Today, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox Business Network’s Kudlow to discuss how House Republicans’ rules changes will protect American families from Democrats’ wasteful government spending and inflationary policies. Leader Scalise slammed the Biden Administration for prioritizing hiring 87,000 IRS agents over investments that would secure our southern border. Additionally, Leader Scalise highlighted how Democrats’ fiscally irresponsible policies have harmed programs like Social Security and Medicare.
   On the rules changes:

“Look, we worked really hard, you know, not only through the last few months, but especially last week. You saw a lot of debate on changing the way Washington works, especially changing the way Congress works because Congress was broken. It was not meeting the needs of the American people.

“And so that's why we made rules changes to empower members to address these problems more, but also to stop these multi-thousand page bills – these omnibuses, [$1.7 trillion], dropped by [the] dark of night, voted on just a few hours later. Nobody had a chance to read who voted for it. Who knows what's in there? You find stuff out weeks later. People are sick of that, we're sick of it, and it's got to end.

“And so, we're laying down a marker early. You know, look, you've got till September 30th, Congress does, to address how we properly fund [the] government. Let's have a real debate on that. What are the priorities of this nation? We don't have unlimited money, and our children and grandchildren are going to pay the difference if we spend more than what we take in. 

“It's a long time coming that we had this debate. But let's do it, and let's make it clear to the Senate if you think we're going to keep playing this kabuki dance where you play games, you don't do your job, September 30th comes, and you're just going to keep dragging this out until Christmas and then send a Christmas tree lit up with all kinds of bad bills called an omnibus – it's not going to happen this year.” 

On Democrats’ scaremongering about Social Security:

“You know, it's amazing how Democrats keep telling the same lie over and over again, and they think that people are going to buy it. Look, everybody who's looked at Social Security and Medicare [knows] that because Democrats have spent so much, and with Obamacare putting more people onto Medicaid and government programs, these programs are going bust. If we sit back and do absolutely nothing, Larry, those programs go bankrupt. 

“I think that would be crazy and irresponsible to let Social Security [and] Medicare go bankrupt. Let's focus on saving them from bankruptcy and actually getting our country's fiscal house in order, because if our country's fiscal house is in order, then we can protect those programs even more. [Remember] when the [Biden Administration] said that it was going to borrow and spend trillions of dollars paying people not to work? And you were critical rightfully of that. 

“By paying people not to work, that's people sitting at home instead of paying into Social Security. So, they've actually made Social Security less stable by borrowing trillions of dollars from China to pay people not to work. That's one clear example of how you can better strengthen Social Security and other programs.”

On the defense budget:

“Well, people should be worried that defense hasn't been focused on the threats [we face from] countries like China. And so, we've talked about going and reevaluating how these agencies are run, including defense, so that [lawmakers] can focus better on the national security of our country [and how] some of these other federal agencies [became] bloated.

“We passed a bill two nights ago dealing with these IRS agents – 87,000 more IRS agents [President] Biden wants to hire when we already have 80,000. I have never [gotten] a call, Larry, from anybody of the 750,000 people I represent saying we want more people at the IRS. They may want more people at the border, protecting our southern border, but not at the IRS. And [President] Biden is spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to double that agency so they can go out and force lower-income people to pay more taxes. CBO even confirmed that, by the way.

“And so, how about we cut back things like that? Not only would you save money, but you don't have these bureaucrats going and harassing families trying to tell you you can't even use a gas stove. For God's sake, they're spending their time trying to look at stuff like that.

“Every other week, it seems like we've got a crisis over at the Transportation Department. It's TSA today. It was Southwest before. It was a supply chain problem. We're sending them a lot of money. They're just not doing a good job spending that money. 

“And the people in charge – the secretaries, the President himself – you know, where's the accountability? Where's the competence? It's about time we get a government that's competent and works for people, not [spending] all their time wasting money, borrowing money, and not delivering for people.”

On reversing President Biden’s radical energy agenda:

“Have a little fun tomorrow. Turn on C-SPAN. We're going to be bringing a bill to say that as [President] Biden keeps raiding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, over 40 percent of it gone to mask his bad policies, you can't take our national security reserve and sell it to China, which [President] Biden did, by the way. Everybody should vote for that. Unfortunately, Democrats are trying to block it. We're going to pass that bill tomorrow.”