The Daily Signal - Rep. Kevin Hern Presents a GOP Budget to Fix America

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

As Americans watch their government leaders spend more and more, the average citizen is struggling to pay for food and gas. It seems that the Biden administration is more concerned with placating a base of radical leftists than crafting a federal budget designed to help everyday Americans. To Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., the government needs to focus on balancing its budget, especially as it continues to spend exorbitant amounts of money. "The only place in America without a balanced budget has been the federal government, and we're seeing the ramifications of that with high inflation, skyrocketing fuel prices, skyrocketing food prices," Hern says. "The list goes on and on." Hern says the out-of-control government spending under President Joe Biden has dire consequences for the safety of the nation. "I think if we don't start now, we're never going to get our federal spending under control," the Oklahoma Republican says. "Interest on our debt is going to be higher than our defense budget in just five years. Much of that interest is going to go to China, where they're going to use their money to build a defense to come after us." Hern joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss House Republicans' budget proposal and what the consequences of Biden's budget would be. We also cover these stories: An armed man from California is arrested near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house in Maryland and says that he came to murder the justice. Fourth grader Miah Cerrillo speaks about her experience surviving the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Biden admits that voters have sent a clear message that politicians need to be tougher on crime, after the successful recall election for San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, June 9th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Doug Blair. As Americans watch their leaders in government spend more and more, the average citizen is struggling to pay for food and gas. It seems that the Biden administration is more concerned with placating a base of radical leftists than crafting a budget designed to help everyday Americans. To Representative Kevin Hearn from Oklahoma, the government needs to focus on balancing its budget, especially as it continues to spend exorbitant amounts of money.

Hearn joins the show today to discuss his budget and what the consequences of the proposed Biden budget would be. But before we get to Doug's conversation with Congressman Hearn, let's hit our top news stories of the day. An armed man was arrested outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house in Maryland on Wednesday after he said he had come to murder the justice. The Washington Examiner reported that the man was arrested at 150 a.m. on Wednesday after officers received a tip he was heading to the justice's home. He was carrying a handgun, knife, and pepper spray. Sources familiar with the investigation into the incident say that the man was angry about the leaked Supreme Court draft ruling that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as a series of mass shootings around the country. Republican officials responded quickly to the news. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan released a statement on Twitter, saying,

I want to thank the U.S. Marshal Service and Montgomery County Police for acting quickly to apprehend the suspect and prevent him from causing any harm. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted, This morning's disturbing reports are exactly why the Senate unanimously passed a Supreme Court security bill weeks ago. But House Democrats have inexplicably blocked it. House Democrats need to stop their blockade and pass this uncontroversial bill today. The White House also responded to the incident. White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said, President Biden condemns the actions of this individual in the strongest terms,

and is grateful to law enforcement for quickly taking. taking him into custody. Fourth grader Mia Sorrio, speaking in a pre-recorded video, talked about her experience surviving the shooting at Rob Elementary in Uvaldi, Texas. Here's part of her testimony shown during a congressional hearing via C-SPAN. He shot my friend that was next to me, and I thought he was going to come back to the room, so I grabbed the blood and put it all over me.

And... What did you do then when you put the bullet on yourself? Just stay quiet. And then I got my teacher's phone and called 911. What did you tell 911 now? I told her that we need help to sit in the police in our classroom. Meanwhile, Heritage Foundation legal fellow Amy Swear talked about why additional gun laws weren't the right answer

and what could help end mass shootings during her test. testimony before the House Oversight Committee. What happened in Uvalde and in Buffalo is horrific. It is horrifying. No one should ever have to experience that type of unfathomable trauma. And I cannot even begin to imagine what those families are going through right now. Everybody with a soul has it shattered over acts like this. And we have seen it shattered every single time from Columbine to Parkland to Ovalde.

We did not somehow, this didn't get easier for us. We did not grow numb somewhere along the way to the reality of this. It's not as though our family members don't also teach fourth graders, or we don't also send our kids to school. It's not as though we don't also shop in grocery stores or go to country music festivals or work in hospitals, as though we don't also feel the tremendous horrible weight of these tragedies somewhere deep inside of our souls, because we do.

