[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 111 (Wednesday, July 22, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H8501-H8509]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF STATUTORY PAY-AS-YOU-GO ACT OF 2009

  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 665 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 665

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 
     2920) to reinstitute and update the Pay-As-You-Go requirement 
     of budget neutrality on new tax and mandatory spending 
     legislation, enforced by the threat of annual, automatic 
     sequestration. The first reading of the bill shall be 
     dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of 
     the bill are waived except those arising under clause 9 or 10 
     of rule XXI. The amendment in the nature of a substitute 
     printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules 
     accompanying this resolution, modified by the amendment 
     printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules, 
     shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall 
     be considered as read. All points of order against provisions 
     of the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous

[[Page H8502]]

     question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as 
     amended, to final passage without intervening motion except: 
     (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the 
     chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on the 
     Budget; (2) the amendment in the nature of a substitute 
     printed in part C of the report of the Committee on Rules, if 
     offered by Representative Ryan of Wisconsin or his designee, 
     which shall be in order without intervention of any point of 
     order except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule XXI, 
     shall be considered as read, and shall be separately 
     debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the 
     proponent and an opponent; and (3) one motion to recommit 
     with or without instructions.
       Sec. 2.  For purposes of the concurrent resolution on the 
     budget, the amounts specified in section 421(a)(2)(A) and 
     section 421(a)(2)(C) shall be considered to be those 
     reflected in section 314 and section 316, respectively, of 
     the House companion measure.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Weiner). The gentleman from New York is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). All 
time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. ARCURI. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 
legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and 
insert extraneous materials into the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from New York?
  There was no objection.

                              {time}  1045

  Mr. ARCURI. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a member of the Rules Committee and of 
the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and as a proud supporter 
of this rule and H.R. 2920, the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go bill.
  When the 110th Congress convened in 2007, I strongly supported the 
reinstatement of the pay-as-you-go principles in the rules of the 
House. Today, we will take up the next step toward reinstating the 
statutory pay-as-you-go rule. These statutory requirements helped turn 
deficits into surpluses in the 1990s under the Clinton administration. 
When the previous statute expired, Mr. Speaker, the result was a return 
to unchecked deficit spending, which doubled the national debt in less 
than a decade. This is not a Democratic problem. This is not a 
Republican problem. Rather, this is a problem for all of us.
  The American people deserve better. We in Congress must be forced to 
balance our spending the same way that every American family does. We 
should not spend what we cannot afford. In order to spend a dollar, we 
must find a dollar either in savings or in new revenue.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle may try to 
argue semantics and say that this is an imperfect bill. If this is the 
case, I would simply remind my colleagues that every journey is 
completed one step at a time. This bill is just a first step. It is 
part of a clearly delineated path toward fiscal responsibility.
  To date, this Congress has passed critical pieces of legislation, 
like the expansion of the SCHIP, which provides health insurance to 11 
million children, and we did so in a way that was completely paid for, 
showing our commitment to fiscal responsibility. Earlier this year, we 
adopted a budget resolution that placed the full cost of war spending 
on the books for the first time. These are steps in the right 
direction. This bill continues these important steps in the direction 
of fiscal responsibility.
  This legislation will require that all new policies of reducing 
revenues or of expanding spending enacted during a session of Congress 
be offset over 5 and 10 years. It will require any future extension of 
upper-income tax cuts to be offset, and it will force a serious 
examination of wasteful subsidies in the budget and of tax loopholes 
that can be eliminated to offset more worthwhile programs.
  Finally, the statute would not be complete without an enforcement 
mechanism. The Congressional Budget Office will continue to score 
legislation passed by Congress. The Office of Management and Budget 
will keep a running scorecard for all of the revenue generated in new 
spending enacted during a year. If we have not fully offset the 
legislation enacted during the session, it will trigger an automatic 
sequester of funds from mandatory spending programs.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people have spoken, and they want a return 
to a fiscally responsible Congress that abides by pay-as-you-go 
principles. This is the legislation that will make that a reality. As a 
member of the Blue Dog Coalition, I have worked, since being elected to 
Congress, to reenact statutory PAYGO, and I strongly urge my fellow 
colleagues to vote for this rule on H.R. 2920.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by expressing my appreciation 
to my Rules Committee colleague for yielding me the customary 30 
minutes, and I yield myself such time as I might consume.
  Mr. Speaker, today is the 22nd of July. We are just over halfway 
through calendar year 2009, and the Federal deficit has exceeded $1 
trillion. That's not with an M. That's not with a B. That's with a T; 
$1 trillion. It's so much money that we can't even fathom exactly how 
much it is. You know, I've spent a while here, and I can't imagine $1 
trillion. It's the amount of money already that the Federal Government 
not has spent; it's the amount of money, Mr. Speaker, that the Federal 
Government has already overspent as we are just halfway through this 
year. At the rate that we're going, by the end of the year, the deficit 
will approach $2 trillion.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, if you think about that, about the amount that we 
have overspent and that we have spent more than was actually taken in, 
then actually, based on this annual number, it quite possibly could be 
larger than the entire Federal budget was just a decade ago.
  The American people are paying attention. They're paying attention, 
and they don't believe that such wantonly irresponsible spending is 
ever justified. They're particularly outraged that it's coming at a 
time when they are revamping their own budgets, are cutting out every 
penny of waste and are saving every penny that they possibly can.
  Our economic challenges have fundamentally changed Americans' 
budgeting habits. They're spending less; they're saving more; they're 
paying off their debts; and they're asking themselves, Why is my 
government doing precisely the opposite?
  Well, the American families are spending less; they are saving more, 
and they are paying down their debts. We here in Washington, D.C. are 
doing the opposite, and they can't understand why that's continuing to 
happen. During very difficult and challenging economic times, why is 
Congress spending trillions on bailouts and proposing new taxes that 
will burden our families even more? Why is it racking up so much debt 
that our kids, grandkids and great grandkids won't even be able to pay 
it off?
  So much concern is mounting over the profligate spending of this 
Congress that it comes as absolutely no surprise that the Democratic 
leadership wants to give the appearance of an interest in fiscal 
responsibility. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, as I go through the 
analysis of this, and the American people are going to understand, we 
will find that this is simply dealing with the appearance of trying to 
be fiscally responsible.
  The leadership on the other side of the aisle wants to be able to 
send out a press release to say that they care about this $1 trillion 
deficit spending that has taken place in the last 6 months and that 
they're doing something about it.
  Unfortunately, rather than actually reining in the deficit, what has 
happened? They've proposed a bill that will do nothing to restore any 
semblance of responsibility and accountability to the Federal budget.
  As any hardworking American knows, living within our means during 
tough economic times is painful, but it's not terribly complicated. You 
have to reduce your spending. It's very simple. The Democratic 
leadership will say that the bill before us today requires Congress to 
spend only what it can pay for, but this claim is not terribly 
accurate.
  First of all, this bill does absolutely nothing to limit 
discretionary spending, which is 40 percent of the entire

