[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 117 (Tuesday, September 17, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6288-H6289]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IMPLEMENTING A LONG-TERM BUDGET PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Duncan). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the themes that were 
developed by the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) and the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. Speaker, we are less than 2 weeks away from the end of the fiscal 
year, and it is rapidly becoming very clear that the leadership of the 
House, this House of Representatives, has painted itself into a corner. 
How do we implement a responsible long-term budget plan? How do we 
extend the current budget enforcement rules that help control 
discretionary spending and require offsets for mandatory spending and 
new tax cuts? These budget enforcement rules are set to expire on 
October 1. How do we enact the 13 annual appropriations bills in 
regular order?
  All of these questions must be answered by the House leadership if we 
are going to stem the flow of red ink and put the Federal budget back 
on the path to balance. Unfortunately, the only solution that the House 
leadership seems to have is to pretend that these deadlines do not 
exist. This is not a workable solution.
  The Blue Dog Coalition has offered to work with the Republican 
leadership to develop bipartisan answers to these questions by 
establishing a viable long-term budget, extending the budget 
enforcement rules to control both the tax side and the spending side of 
the Federal budget, and to develop a road map to enact the 
appropriations bills in a fiscally responsible manner. We have offered 
in the past to work with the leadership, and we do that again this 
week.
  First, Congress and the President need to make tough choices to 
address the changes in the budget outlook. The President has an 
obligation to lead in proposing a game plan to deal with the changed 
circumstances and to put the budget back on a path to balance without 
using the Social Security surplus. Right now under the President's 
budget, we will be borrowing from the Social Security trust fund until 
at least 2009. Given that the House of Representatives has voted seven 
times since I have been in this House in 5\1/2\ years to protect the 
Social Security trust fund by placing it in a lockbox, it is simply 
unacceptable to borrow the Social Security trust fund for the next 8 
years to operate the general revenue side of the government. This is 
why we must sit down in a bipartisan manner and develop realistic tax 
and spending levels that will put us back on the glide path to a 
balanced budget.
  Next, we must extend the budget caps which are set to expire, the 
provisions of the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, which were adopted on 
a bipartisan basis expire, as I said earlier, on October 1. Unless we 
renew our budget

[[Page H6289]]

discipline, Congress will continue to find ways to pass more 
legislation that puts still more red ink on the national ledger. Even 
Alan Greenspan and the Concord Coalition agree that steps must be taken 
to answer these questions in such a way that we balance the budget. 
Chairman Greenspan stated, and I quote, ``Failing to preserve (budget 
enforcement rules) would be a grave mistake . . .'' The Concord 
Coalition warned that allowing budget enforcement rules to expire is 
``an open invitation to fiscal chaos.''
  Finally, we must work together to develop a bipartisan proposal to 
finish the 13 appropriations bills.
  Mr. Speaker, our fiscal year ends in about 2 weeks. Over the past few 
years, when Congress and the President have not been able to finish the 
13 appropriations bills, spending has far exceeded the levels that were 
recommended in the budget resolution earlier in the year. This year, we 
have not sent one of the 13, not one of the 13 appropriations bills to 
the President for his signature. As a matter of fact, the House, the 
House of Representatives has passed only three of the 13 regular 
appropriations bills off of the House floor; and again, the fiscal year 
ends in 2 weeks. There have been none that have been voted on on this 
House floor, or none scheduled since Labor Day, since we returned to 
our work from the August recess.
  Mr. Speaker, it is vital, if we are going to put the budget back on 
the path to a balanced budget, that we work together to control the 
discretionary spending on these 13 bills. Working together in a 
bipartisan basis, we can balance the budget, just like we did in the 
Balanced Budget Act of 1997. This is why I urge and call upon the 
President and the Republican congressional leadership to work with us 
to develop bipartisan proposals that will ensure that we have a 
fiscally responsible government.

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