[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 31 (Thursday, March 11, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1045-H1051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HIGHLIGHTING UNSTEADY BUSH BUDGET POLICIES RELATING TO AFRICAN
AMERICANS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the unsteady
budget
[[Page H1046]]
policies of President Bush in regards to allocating Federal resources
to African Americans and many working American families.
Yesterday, I was joined by the House minority leader, the gentlewoman
from California (Ms. Pelosi), and my colleagues in the Congressional
Black Caucus to issue a report that paints an accurate picture of how
the Bush 2005 fiscal year budget will impact not just African American
families but the majority of middle- and lower-income families. Our
findings and those of others in the advocacy community reveal that the
Bush budget ignores the very urgent challenges facing Americans across
this great Nation. In fact, in the face of historic unemployment,
President Bush seeks to cut, if not completely eliminate, critical
education, health care, housing, and small business development
programs that help families and employers survive during difficult
economic times. Last Friday, the United States Department of Labor
reported that not one, not one single private sector job was created
during the month of February, and that the national unemployment rate
remains at a staggering 5.6 percent.
This terrible news is particularly frightening for the African
American community. The African American unemployment rate for February
was 9.8 percent, almost double the national average. What is worse,
since President Bush took office, the number of African Americans
without jobs has increased by 20 percent. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, the
outlook for the Bush 2005 budget is just as dismal as the Bush track
record on job creation.
President Bush touts steady leadership, but his actions say
otherwise. He once said that he would be a uniter, but his budget
proposes to divide Americans by rewarding the wealthiest 1 percent of
our population while leaving the rest of the American people behind.
The Bush budget is bad news for the 8 million African American children
enrolled in our national elementary and secondary schools. It is no
secret that schools with high concentrations of low-income minority
students spend significantly less per pupil than schools with fewer
low-income students.
Instead of rising to the challenge, the President's budget underfunds
his own No Child Left Behind legislation by over $9 billion.
Additionally, Mr. Speaker, the Bush budget cuts in half the funding for
after-school programs that enable parents to educate their children and
hold down jobs. If this Congress is truly committed to family values,
we must support all families from birth through the golden years.
Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to another member of the Congressional
Black Caucus as we come together to highlight the budget of President
Bush and how it affects African Americans, the gentleman from Virginia
(Mr. Scott).
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his
leadership on the budget issues.
Mr. Speaker, before we discuss what we cannot fund, we have to
discuss a little bit about where we are in the budget. One cannot
discuss these numbers without charts, because we hear rhetoric, and it
is confusing. But when we see the numbers on the chart, we get an idea
of where we are and how deep a hole we are in.
This is the on-budget deficit for years beginning with the Johnson
administration through Nixon and Ford and Carter, Reagan and Bush,
larger deficits; the green is the Clinton administration where we
passed a budget in 1993 without a single Republican vote in the House,
without a single Republican vote in the Senate, and were able to
exercise fiscal responsibility, digging ourselves out of the deep hole
and into a surplus. And this is an on-budget surplus, so that the
Social Security and Medicare are temporary surpluses and are in a
lockbox to be used for Social Security and Medicare in the future. We
had a surplus.
When the Republicans came in after the 1994 elections, they passed
significant tax cuts that President Clinton vetoed. They threatened to
close down the government, as my colleagues will remember; and he
vetoed them again. They closed down the government, and he still
refused to sign those massive tax cuts because they were fiscally
irresponsible. When President Bush came in after the 2000 elections,
they passed those same tax cuts again, and we see how much damage has
been done to the budget. Now, this is a net surplus in the budget,
going down to almost $700 billion, a total swing of approximately $750
billion deterioration in our budget situation.
Let us put that into context: the entire revenue from the individual
income tax, everybody's individual income tax, less than $800 billion.
We have seen a deterioration in the deficit, $750 billion.
Now, this chart shows it another way: the percentage of the budget
paid for with borrowed money. You see, this is World War II, you come
through the years. The Clinton years, we went into significant surplus;
and when this President Bush came in, we started spending, paying for
more and more of our budget with borrowed money.
{time} 1430
We are up now to over 30 percent, well over 30 percent of the budget,
the Federal budget is paid for with borrowed money. And you will notice
that that is a level we have not seen since World War II.