[[Page H8503]]

Federal budget. Let me say that again, Mr. Speaker. If you think about 
a family who has to reduce its expenses and who has to rein in its own 
personal spending, this family doesn't have the luxury of saying, Oh, 
well, here is 40 percent that I will exempt. That is exactly what is 
happening with this measure.
  This bill makes it virtually impossible for Congress to implement tax 
reforms that will get our economy growing again and that will increase 
Federal revenues. If the Democratic leadership were actually interested 
in reducing the deficit, they would simply implement spending caps, 
caps on spending. That's the way to do it. Instead, they have merely 
produced a fig leaf of a bill, a fig leaf so they can send out that 
press release and can then go right on spending this country into 
oblivion, which is exactly what has been happening. The proposal before 
us does nothing but mandate tax increases while leaving discretionary 
spending completely unchecked.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, this is not a theoretical discussion that I am 
engaging in right now. We've been living under the Democratic 
leadership's so-called ``PAYGO rules'' for 2\1/2\ years. When they 
reinstated PAYGO at the start of the last Congress, they said it would 
eliminate deficit spending. Now what has actually happened? The deficit 
has skyrocketed from $162 billion in fiscal '07 to, as I said, this 
estimated $1.8 trillion. So from $162 billion in 2007 to $1.8 trillion. 
Again, that's just the deficit. That's a tenfold increase, and it all 
happened under this Democratic majority with these brilliant PAYGO 
rules that have been put into place.
  This bill will not cut the deficit. This bill will not help to 
restore our economy. I will say quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I am really 
quite concerned that some will believe, with the passage of this bill, 
that we have now addressed the problems and that it will lure many on 
the other side of the aisle to continue on the road that they've been 
going down for the past 2\1/2\ years.
  The true purpose of this bill is a very, very unfortunate one. The 
first is to attempt to provide political cover for Members who want to 
have it both ways, carrying the mantle of fiscal responsibility while 
voting for trillion-dollar spending boondoggles.
  The second is to make meaningful tax reform impossible to implement. 
If we abide by the plan that was laid out in this bill, we cannot offer 
tax relief to a single working American without raising one's taxes at 
the same time. This includes tax relief that has been proven to 
increase Federal revenues. We won't be able to do that under this 
measure. Tax relief that has proven to increase dramatically the flow 
of revenues of the Federal Treasury would not be allowed under this 
measure.
  In 2003, we cut the capital gains tax rate by 5 percent. Guess what 
happened, Mr. Speaker? Capital gains tax revenues, that's revenues to 
the Federal Treasury. And we cut the capital gains rate by 5 percent, 
doubled in a 2-year period of time. This tax relief is set to expire 
next year. Guess what? Under this bill, we can't extend it without 
raising taxes.
  So, if we double revenues by cutting the capital gains tax, it 
doesn't take a Ph.D. to guess what will happen if we are forced to 
raise taxes. This bill ties our hands where flexibility is necessary, 
and it fails to implement strict guidelines where accountability is 
desperately needed.
  Even the Democratic leadership doesn't take this bill very seriously, 
adding in five pages of exemptions to an already worthless attempt at 
fiscal responsibility. I find it interesting that they would even 
bother with these exemptions, considering that they waive their own 
PAYGO rules all the time. In the last Congress alone, they waived these 
rules to allow for legislation that increased the deficit by $420 
billion. Now, in this Congress, they continue to use procedural 
gimmicks to get around their own budget rules, which is why it comes as 
no surprise that we've already passed the trillion-dollar deficit 
spending mark here on July 22.

  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues: don't be fooled by what is clearly 
an attempt to cover up the worst spending pattern that we have seen in 
the history of the United States of America. The American people are 
figuring this out. They know what it takes to make ends meet; and while 
they are reining in their spending and are dealing with the economic 
challenges that they're facing at this time, they know that we are 
moving in the opposite direction. Reject this rule and the bill. 
Instead, we must demand true accountability for our constituents' tax 
dollars.
  With that, I am pleased and privileged to reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts, a member of the Rules Committee (Mr. McGovern).
  Mr. McGOVERN. I thank my colleague for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule and in support of 
the underlying statutory PAYGO legislation.
  As a member of the Budget Committee, I am proud to be an original 
cosponsor of this bill, and I want to thank our incredible chairman, 
John Spratt, for all of his hard work.
  Now, some of my colleagues may be asking themselves, Why in the heck 
is a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts speaking in support of PAYGO? 
Well, it's true, Mr. Speaker, that I have never been mistaken for a 
Blue Dog. I support this legislation because I despise this debt just 
as strongly as any Member of this House. I support this legislation 
because I have two young children, and I don't want to saddle them with 
a bankrupt Nation. I support this legislation precisely because it 
helps support the programs that I care most deeply about.

