[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 33 (Wednesday, March 20, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H1053-H1072]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2003

  The Committee resumed its sitting.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Oklahoma (Mr. Watkins).
  (Mr. WATKINS of Oklahoma asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WATKINS of Oklahoma. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the work that the 
gentleman from Iowa has done as our chairman on the Committee on the 
Budget. I left Congress in 1990, and one of the things that always 
bothered me was the fact that it seemed like when I sat on the other 
side, we could never come close to balancing the budget. I would like 
to say that it is great that we have not only balanced the budget since 
I have returned, but with the economy growing, we have reduced over 
$450 billion in debt that was on the backs of our children. I would 
like to think that has done a great deal to help us in the future.
  Yesterday Chairman Alan Greenspan and the Feds decided not to 
increase interest rates. They realized that there is still some 
softness out in the economy. I am thankful that we passed the tax 
relief package nearly a year ago, and also just last week, the job 
creation and work protection bill in a bipartisan vote. That vote was 
417-3. Yes, even with the economic indicators that were soft and 
started downward in September, the last quarter of 2000 before the Bush 
administration took office, but really took a downward spiral after 
September 11, creating a loss of about a million jobs. Let me say, with 
this job creation work protection bill, not only are we allowing the 
uninsured to have 13 extra weeks of unemployment insurance, we want to 
make sure that those who are unemployed have a check and are meeting 
their obligations.
  Also we have done some things with 30 percent expensing which is 
accelerating activity. Tractor implement dealers in my area, they are 
out buying. Farmers and ranchers are buying equipment. That is going to 
help us a great deal more, not only in just the facts, but in the 
spirit of things in moving this economy forward.
  This budget is a compassionate budget because in it we have dealt 
with unemployment insurance. Yes, we have helped business, and we have 
helped a lot of individuals. There are work tax credits for welfare to 
work. It also deals with Native Americans, trying to work with them 
with accelerated depreciation, and letting them have jobs instead of 
relying on just gaming and some of the other interests. Native 
Americans have the worst economic conditions of any group in the United 
States.
  We have a budget here that gives us an opportunity to move this 
country forward. I encourage a bipartisan vote on it.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield 9 minutes 
to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley) for purposes of control.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
South Carolina?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Chairman, we will not find a Member on this 
side of the aisle who is not 100 percent supportive of winning this war 
against terrorism and bolstering our homeland security. However, we 
cannot forget our domestic priorities. Over the next 5 years, we will 
cut over $96 billion below what it costs to maintain these programs at 
their current level.
  For the next few minutes what I would like to do is put a human face 
on some of these funding cuts, and maybe people watching this debate 
back home will have a better understanding of what this budget does. 
For example, everybody knows that health care costs are skyrocketing on 
an annual basis. As a result, 40 million Americans cannot afford health 
insurance. That includes 9 million children. This budget pretends that 
these people do not exist.
  Compounding that situation is the fact that there are some programs 
that provide some minimal health care. For example, the rural health 
care program, it is cut by 41 percent. Telehealth programs are cut by 
84 percent. Another problem is the freezing of funding for the Healthy 
Start program. It is for expectant mothers for prenatal care. I cannot 
think of any Member here who thinks that depriving mothers of prenatal 
care is something that we should be doing.
  Then there is the matter of our homeland security. The people on the 
front line are police officers. Yet this budget completely eliminates, 
not cuts, eliminates the Department of Justice local law enforcement 
block grant, which is designed to put more cops on our streets. As a 
result, hundreds of communities across the United States, large and 
small, will see less cops on the street, meaning we can expect an 
increase in crime because this budget, as I just stated, eliminates 
this program.

                              {time}  1730

  Then there are our public schools. Every State is having problems 
with revenues and high enrollments. Just a little over 2 months ago, we 
had the No Child Left Behind Act signed into law. Most people voted for 
it. If Members will recall, President Bush made this a pillar of his 
State of the Union address and rightly so, ensuring that every child 
has a right to a first-rate education. So what happened to this 
program? You can see that is what is authorized, that is what we 
enacted last year, and this is what we are proposing, a $100 million 
cut just from last year.
  As a former teacher, I have also talked to educators in Oregon. One 
of the things they begged me not to do was pass another Federal program 
and another Federal mandate without the funds. We are not giving them 
the funds. Then there is special education.

[[Page H1054]]

 We are funding that at 18 percent. What did the Federal Government 
promise to do? Twenty-seven years ago we said we would fund it at 40 
percent. Are we doing that? No.
  We are now starting down the same path with the No Child Left Behind 
Act. Again we make a promise we are not going to keep.
  Mr. Chairman, to talk further about education, I yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda), a former teacher and 
principal.
  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Chairman, as a former teacher and principal, I rise in 
opposition to the Republican budget, a budget that claims to leave no 
child behind, but in reality leaves many children behind.
  Just a few months ago, the President and the Congress heralded the 
enactment of H.R. 1, the Leave No Child Behind Act. Yet as we all know, 
a bill is meaningless without the necessary funding and many of us 
wondered if the White House and the House Republicans would put our 
Nation's money where their mouths were for H.R. 1 when it came time to 
pass the budget. After looking at the House Republican budget offered 
today, it has become clear to me that the Republicans have no intention 
of making good on their promise to improve educational opportunities 
for our Nation's young people.
  The Republican budget cuts funding for H.R. 1 by $90 million. It cuts 
education programs by $1.8 billion, including programs for teacher 
quality and after-school centers. The Republican budget also eliminates 
28 education programs, including dropout prevention and technology 
training.
  The Republicans say we on the other side of the aisle have no right 
to voice our beliefs on their plan because we have none to offer. Let 
me remind my colleagues that last week I offered an amendment in the 
Budget Committee that would have increased funding for professional 
development and teacher quality by $325 million, title I funding for 
disadvantaged students by $2.15 billion, and after-school programs by 
$250 million from levels proposed in today's Republican budget. Every 
Republican on the committee voted it down.
  Mr. Chairman, I support the President when it comes to the war. I, 
like all of us in this body, am confident that we will win the global 
war against terrorism. But I fear this budget may cause us to lose the 
battle at home to protect and educate future generations of Americans. 
As a former educator, I urge my colleagues to vote against this 
resolution that leaves so many of our children behind.
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).
  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I am extremely concerned 
whether this education budget is adequate. It is true that there are 
some program increases; but at a time of increased need and urgency, 
this increase is the smallest in a decade.
  In the end, this education budget leaves me wondering whether we are 
truly keeping our commitment to our children and our teachers. I know 
my spirits were up when just 2 months ago the President signed into law 
the new education bill promising to leave no child behind. I am afraid 
to say that we are leaving more than a few children behind.
  The budget we are debating today actually cuts funding for these 
programs by $90 million. In fact, this budget funds the No Child Left 
Behind Act at $4.2 billion below the authorized level. One cannot help 
but ask if we are keeping our promise. In fact, I fear this budget 
falls far short of that promise.
  Looking at the details, this plan cuts or freezes many elementary and 
secondary education programs. It cuts programs to improve teacher 
quality at a time when we need them the most, down by $105 million. It 
cuts the safe and drug-free schools program, down $102 million. By the 
way, these programs are working in our communities. And it freezes 
funding for after-school programs when we need after-school programs 
more than ever.
  However, the truth is that it did not have to be this way. During the 
Budget Committee markup, we offered amendments to strengthen education, 
to stand with the President on what he wanted in his education bill. 
But amendment after amendment to keep the President's promise to leave 
no child behind were rejected. Republicans rejected an amendment to 
provide $3 billion more for elementary ed programs. They rejected 
raising the maximum Pell Grant award for our college students. They 
rejected an amendment to allow Head Start to serve 1 million more 
children.
  While I could argue that education should always be a top priority, 
properly investing in education is more critical than ever. A strong 
commitment to education is good for the economy, and it is good for 
national security. We support the President on the war and homeland 
defense. We should be doing more for our children in education.
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to 
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for 1\1/2\ 
minutes.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, there is much in this budget that is not as 
it appears. We have just now heard the fact that this actually cuts $90 
million from the President's much touted Leave No Child Behind Act. It 
cuts back on educational funding. In the area of the environment, the 
authors of the budget claim to fully fund the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund; but in fact if you remove from this the account that 
funds open space and parkland and preserving critical natural 
resources, if you remove the items that do not belong in there, that 
are added, that are not really new spending, budget accounting 
gimmicks, it actually is a reduction. It does not fully fund the Land 
and Water Conservation Fund.
  With regard to research and development in science, the authors here 
have claimed that there is an 11 percent increase. Actually if you do 
their math correctly, it is really closer to 8 percent. But then if you 
remove the accounting gimmicks, the things that have been added in 
there that are not new spending in the National Science Foundation, for 
example, the sea grant program and EPA education programs, you find out 
that there is really a growth of perhaps 1 percent. This is not enough.
  If we shortchange research and development in the United States, we 
cannot hope to have the kind of economic growth that the authors of 
this budget resolution are counting on in some magic wand way to get us 
out of deficit spending. As a Nation we underinvest in research and 
development. This budget resolution not only fails to balance, it fails 
to fund our Nation's critical needs.
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I 
urge my colleagues to vote against this budget so we can go back to 
work and put together a genuine bipartisan plan that truly addresses 
the ever-growing needs of our country.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), a very distinguished gentleman, who has some 
concerns with our budget.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 3 
minutes.
  (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, this is the toughest vote 
that I have made in my 16 years in Congress, because I campaigned for 
this President and made 200 speeches on his behalf in 25 States and 
raised a significant amount of money. I do not like to stand up here 
and announce that I am going to vote against the budget resolution. I 
have the highest respect for the budget chairman. But, Mr. Chairman, my 
job in this Congress has been to work on defense issues for our 
country. I take it seriously like all of my colleagues do.
  I took the President at his word when he announced in his State of 
the Union that he would increase defense spending by $48 billion to 
make up for the shortfalls of the past decade. But when you analyze 
that $48 billion, you end up with a potential increase of $38 billion 
because $10 billion is being set aside for some future uncertain time 
and need. Of that $38 billion, you end up with about $10 billion to be 
used for the shortfalls that we have. The other money is going for 
health care costs; it

[[Page H1055]]

is going to make up for the unfair budgeting or the unfair accounting 
process that was used during the Clinton administration where they did 
not properly account for the cost of the ships and the airplanes that 
we ordered but did not pay for. The Rumsfeld leadership is trying to 
correct that and make it right, but the bottom line is $10 billion does 
not come anywhere near the $25.4 billion shortfall that the service 
chiefs have testified this year they need beyond the President's budget 
request. My colleagues on the Committee on Armed Services know that.
  Mr. Chairman, the shipbuilding accounts, which I heavily criticized 
the Clinton administration for over the past 6 years, decrease under 
this budget by $1.3 billion. We built 19 ships a year under Ronald 
Reagan. We go down to five ships next year. We just heard in a hearing 
I chaired, 15,000 more shipbuilders and workers are being laid off. 
Tactical aviation, our aircraft, the need is 180 aircraft a year. We 
bought 90 last year. This budget has us buying 87 aircraft.
  I realize there are other pressures. I realize you have to fund all 
the priorities. I am an educator. I want to fund education. I want to 
fund the environment and other issues. But we have $10 billion that the 
President said was for defense in that $48 billion that all Americans 
agree should be spent on the military, and you know as well as I do we 
will give the President whatever amount of money he needs for a 
supplemental to pay for the war. This Congress voted 420 to one. The 
Senate voted 99 to zero. We are not going to deny him whatever he needs 
to pay for the war. But this $10 billion needs to go for the shortfall 
we have.
  I cannot intellectually and honestly stand up here in spite of the 
aggressive and successful effort of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Stump) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) and my colleagues 
who fought this good fight and did get some movement. The President has 
now said he will come to us and that $10 billion may have a partial 
request for modernization. We do not know how much, and we do not know 
when.
  Mr. Chairman, because of these reasons, I cannot in good conscience 
vote for this budget. President Bush is my President. I support him. It 
pains me unbelievably to stand up here and have to say what I am 
saying. But my job and the job that you have given me as my colleagues 
is to tell you honestly what we need to provide for our military and 
this year more than any other our military is being tested. Our 
soldiers, sailors and Marines are flying aircraft and working on ships 
that we are not properly replacing.
  Unfortunately, I tell my colleagues, and I have not lobbied anyone on 
my position, that I just cannot in good conscience vote for this bill 
and I will vote ``no'' on the budget resolution. I thank the gentleman 
from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Spratt) for yielding time to me.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Pence).
  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the budget 
resolution. I wish to commend the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and 
the House Committee on the Budget. Just think of it: as a conservative, 
I believe we must keep careful watch of the public resources that we 
are given. Balancing the Federal budget must be a priority. Because of 
the work of the House Committee on the Budget and Chairman Nussle, but 
for our recent effort to help hurting families with an unemployment 
benefits package, this is a balanced budget. During war and recession, 
that is an astonishing accomplishment. We do fund our national defense 
and our homeland security as America's priorities.
  And this budget demonstrates fiscal discipline. We just heard from 
the gentlewoman from Oregon some of what our friends on the other side 
of the aisle would like us to be spending more in this budget. The 
truth is, of the 17 amendments that the Democrats offered, it totaled 
$205 billion in new spending and $175 billion in tax increases to pay 
for it. Funding national defense, helping hurting families, cutting 
spending rather than raising taxes, are all good reasons to support 
this budget.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I wish to reserve the balance of the 
majority's time. We would be prepared then to move to the Joint 
Economic Committee's time under the rule.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Hill).
  (Mr. HILL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Chairman, as a Member of the House Committee on Armed Services, I 
have a special appreciation for the work our military does in defending 
our great country. There should be no doubt, absolutely none, that my 
colleagues and I stand behind the President as he prosecutes the war on 
terrorism.
  However, in a genuine attempt to work with both parties and the 
President, I join the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. 
Moore) and the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson) in offering a budget 
substitute that was denied fair consideration by the Committee on 
Rules, even though it included the President's own priorities and 
spending levels and simply adjusted them to reflects the CBO's 
nonpartisan numbers; fully funded the war on terrorism and homeland 
security initiatives; held the line on spending; provided for a clean 
debt limit increase; and required the administration to provide a plan 
to get our budget back into balance and put Social Security surpluses 
off limits.
  It is mind-boggling to think that the House leadership could have 
opposed these aims. But they did. I am disappointed that our good faith 
attempt at cooperation was dismissed, and I urge my colleagues to vote 
no on the budget resolution.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) and the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) each will control 30 minutes on 
the subject of economic goals and policies.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton).
  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, let me first begin by commending the members of the 
Committee on the Budget for the very commendable job they did in 
bringing forward this budget proposal, and particularly the hard work 
of the chairman, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), who has worked 
untiringly throughout the last 6 months, under difficult circumstances, 
I might add, and often without thanks, for bringing this budget 
proposal to us. It has been a great job, and I am pleased to stand here 
and say that I fully support the bill.
  Let me also say that, aside from being the chairman of the Committee 
on Joint Economics, I am also one of the senior members of the 
Committee on Armed Services, and it is true that the members of the 
Committee on Armed Services had some reservations about the budget 
because of the way certain monies were being set aside.
  I must say that I have a different read of the current situation than 
the gentleman who just spoke, however. Throughout the last 48 hours or 
so, the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Stump) has led us in the 
direction of defining what will ultimately happen with that seemingly 
elusive $10 billion, and I am perfectly satisfied, after having sat in 
the Oval Office with the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Stump) and 
most of the senior members of the Republican side of the Committee on 
Armed Services, to talk with President Bush this morning about what his 
intentions are, and his intentions are to recommend that those monies 
be spent this year on measures yet to be defined.
  I think it is important to point out that the Committee on Armed 
Services, upon which I and the just-completed speaker serve, will help 
define those needs. That is our job.
  I am particularly thankful to the President for taking time to 
explain his position to us this morning, and I