Now, we got there with tax cuts. It is interesting to know who got
the tax cuts. This chart shows what the upper 20 percent, the next 20
percent, the middle 20 percent and the other 20 percentiles, how much
of the tax cut they got. If you look at the top 20 percent and just
look at the top 1 percent, about half of the tax cuts have gone to the
upper 1 percent of the taxpayers. To put it another way, you can look
and see approximately what you got if you made more than a $1 million
on average you get about $89,000 tax cuts. $500,000 to $1 million, you
got about $13,000. And on average as you get down to $50,000 to
$75,000, you are getting about $132. And below $50,000 you hardly need
any ink to draw the bar. Off the chart for millionaires, do not need
ink to draw the bar for ordinary Americans.
Now, we were told we had to do that to create jobs. Let us see how
many jobs have been created because we went so far in debt. We were
willing to go so far in debt and give tax cuts to the wealthy, how many
jobs were created? Well, we have lost, have not gained, we have lost
almost 3 million jobs during this administration.
Now, we hear the great excuse: ``9/11.'' Everything that goes wrong
is because of 9/11. Because of 9/11 we lost jobs. But wait. Every 4
years back to Harry Truman, everybody has been gaining jobs, everybody
has been able to end their term of office with more jobs than they came
in with. President Eisenhower, in his second administration he lost
about 200,000 jobs but he gained 1,900,000 in his first term to his net
plus 1,700,000 jobs. Everybody else, every 4 years gained jobs.
If you want to blame 9/11, you ought to notice that this chart
includes not just 9/11, but it also includes the Korean War and the
Vietnam War, hostages in Iran, the Persian Gulf War from 12 years ago,
the Cold War, Kosovo, Grenada, everything else, everybody is gaining
jobs until the result of this fiscal irresponsibility has actually cost
us jobs.
Now, when you run up this kind of debt, you have to pay interest on
the national debt. This chart shows the interest on the national debt
we expected to pay after President Clinton left office going down to
zero because we were on target to paying off the entire national debt.
This red line is the interest on the national debt we are going to
end up having to pay because of our fiscal irresponsibility. By 2009,
the difference is almost $300 billion. Now, let us put $300 billion
into perspective. At $30,000 a piece, you can hire 10 million people
with $300 billion. 10 million. And it gets wider and wider as you go
out.
This is an opportunity that we are going to lose because we are going
to be $300 billion less than we thought we were going to have when
President Clinton left office.
We also have to recognize that the Social Security program will be a
challenge. These red bars represent the fact that we are bringing in
more Social Security funds than we are paying out. That is because we
recognize that when the baby boomers retire, we will be paying out more
than we are bringing in. And we need to build up the trust fund so that
hopefully we can pay this as much as we can.
[[Page H1047]]
2017 it goes into deficit. We are now spending all of this Social
Security surplus on the present budget. We are in deficit even after we
have spent the Social Security and Medicare. The Medicare chart looks
similar to this. We are spending the Social Security surplus.
Now, when you cross the 300 line, 2025, somewhere in there, when you
cross the 300 line that is $1,000 for every man, woman, and child
including those on Social Security. Every man, woman, and child $1,000.
When you cross the 600 line, that is $2,000 for every man, woman, and
child just to make this, just to pay the Social Security shortfall.
Now, you may look at this and decide, well that is too challenging,
we never could have paid it. It is just too much of a problem. But when
you look back at this chart, we have been told that if you just look at
what this administration wants to give to the top 1 percent, top 1
percent, that would have been enough to pay Social Security benefits
without reducing benefits, without increasing the age for 75 years, or
you can give the top 1 percent a tax cut.
Now, Mr. Greenspan told us that if you extend the tax cuts like it
looks like this administration will propose, it has proposed, if we
extend the tax cuts we should cut Social Security. Now, I think he used
the word ``adjust'' Social Security. He is talking about increasing the
age, reducing the COLA. I think most people, including the Republican
officials, have categorized that as a cut. And I think most people
would view that as a cut; they are going to be getting less than they
would have if you had not made that adjustment. I would certainly call
that a cut.
