[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24503-24509]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Hensarling) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, tonight, we are coming here to talk 
about a very important piece of legislation titled the Deficit 
Reduction Act.
  Mr. Speaker, our Nation is seeing a number of challenges here, 
obviously 
9/11, which we have heard a lot about. Recently our Nation has been hit 
with a number of hurricanes, natural disasters that have proven very, 
very costly to our Nation. Now we have seen the threat of avian flu. 
There are a number of different challenges our Nation faces, and we 
will meet these challenges; but meeting these challenges is not free.
  Particularly within the context of the hurricanes that have hit, at 
the end of the day, when we look at the Federal response, how much 
money the Federal Government is going to spend, there are really only 
three ways that we are going to be able to pay for this. Either number 
one we are going to raise taxes on hardworking American families yet 
again as they are facing challenges in meeting the cost of filling up 
their pick-up trucks and heating their homes, or we are going to pass 
debt on to our children, even more debt to be passed on to our 
children. But, Mr. Speaker, we on the Republican side of the aisle 
believe that there is another way, and that way is to restrain the 
growth of government. That way is to protect the family budget from the 
Federal budget.
  We are going to spend some time, Mr. Speaker, this evening bringing 
up some very interesting facts that we believe the American people need 
to know.
  Number one, you will hear this evening about how tax relief that we 
have brought to American families and small businesses, that has been 
part of our deficit solution, not part of our deficit problem; and we 
will talk about that later this evening because there has been a lot of 
misinformation there.
  In addition, we have heard the other side talk about gross and 
draconian cuts in the Federal budget. Well, what we are going to 
discover, Mr. Speaker, is what they call a draconian cut is trying to 
restrain the growth of government so we do not have to raise taxes, so 
we do not have to pass on debt to our children. It is the same old song 
we have heard from them for 50 years.
  What we also hear from them is that somehow any reform, any 
accountability that we institute in the Federal budget is somehow 
tantamount to hurting the poor. Mr. Speaker, we do not buy that. The 
American people do not buy that either because we know that year after 
year after year, as we dump new programs on top of old programs, as the 
Federal Government refuses to measure the success, the progress, the 
ability of these programs to meet goals, that we have a budget now that 
is fraught with waste. It is fraught with abuse. It is fraught with 
duplication.
  Mr. Speaker, finally, not all spending is created equal. Families all 
over America have to make some tough decisions occasionally at the end 
of the month when that paycheck begins to run out, and this is what 
people do in a great Nation.
  In my own family, if we are a little low on money at the end of the 
month, I am not going to tell my two children, my 3\1/2\-year-old 
daughter and 2-year-old son, I am sorry, children, you just cannot have 
anymore milk because your mom and I have got this great movie we want 
to go see. What happens is my wife and I do not go to the movie. 
Instead, we buy the milk for the children.
  Some spending in the Federal budget is just not high priority, not 
when compared to trying to relieve human suffering along the gulf coast 
that has been wrought by these hurricanes. So the American people, I 
think they instinctively know, but occasionally we have to remind them 
about what is in this Federal budget.
  Mr. Speaker, often when we spend money here in Washington, D.C., many 
good things come from it: Kevlar vests for our brave men and women 
fighting in Iraq and fighting in the global war on terror. Occasionally 
money is spent to help start a small business; but more often than not, 
though, we see that this money is spent for an $800,000 outhouse in a 
national park and the toilet does not even flush. We see it spent on 
342 different Federal economic development programs, 342. Does that not 
suggest some duplication? More often than not, it is spent on food 
stamps where 10, 20, and sometimes 30 percent of the recipients do not 
even qualify because we are not checking their income levels, and the 
list goes on and on and on.
  The important thing, Mr. Speaker, that we need to know this evening 
is that there are plenty of places in the Federal budget where we can 
save money so that families do not have to cut their budgets because 
every dollar we spend here is a dollar that we cannot spend back in 
Texas or Tennessee or Virginia or New York.
  At the end of the day, it is not the government's money. It is the 
people's money, and we need to institute more accountability in the 
system. I wish more of our friends on the Democrat side of the aisle 
would come and help us, but too often they have bottled up each and 
every reform. They do not believe that there is any waste in the 
Federal budget. They do not believe there is any duplication in the 
Federal budget. They believe all spending is great spending, that 
nothing good has ever happened in our Nation unless it as the result of 
a Federal program; and that is not true.
  So, Mr. Speaker, the first thing that we want to discuss this evening 
is to talk a little bit about what is in this Federal budget, this $2.4 
trillion budget, a budget that over the last 10 years has been growing 
at least a third faster than the family budget, a Federal budget that, 
in my lifetime, Mr. Speaker, has grown seven times faster than the 
family budget. That is an unconscionable growth rate. That is an 
unsustainable growth rate.
  Again, our purpose here is to provide reforms. It is to provide 
accountability, and it is to spare our children the future of having to 
have a massive tax increase or massive debt placed on them.
  So we want to talk about different ways that we believe that we can 
save money in Washington, D.C. without cutting vital programs. We want 
to make sure that the social safety net is in place; but we know that 
the greatest social welfare program, the greatest housing program, the 
greatest education program in the history of mankind is a job, a job 
provided by the American free enterprise system, which is what our 
economic policies are all about. That is why we have been able to 
create 4 million new jobs in this economy, with tax relief for small 
businesses and American families.
  So there are a lot of things that we need to do to protect that 
family budget from the Federal budget; and I am very, very happy, Mr. 
Speaker, that I have been joined by a number of our colleagues who are 
leaders in this Congress on trying to help root out this waste and this 
fraud and this abuse and this duplication in the Federal budget so that 
we can indeed protect that family budget.
  One of the individuals who is joining us this evening is one of the 
leaders in government reform, a colleague of mine that I have been very 
proud to know, a real leader in this Congress on that subject, the 
gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn); and I would be glad to 
yield to her.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his 
words of wisdom and for the commitment that he brings to protecting the 
Federal budget, just as he does the family budget. I appreciate the 
diligence as he goes about this, whether it is Operation Offset or 
Washington Waste Watchers. He has certainly worked very, very hard on 
this.