[[Page H1056]]

am perfectly well satisfied that those monies can be well spent and 
invested in our national security through this mechanism.
  So let me turn now to my real reason for being here today, and that 
is to try to put into the context what is going on currently with the 
economy and how this budget proposal fits into that scenario. The 
budget policies under debate today should be considered, I believe, in 
the context of the current economic situation and the recent economic 
history. In that spirit, I would like to say a few words about where 
the economy has been and where it is going.
  My remarks will center on five or six areas. First, where we have 
been; second, why we got in trouble; third, how the stage was set for 
recovery; fourth, how the events of September 11 affected our economy 
in the context of setting the stage for recovery; fifth, where I 
believe we are now; and, finally, what policies do we need to address 
to provide for healthy economic growth in the future, and all that in 
the context of this budget.
  Where we have been. In the eighties and nineties we had a phenomenon 
that many people did not recognize early on in the eighties. We had 
almost two complete decades of continuous economic growth.
  Beginning in 1984, the economy started to grow, and it grew right on 
through 2000, the first half of 2000, and did not begin to slow until 
the latter half of 2000. What I said is almost precisely true. There 
was a very short and mild recession in the second half of 1990 and the 
first half of 1991. It was 8 months long. But aside from that very 
short period of interruption in economic growth, that is, and that is 
very unusual, the longest period of economic growth in our history, the 
most robust period of economic growth in our history, and we ought to 
recognize it as being so.
  In the middle of 2000 we began to experience a significant slowdown 
in economic growth. More specifically, the growth of real Gross 
Domestic Product, consumption, investment, manufacturing activity and 
employment all began to slow down substantially around mid-2000.
  There were several reasons to explain this sharp slowdown. First, the 
Federal Reserve raised interest rates six times, 175 basis points in 
total. That put a drag on the economy, and it was intended to slow the 
economy, because there were certain members of the Federal Reserve 
Board who believed that the economy was going to overheat, and so a 
conscious effort was made to increase interest rates.
  Second, substantial energy costs, particularly oil prices, increased 
from early 1999 through 2000, and that additionally created a drag on 
the economy.
  Third, higher interest rates and higher energy prices worked together 
to produce enough drag on the economy that it weakened the somewhat 
overvalued stock market, and in turn the downturn in the stock market 
had a broad effect on the economy.
  Finally, fourth, the tax burden or fiscal drag which was present in 
1999 and 2000 also had its weakening effect on the economy.
  These factors were all influencing the economy by mid-2000, thus the 
seeds for the slowdown were sown prior to mid-2000. Because of long 
lags, these factors continued to influence the economy for quite a long 
time.
  I would also like to talk for a minute about how the stage then in 
2001 was set for recovery. As the economy remained sluggish or 
continued to weaken, however, these casual factors moderated or unwound 
themselves during much of 2001.
  For example, the Federal Reserve began to lower interest rates, and, 
over the next period of time, lowered short-term interest rates by 475 
basis points, a very significant thing in terms of our monetary policy.
  Second, energy prices retreated. Happily, as people watched the pump 
price, when they went to the gas station prices dropped dramatically, 
having a positive effect on the economy or setting the stage for a 
recovery.
  Then stock prices stopped falling and the stock market stabilized, 
again unwinding one of the factors that produced a drag on the economy 
the year before.
  Finally, the Bush tax cut plan was passed and signed into law in 
June, setting the stage for a rejuvenation of consumer and business 
rebound. As a consequence, by late summer of 2001, many economists were 
expecting a near-term rebound in activity, which began to occur.
  The economic impact, however, of the terrorist attacks of September 
11 changed this economic outlook in a number of ways. This is very 
important. We were set to begin a recovery by the end of the summer of 
2001, and had it not been, I believe, for the terrorist attacks, that 
recovery would have proceeded forward.
  In the short term, after the attacks, the attacks increased 
apprehension in the financial markets and adversely affected 
consumption and investment as confidence waned. So, over the long term, 
as people looked at the decision process of what they were going to do 
over the long term, uncertainty created a pessimistic attitude on the 
part of business people and others which affected our economy. 
Consumption was down, investment was down, and that acted as a new drag 
on the economy.
  Second, the attacks had a direct adverse impact on certain 
industries, most notably the airlines, the travel industry, insurance, 
hotels, and, of course, activities that are related to those 
businesses.
  Also in the long term, increased security costs, it became clear, 
would raise the cost of running a business and adversely affect 
productivity and earnings.
  If you believe, as I do, that an economy has just so much value, and 
if, as was true during the eighties and nineties, we were making 
investments to increase productivity which in turn helped to build our 
economy, and if we now have to divert some of those investment dollars 
for security purposes, obviously those purposes, while necessary, do 
not create the productivity that investment in technology does. So, 
this was a factor which we believe was very important.
  Similarly, spending on unnecessary military and security buildup to 
some extent crowds out more productive private investment. 
Consequently, the terrorist attacks may adversely impact productivity 
growth and the economy's long-term potential for growth.
  In sum, as a consequence of the terrorist attack the economy was 
tipped into recession, as certified by the National Bureau of Economic 
Research, which now the recession is said to have begun in March.
  Where are we now? Currently the preponderance of evidence suggests 
that the economy is finally coming out of the recession. If so, this 
recession will be one of the mildest on record. There are reasons for 
the rebound, which include the Federal Reserve's lower interest rates 
policies, lower energy prices and tax cuts which were put in place.
  Recently, for example, most data are being reported as stronger than 
expected. For example, real GDP for the fourth quarter was up 1.4 
percent, due to particularly strong consumption.
  Second, leading indicators are up for the fourth month in a row, 
another positive sign.
  Third, monthly consumption in retail, in auto sales and personal 
income are improving and holding up extremely well.
  Fifth, housing continues to hold up very well.
  Sixth, payroll employment gains were registered in February for the 
first time since last summer. That is right, we gained 66,000 jobs in 
payroll gains in the month of February.
  Finally, there are even some signs of improvement in manufacturing 
activity, which has been the hardest hit sector. The purchasing 
managers survey is above 50 and durable goods orders are up, all 
positive signs.
  Further, prices remain behaved and inflation is currently not a 
problem.
  The most likely outcome for the economy is to continue to rebound for 
at least several more quarters, due in part to inventory rebuilding and 
continued low interest rates.

                              {time}  1800

  Let me move now to the future and why this budget and the policies 
surrounding it are important.
  We should have learned some things from the last 20 years in the 
economic growth that we saw, and we should have learned some things 
based on what went wrong in 1999 and the first half of 2000.

[[Page H1057]]

  Policies. The policies that we need to keep the economy moving are 
important, particularly important now, as we consider this budget. 
Given these developments, the question is, what types of economic 
policies are appropriate to keep the economy moving forward at a 
healthy pace without inflation?
  I believe there are several policies that foster the favorable set of 
circumstances that we need to create.
  First of all, we need to recognize that not all of this has to do 
with the Congress of the United States; not directly, anyway. The 
Federal Reserve, as I noted earlier, had a lot to do with both the 
period of economic growth that we had and something to do with the 
recession that began or the slowdown that began in 2000.
  The Federal Reserve policy of gradually pursuing price stability can 
foster growth in a number of ways. Such policy lowers interest rates, 
reduces unnecessary uncertainty in the economy, enables the price 
system to work better, and acts like a tax cut because it provides for 
less cost in doing business.
  The second factor that I would point out is that, just as was pointed 
out by John Kennedy in 1963 and just as was pointed out by Ronald 
Reagan in 1980, low marginal tax rates promote incentives to work, 
save, and invest, and to innovate. Entrepreneurial activity is 
fostered, and individuals are encouraged to enter market activity. All 
this promotes growth without inflation.
  So the policies that we saw put in place early in the Bush 
administration are extremely important, and that is why we have 
advocated for additional stimulus packages by using tax cuts.
  Third, and of particular interest in the context of this budget, 
government spending constraint had a lot to do with where we were 
during particularly the last decade. Keeping government spending 
shrinking as a share of GDP enables more economic resources to be 
allotted and utilized more efficiently and with productivity in the 
private sector, so tax policy remains an extremely important factor, as 
well as restraint in government spending.
  Fourth, investment in technological innovations, which I alluded to a 
few minutes ago, is also extremely important. I will not go into a long 
explanation of this, but there is something that economists used to 
refer to which is called the Phillips curve, which says that 
essentially we cannot have long-term economic growth without inflation. 
That is because when the economy reaches full employment, because there 
is a continued demand for labor and a very limited supply, it produces 
upward wage pressures. Those upward wage pressures are inflationary.
  We proved that not to be true in the 1980s and 1990s. It is not true, 
it did not happen, and the reason we believe it did not happen is 
because we were successful, as entrepreneurs and as members of society, 
with introducing new forms of technology that helped productivity, 
which relieved the pressure on labor costs.
  So investment in technology and promoting investment in these things, 
and innovation, can add productive capacity, thereby allowing for 
sustained economic expansion without inflation.
  Finally, foreign markets play a continuing important role in our 
understanding of how to promote growth in our economy. Reducing tariff 
barriers and promoting open markets increases the size of the 
international sector, and all this helps with economic growth while 
fostering lower prices.
  Increased international integration enables the economy to take 
advantage of larger markets and become more specialized and more 
efficient, productive, and competitive. This allows the economy to 
produce more goods with the same or less input, and to grow faster 
without inflation; the remarkable strategies that were used by the 
government, by the private sector, and by the Fed during the eighties 
and nineties.
  Finally, the economic data released in recent weeks suggests the 
recession appears to be over and the recovery is now under way. In 
terms of budgetary policy, this means that we can expect the same kinds 
of things to happen in the future growth period that happened during 
the last growth period in terms of Federal revenue.
  The economic outlook looks positive, and with sound policies in 
place, longer term prospects for an extended, sustained expansion look 
promising. The budget resolution sustains the Bush tax cuts and 
provides for restraint in Federal domestic spending.
  Policies that will enhance the prospect for economic growth are 
present in this budget. I hope in the future we can also agree to make 
the tax incentives enacted in 2001 permanent, and maximize their 
positive effect on economic growth.
  Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Iowa 
(Mr. Nussle) be permitted to control the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
New Jersey?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, the Joint Economic Committee has been granted the 
debate on the budget message since the passage of the Full Employment 
and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 authored by Senator Hubert Humphrey and 
Congressman Gus Hawkins, and it is our duty to present the views on the 
current state of the U.S. economy and provide input into the budget 
debate before us.
  Members have just heard the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Saxton) give us a tremendous amount of economic data and explain 
very succinctly his opinion of what it will take to get the country 
growing again.
  I am proud to be here today to continue the tradition begun by 
Senator Humphrey and Congressman Hawkins. However, the budget before us 
is not one of which either of those gentlemen would be proud.
  Rather than leading us down an economic path of balanced growth and 
full employment, the budget before us today is nothing more than a 
political document seeking to hide the fact that the House Republicans' 
fiscal irresponsibility has led us into deficit spending for years to 
come, and endangers the future of Medicare, Social Security, and our 
children's education because the trust funds for the two programs for 
the elderly are used to finance the misplaced priorities of the 
Republican Party and their fat cat contributors, and the Leave No Child 
Behind Act has not been left with enough money for a bus ticket to 
bring the children along.
  What this budget is is a document that outlines the Republicans' 
philosophy, and that is to reduce government and pay no attention to 
the poor or the disadvantaged among us.
  It is interesting that the louder they talk about free enterprise, 
the more we find that very few of my Republican colleagues have ever 
had a job in a company they did not inherit, except at the public 
trough. And the louder they scream about free enterprise, the more we 
will find they probably earned their money at the expense of taxpayers, 
and probably we will benefit very little from these $1.5 trillion tax 
cuts they passed out but it will go to their rich contributors, for 
whom they seem to spend all their time working in the House to protect, 
because they certainly are not doing anything to help the people who 
depend on Social Security or Medicare.
  Last year, for example, the House passed the Social Security Lockbox 
Act by a vote of 407 to 2. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) voted 
for the bill, and said on the House floor, ``This legislation prevents 
Congress from using the Social Security and Medicare surpluses to cut 
taxes or increase spending.'' My goodness.
  And the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) during last 
year's budget debate on the floor said, ``The bottom line is that the 
HI trust fund is part of the larger fund, and it can be only used for 
Medicare. And it can be used for Medicare reform, but the Democrats 
voted for a lockbox, as did we, by a vote of 407 to 2. Everybody voted 
for it, and the money will stay in the trust fund and it will only be 
used for Medicare and Medicare reform, so that is just that,'' said the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).
  Apparently the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) and the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) were wrong about the effects of that 
legislation, and apparently they no longer care about protecting Social 
Security and the Medicare trust funds.
  I hope the voters in their districts in Connecticut and Florida will 
ask them,

[[Page H1058]]

because I am sure that they will both support this Republican budget 
today; I challenge them not to. And the budget today will decimate the 
Medicare and Social Security trust funds.
  So here we have the Republicans talking about the lockbox, and they 
are voting and they are going to vote tonight, Mr. Chairman, to destroy 
Medicare and Social Security.
  Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) and the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) opposed amendments to the economic 
stimulus bill recently.
  We had an amendment to extend an increase of employment benefits for 
displaced workers. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) voted no and 
the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) voted no.
  We had a bill or an amendment to extend COBRA coverage with a 75 
percent subsidy. Both of these stalwart Republicans voted no on that.
  We had an amendment to make tax cuts contingent upon not breaking 
into the Social Security and Medicare surpluses. The gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Shaw) and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) 
both voted no.
  So, as I say, Mr. Chairman, the budget here tonight is a farce; it is 
a sham; it is a joke. The Republicans are here to undermine critical 
Federal programs so they can give tax cuts to their rich fat cat 
friends. Who are the losers? Seniors, children, women, working 
families, poor people, immigrants, the homeless, the environment. The 
list goes on.
  Last year we added we had a $5.6 trillion surplus, and now, after a 
faltering economy and an enormous tax cut, the surplus is gone. This 
budget eats up 86 percent of the Social Security surplus over the next 
5 years, the entire Medicare trust fund is obliterated for the next 
decade, and just last year, the Republicans were passing Social 
Security and Medicare lockboxes to protect these trust funds.
  Well, Mr. Chairman, the lockboxes are gone. They not only threw away 
the key, they gave a duplicate to every one of the rich fat cats who 
have been supporting their campaigns. There is no drug benefit, there 
is no education benefit. We are leaving a lot of children behind.
  Do Members know what they are going to do? They are going to say, let 
us have everybody get married. That will resolve the problem of poverty 
among the poor. What I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, is that poor 
people, having them get married just gives us a poor couple.
  Mr. Chairman, we have education gone, special education funds gone, 
TANF money increases gone.
  Housing? The Republicans think that the homeless, when the weather is 
nice, are campers, so they would offer them youth hostels, not money 
for housing. We have here an example of the arrogance of the people who 
care only for a few rich people in this country turning their backs on 
the people that the Democrats are trying to help and protect.
  Would I raise taxes? In a New York minute. Would I do away with the 
inheritance tax repeal that the Republicans made to give a few thousand 
people $40 billion while they will not give the rest of the people drug 
benefits? You bet.
  It is time we start seeing what the American people want. Do they 
want a few rich fat cats helped, or do they want to continue to see 
Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security as some of the safety nets 
for the seniors?
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. English), a member of the Joint Economic Committee.
  Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Chairman, I wish to lift this debate above the 
grotesque ad hominem quality we have been hearing too much on the floor 
today and focus instead on the real direction this budget takes us in.
  I have to say, Mr. Chairman, it is important that people understand 
that I came here in 1994 with the first conservative and the first 
fiscally responsible Republican majority in my lifetime. At the time we 
inherited the House, we discovered that we had deficits as far as the 
eye could see.
  In those 8 years, we have seen a radical change in the landscape 
because we have had a fiscally conservative Congress not spending on 
impulse, like the previous Congress had. We have trimmed the deficit, 
we have cut taxes, we have encouraged economic growth.
  What is particularly important, Mr. Chairman, we have made a 
commitment to stay within a range of fiscal responsibility and activity 
that has allowed us to balance two budgets, and now this year we face 
the acid test: Can we maintain fiscal discipline under very adverse 
circumstances.
  As this budget evidences, we can do that. Our answer is yes. This is 
a budget that will meet America's needs while keeping us on a path to 
balancing the budget as we come out of the recession.
  As the Treasury Secretary testified before our Committee on Ways and 
Means, it is important to understand, the United States has never run a 
surplus during a recession. The last time someone tried that was 
Herbert Hoover, and it did not work very well.