But he said if you extend the tax cuts, you have to cut Social
Security. The GAO issued a report recently that showed that we are on
track to disaster. A great political philosopher once said, ``If you do
not change directions, you may end up where you are headed.''
Well, the GAO says that we are headed towards a situation in a few
years, a couple of decades where the Social Security deficit and
interest on the national debt alone will absorb all of the projected
Federal revenues for those years. In other words, all of the revenues
will be insufficient to pay just the Social Security shortfall and
interest on the national debt. That is without Medicare, and Medicaid,
and that is without any other Federal spending. Just the Social
Security shortfall and interest on the national debt will absorb all of
the Federal revenues.
Obviously, that is a direction we should not be going in. We need to
change directions. And the reason we cannot fund many of the things
that you mentioned that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the
chairman of the Black Caucus, mentioned is because we are using up the
money in interest in the national debt.
We are having trouble funding police officers, 100,000 police
officers. And we said we could with the $300 billion additional
interest on the national debt that we will be paying in just a few
years, we could have hired 10 million people at $30,000 apiece, 5
million at $60,000 a piece, and we are having trouble trying to find
funds to hire 100,000 police officers.
We cannot properly fund veterans benefits, education, health care.
There are a lot of things we cannot do because it is all being absorbed
by the interest on the national debt necessitated because we have put
our budget in unprecedented deficit.
Now, the idea that we are going to get a promise that the deficit
will be cut in half in 5 years is really insulting. We should be
talking about how we get back up into surplus where we were when this
administration came in. Instead of running up debt, we ought to be
running up surpluses so we will be prepared to meet the challenges of
Social Security.
At this rate, with all this red ink, we will be so far in debt that
we will not have anything for Social Security. We will not have
anything for Medicare. We will not have anything for jobs because we
are paying interest on the red ink that we are running up. That is the
problem that we have. And the additional problem that we have is that
the tough choices that created this green ink, were tough choices,
politically tough choices. And you can not make those tough choices
until you have at least acknowledged a problem.
This administration refers to this graph and the deficit as
``manageable.'' That is why we need a graph to show the people what we
are talking about. This administration refers to this job graph by
saying that the tax cuts are working. The tax cuts are not working. We
have lost 3 million jobs. And so you need the graph to show
specifically what we are talking about in this budget and how bad it
is.
And, so, I would say to the chairman of the Congressional Black
Caucus, I thank him for the opportunity to present the problem so that
we can, as others participate, can talk about the things that we cannot
fund because we have this situation where we are so far in the hole
with a graph such as this. You cannot create a graph like this by
accident. We are far in the hole, and we need to dig ourselves out so
that we can make the important investments in education, in health
care, in veterans benefits and the other important challenges that we
have before us. And I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings)
for yielding.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott)
will yield for a second, I want to ask the gentlemen a few questions.
They call this a jobless recovery. Would my colleague agree that there
is a recovery?
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, this is the problem with using
rhetoric without using charts to show what we are talking about. You
have indicated that some have looked at this chart and said we are in a
recovery. Others have said the tax cuts are working. One looks at the
chart, this is a miserable failure. We have lost 3 million jobs. I do
not call that a recovery.
Now, if you go back 50 to 75 years, they blame a recession. The
experts will say that this administration did not inherit a recession.
The recession began on this administration's watch.
Whenever it started, it has been over by all accounts since the end
of 2001. Since then, we have had all of 2002, and 2003 and we are into
2004. No recession from the beginning of any recession in the last 50
years, we have always within about 30 months recovered all of the jobs
that were lost during the recession within about 30 months. Here we are
almost 40 months after the beginning, whenever they say it started, it
has been at least 40 months, we have not recovered the jobs yet.
This is the worst recovery we have had in modern history. That is not
a recovery.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, there has been a question that has been
raised over and over again, and, as a matter of fact, I think I just
heard the President say this within the last few days, that one of the
problems was 9/11, and that 9/11 caused us to go through some extra
economic problems. And I was just wondering when my colleague takes a
look at his charts, is he taking into consideration, when he talks
about 40 years back, is he taking into consideration the fact that we
had this very, very unique situation and regretful situation with 9/11?
