West Texas Congressman and House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington says he won’t seek re-election in 2026, wrapping up a decade in D.C. and declaring public office should be “temporary,” like he didn’t just spend ten years polishing his chairmanship nameplate. He tells Fox News he’s leaving on a “high note” after helping craft Trump’s “One, Big Beautiful Bill” and pushing his brand of fiscal hawk cosplay.
Maybe that “high note” he’s talking about was the sound of Trump’s latest compliment echoing through Fox News last week. The president re-endorsed his favorite yes-man just days before Arrington’s big announcement — proof that timing is everything when you’re polishing your legacy and your boss’s shoes.
Arrington credits himself with “changing the narrative and the culture” in Congress and the GOP, especially on rural America’s “plow boys and cowboys,” food security, and energy independence—bold claims considering the national debt is still doing CrossFit and small towns are still circling the drain. He insists Republicans will nobly carry on his crusade to “reverse the curse” of public debt while praising Trump and Mike Johnson for making the “tough” and “not politically popular” choices, which is certainly one way to describe whatever this decade has been.
He says he hasn’t really planned what’s next but wants a “new leadership challenge” while spending more time with his family and “remaining in the fight” somehow—a phrase that usually translates to lobbying, consulting, think tanks, or some PAC-funded side quest where the paycheck’s better and nobody has to pretend they read the bill. He leaves his Lubbock-anchored, safely-red district confident Republicans will keep the seat and declares he’s leaving with “no regrets” and that he left the country “better than we found it.”
Here in Lubbock, that means your congressman is celebrating a decade of “temporary service” by bailing before anything gets less comfortable, congratulating himself on fiscal responsibility while the tab’s still on the table, and framing it all as a humble act of God’s grace and good stewardship. Must be nice to retire from “fighting for you” into whatever upgraded version of influence comes with a decade of name recognition, donor lists, and a straight face while saying mission accomplished.
If this is what “leaving on a high note” looks like, I’d hate to see the blooper reel.