                              {time}  1815

  And we have never run a surplus during war time. Well, Mr. Chairman, 
we are in the midst of a serious conflict, and we are trying to work 
our way out of a recession. And in that context this budget keeps us on 
a path to a balanced budget. The projected deficit is less than 1 
percent of GDP. For most of the other industrialized nations that 
deficit would be a marvel. And it proves that this budget maintains 
sensible funding levels. It is a fiscally responsible budget.
  Contrary to what we have heard here today, despite the over-heated 
partisan rhetoric, this takes care of our social needs by funding 
Medicare with a prescription drug benefit and funding highway projects 
while adequately funding our national defense. It keeps outside a 
growth path by preserving tax cuts. We have heard them abominated here 
today, but the fact is that we need to have a continuing commitment to 
tax relief in order to provide economic opportunities for millions of 
Americans. As this country entered into the recession, American working 
families were suffering under the largest tax burden in history. And I 
do not doubt that some on the other side would raise taxes in a New 
York minute.
  According to the Joint Economic Committee study: ``Delaying, reducing 
or rescinding the tax cuts for working families would only reduce 
economic growth.'' This budget spends money responsibly while not 
punishing working Americans with back-door tax hikes.
  Now today we have heard a lot of very unrealistic figures being 
thrown around by the other side, but that does not change the fact that 
this budget reflects the priorities of America and the priorities of 
the Bush administration. It is virtually unprecedented, Mr. Chairman, 
that the minority lacks the unit and focus and leadership to offer its 
own budget blueprint. The majority had the courage and leadership to 
stand up and offer a workable budget blueprint. We met the needs of 
working families and workers facing the challenge of finding good-
paying jobs.
  By contrast, the other party finds itself unable to be all things to 
all people, and accordingly, has recoiled from offering its own budget. 
We must support critical homeland security initiatives, fully fund 
highway and highway safety programs, and provide for the needs of our 
military. This budget does it, and I hope all of my colleagues will 
join us in supporting this difficult, but important, compromise.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, it is March madness like I have never seen 
it before. But I am not talking about college basketball. I am talking 
about the budget free-fall off the deficit deep end that the 
Republicans are creating for our country. This creates a $46 billion 1-
year deficit. President Bush still has an $800 billion tax break, 
mostly for the wealthy, still pending in his budget. What is 
sacrificed? Well, the Social Security trust fund is sacrificed. It is 
not put in a lock box. It is allowed to be looted. Prescription drugs, 
it underfunds the promise the Republicans made to seniors on 
prescription drugs. Education, it undercuts by 60 percent the money 
that was supposed to have been spent on the poor children in our 
country.

[[Page H1059]]

  And where did the March madness begin? It began a year ago when the 
Republicans said we can have a $1.7 trillion tax cut and it will not 
effect the Social Security trust fund; it will not effect the Medicare 
trust fund. But what is happening now? They are both hemorrhaging. This 
is Enron-onomics. It takes from the poor, from their pension funds, 
from their health care funds while the wealthy walk off with the vast 
bulk of the wealth that was being created by everyone.
  The greatest generation in nursing homes, the greatest generation 
with health care bills. And what are we telling them? We are going to 
loot their social security trust funds, their Medicare trust fund.
  March madness. I will tell you who will be mad. The seniors will be 
mad, they will be angry, they will be outraged when they find out that 
the Republicans rather than shoring up Medicare, Medicaid. Medicare, 
half of all the seniors in nursing homes are on Medicaid because they 
have Alzheimer's. Where is the money 10 years from now for those 
seniors with Alzheimer's, for those seniors with Parkinsons? Where is 
the money? Where is the budgeting?
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself half a minute.
  Where is your plan? Where is the plan? This is a terrible crisis, it 
sounds like the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) just laid 
out, and you would think the great Democratic Party would come forward 
with a plan to take us out of this crisis. What do they do? They run to 
the floor and play politics, they run to the floor and scare seniors, 
they run to the floor and what do they propose? Absolutely nothing. If 
we are in a crisis, where is your plan? If we need solutions, where is 
your budget? If Americans want answers, where are your answers? You 
have none.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Portman).
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Chairman, and I came back to the floor when my friend, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), was talking about seniors; 
and he made me very concerned because he was not talking about our 
budget. There is nothing in this budget that reduces funding for 
Medicaid. In fact, Medicaid increases. There is nothing in this budget 
that reduces funding for Social Security. In fact, the trust fund is 
totally protected. All that has happened since I have been in Congress 
in the last years with regard to Social Security is two things: one, 
the Republican-led Congress increased the earnings limit to let people 
who want to work who are seniors keep their Social Security money. So 
it increased benefits. The second is in 1993 Bill Clinton proposed 
reducing benefits by increasing taxes on Social Security beneficiaries. 
That is all we have done. Otherwise, we have retained the guarantee in 
law that the social security trust fund is sacrosanct, and it is.
  The tax cut last year had nothing to do with the Social Security 
trust fund. It did not touch the Social Security trust fund. The 
question is very simply, Are we going to use a surplus to pay down more 
debt, which is what we have been doing? And we paid down almost a half 
trillion dollars worth of debt.
  I think the seniors out there deserve to get a little truth and 
honesty in budgeting. What we have done over the last 4 or 5 years is 
we have reduced the national debt by using the surplus to pay down the 
debt, and I am all for that. Now we are in a situation where because of 
the recession and a lowering of receipts and because of the need for us 
to fund the war on terrorism and protect this country, we are, instead 
of using more money to pay down the debt, using some money to defend 
this country and increase our economic performance in the future. That 
is the facts. None of this relates to the Social Security trust fund.
  I am on the Committee on Ways and Means. I work on these issues, as 
does the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark); and he knows as I know, 
as does the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), that the trust fund is 
sacrosanct. We cannot and will not touch the trust fund. The question 
is what we do with the surplus. In this budget we in a very responsible 
way deal with the three issues we have facing this Congress. One is 
national security, increasing defense, the biggest increase in 20 
years. Second is homeland defense. We more than double what we need for 
homeland defense. And the third is economic security, including 
retirement security.
  And that same tax relief bill that the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Markey) talked about as hurting retirement security, helped 
retirement security. It provided substantial resources for all of our 
seniors to be able to save more for their own retirement by letting 
them save more in their IRAs, 401(k)s, defined benefit plans. It 
increased economic security. It did not risk our seniors' economic 
security. This is a sound budget.
  I urge my colleagues to support it because in fact it keeps the 
promise to our seniors. It does not touch Social Security. It does not 
touch Medicare except for an unprecedented $350 billion increase in 
Medicare funding. More than the United States Senate, with almost every 
Democrat voting for it, proposed to increase just a year ago. This is 
something that is unprecedented, to allow our seniors to have 
prescription drug coverage and to modernize Medicare. This will 
increase the kind of retirement security we want to provide for all our 
seniors.
  I urge my colleagues to strongly support this budget. Do what is 
right by our seniors and vote ``yes'' today.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) has 20 
minutes remaining of this hour. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) 
has 3\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I am about to yield a few seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Markey), who realizes that the Democrats had a plan that they took 
to the Committee on Rules that was not made in order. They had several 
amendments, none of which were made in order. So we are operating under 
a gag rule. Our plan and amendments were not allowed. This is kind of 
the fascism of democracy that operates in a Republican-controlled 
Committee on Rules. The gentleman from Massachusetts also understands 
that it is a good thing that lawyers do not teach economics.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  We are operating under an economic plan, the Republican plan of last 
June. It is only 8 months ago. They said we have plenty of money for a 
$1.7 trillion tax break. It would not affect our ability to deal with 
Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid or education. Eight months 
later with the wealthy taking the bulk of the $1.7 trillion, the 
greatest generation are now looking out 5 and 10 years from now with 
our nursing homes flooded with 91 percent of all nursing homes with 
inadequate care, and no additional funding in order to deal with that 
long term. That is not right.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Hinchey).
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, the chairman of the Committee on the 
Budget said a couple of minutes ago that we had no plan, but we do have 
a plan. It is a very simple one. The plan is to defeat this budget 
resolution which is oppressing the American people and bring to the 
floor of this House a budget resolution that makes sense; one that does 
not do what this budget resolution does, which is to invade the Social 
Security trust fund every year over the course of the next decade.
  A decade from now under this plan the Social Security trust fund will 
have $1.5 trillion less than it has today because this budget 
resolution invades the social security trust fund every year over the 
course of the next decade.
  This year it spends every dime of the surplus in the Medicare budget. 
So our principal objection to this budget, first of all, is it does not 
play straight. It does not play fair. It is not honest with the 
numbers. And it jeopardizes Social Security and Medicare at a time when 
we are going to be calling upon those programs because of the larger 
numbers of retirees that are coming into play. Furthermore, this budget 
resolution does not live up to its promises. It

[[Page H1060]]

takes money out of education. We promised money to the State for 
increased education funding. It does not deliver on that. And it makes 
virtually impossible a prescription drug program for the elderly.
  All of that so it can continue the ruse, the farce, that we can 
afford the $1.7 trillion tax cut which you rammed through this Congress 
last year. The money just is not there. And you want to continue to pay 
for that tax cut and the only way that you can do it is by borrowing 
money from the Social Security trust fund, $1.5 trillion over the next 
10 years, and taking all of the surplus out of Medicare, and by failing 
to deliver on the promises of health care and education which you have 
made. That is our plan: get a real budget on this floor.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Menendez).
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Chairman, Republicans who control the House denied 
the most responsible fiscally conservative Members of the Democratic 
Party the right to their alternatives on this floor. You act as a big 
bully, and now you want to hold it out there as where is your 
alternatives, where is your suggestions. No matter how you want to 
paint it, a deficit is a deficit is a deficit; and the Republican 
budget is swimming in red ink and broken promises. President Bush and 
every Republican leader promised that they were committed to a balanced 
budget.

                              {time}  1830

  President Bush and every Republican leader promised that they would 
put the Social Security surplus in a lockbox and never use it again for 
other spending, but today, no matter, one thing my colleagues do deny 
is that Republicans want to take a sledge hammer to that lockbox so 
they can bust it open and loot the money that hardworking Americans 
have spent a lifetime contributing. It is that bad and it is that ugly.
  The Republicans are doing this because they believe it is the only 
way that they can cover up the deficits they created as far as the eye 
can see, and that is why they are only giving us 5-year numbers instead 
of the 10-year numbers and that is why they are using the overly 
optimistic OMB estimates instead of nonpartisan CBO numbers.
  Democrats spent 8 years putting this Nation on a sound fiscal course, 
and it has taken Republicans 14 months to undo that. Now they want to 
blame the recession for everything, but no one here or in the country 
really believes that this recession can be blamed for deficits 10 years 
from now.
  The fact is we Democrats saved enough for a rainy day like this, but 
the Republicans spent every penny of it on an irresponsible economic 
plan, leaving few priorities that they claim to support like education, 
prescription drug coverage for seniors and environmental protection.
  So vote against fiscal irresponsibility. Vote against red ink and 
deficits. Vote against looting the Social Security and Medicare, and 
vote against this budget resolution.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds.
  Mr. Chairman, I think the plan is starting to materialize. I have 
been saying the Democrats do not have a plan, but what they are against 
was the tax cut. Okay. Their plan is to raise taxes. We are starting to 
see the plan. Starting to see the plan. Raise taxes on the American 
people. If it is not that, one would think they would come forward with 
an alternative.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), who understands that our plan 
would only raise taxes on the 1 or 2 percent of the very richest people 
in this country who the Republicans gave the $1.4 billion tax cut to. 
It would help low income people for whom the Republicans do not really 
care.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate both of these 
fine gentlemen for setting the table for me because the comments I have 
to make play right into this. I did, during the debate, try to prepare 
my constituents for this possibility. The problem is that nobody 
believed what I was saying, and I guess I even had trouble believing it 
myself. How could over $5 trillion in surpluses, projected surpluses 
disappear within 1 year? I mean, it was impossible for anybody to 
comprehend that.
  Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from Iowa would allow me to control my 
time, that would be helpful to me.
  The problem is nobody would believe that this was even possible, but 
I want to just go through the facts.
  This administration has been in office just over 1 year. We had $3.12 
trillion, not even including the Social Security surplus projected as a 
surplus for the next 10 years, and 1 year later it is gone.
  Despite the administration's claims that this is all about September 
11 or some economic downturn, over 40 percent of that vanishing surplus 
is due to the tax cut, and the commitment to hold Social Security in a 
lockbox has vanished. There is no commitment anymore.
  A year and a half ago, we were out there worrying about whether or 
not we were going to pay the debt down too fast in this country and 
whether that would be detrimental. What are we doing now? We are 
talking about another trillion dollars or more in additional interest 
on debt over the next 10 years.
  This is all in 1 year. So why could not my constituents believe it? 
Nobody could believe that this could happen in 1 year. What is the 
plan? We played out the plan over the last 8 years, and you have done 
away with it within 1 year. You have done away with it. So if you want 
to know the plan, the plan is to get you all out of office so that we 
can have some responsibility in this place again. That is the plan, and 
I think the American people will understand that that is the plan.
  The seniors, the children, the people who care about the environment, 
they will understand what the plan is when we worked so hard to put 
this country back on sound economic footing, and you will not even 
allow a proposed amendment to come to the floor, and you have got the 
nerve to come in here and say where is your plan. Where is the rule 
that allows anybody to offer a plan? The Blue Dogs cannot offer a plan. 
The Black Caucus cannot offer a plan. The Democratic Caucus cannot 
offer a plan because your rule does not allow any plan other than the 
demise of this country. That is what your plan is and the American 
people know what your plan is. They understand.
  Now, do you want to give more tax cuts to wealthy people? This is 
about priorities. This is about priorities. We can either give more tax 
cuts to wealthy people or we can give better education. We can give 
more tax cuts or we can give more assistance to prevent AIDS from 
spreading around the world. We can give more tax cuts to wealthy people 
or we can do more employment training so people who have been laid off 
by this recession, so that they can get some jobs. That is what this is 
all about, and our plan is to get rid of this administration and bring 
some responsibility back to government.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds.
  I rest my case. We are seeing the plan develop before our very eyes. 
The gentleman said it. Get us out of office, raise taxes and then 
increase spending. Increase taxes, increase spending; increase taxes, 
increase spending. Here we go again. Do not tell me my colleagues do 
not have a plan. They have got a plan. It is called tax and spend.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), who had a plan to offer and was denied in a 
rather fascist manner his right to offer amendments here and led by the 
example by our new Attorney General who feels trampling on the 
Constitution is the way that fascist governments should run and I guess 
the way we are going under the Republican leadership, but we will let 
the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) tell us what his plan was and 
what the Republicans refused to allow him.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman may inquire.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, could the Record be read back? Did the 
gentleman just call our government a fascist government? I am just 
wondering

