[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 162 (Tuesday, October 10, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1349-E1350]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 4, 2017

  Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Chair, I include in the Record the following letter 
to the Honorable Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House.

                                Congress of the United States,

                                  Washington, DC, October 4, 2017.
     Hon. Paul Ryan,
     Speaker of the House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Speaker: We write to request that, as the Congress 
     considers the Fiscal Year 2018 budget resolution and any 
     legislation written to comply with its reconciliation 
     instructions, we continue to follow the long-standing 
     practice of evaluating the fiscal effects of legislation 
     relative to the baseline developed by the Congressional 
     Budget Office (CBO). Using the CBO baseline will allow us to 
     provide the American people the most accurate forecast of how 
     proposed fiscal policies will affect our ballooning federal 
     deficit.
       CBO's baseline conforms to the principles that Congress has 
     defined in law. For decades we have consistently used the CBO 
     baseline to accurately calculate the fiscal and 
     distributional impacts of tax reform policy. The CBO baseline 
     is the best mechanism to measure how we are affecting our 
     nation's balance sheets because it reflects the clearest 
     intent of Congress, accurately accounts for the costs of 
     extending specific program provisions scheduled to expire, 
     and keeps legislation in line with fiscal requirements set 
     forth in reconciliation instructions within the budget 
     resolution.
       Our constituents are calling on us to enact sound fiscal 
     policy, and many have answered that call with promises to get 
     our financial house in order. Unfortunately, according to 
     recent news reports, some members of the House of 
     Representatives may break that promise by opting instead to 
     change the baseline we traditionally use to determine how new 
     tax policy proposals will affect the deficit. Instead, some 
     lawmakers are pushing you to use a ``current-policy'' 
     baseline that would, among other things, obscure the true 
     cost of extending deficit-increasing tax cuts by ignoring 
     their expiration dates written into the tax code.

[[Page E1350]]

       Changing the baseline could cause Congress to inaccurately 
     calculate the detrimental impact of tax cuts and therefore 
     allow lawmakers to disregard important rules such as those 
     that guide the use of reconciliation in order to limit long-
     term deficit increases. As you know, the Byrd Rule prevents 
     reconciliation procedures from being used in the Senate to 
     pass legislation that increases the deficit beyond the budget 
     window. Adopting a current-policy baseline would effectively 
     hide the $400 billion cost of extending expiring tax cuts, 
     and pretend that they are revenue neutral in order to meet 
     the Senate's reconciliation requirements.
       Such a change will have costly consequences. Every dollar 
     of lost revenue hidden by a misleading or inaccurate current-
     policy baseline is a dollar added to our deficit that will in 
     turn make it harder to adequately fund important priorities, 
     such as national security, infrastructure, disaster relief, 
     health care and the safety net for our most vulnerable 
     citizens.
       Resorting to gimmicks such as the ``current-policy 
     baseline'' and creating unrealistic assumptions about 
     economic growth rates obscures the full cost of tax cuts and 
     severely undermines our ability to put the federal budget on 
     a sustainable fiscal path. Whether these gimmicks serve a 
     procedural or rhetorical role, the end result is the same: 
     fiscally irresponsible policies, larger deficits, and erosion 
     of the American people's confidence in our fiscal 
     stewardship.
       As you know, our annual deficits are projected to swell to 
     over $1 trillion by the end of the decade. Equally 
     troublesome, the national debt is on an unsustainable 
     trajectory. If we willfully choose to inaccurately account 
     for taxing and spending legislation, then we will place our 
     economic wellbeing in jeopardy and saddle future generations 
     with the burden of shouldering today's fiscal wrongs. 
     Instead, we must be open and honest with the American people. 
     The traditional CBO baseline best accomplishes that by 
     providing the most transparent and precise measure of the 
     impacts of our fiscal policies.
       Accordingly, we urge you to resist calls to abandon the CBO 
     baseline in the budget resolution so that the American people 
     are fully apprised of how we are affecting the nation's 
     financial future.
           Sincerely,
     Hakeem Jeffries,
       Co-Chair, House Democratic Policy and Communications 
     Committee.
     Joseph Crowley,
       Chairman, House Democratic Caucus.
     Steny H. Hoyer,
       House Democratic Whip.
     John Yarmuth,
       Ranking Member, House Committee on the Budget.

                          ____________________