                              {time}  1100

  Every single dollar that we spend on interest on the debt is a dollar 
that we can't spend on health care. It's a dollar that we can't spend 
on education or environmental protection or on transportation projects 
or tax breaks for middle class Americans. It's a dollar we can't spend 
on supporting our servicemen and -women or ending hunger. In short, 
every dollar we spend on this debt is a dollar that we cannot invest in 
the American people, and that is why we need this bill.
  I am also pleased that this bill before us today protects the most 
vulnerable Americans. The bill protects Social Security, veterans 
programs, food stamps, and child nutrition programs and other essential 
services.
  Now, we hear a lot of rhetoric from the other side about how awful 
the deficit is, and they're right. But here's a question: Where were 
you for the last 8 years? Why did you allow PAYGO to expire when you 
were in the majority? Where were you when the Bush administration 
inherited a surplus and proceeded to squander it on tax cuts for the 
wealthy few?
  Now, if someone wants to argue that bigger tax breaks for 
millionaires is good economic policy, that's fine, but under this bill, 
they will be forced to acknowledge the cost of those tax cuts and show 
how they would pay for them. I don't think that's too much to ask. This 
bill before us at long last will take a good long look at wasteful 
subsidies and special-interest tax loopholes.
  Mr. Speaker, all of us, Democrats and Republicans, like to talk a 
good game about deficit reduction, but this is where the rubber meets 
the road. It's our time to put our votes where our rhetoric is.
  It's time to pass statutory PAYGO. It's time to dig this economy out 
of the ditch that the Republican leadership created, and I urge my 
colleagues to support this good bill.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume 
to simply say to my good friend from Worcester, I absolutely look 
forward to the day when we will not be constantly looking backward and 
blaming the last Congress and President Bush for every ailment of 
society. We need to look forward. And the thing that's been happening 
in the last 6 months is we've seen this dramatic surge in spending and 
the idea of engaging in class warfare. Taxing those who are job 
creators, who have created opportunity for millions of working 
Americans, is, I don't believe, the best way to deal with the 
challenges that we have.
  At this point, I'm happy to yield to our hardworking colleague from 
Jefferson, Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).
  Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank the gentleman from California for 
yielding time and for the comments that he made earlier against the 
bill and the rule. And I rise, as well, in opposition to the bill 
because this bill, this

[[Page H8504]]

PAYGO bill as it's dubbed, does nothing to control spending. I strongly 
believe we need to get our fiscal house in order.
  I think if you look at the actions of this administration since 
President Obama became President in January and Speaker Pelosi 
continued her reign, and she has been in office for 2\1/2\ years now as 
the Speaker, Harry Reid over in the Senate as well, you have seen 
spending get out of control here in this Congress, and it's done so 
under PAYGO.
  The PAYGO rule that they are trying to put into law has gotten us to 
a point today where we're facing a $1.8 trillion, with a ``T,'' 
deficit.
  Just last week the Federal deficit this year exceeded $1 trillion. 
These are numbers that have never been seen before in the history of 
our country, and it all happened under this rule that we're hearing all 
of these Fourth of July speeches about how great PAYGO is and how PAYGO 
is going to require fiscal responsibility. We have PAYGO today, and it 
has given us a $1.8 trillion deficit this year.
  And so what I proposed in the Rules Committee last night was an 
actual ability to require some strict discipline on PAYGO by taking out 
the exemptions, the loopholes. You would ask yourself if we've got 
PAYGO, and if the people on the other side that are talking about it 
and they say how wonderful it's going to be, well, if it's so good, how 
could it have yielded us a $1.8 trillion deficit?
  That's because PAYGO is a hoax. PAYGO is waived every time they want 
to spend money that we don't have. So they simply waive it. In fact, in 
the stimulus bill earlier this year, the largest spending bill in the 
history of our country, $787 billion of money that we don't have, it 
was rammed through Congress. Not one person who voted for it had the 
opportunity to read it, but the President said it had to be done 
quickly because it's going to create millions of jobs. Well, we've seen 
now that is a failure.
  Where are the jobs? Two million more Americans have lost their jobs 
since the stimulus bill passed. And the bill passed without the funding 
in place, without any kind of offsets, no cuts at all; in fact, $787 
billion of new spending under the PAYGO rule.
  So you would ask yourself if PAYGO is so good, how could a $787 
billion unfunded bill pass under that rule? Well, that's because they 
simply waived the rule. It's right here in the rule that they passed on 
the stimulus bill. Many of the people that are coauthors of this bill 
were happy to vote to waive it, and they were able to waive it with a 
simple majority vote. And this bill that they're talking about today 
has the same language that still allows PAYGO to be waived any time 
they feel like looking the other way.
  And you would say, Oh, they wouldn't do that. Well, sorry to tell 
you, in the last Congress, 12 times they waived PAYGO.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to yield my friend an additional 2 
minutes.
  Mr. SCALISE. So 12 times in the last Congress alone they waived PAYGO 
by a simple majority vote.
  I had an amendment last night in the Rules Committee to require a 
three-fifths vote to say if you really want to install fiscal 
discipline, then put a high bar so you can't just waive it every time 
you want to spend money you don't have. Guess what? Not one person on 
the other side supported that amendment.
  I've cosponsored a constitutional amendment that requires that we 
balance our Federal budget. Many States have a similar fiscal 
discipline that's placed in their constitutions. Unfortunately, we 
don't have anything like that here in Washington, and the results are 
that this Congress is spending at unprecedented levels that's led to 
these debts.
  And one other hidden secret about PAYGO. It is allowed to cut 
spending. Some people around here don't know what cutting spending 
means; they just keep growing spending. But when PAYGO has been used, 
34 times in the last Congress it was used not to cut spending but to 
raise taxes.
  So once again, not only is PAYGO a hoax, it doesn't stop spending 
from being out of control at all because it's been waived every time 
they wanted to spend money, like in the stimulus bill, but 34 times in 
the last 2 years, PAYGO was used to raise taxes on American families.
  And so if you wonder why your tax burden keeps going up and up and up 
and then you've got this thing called PAYGO that sounds really good and 
you hear all of these Fourth of July speeches on the other side about 
fiscal discipline, well, fiscal discipline to them means raising taxes 
on American families or just waiving it when you feel like spending 
money that you don't have.
  The American people deserve better. They deserve honesty and 
transparency in their government, not some bill that purports to be 
about fiscal discipline and yet can be waived any time they want to 
just look the other way. And judging by history, they've waived it 
every time they wanted to spend money that this country doesn't have.
  We can hear about George Bush all day and about Republicans. For the 
last 2\1/2\ years the Democrats have been running Congress. Nancy 
Pelosi has been the Speaker. Harry Reid has been the Senate President 
and Barack Obama today is the President, and in the last 6 months we've 
seen spending at unprecedented levels with a $1.2 trillion deficit. 
PAYGO is a hoax. Let's get real fiscal discipline.
  Mr. ARCURI. Methinks thou doth protest too much.
  I listened to my friend from Louisiana, and all I hear are complaints 
about PAYGO. And then I see a sign that says, PAYGO equals tax 
increase, which actually means nothing at all, but it is a very nice 
sign. But, in fact, that's not at all what PAYGO is about. In fact, if 
PAYGO did nothing more than put a check on spending, I would say it's 
worth voting for. But my friend on the other side of the aisle says he 
doesn't support it.
  You know, we see a lot of finger-pointing going on in Congress, 
everybody blames the other side, but the fact of the matter is, when 
they talk about spending, we are spending now because we are in the 
throes of a recession.
  When the Republicans were in control of the House of Representatives, 
we see that they didn't reinstate PAYGO and they continued to spend. We 
have put the war on the books for the first time, which is a step in 
the right direction towards fiscal responsibility.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ARCURI. When I finish, I will be happy to yield.
  When we hear my friend from Louisiana talk about PAYGO and talk about 
all of the problems with PAYGO, he doesn't acknowledge the fact that 
PAYGO does require that we spend only what we have. And if it did 
nothing else, he should support it. Yet he doesn't support it because 
it's more of the finger-pointing that we see in Congress.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to inquire of my friend as he talks 
about how great this PAYGO--
  Mr. ARCURI. Reclaiming my time, I never said PAYGO was great. I said 
PAYGO is a step in the right direction. PAYGO is a step that we need to 
take, and that is what I said.
  I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding. I apologize profusely, 
Mr. Speaker, if I put words into my friend's mouth. He did not use the 
word ``great'' to describe it, but I will say--and this is probably not 
much of a stretch--that he is here propounding the benefits of this 
legislation that is before us.
  And in light of that, I would like to ask my friend, Mr. Speaker, if, 
in fact, we were to see this statutory implementation of PAYGO, if it 
would have any way diminished the kinds of increases that we've seen in 
the appropriations process that have already taken place in the nine 
bills passed, one of which had a 22 percent increase in spending. And 
I'd appreciate it if my friend would respond as to whether or not this 
bill would in any way turn the corner on that spending that we've seen.
  Mr. ARCURI. My friend knows full well what the purpose of PAYGO is. 
And the purpose of PAYGO is to ensure that whatever money we spend in 
the