[[Page H1061]]

if that was what was just said on the floor of the House of 
Representatives.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, no. I talked about the fascist wing of the 
Republican Party.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, excuse me?
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, the fascist wing of the Republican Party.
  Mr. TANNER. Mr. Chairman, let me just say, that we are in a time of 
war and the President called for unity, and in that spirit, four of us, 
the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Stenholm), the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson) and myself, went to 
the Committee on Rules last night and asked that this amendment be made 
in order.
  Concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2003, we used 
their numbers, the Republican numbers. We offered this using their 
numbers. We offered to extend the debt ceiling till the end of this 
fiscal year without any strings attached save one, that was that we 
would be able to review the numbers in August when the CBO numbers come 
out again to see if we are on the right track and what they say today 
is actually coming to fact and coming to fruition. We were denied that. 
That is a plan. This is a budget that we tried to offer last night. Not 
in order.
  People watching may wonder, why is all this arguing going on. I want 
to tell them. Only the majority can make a legislative body bipartisan. 
The minority cannot do that. We are like a jackrabbit in a hailstorm, 
all we can do is just hunker down and take it, and if my colleagues do 
not want to be bipartisan, when we offer a budget based on their 
numbers, offering to extend the debt ceiling, without the approval 
really of our leadership and they turn us down and then come here today 
and say there is no plan, we do not have plan. Some of us did, I tell 
my friends. I saw naked raw partisanship work when I was in the 
majority here and my colleagues are practicing that today when they 
deny us the ability to at least debate using their numbers, a different 
approach.
  People are not dumb in this country. They know unfair partisanship 
when they see it, and if they insist on keeping on doing this, we are 
going to have a very difficult time solving the problems that the 
people of this country face.
  So I would just tell my colleagues that I am very disappointed in the 
way this debate has gone today, and I hope we can do better in the 
future.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds.
  The very distinguished gentleman who just spoke, his plan does not 
raise taxes. I thought the plan was to raise taxes. That is what the 
last four gentlemen just said, to raise taxes. The gentleman basically 
came to the Committee on Rules with my budget and a trigger.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Tanner).
  Mr. TANNER. Mr. Chairman, we submitted a budget proposal, concurrent 
resolution on the budget for the fiscal year 2003, using my colleagues' 
numbers and they were denied. How can my colleague say there is no 
plan. At least four of us had a plan, and now they come here and say 
our plan is to raise taxes. Our plan was not to raise taxes. Their plan 
was. All we asked was to review the numbers in August to see if what 
they say today is coming true, and we were not even allowed to do that, 
and naked partisanship is going to get my colleagues in trouble 
eventually. Got this side in trouble.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), who understands democracy 
and the right of debate and free speech.
  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, here we are for round three of the shell 
game.
  This is Humphrey-Hawkins, and we are supposed to be talking about 
employment. We have got people who are getting off welfare, right? We 
have got all these women, we want them to go out there, and we are 
increasing the number of hours they have to work. So we are getting 
them out there, staying away from their kids even longer.
  HHS says under this shell are 15 million children who need day care. 
Under this shell we find out what the Republicans take care of, 2.7 
million children. One would think that if there were 15 million who 
needed it and they were only covering 2.7 million that they would put 
in some additional money. I mean they are not going to leave any child 
behind certainly. They really do care about children. I have heard them 
come out here and get almost weepy eyed over children, but there is 
only 2.7 million.
  What is under this shell? Nothing. They flat-lined it. They said the 
money we gave last year is exactly what we are giving this year. What 
that means, according to the Children's Defense Fund, is 30,000 more 
kids are going to be out from under this shell. They are not going to 
be covered by day care, and at the end of 10 years of this they are 
going to have 114,000 more kids if they keep flat-lining it.
  Now, we can try and confuse people, but when a mother leaves the 
house in the morning and she is going off to a job, she wants to work, 
raise her level of dignity. She feels good about herself, but she does 
not feel good and cannot concentrate on what she is doing if she does 
not know her kid is in good child care, and if we do not supplement 
what people making $7 an hour in those jobs making beds in the hotels 
are making, they cannot get good child care.
  Do not come out here with that rhetoric about leave no child behind. 
Vote no on this resolution.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) has 6 minutes 
remaining. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) has 2\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds.
  Would the gentleman from Washington look under one of those shells 
and see if there is a Democratic plan? I mean they are leaving the 
entire country behind by not having a plan. The entire country is left 
behind by the Democrats today. Please look under that shell and look 
for a Democratic plan.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma 
(Mr. Watts), the very distinguished chairman of the Republican 
Conference.

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me this time. I have heard a lot over the last couple of hours 
about what the Republican budget does not do, and it is ironic that in 
this budget we take care of IDEA, which we have been fighting for; we 
take care of seniors and prescription drugs; we protect the homeland 
security; we do things for national security; we do things to try to 
get some growth in the economy.
  So I continue to ask the question, Where is the Democrats' plan? 
Where is their budget? And the fact is they have no budget. That tells 
the American people there is no vision.
  I just want to share something. I could come up here and I would not 
have to say a word but point out what the Democrats are doing, because 
they have nothing. Wanted: Democrat budget plan. Suspected of raising 
taxes on American families; increasing wasteful Washington spending.
  And I could go on forever. Again, I ask the question, Where do we go 
from here? Give me a plan on what you propose to win the war against 
terrorism. Give me a plan. It is easy to beat up ours, but give me 
something to show where you want to take the Nation.
  Again I ask you the question, What do you want to do to secure the 
homeland? Are you going to raise taxes? Are you going to cut other 
programs? What are you going to do?
  Give me a fiscal break. What are you going to do to protect America's 
homeland? Again, I ask the question, since we have taken care of 
families, we have done things to try to grow the economy, what is the 
Democrats' plan to grow the economy? Give me a fiscal break. If you are 
going to beat us up, give us your plan.
  We have seen nothing over the last 2 hours, over the last 2 weeks, 
over the last 2 months. We have seen nothing.
  Again, I ask the Democrats, What do you do to help workers? I see 
nothing in your budget. I have seen no budget

[[Page H1062]]

that you have submitted. I have seen no vision you have provided. 
Again, do you want to raise taxes? Do you want to cut programs? Do you 
want to take care of workers? What do you do to take care of workers? 
No vision. No budget.
  What are you going to do for prescription drugs? We have money in our 
budget to take care of that need. Again, are you going to raise taxes; 
cut programs somewhere? Are you going to cut national defense? Give me 
a fiscal break. If you are going to beat us up, give us your plan.
  Nothing for prescription drugs. Again I ask, Where is your plan for 
health care? No plan. Are you going to raise taxes? Are you going to 
increase wasteful Washington spending? Are you going to cut homeland 
security? Are you going to cut national security, the defense budget? 
What are you going to do to take care of the health care needs?
  No plan. No budget. No vision. No nothing. My colleagues just come to 
the floor and beat us up over the things that we have done trying to 
help people. What are you going to do for Social Security? Nothing. 
Zilch. Not nothing. Not nothing do you do. No budget. No vision.
  Give me a fiscal break. If you are going to beat us up over our 
budget, surely somebody's got a budget of their own; surely somebody's 
got some vision in that party; the great party that once said ``All we 
have to fear is fear itself.'' Now all you have to offer is fear 
itself.
  Give me a fiscal break. Offer your plan. No budget. No vision. Case 
closed.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) has 6 minutes 
remaining on the subject of economic goals and policies.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra), who understands that gagging 
people and preventing them the right to speech is not incumbent in our 
democracy, and remembers a time when not all people in this country 
were allowed to speak out. The Republicans obviously are reverting to 
those times because they are afraid to hear another plan.
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  I wish the gentleman from Oklahoma had been here 3 hours ago when we 
were asking for a chance to speak, to present a budget, to not be 
gagged, to have a chance under the rules of the House of 
Representatives, the people's House, to debate. But under the 
Republican rule, which manages and controls all the time, we do not 
have an opportunity to present any plan because my colleagues will not 
give us a chance to present any plan. So what we have to deal with is 
what you give us.
  I remember 2 years ago we had a President who said, and this was 
during harder times, he said we are going to save Social Security 
first. It seems now we have a President and colleagues on the other 
side who say because we have hard economic times, and because we have 
to pass a budget, we have to take from Social Security first; take 
these tax cuts, that will go mostly to the well-to-do and large 
corporations, like Enron; take from Social Security first to fund 
programs like Star Wars, and you are going to take from education.
  Mr. President, please explain to me why you will not fund drug-free 
school programs. Mr. President, please explain to me why you will not 
fund dropout prevention programs in our schools. Mr. President, please 
explain why you and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will 
not fund school construction monies so we can build more schools in our 
overcrowded systems. Mr. President, please explain to me why we gutted 
the monies for classroom size reduction so our kids would not have to 
be 30 in a classroom to learn.
  Take from Social Security first? I intend to try to save Social 
Security first. And if I had a chance to present a budget, I would show 
you how we could save Social Security first. But you do not. Instead, 
we have a security blanket that is thrown around this budget. 
Everything is security.
  Well, by your raiding Social Security and Medicare by about $1 
trillion, we could fund eight wars on terrorism. Instead, we are giving 
money to the well-to-do and corporations like Enron. Vote against this 
budget because it does not deserve our vote and the American people do 
not want it.


                      Announcement by the Chairman

  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair would remind Members to address their remarks 
to the Chair and not to the President.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the 
gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).
  (Mrs. DAVIS of California asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. DAVIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this 
budget.
  The budget before us today reflects a failure to meet the promises 
made to members of the House Education and the Workforce Committee as 
we worked to make the compromises needed to create a bipartisan 
education reauthorization bill known as The No Child Left Behind Act.
  One of the key issues was that if we voted to require extensive 
testing by all schools in the country in order to achieve 
accountability, we would also supply funding to support the improved 
teaching that may be needed to help school districts achieve their 
required goals and avoid expensive penalties. However, this budget cuts 
The No Child Left Behind Act by $90 million.
  It is unconscionable that programs have been cut that were integral 
to members agreeing to the compromises that led to passage of the Act. 
Yet, forty programs would be terminated. These include such critical 
support for children as funding for elementary and secondary school 
counseling. A second area of support called for in the Act is to place 
qualified teachers in every classroom; however, the budget eliminates 
teacher technology training. The list of terminated programs includes 
the National Writing Project, which gives teachers experience in 
improving their writing and models best practices. It also cuts funding 
for another program that sets the standard for identifying accomplished 
teaching, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, which 
administers a highly lauded national process for identifying the 
highest quality teachers.
  I have selected just these few examples of eliminated programs that 
would improve teaching quality so that indeed no child would be left 
behind. But this budget decreases resources for teachers by 4 percent 
and eliminates high-quality training for 18,000 teachers.
  Many members of the House wanted the opportunity to vote to provide 
funding for a much older federal mandate which has been shamelessly 
under-supported since 1975, special education. Yet, we have not even 
been allowed to show our support for phasing in this commitment over a 
period of years. The modest increase in funding contained in this 
budget is only a third of the amount that real commitment would offer. 
Although the Education and Workforce Committee will be working on the 
reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 
the next Congress, there is no justification for holding this funding 
commitment hostage in order to implement whatever needed reforms may be 
agreed to by Congress at that time.
  The list of other gaping holes in this budget for education is long--
freezing funding rather than providing the $500 million called for in 
the No Child Left Behind Act to support the 21st Century Community 
Learning Centers, which provide safe, healthy places for children to 
learn after school.
  While the bill is targeted at the lowest income, lowest performing 
children, the key portions of that effort contained in Title I are 
woefully under-funded while the number of poor children mushrooms.
  There are no funds to subsidize interest on school modernization 
bonds needed to address the $127 billion backlog in school repairs, 
again a program that many members supported.
  Finally, high quality child care must be available to enable more 
children to be ready to learn when they reach kindergarten. Yet, this 
budget freezes child care funding. What will be the value in 
reauthorizing the child care block grant this year, when we are told in 
advance that long overdue reforms cannot be made because there are no 
additional funds?
  As members should be aware, virtually every national education 
support organization--such as the Parent Teachers Association, the 
National School Boards Association, and the 100-member consortium of 
education organizations called the Committee for Education Funding--
have expressed their outrage at the inadequate funding for education in 
this budget.
  Is this what our constituents want? Clearly not. A study released 
yesterday, conducted by the Ipsos-Reid polling and research 
organization, reported that education was, by a wide

[[Page H1063]]

margin, the highest national priority for spending on non-military or 
homeland security programs. An astonishing 85 percent agreed that a 
good reason to increase federal spending on education was that ``our 
national security depends on our ability to successfully equip our 
children with the skills and knowledge they will need to function in 
today's increasing complex world.''
  The public supports a substantial increase in spending. Their 
commitment to our children must start with this budget so that no 
longer will so many be left behind.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time is remaining?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California has 4 minutes remaining.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. Chairman, there are some of us who remember this world in the 
1930s, when Hitler suspended the Bundestag to promulgate conservative 
ideology and not let people speak. It is a shame that the Republicans 
in the House, Mr. Chairman, have taken up that same ideology and are 
denying a chance for debate and open discussion of a budget. It does 
smack of fascism; and it is too bad, because the American people will 
recognize that and understand that in a free economy, and in a free 
country that created programs like Social Security and Medicare and 
special education and aid for dependent children and aid for people who 
are unable to care for themselves, for the disabled, that to deny them 
care is obscene.
  I think it will be quite clear that, for whatever reason, whether it 
is deficits or anything else, that the overwhelming desire of the 
Republican Party is to destroy programs in the Federal Government, 
except those few intended for the very wealthy.
  Most of the colleagues who are screaming about the war never wore a 
uniform other than the Boy Scout uniform. And I would like to suggest, 
as I said before, none of them have worked in free enterprise, which 
they tout so loudly. And yet, because that is where the campaign 
contributions come from, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, that 
is where their allegiance is. They are forsaking the seniors who need 
health care and who need an economic safety net. They are forsaking our 
children by denying them the chance to come along and get an education.
  I am sure the American public is going to recognize this, and I am 
sure they are going to recognize it when they see wasteful money spent 
on things like Star Wars, which will not work, and programs which do 
nothing except to pay for large defense contractors, who are related to 
former Republican Presidents, and I think they are going to see that 
this is an obscene, corrupt, and undemocratic attempt to harm those 
people who are most fragile in this country only to benefit the 1 or 2 
percent of the very wealthiest. And I hope my colleagues will vote down 
this budget.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), and I ask unanimous consent that he be 
allowed to control that time.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
California?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) is 
recognized for 1\1/2\ minutes.
  The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) has 8\1/2\ minutes remaining and 
the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has 9\1/2\ minutes 
remaining on the debate on the congressional budget.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my friend and 
colleague for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Chairman, the Republican budget is irresponsible, irrational, and 
just plain wrong. It is a sham, it is a shame, and it is a disgrace.
  The Republican budget buries us in a pile of debt and puts us in a 
much deeper financial hole; and it is the obligation of the 
Republicans, the majority party, to dig us out.
  The Republicans have destroyed the lock box and thrown away the key. 
Mr. Chairman, Social Security is a sacred trust, a covenant with the 
American people. It is a promise that should never, ever be broken. But 
the Republican budget spends $225 billion of the Social Security trust 
fund on other government programs.
  Social Security is a safety net for many Americans, allowing them to 
live with dignity. But the Republican budget takes away that safety 
net. Republicans are stealing the Social Security trust fund. The 
Republicans are taking the security out of Social Security.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge all of my colleagues tonight to vote for the 
people, vote for the old folks, vote for the disabled, and vote against 
the Republican budget.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Kentucky (Mr. Fletcher), a member of the Committee on the Budget.
  Mr. FLETCHER. Mr. Chairman, we have heard a lot of strong words, I 
think even sometimes inappropriate words, disturbing, extreme words 
this evening, as we have been discussing this budget, particularly from 
the other side.
  All of us agree that these are unusual times. It is a time for tough 
decisions, a time that defines people. Do they rise to the occasion, or 
do they cower when they should stand tall? Do they sit quietly when 
they should speak? Do they freeze when they should lead? I am amazed 
this evening that at a time like this the Democrats have not stood, 
they have not spoken, and they have not led. At a time when your 
country needs vision, they have none.
  This year's budget reflects the tough decisions of those willing to 
lead when events call for a clear vision and clear priorities. Our 
budget meets the demands of these historic times and provides for our 
national defense, it provides for homeland security, and it provides 
for personal security.
  Let me talk about health care just briefly. Our plan provides $350 
billion to expand and enhance Medicare; to provide a prescription drug 
plan for our seniors, which is needed; to provide for the reform of 
Medicare. Would we like to add more? Yes.

