WASHINGTON, D.C. – During debate on the House floor discussing Democrats’ debt ceiling crisis, top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) introduced an amendment to prevent burdening American families, farmers, and small businesses with new reporting requirements to the IRS, and examined how Dems’ economic crisis is harming our economy and working families.

CLICK HERE to read Rep. Brady’s amendment.

CLICK HERE to watch Rep. Brady’s statement.

Rep. Brady’s remarks as delivered appear below

Madame Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may commit.

 

What a bunch of nonsense that we just heard. I respect the Majority Leader greatly, I love his talk about courage and principle and language and all that but what he didn’t tell you, is in February 2018, Speaker Pelosi, he, Whip Clyburn, 119 House Democrats voted to shut down this government to default on America’s debt and deny hurricane assistance to my communities, not just in Texas but across the country.

 

He played politics with America’s debt. So did many Democrats that day, and while they lecture us about irresponsibility, here’s what we do know. This is a dangerous irresponsible charade.

 

Democrats are desperate to blame the GOP for this, when in fact, they’ve created this economic crisis.

 

For two years, our Democrat colleagues have known this day was coming. Two years and never even passed a budget. Didn’t even try to pass a budget to deal with this, never sat down with Republicans, have rammed everything through this House this year, and now, even though they have all the votes they need, they’re just playing political games.

 

Willing to shut down this government, willing to deny disaster aid, willing to harm our economy and working families, so they don’t have to raise this debt ceiling.

 

The truth is, they don’t want to. They can, they don’t want to.

 

They’re manufacturing this crisis. They have all the votes they need. They’re willing to bring this economy to the brink. They’ve got all the votes they need. All they have to do is include it in reconciliation, they just don’t want to. They just don’t want to.

 

We could fact check so much of what we heard today we could spend the next two hours on this and we can talk about all the tax breaks for the billionaires, and the wealthy in the new spending bill that is being brought to the floor.

 

Trust me, this isn’t just about past debts. This is about a green light to spend America deeper and deeper and deeper into debt as–to quote our Democrat leaders in 2018–“Republicans control the House, the Senate, the White House–responsibility to govern rests squarely on their shoulders.”

 

Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the White House. This responsibility rests on their shoulders.

 

And I will tell you, Madame Speaker at the end of this debate I intend to offer a motion to commit the bill from the Committee on Ways and Means to include a provision that would prohibit the IRS from implementing a bank surveillance scheme.

 

The reason I’m doing this is because Democrats are leading a campaign to impose bank surveillance on your personal bank account and your business bank account, they are targeting families and farmers, and America’s small business. They want to give the IRS unfettered access to individual and business bank accounts.

 

It’s an outrageous intrusion in the private lives of all Americans and they want to do that because they think they can raise money to lift the SALT cap to give tax breaks to millionaires to create tax havens for billionaires against the very tax hikes that they’re proposing.

 

Penthouse occupants are cheering, the building janitor gets nothing. Gets. Nothing. This is why they don’t want to take responsibility for lifting the debt ceiling, because they have huge plans to really harm middle-class Americans, while giving huge tax breaks to their friends.

 

When Democrats want to sit down with Republicans and have a serious conversation about how we raise the debt ceiling, how we address the financial stability of this country–Mr. Leader, let me tell you, I’m in, a lot of us are in, I’m hopeful someday, we can get to that, because that’s what our country deserves.

 

With that, I will oppose this debt ceiling increase, and I asked unanimous consent to include the text of my amendment in the record immediately prior to the vote on the motion to commit.

 

With that, I yield back.