[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 58 (Wednesday, April 9, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E557-E558]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      BASELINE REFORM ACT OF 2013

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. DAVID E. PRICE

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 8, 2014

  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, today we could be 
debating a jobs and infrastrature package. We could be working on a 
comprehensive effort to balance our budget and replace sequestration 
once and for all. But instead, we're wasting time debating this retread 
of an old Republican ploy to further decimate the nation's 
discretionary budget.
  Currently, the Congressional Budget Office rightfully assumes annual 
adjustments for inflation and population growth to reflect the cost of 
maintaining current services. For example, next year more children will 
attend schools on military bases. The CBO assumes a small increase in 
funding for these schools to ensure teachers and administrators have 
the resources they need. This idea that funding should keep pace with 
inflation and need makes sense. It reflects reality. It is an important 
concept in the business world, but the so-called reform before us today 
would freeze adjustments for inflation and population growth, 
undermining the usefulness of CBO's baselines and making it more 
difficult to measure the real-world impact of discretionary spending 
changes.
  While this bill may appeal to those who profit from demagoguing the 
budget, it would drastically hurt the nation in the long-term. Flat-
funding would mean a death by a thousand cuts to discretionary spending 
programs: every year inflation and population growth would chip away at 
the effectiveness of the investments we make in our future. At least 
the Republican budget is upfront about the obvious and drastic cuts it 
makes to education, food and nutrition assistance for women and 
infants, infrastructure, research and health care for seniors. This 
bill is about locking-in a years-long path to these deeply misguided 
goals under the guise of ``reform.''

[[Page E558]]

  Ordering CBO to ignore the needs of our people and the real impacts 
of spending is the height of fiscal recklessness. Congress experimented 
with imaginary budget assumptions when it passed the Reagan tax cuts 
and again with the George W. Bush tax cuts. As a result, we now find 
ourselves in a very real amount of debt. We remain unable to pay for 
needed investments in our crumbling infrastructure, and unable to pay 
for the education and retraining required to maintain American 
competitiveness, thanks to the refusal of our Republican colleagues to 
consider raising revenue by closing egregious tax loopholes.
  So I'll vote ``no'' on this unwise and deceptive approach. And I ask 
colleagues to get down to the serious work of budgeting. Ranking Member 
Van Hollen suggested an alternative that would replace the sequester 
and reduce the deficit. His approach would not ax Head Start programs 
for our nation's children, would not cause the further deterioration of 
our national infrastructure, would not kick seniors and veterans out of 
federally-supported housing, and would not furlough schoolteachers at 
bases like Fort Bragg, where the kids of our servicemen and 
servicewomen are being forced to go without school for five days this 
fall. Let's stop the partisan showmanship and get to work. Find a way 
to rid our nation of sequestration and put our country on a fiscally 
sustainable path.

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