[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I have several problems with the 
President's budget. First, the Draconian cuts and discretionary 
spending do not reduce the deficit. In fact, the deficit continues as 
far as the eye can see. This budget is not honest and omits many 
important priorities, thus negating the President's promise to cut the 
deficit in half by 2009. And further, this budget has the audacity to 
raise taxes on our veterans.
  And as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar said to Brutus, ``Et tu Brutus, 
yours is the meanest cut of all.'' This is the meanest cut of all in 
this budget: to cut our veterans, to raise taxes on our veterans. We 
need to be doing more for our veterans, not less. And certainly not 
raising taxes on our veterans as this budget does.
  And this budget also hurts our farmers, cutting badly needed 
programs. The budget is not balanced. In fact, this budget creates a 
new record for a deficit $427 billion for fiscal year 2006.
  This administration's budget continues a record of deficits and 
raising debt over the last 4 years. For the third year in a row, the 
administration's budget creates a new record deficit, while offering no 
plan to restore the budget to balance. The $5.6 trillion 10-year 
surplus inherited by this administration from the Clinton 
administration, which should have been used to strengthen Social 
Security, instead has been squandered and replaced by a deficit of $4 
trillion over the same time period from 2002 to 2011.
  Our goal of the deficit reduction accomplished during the Clinton 
administration was to save for the retirement of the baby boomers. 
Instead, this administration has run up mountains of new debt, which 
just passes the bill for today's policy choices on to our children and 
our grandchildren.
  Under the administration's policies, the annual burden of the Federal 
debt on the typical American family will more than double over the next 
10 years, with each family's share of the Federal interest payments on 
the debt rising from just over $2,000 per year to around $5,000 per 
year. This is not the kind of legacy we should be leaving to our 
future, to our children and grandchildren. This debt transfer is 
essentially a birth tax.
  Another thing, this budget is not honest. Several of the President's 
top priorities are omitted from this budget. What surprises me is these 
projects that he is omitting from his budget this week were signature 
points in his State of the Union address last week. These omitted 
policies include debt service, and add $2 trillion to the deficit.
  Not included in the budget are transition costs of privatizing Social 
Security. By delaying the start of the President's new Social Security 
plan until 2009 and then passing it on over 3 years, this budget 
manages to avoid showing most of the costs, but they are to be 
substantial. The Social Security actuaries have estimated the cost 
could be about $750 billion, and these are the President's people, over 
the 2009 to 2015 period alone, and between $4 trillion and $5 trillion 
over the first 20 years of full implementation.
  Also not included in this budget are funds for appropriations and 
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just think: the additional $81 
billion being asked for this year for our soldiers for their safety, 
for their hardware, for their armor and the military, is not even in 
this budget. Is that responsible? According to a scenario developed by 
the Congressional Budget Office, costs for operations in Iraq and 
Afghanistan could run as much as $400 billion more than what this 
budget includes.
  The budget also includes no funding to repair the Alternative Minimum 
Tax, which protects middle-income taxpayers, which is another $64 
billion not accounted for in the budget.
  The budget also imposes a $250 annual enrollment fee for veterans 
without service-connected disabilities who also have incomes above VA 
means-tested levels. What this means is even before some of our 
veterans can even get into the hospital, they are being taxed $250. The 
budget also increases pharmacy copayments for our veterans from $7 to 
$15. Both of these veterans taxes were proposed in the last two 
budgets, and we rejected both of them in Congress.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this Federal budget should be an honest 
blueprint for the spending priorities of this government. However, this 
budget is not honest. It is passing our obligations, responsibilities, 
and challenges to our children and grandchildren; and that is immoral. 
Let us stand up for the honesty and goodness of our Nation and reject 
this budget.

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