[[Page H8505]]

future, we have a way of providing for, either by creating cuts or by 
raising revenues in other ways. That's what PAYGO is all about, and 
it's about doing it over a 5-year and a 10-year period.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I would yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Cuellar).
  Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support this bill, H.R. 
2920. I rise because there are many Americans who are living paycheck 
to paycheck, dollar to dollar.
  As I traveled around my south Texas district from Laredo through the 
Rio Grande Valley, my constituents, like those around the country, are 
gathering around the kitchen tables to figure out how to make those 
hard financial decisions. They're making tough choices about which 
basic needs they can afford. Many live by a very simple principle. If 
you have $5, you spend $5. We should expect Congress to do the same.
  So, today, I stand in support of the statutory pay-as-you-go 
legislation because it will rein in national spending and help reduce 
our national debt during these very difficult times.
  If we return to the fiscal responsibility philosophy that we had in 
the 1990s when PAYGO spending created record budget surpluses, we would 
change our economy. Americans can't spend their money recklessly right 
now, and Congress shouldn't either. Our children deserve more, and the 
people in Texas and the Nation deserve better.
  Today's consideration of PAYGO is a golden opportunity to start 
getting this country's bank account out of the red. It's time to stop 
the borrow-and-spend mentality. It's time to return to pay-as-you-go, 
especially as we consider the health care reform bill. It's important 
that we spend taxpayers' dollars wisely.
  I've always been supportive of good government efforts to increase 
fiscal responsibility to make sure that we have an accountable and 
effective government. This is why the Blue Dogs have been supporting 
the performance-based budgeting bill to make sure that we have 
effective, accountable government. That increases government 
transparency and efficiency in spending.
  Americans and Texans are doing their share to be fiscally 
responsible. Now it's time for Congress to do our part, and this is why 
we need to pass pay-as-you-go.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Laredo is a very thoughtful 
Member and very good personal friend of mine, and I will say that the 
opening statement, I think, really gets right to this point, talking 
about how families have to deal with the economic challenges that we 
are facing today.
  The thing that concerns me greatly is that when I engaged in a 
colloquy with my friend from Utica on whether or not the implementation 
of PAYGO would in any way reduce the appropriation levels that we've 
seen, one of which had a 22 percent increase, he responded by saying 
that I understood the process and knew that this would not in any way 
be able to actually take place. So I guess the answer to the question 
that I posed to my friend from Utica was ``no.''
  So I would say to my friend from Laredo that I think that it's very 
important, Mr. Speaker, for us to realize that what we all want to----
  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DREIER. Of course. I'd be happy to yield to my friend from Utica.

