[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 189 (Tuesday, December 11, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H15291-H15298]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. As I come to the floor tonight, the first 
week of December, standing here in the Nation's Capitol of the greatest 
Nation on Earth, today, and has ever been, I think about our 
constituents back home in the great State of New Jersey and across the 
country as well as they look to our Nation's Capitol and expect us to 
do the responsible things on their behalf and on the behalf of freedom 
and liberty around the world as well. And a portion of that 
responsibility, of course, is handling their hard-earned tax dollars as 
they send them to us here in Washington to administer this government 
and spending, some of which was just addressed by the other side of the 
aisle.
  For the next hour, I would like to engage in a discussion of these 
issues and shed some light on them, perhaps pointing out some of the 
fallacies in some of the arguments that we just heard from the other 
side of the aisle on these points.
  As we begin there, I think there is no place better to begin as to 
try to address some of those points that have been raised. So at this 
time I would be honored to have a fellow colleague join us at the floor 
right now. I yield the floor to Ms. Foxx.
  Ms. FOXX. Thank you so much, Congressman Garrett. I appreciate your 
putting together this Special Order tonight and focusing on spending 
and on where we are here, as you said, in the second week of December 
in the greatest country in the world.
  I was listening for a few minutes to our colleagues who preceded us, 
who called themselves the Blue Dog Democrats, and I was really 
fascinated to hear them talk about how fiscally responsible they have 
been, and I know that you're going to talk a little bit later about the 
total tax increases that they have proposed, the total spending that 
they have proposed. And I am fascinated that our colleagues can stand

[[Page H15292]]

here and talk about being fiscally responsible, I think, and assume 
that nobody is adding up what it is they are doing. And they show their 
charts about the debt and how much each person is responsible for that 
debt, and I am intrigued that if you look at the record, you would see 
that most of the Blue Dogs vote every time for these fiscally 
irresponsible bills that are being brought up. So I want to say to the 
American people, if they believe that these folks have been fiscally 
responsible, then I have got some swampland in Mexico that I'd like to 
sell them.
  I felt like, in listening to them, that I was like Alice in 
Wonderland, where the language means the opposite of what it is, or 
1984, particularly 1984, where white is black and black is white. That 
is what it feels like when you're listening to them talk about being 
fiscally responsible. It's unbelievable.
  One thing I do agree with them, it is about priorities, and it's 
obvious that their priorities and our priorities and the priorities of 
the American people are two different things. For one thing, our 
colleague used the example that we could be building 12,000 new 
elementary schools. Well, the Federal Government has absolutely no 
business building elementary schools. There is absolutely nothing in 
the Constitution which gives us any right to be involved in education, 
and particularly in building buildings at the local level.
  I am astonished at some of the things that they say, again, and 
assume that nobody is going to question them.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Will the gentlelady yield?
  I think the gentlelady makes an interesting but important point at 
the same time, in that if we see our role here in Congress as to 
satisfy every desire, wish, whim, and I am not saying education is a 
whim, but desires, wish, needs, as well of our constituency back at 
home, in your State and mine, then of course that wish list or the 
desire list or that need list would go on ad infinitum. Then we can 
become here, as one may say, as the 51st State, the 51st State 
legislature, trying to solve every single issue, whether it's building 
new schools, filling in potholes back at home on the street in front of 
someone's house, or any other minutia that is back in the States. 
Obviously, some of these things are quite vital to you and I and our 
constituents, but the question is where do those dollars and cents come 
from, where do the responsibilities lie? If we are going to assume at 
all, then I can tell you that this budget is going to balloon even 
further than where the Democrats already want the budget to balloon.
  But it is, just as you said before, an issue of, and I will probably 
say it 22 more times before the night is over, an issue of setting 
priorities, and part of setting priorities is setting what are our 
responsibilities. So you hit the nail on the head when you begin to 
look at that, how do you set priorities, what is our responsibility. If 
we can just hone in on what our responsibility is and if we can get 
doing those things well first, then everything else comes in time.
  I yield back.
  Ms. FOXX. Well, I hope you will repeat that 22 more times tonight, 
and we need to be repeating that every single day. It's one of the 
issues I talk about over and over again, what are our priorities, what 
is the role of the Federal Government. As you say, we could be seen as 
a 51st State and be trying to deal with every single issue, but the 
Constitution is really clear about what our role is, I think.
  As you point out, here we are in the middle of December, and what has 
this Congress accomplished? So much was promised by the majority last 
year when they were running for office and condemning Republicans for 
being profligate spenders and being irresponsible about the way we 
spent money. I will tell you that we can't hold a candle to what it is 
they want to do.

