[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4530-4531]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       SUPPORTING BLUE DOG BUDGET PHILOSOPHY IS RIGHT FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, it is amazing listening to my colleague 
from Texas. One would think that we Democrats are still in control and 
that his party has not been in control of this House for the last 8 
years. It is amazing listening to these speeches. It is amazing to see 
the budget that came out of the committee which he serves on, that next 
will propose to borrow $377.6 billion, including all of the Social 
Security trust funds, all of the Civil Service trust funds, all of the 
Federal military retiree trust funds. In this same budget he supported 
today, the debt limit will be increased to $8.88 trillion, and yet the 
finger-pointing stills goes on.
  He had a chance today to vote for a budget enforcement bill that the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson) offered that would do 
something about the deficit. He voted ``no,'' but he comes to the floor 
and makes a wonderful speech that sounds good, but does nothing to deal 
with our Nation's fiscal problems.
  The Blue Dog philosophy and the budget we will offer next week begins 
with a simple wisdom: when you find yourselves in a hole, the first 
rule is to quit digging. Stop pointing the finger at the other side of 
the aisle and let us see how we might work together to deal with the 
most serious economic problems that have faced this country, perhaps in 
our history.
  Strong budget enforcement rules are an important component of 
restoring fiscal discipline and making sure the budget remains in 
balance once we have done the hard work necessary to bring it back into 
balance. The budget enforcement rules Congress enacted in 1990 with 
bipartisan support, and that is when we Democrats were in control, and 
I worked with my friends on the other side of the aisle to do something 
about the deficit, and we did; it was an important part of getting a 
handle on deficits in the early 1990s and getting the budget back into 
balance with discretionary spending limits.
  I want to make it very clear: the Blue Dog Democrats support 
President Bush's spending request to this body, not one penny more. So 
do not talk about spending when we talk about alternatives. If you do 
not have one that will work, do not come to the floor and speechify, 
unless you are just trying to make a good impression with the folks 
back home.
  Unless we renew our budget discipline in this body, Congress will 
continue to find ways to pass more legislation that puts still more red 
ink on the national ledger. If we are truly serious about restoring 
fiscal discipline, budget enforcement rules must apply to all 
legislation that would increase the deficit. Through increases in 
spending or reductions in revenue, all parts of the budget must be on 
the table.
  It is irresponsible and politically unrealistic to propose budget 
rules that apply to one part of the budget, but not the other. 
Borrowing for tax increases that do not contribute to growth in this 
country are just as irresponsible as the spending the gentleman was 
talking about a moment ago, if one is worried about the future of this 
country. Those of us who want to extend expiring tax cuts or make the 
tax cuts permanent should be willing to put forward the spending cuts 
or other offsets necessary to pay for them. Similarly, those who want 
to spend more in certain areas need to be willing to say where they 
would cut or how they would raise revenue to pay for their proposals.
  Let me again repeat, I am part of the Blue Dog organization that will 
not vote to spend one dime more than President Bush asked us to spend 
this year, and let that be very clear. The

[[Page 4531]]

Blue Dogs support spending caps, limiting total discretionary spending 
to no more than the spending levels in the President's budget. If it is 
the will of the majority to pass legislation that will make the budget 
situation worse, we should be forced to step up and take the 
responsibility for doing so.
  Under the Blue Dog plan, a separate vote would be required to waive 
the pay-go requirements or increase the discretionary spending limits. 
Congress could pass new spending or tax cuts without the offsets, but 
we will be held accountable for increasing the deficit by waiving 
budget rules.
  The recognition that budget enforcement is an issue that needs to be 
addressed and the announcement that the Committee on the Budget will be 
considering budget enforcement legislation tomorrow is a positive step 
forward. But I am very, very disappointed that the Committee on the 
Budget in their wisdom chose to leave most of the issue off the table. 
If we really want to do something about deficits, we have to begin to 
address them, yes, on the spending side, no question about that. But we 
cannot continue to cut taxes with borrowed money unless we are willing 
to say to our grandchildren, I do not give a rip about your future.
  Mr. Speaker, we can continue to vote for tax cuts and have the 
greatest tax increase, which is exactly what the majority is doing. You 
are voting to have the greatest tax increase in the history of this 
Nation by continuing to borrow as you are now borrowing, we are 
borrowing. I am part of it. I am part of the Members of Congress. But 
we will have a constructive alternative that we will be putting forth 
next week, and I hope sincerely that we can find some bipartisan 
support to put meaningful enforcement into place, so that we do 
something about the deficit other than come to this floor and 
speechify.

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