No, we oppose these policies precisely because the lives of these victims matter, because the grief of their loved ones is real, because we all want thriving communities where families are flourishing instead of burying their children. The opposition has always been, and is still today, a genuine concern that these policies suffer from serious constitutional and practical, defects, that they will not have the impact you promise people they will. And we have always proposed alternatives that would be more effective and less constitutionally suspect. What we have rarely been met with are open ears. The Daily Signal is the news outlet of the Heritage Foundation. Following a successful campaign Tuesday to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Budin, President Biden admitted that voters have sent a clear message that politicians need to be tougher on crime.

Biden told a group of reporters gathered in front of Air Force One on Wednesday that, I think the voters sent a clear message last night. Both parties have to step up and do something about crime, as well as gun violence. Budin lost a recall election by nearly 20 points, indicating a strong repudiation of his light on crime approach. As part of his plan to change the city's criminal justice system, Budin ended the use of cash bail, stopped prosecuting minors as adults, and became the first San Francisco District Attorney to file homicide charges against city police officers.

Critics have argued that Boudin's approach to crime has resulted in a lower quality of life in the city, as car breakans, shoplifting, and anti-Asian violence skyrocketed during his tenure. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon also appears likely to face a recall effort over similarly light approaches to dealing with crime. Boudin's recall means that San Francisco Mayor London Breed will pick a replacement to serve the rest of Boudin's term. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Congressman Kevin Hearn as we discuss his new federal budget proposal. Virginia Allen here, I want to tell you about the most popular resource on the Heritage Foundation website, The Guide to the Constitution.

More than 100 scholars have contributed to create a unique line-by-line analysis of our Constitution. The guide is intended to provide a brief and accurate explanation of each clause of the Constitution as envisioned by the framers and as a plight. in contemporary law. There has never been a more important time to have an understanding of our founding document. So if you want to learn more about the Constitution, go ahead and visit heritage.org slash constitution

or simply search for Heritage Guide to the Constitution. My guest today is Congressman Kevin Hearn, who represents Oklahoma's first congressional district. Congressman, welcome back to the show. Doug, always good to be with you. Of course. You are proposing a new budget. and we would love to know what are the highlights of this new budget?

Well, first, it's the second year we've done the only budget that will be done in Congress, the RSC, the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus in all of Congress. Last year, 10 people on the committee, this year, 16 on the budget committee. First and foremost, it balances, just like all Americans, yours, mine, everybody in America. Most all of the states, I think, with the exception of one, has to have a balanced budget. Businesses have to have a balanced budget. the only place in America without a balanced budget has been the federal government. And we're seeing the ramifications of that with high inflation,

skyrocketing fuel prices, skyrocketing food prices, we're out of baby formulas. The list goes on and on. And this budget spends less so Americans have more. Now, one of the things that I think is kind of interesting is that Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi recently said that our federal budget must be a statement of our national values. Do you think that your budget, the one that you've proposed, a statement of maybe Republicans' values?

Well, actually, I would tell you it's a budget for the American people, not Republicans or Democrats. I spent 35 years in business prior to coming up here and writing budgets, doing budgets for large organizations like McDonald's Corporation and my businesses I have back home. I didn't ask whether it was a Republican or a Democrat. I said, do these revenues really work out? Do these expenses work? And do we balance at the end of the day? And that's what these budgets do last year and this year.

And I think that's what's important. We need not politicize this because, that happens, we're seeing the ramifications that. Because not only did she say that, so did Joe Biden when he put his budget out in March, and we saw what he gave us another $20 trillion. Even with his increased taxes that he's proposing, it's still a $20 trillion increase to the national debt in the next 10 years. It's just an atrocity to see the President of the United States.

