[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 137 (Tuesday, October 25, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H9083-H9090]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE FEDERAL BUDGET
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Schmidt). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, it is interesting that tonight the
American people will hear from both sides of the aisle on a very
important topic. That topic has to do with how we are going to pay for
all of the relief funds that are necessary for the hurricanes that have
caused such damage and wreaked such havoc upon our gulf coast.
What is very interesting for us to note tonight, and the American
people need to know this, Madam Speaker, there are really only three
different places that these funds can come from. Either, number one, in
order to relieve human suffering along the gulf coast, we are going to
pass debt on to our children, or we are going to raise taxes on the
American people, or we can do what the Republicans on this side of the
aisle want to do, and that is restrain the growth of government, ask
maybe the Federal budget to tighten its belt just a little bit so that
families do not have to tighten their belt instead.
[[Page H9084]]
Madam Speaker, everybody here wants to help relieve the human
suffering along the gulf coast. We have seen the pictures. We have seen
the devastation. I had family who live in New Orleans who were
affected. They were among the lucky ones. They are alive. Their home is
damaged, but standing. So all of us have felt in our hearts what has
gone on there.
But, Madam Speaker, we cannot take a great natural disaster of this
generation and turn it into a great fiscal disaster for the next
generation. For us to sit here and pass on $62 billion of additional
debt to our children is simply, absolutely unconscionable. I cannot
believe, Madam Speaker, that anybody would want to do that. Yet I know
many in this body contemplate that.
Madam Speaker, for anybody who heard the earlier discussion this
evening led by the gentleman from South Carolina, the ranking member on
the Committee on the Budget, one would think that there is only one
other answer and that is to increase taxes yet again on the American
people. To some extent all we heard was how we have massive budget
deficits because of tax relief.
Madam Speaker, as the Members will see developed this evening, tax
relief has actually proven to be part of the deficit solution. It is
tax relief that has created jobs. It is tax relief that has promoted
economic growth. And yet those on that side of the aisle would take it
all away from us. They have a plan. Whether or not they have owned up
to it, they want to engage in the largest single tax increase in
American history; and that, Madam Speaker, is not the right thing for
America.
So at first I think it is important that we deal with some of the
facts.
Not a particularly well kept secret is the fact that our entitlement
spending today is absolutely out of control. We have Social Security
growing at 5\1/2\ percent. We have Medicaid growing at 7.8 percent. We
have Medicare growing at 9 percent. Every time we try to reform these
programs that are far outstripping our ability to pay for them, the
Democrats do everything they can to stymie this, and what we have
discovered is that as time goes by, as these programs grow beyond our
ability to pay for them, more and more massive tax increases are going
to be necessary to pay for them. On this chart alone, if we start out
at 2005, the average American family, in just less than one generation,
is going to be faced with a $10,000 tax increase.
The Government Accountability Office, the Office of Management and
Budget, the House Committee on the Budget, anybody who has looked at
this problem all have come to the same conclusion, and that is that
within roughly 30 years, we are either going to have to double taxes on
the American people just to balance the budget or the entirety of
today's Federal budget will pay for Social Security, Medicare, and
Medicaid; and there will be nothing else. There will be no Pentagon.
There will be no VA benefits. There will be no student loans. There
will be no other Federal Government.
So as the Democrats work every day to say we cannot do anything to
control spending, what they are really telling us, Madam Speaker, what
they are telling the American people is they want to double taxes on
our children. That is the program they have signed up for. That is
their program, supposedly, of fiscal responsibility.
But, Madam Speaker, that is not so; and we have a number of
distinguished speakers here tonight to tell us about why that is not
the fiscally responsible thing to do.
I first yield to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), one
of the great leaders in government reform and fiscal responsibility in
this Congress.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for
his excellent work on this issue. It is a pleasure for me to stand here
tonight before this body and before the American people and associate
myself with his good work and with his remarks.
Madam Speaker, he was talking about looking at where we are now and
going forward. I want to step back for just a moment, if I may. I am
going to pick up on a phrase that our colleague from across the aisle
had used when he was talking about policies, and he said those chickens
are coming home to roost. Well, Madam Speaker, I will have to tell the
Members chickens do come home to roost, and the Democrats spent 40
years building program after program after program after program, just
layering them up and creating a government that is very expensive. And
he is right, after 40 years chickens do come home to roost.
I know that is not the point that he was making there. He was trying
to say that in a year or 2 years or 3 years they would come home to
roost. But the point is the Democrats controlled this Chamber. They
controlled the other Chamber. They had control of the White House, and
they kept growing and growing and growing and growing government. And
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) is so right in showing this
chart that shows what will happen and what the tax burden will be if we
do not take the steps that are necessary to cut back on the spending,
and how right he is in the remarks that he has made.
History should be our guide, because 40 years of growing government
has left us with many programs that have outlived their usefulness. We
have got 234 different economic development programs in the Federal
Government. For goodness sakes, would we not be better off with doing
some streamlining?
