Aderholt Remarks at FY25 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill Full Committee Markup

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the markup for the FY25 Labor-HHS bill. This Subcommittee is responsible for writing the largest domestic funding bill, with programs that touch the lives of every American. 

First, I want to confront the criticisms of this bill.  We are going to be told the cuts in this bill are draconian, excessive, and harmful to workers, students, children, and the nation’s public health.  These statements could not be further from the truth. 

Federal spending is out of control. While most of the growth in spending is mandatory, and therefore outside the jurisdiction of this committee, as members of congress it remains our responsibility - first and foremost - to do what we can with the most powerful tool in our arsenal – appropriations. 

I think Chairman Cole is taking a fair and reasonable approach to this year’s spending levels.  We are following the law Democrats and Republicans agreed to last year. 

I know it is not a level either side would have picked by themselves, but it remains the law of the land and I respect the Chair’s decision to follow it. 

The COVID pandemic saw a drastic increase in social spending.  Congress passed the CARES Act under President Trump’s leadership to get our nation out of the biggest economic drop since the great depression.  This law was bipartisan and achieved its goals of giving every American the support they needed to get through some of the darkest times our nation had faced in a generation. 

However, the second largest driver of social spending, the American Rescue Plan – was rushed through Congress in a matter of weeks on a party line vote – and resulted in skyrocketing inflation. 

It’s now been more than two years, and still the nation cannot achieve its 2 percent inflation target, and interest rates are some of the highest seen since before the financial crisis. 

The nation’s persistent level of 3 percent inflation, which some would call an improvement, only measures the growth in prices in a single year. Prices cumulatively have increased 20 to 30 percent since the beginning of this Administration.  While I am pleased inflation seems to be moderating, its persistently high level represents the single largest tax shared by every single American.  A tax whose burden falls most heavily on low‑income Americans. 

Modest reductions in social spending, like those proposed by this committee – for this bill – represent meaningful progress in restoring fiscal sanity and fighting inflation. 

We cannot continue to make our constituents pay for reckless DC beltway spending.  We must stop the out-of-control spending spree, and the buck stops here. 

You will hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say the bill cuts funding for American workers, schools, and critical social infrastructure. 

The bill does reduce funding for job training programs – the programs with no demonstrated record of helping participants find work. 

The bill does rein in divisive mission creep by public health agencies, so they can restore public trust by focusing on their core responsibilities of preparedness. 

The bill does reduce funding for failing public schools that more and more parents are removing their children from attending.

Federal investments in traditional public schools have failed to yield meaningful gains in U.S. student achievement. Despite annual increases to title one funding and an unprecedented 190 billion dollar investment during the pandemic, student test scores continue to lag other industrialized nations, and a quarter of children are chronically absent from school all together.  

We cannot justify continuing to throw money at an Education Department that chooses to focus more on social indoctrination, than math and science.  These cuts are not draconian, these actions represent reprioritizing what is not working. 

Second, the other side of the aisle is going to say the so-called poison pill riders in this bill represent an extreme, far right social policy agenda.  Let me be clear – this bill does no such thing. 

When did it become controversial to say men should not play in girls’ sports? Multiple polls have shown that the majority of the American people oppose allowing male athletes to compete in women’s sports.  

It was not too long ago that Congress passed laws securing fair access in athletics for women.  So why are we overturning the right to a fair playing field now?  Common sense is not a culture war.  Putting the life of an unborn child on equal footing with every other person is not an attack on women’s rights. 

Opponents will say this bill attacks minority populations and other underrepresented groups.  These so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are not making equal opportunities for everyone. Instead, many of these programs have been turned into unaccountable attempts to provide unnecessary training and support meritless decision-making. 

The bill prohibits funding for the controversial ideological teaching of critical race theory.  This radical view has no place in public schools.  Schools should be teaching our students how to think – not what to think. 

This bill stops the endless stream of rules coming out of this Administration that seek to block consumer choice to affordable health care services, including unreasonable new rules for health plans, nursing homes, and home and community-based services. 

The bill also stops the Administration’s refusal to follow the Supreme Court decision on student loan cancellation.  Within hours of the Supreme Court ruling, the Administration began rolling out one initiative after another to subvert the highest court in the land. 

This bill protects the hard-working American middle class from the largest bailout of student loans in American history, a bailout so large that new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show an annual deficit of nearly two trillion dollars. It is not radical to believe that when you take out a loan, you should have to pay it back. 

The Administration’s executive orders to insert divisive social policy into every agency and program have brought us to this point. Government agencies have steered away from their core missions and are engaging in controversial social issues. 

Health centers should focus on proving healthcare and schools should focus on educating students, not signing people up to vote or fighting so-called climate change.

Foster care placements shouldn’t be delayed for the purpose of advancing a social agenda. If the Administration did not view the executive branch as an agent of a political campaign, I acknowledge, some of these provisions would not be necessary. 

Now let’s talk about what the bill does do.  The bill puts workers first by ensuring businesses can stay open.  We protect farmers from a Labor Department determined to close small family-owned farms across the nation, with regulation after regulation, that are having a disastrous effect on our ranchers and growers. 

We protect workers from a rule that would eliminate freelance opportunities for 64 million American men, women, seniors, and others balancing work with family responsibilities. We protect frontline workers from dangerous National Labor Relations Board regulations that would cost more than 375 thousand jobs. 

We maintain the Federal investment in the world’s premier biomedical institution – the National Institutes of Health.  With China’s determination to outpace American innovation, we cannot lose ground on basic research. 

We include a proposal to modify the structure of the NIH to achieve administrative savings and allow more funding to go to lower‑resourced institutions.  Ten percent of the institutions get 75 percent of NIH funding. 

These institutions, in addition to receiving an outsized amount of NIH funding, also have endowments totaling over threequarters of a trillion dollars.  Funding should be more equitably dispersed.  Schools with sizable endowments can bear more of the administrative funding of the grants they receive. 

The bill prioritizes early childhood education and childcare vouchers to support working parents. We support school choice for all students by increasing funding for charter schools. We support the right for girls to play fairly in sports, without the threat of competition from men. 

We continue support for first generation college students, historically black colleges, and Hispanic serving institutions. 

The bill stops federal support for colleges and universities that are allowing antisemitic-fueled vandalism and calls for genocide on their campuses.  I hope my colleagues would agree antisemitism and calls for genocide are not appropriate on colleges and university campuses. 

In closing, I want to thank my fellow subcommittee members and their staff for their hard work and input in crafting this bill. The bill would not be what it is without the input of this entire Committee – Democrats and Republicans.

I also want to especially thank the Labor-H subcommittee staff here today for all of their hard work and dedication to putting this bill together, as well as Emily Goff who is still at home on maternity leave and enjoying her time with her new babies.  We’re so happy for her and her family.

I understand as part of the process, no side can get everything it wants, and we have a challenging road ahead.  Today, there will be many disagreements.  For a bill that touches nearly every aspect of our lives, I would expect nothing less. 

While we may disagree on core issues, I want to remind everyone in this room and watching online that although we may not all agree on how best to achieve our policy goals, we are all Americans, and we all want what is best for our country and our constituents. 

We came here to represent them to the best of our ability and that is exactly what we are doing here today.