[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 42 (Wednesday, April 5, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H1543-H1549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE FEDERAL BUDGET
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, it is budget week here in the U.S. House
of Representatives, and sometimes we hear people say, Oh, no, I just
dread it when we get around to talking about this budget. And then we
will hear others say, I love to just really tackle this budget issue. I
love looking at where we spend our money. And I kind of appreciate that
attitude because we are the stewards of the taxpayers' money and it is
our responsibility to be a good steward and to be diligent in the work
we are going to do as we work on this budget and decide what should the
priorities of our government be? What should be our concerns? Where
should we be looking for ways to achieve a savings?
And over the past several months, actually over the past 3 years, we
have come to the floor regularly to talk about waste, fraud, and abuse
and find ways and point out ways and to continue to seek ways that we
can achieve a savings for the American people.
And from time to time over the past few years, we have talked about
lots of different reports. Many different reports from different
government agencies, from the General Accounting Office, from some of
our friends who are in the media that have pointed out programs that
maybe have outlived their usefulness, programs that are wasting money,
programs that cannot achieve a clean audit. And some of our colleagues,
we have worked on ways that we can go in and investigate and highlight
and look at what this drain is on our tax dollars. And we have House
committees, certainly the Government Reform Committee, that continue to
hold hearings. Oversight and investigations from our Energy and
Commerce Committee are certainly looking at ways to achieve a savings
and find ways to review how our agencies are spending their money.
We have clear data showing places where the Federal Government is
bleeding funds. And the President's budget this year has included more
than 100 programs that could and should be targeted, Mr. Speaker. So
the target for spending reductions is clearly enormous. We have got 100
programs, 100, that we can look at through so many different agencies
and so many different spots in the Federal Government. Now, certainly,
out of 100 programs, we are going to be able to find a way to achieve a
savings.
One of the interesting things is no matter what part of this country
that you are in and no matter whose district that you are in, whether
it is a Democrat or a Republican, there is consensus among the American
people that we have a problem. Government does not have a revenue
problem; government has a spending problem. Government does not have a
revenue problem; government has a priority problem. It is time that we
begin to fine tune our focus and decide what the priority of government
ought to be.
The taxpayers pay far too much of their paycheck in taxes. They are
tired of every time somebody comes up with a good idea, they say well
let us just go raise the taxes. And, Mr. Speaker, I tell you what, if
it were not for the leadership in this House, we would see those taxes
going up. If our friends across the aisle had their way, they would be
raising taxes, not cutting programs. That is not where we want to go.
We know it is tough to eliminate waste.
I often quote Ronald Reagan, who is pretty close to my favorite
President ever, I will have to say that, but one of my favorite remarks
he ever made was that when you look at Federal programs, there is
nothing so close to eternal life on Earth as a Federal Government
program. When you get the thing, it is just the dickens to get rid of
it. It is so tough to get rid of it, Mr. Speaker.
Sometimes in my townhall meetings in Tennessee, I will have
constituents say, Why is it so tough to get rid of these programs? We
see the waste. We know the waste is out there. Everybody knows these
programs are wasting money. Why is it so difficult to call them into
accountability? Why is it so difficult to get rid of these programs?
And to that, Mr. Speaker, I will have to say if you listen to our
colleagues from across the aisle this morning when they gave their 1
minute speeches, then you can see why it is so very difficult for us to
downsize this government. Those colleagues across the aisle, Democratic
Members, Member after Member, came to the floor this morning, as they
do on many days, and they decried our efforts to make reductions in
Federal spending.
Mr. Speaker, we spend trillions of dollars to support all sorts of
social spending programs; yet any reduction or even holding the line on
spending, not increasing anything, just holding the line, all of a
sudden it is called a ``draconian cut.'' It is amazing how it works.
Most Americans do not get a massive salary increase every year. But
we have colleagues that think if they are not giving every agency an
increase every year, then they are getting a cut. It is the most
incredible, most incredible, program that you have ever seen. If you do
not get an increase, then you are getting a cut.
{time} 2015
It does not work that way in real life, only in the bureaucracy. We
have to look at this and see that it happens year after year after
year.
You know, I don't think that asking the Federal Government to reduce
its spending, I don't think asking bureaucrats to be accountable, I
don't think asking agencies to be accountable and get clean audits and
know where they are spending their money is evil. I don't think it is
uncaring. But many of our colleagues across the aisle will come down
here and demonize those of us who simply want the spending increases to
stop.
I have talked a lot about the Great Society government that was
created over 40 years of Democratic control of Congress, and I will
have to tell you, yes, indeed, they built an enormous monument, a
monument of spending to their party's vision of what government ought
to be; a vision in which government solved society's ills and
[[Page H1544]]
took care of every problem by spending more money.
Mr. Speaker, you and I know that that vision is a failure. We know it
is an absolute failure. You don't solve problems, you don't solve
problems, by throwing more money at them. Many times all you do is mask
the problem. In the long run, you make it worse, because you are not
addressing the causes of the problem.
