[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 32 (Wednesday, March 16, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H1547-H1559]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 154 and rule 
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the State of the Union for the consideration of the concurrent 
resolution, H. Con. Res. 95.

                              {time}  1508


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the 
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 95) establishing the congressional 
budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2006, revising 
appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal year 2005, and setting forth 
appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2007 through 2010.
  The Chair designates the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) as 
chairman of the Committee of the Whole, and requests the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. LaHood) to assume the chair temporarily.
  The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the concurrent resolution 
is considered read the first time.
  General debate shall not exceed 5 hours, with 4 hours confined to the 
congressional budget, equally divided and controlled by the chairman 
and ranking member of the Committee on the Budget, and 1 hour on the 
subject of economic goals and policies, equally divided and controlled 
by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) and the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Spratt) each will control 2 hours of debate on the 
congressional budget.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle).
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, today we are here to debate the budget resolution for 
2006, the Federal Government spending blueprint that will guide all of 
this Congress' spending and revenue decisions for the coming fiscal 
year.
  Let me start by thanking my staff on both sides, Republicans and 
Democrats. What Members will hear today, this is probably one of the 
heartiest debates of the year when we talk about the priorities for the 
coming year. As Members might imagine, because we come from different 
backgrounds and different States and different philosophies, we have 
different ideas of what is important, Members will hear quite a bit of 
debate from time to time that will sound rancorous. It will sound like 
we do not agree on anything and everything is going to be difficult, 
and I do not think it is quite that bad.
  We have some pretty important priorities that we all agree upon, and 
we share a number of the goals. How to achieve those goals is in part 
the budget process: how are we going to get it done, and how are we 
going to accomplish it. That, unfortunately, gets into the details 
where we may disagree.
  I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), my partner 
and friend who will come forthwith his own budget today, and we 
appreciate that. Members will hear his ideas and our ideas. We will get 
to debate those ideas, and we will come out at the other end with a 
better understanding of exactly how both sides will approach the 
problem, the challenges we will have; and we will hear about some of 
the ways to solve this.
  Long before today, long before this debate started and quite honestly 
before we received the President's budget, we knew what the priorities 
were going to have to be. If you attend any town meeting in Iowa or 
across the country, Members are going to hear these same kinds of 
themes: we have to keep the country strong and defended. If we are not 
strong, we are not free; and if we are not free, we have lost 
everything. We have lost the most important gift we have been given, 
that has been bestowed on us, and that we feel so passionate about 
being able to bestow on generations to come here in this country and 
around the world. We need to continue to be strong.
  Second, we need to continue to grow the economy. We really do. We 
need to create jobs and keep the opportunities flowing for our kids and 
grandkids because we know when we are strong and growing, we are able 
to accomplish so much in the world. Our economy must continue to grow.
  Last but not least, and I can tell Members this is true wherever you 
go, people around the country are frustrated by the attitude and almost 
arrogance that government can solve all of our problems, that somehow 
another government program will solve the problem, or more government 
bureaucracy or more government regulations or just another law or more 
employees working in fancy white buildings downtown, if we would only 
do that we would solve the problem, and that means spend much more 
money, too much money.
  So America's continued greatness comes from, I believe, the unlimited 
opportunities that our freedom provides, but we have to get our hands 
around this out-of-control, unsustainable spending. Right along with 
our well-meaning folks who come along, we have created a government 
that is too big and spends too much, and we have to get control of that 
spending if we are going to be successful.
  As I have said, these must be our Nation's highest priorities, 
continued strength, continued growth, and making sure we can restrain 
spending because none of the rest of it, all of the good things that 
the Federal Government does in so many areas such as education and 
health care and veterans benefits and agriculture and transportation 
and energy and science, I could go on and on, we all have our favorite 
areas where we think the government ought to invest, but none of that 
continues to happen, none of that will be achieved if we are not 
strong, if our economy does not grow, and if we cannot get our arms 
around the spending.
  So we chose to write a budget that ensures that first and foremost 
our needs must be met, gives all other priorities a fair shake, that is 
what the

[[Page H1548]]

budget process does, it puts in a $50 billion what we call a place 
holder, recognizing that we need to fund next year's likely emergency 
request for the war on terror, we have to plan for that; and it 
continues the progress that we have made in reducing the deficit and 
getting our spending on a sustainable path.

                              {time}  1515

  Last year was really the first year that we have been able to move 
beyond the crisis mode that we have had in our budget in response to 
September 11, 2001. We began a path to get hold of our out-of-control 
spending and to reduce the deficit. We had, I think, some pretty good 
success. We ought to recognize that we made some progress last year and 
realize how it happened. Despite cries from many different quarters in 
the country that all we need to do is just raise some taxes, tax the 
wealthy is always what people say, tax all those small businesses that 
are creating jobs, tax those farmers, tax those families that are 
sending their kids to college and are trying to make ends meet around 
their kitchen table, just give them more taxes and we will solve the 
problem. We decided we were not going to raise taxes. As a result of 
that, the economy continued to expand, and, due in large part to those 
economic policies, we now have strong, sustained economic growth and 
job creation. We also, for the first time in a long time, managed to 
slow the rate of this nonsecurity spending that has been out there, for 
the first time below the rate of inflation. I think that is a whole lot 
more reasonable than what we saw in years past.
  Let me just show my colleagues what we did last year. This is what 
happened in just one year. The President when he came in, almost a year 
ago right now, the budget deficit was going to look like this, $521 
billion. We all said that was not what we wanted, that we did not want 
to do that. We wanted to see if we could get our arms around it last 
year. We knew it was going to be tough. We knew there were going to be 
all sorts of complaining, claims that we were not keeping the 
priorities straight, but when the President started, this is where we 
started, at $521 billion. In one year alone, 20 percent, $109 billion 
was reduced on that deficit. $109 billion or 20 percent in one year.
  Why? Two reasons. Number one, the economy grew. The economy grew 
faster than anybody expected, because when you unleash this 10-plus-
trillion-dollar economy and allow it to just chug along and create jobs 
and have people investing and creating those opportunities for our 
young people around the country and others to make money for themselves 
and deal with their own problems and their own challenges, our economy 
is a wonderful thing and when it has just a little bit more growth than 
we expect, that brings in a lot of revenue to our Treasury. In one 
year, we reduced the deficit 20 percent. In that same year, even with 
tax reductions, more money came into the Treasury than the year before. 
This is not a science experiment. It is a fact. When you reduce taxes 
and you cause economic growth, oftentimes, and last year was an example 
of this and already we are seeing it this year, more money comes into 
the Treasury. That combined with holding the rate of growth of 
spending, we were able to reduce that deficit and get back eventually 
to balance. We took the first steps by keeping the economy growing, 
creating jobs, beginning to restrain this out-of-control spending.
  But while both of these items are critical alone, they are not going 
to get the job done. We have so many Members who understand that every 
year we come down to the floor on appropriation bills and we battle 
over a million here and a million there, and I know it all adds up, but 
there is a part of the budget that is not being addressed. I will get 
to that in just a moment.
  This year in the budget, much like the President's budget, we take 
the necessary next step for slowing spending, at the same time ensuring 
that our priorities are met. This includes reducing the top line number 
for all the nonhomeland, nondefense spending by eight-tenths of 1 
percent. What we are doing is we are saying we are going to take the 
President's number for defense and for homeland security, we want to 
keep the country strong, but in all other areas of our discretionary 
spending, we are going to start weeding the garden. We want to look 
through all of those programs and find ways to save money, find ways 
for us to reform programs, find places where we are wasting money, 
where money is not being spent appropriately, and as a result of that 
be able to reduce some of those increases.
  Additionally, and probably more important, this budget begins to 
address the unsustainable growth on the other side of the budget, the 
55 percent of the spending that simply operates automatically. This is 
the dirty secret of budgeting that most Members do not want to talk 
about and that is what we call mandatory spending. What is mandatory? 
What could possibly be mandatory about spending in Washington? When 
Congress sets up a law that says a check is going to be written if 
certain eligibility is met and regardless of any other changes in 
demographics or anything else, money just keeps going out, the program 
keeps chugging along, without any checks, without any balances, without 
any opportunities to take a look at whether the program is meeting the 
needs. That is automatic spending. That is the mandatory spending.
  What we did a number of years ago in welfare reform is we said the 
program is not helping people, it is not helping families, it is 
locking people into the dependency on government, asking no personal 
responsibility in return. Unless we reform the program, we are not 
going to get our spending under control. People are just going to keep 
getting the checks and nothing is going to ever change. Generation upon 
generation was going to be locked in this spending. And so what we did 
just 10 years ago and what we want to do again here is tackle some of 
that automatic spending.
  Let me show you what is happening to it. The yellow area here is the 
portion of the budget that back in 1995 when we tackled welfare reform 
was about half of the budget, this entitlement spending or automatic 
spending. We tackled it back then. Thank goodness we did because it was 
growing out of control in the welfare programs. We now need to look in 
other areas because look what has happened in just 10 years. In just 10 
years, more than half of the budget is now done automatically, is not 
going to be done on the floor here, in our appropriations process, is 
not going to have the oversight, is not going to have the opportunity 
to reform because we are not paying attention to it in our budget. This 
year we are. This year we are going to. This year we are going to ask 
the committees to reform the programs and begin weeding the garden, 
looking for ways to deliver these programs more efficiently.