                              {time}  2100

  I think it was bad enough that Republicans before I got here 
ballooned the budget beyond where it should have been. And I have to 
say that I understand why the American people got upset with us last 
year, why we lost our majority. They felt that we were profligate 
spenders, as I said. But the Democrats promised something different. We 
are standing on our principles now, and they are stunned by that. We 
are earning our way back into the majority by living up to the image 
and the reputation that Republicans have had over the years of being 
careful with the way money is spent.
  And, of course, today I heard other Democrats talking about the fact 
that this was going to be a cut in the budget. Well, only in Washington 
is a smaller increase than what they want considered a cut or level 
funding considered a cut. The increase in what the President asked for, 
and again I know you are going to go into much greater detail about 
this, a 3.1 percent increase in spending overall was requested by the 
President; and yet, the majority party is saying that the fault is with 
the White House and it refuses to negotiate, that the President won't 
negotiate with them. They say we are engaged in political posturing. If 
that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I certainly have never 
seen that. They are totally surprised by the fact that the President 
and we are standing on our principles.
  They think they can get by with simply increasing spending. They 
asked for $22 billion plus a lot of money in emergency spending; so 
then they come back and say, well, we will just split the difference. 
It will only be $11 billion and you should compromise with us. And the 
fact that we don't want to increase spending that much more over the 
3.1 percent requested by the President stuns them. So the way they get 
around it is, here we are again the middle of December, and they have 
not passed the appropriations bills that we should have passed. And I 
want to talk some about what they promised they would do and what they 
have done. And we have compiled a list of promises.
  On November 8 of last year, Speaker-elect Pelosi said: Democrats are 
prepared to govern and ready to lead.
  Here we are, only one appropriations bill that has passed, and that 
is the Defense bill. Thank goodness that has happened.
  Another Democratic promise: open, honest, and ethical Congress. 
Speaker-elect Pelosi: we will make this the most honest, ethical, and 
open Congress in history.
  And what do we get? We get bills brought on the floor at the last 
minute, thousand-page bills. We get no time to read them, and we are 
asked to vote on them.
  We are also told by the Blue Dogs and by others that they believe in 
something called PAYGO. Now, PAYGO, they would have you believe, is a 
way for us to get back fiscal responsibility. Well, I want to say that 
if you look up PAYGO in the dictionary, it means new taxes. That is 
what PAYGO means to them, new taxes. It doesn't mean cutting spending. 
And it only applies to a very small part of our budget, but they want 
to try to fool the American people into thinking that it means 
something different than what it means.
  They criticize the Senate for having passed an AMT bill last week, 
which is a clean bill. It simply delays the increase in taxes that 
would go to about 23 million Americans, something they have never paid. 
And to the House, the fiscally responsible way to do this is to add new 
taxes to other Americans to, quote, pay for, that is, offset, taxes 
that have never been paid by another group of Americans.
  That is some of the most twisted logic that I have ever heard in my 
entire life. I know that these people never could have taken logic in 
high school or in college.
  They also promised no more borrowing from Social Security. But what 
that means is that the money that is currently being spent from the 
Social Security fund will not be spent from the Social Security fund. 
But that is not what they are doing. They are spending that and a whole 
lot more. And Rob Andrews last year, or this year, promised that we 
would not borrow any more money from the Social Security fund. Every 
one of their promises has been broken, and they are taking us down a 
very fiscally irresponsible budget.
  The energy bill that was passed last week is a no-energy bill. It 
included nothing to increase domestic energy production. As Christmas 
approaches, 5,000 troops are going to return from Iraq; but they are 
holding hostage the bipartisan legislation to fund key benefits for 
them and their families. It has

[[Page H15293]]