                              {time}  1900

  But we have added a very reasonable amount. If Members look at 
prescription drugs, approximately 72 percent of our seniors are covered 
by prescription drugs. Yet the only thing that we have heard from the 
other side of the aisle is a plan that would control everything in the 
medicine box of our seniors, and would displace this money that already 
provides prescription drugs with an increase in taxes or an increase in 
deficit.
  We also have expanded and enhanced our community health centers, 
which provide health care for those who fall through the cracks. We 
have expanded health care for the poor, the children, and the 
uninsured. We have increased funding for research by doubling the 
funding for NIH, and we have provided fiscal responsibility.
  The other night in the Committee on the Budget when Democrats offered 
a string of amendments, the sum of those amendments would have 
increased our deficit by $200 billion. That is why we do not see them 
offering a budget. That is why we did not see them offering a budget 
when we marked it up during the committee. If we combined all of those 
amendments, it would require us to increase taxes by $150 billion to 
pay for the additional amendments they wanted.
  We have not cowered. We have taken a stand, a tough stand in these 
days that require tough stands. We have provided a budget which 
establishes the needed priorities, and yet it is remarkable to me that 
we hear chilling silence when it comes to offering a budget of 
responsibility.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, there has been a lot of anger on the floor 
today, and to me this is such a sad day. It is total reversal of all 
our former self-congratulation. The last administration took credit for 
beginning our deficit reduction course to save Social Security and 
Medicare. The majority said oh, no, we are doing it, and the country 
gave us both the credit. There will be no question where the blame lies 
for dynamiting the lockbox. The Social Security and Medicare lockbox 
will be remembered as the most fraudulent metaphor the majority has 
ever used on this floor.
  The majority has taken us back to the dark budget ages of using 
budget

[[Page H1064]]

estimates by political appointees rather than by the professionals of 
the Congressional Budget Office. The American people are always willing 
to take domestic cuts in time of war. Members will never convince them. 
They are too smart to be convinced by a budget that tells them we can 
do tax cuts, fight a war, and defeat a recession at the same time. The 
seniors and the baby boomers deserve a lot better.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to myself to engage in a 
colloquy with the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. NUSSLE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, in an earlier colloquy today on 
transportation spending, I understood a couple of things. One is that 
although the budget provides for $1.8 billion in outlays, I understood 
the colloquy to indicate that if the Committee on Appropriations only 
wanted to appropriate $23 billion for 2003, and not the $27 billion, a 
little over $27 billion, we on the Committee on Transportation and the 
Infrastructure expected.
  Secondly, I would query the chairman about the firewalls. I 
understand in the budget resolution we cannot construct firewalls to 
protect the TEA-21 dollars, and I am wondering where that will come and 
what the commitment is.
  Thirdly, today the Senate marked up their budget and provided for an 
additional $5.7 billion of Federal highway spending in 2003. I would 
solicit an opinion from the chairman.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Number one, we have a reserve fund for the extra 
transportation dollars so it would only be released to the Committee on 
Transportation and Infrastructure if in fact they marked it at that 
higher level, 4.4 of contract authority, 1.3 in outlays.
  Second, on the firewall that was discussed, that is for a future 
potential budget enforcement act reform bill that we intend to move on 
the floor.
  The third question was whether or not we would try for a higher 
number with the Senate. We are working to try to get as much money to 
stimulate the economy as possible. We agree transportation is one of 
the ways. We will work for as high a number as we can.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Solis).
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Chairman, I rise to express my disappointment and 
discouragement with respect to the Republican budget proposal. We are 
failing the working men and women, children and seniors. My 
constituents elected me to come here to talk about issues that we are 
not having a fair chance to discuss. That is why the other side of the 
aisle hears our loud tone of voice and our cry. There are thousands of 
people in our districts who are unemployed who were affected long 
before September 11, who had some hope, who thought that our 
leadership, that our President, was going to leave no child behind.
  The President has decimated our budget with respect to education. He 
has made promises and broken them. People will have their energy bills 
cut. The LIHEAP program is going to be slashed. People will have to 
make a decision whether to buy food or pay the light bill. This is a 
harsh reality of the Republican proposal, and I stand here to say this 
is not acceptable and that my constituents in the 31st Congressional 
District want their voices heard. We want to be able to have our 
amendments in our presentations in our committees. I ask for a ``no'' 
vote on the Republican budget proposal.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I have heard often on this 
floor today for a call of calm and reconciliation. I have also heard 
the discussion about the Democrats having no plan. Well, Mr. Chairman, 
let me say, these four volumes indicate why Democrats cannot have a 
plan because the Republicans and the administration have squandered the 
surplus. There is no surplus. This plan invades Social Security. This 
plan blows up the lockbox.
  In fact, my constituents will be asking me why over the last 3 years, 
when the Democrats had a plan for a prescription drug benefit, why 
there was no response from the Republicans. Why Social Security is at 
the point it is when we had a trillion dollar surplus. No plan? We do 
not need a plan. Those who have destroyed the plan destroyed the 
surplus, and need to present us with something that Americans can be 
proud of.
  It is interesting that Republicans would talk about homeland security 
and the war against terrorism. A minuscule amount in this budget is for 
homeland security. Most of it is squandered away by the invading of 
Social Security. I ask my colleagues to vote a resounding ``no'' for 
this budget because this is not a budget that Americans can stand on. 
It is a budget that is nothing but smoke and mirrors and walls that do 
not respond. This is a budget that does not work.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to myself.
  Mr. Chairman, well, we are coming to the end of this very important 
debate. We have heard a lot of discussion and debate today about plans 
and who has got a plan and who does not have a plan. Let us review the 
bidding very quickly.
  The President in response to September 11, the national emergency, 
the war against terrorism and a recession in our economy put a plan on 
the table in February. It was not a perfect plan. There has never been 
in the United States history a perfect budget plan, but he has one.
  What did we do in committee last week? We took that plan and we made 
it better. How? We said special education is going to get a little bit 
extra. Veterans are going to get a little bit extra. Science is going 
to get a little bit extra. Homeland security can get extra. We are 
going to treat defense, and all sorts of things that we thought were 
important priorities with a little extra, and the President today said 
the Republican plan is better.
  We have taken the President's plan and we have made a better plan. So 
the President has a plan and the Republicans have a plan. During the 
last 6 months of the most crucial time in American history, what have 
the Democrats been doing? Well, three very important things that we did 
together in a bipartisan way. We said we are going to respond to the 
national emergency. So we dipped into that surplus, and we took some 
money out and we said New York needs some help. We did that in a 
bipartisan way. Every Member voted for it.
  Then we said we are not going to let people come into this country 
and do what they did to the people of America ever again. We will find 
them. We will beat them. We will win this war, and we will do whatever 
it takes. In a bipartisan way, we stood together and we funded that 
war. Every Member voted for it.
  Just last week, finally, we all said the economy is just too 
important for us to allow it to languish or for it to possibly falter. 
In a bipartisan way, we dipped in there again and took some of that 
money and said that is what we are going to do. All of this hand 
wringing about where did the surplus go, my gosh, it just vanished. 
Members, it did not vanish. Have Members forgotten Osama bin Laden? 
Have my colleagues forgotten what happened on September 11?
  Members are saying the seniors are not going to understand. The 
seniors won World War II. Our kids understand. Our parents understand. 
The teachers understand. The nurses understand. Our veterans, by God, 
understand. So for the other side to run in and tell us now that nobody 
understands where the surplus went is a bunch of malarkey.
  So what did the other side do over the weekend? Instead of writing 
their own plan, 96 pages of criticism. That is fair. We are living in 
America. We will fight to the death anybody's right to disagree. That 
is what America stands for, but at some point in time the other side 
does not just get to disagree. They have to lead. The great party on 
the other side of the aisle has led many times in our history, but now 
it fails.
  The minority leader said, ``We think the Republican budget in the 
House is a failure, an absolute, total failure in dealing with the big 
problems in America,'' and he let his voice drop.

[[Page H1065]]

  Did the gentleman come down here with a plan? No. Did he say I have 
got some ideas? No. Did he criticize? Sure, and he has a right to do 
that. I will fight for his right to do that. But Members are not 
allowed to just complain. Members are not allowed to just play 
politics. At this most crucial time in American history, Democrats have 
to stand up and say what is important and put their plan on the table. 
They are not allowed to just snipe from the sidelines and say, oh, we 
are for national defense and homeland security. Yes, we want a 
prescription drug benefit. Gosh, we want more than the Republicans do 
for education. Oh, yes, in fact, we want more for science, and let me 
think, we want more for all of these things.
  We cannot do that without a plan, or without raising taxes. So 
please, I ask the other side of the aisle to demonstrate their 
leadership by coming forward with a plan. I beg them. This is too 
crucial a time in American history for them to let us down.
  I implore Members to vote for a plan to win the war and get this 
country secure again.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Tanner).
  Mr. TANNER. Mr. Chairman, the reason the sign used by the gentleman 
from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) was made yesterday was because the majority knew 
last night when we went to the Committee on Rules with our plan that we 
were not going to be able to offer it. So these nice charts we see 
about not having a plan, we would have a plan today, but the other side 
of the aisle would not let us offer it.
  We would like to look in August and see if what the gentleman says 
tonight is actually coming true. What the other side of the aisle said 
last year we know has not come true, and we only ask to review it in 
August. We used the Republican plan as a gesture of bipartisanship. The 
other side of the aisle will not let us have a plan, and then they 
bring all of these charts down here that they made up yesterday and say 
the Democrats do not have a plan.

                              {time}  1915

  This raw partisanship, people are not dumb, they see it. It is going 
to get you in trouble just like it got this side in trouble sooner or 
later.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Here is one reason that we have not produced a plan. It is because 
the plan that we are confronted with, the budget, so-called, before us, 
is not a real budget. As I said earlier, it is a tip of an iceberg.
  Here are just a few of the things that it does not include. It uses 
OMB scoring, and therefore it picks up $225 billion because OMB 
estimates the cost of Medicare by that much less than CBO. It fails to 
fully fund discretionary spending at the level of inflation, that is 
all, current policy, and picks up another couple of hundred billion 
dollars. We do not think that is realistic. If we had to put up a plan 
that would be comparable on an apples to apples basis, we would have to 
adopt these and many other devices in this budget which we think would 
be a bad precedent. That is why we declined to do it. There will be a 
Democratic plan. Senator Conrad is producing one as we talk.
  Let me just say once again with respect to the war, when the votes 
come on the defense appropriations bill and on the other appropriations 
bill with homeland security and national security, Democrats' names 
will be the board because we back the President and we support those 
appropriated items.
  Let me say something else about the key concern that we have in this 
budget and the situation we are in today. This graph here shows the 
extent to which previous administrations have invaded Social Security. 
The Clinton administration came to office in 1993 inheriting a budget 
deficit of $290 billion, a record deficit. On February 17, less than a 
month after being in office, they put on our doorstep a deficit 
reduction plan which passed this House by one vote. As a result, every 
year for the next 8 years the bottom line of the budget got better to 
the point where in the year 2000, we were literally in surplus without 
counting Social Security or Medicare, the first time in our fiscal 
history that that happened. It happened under the aegis of the Clinton 
administration. Sure you cast some of those votes and I cast some of 
those votes, they were costly votes in most cases; but this is where 
the handoff occurred to President Bush.
  I have seen at least five Republicans come here to the well and tout 
the fact that you have had $400 billion in debt reduced in the last 
several years. All of that happened on the Clinton administration's 
watch. Why did it happen? When you move your budget out of deficit into 
surplus, you have got money to pay off debt. That is why it happened.
  But look what happens. Here at the pinnacle of this summit, there is 
a handoff to President Bush and immediately things go south. Some of 
that is due to the fact that we have had fundamentally unexpected, 
terrible tragedies to occur in this country; and I would be the first 
to admit that that has had an impact, no question about it. But your 
tax cuts had an impact, too. Your miscalculation of what the economy 
was going to do has had a big impact as well. It is at least 40 percent 
of this. But look at this. And the reason we cannot go with your budget 
tonight is it has no plan, it has no strategy, it has no way for us to 
reverse that course which is graphically laid out there, showing you 
that we are backpedaling right to where we were 10 years ago. After 10 
years of progress on the deficit, we are literally backsliding.
  Since everybody seems to be pooh-poohing the deficit, as if this is a 
temporary, transitory phenomenon, let me read CBO's analysis, dated 
March 6, of the President's budget. It says that this year we will 
incur a deficit under President Bush of $248 billion; $297 billion next 
year under his budget. Over the next 10 years it says we will incur 
deficits of $1.8 trillion. The consequence of that is we will be 
invading Social Security to the tune of $1.8 trillion.
  Here is this chart which we have used before. You start with a blue 
stub there, you start with a blue stub there which shows that we handed 
off the budget to the Bush administration with a budget out of Social 
Security and out of Medicare and look what happened. Immediately the 
red lines below the line begin to appear. The yellow lines up here 
indicate that every year over the next 10 years we will consume the 
Medicare surplus. Every year over the next 10 years we will consume the 
Social Security surplus. There is no way around it. You do not have a 
plan in your budget to reverse course here. So everyone voting for this 
budget tonight should understand this is the bottom line that you are 
voting for, an invasion of the Social Security surplus for the next 10 
years. That is the bottom line. What it means is that we will be 
incurring more debt. We will not be achieving our promise of paying off 
the debt so that we can alleviate the burden on the Treasury and make 
it able to meet its Social Security obligations.
  This is a 180-degree reversal of where we were last year. That is why 
we respectfully decline to vote for this budget resolution. We think it 
is a badly designed element, and we think it will take us back to where 
we were. We hoped that we had recovered from that from a long time ago, 
but it does not appear that we have.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the very 
distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the 
House.
  Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the President's budget, and I urge 
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this budget as 
well. The budget process helps the Congress to decide the spending 
priorities of this Nation. I am disappointed that some folks on the 
other side of the aisle have decided not to propose a real substitute. 
Instead of making tough decisions, some would rather complain from the 
sidelines.
  This Congress has a responsibility to govern. I believe that this 
budget fulfills our responsibilities to our constituents and to our 
Nation. I want to congratulate our budget chairman for a job well done. 
I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle).
  Our first responsibility is to defend our Nation. Folks, we are at 
war. We must spend money to win this war. This budget contains a 
historic increase in defense spending. Our troops need this money so 
that they have the

