Boyle Remarks at Markup of H.R. 7032, the Congressional Budget Office Data Sharing Act
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan F. Boyle, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, delivered remarks at a Budget Committee markup of H.R. 766, the Preventive Health Savings Act; H.R. 7032, the Congressional Budget Office Data Sharing Act; and H.R. 5301, the Eliminate Useless Reports Act of 2023.
Opening Statement:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Jodey, I will share with you, what I've told my staff, my wife, other friends of mine in private. I feel very fortunate that Jodey Arrington, is my partner on this committee. Obviously he is Chair, and me as Ranking Member, ideally those roles may flip, after November.
But either way, the working relationship, the true friendship I have with you, truly you are a class act and, and I feel very fortunate. And independently, we have very similar visions for this committee, kind of almost a twin track approach that on the one track, of course, we're going to have fights that are partisan in nature. We're coming from two different ideologies, respecting two great American political traditions, and we should have those fights vigorously and fairly.
But that doesn't mean we can't also have progress on the other track, which is especially reflective of a time of divided government, identifying these ways in which we can, fix a broken Washington and improve a broken budget process.
So I'm very excited that, one of the three bills we'll be marking up today is my bill, the Congressional Budget Office Data Sharing Act, the CBO Data Sharing Act. We spoke a great deal about it last week when we had the CBO Director here. I am proud that the lead co-sponsor of this bill is Chairman Arrington.
And what a statement it says, Mr. Chairman, I just want to underscore this, this is the first time in 10 years, I guess last week when we passed out several bills and now this markup, we're passing out three more. It's a great, credit to you, Mr. Chair.
And to all of our members that we are marking up legislation and making this committee matter. There is a lot of good that we can do to pick up the pieces from work that was done before us, but didn't get over the finish line.
The commission on which you served in 2018 did a great deal of work. The bipartisan Modernization of Congress Committee also had unanimous suggestions that I think we can take up as well. So I'm excited to be doing this work, with you, Mr. Chair. And finally, I will just say for the record, I am, yes, turning 47, which, on Capitol Hill is like turning 17.
So, I thank you again for the birthday wishes, and I yield back.
Remarks on H.R. 7032, the Congressional Budget Office Data Sharing Act:
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. As I said in my opening statement, I truly think this is a great day with the number of bills that we will be voting up on a bipartisan basis. And I thank you again as the lead cosponsor of the CBO Data Sharing Act.
I spoke also about this bill, not just in my opening statement today, but last week when we had Dr. Swagel in front of us. We need to help them do a better job in serving the institution of Congress. They have been faced with chronic delays from agency after government agency, whether the executive branch is controlled by a Republican in the White House or a Democrat in the White House.
Indeed, I would remind everyone what Dr. Swagel said a week ago, that sometimes these agencies want to be more cooperative in sharing the data, but they feel hamstrung that they don't necessarily have the legal authority. So this is a commonsense piece of legislation, again, a bipartisan bill that will strengthen CBO's responsiveness to all of us in Congress.
Frankly, it's just a matter of good common sense that if they are in good faith, attempting to do the best job possible for Congress, and they're asking us for stronger tools in order to serve us better then we need to do our job and make sure they have these tools. So I thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank, I was remiss in my opening statement. The one group of folks I forgot to thank are probably the most important and that is I want to thank the staff on both the Democratic and Republican side who have been a great, just a great asset in making sure that we have this bill and that we have a strategy to see it become law so it can make a difference. So thank you, sincerely and heartfelt to staff on both sides, who do so such a great job for this committee.
I'm personally very grateful. And with that, I yield back.
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