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, when people talk about 9/11, they
have to take into consideration that this chart goes back to Truman and
Eisenhower, that includes the Korean War, it includes Kennedy, Johnson,
Nixon, it included the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the hostages in Iran,
Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo, the Persian Gulf War. All of those are on
this chart. Everyone created jobs during their four-year
administration.
{time} 1445
President Clinton, 10 million jobs the first term, over 10 million
both the first term and over 10 million jobs over the second term.
Everyone has had problems. There have been recessions all the way up
and down here. Everyone has been able to deal with adversity and create
jobs. Until you get here.
Now, if the President had offered an economic plan that had been
rejected, he might say that because you rejected my plan, if you had
only adopted my plan, things would have been better. We adopted his
plan. We passed, I did not vote for them, but Congress passed his plan.
And it resulted in a massive deficit and job loss.
Mr. CUMMINGS. In other words, when you have the loss of jobs and you
[[Page H1048]]
have, in looking at the very end of your chart there, does that, how
does that affect the overall economy?
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. When you lose jobs, there are things that,
first of all, I do not know how you can spend that kind of money. Right
after 9/11, we appropriated $40 billion. At $40,000 each you could have
hired a million people. I do not know how you end up losing jobs; 9/11
actually should have stimulated jobs, not lost jobs. The problem is
that this administration does not look at money, financial
responsibility, with anyone. They decided to do something. It does not
matter how much it costs.
Just look at the war in Iraq. The Persian Gulf War 12 years ago cost
the United States $7.4 billion, 7.4. Now, the 60, 70, $80 billion was
the total cost; but because we had allies, total cost was $7.4 billion.
When we appropriated $87 billion a few months ago, we had already
spent $79 billion on the war. Total $166 billion; 7.4, 166, just to
implement the my-way-or-the-highway, go-it-alone strategy. Had we
developed some allies so that someone else could help pay the money and
absorb some of the causalities, it is not all our money and all our
causalities, it would have been closer to the 7.4 than the 166.
Now, we are going, the estimates are about $50 billion. The chairman
of the Committee on the Budget has estimated about $50 billion will be
coming next year for Iraq, so that is another 50, 7.4, 166, 50 and who
knows what after that.
Let us put the 166 in perspective. That is more money than we spent
in a year on the Department of Homeland Security for the security of
the United States; and the Department of Education, the entire
Department of Education budget. Plus, it is still more than the
Department of Transportation, all road-building we are supposed to be
doing. And it is more than the Department of Labor and Department of
State. Add them all up, combined.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Combined.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Combined. Homeland Security, Education,
Transportation, Department of Labor, Department of State, add them all
up, it does not come to $166 billion; 7.4, 166. How much do you have to
spend before someone suggests that the spending is out of control?
Mr. CUMMINGS. One of the things that I remember when the President
was considering going to war, one of the things that was asked of the
President by the Congressional Black Caucus was exactly how were we
going to pay for this war and exactly where was this money going to
come from, because we have a limited situation. But I guess what you
are saying is that what we are doing is we are overspending. I am
trying to put it in laymen's terms.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. If you are going to spend $166 billion and we
would be willing to spend whatever it takes to make the United States
safe. We are now debating whether we are safer or not as a result of
spending as a result of spending $166 billion. It looks to me that
there are a lot of other things you could have done with a $166 billion
budget that would have made America a lot safer than we are today.
But look at the red ink. I mean, when you start adding it up, there
was not a peep mentioned about how we were going to pay it. No
sacrifice. And, in fact, when you look at some of the things that the
House passed right after 9/11 with most of the votes coming from the
Republican side of the aisle, we passed one provision which was a
repeal of the alternative minimum tax for corporations. That is kind of
technical, but what we found about 15, 20 years ago was that a lot of
corporations were paying out dividends year after year after year. They
were profitable companies; but because they had so many loopholes and
deductions, they were paying no income tax. And so they passed a
provision many years ago called the alternative minimum tax for
corporations. In the alternative for no tax, at least pay a minimum
tax. And that has been a law right after
9/11 when everyone was supposed to be sacrificing. The House passed a
provision to eliminate the alternative minimum tax for corporations.
They took that opportunity when everyone is supposed to be
sacrificing to eliminate the alternative minimum tax for corporations.