  Why? Because as we see, if we do nothing, it grows unsustainably out 
of control, which is the word the Governors use for Medicaid, 
unsustainable. The Medicaid program is unsustainable. They know it is 
growing too fast. They know that on an average year, Medicaid grows 7.5 
percent. Out of control. 7.5 percent. And so this year what we are 
going to do is we are going to begin to tackle this automatic spending. 
Our current rate of growth of spending in this mandatory area is 6.4 
percent. All of it is growing at 6.4 percent. Nothing changes. 6.4 
percent. Again, every year, another 6 percent, every year growing and 
compounding and growing and Congress is doing nothing. Our constituents 
are getting frustrated. And so what we need to do is we need to go in 
and reduce that growth just one-tenth of 1 percent. That is all we are 
asking for. We are saying instead of growing at 6.4 percent, it is 
going to keep growing at 6.3 percent. But let us get the committees and 
let us get the Congress and let us get the Governors into a room and 
let us begin talking about these programs, reforming them and getting 
them under control.
  I will note that there is a very interesting phenomenon about this 
decision to slow the rate of growth which ends up being about one-tenth 
of 1 percent over the next 5 years. It has created a very interesting 
phenomenon, because what happens about this time of year is people come 
to the floor and they start saying things like, oh, these cuts are 
outrageous, these cuts are unconscionable. Why do they keep calling it 
cuts? Because in Washington, a cut is a decrease in an anticipated 
increase.

[[Page H1549]]

  Let me explain what I am saying here. What I am saying here is that 
in Washington, if you do not get what you expected from one year to the 
next, if you do not get the increase you thought you were going to get, 
they run to the floor, they run to the press conferences, they run to 
wherever it is they can run and complain and suggest that they are 
being cut. It would be as if your son came to you and you have been 
negotiating your lawn mowing fee, his allowance maybe over the last 
number of years and you were able to pay him 10 bucks every time he 
mowed the lawn. This year he came to you and he said, ``Dad, I want 
15.'' You said, ``Son, I love you. You're a great son. You do a great 
job. I'd like you to trim a little bit more, but you're doing a pretty 
good job with the lawn. I'm not going to give you 15, I'm going to give 
you 12.'' If he ran to the microphones with a lot of people around 
here, they would claim he was cut $3. My goodness, what an outrage. You 
should love your son. You should love what he does to your lawn, that 
he should get an increase to $15. My goodness, what an outrage, instead 
of recognizing that it was a $2 increase. That happens so often around 
here.
  I understand that we are going to hear some of that rhetoric today, 
but we are slowing the rate of growth. We are just saying it needs to 
be slowed down. Just slow it down. Let us reform the programs. Let us 
get the people in a room who need to be part of the discussion to 
reform these programs and let us slow down the spending and make sure 
that the programs that we are talking about, which are so vitally 
important to people, take the food stamp program. That is for people 
who are hungry. Take the Medicaid program. That is for people who do 
not have health care. Take a number of these programs and suggest that 
they should grow out of control? Or suggest they should meet the 
changing needs of a population, and that is something that we have to 
continue to do and it requires constant weeding of the garden and 
constant attention if we are going to get that done.
  The problems facing our mandatory spending did not happen overnight. 
We are not going to fix this overnight. We are not suggesting this is 
being fixed overnight. It is like going from 60 miles an hour to slam 
on the brakes to zero? No. That is not what we are doing. We are just 
saying, slow down, figure out a way to make these reforms.
  One thing I will guarantee you is that if there is no budget, if you 
do not put these kinds of instructions into the budget, if there is no 
budget or if an entity or a Member comes to the floor with a budget 
today that does not have these serious kinds of instructions in the 
budget to reform the programs, I will guarantee you they will not get 
fixed. I would suggest to you doing nothing is not an option. You 
cannot complain about Medicaid and offer no solution. You cannot 
complain about the error rate in food stamps and say there is no 
solution. You cannot complain about these programs and say there is no 
solution. We do not think there is a silver bullet but we want to set 
up a process to begin the discussion to fix these programs. We can do 
this. It is going to take time. The budget recognizes that, the budget 
we brought to the floor today, that we need a reasonable pace to get 
there. We set September as a deadline so we can invite all of the 
interested parties in to begin this. It builds on the critical work 
that we have done over the past number of years to shore up and 
strengthen national defense and create jobs and make sure that we 
continue our reduction in spending. I believe it is a doable, a fair 
and honest budget, one that we can work with the President in order to 
make sure it gets put into place.
  I want to end with this. We plan to enforce this budget. This is a 
good budget. Just like last year, we plan to enforce this budget. 
Whether this is by way of announcement or however you want to do it, do 
not worry if we do not get an agreement with the Senate, with the other 
body. I understand that the other body has decided to walk away from 
the President on the budget. They are not going to do real reform. It 
does not look like they are going to try and control spending. I am 
very frustrated with what I see over from the other body. They are 
watering it down every step of the way. The courage unfortunately does 
not appear to be there in order to make some of these big changes that 
I think our Nation demands at this time. But I will tell you that in 
the House, just like last year, we enforced the budget. There was a 
controversy for those Congress watchers that have been brewing on the 
floor this week about people who wanted to really enforce the budget. 
Thank goodness we do that. Last year we enforced the budget. The 
Speaker did. I did. We were able to hold the line on spending, keep 
within that budget. As a result, we got the deficit reduction that we 
needed. Just like last year, we will do that again this year. I do not 
need any special rules. I do not need any Member to tell me that that 
is how we ought to do it. That is my commitment. That is the Speaker's 
commitment. That is the majority's commitment. When we pass something, 
we mean it. That is what we lived under last year.
  We have had terrible extra budgetary spending in an emergency basis. 
I understand people are frustrated with all the extra spending. I want 
to show it to you. Every year we have had to do extra spending. I 
understand that. On September 10, 2001, we had a surplus.

                              {time}  1530

  There is no question, we had a surplus on September 10 of 2001. We 
all know what happened the next day. And we all know and we all joined 
in the spending to meet the needs of our changed world. None of that 
was in the budget. We knew we had to do it. We knew we had to keep the 
economy strong. We knew we had to support our troops. We knew we had to 
combat terrorism. We knew we had to protect the country.
  We decided we would do whatever it took. That is whatever it took. 
And it meant we had to run deficits. But just like last year, we made a 
commitment to reducing the deficit. We did it 20 percent last year. We 
are going to do it again this year. We will get to cutting the deficit 
in half by 2009. We will get that accomplished and then some, and we 
will get back to balance. But we have got to stick to a plan.
  We will do whatever it takes, not only to protect the country, but we 
will do whatever it takes not to pass on that legacy to the next 
generation. We cannot do it all in 1 day. We cannot do it all in 1 
year.
  We made progress last year. This budget builds on that progress, 
meets the needs of our country, and it is a good budget that I hope my 
colleagues adopt.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, it is hard to believe that just 5 short 
years ago we were sitting on a pinnacle of surpluses totaling $236 
billion. And it did not come easily. It was not the fallout from some 
fantastic economy, some serendipitous result.
  Democrats, beginning in 1992 and 1993, made the hard choices that 
moved the budget to surplus in unprecedented fashion. $290 billion was 
the deficit inherited by President Clinton when he came to office, as 
this chart will show. $290 billion was the largest deficit in our 
Nation's peacetime history.
  The President, as his first legislative act, sent us a budget to cut 
that deficit by more than half over the next 5 fiscal years. I will 
never forget the day we passed it here on the House floor by one vote, 
and in the Senate by the Vice President's vote. I will never forget the 
taunts, the claims that we were cutting the economy off at the knees, 
buying ourselves a one-way ticket to a recession, and ballooning the 
deficit instead of resolving it.
  Well, Mr. Chairman, every year thereafter, after adoption of the 
Clinton budget in 1993, every year the bottom line of the budget got 
better, to the point where in the year 2000 we had a surplus of $236 
billion. We made the hard choices to make that happen. And that was the 
surplus inherited by President Bush when he came to office in the year 
2001.
  No President in recent times has enjoyed such an inheritance, and he 
squandered his inheritance. We warned against it. We warned against 
going for deep tax cuts and relying upon the projection of surpluses at 
that point in time, which was $5.6 trillion.

[[Page H1550]]