been 6 months since the House overwhelmingly passed the veterans and 
troops funding bill and 3 months since the Senate did the same, but 
they have put that bipartisan bill into this omnibus bill that we are 
going to be dealing with, which will have billions in wasteful, 
unrelated pork.
  We are seeing a tremendous problem here with only one of the 12 
appropriations bills passed, a year wasted while they have brought 
before us unnecessary bills to vote on and while they have voted 41 
times on measures to withdraw from Iraq, and they have let the 
important work of this Congress go by the by.
  I hope again that the American people are paying close attention and 
reading between the lines on the things that they are saying, and I am 
going to yield back to my colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the gentlelady from North 
Carolina, and I do believe that the American public is paying 
attention; and they are doing better than that, they are reading 
between the lines. And they know when they are being talked to straight 
and honestly, just as you have been for the last few moments now 
setting forth what the record is with regard to what the Republicans' 
intentions have been and will be in the future with regard to getting 
the fiscal house in order of this country, and what the actual record 
has been for the last 11-plus, almost 12, months now, as we stand here 
under Democrat control.
  Some of the numbers, I must say, that we talk about when we discuss 
this issue are quite large. It is really hard to get your hands around 
them, to get a handle on them. When you are talking about total 
spending in 2008 in the fiscal budget of $2.9 trillion, who can imagine 
that size number? When you are talking even a smaller number about an 
increase of $118 billion over 2007, $118 billion? We just can't relate 
to it.
  What we have to all bring it right down to is the fact that this is 
the American public tax dollars at heart, and it does mean dollars and 
cents to people at home listening to us tonight, working all week long, 
paying their bills. It does mean something to the American family's 
budget, how the tax increases that have been proposed by the other side 
of the aisle are going to impact upon them and their lack of 
responsibility when it comes to the issue that curbing spending will 
have an impact upon them as well.
  I am very pleased that I have been joined here tonight by another 
strong stalwart leader on this entire issue of fiscal responsibility. I 
have the pleasure of serving with him on several committees, but most 
importantly right now on the Budget Committee where he has been an 
outspoken critic of wanton expenses and spending, both now under 
Democratic control but also, too, when the Republicans controlled. So I 
would like to yield such time as he needs to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for leading 
this Special Order this evening. I thank him for his leadership on 
behalf of the people of New Jersey and behalf of the people of New 
York. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) never loses an 
opportunity to fight for the family budget.
  And we know that families are struggling during this Christmas 
season; we know that their energy bills have increased. We know the 
price at the pump is high. Home heating oil for those, particularly in 
the Northeast, not in my part in the country in Texas, they face 
challenges there. They face challenges in trying to deal with their 
health care costs.
  And what is the answer of this new Democrat majority? Well, it is the 
same answer as all Democrat majorities: tax more and spend more.
  I am unacquainted with any society in the history of the world that 
somehow has taxed its way into prosperity. And, ultimately, more 
spending leads to more taxation; and this is a Congress that continues 
to spend more and more and more. Already, the Federal Government is 
spending on average over $23,000 per family of four, Mr. Speaker. And 
this is the highest level, the highest level since World War II on an 
inflation-adjusted basis. And yet this Democrat majority wants to spend 
even more of the people's money.
  Earlier in the year, in their budget they had the single largest tax 
increase in American history that, when fully implemented over a 5-year 
period, is going to add $3,000 per year for an average family of four.
  Now, I wonder, Mr. Speaker, what will that extra $3,000 in taxes 
taken away from American families to be given to the Federal 
Government, what is that going to do to the hopes and dreams of the 
average American family? How is that going to help them fill up their 
F-150 pickup trucks? How is that going to help them pay their home 
heating oil bills? How is that going to help them send a child to 
college? Well, the answer is that it is not.
  Often, when we are having spending debates in the Nation's Capitol, 
Mr. Speaker, we are not really debating how much we spend, but we are 
debating who is going to do the spending. Is it going to be American 
families? Are they going to be allowed to keep what they have earned, 
what they have worked hard for? Are they going to be able to keep the 
bread on their table? Or are they going to have to give even a larger 
share to Washington? Notwithstanding the fact, notwithstanding the fact 
that they are already paying on average $23,000 per family of four.
  Now, when you come to the floor of the House, you often hear our 
Democrat colleagues decry how we are not investing in this budget 
function or we are not investing in this budget function enough. Well, 
people are entitled to their own opinions; they are just not entitled 
to their own facts. And if you look over the last 10 years, for 
example, the international affairs budget has increased 130 percent; 
the energy budget, 293 percent. Now, transportation, 71 percent; 
health, 79.4 percent. And the list goes on and on. And in that same 10-
year period, the family budget has grown by about 34, 35 percent. And 
so you have government on average growing over twice the rate of the 
family budget, and inflation over that same period has been just a 
little over 2 percent. So if you wanted to keep the same government 
that you had, you would have grown it at 2 percent a year; and, 
instead, it is being grown at closer to 6 to 7 percent.
  Ultimately, American families will not be able to pay this bill. More 
and more taxes are being imposed on them. And so every time one of our 
Democrat colleagues comes to the floor to suggest another great new 
government program to be added to the other 10,000 programs, Federal 
programs that are already on the books, it puts pressure on the family 
budget. And, again, it is not fair to their dreams, their hopes, their 
aspirations for their families, on top of this $3,000 a year increase 
to the average family of four that will be phased in over 5 years in 
their budget. They have gone through and offered to increase taxes at 
least half a dozen times on American families and the American economy.

                              {time}  2115

  Mr. HENSARLING. We passed H.R. 6, $7.7 billion over 10 years; H.R. 
976, $1.3 billion over 10 years; H.R. 1562, $241 million over the next 
10 years; H.R. 2419, $12.1 billion, and the list goes on and on and on.
  Again, as Americans are striving to pay for their health care costs, 
their transportation costs, their education costs, why should they be 
giving more money to Washington, D.C.? And at this time when they are 
trying to make ends meet on top of the tax increase in their budget, on 
top of at least seven or eight tax increases propose this year, you 
have the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. Rangel), propose what has now become known in the press 
as the mother of all tax increases.
  He will put a huge, almost 30 percent tax on millions of small 
businesses all across this Nation. Ninety percent of all Americans will 
pay more taxes under this bill. It will bring in an estimated $3 
trillion taken away from American families and American small 
businesses. This threatens millions of jobs.
  If we truly care about the American family and the economic perils 
and struggles that they face, then we want to make sure, number one, 
they keep the job that they already have instead of sending jobs 
overseas through excess taxation, regulation and litigation. And again, 
all of this spending ultimately has to be paid for, and it has to be 
paid for by a larger tax burden on

[[Page H15294]]