[[Page H1066]]

weapons, the supplies, the equipment to do the job. Some say that there 
is not enough money in this budget to fight this war. I assure you if 
the President needs more money to fight this war, this Congress will 
make sure that any man or woman who wears the uniform of the United 
States military and puts themselves in harm's way, they will have the 
training, the equipment and the weapons and whatever they need to win.
  This budget also contains the necessary money for homeland security. 
On September 11, we found out that terrorists can attack in the most 
unconventional way. We do not know where they will strike next. We do 
not know, but we have to be prepared. This budget helps our Nation 
prepare for these contingencies.
  This budget also helps prepare our Nation for other challenges on the 
domestic front. It includes money to implement the President's 
ambitious education agenda, so that our schools will teach our children 
better. It includes the largest financial commitment to a prescription 
drug benefit in our Nation's history. We reserve $350 billion to 
Medicare and prescription drugs for seniors in this budget. It also 
includes important funding for our Nation's veterans and for our 
Nation's farmers. The President's budget sets the right priorities for 
our Nation.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle, some have criticized our 
budget with great enthusiasm; but they have failed to offer a real 
alternative. Why did they not offer an alternative? Some would like to 
play politics with Social Security. Any realistic budget would have to 
confront the fact that the surplus disappeared because of the economic 
slowdown, because of the war and certainly because of domestic 
terrorism in this country and our willingness to prepare ourselves for 
it.
  Folks, we made a real decision last year. I heard some of our friends 
talk about surplus. We had a great surplus. We made a conscious 
decision to take some of that surplus off the table, because we thought 
moms and dads and local people who make money, punch a time clock, own 
their small business, they make better decisions with that money in 
their pocket than the Washington bureaucrats. We also made a conscious 
decision to pay down debt. During this period of time, we paid down 
over $450 billion of public debt. I think that is probably better than 
having that surplus sitting there and being tempting for people here in 
Washington.
  I know people have big plans, big thick books on how to spend that 
money. But times have changed. We must prepare this Nation to continue 
to fight the fight that we are in. We must prepare our people for 
domestic violence and prevent people from coming into this country and 
have terrorist attacks across this Nation. We need to take care of our 
senior citizens. We need to take care of our veterans. We need to take 
care of farmers. This budget does exactly that.
  I ask you tonight, put politics aside, put demagoguery aside, and 
vote for this budget so that we can move forward and this Congress can 
get its work done.
  Mr. SHOWS. Mr. Chairman, I am having this statement placed in the 
Congressional Record today, although I am not physically present. As 
you know, I have been granted a leave of absence so I can be with my 
family in Mississippi to attend the funeral of a close relative. For 
this reason, I was away from the House floor yesterday, March 19, 2002, 
and am away today, March 20, 2002. I want this statement placed in the 
Record today so that I can be on record on today's most important 
proceedings pertaining to the Federal budget for Fiscal Year 2003.
  Today the House is considering the Federal budget for Fiscal Year 
2003. I stand by our President as he leads us in the war against 
terrorism. But I cannot vote for this budget proposal because I have 
serious concerns over this Budget's treatment of health car for 
seniors, veterans and retired military. In addition, Mr. Speaker, the 
Rules Committee refused to make in order the Blue Dog Coalition budget 
alternative. I cannot support a rule that will not allow for open, 
honest debate on a matter as important as the Federal budget.
  This proposed Budget fails to address pressing health care needs but 
includes new unspecified tax cuts--tax cuts that have not even been 
proposed by anyone or considered by Congress. According to the 
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Congress' own accounting agency, 
there is no budget surplus. Therefore, funding for these tax cuts could 
only come from Trust Funds that are set aside for health care 
entitlements such as Social Security and Military Retiree Health Care. 
I cannot support a budget that threatens the well being of our nation's 
seniors and veterans, or those who will soon be part of those venerable 
segments of our society.
  A particular matter affecting military retirees is Concurrent 
Receipt. Certain military personnel qualify for both military retired 
pay and veterans disability compensation. Current law requires that 
military pensions be reduced, dollar for dollar, by the amount of VA 
disability compensation received.
  This is an injustice that should have been corrected long ago. The 
United States government promises certain benefits when young Americans 
are recruited to serve a career of military service, including health 
care and pensions upon retirement. Veterans who become disabled in the 
line of service also earn and deserve their health care benefits.
  The proposed FY2003 Budget calls for concurrent receipt for a limited 
number of disabled retirees, but his Budge is woefully inadequate 
because it would continue to deny earned benefits to many other 
disabled retirees.
  Yesterday, Congressmen Gene Taylor and I attempted to introduce an 
amendment to the Budget proposal, to fully fund concurrent receipt for 
military retirees who are also service-connected disabled. Funds for 
this proposal would have come from funds allotted in the budget for 
unspecified tax cuts that have not even been proposed or considered by 
this House. Unfortunately, on a party line vote, the House Rules 
Committee refused to allow the full House of Representatives to even 
consider the Shows-Taylor Amendment.
  Reducing these promised and earned benefits--to disabled war heroes, 
of all people--is wrong. The FY2003 Budget Resolution that is being 
considered is called a ``wartime budget.'' How can we recruit soldiers 
to fight the War on Terrorism if we continue our legacy of broken 
promises? Too many military veterans are telling their children and 
grandchildren not to join the service because the government does not 
keep its promises. This is precisely why we must keep our promises to 
our military heroes this year, today.
  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H. Con. Res. 353. 
As a senior member of the House Budget Committee, I am profoundly 
disappointed with this measure which unrepentantly retreats from the 
fiscal policies and practices that fostered enormous federal budget 
surpluses. In the Majority's push to craft a ``nominally balanced 
budget,'' they have failed to put forth a plan to get our budget on the 
path to recovery. Further, Mr. Speaker, this budget blatantly ignores 
what everyone here knows--and what all the major economic forecasters, 
including CBO, OMB and GAO, told us well before September 11th--the 
federal budget will be overtaken by escalating budget deficits as the 
Baby Boom generation begins to retire in just six short years. This 
budget, which calls for cumulative non-Social Security deficits of 
$1.052 over the next five years, spending all of the Medicare trust 
fund surplus and 86 percent of the Social Security surplus, actually 
worsens our long-term fiscal picture.
  Mr. Chairman, last year, I stood on the floor of the House and 
cautioned against betting the ranch on ten-year estimates that the CBO 
itself has stressed are highly uncertain. Based on its own track 
record, CBO concludes that its estimated surpluses could be off in one 
direction or the other, on average, by about $52 billion in 2001, $120 
billion in 2002, and $412 billion in 2006. This year, the Majority 
seems to have come around to my view--why else would they put forth a 
budget based on five year numbers? Why indeed? It couldn't be because 
ten-year numbers would reveal just how much of the Social Security and 
Medicare surpluses this budget will really consume, could it? It 
wouldn't be to cloak the fact that over ten years, over half of the 
projected Social Security surplus will have to be diverted to cover 
other government functions, according to both the CBO and OMB, would 
it?
  Mr. Chairman, to arrive at a ``nominally balanced budget,'' my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle not only ignore the impending 
budgetary pressures out past 2007 but, for the first time since 1988, 
discard CBO's projections, now that they have become inconvenient, in 
favor of rosier OMB estimates. Have they learned nothing from the 
dramatic reversal in our nation's budget picture? Mr. Speaker, last 
year, the Majority was more than willing to accept the CBO's estimate 
of a $5.6 trillion surplus. Now that applying CBO's baseline to their 
budget resolution will result in a worsening of the non-Social Security 
deficit, to the tune of $318 billion, over the next decade, the 
Chairman of the House Budget Committee, my colleague, Mr. Nussle, has 
decided that since he does not like the ``weather report'' as prepared 
by CBO, he will simply ``turn the channel.'' Well, Mr. Speaker, while I 
respect my colleagues right to hope for the best, it does not erase our 
affirmative duty to prepare for the worst. The hallmark of responsible 
budgeting is leaving room for error. Last

[[Page H1067]]

year's budget left no room for error. In fact, by August, we were 
projecting that for the next seven years, virtually all of the non-
Social Security, non-Medicare surplus would be spent, not to improve 
the programs, not to create a prescription drug benefit under Medicare 
or even enhance the solvency of these critical programs, but to cover 
other government expenditures. And, Mr. Chairman, that was well before 
September 11th and the resulting war on terrorism.
  Additionally, Mr. Chairman I would note that to arrive at their 
``nominal balanced budget'' for 2003 the Majority has put the blinders 
on with respect to the supplemental defense request that we all know is 
coming next week and has blocked out the memory of their much-touted 
stimulus bill that was enacted just over a week ago and has a five-year 
cost of $94 billion. When the stimulus bill is included, this budget 
has a deficit of $224 billion in 2003 and $830 billion between 2003 and 
2007, excluding the Social Security surplus.
  Finally, Mr. Chairman, adding insult to injury is the Majority's 
proposal for a national prescription drug program for seniors. H. Con. 
Res. 353 claims to create a $350 billion reserve to be spent, over ten 
years, for not only a drug benefit but also the Medicare 
``modernization'' and provider givebacks. Without ten-year numbers for 
the rest of the budget, how can this proposal be credible? Further, the 
budget condition release of monies for a drug benefit on enactment of a 
Medicare modernization bill and provider payment adjustments. Last 
week, during the House Budget Committee's mark up of this bill, I 
offered a reasonable, budget neutral amendment that I offered to create 
a meaningful voluntary prescription drug benefit within Medicare for 
all Medicare beneficiaries. Regrettably, it was summarily rejected 
along party lines. Under my amendment, $69 billion would be added over 
three years to the Medicare service, raising the total commitment to 
$158 billion by 2007 and $500 billion over ten years. These additional 
funds are essential if a Medicare prescription drug benefit is to be 
available to and affordable for the majority of those receiving 
Medicare benefits.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to join me in rejecting this 
``spend today, borrow tomorrow'' measure that turn its back on hard-
learned fiscal of the passed decade and undermine longstanding domestic 
priorities, such as strengthening Social Security and Medicare, 
providing a universal prescription drug benefit. Mr. Chairman, I urge 
my colleagues to make the right choice today and reject this sham 
budget.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to H. Con. Res. 
353, the FY 2003 Congressional Budget Resolution. The budget resolution 
is fiscally irresponsible. It spends more than 86 percent of the Social 
Security surplus and uses up the entire Medicare surplus. There are 
only six years left before the baby-boom generation begins to retire, 
and now is not the time to deplete the Social Security and Medicare 
surpluses.
  Over the past eight years we have had budgets culminating in real 
debt reduction, and a growing surplus that did not rely on Social 
Security or Medicare. The budget resolution before us today, quickly 
creates an on-budget deficit of $974 billion over five years according 
to the Congressional Budget Office.
  The tragic attacks on September 11, 2001, the short and shallow 
recession, and the continuing war on terrorism taken all together did 
not precipitate the budget deficit. Mr. Chairman, while I support the 
war on terrorism, and increased homeland security, I did not support 
the irresponsible tax cut passed last year. The fact is, it consumed 
approximately 43 percent of the budget surplus and led to our current 
poor fiscal health.
  This budget does not lead to debt reduction or Social Security and 
Medicare solvency and it does not ensure that our other national 
priorities are met. Last year, the leadership went down the primrose 
path by enacting a tax cut that cost our country nearly 2 trillion 
dollars. But before this year is out we must get the budget back on 
track.
  Further, for the first time in years, the budget resolution is only a 
five-year budget instead of a ten-year budget. It remains in deficit 
throughout the next five years, which leaves us to infer the damage 
that will result in the second five years. In effect, this budget 
cloaks the large amount of Social Security and Medicare surpluses that 
will be spent after FY2007 and it allows the Leadership to avoid 
deciding whether to sustain the sunset provision of the tax cut passed 
last spring or extend the tax cuts at an additional cost. This lack of 
a ten-year plan leads me to believe that either the House Leadership 
has no long-term plan of recovery or they have a plan that will not 
stand scrutiny under the public eye. Regardless, this resolution offers 
no targets, no objectives, and no strategies to return to budget 
surpluses.
  In addition, this budget resolution attempts to make the deficit 
appear smaller by authorizing non-defense, and non-homeland security 
discretionary spending at almost five percent below the level necessary 
to maintain current levels of services. Perhaps, even more 
disappointing, the resolution cuts funding for the bipartisan No Child 
Left Behind Act recently signed into law, as well as other cuts in 
education, health care, and environmental protection.
  Mr. Chairman, I am saddened that we are being forced to vote on this 
irresponsible budget resolution without any opportunity to create a 
bipartisan fiscally responsible budget. As Members of this great 
institution, we often deliberate important issues that effect our own 
and our children's futures. During debates of this nature, I frequently 
ask myself one simple question; will the vote I am about to cast make 
the nation and our society better and safer for my two sons, Johnny and 
Matt, as they live, learn and grow in the 21st Century. For once, lets 
put their future first, ahead of Washington politics.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose the budget resolution 
for the fiscal year 2003.
  Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this resolution and 
I want to thank Chairman Nussle for the hard work he and his staff did 
pulling it together.
  I just want to point out one feature of the Budget Resolution that 
may go unnoticed as we debate defense spending and tax policy and other 
macroeconomic issues.
  This budget provides a healthy and needed boost for scientific 
research--a boost that goes significantly beyond what the 
Administration called for. I'm especially pleased with the funding for 
Function 250, the General Science function, which is based on an 11.1 
percent increase for Research and Related Activities at the National 
Science Foundation (NSF).
  Our nation's long-range future depends in no small measure on the 
investments we make today in research and development, and in science 
and math education. NSF spending is critical to ensuring a health R&D 
and education enterprise. The Budget Resolution recognizes that.
  I want to thank Chairman Nussle for working so cooperatively with me 
and with other Members of the House Science Committee to ensure that 
the Budget paid proper attention to science funding and to balancing 
the federal research portfolio. We obviously haven't solved all our 
science funding problems, but this Budget Resolution is an important 
step in doing so, especially given how tight overall domestic 
discretionary spending it.
  I urge my colleagues to support this Resolution.
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my 
concerns about the budget resolution that is under consideration. I 
feel very strongly that the budget we are debating is seriously flawed 
because it contains cuts and funding amounts that are frozen at 
previous year levels.
  Furthermore, the priorities reflected within the budget are a clear 
indication that vital needs and programs are being sacrificed. I am 
dismayed about this budget because the majority failed to make in order 
any of the amendments offered before the Rules Committee that would 
have restored many of the cuts proposed by the president.
  None of the (4) amendments I offered in committee were ruled in 
order. Consequently, my efforts to restore $379 million for Community 
Development Block Grants (CDBG's) to the purchasing power level of FY 
2002 will not become a reality. These grants are critical to local 
communities. They fund programs that promote economic development in 
low and moderate-income communities and are used to eliminate or 
prevent slums and blight and to address needs that pose a threat to the 
health and safety of our communities. The cuts, if implemented, would 
affect wealthy and low and moderate-income communities that receive 
CDBG's.
  I also advocated restoring funding for employment and training 
programs, which was cut by $686 million from the 2001 level. My 
amendment would have restored the funding for the Youth Opportunity 
grants program back to its current 2002 level which would have amounted 
to a nominal add-back of $180.6 million to the program for 2003.
  Youth training services prepare low-income youth for academic and 
employment success. They are vital to curtailing high school dropout 
rates, increasing college enrollment, and improving the unemployment 
rate of young adults.
  I also sought to restore a modest amount of $3 million to the Public 
Health Service's Office of Minority Health that is located in the 
Department of Health and Human Services. The funding would be used to 
reverse the tragic imbalance and racial disparity in terms of babies 
born in the African American and white communities in our country 
whereby a black baby born today is twice as likely to die within the 
first year of life than a white baby. That baby is twice as likely to 
be born prematurely and at a low birth weight.
  We must do all that we can to determine why out of 1,000 births, 14 
African American babies die, while for their white counterparts it is 
only 6 out of 1,000.