  We told the President then that while we may seem to be sitting on an 
island of surpluses, we were surrounded by a sea of red ink, a sea of 
debt; and we needed, now that we could, to attend to our long-term 
needs, our obligations to Social Security in particular.
  He defied and ignored all those priorities and went solely with the 
budget whose primary thrust and emphasis was the biggest tax cuts we 
have passed in the history of this Congress.
  Unfortunately, the prophecies and predictions we made have come to 
pass. The boost to the economy imparted by those tax cuts did not 
replenish the revenues to the Treasury of the United States. As a 
consequence, today we have the largest deficits in our Nation's 
history. Not just this year. It is not just something episodic. Two 
years ago we had a deficit of $375 billion. This past year we had a 
deficit of $412 billion. This year, according to OMB, we can look for a 
deficit of $427 billion. Each of those deficits, 375, 412, 427, each of 
those deficits is a record deficit.
  And now what do we look at for the long-term future? The President 
tells us he is going to cut the deficit in half. And he sends us a 
budget which purports roughly to do that. But he conveniently omits 
from his estimation of what will be incurred in the way of cost over 
the next 5 years major items such as the cost of the war. We have 
140,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. More in Afghanistan. That war 
cost is not going away or tapering off any time soon. And any budget 
that is straightforward should include some estimation of the likely 
cost now that we have been over there for 2 or 3 years and know what 
the costs should be based upon.
  Secondly, there is nothing in the President's budget to account for 
fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, which we all know is a political 
inevitability. His own Treasury Department has told us if we do not fix 
it, it will go from four million tax filers to 30 million tax filers by 
the year 2010. It will have to be fixed in the near term. There is not 
a thing in the President's budget that accounts for that. Even though 
he asks for additional tax cuts, he leaves out that $640 billion item.
  And then the cost of fixing Social Security, privatizing Social 
Security. The President says he would like to allow workers to take 4 
percentage points off their FICA payments and put it in a private 
account. Well, if you do that, you are taking money out of public trust 
funds, putting them in private trust funds; and, therefore, money will 
have to be borrowed to meet the obligations of Social Security; to wit, 
$754 billion beginning in the year 2009 and extending to the year 2015. 
That is not my number. The White House gave us that estimate. And yet 
they did not put it in their own budget.
  When you add all of these things together, what you get is not a 
deficit that is going to be cut in half over the next 5 years, or the 
next 10 years, for that matter. What you get is a deficit that moves 
from $427 billion next year to $621 billion in the year 2015.
  Let me just show you in three simple lines what this means looking 
backward over the immediate last 3 years.
  When my Republican colleagues passed the President's budget and his 
tax cuts in the year 2001, his offices at OMB told us in earnest, we 
will not be back here hat in hand to ask to increase the debt ceiling 
of the United States, the legal limit on what we can borrow, again 
until 2008. So confident are we that these tax cuts will be 
replenished, we do not think we will be back here until 2008.
  They were back here in the year 2002, asking for an increase in the 
debt ceiling of $450 billion.
  The next year, 2003, they came and asked for a debt ceiling increase 
of $984 billion. Let me tell my colleagues for reference purposes how 
big that is. The entire debt of the United States when Ronald Reagan 
came to office was less than $984 billion. In one year, in one year, 
the Bush administration asked and the Republicans in the Congress, both 
Houses, acceded to a debt ceiling increase of $984 billion. That was 
May 26, 2003. Within 15 months, Secretary Snow from the Department of 
Treasury was back and said, we need more; we need more. And 
consequently, before we adjourned last November, the Congress again, 
with Republican votes, increased the debt ceiling by $800 billion.
  That means in 3 fiscal years, 3 of the 4 fiscal years represented by 
the Bush administration's first term, the debt ceiling of the United 
States had to be raised by $2.234 trillion in order to accommodate the 
budgets of the Bush administration.
  Today, we have before us a budget resolution which was crafted by the 
Republicans and by the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle). Very 
little collaboration. A lot of civility. We have a great relationship, 
but little collaboration. They did their thing; we did our thing. 
Basically, what they have done is a take-off on the President's budget. 
It is very similar to the President's budget.
  So instead of taking my word for what the consequences of this budget 
are, let me show something that every Member has in his or her office 
right now. It came yesterday, March 15: an analysis of the President's 
budgetary proposals for the fiscal year 2006, prepared by the 
Congressional Budget Office, which, as everybody knows, is neutral and 
nonpartisan. Members do not have to read the whole thing, although I 
would commit it to their reading. They just have to read to the second 
page. Table 1.1 on the second page, if they read there, they will see 
the implications of what they will be putting in train if they vote for 
this budget resolution, which is basically the President's budget 
request.
  And that is, according to CBO, we will add to the debt of the United 
States $5.135 trillion over the next 10 years. Another $5 trillion on 
top of the $2.2 trillion that I have just shown will be added over the 
next 10 years as a consequence of passing this budget. That is not 
cutting the deficit in half. That is letting the deficit soar and soar 
and soar.

  To mitigate the problem, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and his 
colleagues on the Committee on the Budget have prepared some cuts in 
domestic discretionary spending. The irony here is they and the 
President both go to one sector in the budget that has not been growing 
over the last 3 to 4 years, and they take their cuts almost exclusively 
out of these domestic programs, programs like education and veterans 
health care and the environment.
  Yet where the real cost increases, spending increases, are coming is 
not in those accounts, which constitute about $350 billion and have 
basically been flat for the last 3 years. As this chart shows, over the 
last 4 years, 90 to 95 percent of the spending increases have come from 
defense, understandably, the reaction to 9/11, post-9/11, and to an 
account in the budget that did not exist 3 years ago, Homeland 
Security. That is where the growth is coming.
  But in instead of going to this growth, instead of going to these 
items in the budget, they are concentrating on domestic discretionary 
spending, and I tell my colleagues while we can take a hit this year, 
$150 billion over 5 years, a significant reduction, and maybe some more 
next year, pretty soon we are going to reach the tolerable limits of 
what we can do in the way of cutting education, law enforcement, 
infrastructure improvements, and things like that in the United States.
  So there are limits to where we can go and the methods they are 
choosing, and that is why I say this is the path we are taking. Here it 
is when CBO sends us their report: $5 trillion. And, by the way, that 
does not include anything for the additional cost of the war past the 
year 2006, and that is because the President does not have it in his 
budget. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) to his credit said we know 
we are going to be there in 2006. We know basically what it costs, we 
should put something in our budget to reflect that cost. And he put $50 
billion in his budget. The President did not. If we adjust his budget, 
as represented here in CBO, for the likely cost of being in Iraq and 
Afghanistan for some years to come, it adds another 300 to $400 billion 
to the tally. It pushes it on up even more.
  So that is what we have before us, a very tough, almost intractable 
problem. And I wish I could say that for all of this arduous effort I 
thought that we were beginning to get our hands around the problem. I 
do not think so.
  We have offered a substitute that we think is better fiscally and 
better in terms of our core values, the values

[[Page H1551]]

that we support and we think the American people share: the education 
of our children, for which we do more; the health care of our veterans, 
for which we are committed and do more; the development of our 
communities; and the quality of our environment. We do that simply by 
bringing spending in the domestic discretionary accounts back to 
baseline, that is, to current services, enough to prevent them from 
being eroded away by inflation, but not by any significant increase.
  Those changes plus the plan we lay out will bring our budget to 
balance by the year 2012. We think that ought to be the effort and aim 
of every budget that is presented here in the well of the House, 
getting back to balance as soon as possible and will incur less debt 
than the budget resolutions being offered to us.
  So we have got plenty to debate here today, but we have got an 
alternative on our side that protects our core values and priorities, 
the education of our children, the health care of our veterans, the 
development of our communities, the quality of our environment, and one 
also that is fiscally responsible. One also that will move us to 
balance sooner in time more assuredly than the Republican resolution.
  We look forward to the debate. We believe that we have the better 
choice, the better resolution; and we will be presenting in the course 
of the day the reasons why.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to have our 
Members talk a little bit about our continued strength as a Nation.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Crenshaw), a member of our committee, to talk about national defense.

                              {time}  1545

  Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me 
time, and want to commend him for his hard work in crafting this 
fiscally responsible budget which fulfills Congress's commitment to 
protecting American citizens.
  As the chairman just stated, the driving force of this budget is to 
make sure, first and foremost, that our most critical priorities are 
met, and there is no greater priority in this budget than making sure 
that America's continued strength and security are intact. Our number 
one commitment to the American people continues to be the protection of 
their security.
  Five years ago when I decided to run for Congress, I decided because 
I looked at our military, I saw that it was underfunded, I saw that it 
was overdeployed. In fact, in the late 1990s, the service chiefs had 
warned Congress that our Nation was on the brink of a hollow military, 
with inadequate funding for troop training and maintenance of 
equipment.
  This became painfully clear when we were attacked on September 11. 
Our Nation had severe defense and homeland security deficits that had 
to be addressed immediately. Since that day, Congress has shown that we 
are more than willing to spend whatever is necessary to protect and 
defend our Nation and support our troops.
  Since September 11, we have spent $1.9 trillion, almost $2 trillion, 
to provide for the defense and homeland security of this Nation, and 
that does not include the supplementals that we have already passed, 
which add up to $248 billion. So we have done a whole lot of very 
necessary and very costly building, rebuilding and across-the-board 
updating to correct those deficits, and we acted quickly, deliberately, 
and in a bipartisan way to address those needs. I am glad to say that 
this year's defense and homeland security budget builds on the 
substantial progress we have already made.
  Our national defense base budget continues the multiyear plan to 
enable the military not only to fight the war against terrorism today, 
but to transform our military to counter some of the unconventional 
threats that will come in the future, and Congress has shown that we 
are more than willing to do whatever it takes.
  I am going to show you a chart, and this shows that since 2000 we 
have increased spending for the military by 66 percent. You can see it 
goes from $287 billion to $476 billion these last 5 years. So that is 
quite a commitment.
  Now, this budget accommodates the President's request for the 
Department of Defense and increases our spending this year up to $419.5 
billion, almost $420 billion. That is an increase over last year of 4.8 
percent. It also proposes a sustained average increase of 3 percent 
over the next 5 years.
  I think we all know that the most important part of our defense 
funding is for the people, the men and women who serve our country, the 
finest military personnel in the world. To support them and to allow 
the Department of Defense to continue to recruit and train first-rate 
forces, this budget builds on the critically needed funding increases 
of the past few years for military personnel.
  Since President Bush took office, we have increased spending in 
military personnel accounts by approximately 40 percent, providing such 
quality of life advancements as, number one, an increase in military 
pay of 21 percent. We have reduced the average out-of-pocket housing 
expenses for military people from 18 percent down to zero. They do not 
have to pay on average any out-of-pocket expenses for their military 
housing. And we fully funded the health benefits for active duty 
members, for retirees and their dependents as well.
  We spend money in operations and maintenance. That is the core of our 
readiness to fight this global war on terrorism. This budget provides 
for increases in training and education, operations and support for the 
military forces, maintenance of field weapons systems and equipment, 
and operation and maintenance of facilities. In total, operations and 
maintenance has gone up by 20 percent over the last 4 years.
  To continue our effort to replace worn out or obsolete equipment, we 
provide for procurement of new ships, aircraft and vehicles, as well as 
the purchase and initial fielding of weapons systems, ammunition and 
other combat-related systems. Over the past 4 years, funding for 
procurement has increased 25 percent.
  Also, as the chairman noted in his opening statement, we have 
included in our budget $50 billion to fight the ongoing War on Terror.
  Mr. Chairman, the number one responsibility of the Federal Government 
is to protect American lives, and I am proud to say that this budget 
does just that. I urge its adoption.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Kansas (Mr. Ryun) to talk about homeland security.
  Mr. RYUN of Kansas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
me time, and I want to compliment the gentleman and the staff for 
putting together what I consider an excellent budget. Your work will be 
recognized as we move this.
  Continuing our progress in providing for homeland security, this 
budget provides for a total homeland security spending of $49.9 
billion, an increase of 8.6 percent. About 55 percent of that would go 
to the Department of Homeland Security or other homeland security-
related funding spread through the government, including the Department 
of Defense, Health and Human Services and Justice as well.
  These funds will work to meet the needs in three key strategic areas 
of homeland security, including, first of all, preventing attacks. We 
provide for increases in funding for homeland security programs and 
agencies specifically designed to help prevent attacks from occurring, 
including border security, counterterrorism and counterintelligence.
  Secondly, we reduce other vulnerabilities. Our budget works to reduce 
and eliminate the risk of attacks at our ports, rails, in the skies, 
our food supply and roads by allowing for increases in many of the 
programs and agencies to help protect these important areas of commerce 
and travel.
  Thirdly, ensuring preparedness. This budget also helps to ensure that 
our first responders have the necessary material and equipment to 
handle emergencies as well as adequate disaster preparedness through 
FEMA.
  Key initiatives of the President's proposal supported by this 
include: $40.4 billion for total homeland security spending, excluding 
the Department of Defense homeland security spending; $38.3 billion for 
the Department of Homeland Security, a 177.5 percent increase for 
agencies moving into the department from fiscal year 2001;