The moveon.orgs of the world, the Democratic leadership, they don't
want to admit this. They want to protect and expand their monumental
government, this huge bureaucracy in this town, huge bureaucracy. So
many of my constituents get frustrated with it. They want us to break
it apart; to send the money, send the power back to our States and back
to our local governments. They want to keep their paychecks in their
pocket. They don't want the Federal Government to have first right of
refusal on it.
They are a little bit confused many times, and understandably so, I
think all of us are, of why the Democratic leadership wants to keep,
why the liberal leadership wants to keep, a big, big, big bureaucracy
in this town. But it is their party's creation. It is their legacy.
I am joined by some colleagues tonight who are going to share some of
their thoughts on the great ideas that we can bring to the table to
look at how we are spending the Federal Government's money. This party
and this leadership is the one that is keeping the attention on
spending less and reducing the size of the Federal Government.
Mr. Hensarling is joining us tonight. He is a member of the Budget
Committee, and he has had the Family Budget Protection Act. Mr.
Hensarling is going to open our conversation this evening and talk a
little bit about the budget, the work that they have done in the Budget
Committee, the process reforms that we are beginning to look at and
move forward, and add to the discussion that we are going to have this
week as we continue to work on our plan to yield savings for the
American people and to reduce the size of the Federal Government.
With that, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. HENSARLING. Well, I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I
especially appreciate her leadership in this body on issues of
spending, on issues of budget and trying to protect the family budget
from the Federal budget. Certainly she is one of the most powerful and
articulate Members that we have, helping lead this charge.
Mr. Speaker, it is that time of year again for the United States
House of Representatives to consider its budget. To some people, this
is about kind of green eyeshade accounting. It is about numbers.
Frankly, it is a lot more than that. It is about numbers. But, more
important, Mr. Speaker, it is about values.
There are going to be a number of budgets that are going to be
introduced by different caucuses, different groups. I myself have
written a budget. But at the end of the day, I think, as usual, if
history is our guide, this is going to come down to two budgets: The
one that was passed by the House Budget Committee, and the Democrat
alternative, and this body, and really the American people, are going
to be faced with two very different choices that represent
fundamentally two very different sets of values.
One budget, our budget, the Budget Committee, the House Republican
budget, is going to value the family budget over the Federal budget,
because every time somebody grows a Federal program, Mr. Speaker, it
takes away from some family program.
Ours will be a budget that values more freedom. Theirs will be a
budget that values more government. And we know, as one of our Founding
Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, once said, that as government grows, liberty
yields.
We want a budget about opportunity that empowers people to go out and
use their God-given talents in this wonderful land that we call
America, to be able to put food on their table, to put a roof over
their head.
Now, many people will say this is the debate about how much we are
going to spend on health care and how much are we going to spend on
nutrition programs and how much are we going to spend on education
programs. To some extent, it is a debate about those subjects.
But the Democrats only value government spending, only government
spending. We, Mr. Speaker, value family spending. We want families to
do the spending, not government, and we know the difference. So, there
will be two very different sets of values that are present presented in
this budget debate.
You are going to hear a lot of things in this budget debate. You are
going to hear about which budget is the more compassionate of the two.
Well, Mr. Speaker, they are going to present essentially a status quo
budget, only worse.
Right now, we are facing a fork in the road. If we don't change
things, we know that the great entitlement programs of Medicare and
Medicaid and Social Security are growing way beyond our ability to pay
for them.
The Democrats will present their vision, and they will claim they
want to balance the budget, but yet all they want to do is increase
spending.
Mr. Speaker, if that is true, if they want to balance the budget, if
they want to increase spending, if they refuse to reform any programs,
and, Mr. Speaker, we know, we know, we can get better health care, we
can get better retirement security at a lower cost. That is a different
debate for a different night. If they want to increase government
spending, if they refuse any reforms, if they want to balance the
budget, well, Mr. Speaker, the General Accounting Office, the Office of
Management and Budget, the Congressional Budget Office, the liberal
Brookings Institution, the conservative Heritage Foundation, anybody in
America who has looked at this dynamic will tell you that we are on the
road to double taxes on the American people if we follow their budget.
Double taxes in one generation.
So that is something, Mr. Speaker, as the American people follow this
debate, they have to look at quite carefully.
Now, you will also hear a lot about budget cuts. Well, recently I
went to Webster's dictionary and looked up the word ``cut.'' It
actually means to reduce. That is what it means everywhere in America
except Washington, D.C. In Washington, D.C., when we listen to the
Democrats, it seems to mean something else. In Washington, D.C., what
it means is some program is not growing quite as fast as a big
government bureaucrat liberal wants it to grow.
Mr. Speaker, I know you are going to hear a lot about how somehow
government spending has been cut over the last few years. Well, don't
believe me. Go to the historic tables of the Office of Management and
Budget. What you will discover is over the last decade, international
affairs has grown by 89.1 percent; science, space and technology
spending at the Federal level has grown 49.5 percent; natural resources
and environmental spending at the Federal level has grown 43.8 percent;
Federal agricultural spending has grown 118.1 percent; Federal
transportation spending has grown 83.5 percent. The list goes on and on
and on.