                              {time}  1115

  Mr. ARCURI. Half of the nondiscretionary spending is on the military. 
Do you think that we should be cutting the amount of spending that we 
do for the military?
  Mr. DREIER. If I could reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, I will say that 
I believe we need to have a cost-effective national defense. I believe 
that when we can bring about reductions in the level of expenditures 
when it comes to waste, fraud and abuse within the military, 
absolutely. I want to bring about those reductions. But when you, Mr. 
Speaker, look at the dramatic increases, the $1 trillion in deficit 
spending that has gone into a wide range of new areas into which the 
Federal Government has never ever been involved before, it is essential 
we recognize--
  Mr. ARCURI. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DREIER. Yes, of course, I will yield.
  Mr. ARCURI. Do you think that any increases in military spending that 
we have made should have been cut as well?
  Mr. DREIER. If I can reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, of course. I think 
that we have yet to deal, by the way, with the Department of Defense 
Appropriations bill. I know that it is going to be marked up. I 
anxiously look forward to seeing what this will consist of. But 
frankly, in the proposed budget I believe that that has, as an 
increase, one of the smallest levels of increases compared to the 22 
percent increase that we saw on other appropriations bills.
  The fact is there is a role for the Federal Government. The number 
one priority of the Federal Government happens to be the national 
security of the United States of America. And so to say that because we 
might have an increase in the level of defense expenditures, as we live 
in a very dangerous world, and that somehow justifies a multi--now what 
we are headed towards--a multitrillion-dollar increase in deficit 
spending is apples and oranges when one looks at what should happen.
  So I would like to engage, if I might, with my friend from Laredo and 
say, as I look forward to yielding to him, that as we look at this 
challenge that families face when they are at the kitchen table, 
recognizing that with the difficult economic times that we have, they 
have to rein in their spending. They have to pay down their debts. They 
have to increase their level of savings. How is it that we, in this 
measure, can exempt 40 percent the discretionary spending level that is 
here? How is it that we can say that reducing rates on things like 
capital gains, which doubled the flow of revenues to the Federal 
Treasury when reduced by 5 percent, how is it that we can't do that any 
longer under this so-called PAYGO provision? And I would be happy to 
yield to my friend if he would like to respond.
  Mr. CUELLAR. Sure. And again, thank you very much. I appreciate the 
comments of the gentleman from California, a good friend of mine. 
First, to answer this question, we have to look at history. When the 
PAYGO was implemented back in the 1990s, it expired in 2002. The 
majority at that time decided not to put it back again or reimplement 
it. We saw from history in early 2000 there was a surplus that we got. 
And I believe part of the reason was because we had a statutory pay-as-
you-go provision. When this was let go, and it expired in 2002, you saw 
that the deficit--and again this deficit that you're talking about, and 
I'm concerned about it just like you are, but this deficit didn't occur 
on January 20 of this year. It is something that has been happening for 
the last 4 or 5 years.
  So if I can just finish my thought, what we need to do is, I know 
that we have some differences, but I hope we can get both the Democrats 
and Republicans and both sides of the aisle working together to come up 
with a way that we can go ahead and stop this deficit. Because as you 
very well know, if I can just finish this, look, this is what we have. 
We have over $11 trillion in debt that we have right now. Forty percent 
of that is owned by foreign countries. And again, the gentleman from 
California, if you had a business, imagine what would happen if one day 
you woke up and your neighbor, your friendly competitor, suddenly owned 
40 percent of your mortgage. That would put us in a very difficult 
situation. And this is what we are facing in this country.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his thoughtful 
remarks. If I could reclaim my time, I would simply say that as we look 
at the discretionary spending caps that were put into place in the 
1990s with the PAYGO provision that were there, they were thrown out 
the window in the package that my friend is touting today. And my 
argument is that families don't have the luxury of saying, Oh, we will 
just exempt--let's go and buy a new car, we are going to purchase a new 
car.
  You know what, we don't need to worry about how much the purchase of 
that new car is going be to. Let's just think about maybe the cost of 
some addition to the house, and we have to be

[[Page H8506]]