Another comment that was made from across the aisle, as our
colleagues were talking, someone mentioned something about impeding tax
cuts, doing some things that would impede tax cuts. Well, I hope that
the American people hear this because they may want to impede tax cuts.
They may want to take more money out of working families' pockets, and
what we are doing is trying to put that focus back on having working
families keep more of their hard-earned money. And the way we do it is
not to take more money out of their pockets. The way we do it is to go
in and say government does not have a revenue problem; government has a
spending problem.
Now, how do we address this? Step number one, let us look at where we
are spending this money and decide, are we getting the appropriate
outcome for the money that we are spending. Those are the steps that
this majority is working to take in this House. We fully believe that
bureaucrats need to be accountable to the taxpayers of this great
Nation. And for some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle
who are sadly misinformed on this issue, we would love to sit down and
visit with them and be certain that they understand this issue.
Tax reductions mean money in American families' pockets. It means
control for individuals, and that is something that is very important.
We are going to spend a lot of time, as the gentleman from Texas was
saying, this week talking about what the steps are going to be that we
are going to take to provide tax relief, to provide the right
foundation for reducing what the Federal Government spends, to be
certain that the Federal Government is prioritizing that budget.
The gentleman from Texas has a great chart, tax relief versus the 5-
year Federal budget; and he is right on target with this.
Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I certainly thank
the gentlewoman for her observations.
Again, it is so interesting, as Democrat after Democrat speaks out
against all the evils of tax relief and how somehow tax relief is the
center of all fiscal irresponsibility, what they do not point out is
that we have passed a 5-year 13.9 trillion, trillion with a ``t,''
budget, $13.9 trillion of spending versus less than $150 billion of tax
relief.
So say, for example, that tax relief did absolutely no good to our
economy. Let us just say we took that money and just put it in a hole
and buried it. It is less than 1 percent of the budget. So when we
think about all these massive tax increases that are going to be
necessary to pay for all of this spending that the Democrats want, how
is less than 1 percent of the Federal budget responsible for this? They
are ignoring over 99 percent of the challenge. The challenge is on the
spending side.
And, by the way, Madam Speaker, we did not take this tax relief money
and put it in a hole. We did something else with it far more
productive. Madam Speaker, what we did was we took that money and we
gave it back to small businesses. We gave it back to families. We gave
it back to hard-working Americans, entrepreneurs, who rolled up
[[Page H9085]]
their sleeves and created new jobs and went out and created new
businesses. And guess what happened. We got in more tax revenue. We cut
marginal tax rates and guess what. Our tax revenue went up in 2003 from
almost $1.8 trillion to almost $1.9 trillion to now $2.1 trillion.
Madam Speaker, they just do not seem to get it. Tax relief, again, is
what is helping America's economic situation. Again, do not believe me.
Look at the Treasury report. This is from the United States Treasury.
Already we see that tax receipts are up 15 percent. Individual income
tax receipts are up 14.6 percent. Corporate income taxes, our
businesses, they are up 47 percent. So it is interesting that, instead
of this item being called tax relief in the budget, if it was called
the Agency for Widget Production Subsistence, every Democrat would want
to double its budget. But somehow because it is tax relief for small
businesses, for people to go out and create jobs, they deride it. They
claim that it is part of our fiscal challenge. Instead, we see that it
is absolutely critical to ensuring that our children do not bear
further debt.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HENSARLING. I yield to the gentlewoman from Tennessee.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for
yielding to me.
I want to go back to the chart that he has so appropriately shown,
and look what happens here.
{time} 2130
In Tennessee, we have a State that is very much like the State of
Texas. In Tennessee, we are a small-business, entrepreneurial-oriented
state. Small business is our major employer. The largest growing sector
of our small business sector is women-owned small businesses. Women are
beginning to take the reins, and we have more women creating businesses
than any other part of the sector. That is where we are seeing our job
growth.
What the chart shows to us is this: On those small businesses, when
you lower those tax rates and you give them the opportunity to invest
in their business, invest in their communities, invest in those great
ideas that make American free enterprise what it is, which is what
everybody in the world wants, look what happens. Faith, hope and
opportunity come into play. Elbow grease, sweat equity, hard work, it
goes to work, and people realize a big part of the American dream,
which is owning their own business, and we know that. We realize that.
You lower those rates, you allow people to get in there with lower
taxes and less regulation and have their shot at creating the American
dream. And look what happens. Your revenues will grow.
Many times, Madam Speaker, and I know the gentleman from Texas has
heard this, people have said, well, look, the economy has grown,
revenues are up, and guess what? The deficit is lower than expected. It
is amazing how free enterprise works. It is amazing how lower taxes
work. It is good for this economy, it is good for the American people,
because there is more money in their pocket, there is more money to
invest in their businesses, and their families have more money to spend
on children, on education, on the things that truly are the desires of
their heart.
Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, again, I thank the
gentlewoman for her leadership, and I thank her for her observations.
Madam Speaker, we have now been joined by one of the great leaders on
budget matters in this Congress, someone who has coauthored the Family
Budget Protection Act, to try to enforce our budget, to try to bring
some accountability into the government, to try to protect the family
budget from the Federal budget, and I am very happy to yield to the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola).