Mr. Speaker, over this same time period, guess what? Median family
income grew by 33 percent and inflation grew by 25 percent. In other
words, government, just over the last decade, just over the last
decade, government has been growing far faster than family income.
We are growing the Federal budget way beyond the ability of the
family budget to pay for it, and if all we wanted to do was keep
government that we had 10 years ago, we would have grown it by
inflation. We are growing it at twice the rate of inflation.
So, Mr. Speaker, when we start hearing all these accusations about
cuts, we have to remember how America defines that term and how liberal
big government Democrats define that term, and those are two very, very
different things.
Mr. Speaker, something else you are going to hear as this debate
ensues is nowhere in a $2.8 trillion Federal budget can we find any
savings whatsoever for the American people. Well, Mr. Speaker, that is
just absurd. Not only is it absurd, we have to find the savings. If we
don't find the savings, again, we will either place massive debt on our
children or they will be looking at a massive tax increase.
[[Page H1545]]
Recently, Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government could not account for
$24.5 billion that it spent just a couple of years ago. It just kind of
disappeared into thin air. Federal auditors who are currently examining
all Federal programs have reported that 38 percent of them examined
have failed to show any positive impact on the populations they serve.
Thirty-eight percent are not meeting the stated goals of when Congress
published them.
It wasn't that long ago that the Department of Defense wasted $100
million on unused flight tickets and never bothered to collect the
refunds, even though the tickets were refundable. Mr. Speaker, if it is
your money or it is my money, my best guess is we are going to go out
and get that refund. But, you know, there is a truism, and that is we
are never as careful with other people's money as we are with our own.
The Federal Government spends almost $25 billion annually on what is
known as earmarks, pork projects, including the infamous bridge to
nowhere, grants to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Hey, I love rock &
roll, but, you know what? The last I looked, it was a fairly profitable
industry and probably didn't need subsidies from the Federal
Government. We had the infamous $800,000 outhouse, the rain forest in
Iowa, and the list goes on and on and on.
In the last year of the Clinton administration, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development couldn't account for $3.3 billion in
overpayments. Ten percent of their entire budget just disappeared, 10
percent of their budget. There is no family in America, there is no
small business in America, that could just watch 10 percent of their
revenues disappear and expect to survive.
We have the Conservation Reserve Program paying farmers $2 billion
annually not to farm their land. We spend over $60 billion on corporate
welfare versus a smaller amount on homeland security.
Mr. Speaker, I could go on all evening, but I have given you this
list just to illustrate a handful of items where we could go out and we
could find savings.
Again, Mr. Speaker, what is at stake here? What is at stake here is
really the kind of America we are going to leave the next generation.
Are we going to go with a budget that would take this Nation from $8
trillion in debt to, who knows, $11 trillion, $12 trillion? Or, if we
are not going to go the debt route? Are we going to increase taxes on
our children, double taxes?
The average American family is paying $20,000 a year combined in
their Federal taxes. That is what we are paying. Are we going to expect
our children to pay $40,000? How are they going to buy a first home or
send a kid to college or buy that second car to get that parent to
work? Is this the kind of America we want to leave our children?
Mr. Speaker, this is what this debate is all about. You are going to
hear a lot about compassion, but, Mr. Speaker, I don't see any
compassion in doubling taxes on our children. I see no compassion there
whatsoever.
You are going to hear a lot again from the Democrats about how we
have to increase this Federal program and that Federal program. I want
to remind you, these are the people who voted against any tax relief
whatsoever for American families and small businesses.
When we back in 2003 enacted tax relief for small businesses and
families, guess what, Mr. Speaker? Five million new jobs were created.
Yet the Democrats in their budget, what they want to do is, they
believe that somehow paychecks are not about compassion, and yet
welfare checks are. The compassion of our society should be defined by
how many paychecks we create, how many opportunities there are for men
and women to use their God-given talents and to go out and find good
productive careers. That is how our budget is going to define
compassion.
Their budget is going to define compassion by how much dependency
they can create, what kind of labyrinth, what kind of tangled labyrinth
of welfare can they make people more dependent upon. We want to empower
people. We want to get people off of welfare and on to work so that
they can have careers, so they can have opportunities, so they can have
freedoms that previously they haven't been able to dream of.
{time} 2030
And those are the two different values that are going to be
represented in this debate, Mr. Speaker.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas is so right
when he talks about the compassion and what is the compassionate thing
to do.
Mr. Speaker, in 1994, the Republicans swept in here and took control
of this body and have been working ever since to turn this ship around
and turn that corner so that we look at how we handled the Federal
purse, how we handle the priorities of the Federal Government, how we
shift that focus and move it away from saying, let us give government
the money, and then task government to go solve all the ills to say, we
believe this is government of the people, by the people, and for the
people, and we believe the people can solve these problems. They can do
it.
We know that most people feel when they see their taxes increase,
when they see more of their money going to feed that bureaucracy, they
know that their freedom has been cut.