the American family and a job-killing tax burden on American small 
business.
  So here we are when most American families are trying to put together 
a budget so they can participate and make sure that all of the children 
and grandchildren are taken care of at Christmas, and here we have a 
Democrat majority in Congress who are trying to pass an even larger 
budget, the largest budget in the history of the Federal Government, 
taking more money away from their Christmases, taking away the goodies 
in their stockings to feed this ever-increasing, tax-and-spend beast 
that they have created.
  Again, I am unfamiliar with any society in history that somehow has 
taxed its way into prosperity, and that's what all this spending is 
resulting in now. So I am happy to join the gentleman from New Jersey 
to come to the floor now and make sure that the American people are 
seeing what is happening.
  There is a process, and process ultimately leads to policy. We had a 
process in place that was supposed to pass separate spending bills so 
Members of Congress could actually read the bills. Wouldn't that be a 
novel idea, that you actually have an opportunity to read the bill 
before you vote on it. And Democrats would absolutely come to the House 
floor and criticize and excoriate Republicans if they didn't pass these 
bills on time, and now they have passed one out of a dozen. So they are 
going to roll them all into this thing called an omnibus, and the only 
bus quality about it is it is a fiscal bus; it is going to flatten the 
American taxpayer.
  So, soon we will be presented with a thousand-page bill that we have 
hours to read that will be filled with pork-laden special interest 
projects which this Democrat majority claimed they were going to clean 
up. But instead, they have made it worse with all of their special 
earmarks, be it the tribute to the chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee who takes $2 million of American family money to create a 
museum to himself; be it the gentleman from Pennsylvania who set up 
what the Wall Street Journal has referred to as Murtha, Inc., where now 
companies go out and hire lobbyists, and if they locate in his 
district, all of a sudden earmarks appear. There is no transparency 
there. There is no accountability there. But all of this is going to 
get wrapped up into one great big omnibus bill.
  So when many of us would like to be with our families, and many of us 
have our families back home in our districts, not in Washington, D.C., 
instead we are here doing what we have to do, and that is protect the 
American families out there from this tax-and-spend machine that 
threatens their education and housing dreams, threatens their health 
care dreams, to ensure that the Federal budget does not grow beyond the 
ability of the family budget to pay for it.
  Already the unfunded obligations of the Federal Government are in 
excess of $144,000 per individual, and yet the Democrats keep on 
spending along. There will be a day of reckoning. And so I am sure that 
the Democrats will come to this House floor and say we are only 
debating $22 billion in this omnibus spending bill.
  Number one, I hope I am never in Washington so long that I have 
concluded that $22 billion is not a lot of money. $22 billion is more 
than we are spending on veterans health care in this Nation. It is a 
lot of money. And due to this artifice called baseline budgeting, that 
is going to grow in 5 years to be a $200 billion figure, imposing again 
thousands of dollars of taxes on the average American family when they 
are struggling to make ends meet.
  And so this debate is really about two different roads. One road 
leads us to the largest tax increase in American history to be followed 
by an even larger tax increase in American history, one that threatens 
our children and grandchildren with a lower standard of living. And 
that is not my words. Those are the words of the comptroller general, 
the chief fiduciary officer of the Federal Government. He said right 
now the government we have, and I paraphrase, the government we have, 
if left on automatic pilot, no new spending programs, no new benefit 
increases, threatens the next generation with either, one, a doubling 
of their tax burden or, two, a Federal Government that consists of 
little more than Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And yet the 
Democrats won't reform these programs. They keep on taxing and they 
keep on spending.
  I don't plan to be a party to that. There is another path. It is a 
path to fiscal responsibility. It is a path to make sure that the 
Federal budget does not grow beyond the ability of the family budget to 
pay for it. That is why Republicans will come to this House floor to 
make sure that this omnibus doesn't run over the American taxpayer and 
to make sure that the American people can have greater freedom and 
opportunity than we have had before. But to do that, we have to put 
America on the path of fiscal responsibility and to live within a 
budget.
  Don't let the Federal budget grow beyond the family's budget to pay 
for it. You cannot grow government at 6 and 7 and 8 percent a year and 
have the family budget grow at 3 percent a year. You can't sit here and 
tax American families at 3 and 4 and $5,000 more per year and then 
somehow claim that you have the Nation's priorities right. The priority 
of this Nation ought to be protecting the pocketbooks and security and 
freedoms of the American family.
  So again, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. He is one of the 
stellar leaders in this body in fiscal responsibility. He is a man who 
is always committed to principle, a real workhorse in this institution, 
and I am honored to be on the House floor tonight.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I again thank the gentleman from Texas for 
your work and for coming to the floor and for the points you make here.
  You point out several significant points. One is the dichotomy 
between what has been said by the other side of the aisle, both before 
the election and now during the course of the year, and literally just 
moments ago before I came to the floor this hour as the Blue Dogs were 
on the floor speaking.

  Let me take a moment to remind those here with us what was said by 
the other side when it comes to fiscal responsibility and their ability 
to get going rolling forward, because the gentleman from Texas made 
reference to the point we are likely to see an omnibus bill that none 
of us had an opportunity to consider, just as has been the case with 
other bills that have come to the floor.
  Back on November 8, 2006, a little over a year ago, Democrat Speaker 
Pelosi said Democrats are prepared to govern and ready to lead.
  Would that be true, whether she was prepared to govern and lead a 
year ago, here we are a year later, and we are still waiting for their 
appropriation bills to make the way through the process. Here we are in 
the second week in December, which means we are already, October, 
November, December, all those months, a quarter into the next fiscal 
year, and we are still waiting for those appropriation bills to make it 
through the House, Senate, and onto the President's desk. Were they 
really ready to lead a year ago if they can't get it done at this point 
in time? I guess not.
  A year ago their Democrat caucus chairman, Mr. Clyburn, said 
Democrats offer a new direction which includes fiscal responsibility. 
If you just put the period after ``they offer a new direction,'' maybe 
that would be more telling. Their direction is deeper in debt for the 
country, and therefore for the American family's budget as well, 
because their solution is always increase taxes.
  You might find that odd to think their solution is always to increase 
taxes if you simply listen to their rhetoric, because back in March of 
this year their majority leader said there are no tax increases in this 
budget, referring to the budget which came through the Budget Committee 
and eventually came to the floor of the House.
  If there are no tax increases, why do we know that the tax increases 
are going up significantly, upwards to $400 billion on the American 
public because of the bills that the Democrat majority has put through?
  I would point out to the gentleman from Texas that just prior to 
coming to the floor, the other side was speaking. It was the Blue Dog 
Democrats, and their solution, and you don't have to, as the gentlelady 
from North Carolina