Mr. CHOCOLA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, for
his leadership on these matters and for bringing us together here
tonight to discuss these important issues.
Madam Speaker, I think we can probably find bipartisan agreement here
tonight that the deficit is too big. Where we probably part ways is
what do we do about it?
I think it is important when we discuss what do we do about it to
recognize the fact that the result of the deficit comes from one of two
things: Either we spend too much, or we tax too little. I have to say
that the people of the Second District of Indiana do not feel like they
are taxed too little, and I do not think they are really any different
from the people of every congressional district around this country.
Unfortunately, too many times here in Washington we use as the only
measurement of success how much we spend, not how well we spend. But I
think it is clear to say that the Federal Government spends enough
money. What we did do too little of is prioritize the spending and root
out waste, fraud and abuse.
Madam Speaker, tonight we have heard that we really cannot cut
spending, it would just be an onerous thing to do. There is no way we
can find savings or root out waste, fraud and abuse. We have also heard
a little bit about the reconciliation process, where we are trying to
find savings over future government growth. So the fact of the matter
is, when it comes to reconciliation, we are not talking about cuts at
all; we are simply talking about slowing down the future growth of
government by a very small amount.
As an example, we can find $100 billion in savings over the next 5
years by simply slowing the growth of government by 3/10 of 1 percent.
But, still, even with that marginal savings, we hear that there is just
no way that we can even slow the growth of government. It would be
simply impossible to do.
Let us look at a few examples, Madam Speaker, on where we might find
that money. As an example, as reported by the Social Security
Administration inspector general in 2002, more than $31 million in
Social Security payments had been made to dead people. Another example,
in 2003, the food stamp program spent $1.1 billion in overpayments to
program beneficiaries. Another example is that Medicare overpayments in
2001, get this, totaled $12.1 billion. Let me repeat that, Madam
Speaker: Medicare overpayments totaled $12.1 billion in 2001.
The Federal Government cannot account for $17.3 billion spent in
2001. They simply do not know where the money went. That does not
include the $12.1 billion in Medicare I just mentioned, because we know
where that money went, to overpayments. But there is another $17.3
billion that the Federal Government simply does not know where it went,
and that leads the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, to refuse
to certify the government's own accounting books because the
bookkeeping is so poor.
Madam Speaker, no business could operate under those management
practices; no family could operate under those management practices. In
fact, if the Federal Government was a publicly traded company, there
would be criminal charges brought for those management practices.
Those that say we cannot find savings and slow down the future growth
of government simply do not want to do the hard work of management and
being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. The American people understand
that spending money is easy and managing money is hard.
I certainly believe that I was elected, and every Member of this body
was elected, to do the hard things, to find a way to manage money
better, to get a good return for taxpayer investment, and not fall back
on the easy thing of saying if we slow the growth of government, we are
balancing the budget on the backs of those people that can least afford
it.
Madam Speaker, I ask, what is compassionate about wasting $12.1
billion in Medicare? That is money that is not going to any
beneficiaries, it is not providing health care to any senior. It is
simply mismanagement and wasted money.
Madam Speaker, I want to yield back to the gentleman from Texas, and
I want to thank him again for his leadership on this issue. I certainly
encourage all of my colleagues to do the hard work we are elected to do
by providing better fiscal responsibility, better stewardship and
better management on behalf of the people of this country.
[[Page H9086]]
Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the
gentleman for his participation in this debate tonight. He brings up
many good points.
I think that once again we need to look at the facts of what we are
speaking about. When Democrats talk about all of these massive cuts
that are going to take place, first let us look at how much spending
has already taken place.
Madam Speaker, this is a chart that just talks about in the last 10
years, what has happened to the family budget and what has happened to
the Federal budget? As measured by median family income, the family
budget has increased from roughly $45,000 for a family of four to
$62,000. Yet look at this red line showing what has happened in the
same 10-year period to the Federal budget. It has increased $1.5
trillion to almost $2.5 trillion. In other words, the Federal budget is
growing faster than the family budget by almost a full third. Madam
Speaker, over the long term, that is unsustainable.
Again, the Democrats are setting us up to either pass on
unconscionable debt to our children or to engage in the largest tax
increase in the history of America. We cannot sustain this kind of
spending growth.
They also tell us what heavy lifting it is to try to restrain the
growth of government. Well, if we look at what we are trying to do
here, the President so far has called for roughly $62 billion of
hurricane relief for the victims on the gulf coast. That is to be
contrasted with $13.9 trillion of other spending. So what we are trying
to do here, Madam Speaker, is find roughly a half a cent on the dollar
of savings, a half a cent.
If you went to any American family or any small business and said,
you know what, we have got an emergency here, we have hit some tough
times, can you go back and take a look at your budget and find a half a
cent on the dollar? Of course they could do it.
Madam Speaker, they laugh at us when we say, oh, we cannot do this,
we cannot find a half a penny of savings. And the truth is it is not
even a cut. All we are doing is restraining the growth of government.
