of his full remarks.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank Chairman Joyce – (turns on microphone) on the record, I’ll thank Mr. Joyce for his fairness and for his listening to some of my suggestions and even pursuing some of them. We had a number of hearings, as he said, including the ninth, which was the Members' Day, but we had, eight substantive hearings on the issues before this committee. They were good hearings and I want to thank him for scheduling some, but not all of the people that I think we should have heard from about the consequences of the actions that we are going to take today. But I want to thank the staff, in particular: Matt Smith and Phil Tizzani, my own staff as well, and the committee staff: Kim Betz, James Galkowski, Alex Yost, Mike Patterson, Pauls Toma, and others, and I want to thank the staff in my office as well for their help.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this bill is not going to see the light of day in the United States Senate. Mr. Chairman has – the chairman [of] the big committee – the full chairman has observed that this was a start. We are starting 27 days before the end of the fiscal year, and that's not a good start. In part, we're not starting because, as the chairman told us, we were unable – and Subcommittee Chairmen have told me we were unable to get information from OMB, contrary to the law and contrary to a past practice. But I want to thank Chairman Joyce and all the staff that I have mentioned, Quinn Hirsch on my staff has been terrific. I know they share many of my frustrations about the sorry state of our appropriations process. They did their best to make the most of our subcommittee's meager allocation, and by the way, we are one of the last committees to be funded, and we did not adopt all of our 302b's at the same time and therefore did not know what money would be left over at the end of the process.
"The bill before us severely cuts funding for the FSGG by $3.2 billion, or 12% below the Fiscal Year 2025, which, of course, was the Fiscal Year ‘24 enacted, put together by an Administration then in office in December '23. That cut is debilitating, but it's not surprising. This bill is a product of the same policy that the Republicans have been pursuing for decades, in my view, and that policy is 'You're On Your Own.' 'We're not here to help you. We're not here to reach out and lift you up. We're not here to assist you in the challenges that may be facing you. You're On Your Own.' You're particularly on your own if you live in the District of Columbia. Republicans continue to withhold the $1 billion. The chairman mentioned that $70 million for DC to assure safety. What he didn't say was we cut $1 billion out, and we're doing $70 [million] back. That's a pretty bad trade. That $1 billion took from the city government earlier this year, money that the District collected from its own citizens, not federal money, D.C. tax money, revenues. That is tantamount, my friends, to defunding, in part, the Metropolitan Police Department. Republicans also slipped poison pills into this bill that make it harder for DC to enforce traffic laws that make it easier to carry concealed weapons in the District and on the Metro.
"Everyone in this room wants to make the Nation's Capital safe and safer. That is happening, by the way, if you look at the statistics, very substantially down from recent years. What Trump is doing in the District is not about safety, however. It's a show of force against his political opponents and a loyalty test for his coalition. We don't need mass federal agents from a dozen different agencies swarming the streets without a coherent strategy. We don't need to take thousands of National Guardsmen away from their families to patrol the District. There was no emergency. Are there crimes? Yes. Should we do everything we can to eliminate crime, period? Yes. But it is a bad policy to start using our armed forces to accomplish that objective and defunding the Metropolitan Police was not a way to get to our objective. We could have used them on January 6th, by the way, our National Guard, to stop Trump's insurrectionists from maiming our Capitol Police. But Trump told us for hours – Members of Congress of the United States, the institution of the Constitution: 'You're On Your Own.' Even as Speaker McCarthy implored him to stop the mob, no National Guard were called out immediately. Later, he told the insurrectionists, the criminals, those who pled guilty to crimes, 'You're pardoned.' Is that tough on crime?
"The consequences of this Administration's actions in this bill extend far beyond DC. The bill's major offense is to undermine the goal of reducing our deficit. We all ought to condemn this $2.79 billion, or 23%, cut below the '25 level of the Internal Revenue Service, the [agency] whose work makes all the other activities of our government possible. That includes a more than $2.4 billion, or 45%, cut below the Fiscal Year ‘25 enacted for IRS enforcement. $2.4 billion from $5.4 billion, leaving $3 billion. That's a very, very substantial cut that will make it easier for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to avoid paying what they owe. IRS data suggests that every $1 invested in enforcement yields $7 in revenue return. Crucially, research from Harvard and then and the Treasury Department itself found that when targeted, the top 10% of earners $1 invested in IRS enforcement yields $12 in revenue. So, this $2.4 billion cut results in $29 billion in lost revenue this year. Is that fiscally responsible?
"Hardworking Americans who do this will pay their taxes each year will have to pick up the tab for the hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue from this bill over the years. Those same folks will also have a harder time filing their taxes because of this legislation's cuts to IRS customer service. The president asked for $853 million more than this bill appropriates for IRS services. No phones are going to be answered, no people are going to be at the offices to help people as they come in, and, of course, Direct File has been eliminated as well. This bill reduces funding for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and other agencies tasked with going after criminals and keeping the Americans safe. Maybe the National Guard will do it. Under this Administration, you're certainly on your own if you're a federal worker. Worse than that, Trump, Vought, and their DOGE co-conspirators think federal workers are all villains, and they ought to be ‘put in trauma.’ Sadly, Mr. Chairman, this legislation maintains the pay freeze the Trump Administration imposed and now come back with 1%. I'll be offering an amendment later. They ought to receive 3.8% cost of living adjustment, maintaining pay parity with our military service members, which the president proposed. Even the agencies that were left largely intact – thanks to the efforts of Chairman Joyce, and I thank him for that – still aren't safe. Not when this Administration is willing to impound, rescind, and redirect funding directed by the Congress and signed into law by the president.
"I will say once again: Mr. Vought and this Administration believe that what we do here today, and what the Senate does, and we pass and the president signs, is a suggestion, not a law. It won't matter how much we give the agencies if Russell Vought vote illegally withholds, impounds, and redirects that funding as he sees fit. Back in July, Vought said, 'The appropriations process has to be less bipartisan.' As it is less bipartisan, it becomes less passable and there's more likelihood we'll do some sort of omnibus or maybe even next year some [kind of] CR. Frankly, it doesn't sound like he wants an appropriations process to exist at all. Indeed, he has acted over the last 7 to 8 months as if the appropriations process is irrelevant and without consequence. That's something we all ought to stand against in support of this institution and this committee. If the people's representatives are irrelevant, our democracy is dead. Don't leave the American people on their own. Vote no."