[[Page H15295]]

says, read between the lines. Their solution to this issue of fiscal 
responsibility is only one-sided, and that is revenue, revenue 
enhancement, which is a nice way of saying tax increases.
  How do we know that? The Record proves the case. The chart to my left 
shows the Republican minority attempted during various appropriation 
bills that were coming down to say that maybe the solution when your 
fiscal house is not in order is not always to raise taxes; maybe part 
of the solution is to rein in spending, something that every family has 
to do from time to time. When an American family has a problem with 
their budget and they are not able to make ends meet at the end of the 
month or week, what do they do? They usually have to rein in spending 
and set priorities. We suggested that. I know that the gentleman from 
Texas was part of this process as well to suggest perhaps what we 
should do is not make any draconian cuts, not say we are going to 
eliminate this program or that program, although some programs are 
certainly worthy of being eliminated. We had a much more modest 
proposal, and that was simply to say can we go for a 1-percent 
reduction in spending.
  What was the Democrats' response to that? Well, on bill after bill 
after bill after bill, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of the 
House appropriation bills proposed by the House Democrat majority, on 
each case we suggested can we afford a 1-percent across-the-board 
reduction to try to bring our House in fiscal responsibility.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Would the gentleman yield on that one point?
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I would definitely yield.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that really a 1-
percent reduction in the requested increase? And so, for example, the 
Democrats may have suggested that some account grow by 6.7 percent, and 
this amendment said no, let's let it grow at 5.7 percent instead. So 
what we are calling a reduction, was that not really a reduction in the 
requested increase? Because at the end of the day, the Federal budget 
was still going to grow.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I appreciate that point. The gentleman is 
absolutely correct. It is not a reduction in overall spending so we can 
say today we are spending a dollar and tomorrow we would be spending 99 
cents. In fact, today we are spending a dollar and we may be going up 
to $1.05, let's bring it down to $1.04-something as far as the actual 
spending. So the actual spending would still be going up, but we were 
suggesting going up on a slightly lower curve.

                              {time}  2130

  Democrats voting in favor of that modicum of fiscal responsibility. 
Well, we could get into single digits several times, with 10, 7, 11, 
13, 11, 11, 11; only 11 votes out of that entire side of the aisle. I'm 
not sure where any of the Blue Dogs were on that one when they had the 
opportunity to rein in spending.
  You know, I think if I recall correctly, and you can correct me if 
I'm wrong, the reason they said that they could not be supportive of 
being more fiscally responsible and support any measure was that we 
were not being compassionate enough. But the element of compassion in 
Washington, DC. apparently is measured by simply how much more money 
you throw at the problem. Whether or not that program is efficient, 
whether that program has been rated as being adequate and getting the 
job done, the measure of compassion in Washington is always whether or 
not you are throwing even more money than the party next to you is 
doing.
  I guess it comes down to a very simply thing like this: at the end of 
the day they want to be able to go home to their kids or grandkids and 
say, well, we were more compassionate than those Republicans because we 
spent more money than they did on a particular problem.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Would the gentleman yield on that point?
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I shall yield, yeah.
  Mr. HENSARLING. It is interesting. Rarely do you come to the House 
floor that somebody says, don't you have compassion? Don't you want to 
take money away from this American family and hand it over to this 
program over here?
  And, again, I want our society to spend more money on education. I 
want them to spend more money on health care. I want them to spend more 
money on housing. I'm just not indifferent as to who does the spending. 
I want American families to do the spending. They want the Federal 
Government bureaucrats to do the spending after taking a huge hair cut 
for all the waste and fraud and abuse and duplication that takes place 
in the Nation's Capitol.
  What I hear from my constituents, and I have the great honor of 
representing the Fifth Congressional District of Texas, which is Dallas 
and east Texas, and I hear from people like the Kirkendahls in Garland 
who wrote me: ``Congressman, at this point, between taxes and utilities 
we are at the breaking point of being able to keep a home. If we have 
an increase of over $2,000 per year in taxes, it may well be the straw 
that broke the camel's back.''
  Well, where is the Democratic compassion for the Kirkendahl family as 
they try to keep their home?
  I heard from the Taylor family in Forney, Texas also in my district: 
``Dear Congressman, I'm on the verge of foreclosure after 15 years in 
my house. I won't be able to make it if taxes continue to rise.''
  Well, where is this Democrat compassion for the Taylor family in 
Forney? I'm having trouble seeing it.
  And so they forget about the people who actually do the work and pay 
the taxes, because it's their dreams once again. And so compassion, I 
believe that compassion ultimately shouldn't be measured by the size of 
a government check. It ought to be measured by the size of a paycheck. 
And all this Democrat spending is fueling more taxes, which will kill 
the jobs, kill jobs in this American economy. We start replacing 
paychecks with welfare checks; there's no compassion in that.
  And I'll yield back to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Just a quick two points, one on the 
compassion issue is perhaps it is appropriate when you're dealing with 
money to say that if I'm taking money out of my own pocket and deciding 
that I will spend this on a particular program, I can honestly say if I 
wish to be so boastful that I am being compassionate for that 
individual.
  But we know that the Federal Government is in debt right now. We are 
involved in deficit spending, which means that we are not only spending 
more money than we are currently taking in from the current taxpayers 
in this country, but also we are going into debt borrowing as well. So 
where are we borrowing from?
  Well, we are borrowing from the next generation. So in that 
hypothetical conversation that a Member from the other side of the 
aisle must have when they go back to their children and say, well, I 
was compassionate today because I decided to vote ``no'' on all these 
fiscally responsible measures that the Republicans propose as far as 
reining in the spending on this side. Well, the compassion that the 
father or mother Member would have to say to his child, I am being 
compassionate because I am simply basically giving you an additional 
debt on my children, and my children and your children will be 
obligated for all of these expenses.
  Now, to the other point that you were raising as far as the letters 
and the phone calls that you get from your members or from your 
constituents who are concerned about what we are doing here and that 
they are on the brink of foreclosure, or brink of fiscal solvency in 
their own right, well, that's perfectly understandable, especially in 
light of all that has transpired over the last 11 months with regard to 
new taxes that have been proposed by this Democrat majority. And I'll 
just refer to the chart here for a moment. And if you care to speak on 
any of these, you're welcome to.
  These are new majority proposals, new taxes at every turn. I digress. 
What was Senator Hillary Clinton's statement with regard as running as 
a Presidential candidate, which I believe she said something to the 
effect of, I have more ideas than this country can afford to spend 
dollars on, or something to that effect. Well, apparently the other 
side of the aisle, the Democrat side of the aisle, has the same idea, 
that they have more proposals, more bright ideas to spend on than we