It never balances, ever. Yeah. Now, you have a series of goals with this new budget, and those include preventing a debt crisis, ensuring the survival of critical entitlement. programs and fulfilling a constitutional obligation to defend the country. Let's break those down. Why did you pick those goals in particular for this budget? Well, one of the reasons I came to Congress was to restore some kind of order. I spent my entire life in the private sector. I never ran for any office until I ran for Congress in 2018. And I'm here. And I think if you're

going to say you're going to do something, you should do that. And so I've worked to restore the constitutional principles and responsibility of the federal government, which is to protect us from bad actors around the world and protect us from one another. Those are our two primary functions, but not to do things, you know, like the things we're seeing right now. We're seeing this president, this vice president, the Secretary of Homeland Security have a border that has 250,000 people a month crossing that, you know, so 3 million people a year crossing the border illegally.

And still, I mean, I voted against the $40 billion Ukrainian bill. I felt like we could take part of that money. willing to go protect another country, which, by the way, that was $54 billion at that time, why couldn't we take a portion of that and secure our southern border? And for four years, President Trump was criticized for securing our southern border and did so much to do so. And this president has unwound everything that the Trump administration did, and American people should be concerned about that. In this budget, President Biden doesn't even put enough money in there for the national defense

to meet his inflationary economy that he's caused, he's created. And so we've had to increase the budget. You remember, we have a huge defense budget. It probably criticizes us for them. But we have people around the world that are wanting to conquer us like Russia and China. And they're spending money on building brand new navies in China. And so we have to be concerned about that. We have to maintain the status quo of what we have, plus build new technologies.

You've definitely done some comparisons between your proposed budget and the Biden budget. Do you think that the Biden budget is more focused on leftist wish list items than actually helping American people? and that's maybe where the biggest difference between your budgets is? Well, I think the president's budget, in all honesty, I think if you were to set him down in a closed room, he would tell you it is focused on socialist democratic issues, like destroying fossil field industry. It's about appeasement to our foreign adversaries.

And what we're seeing, it's about, you know, getting rid of oil and gas, as we know it in our country, and returning to placating Iran and Venezuela, the two dictator-ran countries. And it's very problematic. I mean, we're returning to where we're dependent. on people around the globe instead of being independent of a lot of those pressures. The president and so many others have talked about China.

You can't just talk about China and pushing back on China if you're not going to talk about removing dependency on China, like bringing manufacturing back to this country, not running companies out of our country with incredibly poor tax policy that we're seeing right now from the Treasury Department. So there's so many things that we can be working on, not only in the budget. I said on ways and means on the tax subcommittee. and I also work as the subcommittee chairman of health care affordability. There are so many things that we need to be working on right now

to take the financial burdens off the American people that we're creating from a bloated federal government. The interest on our debt in the next five years will be larger. That obligation, which is a mandatory spend, will be a larger obligation than the spending of our military. Wow. So we don't have a choice to continue to wait. The time is now.

And people ask, have we ever balanced our budget? We did it for four years back in 97 through 2001 with then President Clinton and Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. So it can be done in a bipartisan way. But we have to start today and it starts with a budget. And we did one last year. We did one this year. One of the things that Americans are really suffering with right now is hugely spiked prices for everyday essentials like gas and food. Does the budget that you've proposed have any contingencies to maybe help Americans who are suffering from that?

Well, you can fix that by just using our free market principles, turning back on the idea that we can drill the United States of America. That's what President Trump did. That's why you saw prices at the pump get down to 169, 179 a gallon in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I'm from, which historically has the lowest prices in the country. We're now at 429 and growing quickly. And the reason for that is the oil and gas folks are saying we're not going to turn on any more wells when we have a government that wants to destroy us.

pushing production around the world as opposed to here in the United States. So that's the first thing is, you know, turn back on our safe pipelines. It's insane to think that trucking stuff across the water, you think about this, we're bringing the oil and gas that we need on tankers across the oceans, but we can't put them in our pipelines here in the United States. It's just insane, the thinking that's going on with this administration and the, you know, the Pelosi-led Democrats. On a separate note from the budget, you are running to lead the Republican Study Committee.

for our listeners who might not be aware of exactly what that is. Can you explain to them what it is and why it matters to them? Yeah, there are a lot of caucuses up here with similar ideas, whether it's the airplane caucus or the Small Business Caucus. The Republican Study Committee was formed next year, it'll be its 50th anniversary, and it was formed back in the day when then Republican President Richard Nixon started moving away from conservative principles

to a more liberal posture. And so there were some Republicans, in the minority, obviously, that started this idea of having a, it was called something different then, but moving to our, we restored and kept as the corpus of our moving forward, the conservative ideas and principles of the Republican Party. And it's grown. We have four current members that were past chairs. It's a two-year term only. There are no re-elects or anything like that.