concerned about that. Families don't have that luxury. And my argument, 
Mr. Speaker, is that as my friends on the other side of the aisle tout 
this PAYGO measure as somehow relating to the challenges that families 
are having to make today, it is preposterous to do that because there 
is no correlation with the ability of the Congress to simply waive 
these provisions and the necessity that families are facing today.
  And with that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for his 
comments. And I would just point out that we are in unprecedented 
times. We are in a time when we are conducting two wars overseas, one 
ending in Iraq and one continuing in Afghanistan. And that requires 
increases in military spending. It continues to require increases in 
veteran spending, which we have done. We have seen unprecedented 
natural disasters, which we have had to spend upon. We have seen an 
economy in a downturn. As a result of those things, it is necessary for 
spending to take place. I think my friend knows that.
  With that, I will yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from South 
Dakota, a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, Ms. Herseth Sandlin.
  Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New 
York, a fellow member of the Blue Dog Coalition, for yielding. I rise 
today in strong support of the rule on H.R. 2920, the Statutory Pay-As-
You-Go Act of 2009. I would especially like to thank Speaker Pelosi and 
Majority Leader Hoyer, whose steadfast support for PAYGO rules have 
been absolutely essential to the efforts of the Blue Dog Coalition and 
others across the spectrum in our caucus, including George Miller of 
California and Peter Welch of Vermont, who have worked to restore this 
critically important budgetary tool, a tool that helped to move the 
Nation from dangerous deficits to surpluses in the late 1990s, a tool 
that was abandoned by the Republicans during the Bush administration.
  In 2007, the new majority established House PAYGO rules in an effort 
to restore fiscal discipline to Congress. The House PAYGO rules and 
this statutory PAYGO bill stand for a simple principle: new entitlement 
spending and new tax cuts should be paid for. We can't have everything 
we want. We need to do what families in South Dakota and across the 
Nation do: make hard choices and budget responsibly. If not, make no 
mistake, our Nation will pay the price.
  When OMB reports that we paid, as a Nation, $249 billion in net 
interest to service government debt in fiscal year 2008, we know 
something is terribly wrong with our priorities. Think of what we could 
do with an extra quarter of a trillion dollars. We could invest in 
needed priorities, or we could pay down the debt. The House PAYGO rules 
are the first step in countering the bad habits throughout the 8 years 
of the Bush administration. The massive buildup of debt that occurred 
over that period not only threatens our economic future but puts our 
national security at risk. By August of 2008, foreign-held debt had 
grown more than 200 percent, increasing from $1 trillion in January 
2001 to $2.7 trillion, which works out to be more than 80 cents of 
every dollar of new debt issued since 2001 being bought by foreign 
entities. China alone upped its holdings of Treasury securities by 850 
percent.
  Today, we finally have a President who is committed to PAYGO. The 
first bill he sent to Congress was a statutory PAYGO bill. Many of our 
friends on the other side of the aisle have suddenly become concerned 
about deficits. And I welcome that concern. We should all be concerned 
about the national debt as one of the most pressing and most 
consequential issues facing our country. And we should likewise 
recognize statutory PAYGO as one tool among many, but a very strong 
tool, in forcing the Congress to spend within its means. Statutory 
PAYGO, controlling both spending and tax policies, is absolutely 
critical in the long term for long-term growth and prosperity. And that 
is something that people across the political spectrum should be able 
to agree on.
  Many people talk about a commitment to fiscal responsibility. But no 
one can be taken seriously in that claim if they do not support the 
strong, effective and proven tool of statutory PAYGO. So today, Mr. 
Speaker, on behalf of our Nation's children and grandchildren, I urge 
the House, for colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to vote to 
restore this crucial tool of fiscal responsibility for the sake of the 
future of the Nation. I thank the gentleman from New York for the time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Harman).
  Ms. HARMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in strong 
support of this rule and the underlying PAYGO bill. For those who worry 
about hemorrhaging deficits and debt, this bill is for you. I was here 
in the early 1990s, in another century, and remember well casting a 
career-risking vote in 1993--it was a totally partisan vote--for the 
Clinton budget that I believe history will show put the country on a 
glide path to a balanced budget and created surpluses for the first 
time in a generation. Sadly, it was also the last time in a generation 
that we saw those surpluses.
  Today is a proud moment for the Blue Dog Coalition in our dogged 
pursuit of bipartisan budget solutions. As a self-proclaimed 
``grandmother dog,'' I salute my colleagues in the group, and 
especially our former leader and colleague, Charlie Stenholm, for 
championing PAYGO. I know that many of us in this Chamber yearn for 
more bipartisanship. I would urge our colleagues to seize this moment 
to embrace a concept that makes absolute common sense, a concept that 
the government pays for the programs it enacts, including the defense 
programs that it enacts. One of the great promises of this legislation 
is that we will finally put predictable war costs on budget, as we 
should, and consider them in the context of a large budget at a time of 
deficits and debt that are much higher than any of us would like to 
see.
  So, Mr. Speaker, with this bill, we have the opportunity to hit the 
reset button and to engage in more honest budgeting. Yes, some 
compromises had to be made, and I would support a tighter version of 
PAYGO than the one we are considering. But I also believe that the bill 
before us today makes an unequivocal statement by Congress that the 
delusional out-of-control spending of the past years is finally behind 
us. Surely, this is something that Democrats and Republicans alike can 
celebrate.
  Mr. Speaker, millions of American families are swallowing hard, 
surely those families in my State of California are, and making tough 
financial choices right now. The Federal Government must do the same. I 
urge an ``aye'' vote on the PAYGO Act of 2009 and call on our friends 
in the Senate not to allow this much-needed legislation to languish.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I think I will continue to reserve the 
balance of my time in light of the fact that there are other speakers 
on the other side. We have one other speaker, and then I plan to close.
  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Pennsylvania (Mrs. Dahlkemper).
  Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
rise today to address this Chamber not as a Member of the House of 
Representatives but as someone who knows firsthand the balancing act 
that American families and small businesses have to negotiate in order 
to make ends meet. When raising our five children, my husband, Dan, and 
I had to make tough choices every day. We had to choose a smaller house 
so that we could put the food on the table and buy shoes and clothing 
for the five children. We had to choose to go camping in our State park 
rather than Disney World so that we could save enough for our children 
to go to college. And every day we had to make tough choices in running 
our small business to ensure we could make our payroll, pay the bills 
and grow our business all at the same time.
  Mr. Speaker, this balancing act is not unique. Any parent who has 
shopped for dinner at the grocery store and any entrepreneur who has 
handled the books for their small business understands the importance 
of living within their means. So this begs the question: if families 
and small businesses across this country have to live

[[Page H8507]]

within their means, why shouldn't Congress as well? That is why I rise 
today to support reestablishing statutory PAYGO to the House of 
Representatives. We have important work to do here in Congress, such as 
rebuilding our economy to create good-paying jobs and ensuring quality, 
affordable health care for all Americans.
  However, it is simply irresponsible to build our children's and 
grandchildren's future upon a foundation of debt. If we do not begin to 
balance short-term deficit spending with long-term fiscal discipline, 
our children will face an even greater mountain of debt, even higher 
taxes, and cuts to Federal investments in priorities like education, 
health care and our national security. I thank my colleagues for making 
fiscal responsibility a priority. I urge passage of the rule and the 
important underlying legislation.