Mr. Speaker, I am joined this evening by Dr. Gingrey, who is a member
of the Rules Committee and is going to have a few comments on the
budget. Certainly, he is a gentleman who knows of compassion and how we
should be working with and for our Federal man.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee. It
is really an honor to be part of this hour discussion tonight with some
of the most fiscally responsible Members of this body. My Republican
colleagues on the Republican Study Committee, that you just heard from
the gentleman from Texas, you will be hearing from others, the
gentleman from New Jersey, the gentleman from North Carolina, the
gentlewoman from Ohio. These are Members, Mr. Speaker, that get it. As
Mr. Hensarling just said, this is really not green eye shade stuff;
this is about people and values, as he so well pointed out. It is about
real needs as distinct from just wanting more, more, more.
Mr. Speaker, my dad told me one time when I was just a teenager, he
said, ``Somebody asked a very rich person one time, what would it take
to make him happy?'' And the answer was, ``Just a little bit more.''
That is a problem that we have in trying to satisfy all of the wants
and not necessarily just the real needs.
Mr. Speaker, my colleagues here tonight and on this side of the aisle
are committed to restoring some fiscal sanity to this place, and I
commend Mr. Hensarling in particular. I have told him in private that
he is our modern day William Proxmire of the 109th, and indeed, the
108th Congress as we came in together in regarding to ferreting out
waste, fraud, and abuse in this Federal Government. In fact, that was
our class project that the gentlewoman from Tennessee and myself and
others in the 108th class were determined to do, and that is what we
are doing.
Mr. Speaker, we have talked about the other side and what they want
to do and their plans. The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 is an example of
what they did not do. They voted no for those tax cuts. They said we
cannot do that. That is going to, according to the Congressional Budget
Office, when you do this static scoring, we are going to cut taxes, we
are going to cut rates for everybody that pay taxes. We are going to
lower capital gains, we are going to lower the tax on dividends, which
indeed is a double taxation.
We are going to get rid of the marriage tax penalty. We are going to
increase child tax credit from $600 to $1,000 per child. We are going
to finally stomp dead the death tax. As Steve Forbes once said, there
should be no taxation without respiration.
We did these things, and the opposition said, well, that is going to
cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years. Mr. Speaker, you know, I know, my
colleagues know, I hope the American people know that it did not cost
us any money. We gained revenue, something like $250 billion over 10
years. That is what happened in 1960 under Democratic President
Kennedy; it happened in 1980 under my colleague's favorite,
[[Page H1546]]
maybe all-time favorite President Reagan. We cut taxes, we raised
revenue, and it works. The opposition, they not only oppose that, but
they also opposed health care reform, Medicare modernization,
Prescription Drug Act. They said that is going to cost $750 billion
over 10 years. But of course, actually, their plan, if we had done what
they wanted us to do, would have probably cost $3 trillion over 10
years.
Mr. Speaker, the fact is, it was only going to cost that money if it
did not work. And what we are finding today, as we are getting closer
and closer to that deadline of May 15, the 6-month opportunity for
seniors to take that option and sign up for prescription drug benefit,
we are reaching our goal. We are beyond our goal. Seniors are saying,
members of my own family, my mom, my brother, constituents in my
district saying, ``Thank you, Congressman. We are saving money.'' I
have had people spending $900 a month who found out they qualified for
the low income supplement and now are spending $27 a month, they are
saving $900 a month.
We wanted to do Social Security reform to give individuals an
opportunity to have an individual personal account. What does the other
side do? They fight that. They are the party of no, of negative.
But these are the things that this majority and particularly the
Members here tonight, Mr. Speaker, are determined to do for the
American people: To reform government, to save money, to let people put
that money back into the family budget, as Mr. Hensarling has pushed so
hard for.
This budget that we are going to vote on, this 2007 budget is a very
fiscally sound, responsible budget. It virtually freezes nondefense
discretionary spending at the 2006 level. Again, the other side will
say, well, you are taking money away from the school children, you are
taking money away from Head Start, you are taking money away from
social welfare programs. Not at all, Mr. Speaker. All we are doing is
putting a cap on discretionary spending, and then we are saying to the
appropriators: You decide where that money needs to be spent. You
decide whether cuts really need to be made and whether plus-ups need to
be made. And that is the responsible way to do it.
In conclusion I want to say, too, to the chairman of the Budget
Committee, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and the great job that
he has done and his willingness to include in this 2007 budget a rainy
day fund. This is something that all of the Members here tonight who
are speaking during this hour have been calling for and for a number of
years saying, look, we know every year that we are going to have a
hurricane, we are going to have a natural disaster.
It may not be every year, but all of a sudden you go a couple of
years and then you have a Katrina. So we need to fund this based on a
10-year average of how much we spend on a natural disaster and
emergency. So this is in the budget, $4 billion for each of the next 5
years. I think that is absolutely responsible.
