Our mission: Rein in inflationary spending while rebuilding America’s infrastructure

OPINION:

America is in desperate need of an infrastructure overhaul.

For years, Americans have heard Democrats like President Joe Biden talk about the need to invest in our nation’s infrastructure. Unfortunately, what the American people have gotten under this administration from Biden and Democrats have been misguided efforts that have not improved infrastructure across our great nation and caused inflation to spike to its highest levels in over 40 years.

In fact, recent reviews of the multi-trillion dollar spending packages that President Biden and congressional Democrats forced through between 2021 and 2023 have shown that only 17% of the $1.1 trillion for direct investments in infrastructure and energy has been spent. We face a unique situation in which Biden and Democrats have forced through trillions in spending that has led to record inflation levels while most of the funds remain unused for actual infrastructure projects.

This is a worst-case scenario for the American people: one in which our citizens are left picking up the tab of 40-year high inflation without getting the improved infrastructure our nation direly needs.

In contrast to the failure of leadership from President Biden to rebuild America’s infrastructure, my conservative colleagues and I on the House Appropriations Committee recently passed and got signed into law the Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Energy and Water appropriations bill, which actually meets our nation’s infrastructure needs while reversing the trend of Democrats’ out-of-control borrowing and spending that has damaged our economy.

As chairman of Energy and Water Appropriations, I’m proud that my FY24 energy and water bill fully funded the ongoing inland waterways construction projects that are critical for moving goods and people safely and efficiently as well as the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund activities overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure our ports and harbors nationwide can operate at peak efficiency.

With significant unallocated infrastructure funds remaining and much work to be done, my energy and water bill forced the Biden Administration to repurpose more than $1.4 billion of existing infrastructure funds to address high-priority projects across America. An example of this can be seen in my home district in East Tennessee with the Army Corps of Engineers’ ongoing Chickamauga Lock Replacement Project.

The Chickamauga Lock is nearly 90 years old and is one of our nation’s most important waterways for moving goods and people. Over 1 million tons of cargo traverse the Chickamauga Lock each year, and it is the second-most used lock in America for recreational waterborne transportation. It is well understood that completing work on the lock is critical, not only to the Southeastern region of the U.S., but to our entire nation. But when President Biden unveiled his budget last year, he included no funds to continue construction on this vital infrastructure project, which would have severely undermined progress on the lock.

When my colleagues and I on the Appropriations Committee saw that President Biden’s budget overlooked investments in our nation’s infrastructure and instead prioritized his pet liberal projects, we took decisive action. Instead of following the Democrat playbook of spending more money that we don’t have, we clawed back and repurposed existing dollars and enacted statutes to force Biden and his administration to invest in real infrastructure projects. If we had not done this, Biden and Democrats would have no accountability to the American people for improving our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

There is no doubt that we are in tight fiscal times. Record borrowing and spending from Biden and D.C. Democrats between 2021 and 2023 drove inflation and caused economic stagnation. My GOP Appropriations Committee colleagues and I cut inflationary spending while still making substantial investments in infrastructure projects nationwide. As we begin the FY25 budget process, my conservative appropriations colleagues and I remain committed to further slashing wasteful and unnecessary spending while meeting America’s infrastructure needs.

We can and will rebuild our great country while ending the cycle of borrowing and spending that Biden has created since taking office. House Republican appropriators have proven we can cut inflationary spending while investing in America’s infrastructure, and we will do it again.

• Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., is the chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee of Appropriations and also serves on the Energy Subcommittee of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. As chairman of Energy and Water, Fleischmann leads the charge to provide funding for the federal agencies and programs responsible for the United States’ national laboratories, water and energy infrastructure, nuclear security, and energy independence.