What the Democrats do not want you to know is that even after we find
these savings, government still is going to grow. It is still going to
grow roughly 3 percent next year over this year.
What we call mandatory spending, if we achieve this plan, without any
help from the Democrats whatsoever, if we achieve this plan, what we
call mandatory spending is going to grow at 6.3 percent instead of 6.4.
That is the massive cut of which they have spoken.
Madam Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from Indiana.
Mr. CHOCOLA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding again.
Just very quickly, I appreciate the facts that the gentleman is
pointing out.
Let me draw the gentleman's attention to a couple other facts. The
Wall Street Journal last week had a very important editorial when they
pointed out the fact that during the period of 2001 to 2005, inflation
on a cumulative basis was 12 percent. The Federal spending in
transportation increased 24 percent; employment benefits, 26 percent;
general government spending, 32 percent; income security programs, 39
percent; health spending, 42 percent; community development, 71
percent; housing and commerce, 86 percent; international affairs, 94
percent; education, 99 percent. Remember, inflation over that period of
time was 12 percent.
Before being elected to Congress, I ran a business. Every year we
would go through a budget process. Every year all the general managers
would come into my office, and we would talk about the next year's
budget. In almost every case we would find ways to save over the last
year in our spending budget.
I will have to say, Madam Speaker, if I would have that meeting with
general managers, and I would ask them to find \1/2\ of 1 percent
savings next year, they would frankly laugh in my face. They would be
very relieved, because they would have expected to hear 10 percent.
Every American business and family has found ways to find substantial
savings in their budget when they are faced with budget challenges. The
Federal Government should be no different. There is no reason that we
cannot find these savings, that we cannot act more responsibly on
behalf of the American people and provide a good return and sound
investment for the American taxpayer. Saying we cannot do it is simply
shirking our responsibilities and not wanting to do the hard work of
management. We are elected to do oversight and be good stewards of the
taxpayer dollars.
Again, I thank the gentleman for his leadership.
Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentleman.
Now, Madam Speaker, I am very happy that we have been joined by one
of our colleagues, who is a great leader in our Operation Offset, to
come forward and bring to the American people ideas about how we can
find waste, fraud and abuse and duplication and lower priority spending
in the Federal Government in order to help pay to relieve human
suffering along the gulf coast. I am happy to yield to my fellow Texan,
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).
Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for organizing
this important debate this evening.
I think what has been pointed out is there are some very important
challenges facing this Congress and facing this Nation. We are
defending America in the war on terror, both abroad and domestically.
We are grappling with rising energy prices. We are trying to figure out
how to get a lid on health care in our country and how we are going to
continue to grow this economy and provide jobs for American citizens,
as well as how we are going to deal with this catastrophic loss of
property that has been experienced by these hurricanes.
There are those that want to say, well, we will just push that
problem down the road for someone else; that this is just a little blip
on the screen; that we do not need to pay for this relief. We will just
borrow money. But those same people were the people that we are talking
about that our deficits are rising at too fast a rate.
So what does this call for? It calls for a sound fiscal policy. It is
what the American voters sent us to Congress to do. They sent us here
to make these difficult choices, to make policy that makes sense, to
make policy that they have to live with at home, and that is we have a
certain amount of money coming in, and we have a certain amount of
money to spend.
But what is interesting here, and it has been brought up tonight, and
I want to reiterate it, is we do not have an income problem in our
country, we have a spending problem. In fact, tax revenues, as the
gentleman pointed out, have been increasing over the last few years,
and, in fact, what we found is when we put more money back into the
American taxpayers' pockets, they spent that. When the small businesses
had more capital to invest in their businesses, they invested.
{time} 2145
They created jobs and our economy is growing; and now, for that
reason, our deficit this year is projected to be $80 billion to $100
billion less than what was originally projected.
But the problem is that our spending is growing faster than our
economy. Currently, over the last 5 years, the Federal budget has been
increasing at an annual rate of 6.3 percent. However, our economy has
only been growing at an annual rate of 2.75 percent. So you do not have
to be an economist to figure out that if the government is growing at
this rate and the economy is growing at this rate, that we are never
going to be able to balance our budget. So what it causes is for the
Republican-led Congress to take action and to begin to work on this
spending problem.
What you did not hear from the other side of the aisle tonight was
any spending cuts, any program reform. What you heard is their solution
is to continue to raise taxes for the American people and to take away
the momentum that we have already given this economy by the fact that
we are putting more money back in their pockets. What has happened
because of these reductions in taxes is that the economy is now growing
this year at 4.2 percent and that Federal tax revenues have risen $360
billion since 2003 and that a 22 percent reduction in the Federal
deficit has occurred since 2004.
We have frozen nondefense discretionary spending. Now, I know we are
using a lot of Washington kind of talk.
[[Page H9087]]
So what is discretionary spending? That is the spending each year that
Congress gets to vote on. So each year, the budget chairman brings
before the Congress and the appropriations chairman, they bring a plan
of how to spend the American taxpayers' money, and we get to vote on
that, and we have made progress on that. But let me tell you where the
real problem is in our country. The programs that were put in place
many, many years ago are growing at such a fast rate, and these are
programs that we do not get to vote on on an annual basis, so we go
through this process called reconciliation.