[[Page H15296]]

have money in the bank nor does the American family have in their bank 
as well. But they're going to still go and try and spend them, and 
they're going to do it by raising taxes.
  So what do we have here? One, two, three, four, five, about seven 
different new tax proposals. Fiscal year 2008 budget $392.5 billion tax 
increase. Of course the gentleman from Texas recalls that we saw that 
at the very beginning of this year in about March or April of this year 
when we saw at that time that was the largest tax increase in U.S. 
history. The largest tax increase. And where is that going to be on? 
It's going to be on the backs of American families.
  Secondly, $15 billion in new energy taxes. Well, we just passed 2 
weeks ago, or last week I guess it was, we passed the energy bill, and 
that's even in addition to that as far as the tax increases that will 
be on energy production in this country. $5.8 billion in new tobacco 
taxes, $7.5 billion, again these are all in billions. If you can't get 
your hands around it, those large numbers, but that's what we're 
talking about. $7.5 billion in new taxes in the farm bill. A nickel-
per-gallon tax increase on gas for infrastructure. So if we're not 
already paying enough at the pump and, remember, that also was one of 
the promises that the gentlelady from North Carolina was referring to 
before, a whole list, before you came in a whole list of promises made 
by the new majority that they were going to do.
  One of them was an energy policy to reduce the price of gasoline. I 
can tell you in my neck of the woods prices are higher now 
substantially than when the majority came in. Now they want to add a 
nickel tax on top of that. A 50 cent-per-gallon tax, increase on gas 
for global warming. So now you're up to 55 cents on gas.