In addition to that, we are going to come forward with a line item
veto. The President needs it, the Congress wants it, and we are going
to get that done. We are also going to have the earmark reforms that
Congressman Flake has called for shine the light of day on those
earmarks, some of which are very good and should be included in the
budget; and last but not least, of course, a sunset commission.
Mr. Speaker, as I say, it is an honor. I know we want to hear from
our other colleagues on this issue. But I commend the gentlewoman from
Tennessee for her continued work on fiscal responsibility and putting
together this hour tonight and giving us a chance to weigh in on it.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I appreciate
so much that he calls our attention to some of the issues that are at
hand.
Mr. Speaker, for any of our colleagues who are looking for more
information on the House budget, they can go to the Web site gop.gov,
and pull down the House Budget Resolution fact sheet.
Here is some interesting information on it, and it goes back to what
Mr. Hensarling was talking about on the budget. It is a $2.7 trillion
budget authority. One of the things that is so important in this is
when you look at the discretionary, it is a 3.6 percent increase over
what we had in fiscal year 2006. We did some interesting things here,
and Chairman Nussle is to be commended for this. We have a $50 billion
placeholder in here for our war effort cost.
We have money for Katrina or for emergencies such as Katrina. Then we
go in and we look at our discretionary spending, a near freeze in
nonsecurity discretionary spending. A near freeze. Quite amazing, is
not it, when you think about the growth that year after year after year
took place. And I would encourage the individuals that are listening to
this over TV tonight to call their legislators. Call us. Let us know
what we think. We love to hear from you.
We have another Budget Committee member, and leader who is with us
tonight, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), who is going to
have a few things to say, and then we are going to invite some of our
other colleagues in.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for
this opportunity. I applaud her for being here not only tonight, but on
so many nights when you bring these important issues to the American
public. I will be brief, and I just want to go back to one of your very
first comments that you made as you began this night's program.
You started out by saying, ``I do not know whether people who are
listening here tonight are going to be interested on this debate on the
budget or whether they are not. Some people are going to be interested,
other people are not.''
I think the debate that we have here in Congress when it comes down
to the Federal budget in reality is absolutely no different than the
debate that goes around the kitchen table in the families across
America, once, twice, three times a month with regard to the family
budget. That is really all we are doing here, is we are just one large
family, the American family and the American family budget.
You know, back at home right now, as I say, once or twice a month,
people probably sit down as I do with the household checkbook, and you
sit there with a stack of bills on the one side and you write out the
checks to pay for them, whether it is the electric bill or the gas bill
or other utility bills, the rent or the mortgage or other expenses that
you have, maybe some more luxurious items, going out to eat or buying
videos or other luxuries, a new car or what have you. And, at the end
of it, at the end of that evening as you write out that check, you hope
that you are able to write out that last check and that there was money
in your checking account to pay for all those necessary and extra
bills. But if there was not, if at the end of it you look at it and you
say, ``Gee, there just is not enough money going around this month,''
what does the American family have to do with their budget? What they
have to do is set priorities, set boundaries, set parameters, set a
limit as to what they are able to do next month in their budget.
This is nothing different than what the Founding Fathers of this
country said. Madison said in Federalist Number 45 that: The powers of
the Federal Government are few and limited, but the powers of the
States and the people are numerous and indefinite.
For that reason, we come to the Budget Committee and the budget
process here in the Federal level realizing that those are limits on us
and what we have to do so that we can protect the American family
budget.
So I applaud you for doing what needs to be done here, and we can
discuss later today and at other times, what are those priorities, and
what are those waste, fraud, and abuse, as Mr. Hensarling has addressed
in the past, that we must do to cut out so we put more priorities back
into the family budget.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey
for his thoughts. He is such a thoughtful member of our Republican
Conference, and a thoughtful and studious member of the Budget
Committee, and the ideas that he brings forth are very important to us,
because that is what we bring, ideas. How are we going to work through
this process of reducing what the Federal Government spends?
[[Page H1547]]
How are we going to work through the process of being certain that
Federal agencies are called into accountability for how they spend your
money?
{time} 2045
This is not the government's money. It is the taxpayers' money, and
we need to remember that every single day.
A gentleman who does a great job of reminding us that it is the
taxpayers' money is the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry),
and at this time I yield to Mr. McHenry.
Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Speaker, thank you. I certainly appreciate your
leadership and support on these budget issue. They are so important to
every working family in America and so vital to the debate we are going
to have tomorrow and on Friday on the Federal budget here in
Washington, D.C.
I also want to commend my colleagues Mr. Gingrey, Mr. Garrett and Mr.
Hensarling, who I have worked extensively with on budget issues, and I
am so happy that Congresswoman Schmidt joined us as well.
I think it is important that we let the American people know how we
are spending their money and what this debate here in Washington, D.C.,
on our Federal budget means to average Americans.
The Democrats in the left wing represented here often times in loud
ways, but represented here in this body, will scream that Republicans
are cutting too much, they are hurting people. They scream, they yell
and it is just all about emotion with them, and when you get down to
what we are doing as Republicans, as conservatives, as the majority in
this House, you see that we are just trying to reform government so it
more efficiently provides services for people.