[[Page H1552]]

and the increase in this year's budget follows on the heels of truly 
substantial increases over the past few years.
  As you will see from the chart we are going to put up now, this chart 
shows only the non-defense discretionary spending and illustrates what 
we have done in the past years in the area of homeland security since 
2001.
  In 2000, spending in this category, as you can see from the bottom 
over here, was $9 billion, so over the past years we have increased 
that by 28 percent, where we are now up to an estimated $32 billion. So 
the increase has been there and we are doing what is right.
  We have invested more than $50 billion to create the Department of 
Homeland Security, reorganizing 22 agencies consisting of 180,000 
employees and their missions and invested heavily to protect the 
homeland against threats such as bioterrorism.
  As I said a moment ago, there is no higher priority in our budget, or 
certainly in the budgets of the past few years, than providing for what 
is needed for the protection and security of our country and support of 
our troops. That said, we want to ensure that the money we are spending 
is being spent wisely and with proper planning and oversight. As the 
chairman has often said, and we are working on here, many times too 
often around here we judge our progress simply on how much we are 
spending, instead of how well we are spending it.
  Aside from the increases the President has proposed for both homeland 
security and defense, his budget recommends reducing total funding for 
non-security discretionary programs by about 1 percent from the current 
year's level. Particularly under these circumstances, we want to make 
sure that every dollar we spend is spent wisely and with proper 
planning and oversight. The homeland security defense spending is 
certainly no exception.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield for the purposes of a unanimous 
consent request to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).
  (Mr. MORAN of Virginia asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend the gentleman 
from South Carolina for his leadership.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the fiscally responsible 
Democratic alternative budget offered by the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and in opposition to the Republican leadership's 
unbalanced budget.
  Mr. Chairman, the annual budget resolution is not a legally binding 
document, but a guide, a blueprint for our Nation's budget. While the 
House regretfully--and irresponsibly--failed to pass a budget 
resolution last year, we should not by our inaction diminish its 
importance. The budget resolution should reflect this body's values and 
priorities and those of the American people. Unfortunately, Mr. 
Chairman, the majority's 2006 budget resolution does not reflect the 
American people values, priorities and needs, let alone their 
children's needs. This budget will, in fact, hurt the vast majority of 
Americans for years to come.
  This budget resolution makes tax cuts for the wealthiest in our 
society its top priority. By contrast, it puts little or no priority on 
programs to serve veterans. It slashes funding to protect the 
environment and eliminates numerous education programs. Low-income 
households and underserved communities take the worst hit through 
excessive cuts to health care programs, education, critical 
infrastructure and housing.
  These funding cuts include the elimination or substantial reduction 
of 150 programs. For example, the Department of Education eliminates 48 
programs, costing a total of $4.3 billion, and the Department of Health 
and Human Services eliminates 33 health and social services programs 
costing $2.0 billion. Some cuts are implemented over a 10-year budget 
window, but many are eliminated entirely in fiscal 2006. For example, 
all vocational education programs are eliminated immediately. The 
budget slashes $522 million for all technology education programs and 
$437 million for State grants for safe and drug free school and 
community programs. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, budget is 
cut by nearly one half billion dollars, jeopardizing EPA's ability to 
enforce environmental regulations and coordinate mitigation programs 
with State and local governments.
  The Republican budget cuts veterans' health care by $14 billion below 
current services over the next 5 years. These cuts come at a time of 
unprecedented growth in demand for services. The Veterans Health 
Administration, VHA, is struggling to provide adequate health care 
services for our aging Vietnam, Korean, and World War II veterans, in 
addition to serving the needs of the countless and increasing Iraq war 
veterans.
  The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the administration's 
policies expressed through this budget will result in deficits of $250 
billion or more each year over the next 10 years. The programs I just 
cited represent a small portion of the discretionary budget. Targeting 
environmental, veterans, health care, education, basic scientific 
research and housing programs for cuts, while advocating permanent tax 
cuts that benefit the highest income tier, is not the way to balance 
the budget.
  These discretionary programs represent only 16 percent of the deficit 
but are charged with nearly 100 percent of budget cuts. While the tax 
cuts represent the cause of the majority of our deficit, they will not 
be pared back but instead are made permanent.
  The Bush administration and its House leadership proposes to make tax 
cuts permanent even though this policy would cost $1.5 trillion over 
the next 10 years. Mounting debt and enormous interest obligations will 
be borne by current and future generation. Equally troubling, most of 
our new debt is being purchased by foreign nations. Japan and China, 
for example, hold nearly $1 trillion in American debt. A decline in the 
dollar's value against the Euro during the last year has not gone 
unnoticed by foreign governments that finance U.S. deficit spending. 
Financial ministers have expressed increasing concerns about America's 
unwillingness to reduce deficits. Asian nations, including South Korea, 
are now balancing their currency portfolio with Euro purchases. Without 
a historical comparison it is difficult to adequately predict what 
impact these trends will have on American economic and national 
security. Some of us are growing increasingly concerned by the 
administration's lack of a comprehensive strategy for reducing our 
reliance on foreign financing. even acknowledgment of the problem would 
be helpful.
  The President has insisted on cutting taxes during a time of war. You 
don't finance two wars with five tax cuts. President Bush is the only 
president ever to do so, and his stubborn pursuit of additional costly 
``reforms'' (such as the multi-trillion dollar Social Security 
privatization plan) seriously imperils America's ability to compete in 
the future against emerging economies in Asia and the European Union. 
Our economy, particularly in my home district on Northern Virginia, is 
currently in pretty good shape. But our standard of living and growth 
cannot be sustained if we insist on deferring enormous debt and 
interest obligations to future generations. The House leadership's 
blind acquiescence to the President's policies is regretful and 
irresponsible.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote against the Republican 
leadership's budget, which basically rubber stamps the President's 
budget. I strongly support the Spratt alternative Democratic budget, a 
much more responsible and morally defensible budget.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).
  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend, the gentleman from South 
Carolina, who is one of the most able and honorable Members of this 
body. I also want to congratulate the gentleman for having put together 
a budget that reaches balance.
  The other side talks a good game. They do not produce. Every year the 
ranking member's budget has a lower deficit than the Republican budget.
  My point today is simple: On the floor of this House, there are two 
pictures and two pictures only: One is George Washington, to my right, 
and the other one is a gentleman people in the galleries have trouble 
identifying. Who is he? He is a Frenchman, the Marquis de Lafayette. 
Why is he here? Because during the American Revolution, they loaned us 
money to help us beat the British.
  There is always a race between the creditors and the citizens. Well, 
under the Republican budget, the creditors start winning in the year 
2009. This is it, the tipping point. In the year 2009, we will be 
spending more money to service our debts, increasingly to foreigners, 
than we will be spending on our own citizens on domestic non-defense 
discretionary spending. That is an outrage. It will be better starting 
in the year 2009 in terms of domestic government in this country to be 
a creditor and not a citizen.
  And the trend that is being set by the Republican budget just gets 
worse. Do not take my word for it, listen to the Government 
Accountability Office. By the year 2040, under present trends, it will 
take all the revenues of the Federal Government just to pay interest