Wips Galise was the chair of RSC, obviously our current chair, Jim Banks, Mike Johnson. And then when you look at that, you know, Jim Jordan was also the chair. So prominent people in Congress that have, you know, have had the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the core principles of the Republican Party as the guidelines and the guidepost of what we do as a conference. Now, if you were to be elected to this position, where would the budget fall in your priorities list about what you should be focusing on? Yeah, I think typically historically what's happened is the budget and spending task force chairman has got a one year. year deal and Jim Banks asked me to do it again this year. So two years in a row, I have a really good idea of the intricacies of the federal budget. It's not like any old mom and pop budget, for sure. There's no other budget like it in the world. A little bigger. A lot of zeros on the end.

It's hard to say trillions until you start seeing how many, you know, zeros are. It's just like a bunch of zeros. I'm not going to run it. It's just a bunch of zero. But it'll be first and foremost to what we do. I think if we don't start now, we're never going to get our federal spending under control. Like I said, interest on our debt is going to be higher than our defense budget in just five years. Much of that interest is going to go to China. They're going to use their money to build a defense to come after us. And when you look at these things, all things in America start with the budget. Right.

Just like in your household, if you don't have the money, you don't spend it, and you figure out how to grow revenue. Well, here's the thing that nobody's telling America. After President Trump's tax cuts and job back, revenues have been on the rise. And the Biden administration and Janet Elyne and others will say that it was destroyed America. We're going to have $4.5 trillion of revenue this year, but another trillion dollars in deficit. No matter how much we make, we're spending about a trillion dollars more than we make. We have to stop that. Right.

And most Americans can't even get their mind. You can't run this country on $4.5 trillion, please get some new leaders. So the budget's got to be first and foremost in what we do. Absolutely. When we've spoken previously, you've mentioned that you have experience as a business leader. Where does your experience in that field relate to how you would run the budget and how you would lead the Republican Study Committee if you were elected? Well, I think the first thing is that, you know, no one learns how to lead in, you know, six months or a year in office. It really is a lifetime.

If you really want to make a difference, go get a lifetime of the experience and come up here. That's what our founders did. They set outside their farms, their businesses, to come, you know, spend a moment in time in this country, and we've lost that. We have so many career politicians that have never balanced anything.

And, you know, I didn't come up here for another paycheck or a job. I came up here really to get something done. I didn't run for Senate. Were the Senate seat open? Because I think we're in a good spot here to make some things happen. But if,

we don't do something now, we're going to be a real problem. Right. One of the things that I think is interesting about what you've just said is that there is this really important priority that you're placing on our finances. It's not necessarily a topic that a lot of people think about as the federal budget. They think about their own personal budgets like inflation, how that affects things like that. But if Republicans are to take back the House in November, do you view the budget as the first thing that they should do once they are enacted into office? Listen, we did. the budget last year, it was a statement that you can't do this. And we did the budget this year

because we knew Nancy Pelosi wouldn't put it on the floor. She didn't want to see anybody balance anything because it impacted what she was trying to do. This year, the budget is going to come out tomorrow or this week. And we're going to be sending a message of what, you know, the Republicans can do and the bills that need to be done to associate that. One of the things in this budget, we used 140 member of bills last year to balance the budget. This year, another 150 or so, so just right at 300 bills, legislation that's already been written that we've incorporated into this budget, that if enacted would balance the budget, this budget will be, as we come into the majority next year, it will set the goalpost or where we need to go with policies in legislation

to balance the budget. The American people are demanding it. It's the only we're going to get our inflation under control without borrowing tons of money. Right. Now, to a lot of younger Americans who will be saddled with the debt that is being enacted right now by the government, right? It's very unlikely that people who are sort of of an older generation will have to deal with the consequences of this. What is the messaging that Republicans will put out to them to say, this is why this matters to you? Well, the prosperity that you need to have as this generation, I mean, the prosperity of seeing have more disposable income so that you can afford college without going with the idea that you can go spend money and just be forgiven. President has said the terrible example of responsibility and accountability, which is what you learn at a young age to make you a more responsible father or mother, grandfather, grandmother, teach your kids, teach, you know, as a teacher, teach your students about what it means to respect this country and the country that our warfighters wouldn't protect them around the world. And that's so important to set that message out there. You know, there's a lot of ambiguity what we really stand for as a federal government anymore. It's like go spend all you want and we'll just forget.