I know the American people would understand, Mr. Speaker, and see
that there are programs out there that are no longer fulfilling their
purpose or their mission. There are government bureaucrats who are not
working as we need them to work. We have useless bureaucracies here in
Washington, D.C., that in the name of big government continue to grow
and prosper, all the while siphoning off money from every American,
every American family.
What we are saying is conservatives have to look at those programs,
and if they are not providing a service, if we have empty buildings,
that perhaps we need to sell those empty buildings and gain revenue for
the Treasury so we do not have to raid the American taxpayers'
treasuries and the working families' treasuries.
As conservatives, we understand that this is the American people's
money, that it is not, as some in the left would say, the government's
money. No, it is the American taxpayers' money, and we need to be
diligent on how we spend our tax money, your tax money, my tax money
here in Washington, D.C.
I am so happy that we are going to begin this debate because I think
the American people will see the more fiscal party is the Republican
Party, and I think they will understand the leadership we are trying to
provide to change the direction of the ship of state, and in order to
change the direction of a ship, you cannot turn on a dime. We are
talking about a $2.7 trillion budget, so enormous, but if we can just
change the direction ever so slightly, it will have an impact over
time, and that is what we are trying to begin now, Mr. Speaker.
I want to commend my colleague Congresswoman Blackburn from Tennessee
for leading this debate, this colloquy here on the floor, and I think
she, of everyone here in the House, has been so outspoken in talking
about what this means to the taxpayers.
When she goes back to Tennessee, they do not know Marsha Blackburn as
the Congresswoman. They know Marsha Blackburn as the leader of fighting
taxes in Tennessee, of stopping that income tax that they wanted to put
in place in Tennessee just a few years ago, and she is bringing that
same leadership here to say, wait a second, let us look at our fiscal
house because if we spend recklessly, they are going to tax recklessly,
and that means that every American, instead of paying for their
children's books, paying for their children's college, providing for
their families, their perhaps retired parents or their children coming
up, buying a new car or actually owning a home, that they will have to
only pay their tax bill instead of doing those things.
So we need to look at how we spend money because that is directly
tied to how we take money from the taxpayers. I appreciate your
leadership.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North
Carolina, and as he said, it is so important that we keep the attention
on both sides of this ledger, that we hone that focus and just target
it, what we are taking in and what we are spending.
When we go back and we look at the 2003 tax cuts, we know that 91
million Americans saw a tax reduction of about $1,100. That is real
money. We also know that when government takes more of that paycheck,
that the individuals are not making choices, that the government is
making choices, and that is where we see a decrease in our freedom.
The gentleman is so correct. It is the debate of ideas and putting
new ideas on the table that is so very important, and we are joined, as
you mentioned, by the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt), who has a
few thoughts to offer on the line item veto and some of the ideas that
are being offered for our budget process, and I yield to the
gentlewoman.
Mrs. SCHMIDT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee. I
appreciate the opportunity to talk tonight, Mr. Speaker, about an
important tool that would I believe help eliminate wasteful spending.
When I was first elected to Congress last August, I pledged to be a
fiscal conservative for the residents of the 2nd District of Ohio.
Taking a fiscally disciplined approach to government has always been
one of my top priorities as an elected official. I am committed, as my
colleagues on this side of the aisle are, to seeking out and supporting
common-sense measures that promote fiscal responsibility and curb
government spending.
That is why I cosponsored and strongly support the Line Item Veto Act
of 2006, which the President recently sent to Congress. The line item
veto would be a useful tool designed to reduce the budget deficit,
improve accountability and ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent
wisely.
Many people are surprised to learn that the President currently has
no power to remove wasteful or unnecessary spending in appropriations
bills or other pieces of legislation that are presented to him.
Oftentimes, provisions are slipped into a larger spending bill that
never gets discussed or debated. The result is more spending in the
Federal budget.
The Legislative Line Item Veto Act would allow the President the
authority to line out unjustified spending items, eliminate new
entitlement spending from larger legislation, and return the bill to
Congress for consideration. The Congress, us, would then have 10 days
to vote on each and every proposed cut.
I am proud to say this is a bipartisan issue. Leaders and Members of
the Republican and Democratic side of this aisle, in both the House and
the Senate, have supported this approach in the past. They have. In
fact, in 1996, the Congress gave the President a line-item veto but the
Supreme Court struck down that version of the law in 1998 because the
Court felt that the act gave the President too much power to change the
text of enacted statutes.
But this Line Item Veto Act does not raise those constitutional
issues because the President's rescission proposals must be approved by
a majority in Congress and signed into law. So we do have congressional
oversight.
Forty-three governments, including my own in Ohio, have the line-item
veto to reduce spending, and I believe now is the time to give the
President of the United States a similar tool to help control spending
in the Federal budget.
The line Item Veto Act is not about giving the President more power
or taking power away from Members of Congress. This legislation is
about ensuring that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are spent more wisely,
and that is our mission, is it not, to spend the taxpayer dollars more
wisely, more efficiently, more prudently.
