Ranking Member Hoyer Opening Remarks on Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Services and General Government Bill
WASHINGTON, DC – This morning, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05), Ranking Member of the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Subcommittee, delivered opening remarks at the FSGG Subcommittee markup of the 2025 FSGG Funding Bill. Below is a transcript of his remarks and a link to the video:
Click here for a link to the video.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased that you can join us.
“Mr. Chairman, I have been on this subcommittee for a very long time — took a break for about 23 years — and I am very concerned about process. So let me talk about that first.
“My concept of a subcommittee is a group of Members who take a special focus on a relatively small part of the budget. That's not true of the Defense Committee because that's a majority of our discretionary budget, but all the other subcommittees presumably become experts on a certain portion of the money that we run our government with.
“In my first iteration on this committee — for some 20 years — subcommittees marked up bills, they considered bills, they debated bills, they offered amendments in the subcommittee. Particularly, I've served on the Labor Health Committee for the same period of time – I've been on two subcommittees for all of my service in the Congress. And that was both an educational process and an ability for the subcommittee to debate the priorities in our bill — the needs that those priorities required in terms of dollars — and there was a give and take.
“That's no longer the practice, as you know, Mr. Chairman.
“As a matter of fact, I started to offer amendments the first markup that I was back to the committee and my dear friend sort of looked at me like, ‘we don't do that.’ And so I didn't do it. But I wanted to raise that because with all the Members of the committee who may not have been on the Appropriations Committee as long and perhaps have not known that the practice was, for the years that I first came on the committee, was to have the subcommittee, in effect, debate the bill and produce a product that was the product of debate and amendment in the subcommittees.
“I say that because I think that was useful and I'm sorry that it does not happen now. This markup is not, in my definition, a markup. It is a bill that has been presented and that we will send out of this committee in a partisan vote, and then we will really consider it and mark it up in the full committee. I wanted to raise that because I have a belief that the process of subcommittees actually marking up bills would enhance this process.
“Now, having said that, that this bill represents a departure from what I think all of the Members on my side of the aisle thought was the product of the agreement that we reached last year and this year, the beginning of this year — the Fiscal Responsibility Act. That compromise not only included overall spending levels for Fiscal Year ‘24 and Fiscal Year ‘25, but also an agreement to provide as much as 75 billion for each of those years in non-defense discretionary spending above the agreed upon levels.
“Now, I know there's a position that is had by many that that was not part of the agreement. And in that case, I suppose there was not a meeting of the minds, but I think, I think, the Ranking Member may well say that that was our understanding and that's what we believe. Not including that funding in these negotiations disproportionately hurts the subcommittee and the agencies under its purview. So does cutting the overall FSGG bill by 11% under the Fiscal ‘24 enacted, which of course was on the Fiscal Year ‘23 numbers — not the Fiscal Year ‘22 numbers — but the Fiscal Year ‘23, so that we are cutting essentially 11% from the Fiscal Year ‘23 number. That belies the importance of the agencies for which we appropriate money, in my view.
“Our agencies often have smaller budgets and thus less flexibility to deal with the cuts. Larger agencies under the jurisdiction of other subcommittees can scale back grant programs and shift funding around to make ends meet. It's tough, perhaps may not be appropriate, but it is easier than this bill. Our agencies have to lay off staff, severely undermining their ability to function at the most basic levels. That has direct consequences on the American people.
“My friends across the aisle claim their party stands for law and order. I think they really do, however, this bill under sources the agencies responsible for enforcing the law from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence — both cut.
“Republicans talk about the state of inflation, but their bill undermines the FTC, the FCC, and other key regulatory agencies that are working to lower Americans’ costs and protect consumers from fraud, scams, and exploitation. Because none of us can really protect ourselves against the super international corporations and what they do. We're one customer.
“This legislation also violates the CFPB’s independent funding structure, and thus its mission to protect American consumers. That contradicts the Supreme Court's recent 7-2 decision — authored by Justice Thomas — that upheld the structure as constitutional.
“My Republican colleagues also say they care about fiscal responsibility, as we all should. This bill does not, however in my opinion, reflect that concern. Instead, it continues to underfund the Internal Revenue Service, undermining our government's ability to address the debt by collecting legally owed taxes. This is not about harassing taxpayers. This is about going after people who cheat on their taxes, and as a result, the rest of us – who don't cheat — need to pay more. The bill cuts IRS funding by $2.2 billion below the Fiscal Year ‘24 level.
“Chairman, you mentioned the $87 billion, $20 billion of which was cut last year. I hope you're right that will not be cut in the future, but as I understand it, the authority to transfer funds from that are not provided for in this bill. So we have $2 billion less for enforcement — in other words, we're cutting our collection department by $2 billion. That's the very essence of trying to be able to afford that which we're buying and not paying for.
“Although estimates vary, IRS data suggests that it is the most productive — the agency generates between $5 and $9 in revenue for every $1 it spends on enforcement. You can extrapolate that if you cut $2 billion in enforcement — just in enforcement – then you lose perhaps $9, at max, for every dollar that you cut. That's a lot of money.
“The Director of [the] IRS observed that we lose about $680 or $690 billion a year in taxes owed under the laws that we have passed but are not collected. Make no mistake, the IRS cuts in this bill will cost taxpayers billions of dollars more than it will save.
“As we've seen recently, the IRS can also greatly improve taxpayer experience when it's properly resourced. This past filing season, the IRS launched its Direct File pilot program in 12 states. It was very successful. The IRS now plans to make that program permanent. If the government requires Americans to pay their taxes, we ought to also give them a free and easy way to do so. I frankly have difficulty understanding why we don't have that service if we want to make paying taxes legally and easily possible.
“At a minimum, we need to meet President Biden's request to fund the IRS at the Fiscal Year ‘24 levels. Ideally, we provide additional funding beyond the request to offset the recent rescissions to the agency. This bill fails to do either. As one of the leading authors of the Help America Vote Act — again, a lot of questions raised about the efficacy and honesty of elections. The Help America Vote Act — adopted in a bipartisan way and signed by George W. Bush — was an effort to make sure that the resources were available from the federal level and the first time we participated in paying for the operations of federal elections — which are all done by local governments, states, and local communities — was in the first decade of this century. I'm sorry that that’s cut. I'll be working on that.
“This legislation also includes various riders. They will all lead to the inevitable result that this bill is going nowhere. And we will send it to this subcommittee and to the full committee, I think with an understanding by almost every Member, like the Chairman stated in the press ‘this is a first step.’ And I understand that, and everybody on the subcommittee understands that, but I would hope that we could start. And we have a new Chairman — a man I greatly respect and have worked with through the years — that we will work more closely together at the beginning, in trying to get bills to be enacted in a bipartisan fashion, which ultimately will be the only way these bills will pass. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.”