And while they were at it, they have made the repeal retroactive for 15
years. So if you had paid the alternative minimum tax in the last 15
years, you would get your money back. Several corporations would be
getting a billion dollars back. Enron would get $250 million.
Now, if you had a company and you got a billion dollars retroactive
tax relief, an employee of that corporation would be no more likely to
have a job the next day than the day before. That is not stimulating
the economy. There is no more demand for your product. Now the uppity-
ups in the corporation would be more likely to get their bonuses, the
stockholders more likely to get their dividends. But an employee for
the company, because there is no more demand for the product, is no
more likely to have a job the next day than the day before. That is the
kind of provision that this House passed.
Thankfully, there was a Democratic majority in the Senate at that
time and that was defeated in the Senate. But when you talk about
sacrifice and how do you pay for a $166 billion war, well, you do not
worry about it; you just let the next generation pay for it. You pay
for it out of the next generation's Social Security. You borrow the
money and worry about it later. That is not the fiscally responsible
thing to do. It is not how you stimulate the economy. It is not how you
produce jobs, and it is not what you ought to be doing to the next
generations.
Mr. CUMMINGS. One last question. I will never forget when the
President talked about the war in Iraq, when the President talked about
the war on Iraq. I am sure you will recall one of the things that he
said was that this war had been brought to us. I shall never forget it.
I was sitting in this Chamber. And he said to us we need to take this
responsibility so that our children and our grandchildren would not
have to address it. And it sounds like what the gentleman is saying is
that at least in part this war will have to be paid by our children and
our grandchildren, at least, if not our great grandchildren because of
the way things are going.
The other issue is this: one of the things we hear over and over
again from the President is that he keeps talking about, saying that
this side of the aisle wants to increase the taxes on Americans. And
basically what he is saying is that if we do not extend and make these
tax cuts permanent, that is like increasing taxes on Americans. That is
a very interesting way to put it.
I just want to know what you thought.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. The idea that if we do nothing, that that is a
tax increase. The important thing is not to worry about what the label
is. The important thing is to look at this chart. The policies of this
administration which have been pretty much adopted in total have
resulted in a deterioration in the budget almost equivalent to the
total amount of money that we get from the individual income taxes.
Mr. CUMMINGS. You said that is $800 billion.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. The money we get from the individual income
tax totals less than $800 billion. We have a $750 billion deterioration
in this budget in just 3 years. And so whatever you call it, whatever
label you put on it, look at the chart. This is called tax cuts are
working, deficit is manageable, whatever you want to call it. Look at
what this administration's policy resulted in.
Now, you talked about who is paying for it. Part of the war is being
paid for by veterans benefits. We are debating now as to whether or not
we are going to at least maintain present services.
Mr. CUMMINGS. To veterans.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. For veterans.
The President's budget does not include enough money to maintain just
the little present benefits for veterans. They want some veterans to
pay more fees for health services, some not to be eligible, less
services, while the war is being fought. So the veterans themselves
will have to come back and pay the interest on the debt on the war that
they fought in. That is not right.
We are not able to fund the kind of things like Cops on the Beat. Now
remember, in just 5 years we will be spending approximately $300
billion more in interest on the national debt than we should have had
to pay. You can hire at $30,000 a piece, 10 million
[[Page H1049]]
people for that amount of money or 5 million at $60,000. We are trying
to find a little money to hire 100,000 police officers, to hire
teachers, health care workers; and we cannot find the money because it
is all being used up in interest on the national debt that is run up
because you have to pay interest on the national debt since you are
obviously not paying off any debt while you are in the hole. You only
pay off debt when you are above the line. When you are in the hole, you
are running up more debt, you have to pay more interest on the national
debt.
We cannot pay for our transportation projects. There are so many
things that we cannot do because we are running up so much interest on
the national debt. And remember that we have the exploding Social
Security problem in just a few years. We ought to be preparing for
that, not wake up in 2014 and wonder why the Social Security surplus is
no longer there. It is not going to be there after 2014. We are going
to have to come up with more money. We will not have the gravy train of
100-some billion dollars or go up to $275 billion in Social Security
surplus to run through.
It is a growing deficit, and there is no provision in the President's
budget or the Committee on the Budget's budget that we are about to,
that they will probably adopt; there is nothing in there to prepare us
for the Social Security shortfall and the interest on the national
debt.