  New taxes on homeownership by ending mortgage deductions and a new 
tax on every American with a private health plan. And actually this 
list is an abbreviated list that can go even further than this as far 
as taxes on the American public.
  And with that I'll yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding once again. 
And it is sometimes difficult for people to understand billions and 
trillions of dollars. But they certainly understand hundreds and 
thousands of dollars coming out of their paycheck. And so to put this 
in some kind of context, this largest single tax increase in history 
that was part of the Democrat budget resolution earlier this year, that 
equates to roughly $3,000 per year per family of four tax increase, 
$3,000. So I hope people all across America who are listening to this 
debate will listen very closely and write their Members of Congress, 
call their Members of Congress, e-mail their Members of Congress.
  Do you really want that $3,000-per-year tax increase on your family? 
Can you afford that, to send more money to Washington, D.C. when 
they're already spending an average of $23,000 per family of four, the 
highest level since World War II?
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. And if the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. HENSARLING. I'd be happy to yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. The gentleman and I also, besides being on 
the Budget Committee, I also have the honor of serving with him on the 
Financial Services Committee. And one of the issues that we're dealing 
with right now of course is with the subprime situation, subprime 
situation as far as the tightening of the credit market of course and 
the decline of home prices that is probably going to continue for some 
period of time, peaking with regard to the resets sometime in February 
or March of next year. But most experts would agree that the price of 
homes in this country on average will be going down 3, 4, 5 percent; 
and this will continue during the course of 2008. And it's one of the 
reasons, as well, why we see consumer confidence beginning to erode, 
after a substantial period, a lengthy period of where consumer 
confidence was up.
  So when you think about the economic situation of the American family 
right now, energy costs going through the roof. I heard a figure the 
other day, I think they said on average American homeowners are going 
to spend around $2,000 more this year just to heat their homes. There's 
2,000 bucks more out of their wallets. That's in addition to more money 
out of their pockets for gasoline, going to and from work. And that's 
in addition to the fact that the values of the house in certain pockets 
of this country will be going down. Their financial situation for the 
American public is being constricted.
  And what is the solution that we are hearing from the other side of 
the aisle while the family budget is being tightened like that?
  Well, it's Uncle Sam reaching out and saying, can we have, 
Washington, have 2, $3,000 more so we can spend it down here on who 
knows what. And some of those who-knows-whats, you remember earlier on 
in this year, with all the pork spending that was coming from the other 
side of the aisle, you recall this discussion of some of the pork that 
was thrown into legislation, $50 million for wild blueberry subsidies, 
farm bill, $17 million for the National Sports program, $20 million for 
the National Writing Project, $6 million for unused plane tickets, 
$36,000 for Kentucky to protect bingo halls and on and on infinitum.
  Anyone who listens to the gentleman from Texas or the gentleman from 
Arizona talk about earmarks will know about the wasteful spending that 
goes on here. But that's what's going to continue to go on so long as 
Washington is controlled by the other side of the aisle that says we 
can continue to spend without limitation because we are not setting 
those priorities. But we will be willing, the Democrats will be willing 
to reach out and take more money out of the family's pocket. So that 
really is the issue here at home.
  And I always remember this expression from the gentleman from Texas: 
the focus has got to be on the family budget and not on the Washington 
budget. The other side of the aisle obviously has misplaced that axiom 
and has put the focus entirely on the Washington budget, as opposed to 
the Federal, the individual budget.
  Again, if you were here earlier when the other side of the aisle was 
saying that their solutions to the fiscal dilemma that we're in right 
now and the problems need to be addressed in a fiscally responsible 
manner, never once during that entire hour discussion, and never once 
during any of our hearings that I can recall in the Budget Committee, 
have we heard from them the basic suggestion that the answer lies in 
the spending side of the equation as opposed to revenue.
  In Washington, we really do have a spending problem, not a revenue 
problem. The revenue continues to come in at unprecedented rates, and 
that despite the fact that we had tax cuts going back as far as 2003, 
despite the fact that we lowered the tax rates for Americans so that 
they can keep more money in their pockets. The amount of revenue coming 
into Washington continues to go up, most times over the last several 
years, actually in the double-digit range year over year.
  So it's not a revenue problem that we have experienced. It is a 
spending problem. I'm just waiting for the day that the other side of 
the aisle begins to realize that and will begin to work with us on some 
of these issues that you and I and others in the RSC as well have 
decided is the appropriate approach, reining in this budget as the 
family does.
  Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentleman for yielding once again. And 
although I haven't kept a running tally, to the best of my knowledge, 
I'm unacquainted with any Federal program that has met its demise in 
this Congress. Instead, when you think about the 10,000 Federal 
programs that are already on the books, this Democrat majority is 
adding to them, with the exception of one agency in the Department of 
Labor that's supposed to provide accountability to labor union bosses 
to make sure that they don't misuse labor union funds. That was the 
only single agency that I'm aware of that has received a budget 
decrease of roughly 10,000 Federal programs, one to ensure the 
integrity of labor union funds to be protected from misuse and 
fraudulent use and criminal use by labor union bosses.
  And so, again, the tax and spend machine goes on. And American 
families have to decide for themselves as they watch this debate during 
the holiday season what's going to be best for their families. Do they 
want to have a tax

[[Page H15297]]

increase in the neighborhood of $3,000 per family of four? Is that 
going to help them? Will sending that money to Washington help them 
with their fuel bills? Will sending that money to Washington better 
help them send their children to college? Will sending that money to 
Washington help them meet their mortgage payments, particularly if they 
have an adjustable rate mortgage and it resets?