[[Page H1553]]

on our debts. There will be no national defense, there will be no 
Social Security, there will be no Medicare, there will be no government 
left. The Republicans have put us on a road to ruin.
  One of the speakers recently just said, well, we have a strong 
defense. That is good. We are borrowing more and more of the money from 
the Chinese. Who do you want pictured on the wall of the House of 
Representatives in future years? Do you want the Marquis de Lafayette, 
or do you want Hu Jintao of China, or Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan, 
or do you want Tony Blair of Great Britain? Because these creditors 
have more and more power over this country because we are borrowing 
more and more of their money.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Hawaii (Mr. Case).
  Mr. CASE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and I am very happy 
that the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper), my predecessor speaker, 
spoke of what happens next. Because I think as I look at this budget 
and I ask myself what is really wrong with this budget, of course, we 
are going to hear a lot of detail this afternoon and it is easy to get 
lost in the detail, and frankly it is easy for detail to obscure the 
underlying principles and rationale for a budget.
  But let us get beyond the detail and ask ourselves a basic question, 
how long out does this budget go? Can you believe that this budget only 
goes 5 years? It only goes out 5 years.
  Now, what if I came home and I told my wife, I have got a great 
family budget, it goes one year, knowing that I have a balloon payment 
on my home mortgage the following year?
  What if my accountant gave me a 3-year budget for my family, knowing 
that I would retire in the fourth year?
  What if my business ran a 5-year budget, and I knew that I had to 
replace my entire plant inventory in the sixth through the tenth year? 
I think I would be told to get out of budgeting.
  And what if I told you that this budget goes 5 years, because the 
consequences of the budgetary policies that are inherent in this budget 
come home to roost after that 5 years. And what if I told you that for 
that exact reason in prior years we have run 10-year budgets, but we 
did not do it in the last couple of years. And why would we do this? 
Because the consequences are obscured beyond that 5 years.
  I know what I think about that, and I know what the Democrats think 
about budgeting only until it hits the fan, and that is wrong.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Cardoza).
  Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my disappointment 
with the lack of attention to our Nation's fiscal crisis. We have a 
budgeting process that simply defies logic. The system is broken, plain 
and simple. We need to focus our efforts on finding a cure for our 
addiction to budget deficit spending.
  This dog of a budget does not hunt, but the Blue Dog Coalition has 
introduced a 12-step reform plan that is a good place to start with 
reforms. It requires a balanced budget, stops Congress from buying on 
credit and puts a limit on spending. It requires an accurate account, 
cost estimates and allows sunshine to purify the process. It is no 
secret that our national debt is out of control. We are expected to run 
a $427 billion deficit in 2005, with more deficits projected as far as 
the eye can see.
  We do not even have a firm grip on where our money is going. Within 
the Department of Defense, only six of 63 departments are able to 
produce a clean audit. That is less than 10 percent.

                              {time}  1600

  This budget omits so many major expenses that it is a sham. The 
administration has essentially cooked the books using Enron-style 
accounting and Congress is just blindly going along with the program.
  We find ourselves trying to pass a budget that hides half of our 
problems. We know that foreign holding of U.S. debt is on the rise. 
Interest on the national debt is the fastest growing area of the 
Federal budget, and the trade deficit is totally out of control.
  What are we doing about it? Not a darn thing.
  I hope that this Congress will wake up and restore fiscal 
responsibility and accountability. It is time to stop digging this hole 
deeper.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Kansas (Mr. Moore).
  Mr. MOORE of Kansas. Mr. Chairman, we have in this country a $7.7 
trillion national debt. We have deficit for the past 4 years of over 
$400 billion a year. We have interest between a half a billion dollars 
and three-quarters of a billion dollars a day, interest a day on our 
national debt.
  We have got to change the way we are doing business in this country, 
or our children and grandchildren and future generations will not have 
a chance. The first rule of holes is when you are in a hole and you do 
not want to go deeper, stop digging. We just keep digging this hole 
deeper and deeper and deeper.
  This should not be about Republicans and Democrats. This should not 
be partisan at all. We are all in this together. We ought to be working 
together to return to fiscal responsibility. Some people talk fiscal 
responsibility, but they are not willing to practice it.
  I proposed a couple of years ago that we reinstate what is called 
PAYGO, pay-as-you-go rule. That would require if you have a new 
spending proposal or a new tax cut proposal, you have to say how it 
will be paid for. Pretty simple, pretty commonsense.
  Chairman Alan Greenspan has recommended that to the Committee on the 
Budget, to the House of Representatives that we should return to the 
PAYGO rule and we should do that. That would keep us from putting our 
country deeper and deeper in debt. But we are not doing that, and we 
have got to change the way we are doing business here.
  We are putting our kids and grandchildren in a hole so deep I am 
concerned that they will never be able to climb out if we do not turn 
things around here.
  We should all come together, Republicans and Democrats, and say we 
are going to restore fiscal responsible; we will take care of business. 
But we cannot have just unlimited tax cuts. It is like a kid going into 
a candy store saying, I got a dollar, when what he wants to buy is a 
$1.50 worth. They say, You do not have enough money. But I want it. 
Well, we cannot have everything we want. We can have selected tax cuts, 
we can have selected spending; but we cannot have everything across the 
board and keep our country in the black.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner).
  Mr. TANNER. Mr. Chairman, I do not think the American people realize 
how bad the situation here is in Washington and how financially 
mismanaged our government has been over the last 4 years.
  Since 2001, this country has borrowed in hard dollars $1.12 trillion. 
What that means to every citizen is simply this: at 5 percent interest, 
that is over $50 billion a year that has been transferred away from 
addressing the problems of health care and veterans and education and 
the things that will keep our country competitive into interest. What 
is worse than that though is since that time 84 percent of the budget 
deficit that we have run, the money we have borrowed has come from 
foreign interest.
  We are now sending $80 billion a year overseas in interest checks. We 
are bankrupting America while this country, this Congress fiddles. And 
this situation is not only dire and getting worse by the second. We are 
borrowing $13,000 a second, paying interest at about $5,000 a second.
  If you took 1,000 dollar bills and stacked them on top of one 
another, one million dollars would be about a foot high. A billion 
dollars would be about as high as the Empire State Building, and a 
trillion dollars would be a thousand times as high as the Empire State 
Building. This government has borrowed over $1 trillion in the last 48 
months, and we are doing nothing in this budget to address that 
problem.
  We are lording over the largest budget deficits in the history of the 
United States. That is the record. I mean, people are entitled to their 
opinion. They are not entitled to their own set of facts. This is not 
something that is going to happen in the future. This has happened and 
is happening now.

[[Page H1554]]

  The director of GAO was before the Committee on Ways and Means last 
week. Do you know what he said? He said if we continue on this course, 
if we do what the administration and this Congress recommends, and that 
is make the tax cuts permanent, and spending only grows at the rate of 
growth of the economy, in the year 2040 every dime that comes into 
Washington, D.C. will be going to pay interest. There will be nothing 
left, 35 years from now.
  I do not know if I can impress on the American people enough to 
demand that something be done about this horrible mismanagement of 
their country and their country's finances.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I say they have demanded and we are responding; but I do not hear any 
of them saying we want a tax increase like the Blue Dog budget is going 
to offer. That is not what they are saying.
  We do not need more taxes to come into Washington from this oversized 
government. We do not need that from the Democratic substitute. We do 
not need it from the Blue Dog budget. We do not need a tax increase. 
There is not anybody balancing their checkbook around their kitchen 
table in Iowa saying, gee, Mom and Dad, let us figure out a way to pay 
more in taxes.
  They want us to control spending. So we will talk about controlled 
spending.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 6\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Putnam) to talk about the discretionary part of the budget.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chairman's leadership in 
this effort. As he noted in his opening statement, we have spent a 
great deal in these past few years to secure our Nation in the wake of 
the September 11 attacks. But at the same time we were directing a huge 
new share of resources to those urgent needs, we were also continuing 
to keep pace in our domestic nonsecurity programs like education, 
health care, veterans, agriculture, a whole host of other issues 
outside of defense and homeland security that people associate with 
their government.
  On 9/11, our priorities shifted as a Nation, but our fiscal 
priorities remained the same. We kept growing our domestic programs by 
the same levels we had been, the rate of which would have been 
unsustainable even without a September 11. Over the past decade, we 
have increased programs almost across the board, and in many cases 
doubled, tripled or even quadrupled the rate of inflation.
  I say that because out of one side of the mouth of the opposition 
comes a plea for fiscal restraint and out of the other side comes a hue 
and cry at the devastating terrible cuts that are being beset upon the 
American people.
  Let us look at what the impact of domestic spending has been over the 
past decade. A Mount Everest of increases in discretionary spending. As 
we can see, overall discretionary spending grows since 1994, a very 
steep line. With the exception of last year which was the first time in 
a long time that we began the process of slowing growth, on average we 
have increased discretion spending by 6.1 percent per year for over a 
decade.
  Let us look at some of the key areas that make up that portion of the 
spending. In the last 5 years, the Republican Congress has increased 
education funding by an average of almost 12 percent per year. Over 
that same period of time, spending for the Department of Education has 
increased by 75 percent, almost doubling our commitment. In fact, aside 
from the newly created Department of Homeland Security, the Department 
of Education has grown faster than any other Federal agency or 
Department during this period.
  Let us look at some of the key programs that make up two-thirds of 
the Department of Education's budget. Title I, since 2000 title I 
funding for low-income schools has increased by 55 percent. Pell grants 
which help provide lower-income students with funding for college has 
increased by 57 percent over 5 years. And while this decision will be 
left up to the authorizing committee, the President's budget request 
called for increasing that amount that students are eligible to receive 
under this program.
  Let us look at funding for our special needs students. IDEA, the 
Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, provides for 
those needs of our most important and sensitive children in the school 
system; funding has increased by 87 percent in the past 5 years.
  In addition to increased funding, Congress also passed the No Child 
Left Behind Act which demands results in exchange for dollars. It works 
to forge a real link between education spending and classroom 
achievement while focusing resources on underperforming schools.
  Now let us look at veterans, those men and women who have done so 
much to secure the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy and take for 
granted on a regular basis. I think that everyone should be proud of 
the commitment that we have made and continue to make in the area of 
veterans benefits.
  Since Republicans took control of the Congress in 1995, tremendous 
strides have been made in improving benefits for our Nation's veterans 
through hefty increases. Budget authority since 1995 has increased 77 
percent, beginning at $38 billion, ending up at $67.6 billion. A 
tremendous increase. In fact, that 77 percent increase compares to only 
a 40 percent increase over the previous 10 years.
  Spending per veteran. Let us get right down to the veteran in your 
district. Spending per veteran since 1995, increased payments per 
veteran have gone up 103 percent compared with 43 percent during the 
previous 10 years. You could walk into any Legion Hall or VFW complex 
in America and be proud of that number.
  Since 1995, we have increased VA medical care funding from $16.2 
billion to almost $30 billion. And in 1996 and 1999, Congress expanded 
eligibility for medical care and as a result the number of veterans 
utilizing VA care has nearly doubled.
  The Montgomery GI bill. Those veterans who return home and seek to 
improve their lot and develop their education skills, since 1995 
Montgomery GI education benefits have gone from $405 to $1,004, an 
increase of 147 percent. And I will also note that prior to the 
Republican take over in 1995, under 40 years of Democrat control, there 
was no progress whatsoever on concurrent receipts. Now military 
retirees injured in combat or while training for combat who are 50 
percent or more service disabled, are able for the first time in over 
100 years to receive retirement benefits at the same time as their 
veterans disability compensation.
  About a month ago, the Charleston Gazette ran this quote, and I will 
share it: ``Bush increased VA spending by 27 percent in his first term. 
As factcheck.org pointed out, funding for veterans is going up twice as 
fast under Bush as it did under Clinton. And the number of veterans 
getting health benefits is going up 25 percent.''
  The bottom line is that domestic discretionary needs have been met 
and continue to be met under this blueprint that the gentleman from 
Iowa (Mr. Nussle) presents today.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) to talk about automatic spending or mandatory 
spending. We do not need a tax increase. We need to control spending.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, 
and I thank him for saying what he did earlier about tax increases.
  I have been watching these budget debates for 11 years now as a 
Member of Congress, 3 years as a member of the Committee on the Budget; 
and year after year the argument is the same.
  Our colleagues from the other side of the aisle criticize our budgets 
in two respects. They say Republican budgets do not spend enough, and 
they say taxes should be higher. That is pretty much the gist of their 
complaints against our budgets. So I am glad to see the chairman 
pointing out his opposition and join him in adding my opposition to tax 
increases.
  Now, I do want to talk as the chairman has asked me about mandatory 
spending. And I appreciate this opportunity as a member of the 
Committee on Appropriations, as well as a member of the Committee on 
the Budget.
  As the chairman has noted, Congress spends a lot of time talking 
about discretionary spending, that part of the budget that makes up 
only one-third of total spending. The last time we made

