[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 41 (Monday, March 29, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H1596]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        HOW FAST WILL THEY RUN?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, this week we are going to see just how 
committed our Republican friends are to the irresponsible budget that 
they passed 4 days ago.
  Tomorrow, Democrats will offer a motion to instruct House conferees 
on the fiscal 2005 budget resolution to accept the Senate's bipartisan 
pay-as-you-go budget enforcement rules. Those rules would require us to 
find offsets for both new spending as well as tax cuts. As a matter of 
fact, one of the real authors of pay-as-you-go, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. George Miller), in the 1990s is here, which led to the 
most fiscally responsible administration's performance, frankly, in 
history, under Bill Clinton. And with a projected budget deficit of 
more than a half a trillion dollars this year, it is fair to ask, What 
could be more reasonable than that?
  After all, our bipartisan agreement to pay-as-you-go rules in 1990 
led to the steady decrease of our deficits throughout that decade and 4 
consecutive years of budget surpluses between fiscal 1998 and 2001, the 
first time that has happened in 80 years.
  But in their budget resolution, our Republican friends pretend that 
we can get our fiscal house back in order by applying so-called pay-as-
you-go rules to spending only. Tax cuts, they believe, are a freebie, 
even though the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 40 
percent of our deficit is attributable to revenue reductions. Who is 
going to pay that bill? Our children will pay that bill. Our 
grandchildren will pay that bill.
  And even the respected chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, 
my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), said in February, 
``No one should expect significant deficit reduction as a result of 
austere, nondefense discretionary spending limits. The numbers simply 
do not add up.'' So said the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), 
conservative Republican.
  So I urge my Republican friends: join us. Join us in this effort to 
restore fiscal sanity to our Nation's budget. Vote for this important 
Democratic motion to instruct. That is not so hard. And remember, you 
have done it before.
  Last year, a mere 96 hours after you passed your fist 2004 budget 
resolution, you turned right around, 180 degrees, and voted for the 
Democratic motion to instruct conferees to reject the deep cuts called 
for in your budget for education, for veterans, Medicare, Medicaid, and 
other areas. The chairman of the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman 
from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), even stood on this floor and railed against our 
motion for half an hour. For half an hour he railed against our motion, 
before he and most of the Republican leadership flip-flopped and helped 
pass it by a vote of, listen to this, Madam Speaker, 399 to 22. That 
was the Democratic motion passing. Why? Because Republicans wanted to 
pretend that they were actually for the motion to instruct's priorities 
when their budget clearly denied that, contradicted it, did not provide 
for those priorities.
  So I urge my Republican friends to support the adoption of pay-as-
you-go rules which helped Democrats produce a budget for fiscal year 
2005 that was both fair and responsible.
  Our Democratic substitute would balance the budget within 8 years. 
The Republican resolution would actually increase our deficits. Our 
Democratic budget would protect Social Security. Our democratic budget 
would match the Republican budget on defense spending to ensure our 
national security and provide nearly $6 billion more over 5 years for 
homeland security to ensure that our people here at home are safer. Our 
Democratic budget would provide tax relief for hard-working families; 
and our budget, the Democratic budget, even as it reins in deficits 
caused by the Republican Party's failed policies, would provide more 
resources than the Republican budget for education, veterans, job 
training, public health, and infrastructure, the last, of course, being 
extraordinarily effective jobs-producing.
  Finally, Madam Speaker, we also will consider this week, as I have 
said, the transportation reauthorization bill, which will pass, I 
predict, with wide bipartisan support, but leave both Democrats and 
some Republicans shaking their heads.
  This is not only a bill about infrastructure, critically important to 
our economy, critically important to the safety of this Nation, 
critically important to every American; it is also a jobs bill. 
Democrats and some Republicans, including the chairman of the Committee 
on Transportation and Infrastructure, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. 
Young), himself supported a spending level of $375 billion, which would 
have created 1.7 million new jobs.
  Why is that important? Because for the first time in 75 years since 
Herbert Hoover, the first time, this is the first administration in 
three-quarters of a century that will end its 4-year term having lost 
jobs net in this economy. That is why we have over 8 million people 
unemployed and 2.5 million jobs lost. Yet, the President, who has the 
worst record of job creation since Herbert Hoover threatened a veto of 
that jobs-creating bill, demanding a funding level that would create 
1.1 million fewer new jobs.

                              {time}  1245

  I urge my Republican friends to stop ignoring the plight of the 
unemployed who have suffered under your failed policies.
  Since December, more than 1 million jobless workers have exhausted 
their regular State unemployment benefits without receiving temporary 
Federal assistance. Why? Because Republicans allowed the Federal 
program to expire. Democrats have been asking for the last 6 months to 
extend that program, as we did under the Reagan administration, as we 
did under Bush 1. They have refused to do so.
  Before we leave Washington this week for a 2-week recess, we should 
pass an immediate extension of temporary Federal jobless benefits. It 
is the right thing to do, it is the moral thing to do, and I would 
suggest to you it is the right thing to do for our economy as well. 
There is no excuse for failing to act.
  Madam Speaker, I hope that when the motion to instruct on the budget 
resolution is made to have a responsible, effective, historically 
effective pay-as-you-go process, to discipline our budget so that 
America's children and America's grandchildren and America's economy 
will not be put deeper into debt and that we will have an effective 
enforcement process, which will, like America's families, make tough 
decisions so that we will have a better future for our country.

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