The GAO just issued a report in the last few days that shows if we
keep going in the direction we are going, in just a couple of decades
the Social Security shortfall and interest on the national debt will
absorb all Federal revenues. That means no Medicaid, no Medicare, no
Federal spending on anything including defense. You spend all your
money just in Social Security and interest on the national debt unless
there is a profound change in direction.
Mr. CUMMINGS. What change could reverse that?
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Well, you need to make tough choices; and,
fundamentally, the strategy ought to be the green.
In 1993 when President Clinton came in, we made tough choices. He
vetoed bills that were inconsistent with his tough choices and we went
into surplus. These are tough choices. This was the strategy that
created fiscal responsibility and 20 million jobs in 8 years. Fiscal
irresponsibility is when you start passing massive tax cuts without
paying for them, just borrow the money for the tax cuts. Some say we
are giving you your money back. No, no, no, no, no. We have spent your
money. We are sending back money we have borrowed from overseas and
giving it back because we spent your money.
{time} 1500
We spend your money and everybody else's money and Social Security
and everything else, a deterioration in the budget, $750 billion,
almost the same as the total amount that we received from the
individual income tax.
Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank the gentleman for the explanation and
for his excellent work on the budget.
Mr. Speaker, the Bush budget eliminates all kinds of programs, as the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) just talked about. There is one
program that eliminates and that is the Even Start program. A lot of
times, Mr. Speaker, we look at the numbers in a budget and we look at
them purely based upon figures; but the impact on human beings and
citizens and children in our country is phenomenal.
For example, this Even Start program is meant to uplift children and
families through a combination of childhood education and adult
literacy programs. That is very important; and when the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Scott) talked about the whole jobless situation, it is
one thing to have opportunities at some point in the future, hopefully.
It is another thing for those parents of those children to be prepared
to take advantage of those jobs and for them to be able to raise their
family. It takes money to raise a family.
Then the Bush budget freezes funding for Head Start, which provides
education and nutrition service for over 297,000 African American
children, very, very significant. How do you even put a value on a
child being able to get a head start in life and in school and to be
able to go to school ready?
When we look at health care, the picture gets even worse. The Bush
budget does absolutely nothing to hold down the costs of prescription
drugs. It jeopardizes medical benefits for the 4.6 million African
American children who receive health care through Medicaid, and it
severely underfunds programs that combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and the
increase of health disparities among minority communities.
These are things that go to the essence of life; and I have often
said as we talk about the budget and other issues that the
Congressional Black Caucus, as we do that, we are not just speaking for
African Americans. A lot of people get a little bit confused. They see
African American Congresspeople stand up, and they assume that in all
our districts the majority of people are African American. That is just
simply not true. We represent a wide range of people of all races and
colors, religions in our caucus, and so over 26 million people in
total.
But those costs that I just talked about, those are the costs, I
guess, like I said, you cannot put a value on making sure that a child
is well taken care of because it used to be a commercial that said you
either pay me now or pay me later. If you do not give that child a good
head start in life, then government, through State government in most
instances, will pay later on through, unfortunately, juvenile detention
centers, sometimes prisons, sometimes all kinds of programs, teenage
pregnancy programs, things of that nature, to help lift people up after
they have fallen.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, the President's budget eliminates
funding for the juvenile justice programs, the prevention programs, the
early intervention programs, the kinds of things that you can pay now
and pay less later. He had to cut those out because having spent all
the money in tax cuts and having gone so far in debt, there is nothing
left over for those important programs; and you are talking about
hundreds of millions of dollars. This is hundreds of billions of
dollars that we are in deficit, and we cannot make the little kinds of
payments.
My colleague talked about jobs. The small business program which is
just less than $100 million, that is one-tenth of $1 billion. Here we
are almost $700 billion in the hole, one-tenth of $1 billion, and that
program creates jobs. The only thing the government has to pay out is
when the loan defaults because it is a loan guarantee program. So just
for every now and then there is a default we have to pay. For every 2
or $3,000 we pay out, we are creating a job because tens and hundreds
of thousands of dollars has been borrowed, guaranteed, paid back. So we
do not have to pay anything. For every 2 or $3,000 we actually have to
pay out, we have created a job.