[[Page H1555]]

any real effort to restrain the bulk of our spending, that part on 
auto-pilot, was back in 1997 and before that 1990.
  Now if we look at this pie chart, we can see how much of our total 
spending has come to be mandatory spending: 48.7 percent in 1995, 54.3 
percent today. And if we do not get a rein on it, by the year 2015, the 
portion of the budget over which we have little control or have chosen 
to have little control will grow to 62.1 percent.

                              {time}  1615

  Eventually this spending will crowd out other priorities which we 
also need to address.
  Let us look at the other chart if we might. This one deals with 
student loans. We address much of our student spending with 
discretionary money, but student loans are mandatory programs. Since 
2000, student loan volume has increased by 64 percent, with loans 
increasing by $31.4 billion to $80.7 billion today. This represents an 
annual growth rate of 10.5 percent at a time when our economy has grown 
by approximately 4 percent per year.
  The next chart deals with Medicare spending. Medicare, of course, as 
we all know, is the Federal Government's nationwide health care system 
for 41 million senior citizens and disabled persons. That is 14 percent 
of the population. Since 1995, Medicare spending has grown 88 percent. 
This year alone we will spend $293 billion on Medicare. Over the next 5 
years, CBO estimates that Federal outlays will amount to $2 trillion, 
and as my friend from Tennessee pointed out, $1 trillion is an awful 
lot of money.
  Our next chart deals with Medicaid. Medicaid provides medical and 
long-term expenses to more than 40 million low-income families, elderly 
and disabled individuals. This is one out of seven Americans who 
benefit from this program. It serves as the cornerstone of America's 
health care safety net. Since 1995, Medicaid spending has grown an 
astonishing 211 percent. Let me repeat that. Since 1995, Medicare 
spending has grown 211 percent. According to CBO, this year the Federal 
Government will spend $183.2 billion on this important program, and 
over the next 5 years that spending will grow by over $1.1 trillion, an 
enormous rate of increase in this mandatory program.
  So why have we allowed it to get to this point? And why are there 
still so few people who are willing to admit there is a problem, let 
alone trying to tackle the problem?
  The first reason, mandatory spending is difficult to control. This 
spending is tied to a variety of factors outside Congress's control, 
demographics, economic conditions, medical prices and so on. In 
addition, we have an aging population, with longer life expectancy--
that is a good thing--increasing benefits and ever increasing medical 
expenses. In addition, the baby boom generation, my generation, is 
about to retire, adding huge strains to the resources of these 
programs.
  Secondly, these programs address critical needs that must be met, 
Medicare payments, Social Security payments, commitments to our 
veterans.
  Almost everyone is affected by one or more of these programs, either 
ourselves, our children, our parents, our grandparents. In many cases, 
people associate these programs with the one check that they receive 
with their name on it.
  Now, all of these factors make it especially difficult not only to 
control entitlement spending but even to discuss getting it back under 
control without causing concern to good, deserving people who worry 
that their benefits will be changed. So we have a big problem to deal 
with, not only to get our hands around the problem, but to do it in a 
way that is fair for today's recipients and tomorrow's recipients.
  The President's budget addressed this problem by including savings in 
mandatory programs, just slowing that rate of growth, as part of our 
effort to get the growth rate under control and to help reduce the 
current deficit. Our budget, while not an exact duplicate of the 
President's proposals, begins the process.
  It is important to remind everyone that this is not happening in a 
vacuum. As the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam) pointed out, we have 
already taken the first steps toward getting a grip on discretionary 
spending.
  Specifically, what does this budget do? It provides, for the first 
time since 1997, reconciliation instructions to the authorizing 
committees. It directs each of them to find a specified amount of 
savings. What it does not tell them to do is where to find those 
savings. That will be left up to the committees. The budget has a 
number that is given to each committee, and it directs the committee of 
jurisdiction to find that amount of savings. This is a critical step to 
begin the process of getting our mandatory spending back to a 
sustainable level, simply slowing the rate of growth of programs such 
as the one demonstrated on this poster.
  It is a critical step, and I ask all of my colleagues to support this 
effort by supporting the budget, and I thank my chairman again for 
putting together a resolution that addresses the very needed mandatory 
spending restraint that is going to be necessary for our future 
economic prosperity.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Tennessee (Mr. Ford).
  Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the time.
  It has to be tough. I am a good friend of the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) and a friend of the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Putnam). It has got to be tough for them and the chairman.
  Back when they were on the committee a few years ago when this 
President first started in office, we had surpluses, and it was easy to 
go before the committee and debate how we would spend money we actually 
have or actually had and projected we would have. But today we are out 
of it, so much out of it that we have to come to the floor and almost 
pretend that we are doing something that we are not.
  As much as I respect the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), and 
I know he has left the floor, he should call his own Governor, Governor 
Barbour, and ask him his feelings about the Medicare increases he 
bragged about here on the floor.
  My Governor Bredesen in Tennessee was faced with an enormous 
shortfall, as most Governors are. I might add that the Governors were 
here not long ago, Democrats and Republican, and expressed their 
outright opposition to President Bush's budget as it related to 
Medicaid and even this budget as it relates to it.
  The thing that is clear today, Mr. Speaker, is that our priorities 
are just very different than theirs. They accuse us of wanting to spend 
more. Yet the two most previous speakers bragged about how much 
spending they have done over the last several years. I would, too, if I 
was actually cutting budgets.
  The VFW Hall that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam) said I 
should be proud to go into and explain what we have done over the last 
few years, it is funny. They were here passing out ribbons and arm 
bands, urging us to do more because this budget here actually cuts the 
budget for the Veterans Affairs Department by $740 million when we 
consider keeping up with inflation.
  We ask those returning from Iraq to pay higher copayments for their 
drugs, and we even ask them to pay a $250 dollar entry fee.
  All of these numbers we use here could be confusing to people back 
home, but here is the short of it. We are going to do less for those 
who need it most, and we are going to do more for those who need the 
least in this budget.
  I would be embarrassed if I had to vote for this budget. Thankfully I 
do not, and frankly I do not even know if I am going to vote for all 
the things we are going to present on our side, for one reason. It is 
not balanced. Ours is more balanced than my colleagues, and as much as 
my colleagues may want to pretend that they are doing something for 
education when they talk about the increases, ask any State education 
commissioner how far off we are with our numbers for the No Child Left 
Behind Act, how far we are off for the poor children in this country. 
If my colleagues are proud of making those kind of cuts, go for it; 
vote for that budget.
  The last point I would make is on Medicaid and Medicare. We want to 
say to poor people in this country that we are taking care of them and 
doing all that we can. Yet we will not say to drug companies in the 
country that we want them to negotiate directly with Medicare so we can 
ensure we get the