                              {time}  2145

  We're talking about the here and now, but we also have to look at the 
future. As the gentleman was talking about, we hear the word 
``compassion'' thrown on this floor frequently. People will quote 
scripture and talk about what have you done for the least of these. I 
always thought the least of these were those who do not vote and those 
who have yet to be born. They're the ones who tend to get ignored in 
this process.
  So why now with all of this spending that the Democrat majority is 
doing, where is it leading us? Well, let me quote from the Chairman of 
the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke: Without early and meaningful action 
to address the growth of the Federal budget, particularly entitlement 
spending, the U.S. economy could be seriously weakened with future 
generations bearing much of the cost. Again, where is the compassion 
there?
  Let me quote from the Brookings Institution, not exactly a bastion of 
conservative thought: The Nation's fiscal situation is out of control 
and could do serious damage to the economy in coming decades, sapping 
our national strength, making it more difficult to respond to 
unforeseen contingencies and passing on an unfair burden to future 
generations. Again, the least of these.
  The General Accountability Office: The rising costs of government are 
a fiscal cancer that threatens catastrophic consequences for our 
country and could bankrupt America.
  And these aren't my words. These aren't the words of the Republican 
minority. I mean, this is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the head 
of the General Accountability Office, the liberal Brookings 
Institution.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. And to get an idea, again, as to how that 
all plays out or actually where that all comes from, I gave you before 
a list, just a partial list of the tax increases that would be coming 
down the pike under the new Democrat majority.
  Let's look at it as you would look at your own income tax return in a 
way. Part of the tax increases that you will see will go from the top 
to the bottom. So you can say compassion to either the richest or the 
poorest. The ordinary income tax at the top rates will be going up, 35 
percent to 39.6 percent. Capital gains tax, which are not only for the 
rich, it's for our senior citizens as well who are relying on their 
retirement accounts, the annuities that they have put away during the 
course of their life, their pensions and the like which are invested, 
and now they're taking those funds out as far as capital gains. That's 
what they're living on on a fixed income. What do we see there with 
capital gains, 15 percent to 20 percent. That's a 5 percent increase, 
or actually a 30 percent increase over the 15 percent.
  Dividends, likewise, increase 15 percent up to 39.6 percent, more 
than a double increase there.
  Estate taxes. Well, estate tax, of course, is something we've debated 
on this floor for a long time, for the small farmer, for the small 
business person. Their taxes are going to go from 0 percent to 55 
percent, basically making a lot of small farmers and little families 
when they sit down at the end of the year saying we may actually have 
to sell our business to hold on, and this is why.
  Finally, for the lower income tax bracket, child tax credit from 
$1,000 to $500. Now, to people who actually really need that money, 
that extra $500 can be crucial. That could be a month's rent payment. 
That could be a food bill. That could be a car payment. They're 
reducing it from $1,000 down to $500.
  And finally, the lowest income earners, the bottom income individuals 
and families in this country, they, too, will be bearing the brunt of 
the tax increases and the prolific spending that we see down here by 
seeing the lowest tax bracket go from 10 percent to 15 percent. 
Percentage-wise, of course, that's a 50 percent tax increase when you 
think about it, from 10 percent up to 15 percent, as far as a 
percentage increase.
  So from the richest to the poorest will all be suffering, and the 
dollars and cents, as you make out, the gentleman from Texas, very 
well, comes out to how they pay their bills at the end of the month.
  I yield back.
  Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey in talking 
about how terrible these tax increases are going to be on the American 
family, but it will be not only in direct terms to having a lesser 
paycheck, it also threatens the very existence of their paycheck.
  I toured a small business in my district about a year ago called 
Jacksonville Industries. They're kind of an aluminum dye cast 
manufacturer, and before we had passed tax relief, they were on the 
verge of having to lay off two people.
  And when I look at what's happening in capital gains and dividends, 
which really help fuels job creation, you can't have capitalism without 
capital.
  Because of the tax relief the Republican Congress has passed, they 
were able to go out and buy some new machinery. I don't recall what 
it's called, and I don't exactly know what it does, but it was big and 
it was noisy, and most importantly, it made them more competitive. And 
because they were more competitive, and I want to say they had about 20 
workers, instead of laying off two workers, they hired two new workers, 
all because of tax relief. Tax relief allowed them to invest in the 
American free enterprise system.
  And so instead of having four people who could have been on 
unemployment and four people who could have been on welfare and four 
people who could have been on food stamps, instead, you had four people 
who had jobs, who had a future, who put a roof over their head, who put 
groceries on the table because of a paycheck, and yet the Democrat tax 
increases threaten that very paycheck.
  Now, they offer compassion. Oh, we have this welfare check over here. 
We're going to increase the government budget over here. But you cannot 
increase the Federal budget without decreasing the family budget, and 
that's what this debate is going to be about this week.
  Which path do you want to be on? Do you want to be on the path of 
increasing the Federal budget, threatening future generations with 
bankruptcy, with this fiscal cancer that's going to grow throughout our 
Nation, or do you want to be on the path where the Federal budget 
doesn't grow beyond the family budget ability to pay for it, a budget 
that doesn't include tax increases at a time when American families are 
struggling to pay their health care bills, their heating bills, their 
housing bills?
  That's what it really is. It's a debate about two different paths. 
Now, they may look small to Democrats. They claim $22 billion isn't a 
lot of money. Maybe $22 billion today, and that is a lot of money, but 
that's quickly going to grow to $200 billion, and within a generation 
that's going to cause a doubling of taxes on the next generation. And 
children and grandchildren of America, if we don't stop this and stop 
it this week, will have a lower standard of living, less freedom and 
less opportunity, and that's why it so's critical that we win this 
debate this week.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman again.
  You can see this sort of going on in a microcosm from the State that 
I'm from, the great State of New Jersey, where a poll was done a month 
or so ago I understand that said if you had the opportunity, would you 
leave the State, and 50 percent of the respondents said, yes, they 
would. If you look at the actual demographic numbers over the last 
year, between 72- or 76,000 New Jerseyans have left the State of New 
Jersey. One of the reasons why they indicate they've left the State is 
because taxes are so high. They cannot afford to live in that State. So 
the individuals leave, the families leave, businesses leave the State, 
which will cause obviously a death spiral, if you will, to the overall 
economy of the State of New Jersey if it's going to continue.

[[Page H15298]]

  Mr. HENSARLING. Would you be happy to tell the citizens of New Jersey 
who are fleeing the high taxes that they can come to the Lone Star 
State where we have low taxes and great economic growth? We'd be happy 
to have them.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I'm sure the gentleman would like to have 
them. I would like them to stay in the State of New Jersey and just see 
that our fiscal house is set in order in the State of New Jersey, where 
the Democrats just raised the sales tax by a penny and corporate taxes 
as well, and property taxes continue to go through the roof.
  But that's a microcosm of the United States of America as well. 
People are doing what Ronald Reagan once said, and that is they're 
voting with their feet and leaving the State. Businesses will be doing 
the exact same thing as we begin to see taxes go up across the board in 
the United States if those hard decisions are not being made of 
prioritization.
  I believe we're getting near the end of our time here. I will extend 
a hand to the other side of the aisle, as we continue this debate 
during the course of the week, to the Blue Dogs or any other Members 
who came down to the floor during this night or other nights as well 
who are looking for fiscal responsibility. If we can come to an 
agreement that the answer is not raising taxes but, rather, reining in 
spending, I believe it was the RSC a year ago that came up with a list 
of, correct me if I'm wrong, approximately a half a billion dollars in 
savings in overall spending by the Federal Government. We'd be glad to 
share that information with the Democrat majority if they would just 
take even just less than 5 percent of that to rein in their spending to 
keep it under the control of where the American public would like to 
have it.

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