What is reconciliation? Well, really what that is is how we look into
that budget and say, are these programs relevant today and should we or
could we do something to stem the rate of growth. Now, the colleagues
on the other side talked tonight about all the cutting we are doing.
What we are doing is we are talking about slowing the accelerator down.
We are talking about reducing the rate of increase, reducing the rate
of government. That is why we are going to go through this process.
What we are doing, just talking about over the next 5 years, is
finding at least $35 billion, because as the gentleman made the point
awhile ago, we are spending $7.257 trillion in 2006 alone. So how do we
do that?
Well, one of the things that I have proposed, as the gentleman
alluded to, is to look at some ways to offset say some of the spending
that we are going to have to do for those devastated areas in the gulf
coast. By the way, I have been to the gulf coast, and I have seen that
devastation and I have seen what has happened to the lives of those
people down there; and, certainly, there is a role for the Federal
Government, but there is also a role for the private sector down there.
What we need to make sure of is that the Federal Government does not
preempt the private sector's ability to go down and make sure that we
begin to rebuild those communities.
There is a little box that you checked when you did your tax return
in April, and it says, I want to give $3 to the Presidential campaign.
You know what? The American people less and less and less have thought
it was a good idea to give money to Presidential campaigns and to their
conventions. So I have introduced a bill that would allow the deletion
of the payment to political campaigns and to the parties' conventions.
Hey, let us spend that money for our efforts in Iraq. Let us spend that
money for relief for Katrina, or maybe let us use that money to pay
down debt, instead of putting monies into political campaigns. In fact,
the campaigns themselves have started turning down that money because
they feel like that leaves them at a disadvantage, and so many of the
major campaigns over the last few years have not even used that money
and turned it down.
So we can save $200 million alone by just saying to the political
parties, hey, go raise your own funds.
So what we are talking about tonight is in that quest to balance the
budget and not leave our future generations with a debt they cannot
pay, we are talking about slowing down the rate of growth in our
government. We are talking about getting the rate of growth of
government to coincide with the rate of growth of our economy.
As a small note, I started a little tradition a few years ago with my
grandsons, and each evening when I come home, I put the change in a
little coffee can, and when the coffee can gets full, we go down to the
toy store, and we count how much money we have in the coffee can. So my
2 grandsons, who are 5 and 7, we go into that toy store knowing how
much money we have to spend. They are 5 and 7 and they already
understand how much money they have to spend. So they ask what each
item that they are looking for might cost, and they try to figure up,
do they have enough money to buy that purchase. Some of those purchases
are more than they have, so they cannot make that purchase.
That is what the American taxpayers expect the United States Congress
to do. It is a concept that 5- and 7-year-olds understand, and it is
certainly a concept that Members of the United States Congress need to
understand. We cannot afford not to have this debate. I welcome the
other side to come up with some solutions and some ideas on how we can
reduce this rate of growth of our government, because our future
generations are depending on it.
Madam Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his
leadership in Operation Offset. It was an interesting story he told
about how you take the change out of your pocket and put it in a jar to
benefit your grandchildren. Recently, as my colleagues might have read,
the Democrats have launched something called the Campaign For Change,
and now I suddenly understand what it is all about. It is taking your
grandchildren's change away from them to fund the massive government
spending that they want to go to and continue to grow. They want to
grow big government. They believe in more government and less freedom.
We believe in less government and more freedom.
And how much government is enough? How much spending does it take?
Madam Speaker, as my colleagues can see from this chart, Washington is
now spending $22,000 per household. This is a chart that starts in
1990, goes to the present; and we see that spending has gone from over,
roughly a little over $18,000 per family to now $22,000 per household.
This is the highest spending in inflation-adjusted terms since World
War II. It is one of the highest levels of spending in the entire
history of America. Yet, it does not seem to be enough.
In the last 10 years, again, median family income has grown about 38
percent. Yet Federal spending on international affairs is up 57
percent; space and technology, 46 percent; natural resources, 49
percent; agricultural spending, 206 percent; commerce and housing
credits, 74 percent; transportation, 95 percent; community and regional
development, 83 percent. Madam Speaker, the list goes on and on and on.
This is not a debate again about how much the American people and we
as a society are going to spend on education, how much we are going to
spend on housing, how much we are going to spend on nutrition. It is a
debate about who is going to do the spending. The Democrats want
government to do the spending. They want Big Government to take that
money away from American families, throw it into a wasteful bureaucracy
and have a few pennies come out on the other end. We want to empower
the American family. We want to protect their budget. We want to help
them realize their American Dream. We want them to be able to send
their kids to college. We want them to be able to put a roof over their
heads. That is really what this debate is all about.
