Chairman Arrington Opening Remarks at Rules Committee to Unlock Reconciliation

July 20, 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Today, House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) testified before the House Rules Committee to advocate for the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2027, which will unlock reconciliation to support our troops, strengthen our food supply, and secure our elections.

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Opening Remarks as Delivered:

"The American people deserve better than what they've gotten for the last year and a half. But what they've gotten is a Democrat Party that I don't recognize in my ten years of service: persistent, habitual, never-ending obstruction to stop the President from succeeding in advancing the policies and the agenda the American people overwhelmingly supported and voted for—unilateral Republican leadership in Congress alongside of this President. That has made it difficult to govern.

"What was unprecedented from my Democrat colleagues is now par for the course.

"Exhibit A: the first shutdown of the entire federal government over a clean CR. It's the first time it's ever happened from my Democrat colleagues. Both parties have participated in these shutdowns. I will readily concede that. But the first time a clean CR was rejected just to keep the government funding at the last year's funding levels until we could meet out a compromise solution.

"What was their reasoning? What was their counteroffer? To repeal the program integrity measures that we put in place in the Big Beautiful Bill to stop waste, fraud, and abuse, to prevent people not eligible, illegal, or people who are able to work and not working, siphoning money off of the safety net programs that are there for our most vulnerable Americans.

"It was the longest shutdown in history before the next Democrat shutdown. This time, it was shutting down the Department of Homeland Security after we had agreed, four corners, on funding the government. They shut down Homeland [Security]. They handcuffed our Border Patrol agents from protecting our borders. They basically shut down our Coast Guardsmen from defending our ports, CISA agents from defending our critical infrastructure against being hacked, for over 70 days.

"They held the American people's security hostage until we used a reconciliation bill to break the obstruction and fund ICE and CBP because they defunded it.

"To be clear, they shut Homeland Security down, and then they defunded ICE and CBP. We had to turn it on unilaterally through reconciliation. We didn't get a single vote from Democrats on that.

"But here we are, after riding a long train of Democrat obstruction abuses, to do something before November as the window closes. That is not just meaningful—it is important. It is critical. It is urgent.

"Support our troops. Strengthen our food supply. And safeguard the integrity of our elections.

"Madam Chair, the obstruction and resistance at all costs and on all fronts goes beyond shutdowns.

"For the first time in 65 years, or what is at least 65 years of a tradition of bipartisan support for the NDAA—National Defense Authorization Act—that are the policies that undergird our entire United States national defense, have been held up in the Senate by the Democrats.

"Prior to that, based on a temporary personnel decision of the President, they held up FISA 702, a critical security tool for our intelligence community to stop Chinese espionage, to stop terrorism, to stop drug trafficking.

"This is this new, shameful era of obstruction. And I presume that the motivation is to placate the left-wing Mamdani socialist base of the party. I have no other answers.

"So, Madam Chair and members of the distinguished Rules Committee, I present to you a reconciliation bill that will provide emergency funding for our sons and daughters so they have baseline battlefield readiness; emergency funding to provide resilience and strength to our food supply that we all benefit from; and lastly, again, the consent of the governed and a functioning democracy requires integrity and confidence in elections.

"And I will quote former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2017, after the 2016 election, based on the phony Russia collusion that was debunked later by an independent council, and I quote:

"‘Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to protect our democracy.’

"Well, here's where I agree with her: we have a duty to protect our democracy, and when half the country has little to no confidence in the outcome of our elections because we don't have basic safeguards like a photo ID, I think it is incumbent upon us to act and act with purpose and with urgency."