When you start going in the hole hundreds of billions of dollars and
have a program that can create jobs for 2 or $3,000 a piece, why did
that get cut out? Because you just ran so far in debt that you did not
have any money left over.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Scott).
I want to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-
McDonald).
Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his
leadership on this issue and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).
I am joining my colleagues because I see now that the President's
budget is cutting about 20-plus programs, and those programs are
critical to our districts. And you are absolutely right, our districts
do not comprise all African Americans. We are talking about Cambodians,
Filipinos, Samoans, Vietnamese, Guamanians; and they are all concerned
about the loss of jobs.
In L.A. County alone, which is the largest county in California, we
have lost over 136,000 jobs. In the State of California, we have lost
over 300,000 jobs. No State, no city, no county can be sustained with
those types of job losses; and so this budget is absolutely the most
outrageous budget I have ever had to deal with because it has no
funding in there for No Child Left Behind to any great degree. We know
the last budget was $8 billion short. I think now it is $9 billion
short; and so here
[[Page H1050]]
we are trying to grapple with educating our children, some 53-plus
million children in this country. California has over 6 million, and we
do not have the funding to do that.
I think it has just gone off the chart, and so I thank the gentleman
for allowing me to come and speak on this because I have never seen a
budget that is so ill-fated, that has absolutely nothing to speak to
the American people, when we have 11 million children who are
uninsured, and over 44 million adults, and this budget does not speak
to insuring them. It is an atrocity, and so I join you in saying this
administration's budget is a hoax; it is not for the American people.
It is everything but for the American people.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for her
statement; and I am just reminded, I think it was just yesterday the
President went to Ohio. He stood there in front of quite a few people,
and he said, basically, hold on, hold out; I am the one that gave you
these tax cuts. Basically what he said, I still believe in this
trickle-down theory and that things are going to get better.
The fact is that the President has been saying that over and over
again. As a matter of fact, a little bit earlier this year, in his
economic report, he projected that he would be producing some 2.6
million jobs before the end of the year.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I
think they have been revising that number back and forth, but whatever
the projections are, let us look at the results. No President has left
office in over 50 years with fewer jobs than they started off with
until this administration. We are down 3 million jobs; and if you are
interested in jobs, remember that in just a few years we will be
spending $300 billion on additional interest on the national debt that
had not been anticipated when President Clinton left office, $300
billion dollar. At $30,000 each, you can hire 10 million people. There
are only 9 million people unemployed and receiving unemployment in
America today. Instead of an unemployment check, you have enough money
there in additional interest on the national debt that we should not
have to pay to hire everybody that is drawing an unemployment check.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman.
Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and I sit on the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. That bill alone would
bring the types of jobs for folks that have good wages and good
benefits, and yet we have asked for over $375 billion for that bill. He
has now cut that bill down to some $258 billion. How can we get
Americans back to work if we are not going to put the type of funding
in programs and on bills to support that?
So we are just outraged. It is outrageous to even speak of the fact
that they are going to have so many jobs per month, because that growth
is not coming.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. On those transportation jobs, is there not
something unique about those jobs? We keep talking about transferring
jobs overseas. When you have a transportation-created job, where does
that work take place?
Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. That work takes place right here in America,
in the heartlands, in the rural, in the urban areas of our cities and
States; and this is why, if the President is really interested in
getting jobs to the American people, he would invest in this
transportation bill that will keep those jobs right here. They are
great construction jobs. There are other suppliers jobs that come from
that, and it is a multiplying effect. So if you get those jobs, those
jobs create other jobs and, therefore, will bring back a lot of those
jobs; but if he is not willing to invest the $375 billion in a
transportation bill, then he is not really anxious about getting jobs
back to Americans.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me just say this.
As my colleagues were talking, I could not help but think about how the
President talks.
Could we bring that chart back up, the first one. The President talks
so much about that. It is the one that talks about the tax cuts, I mean
how much money people get.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. This?
Mr. CUMMINGS. You had one with red, that one.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. This is if you are making 50 to $75,000, you
are on average, the average income group, $132. Below that you hardly
need any ink to draw the bar. However, if you are making more than $1
million, you explode way off the chart.