Now, Madam Speaker, I am very happy that we have been joined by a
member of the Republican leadership team, a leader in helping put
together Speaker Hastert's plan to help offset this Katrina spending
with lower priority spending, to help us start this process called
reconciliation, which is Washington-speak for reform; someone who is
very admired by the entire conference and Congress, the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that generous
introduction. I was looking around to see who he might be talking about
for a while. Before the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) leaves, I
have a rhetorical question because I know the answer to it, but is it
not true that the State of Texas is looking at privatizing part of its
food stamp distribution program?
Mr. NEUGEBAUER. That is correct. The State of Texas is looking for
innovative ways to make sure that we cut down on the waste, fraud, and
abuse and also to deliver that service in the most cost-effective way.
Mr. KINGSTON. And is it not also true that in doing that, you save
the taxpayers money and actually have not hurt the food stamp
participation level a bit?
Mr. NEUGEBAUER. The gentleman is correct. Because what happens is
when we begin to think outside the box and be creative and innovative,
what we actually do is we save the taxpayers money, but we also at the
same time generate more program money for those people that really need
those benefits.
Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the reason why I asked that before the gentleman
leaves is today, in agriculture appropriations, we had probably about a
1-
[[Page H9088]]
hour debate on the State of Texas's right to privatize part of its food
stamp distribution. One of the things that is ridiculous about the
proponents of this, and they are all the liberal Democrat faction, is
that States should not be able to have the right to privatize something
without permission of Congress, because I guess here in Washington
people know more about Texas than the good folks down in Austin. I
understand Pennsylvania, Florida, and New York are also looking at
these privatization plans. It is just a distribution method which they
found to be more effective.
Madam Speaker, when I think about the private sector, which they fear
so much, I think about companies like AOL and UPS and Home Depot and
Cingular Wireless. When I think about the Federal Government, I think
about the IRS, the Immigration Service, FEMA, and the post office. Yet
here are these folks who are defending the Federal Government and
saying that they should not get involved with the private sector. But
that is just one amendment that we are fighting that saves taxpayers'
dollars that we want to make sure that States have the right.
But there are some other examples of savings that we are trying to
get out of this budget. One of them was one that the gentleman from
Texas and the gentlewoman from North Carolina supported, and that is
the elimination of the mounted police unit here in Washington, D.C. The
Capitol Police had horses for horse patrol. They were not patrolling
parades or anything like this, but the horses were brought in from a
60-mile round trip every day so that they could parade around, walk
around the 95-acre Capitol campus. The cost of that not only was
$200,000 just to bring them in, but it was $50,000 to clean up the
manure that these horses left on the Capitol grounds. Now, any casual
observer of Washington knows that we have our own manure around here
and we do not need horses imported so we could have more of it, but
that is an example of something we have eliminated.
Another thing that we eliminated from the budget was the exchanges
with the historic Whaling and Trading Partners program. It is a $9
million program that was specialized for the folks in Hawaii,
Massachusetts, and Alaska; and it was for competitive cultural grants
to study the history of whaling, $9 million; and it was a competitive
process, but it only went to three States, so there was not a heck of a
lot of competition in it.
Then another one is the Robert Byrd Scholarship program, $41 million.
Now, the Byrd scholarship program on the surface, it sounds like a good
idea, helps people go to school, it pays $1,500 for a college
education. The only problem is we already have a Pell grant. Pell
grants pay $4,100 to do the exact same thing.
Then there is the Advanced Technology Program. The Advanced
Technology Program was to spur research and development of technology
in small businesses. Well, the only problem is, 35 percent of the
money, and it is a $136 million program, by the way, 35 percent of the
money went to Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, General Electric, and
General Motors, hardly small business innovation. Then when the General
Accounting Office investigated the whole Advanced Technology Program,
they found that all the research dollars that were going on were
already being done by the private sector, not costing the taxpayers any
money, and the duplication was impossible to eliminate.
I am going to yield back, because I know the gentlewoman from North
Carolina wants to speak. But I want to say that in the appropriations
process, the four programs that I have mentioned, we have eliminated
approximately 90 such programs, duplicative, ridiculous, and
unnecessary. We have fought back about $61 billion in the last 3 years
of spending increases which the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey),
the ranking member, and the Democrats have rallied behind year after
year, $61 billion; and these are from the people who tell us we are
spending too much money. I agree we are spending too much money, but
their solution is to spend $61 billion more than what we are doing.
So there are a lot of things that are going on in the Committee on
Appropriations. We want to offset the cost of Katrina. We think the fat
is in the budget to do so, and we stand behind the good work of
Operation Offset. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Hensarling) for giving me a few minutes.
{time} 2200
Mr. HENSARLING. Well, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
Kingston) for joining in this debate. He made so many excellent points.
It reminds me of the title of a rock and roll song that I listened to
in high school, Do Not Get Fooled Again.
We should not get fooled again by the Democrats. We need to remember,
these are the very same people who told us welfare reform would never
work. They told us that families would fracture, and so the New
Republic wrote.
The Democrat leader at the time said a million children will be
forced into poverty. One of the Democratic leaders in the Senate said
that we will experience a national trauma we have not seen since the
cholera epidemic. And guess what? We gave people incentives to go out
and become educated. We gave people incentives to go out and work. And
guess what, Mr. Speaker? They did just that.