While I do believe that this legislation will go a long way toward
identifying and eliminating waste in government, I caution this body to
realize this is not the only solution. This is one of many, and I am
committed to
[[Page H1548]]
working with my colleagues in Congress on both sides of the aisle to
seek out other ways to promote fiscal responsibility and curb spending.
Thank you, and I commend my good colleague from Tennessee for taking
on this issue and all the Members that are here.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and it is so
true. We are to spend wisely, and this week, as we look at this year's
budget, there are some things that you will hear us talking, some
themes that will bear themselves out as we talk about this budget this
week. As I said, you can go to the Budget Committee Web site, through
house.gov or go to gop.gov, our colleagues can, and get more
information on the budget.
We are going to talk about strength and how we look at strength and
security in this budget. We look at defense, homeland security,
national security. We are going to talk about spending control, the
issue that we have talked about tonight, how we work on waste, fraud
and abuse, how we seek that savings and continue to seek that savings
for the American people and how we continue to push for reform, so that
government avails itself of every possible efficiency, every possible
efficiency that is out there to be certain that the taxpayer is
receiving the best buy for their dollar.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for
yielding.
When we talk about the Federal budget, sometimes the numbers are just
so large that it goes out of our sphere of understanding, as I was
referencing before our conversation with regard to the family budget
and the dollars that they spend there, but at the end of the day the
issue has really come down to the exact same thing, and that is, are
you taking in as much money, income, your paycheck, what have you,
through Federal tax revenues as you are paying out at the end of the
day? Do you have a balanced budget? Do you have a paycheck?
That is a problem for the American family. This is a problem for the
States, as well as the gentlewoman knows I come from the great State of
New Jersey, and people from New Jersey know right now our State is
having a difficult time with the State budget. Other people are looking
in and they realize we are having a difficult time with the State
budget. We have a new Governor who is trying to deal with this issue.
As a matter of fact, in the State of New Jersey, we are looking at a $6
billion shortfall in revenue coming in. What that means is that we have
less money coming in than is going out at the end of the day for the
State treasurer when he writes out his checkbook at the end of each
day.
But what the State of New Jersey has to do now, of course, is the
same thing as the family budget. That is, they have to set priorities,
boundaries or limits, but so, too, does the Federal Government.
The Federal Government is basically on some of the items that you
have already raised. We have to decide what are the priorities of the
Federal Government.
I think one major word that you described for almost all of them is
security: homeland security, economic security.
In the area of homeland security, if you look at the budget that came
out of the Budget Committee that I serve on, we are planning to spend a
3.8 percent increase in homeland security to make sure that Americans
at home feel more secure, that our borders are secure, that the
Department of Homeland Security and the people that work for them have
adequate money in order to get the job done.
Another area, of course, for us in the area of security is defense.
We want to make sure that we are able to protect our Nation, protect
the freedoms and the liberties that our Fore Fathers have fought and
other generations have fought since that time. For that reason, in this
budget, we will be seeing a 7 percent increase in defense.
Veterans, of course, is another area that this budget does not skimp
on at all, and I think the gentleman from Texas gave some of the
numbers before as far as the policy and the goals of this
administration and of this Republican Congress to make sure that our
veterans are adequately taken care of and protected.
So this budget does continue what this Republican Congress has done
in the past. It sets out what the appropriate priorities have got to be
for this Congress and for this Nation, and once we establish those
priorities, we can establish our spending.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talked about priorities
and where the priorities are in this budget. I think that is one of
things that our colleagues will want to watch over the next couple of
the days because over the past decade, we saw discretionary spending
increase by an average of 7 percent each year. What we have done in
last year's budget and this budget is to come to a near freeze in
nonsecurity discretionary spending.
{time} 2100
And that is so important, because that points to the priorities that
you have mentioned and the gentleman from Texas has mentioned and the
gentleman from North Carolina has mentioned.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. And if the gentlewoman will yield. After
anyone, a State or a family or the Federal Government sets its
priorities, the second half of the equation then must be what are the
items that don't rise to that level of a significant priority? Where
are those areas, again as Mr. Hensarling referred to that we can begin
to say maybe we should not be spending all the money that we have been
in the past. And I would humbly suggest a couple that I would at least
suggest that may not be the top priorities.
Some of the areas where we could see some savings, for example, the
Great Ape Conservation program, the Rhinoceros and Tiger Conservation
program, the African Elephant Conservation program. Certain areas and
important issues, I am sure, but when you compare them against making
sure our veterans have the TRICARE services they need, I would say they
pale in comparison.
How about the exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners
program, or the Native Hawaiian Vocational Educational program, or the
Native Hawaii Health Care program, for that matter.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman will yield, earlier we talked about
our colleagues across the aisle and this morning how they were
bemoaning the fact that we were going to freeze spending or reduce
spending, or if they weren't going to get everything they wanted, then
it is considered a cut. Now that is government speak, as the gentleman
from Texas said. That is government speak. It is not really a cut.