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am very, very happy to yield 
2 minutes to our good friend and hardworking colleague from Brentwood, 
Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I want to say thank you to our 
colleagues across the aisle for bringing forward a PAYGO statute.
  I will tell you, it is of concern to me, though, that the statute, 
the way this is written, the way they're approaching PAYGO could lead 
to tax increases because what we are not seeing from our colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle is a willingness to reduce spending. And we 
know if you're going to have an effective PAYGO policy, that you have 
to be able to reduce what you're spending. That is a requirement.
  On every appropriations bill that we have, I file a 5 percent, 
across-the-board reduction amendment for a spending cut. The reason I 
do that is because what we have learned from our States, what I learned 
as being a State Senator is that across-the-board spending reductions 
work. They work. They reduce what you are going to lay out, the amount 
of money that you are going to spend.
  So, let's do this in a bipartisan way. Let's agree that we are 
actually going to reduce spending. Let's agree that we're going to have 
PAYGO enforcement, that we're not going to cry ``emergency'' every time 
we have a Katrina, every time we have a tsunami, every time we have a 
need for extra spending, that we don't go call for a special 
appropriation that allows us to circumvent the PAYGO rules. And let's 
be certain that we put all that spending on the table, that we put it 
all on the table, and that we agree we're going to reduce what we are 
going to spend.
  What we have seen is the PAYGO rule, the way it is written, the way 
they've put it in place, has led to a deficit that has gone from $162 
billion to over $1 trillion. That's over a 1,000 percent increase. And 
I think that this body would be well-served to make that 5 percent 
haircut; set a nickel aside out of every dollar that is going to be 
spent for our children and our grandchildren, their future and 
opportunity.
  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, before I yield, I would just like to say to 
my colleague from Tennessee that if Katrina was not an emergency and 
did not merit emergency spending, then I cannot, in my wildest 
imagination, imagine what would. That is the reason why we have an 
emergency spending exception to any PAYGO requirement, to allow 
government to do that which the voters sent us here to do, and that is 
to ensure that when a catastrophe and when an emergency strikes, that 
we are there to do everything that we possibly can to help the people 
who have been injured by it.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I would yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Tennessee, a proud member of the Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Tanner.
  Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, this bill today is not what some of us would 
like, but it is something that we think maybe can pass the Senate, 
which, after all, has a hand in this statutory approach. It is the 
first step to restore a rule that was allowed by this Congress to 
expire in 2002, which effectively removes a constraint, one constraint 
on what almost everybody wants to see happen, and that is, you want to 
vote against any taxes, and you want to vote for all the programs. This 
is one small step to try to address that urge that, I guess, all of us 
share from time to time.
  If you look back at this decade, in the year 2000, revenue and 
expenditures were both around 19 percent of GDP. The country basically 
was breaking even. By 2002, when PAYGO was allowed to expire, and we 
had seen the economic policies of the country change dramatically in 
the summer of 2001, shortly before 9/11, we had a situation develop 
where, by 2003, the expenditures were over 20 percent of GDP, and the 
revenue coming in was less than 17, actually 16.3 percent of GDP. And 
without changing our economic game plan that was enacted in June of 
2001, we began to borrow money, mostly, 75 percent of it, from foreign 
sources. What that has done is created a situation where we now are 
beginning to be more and more vulnerable to our foreign creditors who 
may or may not see the world as this country does. And secondly, we are 
transferring more and more of our tax base, whatever it may be, to 
interest, for which we get nothing.
  As my friend from New York just said, the government has to do two 
things, in addition, of course, the first thing to keep our country 
safe. But the other two things it has to do is, first, invest in 
infrastructure. If you go anywhere in the world where there's no 
infrastructure, nobody's making any money. It's almost impossible to 
make money on a dirt road with no water, sewer, electricity and so on. 
The government has to invest in infrastructure.
  And the second thing is human capital. If you read history, no 
country has been strong and free with an uneducated, unhealthy 
population. And so public education and health care, particularly 
preventive health care for children, is necessary for the government to 
invest in so that we can remain a strong and healthy society.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. ARCURI. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
  Mr. TANNER. As we transfer more and more of our tax base to interest, 
we necessarily cripple our own ability as Americans, not as Members of 
Congress, our own ability to make those investments that are necessary 
for our country to be successful. And so, this is, as I said, the first 
step to restore some sort of constraint in the system where, when we 
change the law regarding mandatory spending or mandatory tax reduction, 
then we have to figure out a way to offset it. It is common sense.
  We're going to demand, if we can, that it pass the Senate so we can 
have a statutory backstop, a statutory constraint, not as strong as 
we'd like, but it is a first step.
  And I would sure urge everybody who cares about the future of this 
country, and I know we all do--we may have different ideas about how to 
address it--but I wish you'd seriously consider voting for this.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized for 6 minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, this has been an interesting debate. And I 
have to say that my fellow Angeleno, Ms. Harman and I, join in a desire 
to deal in a bipartisan way with our challenges. I will acknowledge 
from the get-go, that everyone, Democrat and Republican alike, decries 
deficit spending. I mean, we all regularly talk about the fact that we 
need to get our fiscal house in order. That was a plank of the platform 
that President Obama ran on. And it's the plank of the platform of 
virtually every candidate for public office. And I believe that we 
should work in a bipartisan way to get our fiscal house in order.
  The problem that I have with the measure that's before us is that, to 
me, it is the quintessential example of the effort that we often see on 
legislation. Sometimes we tend to do what makes us feel good, rather 
than doing good.
  The reason I say that is as I listened to the thoughtful remarks of 
my Blue Dog friends, they talked about exactly what I raise, that being 
the challenge that families are facing at the kitchen table; 
recognizing that because of difficult economic times, it is essential 
for them to reduce their spending, to increase their savings, and to 
pay down their debts. Those are the three things

[[Page H8508]]