Welfare case loads dropped in half, and people found jobs, and they
found hope, and they found opportunity. And millions went from welfare,
from the dependency on a government check, to being able to feed their
own children, to put a roof over their head, and to have pride in
having their own job, and a job well done.
Mr. KINGSTON. In 1996, when we passed welfare reform, there were 14
million people on welfare. The number dropped to 5 million. Still too
many, but that is 9 million people who are not taking from the
government, but are contributing to the government, and they are able-
bodied people, who, as you said, found out working has it own rewards
and have derived a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from holding a job.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, again it is not how much money
Washington spends that counts, it is how the money is spent. That is
what counts.
With that, I would be very happy to yield to the gentlewoman from
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), who has been very outspoken in her
commitment to fiscal responsibility, a great conservative leader in the
freshman class.
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be with you tonight. You have
done a great job of leading our conservative group to think about these
issues, and to provide the facts and figures that we need. In fact, the
little history lesson that you have just given about the cutback on
welfare, I think, is a very timely lesson to have, because every time
we talk about lowering the rate of increase, we are given all of these
gloom and doom stories about what is going to happen. And yet we know
very well that Government is not the answer to the problems that we
have in this country, the individuals are, and as long as people look
to the Government to solve their problems, the problems are going to
mushroom instead of go away.
These past few weeks have really tested our Nation's emergency
response system, our compassion, and Congress's ability to set spending
priorities. I think we are doing very well with Operation Offset and
other things that we are working on in the Congress. But it is clear,
as we go about this process, that Republicans are the Members who make
up the party of fiscal responsibility.
And that fiscal responsibility has helped grow the economy and
bolster jobs. Some of these statistics I know have been given out by
other speakers, but I think it bears repeating, that over the last 2
years, our Nation has created millions of jobs. The unemployment level
has dropped dramatically, and the economy has grown.
If you listen to the mainstream media, you hear nothing but gloom and
doom. All of the good news gets drowned out. But we are making tough
decisions, and we are cutting back on spending, and that is what is
going to be the other factor that is going to really help this economy
grow.
Earlier this year Republicans passed a budget that cut $100 billion
from the deficit. And what did the Democrats do? They refused to vote
for the budget. As my colleagues have said, Republicans have
recommended 98 programs
[[Page H9089]]
be terminated for a total savings of more than $4.3 billion.
It is my understanding that later this week we will be voting on a
bill to permanently deauthorize those programs. So many times a program
is not funded, but the authorization is not taken away. We need to do
that, too, and we are going to do that. The Republican leadership is
going to put domestic discretionary spending on track to be below last
year's levels.
Now, the gentleman earlier gave a little lesson about the difference
between discretionary and mandatory spending. As my colleagues know, I
do not even like to use that term, ``mandatory spending.'' And every
time that it comes up, I mention that I cannot find that word anywhere
in the Constitution. And I want to encourage people to keep reading the
Constitution to see if you can find the word ``mandatory spending.''
But we are doing a lot with the Republican leadership to cut the
growth of spending, and that is what we have to do. But what have the
Democrats done? Over the last 3 years they have attempted to bust the
discretionary budget in the appropriations process by more than $60
billion. And the way they would finance this is raising taxes on small
businesses. So it is not surprising that at a time when we must be
watchful of taxpayer dollars, the Democrats have turned to their old
playbook and called up one of their favorites, the old tax and spend.
We think it is time for Democrats to come up with a new plan and join
us in doing something important about spending. I am relived that they
have not had their way with the Federal checkbook, or things would be
much worse than they are. In fact, if they had their way with spending,
a new report by the House Appropriations Committee shows they would
have increased spending by more than $60 billion over the last 3 years.
Before our Nation faced the challenges of recent hurricanes, we were
on track to produce more, and our government was spending less. Last
year we held nonsecurity discretionary spending to a 1 percent growth
rate, far blow inflation and the previous 5-year average of 6 percent
growth. Last year we held nonsecurity discretionary spending to a 1.4
percent growth rate, less than inflation, and a major reduction from
previous years.
Democrats, on the other hand, have no plan to reduce the deficit.
While they stand here and complain about budget deficits, they propose
billions more in new spending. It is really frustrating to hear the two
sides of their plan, knowing that there is no way for it to work, and
the only way that it would work would be for them to raise taxes. But
you never hear them talking about that.
I am asking our Democratic colleagues to join us in the effort to
restore fiscal sanity to this country. In 1997, the House passed a
deficit reduction bill with 153 Democratic votes that saved billions of
dollars. What we need now is Democrats to join us in a similar move.
But in the meantime, we are looking to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Hensarling), those of us on the Republican side, to continue to bring
up these issues, and again present the facts and help educate the
American public as to what the real facts are, not the shell game that
we keep seeing played out on the other side every night, but the real
numbers so that they can see what Republicans have accomplished and
what more we can do with the effort that we have been putting into it
with Operation Offset and really knuckling down to being fiscally
responsible.