Mr. CUMMINGS. The reason why I wanted to point that chart out is
because something interesting is happening here, and we are seeing it
in all of our States.
The tuition, for example, in Morgan State University in my district,
I sit on the Board of Regents, has gone up some 25, 30 percent. The
average family at Morgan State has an income around about $50,000,
$55,000. So about how much would they be getting based upon that chart
in tax cuts?
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Fifty to $75,000: $132. Now there are a lot of
different variations in that, depending on the child tax credit. If you
have a lot of children, you may get more tax credit. If you are single,
you may not get anything at all. On average, 50 to $75,000, you are
getting $132 a year.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Let us take it up to $500. I will give them an extra
$500 instead of $132. The tuition has gone up almost that much, and
Pell grants are being leveled off; and we have got a situation where
like other States we suffered a deficit. The State is not getting as
much money so, therefore, the State's going through its difficulties.
So now our colleges are not getting as much money.
My point is that Americans have to understand that no matter what
they are going to pay, they are going to pay one way or another.
Property taxes are going up, but yet and still our President runs
around talking about how great a tax cut we are getting when, in fact,
I think Americans are going backwards and services are being less than
they have to be. It is the only way that you can do all of this and
still keep institutions open.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, the problem is that unless you
recognize that there is a problem you are not going to come make the
tough choices to fix it. Most people would glance at this chart and say
we have a problem. This administration says that this is manageable,
and on the job chart where he looks like he will be the first one to
leave office with fewer jobs than he started off with, the tax cuts are
working. No, the tax cuts are not working. We are losing jobs. If we
passed the transportation bill, millions of jobs would be created.
This will go above the line. Pass the transportation bill. There are
a lot of things we can do to stimulate jobs. Tax cuts to the wealthy
have not worked. Transportation jobs will work. Tax cuts to those in
the lower end, who will actually spend it and buy stuff with it, will
work.
A millionaire, if he wants a television, he would have already bought
a television. If he wants a car, he would have already bought a car.
Someone in the lower brackets, if they get a couple hundred extra
dollars, they are going to spend the money.
So there are a lot of things. Repealing the alternative minimum tax
for corporations, we discussed, will not create any jobs; but that is
how we were trying to spend the money, and that is why, as a result of
all that spending, it still ended up no jobs. If you look at the study
of the Republican-dominated Joint Committee on Taxation, when they
looked at the 2003 and looked at tax cuts and looked at the taxes that
were cut, they concluded you might have a little short-term spike in
jobs. As a direct result of passing that bill, you will have fewer jobs
in the fullness of time than you started off with, and that is because
you did it with borrowed money. There was limited stimulus, and because
you have got to pay interest on it, on the debt that you ran up in the
fullness of time and just a few years as a direct result of passing the
bill, you will have fewer jobs than you started off with.
We should not be surprised because of the taxes we cut that we are
below the line. Had we used the money for transportation, for targeted
tax cuts where they would have made a difference to help fund States or
other programs, where we actually use the money in such a way that
people will be hired, with all the spending, this thing ought to be off
the chart. The budget has deteriorated $750 billion, almost the same
[[Page H1051]]
as what we get from the entire individual income tax. With that kind of
spending, it should have been able to create some jobs.
{time} 1515
Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield once
again. The other thing that would create the climate for jobs would be
small businesses. And yet here at the end of last year, the 7(a) loan
program, which is really the driving force for financing for small
businesses was absolutely turned out. No money in it. It was
eliminated. But because we raised so much havoc on it, they have
brought that back, but with fewer dollars. So we still do not have the
infusion of money for this powerful engine that drives the economy
through job creation, which are the small businesses.
So, again, the President is not operating in the true sense of
helping Americans to get back to work.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, again, the Congressional Black Caucus
stands up, as we have over and over again. It is said that we are the
conscience of the Congress. I claim we are the conscience of the United
States of America.
The fact is that President Bush is doing no favors for not only the
African American community but communities throughout this country; for
hardworking Americans who got up early this morning, some of whom had a
job, but for others who are about to lose their job, and still others,
Mr. Speaker, who do not have to go to work because they have already
lost their job. I just find it very interesting that the President
would go to Ohio, a State where there has been phenomenal job loss, and
tell people who do not have a paycheck to hold on and hold out.
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