[[Page H1068]]

  Had my amendment been ruled in order, I would have been able to make 
the case to have the Secretary of HHS undertake research, in 
collaboration with other relevant agencies, to help address and 
eliminate racial health disparities in birth outcomes. This is one of 
our Government's Healthy People 2010 target goals.
  Finally, I offered an amendment that would reduce the proposed $28 
billion in new tax cuts in order to pay for the additional highway 
spending. This amendment adds $1.3 billion to the highway program for 
2003 with similar increases in the following years, adjusted for 
inflation. This would put the total add-back from the President's 
budget to $5.7 billion, since the budget committee has already added 
back $4.4 billion.
  Continued investment in highway infrastructure will contribute to job 
creation and protection as the economy recovers from recession. We 
simply cannot afford to shortchange our infrastructure needs.
  Mr. Chairman, these are just some of the shortcomings of the budget 
being offered today. At this time in our nation's history, we can ill-
afford to withdraw our important legacy of social and health services.
  Too many Americans are in need and feeling the impact of September 
11th. Our Government's support is more vitally required than ever in 
these difficult days. Our funding of key programs must be sustained, if 
our fellow Americans are not to lose faith in our leadership.
  Money counts for all Americans but if you are unemployed, hungry, 
elderly and sick, homeless and or a dependent child, it is a lifeline 
and a commitment that must be kept. Our Government should shortchange 
no American and that is why this budget is so disappointing. The gap 
between our socioeconomic reality and this proposal is daunting. The 
Budget does not add up, Mr. Chairman, and should be voted down.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the budget offered 
by the Republican Majority.
  Today's Washington Post contained a remarkable report that an 
Antarctic ice shelf the size of Rhode Island just shattered and 
collapsed into the sea. Scientists say that they have never seen as 
large a loss of ice mass and that the disintegration was all the more 
remarkable because of the extraordinary rapidity of the collapse. An 
ice mass 1,200 square miles in area and 650 feet thick that had existed 
for 12,000 years disintegrated in 35 days.
  I bring this to my colleagues' attention because the disintegration 
of the Federal Government's budget position over the last year has been 
nearly as staggering. Eight years of hard-won budgetary gains and 
fiscal discipline were thrown out the window in a single year. Last 
year's projected ten-year budget surplus of $5.4 trillion dollars 
collapsed literally before our eyes, sacrificed to the irresponsible 
tax and budget policies of the Administration and the Republican 
Majority in Congress.
  Just nine months ago, the Chairman of the Budget Committee said, 
``This Congress will protect 100 percent of the Social Security and 
Medicare Trust Funds. Period. No speculation. No supposition. No 
projections.'' This promise echoed similar pledges by the Speaker, the 
Majority Leader, and the Majority Whip to place the Social Security and 
Medicare surpluses in a lockbox and build a firewall between the Social 
Security and Medicare trust funds and the rest of the budget.
  Well, here we are twelve months later and $4 trillion poorer. The 
lockbox has been smashed open. The firewall has been breached. The 
promises of the Republican Majority have been broken. The budget before 
the House today raids Social Security and Medicare this year. It raids 
Social Security and Medicare next year. It raids Social Security and 
Medicare the year after that. It raids Social Security and Medicare for 
as far as the eye can see.
  Last year's budget resolution placed our nation's finances in a deep 
hole. The budget before the House today digs the hole deeper. It robs 
us of a chance to address critical needs, like a real prescription drug 
benefit for seniors and adequate funding to modernize our kids' schools 
and reduce class size. The return of large, multi-year budget deficits 
will also make it much more difficult to strengthen the Social Security 
and Medicare programs in advance of the Baby Boom generation's 
retirement, which begins in 2008 when the leading edge of the Baby Boom 
enters their retirement years.
  I urge the House to vote down this budget so we can begin work on a 
bipartisan budget resolution that meets our responsibilities, restores 
our fiscal health, and keeps faith with the promises all of us have 
made to the American people.
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to 
the Republican's fatally flawed budget resolution. Here we go again. 
The Republican resolution is simply smoke and mirrors. It's a 
``pretend'' budget so deceptive that if it were an ad, the public would 
sue for violations of the truth in advertising laws and they would win!
  Not even the transparent ploy of using five-year budget estimates 
from the President's Office of Management and Budget rather than the 
usual ten-year budget estimates from the non-partisan Congressional 
Budget Office can hid the fact that the Republican budget resolution 
would raid virtually all of the Social Security and Medicare surpluses 
over the next five years in order to pay for the fiscal chaos caused by 
last year's irresponsible tax bill.
  Five times last year, here in the House, we voted almost unanimously 
for a Social Security ``lockbox''. The President and the Republican 
leadership repeatedly pledged their commitment to that Social Security 
lockbox. In this budget, the Republicans don't just pick the lockbox. 
They shatter it with a sledge hammer!
  Don't be fooled. When you get rid of the accounting smoke and mirrors 
in the President's budget, the non-defense domestic spending is not 
even a ``current services'' budget. This budget is replete with severe 
program cuts. Cuts that low income Americans simply cannot take. We are 
left with much less than we had to begin with. Where is the money for a 
real prescription drug benefit? For affordable housing? For Head Start? 
For Education? For Job training? For worker health and safety?
  The deceptive ``pretend'' Republican budget ignores the cost of the 
Supplemental that will be offered as soon as this budget resolution 
leaves the House. It ignores the cost of providing relief to millions 
of middle class taxpayers to keep them from being subjected to the 
alternative minimum tax. It ignores the cost of the Republican proposal 
to make permanent the tax cuts from last year's bill. It provides 
woefully inadequate resources for a prescription drug benefit and makes 
any prescription drug benefit compete with both the cost of provider 
``givebacks'' and the costs of unspecified Medicare ``modernization''.
  Mr. Chairman, we need a budget that provides a real prescription drug 
benefit, improves education, ensures the solvency of Social Security 
and Medicare, and pays down the national debt. We need an honest 
budget, not this sham Republican press release.
  Securing our national defense and homeland security, adopting a real 
prescription drug benefit, improving education, providing affordable 
housing for the poor and the homeless, maintaining the solvency of 
Social Security and Medicare, paying down the national debt--that's the 
American agenda, not continuing to squander our resources on overly 
large tax cuts tilted toward those who need it least. We can and must 
do better. Reject the Republican budget.
  Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, like all Americans, I believe 
that we must meet our most pressing priorities of protecting our 
country against terrorism, improving our international relations, and 
growing our economy. I agree with the president that these current 
challenges warrant small, short-term deficit spending.
  However, I am concerned about the lack of sound budgeting practices 
in the Republican Budget offered today. Under their plan we cannot both 
address our most pressing current needs, and establish a framework for 
a long-term, sustainable revenue and spending plan without relying on 
massive borrowing.
  The Republican Budget spends most of the Social Security surplus and 
all of the Medicare surplus, putting us in terrible position to deal 
with the impending entitlement crises when the baby boomers retire. 
Despite promises last year from both the White House and Congress to 
save every single dollar of the Social Security surplus and Medicare 
surplus, and Congress' votes for a Social Security ``lockbox'' five 
times in the past few years, this budget uses nearly all the Medicare 
and Social Security surpluses--more than 86 percent of the Social 
Security surplus and every penny of the Medicare surplus.
  The Republican budget also just isn't honest--it doesn't take into 
account the tax and spending programs that both Republicans and 
Democrats know Congress is going to pass.
  For example, the individual Alternative Minimum Tax will balloon 
twenty-fold by 2012, affecting 39 million households (34 percent of all 
taxpayers), but fixing that problem isn't in the budget. Republicans 
also support making permanent last year's tax cuts, which would cost 
$569 billion and Speaker Dennis Hastert plans to bring up an additional 
tax cut bill this spring. None of these items are in the budget.
  And in terms of spending, the White House has said that it will 
submit a supplemental appropriations request for defense and homeland 
security that will certainly be approved by Congress--but that isn't in 
the budget either. They are assuming non-defense, non-homeland security 
discretionary spending will be kept at only five percent of the levels 
necessary to maintain current levels of services in 2003. We all know 
that's an unrealistic projection--even under Republican control of 
Congress, spending has always increased on these programs.

[[Page H1069]]

  Another problem with the Republican Budget is that it uses the 
optimistic, rosy projections from the Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) rather than the more conservative Congressional Budget Office 
(CBO) projections. Over the next five years, the difference between CBO 
and OMB revenue projections is $110.4 billion. OMB also plans on the 
government spending $48 billion less over the same five year period on 
mandatory spending programs like Medicare and veterans' benefits. 
That's a lot of ifs.
  To be perfectly honest, I don't really care whether the numbers we 
use are labeled CBO, OMB or UFO, but I do believe that it's sound 
budgeting practice to use more conservative numbers when you're 
balancing your checkbook.
  The bottom line is that even with all of these budget tricks and 
gimmicks that make it look like we can have everything we want, the 
budget is still in deficit and our debt is still climbing. The budget 
deficit for next year is projected to be $46 billion, and we'll be in 
deficit every year for ten years. By 2007, when the baby boomers start 
to retire, the government will owe more debt to the public--nearly $3.5 
trillion--that it does today.
  Our federal budget needs to be more balanced and fiscally responsible 
than today's Republicans proposal.
  I had hoped that House Republicans would recognize the need and the 
real possibility for bipartisan cooperation on developing a proposal 
for the federal budget. If the House leadership is willing to invite 
more people to the table, to go to an economic conference as we've 
suggested, I am confident that we can have a federal budget that will 
protect the country against terrorism, lend needed support to our 
military, take care of workers at home, and pay for needed programs 
like education, healthcare and social security as well as ensuring a 
strong economic foundation for the future.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Fiscal Year 
2003 Budget Resolution and to commend my colleagues on the Budget 
Committee for their hard work and efforts to produce a strong wartime 
budget that meets the needs of our nation. This budget directly 
addresses America's security needs--fighting the war on terrorism and 
protecting American citizens--without neglecting our domestic 
priorities.
  I am especially proud of the way this budget addresses the needs of 
our nation's 25 million veterans. First of all, discretionary spending 
for veterans totals $26.8 billion for 2003. That is a 12 percent 
increase over 2002 levels. VA medical care funding is increased to 
$23.9 billion and another $1.145 billion is included to prevent 
instituting a $1500 deductible for Priority 7 veterans.
  In addition, this budget provides the funds necessary to correct the 
concurrent receipt restriction for veterans with 60 percent or higher 
disability ratings. Current law requires that a veteran's retired pay 
be reduced by the amount of disability benefits he or she receives. 
This is an unfair practice and I am proud to support a budget that will 
end this restriction.
  The FY03 budget has the support of the American Legion, the Veterans 
of Foreign Wars, the AMVETS and many others. Their support further 
indicates that we are on the right track to meet the critical needs of 
veterans. I would like to thank Chairman Nussle and the Budget 
Committee for putting this sound resolution together and urge all of my 
colleagues to support this measure and ensure adequate funding for our 
nation and our veterans.
  Ms. SCHAKOWKSY. Mr. Chairman, on July 11, 2001, Republican House 
Majority Leader Dick Armey said, ``We must understand that it is 
inviolate to intrude against either Social Security or Medicare and if 
that means forgoing or, as it were, paying for tax cuts, then we'll do 
that.'' Unfortunately, the Republican Budget Resolution does not 
reflect that sentiment in the least. The House Republicans are offering 
a budget that virtually spends almost the entire Social Security 
surplus to pay for last year's tax breaks that mostly benefit the 
wealthy.
  I urge all my colleagues to oppose this Budget Resolution and here is 
why:
  First, the Republican Budget Resolution would take over $1 trillion 
from the Social Security Trust Funds and eliminate the Medicare surplus 
over the next five years.
  The President and every House Republican leader promised last year 
that every single dollar of the Social Security and Medicare surpluses 
would be saved for Social Security and Medicare. With this Republican 
budget, virtually no dollar of the Social Security and Medicare 
surpluses will be saved for Social Security or Medicare.
  The Congressional Budget Office reports that the single biggest 
factor in the disappearing surplus is the Bush tax cut, not the war on 
terrorism or the recession.
  Second, the Republican Budget Resolution abandons domestic 
priorities.
  The Budget Resolution: cuts $90 million from last year's bipartisan 
legislation that funds our nation's main elementary and secondary 
education programs; eliminates the Community Access Programs (CAP) and 
Health Professions Training program, freezes funding for the Ryan White 
AIDS Programs, and slashes funding for Rural Health Activities by $54 
million; cuts the Violence Against Women Act Grants, and funds the 
Legal Services Corporations well below needed levels: cuts state and 
local law enforcement grants by $1.7 billion; funds the Community 
Development Block Grant program at $379 million below what is needed to 
maintain current levels; does not include an additional $1.3 billion in 
federal highway funding requested by the Democrats.
  Third, the Republican Budget Resolution does not offer seniors a 
comprehensive, affordable, and voluntary prescription drug benefit 
under Medicare.
  Finally, the Republican Resolution does not take into account future 
impending costs like additional funding for homeland security, response 
to natural disasters, which will require more funds for FEMA and other 
federal agencies. None of these or other certain or likely 
contingencies are accommodated in the resolution, making its 
projections highly suspect.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Chairman, this year's budget provides the resources 
for education reform while funding a nation at war.
  As one of the authors of the bipartisan education bill signed by the 
President in January, I'm proud to support this budget. It's a 
compassionate one that reflects our nation's priorities and helps 
states and local schools meet the promise of education reform.
  It's a clear statement that this Congress and this President will not 
turn its back on our children and their future, even in a time of war.
  This budget builds on the significant increases provided for 
education in recent years--an average annual increase of 14.3 percent 
over the past four years.
  [TEACHERS.] I'm particularly proud of the support this budget 
provides for school teachers. President Bush and Congress have provided 
a 35 percent increase in federal teacher quality funds to help states 
and local schools put a quality teacher in every classroom by 2005. The 
President's budget request this year maintains this historic level of 
support. We're asking a lot of teachers, and they deserve our support.
  [SPECIAL EDUCATION.] The budget provides a $1 billion increase for 
special education, putting us on track for full-funding of the 
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act within 10 years. It also 
paves the way for us to make long-overdue changes to IDEA to ensure 
that children with special needs are not left behind. I'm especially 
grateful that our Budget Committee colleagues have taken this step.
  Building on last year's reforms, the budget also:
  [LOW-INCOME SCHOOLS.] Provides a $1 billion increase in Title I 
grants to low-income schools--on top of last year's $1.6 billion 
increase--focusing resources on the highest-poverty school districts.
  [READING FIRST.] Provides a $100 million increase for the President's 
plan to improve reading instruction by addressing reading difficulties 
at an early age through proven scientific methods.
  [HEAD START.] Increases Head Start by $130 million to increase 
children's preparedness for learning when they enter school.
  [CHARTER SCHOOLS.] Provides $100 million in new funding for charter 
school facility financing.
  [EXPANDED PARENTAL CHOICE.] Funds new tax relief measures, such as 
education tax credits, to assist parents transferring their children 
from chronically-failing or dangerous schools.
  [HISTORICALLY-BLACK COLLEGES & HISPANIC SERVING INSTITUTIONS.] 
Provides a 3.6 percent increase for assisting historically black 
colleges, universities and graduate institutions, as well as Hispanic-
serving institutions.
  [PELL GRANTS.] Maintains the maximum Pell Grant at a historic high of 
$4,000.
  The budget also paves the way for other priorities such as welfare 
reform and child care. Funding for the Child Care Development Block 
Grant (CCDBG) has more than doubled in the last five years to $2.1 
billion. This budget keeps that commitment to help move more Americans 
toward independence and self-reliance.
  I also want to commend the committee for providing significant 
increases in funding for two key Department of Labor offices that help 
to safeguard the pension assets and retirement security of American 
workers. The budget provides a $3 million increase for the Office of 
Labor Management Statistics, and a $7 million increase for the Office 
of Inspector General.
  Budgets are about tough choices. But there are some who don't want to 
make choices. There are some who dare to suggest that this budget 
somehow shortchanges our children.