that families across this country are doing today at the kitchen table.
  And you know what, the notion of saying that the Federal Government 
is not going to expend dollars that it doesn't have, or able to offset, 
is something that does have a lot of appeal, and it makes us all feel 
very good. But that family sitting at the kitchen table, or a small 
business man or woman can't say, We're going to exempt 40 percent of 
our expenditures. Yes, we all want to get the auto industry going, but 
the idea of saying that we want to buy a nice new car, and we don't 
have to deal with any kind of offset for that.
  It's essential for us to get the economy growing. And we know that, 
while it may sound counterintuitive, every shred of empirical evidence 
that we have going in recent history to John F. Kennedy or Ronald 
Reagan is that if we can bring about marginal rate reduction, we can 
increase the flow of revenues to the Federal Treasury. Most recently, 
it was done when we brought about that 5 percent reduction in capital 
gains.
  Now I know that in the economy we're in, there are not many people 
who have capital gains today. But we know this, that if we were to 
bring about a reduction in the capital gains rate, we would have, as 
we've seen most recently, a doubling of the flow of revenues to the 
Federal Treasury. And yet, Mr. Speaker, under this measure, we're not 
able to do that.
  So what we've got is an effort that can make us all feel good. And it 
is true. I mean, there have been a lot of great statements made 
juxtaposing the challenges that working families are facing and the 
challenges that we face here in Washington.
  But implementation of this statutorily will in no way address the 
fact that, as of July 22, today, we have a Federal budget deficit that 
is $1 trillion. And we're headed towards 1.8, maybe even beyond that, 
meaning that the deficit, the Federal Government this year alone will 
spend more than has brought in, and that level will be higher than the 
entire Federal budget was just 10 years ago.
  And so it's wonderful to say that we're going to work in a bipartisan 
way; and it's wonderful to say that we all decry deficit spending. But 
because the American people are hurting, and we need to get our economy 
growing, I do not believe that this measure before us will do one 
thing, other than make a lot of people feel very, very good.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to say that I believe we can get it 
better. This is not only not a step in the right direction, it is, in 
many ways, something that will create a climate whereby people will 
say, we've taken care of this. And I'm afraid that it will send the 
wrong message to the American people, and it will send the wrong 
message in our quest to get our economy going, to create jobs and more 
opportunity for the American people.
  So I urge a ``no'' vote.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. ARCURI. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from California 
for his management of this rule.
  Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of 2007, the Democratic leadership 
of the House of Representatives has shown a strong commitment to the 
pay-as-you-go rules, first, by reinstating the PAYGO rule in the rules 
of the House on the opening of the 110th Congress, and now, in working 
to bring this important legislation before the House. I applaud the 
Blue Dog Coalition, my colleagues there, for their outspoken leadership 
on PAYGO.
  When I explain to folks back home what PAYGO is, I ask them the 
question, if they have to balance their own books each month, if they 
have to ensure that they have enough income coming in to cover their 
expenses; and of course they respond that they do. And I then ask, 
shouldn't the Federal Government operate in the same way when it 
involves spending your tax dollars? My constituents get it. The 
American people get it.
  Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, there are still some Members of Congress 
who are steadfastly against the idea of being fiscally responsible and 
balancing the Federal books, the same way that our constituents balance 
their checkbooks each and every week.
  The legislation we will consider later today will require Congress to 
balance the books or face the harsh consequence of automatic cuts to 
offset the shortfall in our spending.
  Now I certainly appreciate the born-again Republican commitment to 
fiscal responsibility. But the real question is why the Republicans 
allowed PAYGO to expire in the first place under the last 
administration. Not only did they not advance the cap discretionary 
spending, which they are criticizing us for not coupling with the PAYGO 
statute, but they wouldn't even renew the PAYGO provision, which we are 
now doing.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle criticize the majority 
for the increase in the deficit since the beginning of 2007. One of the 
reasons for this is that we have put the full cost of the war on the 
books for the first time. That is a hard thing to do, but it is the 
responsible thing to do. The Republicans kept this off their budget 
balance sheet, but the Democratic majority has taken the fiscally 
responsible approach and placed the entire cost of the war on the 
books, which adds nearly $1 trillion to the deficit.

                              {time}  1145

  So to say that we have single-handedly raised the deficit over $1 
trillion since 2007 is disingenuous at best.
  Furthermore, the budget adopted by Congress this year cuts the 
deficit by nearly two-thirds in 4 years and contains even deeper cuts 
in the deficit than were proposed by the President. Under the 
concurrent budget resolution adopted by the House and the Senate, the 
deficit will be cut by $1.7 trillion, or 12.3 percent of GDP, in 2009 
to 3 percent of GDP in 2014.
  I strongly believe that we in Congress must balance our own books and 
maintain fiscal responsibility similar to what is asked of all 
taxpayers in dealing with their own personal finances. I urge all 
members to vote ``yes'' on the previous question, ``yes'' on the rule, 
and to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 2920.
  Mr. CARDOZA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the rule 
and the underlying bill.
  Since being elected to Congress, I have been a member of the fiscally 
conservative Blue Dog Coalition, fighting to rein in reckless federal 
spending and put an end to our spiraling deficit.
  I believe we must get back on the road to fiscal responsibility 
before we pass the nation's keys--and our debt--onto our children and 
grandchildren.
  You can spin this debate any way you want to, but these are the 
facts.
  President Bush inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus from President 
Clinton. This was squandered leaving a record deficit of $1.8 trillion 
for 2009 alone.
  In just 8 years under President George W. Bush, our Nation's debt--
now more than $11.6 trillion--nearly doubled meaning more debt was 
accumulated over the past 8 years than under all of the Presidents from 
George Washington to Ronald Reagan combined.
  We are in tough economic times and these extraordinary times call for 
extraordinary measures.
  But plain and simple, we cannot afford to continue writing blank 
checks and borrowing money from countries such as China to pay our 
bills.
  The PAYGO legislation before the House today reinstates one of the 
fiscal discipline tools that worked so well throughout the 1990s, and 
that led to the first budget surpluses since 1969.
  I would point out that it was the first President Bush, working with 
a Democratic Congress, that instituted the first PAYGO rules.
  The Clinton Administration and Democrats in Congress continued to 
work with Republicans on a bipartisan basis and turned decades of 
exploding budget deficits into 4 straight years of budget surpluses 
with record economic growth through the continued use of PAYGO.
  Under President Clinton, for the first time in 30 years, America 
actually began to pay down its debt to foreign nations.
  It was only when President George W. Bush and the Republican Congress 
abandoned any sense of fiscal discipline and allowed the proven PAYGO 
rules to expire in 2002, that government spending spun out of control 
and we rang up the largest deficits in our Nation's history.
  My point is that when both the Administration and the Congress are 
willing to cooperate and adhere to fiscal discipline, PAYGO works.
  Our side knows it. The other side of the aisle knows it. There is 
absolutely no denying PAYGO has worked in the past, and with a new 
Administration with a strong commitment to reversing the reckless 
fiscal policies of the past 8 years, we have that willingness to 
cooperate again today.

[[Page H8509]]

  Blue Dogs know that we should not be in this situation today.
  And as we all know, despite the Blue Dogs' best efforts--and the 
efforts of many other members on both sides of the aisle--cutting 
spending and making tough choices is never easy.
  But enough is enough. It's time to stop blaming. It's time to stop 
pointing fingers. It's time we return to the fiscal accountability 
measures that I and my fellow Blue Dog colleagues have long advocated. 
And it's high time we start doing the right thing and start paying for 
what this country buys.
  I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this common 
sense legislation.
  Mr. ARCURI. I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________