it? What about the people who've actually worked hard and paid their bills? And so this budget describes what it's going to take to have solvency in Social Security, solvency and Medicare, start returning our deficits to neutral, to start having extra money, to start paying back our debt. One of the things I spoke with some of your staff about is going to be included in your budget is that there is a subsection on critical race theory. Two points to that one. One, what does the federal budget have to do with critical race theory? And then two, what is the budget going to do to deal with critical race theory in our schools? Well, two things.

One has nothing to do with critical race theory. You know, our budget is a financial budget. It does talk about things that we should be doing. It shouldn't be doing as we spoke about earlier. And the last thing we need to be teaching our children is the moment they're born that they're racist. And what happened to teach in math and reading and, you know, in science and our schools, we're falling so far behind the rest of the world in education because, because we're trying to create this, quote, woke environment that somehow America is an evil place.

My argument would be to all of these folks that want to say that, can you give us an example around the world that we should be like? Because you don't see people scurrying out of the United States to go there. You see people coming here on our southern border alone, 250,000 a month trying to get into this place that the Democrats think is a horrible place to live. So they're absolutely, you know, it's incredible to see what they're saying about our great nation, and they're trying to make it worse. And it's really, I think when you ultimately look at it, what it is, it's a power struggle. It's what our founders warned us about, that when there's too much power is centralized in Washington, D.C., there's a lot of civil unrest. And I think it's what we're seeing. You know, the founding fathers talked about a limited government because they knew that that was the only way the people who authorized.

us to even exist in the federal government would be able to have their voices heard. And so, you know, as we go forward here, we need to understand what limited government means. We're not going to ever be a small government. So that's a misleading when somebody says small. When you're $4.5 trillion revenue, that is not small. But we can be limited in our scope. And I think that's exactly what the Supreme Court Justice's document said in the scope in that draft was that nowhere in the Constitution did they see that the federal government had oversight over this.

The states did. So we'll see where this goes and what other things. might be attributed to that same thoughtfulness. Sure. As we're going to wrap up, I do want to relate something to that idea of this great nation of ours, that there's something that exists here that doesn't exist in other places. You have talked about previously that you grew up in poverty, and obviously you're here, you're sitting on us now, you're a politician, you are possibly going to be one of the leaders

of the biggest caucuses, the Republican caucuses in the House. How does that play into your worldview and how does that play into your budget? I think it's always important to know where you came from. There's no other nation in the world, and I've looked at this, that can allow somebody like me where I came from to be where I'm at today. And not that being in Congress or being a public servant, a political person is something to aspire to. But it's the place where you can make this opportunity remain for others that comes after me, rather. And I think that's really important.

It's really something that's the only reason I keep doing this honestly. I mean, I don't need to be here, and I don't mean that braggadociously. I mean, it really is. We've got a lot of great staff that work with. I just want to make sure that they have the opportunity that I did. Not anything given to them. I worked hard. I had student loans.

I paid off. I built my first truck. I mean, you know the story. You heard the story. And I just think this is a special place that we think everybody should be equal regardless of how hard they work. Hard work does matter. Honesty does matter.

integrity does matter. Being a good member of society does matter. And we can't allow anybody, Republican Democrat or anybody, to take that away from this great nation. That was Congressman Kevin Hearn, who represents Oklahoma's first congressional district. Congressman, thank you so much for your time. Doug, always great to be with you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't done so already, please be sure to subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast on Apple Podcast. IHeartRadio, Spotify, and Google Play. And please leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. And please encourage others to subscribe.

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