[[Page H1070]]

  They say they want more funding for education, but they won't put 
forth their own budget to tell us how they'd get to that goal. 
Students, teachers, and parents deserve to know: Which tax would they 
raise? Which program would they eliminate?
  Last week's action in the Budget Committee offered a hint. Last week, 
Democrats offered 17 amendments to the proposed budget. Taken together, 
the amendments totaled $205 billion in new spending and $175 billion in 
new taxes over five years.
  Mr. Chairman, in this time of national emergency, what Americans want 
is leadership--not gamesmanship.
  I'm proud to support this budget, which responds to our nation's 
challenges without forgetting the promise to the children who are our 
future.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, last year, when the Republican 
leadership brought their budget resolution to the floor I commented 
that they were ``leading us down a fiscally dangerous path.'' Now that 
we are debating the fiscal year 2003 budget resolution, it is clear 
that the Republican leadership has no intention of exiting that 
treacherous route.
  This 2003 budget resolution, like its 2002 predecessor proposed by 
the same Republican majority, is fiscally irresponsible and puts at 
risk Congress's ability to live up to our commitments to public 
welfare, the environment, and important infrastructure projects.
  The Social Security trust fund is being invaded for more than $1 
trillion over the five-year budget window. In addition the entire 
Medicare surplus will be sacrificed. At the same time, the purchasing 
power of our domestic programs is being reduced by more than $20 
billion in fiscal 2003 alone. Instead of providing necessary funding 
for critical domestic needs, the Republican leadership is taking Social 
Security and Medicare funds paid from the wages of working people and 
returning it through tax cuts to the corporations and individuals who 
are least in need.
  The public deserves an honest, long-term budget, but Congress is not 
able to provide one when there is such a broad disconnect between what 
the Republican leadership promises and what they deliver. The 
opportunity for an honest debate with alternatives and amendments has 
been stifled by the closed rule the Republicans have put into place for 
the debate of this resolution.
  In addition to funding the war on terrorism and ensuring homeland 
security, my constituents in Oregon want the federal government to 
fulfill its commitment to domestic priorities, which includes Social 
Security, the environment, education, and necessary infrastructure 
projects. This budget resolution fails our domestic priorities and, 
therefore, I oppose its passage.
  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Chairman, this is truly an Enron budget. The 
Republican Budget Committee has cooked the books and produced the most 
seriously flawed budget in my career.
  The accounting gimmicks are spectacular. We have a 5-year budget 
instead of the customary 10-year budget. This is because it hides 
dwindling revenue from the gradually implemented Bush tax cut. If 
refashioned, a 10-year budget would show much larger deficits. 
Republicans also chose to use the politically crafted OMB numbers, 
instead of the non-partisan CBO numbers. Whether we insert political or 
non-partisan numbers into this resolution, the story is no different at 
the end of the day. Because all of the accounting tricks in the world 
cannot hide that we are still raiding Social Security and Medicare. And 
we are still growing the national debt. The Republican Party is trying 
to hide a budget deficit of $257 billion next year and that is just 
plain wrong.
  In this budget, providing a Medicare prescription drug benefit and 
increasing provider payments do not reflect half of what is necessary 
according to reasonable forecasts. And this budget does not even take 
into account the additional spending and further tax cuts proposed by 
the President. This time next year it is very likely we will have a 
budget deficit double or triple what is reflected in this resolution.
  Mr. Chairman, we need an honest budget, one that provides a 
prescription drug benefit to our seniors, keeps Social Security solvent 
for the baby-boomers, and does not further saddle the national debt we 
are leaving to our children. We can provide a budget that does all this 
by simply ending the greed. So much of our revenue surplus was 
squandered on a tax cut that benefitted the wealthiest 1 percent of 
Americans. And last week, the President invited them back to the 
feeding trough. We must not pay for this giveaway on the backs of our 
seniors, children, and all those looking to Social Security for their 
retirement needs.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to keep 
your promises to your constituents and vote down this budget.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Republican 
budget resolution for fiscal year 2003.
  I understand that the nation is engaged in a vital enterprise in 
response to the vicious attacks of September 11th. I know that fighting 
to break up terrorist organizations and protecting our country and our 
people, which I support, are expensive undertakings and the highest 
national priorities.
  But, Mr. Chairman, they are not our only priorities.
  From September 11th on, the President has exhorted the American 
people to continue our normal activities--perhaps being more aware of 
what's around us, perhaps putting up with more security hassles and 
delays--but starving the domestic budget is not going to keep us moving 
forward as I thought the President meant we should.
  We still need to invest adequately in health care, education, job 
training, law enforcement, clean air and water, energy efficiency, 
economic development, housing, science and technology.
  We particularly need to address the impending retirement of the baby 
boom generation, strengthening Medicare and Social Security, not 
diverting their surpluses to general government operations.
  At bottom, Mr. Chairman, what we need to do in this budget resolution 
is identify and provide the resources needed to do both of these 
things--defend and protect ourselves, and invest in the future--which 
means we must take another look at the huge, irresponsible tax cuts for 
the wealthy that were enacted last year.
  Some people thought we could make the tax cuts and have plenty of 
money left over to meet the Nation's needs. They were wrong. This 
budget misses or avoids opportunities as it promises years of deficit 
spending. This demonstrates that we must revisit the revenue side and, 
at a minimum, suspend further cuts until we can afford them.
  Mr. Chairman. I am certain we can do better than this budget 
resolution. I urge my colleagues to vote against it and commit to 
working together to fashion a new budget resolution that provides the 
resources to provide both for our security and for our Nation's 
domestic needs.
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to address the issue of funding 
veterans military retirement in conjunction with veterans disability 
compensation. I am pleased that the House fiscal year 2003 budget 
resolution includes funding to eliminate the veterans retirement and 
disability concurrent receipt offset. The $6 billion over the next 6 
years to gradually provide full benefits to all disabled retirees is 
long over due.
  I firmly believe veterans should not have money taken out of their 
military retirement to pay for their disability compensation because 
these are two separate entities that serve two different compensations. 
I was pleased to cosponsor legislation to repeal this offset, and I am 
pleased that by providing funding for concurrent receipt, Congress has 
finally recognized the importance of keeping its promises to those men 
and women who have risked their lives, and have suffered injuries in 
preserving our freedom.
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Budget 
Resolution. This is a good budget that will serve our Nation well 
during this time we are at war with terrorists. It funds our national 
security as well as addressing our homeland security needs while 
ensuring that many other problems are addressed.
  To touch upon just a few of the many worthy items in this budget, I 
want to highlight the support in this budget for local firefighters, 
disabled military retirees, home healthcare and IDEA funding.
  Firefighters often provide the backbone of both rural and urban 
communities in our Nation. They risk their lives in order to save the 
lives and property of others. I am gratified that the Budget Committee 
was able to recognize their important contributions by encouraging this 
Congress to continue to provide grants directly to local firefighters.
  I am also pleased that this resolution provides funding to address 
the concurrent receipt problem facing our military retirees who are 
disabled. This budget puts us on a path to eliminate the concurrent 
receipt problem within 5 years for our military retirees who are the 
most severely disabled.
  I also want to applaud the Committee for continuing its commitment to 
ensure that home healthcare remains available to our elderly. A 15 
percent cut in reimbursements to home health providers scheduled for 
October 1, 2002 will devastate the industry and ultimately force many 
of our elderly out of their own homes and into hospitals and nursing 
home facilities.
  Finally, this budget continues the commitment of this Congress to 
work hard toward fully funding its commitment to assist schools in 
educating students with special education needs. We include $1 billion 
over last year or a 12 percent increase. Further, we commit to 
providing 12 percent increases every year over the next 10 years so 
that we fully fund the commitment made by Congress on IDEA funding.
  This budget also does so much more to protect the American people. I 
commend it to all

[[Page H1071]]

of my colleagues and urge you to support H. Con. Res. 353, the Budget 
Resolution for Fiscal Year 2003.
  Mr. PASTOR, Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to this 
misguided budget resolution.
  After 28 years of deficit spending and digging our children into 
deeper and deeper debt, in 1998, we finally balanced the budget and 
experienced budget surpluses. This lasted for only 5 years, and then a 
misguided $1.4 trillion tax cut threw us into fiscal irresponsibility 
once more. Now, this budget sends us into deficit spending as far as 
the eyes can see.
  As bad as deficit spending may be, what is worse, we are once again 
raiding Social Security and Medicare.
  We have taken endless votes in this House to ensure that we protected 
Social Security. We voted time and time again to place the Social 
Security trust fund into a ``lockbox.'' But this lockbox has been 
smashed open and Social Security has been raided so that we can give 
the wealthiest among us a huge tax cut.
  Mr. Chairman, I strongly support the President's efforts to stop 
terrorism. We must fund our military and homeland security. We must 
ensure that we are safe to travel our country and the world. We must 
support our President in this effort.
  But, we cannot neglect the other needs of our people. We should fully 
fund education programs for all ages. We should ensure that our 
Nation's infrastructure is modern and safe. We must find a way to 
provide health care for those millions who have no health care options. 
We must find a way to provide prescription drug coverage for our 
elderly. And we must do whatever it takes to protect Social Security.
  It is my contention that this budget is broken. We might be better 
served to start over, to sit down with the President and come up with a 
new plan, a plan that protects us from those who wish to do us harm, a 
plan to protect our children from ignorance, a plan to protect our 
elderly from sickness, a plan to protect our children from added fiscal 
irresponsibility, and a plan to protect Social Security.
  Mr. Chairman, I regretfully oppose this budget. Let's start over with 
the President. If we work together we can do all these things.
  Ms. KILPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, the budget resolution we are 
considering today is more of a campaign pamphlet than it is a 
deliberative piece of legislation. As a member of the Appropriations 
Committee, I'm pleased to say that the work of the Budget Committee is 
no longer grounded in fiscal reality but more apt to produce what we 
call soundbite legislation. Once again, we are seeing that budget 
resolutions can engage in flights of fancy, while the Appropriations 
Committee will be forced to do the hard work of deciding how the real 
money will be spent in this place. This resolution really makes the 
budget process a sham. This is a budget that's based less on sound 
economic assumptions and more on the principles of Enronomics.
  The supporters of this budget are working on a selling job to make 
you believe that this plan will provide a balanced budget by fiscal 
year 2010. But what we are told is far different from the fiscal 
reality. This is feel good legislation that will exact fiscal harm and 
pain in the out years. To hide the real truth, the Republican budget 
purposely uses 5 year numbers instead of 10.
  The Republican budget is simply irresponsible. In its budget, the GOP 
proposes new tax cuts and funds these cuts by spending hundreds of 
billions from the Social Security trust fund to pay for other programs. 
Moreover, the Republican leadership plans to bring to the floor next 
month even larger tax cuts and has expressed support for making 
permanent the provisions in last year's tax cut. CBO estimates that by 
making these tax cuts permanent, revenues would be reduced by $569 
billion over 10 years.
  Democrats want a budget that reflects our Nation's priorities. 
Unfortunately, key Democratic amendments on key issues that the 
majority of Americans care deeply about were blocked by Republicans 
from reaching the House floor.
  An amendment I offered relating to prescription drugs, which would 
have ensured that seniors receive a prescription drug benefit that is 
comprehensive and meaningful, was blocked from being considered on the 
floor. Unfortunately, the $350 billion that the Republicans have 
proposed in their budget for Medicare reform and prescription drugs 
would barely make a dent in helping seniors and the disabled in getting 
the prescription drug coverage they need--and deserve. We have all made 
this a pledge with our words--the test is to show it with the numbers 
laid out in the budget resolution. The Republican resolution fails 
miserably at this test.
  Their budget also fails to adequately fund other key priorities so 
important to Americans and our future, such as education, child care, 
and environmental protections.
  The Republicans budget aims to hide the truth and the real costs over 
the years. I oppose this budget resolution and urge my colleagues to 
vote against this resolution.
  The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired.
  Pursuant to the rule, the amendment in the nature of a substitute 
printed in House Report 107-380 is adopted and the concurrent 
resolution, as amended, is considered read.
  Under the rule, the Committee rises.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
LaTourette) having assumed the chair, Mr. Simpson, Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, having had under consideration the concurrent 
resolution (H. Con. Res. 353) establishing the congressional budget for 
the United States Government for fiscal year 2003 and setting forth 
appropriate budgetary levels for each of fiscal years 2004 through 
2007, pursuant to House Resolution 372, he reported the concurrent 
resolution, as amended pursuant to that resolution, back to the House.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is 
ordered.
  The question is on the concurrent resolution.
  Under clause 10 of rule XX, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 221, 
nays 209, not voting 5, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 79]

                               YEAS--221

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bereuter
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boozman
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hansen
     Hart
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kerns
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (KY)
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller, Dan
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, Jeff
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Schrock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sullivan
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins (OK)
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--209

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barrett
     Becerra
     Bentsen
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     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr

[[Page H1072]]


     Fattah
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     Watt (NC)
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     Wexler
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     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Blagojevich
     Ehlers
     Gutierrez
     Shows
     Traficant

                              {time}  1955

  Mr. JOHN changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. RILEY changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the concurrent resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 79, adoption of H. Con. Res. 
353, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for FY 2003, I was too late to 
cast my vote because I was detained in a meeting. Had I been present, I 
would have voted ``yea.''

                          ____________________