[[Page H1556]]

best price for seniors, for the disabled and for the poor working 
people across this country.
  Vote no if my colleagues care about America and care about our 
future.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority leader.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for yielding me time, and I, more 
importantly, thank him for his tremendous leadership, for his 
leadership on the Committee on the Budget. He has presented budgets 
that are statements of our national values, that are balanced in terms 
of their priority and balanced in terms of their fiscal soundness. He 
has been a great teacher to the country and the Congress on this issue. 
We are indeed blessed by his exceptional leadership.
  Mr. Chairman, with today's vote on the previous question, Republicans 
told their constituents exactly where they stood on Social Security. 
They want to privatize it. Defeating the previous question would have 
ensured that payroll contributions of millions of Americans are 
protected and are not diverted away from Social Security to fund 
private accounts, but Republicans voted unanimously to undermine Social 
Security with private accounts.
  Even though Social Security privatization is the President's number 
one priority, the Republican budget hides the cost in and the harmful 
effects of Social Security privatization by refusing to include any 
details on the plan in the budget.
  The Republican budget also continues the Republican raid on the 
Social Security Trust Fund by spending every penny of the Social 
Security Trust Fund over the next 10 years, totaling $2.6 trillion.
  The previous speaker or colleague the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Ford) referenced that when President Bush came into office he came in 
at a time of surplus. Indeed, for the last 3 years of the Clinton 
administration, there was zero deficit. In fact, there were surpluses, 
and that tightening of the government's budget under President Clinton 
enabled the Clinton administration to pay back over $350 billion of our 
indebtedness, reducing the national debt. We were on a course of action 
in the budget of being debt free by the year 2008, debt free for our 
country, and what that means in terms of the budget and the debt 
service is remarkable.
  Yet, President Bush came into office with his reckless tax cuts for 
the superwealthy. Not all of them were for superwealthy. We supported 
those for the middle class, but because of the size of the tax cuts for 
the superwealthy has driven us deeply into debt to the tune this year, 
if we include the supplemental, of about a half a trillion dollars in 
debt for 1 year, this is unconscionable.
  The course of action that the Republican administration is on makes 
it nearly impossible for them to pay back the Social Security Trust 
Fund, the money they have taken from it to date.
  Secondly, the private accounts and the transition costs of around $2 
trillion for the transition over the next 10 years, is huge and, again, 
undermines Social Security.
  So the deficit in the budget is directly related to undermining 
Social Security. It is essential that the President be stopped in 
creating these private accounts which drain money out of the Social 
Security Trust Fund, thereby weakening Social Security. It is essential 
that the President and the Republicans be stopped from their reckless 
deficit spending, their raid on the Social Security Trust Fund and 
their further deficit spending with their tax cuts for the superrich 
that will make it impossible for them to pay back the money to the 
trust fund.
  This is money that the American workers have placed into the trust 
fund, that American businesses have matched by placing into the trust 
fund for retirement insurance. This money belongs to the American 
people. It is not a slush fund for President Bush to give tax cuts to 
the superwealthy at the expense of working families in America.
  Democrats are committed to addressing the challenge which faces 
Social Security down the road. The first step towards strengthening 
Social Security is ensuring that Social Security contributions are used 
only to pay for the guaranteed benefit that American workers have 
earned through a lifetime of work, for retirement; for disabilities if, 
God forbid, that happens, a tragedy befalls their family; and again, 
for survivors and families who have lost a loved one.
  Privatization makes the challenge facing Social Security worse by 
slashing benefits by more than 40 percent for future retirees 
survivors, the people with disabilities, if what we know of the 
President's plan, indexing to prices rather than wage, is proceeded 
upon, saddling our children and grandchildren with massive debt and 
jeopardizing the retirement lifeline provided by Social Security's 
guaranteed benefit.
  Rather than diverting trillions with a T-R, trillions of dollars from 
the trust fund to fund risky private accounts, Democrats are committed 
to strengthening Social Security. Once privatization is off the table, 
Democrats want to work with Republicans in a bipartisan way to make any 
adjustments to keep Social Security solvent.

                              {time}  1630

  Indeed, Mr. Chairman, the issue is what we do about Social Security 
from the year 2050 to the year 2100. Contrary to what the President has 
put out there, there is no crisis facing Social Security. There is a 
problem down the road. We have time to deal with it in the right way, 
in a way that does not slash benefits, that does not increase the 
deficit, does not rob our trust fund of its funds and does not burden 
our children with all of that debt.
  So we will go to the table and say, with the amount of money that 
should be in the trust fund, and if the administration honors its moral 
and legal obligation to pay the trust fund back the money it has taken 
out, then the trust fund and interest on it should take us well into 
2050. And after that, the benefits would be at 80 percent, and that is 
what we have to deal with. We can deal with it soon. We can deal with 
it in a bipartisan way. Just as President Reagan did working with 
Speaker Tip O'Neill in 1983, we can work it out in a bipartisan way to 
strengthen Social Security.
  Some say that the private accounts are an end in themselves. There 
are people who believe in private accounts. Others believe that the 
private accounts are just a decoy, just a Trojan horse that looks 
appealing to people because it is a new idea, that once they get it 
past the gates of the city that rotten underbelly of huge deficits will 
destroy Social Security.
  Either way, private accounts have got to go. They take money out of 
the trust fund, and this administration has no visible means of paying 
that money back.
  Today, again, the Republicans said with their vote that they want to 
undermine Social Security by privatizing it, while Democrats voted 
unanimously to strengthen Social Security for future generations. Let 
us honor our responsibility to future generations, to our children, 
also to America's workers. Morally and legally we are bound to give 
them the promise of America to pay their insurance; their retirement 
insurance; and, if in time of tragedy, their disability and survivor 
insurance as well.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, we do not need a Democratic tax increase. 
We need to keep the economy growing.
  Mr. Chairman, to speak about that issue, I yield 10 minute to the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), vice chairman of the Budget 
Committee.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Budget 
Committee for yielding me this time, and I am delighted to have the 
opportunity to talk about the importance of keeping the economy 
growing. And this budget certainly does that.
  But let me take a moment, if I could, and respond to some of the 
comments by the minority leader with regard to the Social Security 
system. First, to say the criticism that your budget, Mr. Chairman, 
does not include Social Security, is kind of an unusual one, given that 
as the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) knows, under the 
Budget Act of 1974, Social Security is off budget. And even if the 
Budget Committee, in all of its wisdom, decided we were going to reform 
Social Security, we would not have the ability to. You cannot do it in 
the budget.

[[Page H1557]]

  And, secondly, although we heard a lot of criticism about some of the 
President's ideas and some of the other ideas to indeed modernize and 
save Social Security, we did not hear even outlines of a plan on the 
other side. So it is kind of hard to put a budget together, even if you 
could under the Budget Act, when there is no plan.
  There is lot of denial about the problem we just heard. And there is 
a lot of criticism about those who would like to address the problem. I 
commend the President for addressing it. There can be no greater sense 
of leadership around this place, Washington, D.C., than someone who is 
willing to take on the third rail in American politics, Social 
Security.
  Traditionally, it has been one that politically is very tough, hard 
to take on, referring to that third electrified rail in the New York 
subway system. You grab it and you are electrified. The President is 
taking it on, as are Republicans, because it is the right thing to do. 
It is the right thing to do for our seniors, to be sure they have 
strong Social Security. And as the President said repeatedly, anybody 
who is age 55 or older will not have their benefits changed one bit.
  But more importantly, it is important for those succeeding 
generations. I have my 14-year-old son with me today. We want to be 
sure that his generation has an opportunity to have the same kind of 
peace of mind in retirement and the retirement security that we have 
all enjoyed.
  And quite frankly, the math does not lie. The Social Security system 
was funded in a way that does not permit us to continue to provide 
those benefits to future generations because of the fact that we have 
people living longer, because we have more people who are about to 
retire, my generation, the baby boom generation, and because therefore 
we will have fewer people working to pay in those benefits.
  We need to do something. We need to do it on a bipartisan basis. We 
need to put aside this notion that everything is off the table and 
criticism and denial and, instead, address the very real problem we 
have. And the very obvious solution is to do something sooner rather 
than later because the sooner we do it, the less impact it will be on 
our economy, on our budget, and on our young people.
  The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) talked about the 
reckless tax cuts that have driven us into debt. Well, what have we 
seen over the last 4 years? It is not tax relief that drove us into 
debt. Over the last 4 years we have seen remarkable changes in our 
Nation's economic picture after having endured the bursting of the 
stock market bubble, the corporate scandals, a recession, the terrorist 
attacks and their aftermath and, of course, the uncertainties of an 
international war against terrorism, including our conflicts in 
Afghanistan and now in Iraq.
  These things have resulted in two things. Number one, because of the 
recession, less revenue. And of course that is the number one reason we 
find ourselves with a growing deficit over the last few years. And all 
the data supports that, from CBO, from OMB, all the nonpartisan 
actuaries looking at this issue. All those who analyze it say the same 
thing. When you have less revenue coming in, lower capital gains, lower 
corporate income tax, lower individual income tax because of recession, 
that is the number one reason.
  The second reason is increased spending. And, yes, this Congress has 
increased spending, and in a few areas as has been talked about earlier 
today, it was necessary. One, of course, is Homeland Security. Once 
again, this budget provides for substantial increases in our Homeland 
Security budget because we need it to protect our country against the 
terrorist threat.
  Second is with regard to defense. We inherited not only a recession 
over the last 4 years, but also a deficit in terms of our defense. We 
needed to rebuild defense. And again today we will vote on a budget, or 
this week on a budget, that will increase substantially our commitment 
to the defense of our country. So some spending has been increased, and 
some other areas as well.
  Tax relief is specifically focused on growing that economy, getting 
us out of that recession, moving us to a point where we have increased 
revenues coming in. And you know what? The strength and resilience with 
which our Nation has responded to the challenges I talked about 
earlier, the recession, the terrorist attack, the stock market bubble, 
the corporate scandals, has been incredible. And it has been because of 
the tax relief. The tax relief, as opposed to the less revenue from the 
recession, as opposed to the increased spending, the tax relief has 
actually enabled us to move out of a recession into economic times 
where we see good economic growth.
  We have acted together to address those deficits in our Homeland 
Security, our national security, and also put in place through tax 
relief the necessary incentives to grow our economy. Because of that, 
we are in a very different position today than we were 4 years ago.
  In fact, the general consensus of both public and private forecasters 
is that the US economy is in a sustained expansion growth period, with 
real solid GDP growth over the last year and going forward, real growth 
and payroll jobs, low unemployment and very low historical inflation.
  This chart shows the GDP growth. Starting in 2003 going up, real GDP 
growth has increased for 13 consecutive quarters. In 2004, our real 
growth was 4.4 percent. That makes us the envy of the developed world. 
It is the strongest growth we have had in 5 years and one of the 
strongest in 20 years.
  The Budget Committee recently heard from Chairman Alan Greenspan from 
the Federal Reserve who said the U.S. economy delivered a solid 
performance in 2004 and thus far activity appears to be expanding at a 
reasonably good pace. The Fed projects we will have real GDP growth 
this year of between 3\1/2\ and 4 percent, and again good growth in the 
proceeding year.
  This growth is because, again, the tax relief is beginning to work. 
This includes real business investment, increasing at a rate of 15 
percent over the last year and a half. The best performance in real 
business investment and equipment over the past 7 years, shipments of 
nondefense capital goods, which is a key measure of private business 
investment, has rebounded very strongly.
  Homeownership has also increased dramatically. We are now seeing the 
best homeownership rates that we have seen in our country's history. 
Housing construction is at its best in 20 years. This shows a record 
high in homeownership, including among minorities.
  Unemployment is also a good story. If we look at what has happened 
since the tax relief was put in place, payroll employment has increased 
by 3 million jobs over the past 21 months. Just last week we saw job 
gains of 262,000 new jobs, more than a quarter million new jobs in 
February. Again, that is something that we should be proud of as a 
Congress, something we should be very pleased about. Significant 
improvement in jobs and labor markets has occurred and is expected to 
continue as new claims for unemployment insurance are at their lowest 
level in over 4 years.
  Even the stock market is rebounding. Despite all the problems we have 
gone through with the markets we talked about earlier, the Dow-Jones 
Industrial Average has been at its highest level in 4 years. The Dow 
has nearly tripled in value over the last 4 years. These are not just 
figures or abstractions; these mean real jobs for real people we 
represent. It means we have higher investment in plants, in business, 
and equipment. We have higher business income; we have higher wages, 
higher take-home salary. This is happening in America right now. We 
need to be sure that continues.
  Expanding job opportunities and solid income growth is what this 
budget is all about so every American who wants to work can work and 
find a job. That is what makes this a Nation of opportunity and 
prosperity. Today, because we have an improved economic picture, things 
are better; but we are not finished. We need this momentum to continue. 
We need to be sure we continue to see the kind of economic growth we 
have seen, and that means we need to continue the tax relief we passed 
in 2001, 2002, and 2003.
  The minority leader earlier talked about the reckless tax cuts that 
caused the deficit. We talked about what caused the deficit. Here is 
what has resulted from those reckless tax cuts: 3 million jobs in the 
last 21 months. There are a lot of factors in the economy; but the one 
we can control is the