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for joining us
for this debate. I appreciate her leadership in the freshman class. It
is very interesting that you would use this metaphor of a shell game,
because that is exactly what the Democrats are trying to do with the
American people.
Because again, the spending that it is going to take to relieve the
human suffering on the gulf coast can only come from one of three
places. Either we are going to pass debt on to our children; we are
going to engage in massive tax increases on the American people; or we
are going to ask the Federal budget not to grow quite as fast, to get
rid of some of the fraud, to get rid of some of the waste, to get rid
of the lower-priority spending.
What they want to make sure in their shell game is that they never
show the American people the massive tax increases they are planning.
They have planted seeds in our so-called entitlement spending that
American people are not going to be able to afford.
Their tax plan just grows and grows and grows. Again, Mr. Speaker,
what is going to happen for the next generation? For the Democrats to
fund all of their programs, when they refuse to work with us, and we
have invited them to work with us to help reform some of this
entitlement spending, if they do not work with us, this is the future
our children and grandchildren are facing, massive and massive tax
increases. We will be on the verge of being perhaps the first
generation to leave our children a lower standard of living. We are
going to have to double taxes on the American people just to balance
the budget in 30 years if we do not do something to restrain the growth
of Government.
And again, as I showed earlier, how much Government should we have?
Already in just the last 10 years, we have seen that the Federal budget
has outpaced the family budget by over a full third. Mr. Speaker, is
there any reason why we should have the Federal budget outpace the
family budget by over a third? Ultimately all of this spending has to
be paid for.
Mr. Speaker, all this spending is not created equal. I mean, too
often we hear from those on the other side of the aisle that any time
we try to restrain the growth of spending, that somehow we are hurting
the poor. Well, I am here to tell you, Mr. Speaker, compassion for the
poor is not measured by the number of government checks you send out,
it is measured by the number of jobs you create so that the American
people can go out and realize their American dream.
And when we have had tax relief, not only, not only, Mr. Speaker,
have we received greater tax revenues, the deficit has come down, but
what we have also seen is millions and millions of Americans, 4 million
new jobs created from tax relief.
Now, Mr. Speaker, when we look at the Federal budget and we look at
this spending, sometimes many good things come from it: Kevlar vests
for our brave men and women fighting in the war on terror, student
loans for many needy folks who otherwise might not have an opportunity
to go to college. But all too often we also see a Medicare who will pay
five times as much for a wheelchair as the VA did simply because one
would competitively bid, and the other would not. We see $800 spent on
an outhouse in a national park, and the toilet does not even flush,
$800,000. We see millions and millions of dollars spent for an indoor
rain forest in the State of Iowa, and the list goes on and on and on.
Mr. Speaker, the American people just do not believe there is not
waste, fraud, abuse and duplication in the Federal budget. For example,
we have 342 economic development programs. We have 130 programs serving
the disabled, 90 early childhood early development programs. The list
goes on and on. How much duplication do we need? And yet the Democrats
want to raise taxes to pay for more of this.
The Federal Government made at least $20 billion in overpayments in
2001. The Department of Housing and Urban Development spent 3.3
billion, 10 percent of their budget in 2001, on overpayments, yet
Democrats want to raise our taxes to pay for more of this.
The Advanced Technology Programs spends $150 million annually
subsidizing private businesses, 40 percent of which goes to Fortune 500
companies, and yet Democrats want to raise our taxes to pay for more of
this.
And there are so many reforms that we can institute in this body that
could, for example, brings us greater health care at a cheaper cost. If
we would pass meaningful medical liability reform, we would bring down
the cost of health care 5 to 10 percent in America.
{time} 2215
Medicaid could save $1.5 billion a year if they would base their drug
payments on actual acquisition costs. They could save 2 to $3 billion a
year if they would stop improper payments to States that use that money
for purposes other than Medicaid, and the list goes on and on.
[[Page H9090]]
We can find the reforms, but we must start this process of
reconciliation, which, again, when we look at $62 billion of savings we
are trying to find in a 5-year $13.9 trillion budget, that is a half a
cent. That is one half of one penny, Mr. Speaker, that we are trying to
find so that our children do not face massive tax increases as far as
the eye can see, guaranteeing to lower their standard of living.
Mr. Speaker, this really comes down to two visions for America: one
helping empower people, helping them realize their American Dream,
about them going out, starting new jobs. It is really about a vision of
less government and more freedom. Yet our friends on the other side on
the aisle who will not work with us on reconciliation, who will not
work with us to root out this waste and this fraud and abuse, who only
want to continue with more spending and more spending and more
spending, they believe nothing good happens in America unless it comes
from the Federal Government.
Well, a lot of good things come from the American family. A lot of
good things come from the free enterprise system. That is what we need
to strengthen. In the days to come, Mr. Speaker, that is what this
debate is all about, those who want to restrain the growth of the
Federal budget so the family budget can expand and those who only want
to grow government and impose massive tax increases on our children and
grandchildren as far as the eye can see.
Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that when the American people will
look at this, ultimately they will chose less government and more
freedom.
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