But we have to realize that every single time, every single time we
start to make reductions in what the Federal Government spends, there
are some who try to keep us from doing that. And their answer is
always, we need more money. Government can't afford that cut.
Government can't afford that tax reduction.
And as you said, it is so important that we differentiate between
this.
Mr. McHENRY. If the gentlewoman will yield, and I thank Congresswoman
Blackburn.
This is one of the things they always say on the other side, if you
cut taxes, you are going to cut revenue to the government. Now, that is
absolutely misunderstood. Because as we know, the Bush tax cuts have
fueled the economy and government returns, tax returns, the money sent
to government because people are working, those things have gone
through the roof. And I will yield to the gentleman if he has something
to add to that.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. If the gentleman has yielded.
Mr. McHENRY. Absolutely.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Normally, the press and the media would
say that if you had unemployment under 6 percent that you are doing
good. We have seen because of the actions of this Republican Congress
in cutting the taxes and returning the money to the family budget, as
opposed to keeping it here in Washington for the Federal budget, we now
see unemployment in this Nation around 4.7 percent.
Normally, the press and the national media would say if you have
growth in the economy of around 2 percent that
[[Page H1549]]
you would be doing good. Well, we, of course, know that because of
those tax cuts that you referenced just a moment ago, we have seen the
growth in the economy of over 3 percent for the last 11 straight
quarters. So it is because of this pro-growth economic policy you just
set forth that we are seeing the economy grow.
And by having a strong national economy, obviously it is helping the
revenue stream on this side and obviously it also affects the family
budget.
Mr. McHENRY. If the gentleman will yield.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I yield back.
Mr. McHENRY. This is one of the great discussions of the day. If you
cut taxes does government get less in income or taxation? What we have
seen through the tax cuts is it is a pro-growth policy. We allow people
to keep more of what they earn, therefore they can actually provide for
their child. They can go out this time of year and buy shorts and T-
shirts and tennis shoes for the kids.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman can yield for just a second.
Mr. McHENRY. Absolutely.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I want to yield to the gentleman from Texas, because
I think it is important for us to bring the deficit back into this. We
are allowing the taxpayer to keep more of their paycheck, and the tax
reductions in 2001 and 2003 certainly have done that. The gentleman
from Texas can talk for a moment about the deficit and how we are
speeding along and reducing that deficit faster than we had originally
thought that we were because of the growth in taxes and because of the
changes we have made in budgeting.
Mr. HENSARLING. Again, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. It is a
very important point that we are going to have in this debate. Number
one, there is no doubt that our colleagues on the other side of the
aisle will be talking about tax cuts are bad; we can't have any more
tax cuts.
Well, first, Mr. Speaker, nobody is talking today about any more tax
cuts. Unfortunately, in this very odd budget process we have in
Washington, tax relief is temporary and spending is forever. The only
thing we are trying to do, Mr. Speaker, is make sure that the American
people don't have a huge automatic tax increase brought about by the
Democrats.
They will tell you, my Lord, if we allow the American people, if we
allow small businesses to keep more of what they earn, that is going to
cost government. Well, number one, Mr. Speaker, it is not the
government's money, it is the people's money.
Second of all, we have given tax relief to American families and
small businesses. And, guess what? The deficit starts to come down.
Revenues are up. Again, don't take my word for it, go to the United
States Treasury and here is what they will tell you. We cut marginal
rates in 2003. We helped small businesses. We helped families. We cut
tax rates. And guess what? We ended up with more tax revenue. More tax
revenue.
Individual tax receipts were up 14.6 percent. Corporate tax receipts
were up 47 percent. A huge boon of revenue. That brings the deficit
down because people are going out and they are saving and they are
working and they are rolling up their sleeves and they are building new
businesses. In just this year, in the first few months of this fiscal
year, corporate tax receipts are up 29.6 percent. Again, don't take my
word for it, go to the U.S. Treasury.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HENSARLING. I would be glad to yield to my friend from New
Jersey.
Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Just for a quick point. I don't normally
do this, but I would reference you to The New York Times and today's
edition, because they verify that too. You can't go by what their
headlines say, because their headline is a little misleading. But they
did an article in the business section in The New York Times today
saying who benefitted from the tax cuts that this Republican-led GOP
Congress and this administration passed. And if you get beyond the
headlines and you dig down into the weeds, even The New York Times
admits that the benefits to them are to the middle class and the lower
class, as opposed to the higher incomes, as the other side would argue.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentlemen will yield. As we wrap up our hour,
I want to bring it right back to where we started, talking about the
compassionate thing to do is to let the American taxpayer keep their
paycheck, be certain that they have first right of refusal on that
paycheck and not the Federal Government.
I also want to encourage our constituents to talk to us and our
colleagues, to talk to our constituents so that we are certain that
everyone understands our goal as the majority party here in this House
is to be certain that we preserve individual freedom, that we preserve
hope and opportunity, and that we allow the American taxpayer to keep
control of their paycheck. And that as stewards of the taxpayers'
money, that we are good and accountable stewards.
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