[[Page H1558]]

fiscal side, and that is our spending and our tax relief.
  What this budget does is it says we need to continue that tax relief. 
We are not going to increase taxes just now as our economy has finally 
gotten back on track, as the people we represent have finally seen the 
kind of opportunity we all want them to have. We are not talking about 
new taxes; we are talking about keeping the tax relief that was in 
place in 2001, 2002, and 2003 by this Congress, put in place by this 
Congress, so we can continue to have good economic growth.
  The speed and the strength of the economic recovery of the past 
several years has been due in large part to this tax relief. We cannot 
forget that as we look at this budget. We also need to keep spending 
under control.
  Earlier this month, Alan Greenspan told us that the notion of raising 
taxes in response to deficits ``posed significant risk to economic 
growth and the revenue base'' and that in his judgment we should aim to 
``close the fiscal gap primarily, if not wholly, on the outlay side.'' 
That is what this budget does. It makes some tough choices in 
nondefense discretionary spending, some tough choices in terms of our 
entitlement growth. Our entitlement programs are growing well beyond 
inflation.
  As the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) has laid out today, this 
budget calls for a lot of responsible ways for Congress to help itself 
to control spending, controlling discretionary growth, allocating 
discretionary spending to defense and homeland security priorities, as 
we talked about earlier, and calling for reconciled reductions in the 
amount of growth on the mandatory spending side. None of it is going to 
be easy.
  A lot of us here in Congress have gotten pretty comfortable in 
signing off on big spending increases and free-flowing new spending. 
But success at keeping taxes and spending down is critical to a strong 
economy and with it higher standards of living for our Nation's workers 
and our families.
  The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) talked about the good 
old days in the 1990s when we did have an opportunity to get the 
deficits down and get some surpluses. We did it very simply by keeping 
taxes under control and keeping spending under control. That is what 
this budget provides for, so we can reduce the deficit in half in 5 
years and see that opportunity continue.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  To respond to the gentleman, I would say that Mr. Greenspan has told 
our committee three times that we should borrow from the experience of 
the 1990s, reinstate the so-called pay-as-you-go rule, and apply it 
both to entitlement spending increases and additional tax cuts, 
including renewal of expiring tax cuts as a means of diminishing the 
deficit and improving the bottom line.
  In the interest of full disclosure, we ought to acknowledge that 
advice was given to us three times, and it is in our budget resolution. 
We recommend it in two places in our budget resolution. The one 
discipline proven to work that we ought to institute at the very least 
is PAYGO and apply it both to entitlement spending increases and to 
additional tax cuts, per the recommendation of Chairman Greenspan.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pascrell).
  Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Chairman, while the majority cynically tells 
America that they will cut the deficit in half by 2009, here we go 
begin. A simple review shows that the budget will add $127 billion 5 
years from now and make the situation even worse.

                              {time}  1645

  This is the legacy we are giving to our kids. We are telling them, 
``We've got a deal for you. We're going to privatize part of Social 
Security.'' They are going to need the money to pay the interest on the 
debt. They better save their money.
  My friend from Ohio has presented probably the best defense of 
deficit spending that I have ever heard. Along with the false claims 
and the budgetary sleights of hand, remember, these are the same folks 
who since 2001 have converted a $5.6 trillion surplus into a deficit of 
$4 trillion, a $9 trillion turnaround. Defend that.
  It really takes a special talent to underfund education, to underfund 
veterans' programs, to cut Medicaid, to fail to protect Social Security 
and still raise the deficit. Over and over again it is clear, Mr. 
Chairman, the leadership in Washington has no credibility when it comes 
to handling the people's money. We are good at giving tax cuts to Sammy 
Sosa and we forgot the very people who are fighting on the front lines.
  It is not just doing the congressional budget process where this is 
apparent. A lack of credibility with America's money seems to be the 
order of the day throughout government. Just this morning, we completed 
another $81 billion supplemental for a war the administration told us 
would cost $100 billion in its entirety. We were told that the war 
would be paid for by oil revenue. Just this week, we found out that 
Halliburton has overcharged the Pentagon more than $108 million in 
excess billing, a sum that would pay for 592 up-armored Humvees which 
we disgracefully did not provide for our troops at the beginning of 
this war, or 2,250 explosive device jammers for our troops in the 
field. We are going to hear these conversions of costs over and over 
and over again. Mr. Chairman, get used to it.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Mrs. Capps).
  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Nussle 
budget. This budget cuts $20 billion from Medicaid. Our friends on the 
other side of the aisle claim that this is not a cut, just a reduction 
in growth.
  But it is a cut. When prices increase, and they surely have in health 
care, and spending does not match that increase, you are reducing the 
program's purchasing power. You are cutting the program. This budget is 
going to deny States, health care providers and low-income working 
families $20 billion for the health care services that they would have 
had. And there is no evidence that closing loopholes or fighting waste, 
fraud and abuse would save anywhere near this amount.
  Medicaid provides health care, irreplaceable health care, to 52 
million of our poorest children, poor pregnant women, parents and the 
elderly. It is a critical source of acute and long-term care for 13 
million elderly people and disabled people. These are real people who 
would be affected by cutting $20 billion out of Medicaid.
  Mr. Chairman, since the President took office, the number of 
uninsured has increased by 5.2 million. Without Medicaid, this number 
would surely have grown much higher. Medicaid enrollment grew by 6 
million over the same period, covering many people who would otherwise 
have been uninsured. Even so, Medicaid costs have grown about half as 
fast as private health insurance premiums have grown. Between 2000 and 
2003, Medicaid per capita spending went up 6.9 percent while private 
insurance premiums shot up over 12.5 percent. The growth we have seen 
is a result of the skyrocketing health costs that the President has 
allowed, not Medicaid itself.
  If these cuts in Medicaid are made, the ranks of the uninsured will 
surely increase, the economy will become weaker, and health care costs 
would skyrocket even more because fewer people would be unable to 
afford regular checkups and preventive measures but would be stuck by 
going to the emergency room as a last resort. That is why the National 
Governors' Association opposes these cuts. It is why faith-based 
organizations oppose these cuts. And it is certainly why organizations, 
which I have a list of here, like the March of Dimes, the National 
Association of Children's Hospitals, the American Academy of Pediatrics 
and the AARP, all of these groups and many more oppose the cuts that 
this budget puts into Medicaid.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this budget and these draconian 
cuts in Medicaid.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Portman) having assumed the chair, Mr. LaTourette, 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.

[[Page H1559]]

Con. Res. 95) establishing the congressional budget for the United 
States Government for fiscal year 2006, revising appropriate budgetary 
levels for fiscal year 2005, and setting forth appropriate budgetary 
levels for fiscal years 2007 through 2010, had come to no resolution 
thereon.

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