                              {time}  2230

  I was talking about his good work in my district one day in one of 
the town

[[Page 24504]]

halls and talked about how he felt like we should watch the Federal 
budget like the family budget and some of the information that he 
brought to us.
  One of my constituents raised his hand; and he said, ``Mrs. 
Blackburn, I tell you, I really appreciate that. You know, sometimes I 
think the Federal Government does get out of hand. It does need to be 
reined in.'' He said, ``They need to take a lesson from some of us.'' 
He said, ``Sometimes, you know, I have too much month left over at the 
end of my money. And when that happens, we have to just sit down and 
work things a little bit differently.''
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I think that that is the kind of wisdom we need to 
put on the table here in Washington. Maybe we have too much year left 
over at the end of our money, which means it is time for us to 
prioritize and to focus and to do things a little bit differently.
  We know that government does not have a revenue problem. Government 
has a spending problem. And we also know that the government is never 
going to get enough of the taxpayers' money. They are never, ever, ever 
going to get enough of the taxpayers' money. Never happen. Because 
there is always going to be one more program, one more activity, one 
more department, one more need, one more something that they feel like 
needs that money.
  Now one of the things that we have done here is to talk about the 
Deficit Reduction Act, and that is a piece of legislation that is going 
to come before this body soon. The majority here in the House has 
worked diligently on the Deficit Reduction Act. Many of our colleagues 
across the aisle are fighting us tongue, tooth and toenail. Every time 
we turn around they are just fighting us every step of the way on this.
  Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, I think there is a reason for this. 
With over 40 years of Democrat control of this body, they have really 
built a monument to themselves; and that monument is a huge enormous 
bureaucracy. What it comes down to is that they would rather support 
bureaucrats in buildings and trust them to make decisions for the 
average American family and for taxpayers than to trust individuals and 
families to make those decisions. Their focus is putting the attention 
on preserving that bureaucracy and growing that bureaucracy.
  As the gentleman from Texas has said, fiscal responsibility is what 
our work focuses on: How do we rein this government in? How do we slow 
the growth? How do we begin to work toward reducing spending, reducing 
the deficit and being certain that this Nation remains a free and 
productive Nation for our children and our grandchildren? That has 
brought us to working out the budget, the Deficit Reduction Act, that 
we are bringing forward this year.
  My colleague from Texas mentioned a few things about waste, fraud and 
abuse; and we have put some attention on that this year here in the 
House. I want to highlight a couple of things. When we hear our 
colleagues from across the aisle say, well, there is nowhere to cut. We 
cannot find any savings. We cannot reduce these programs. My goodness, 
what would they do if we slowed their growth and did not let them have 
more money this year than they had last year?
  Well, I just want to highlight a few things that when we talk about 
we have reduced the deficit by $50 billion, an additional, additional 
$50 billion this year, I want to highlight a few things where we have 
found waste, fraud and abuse. We have only done a drop in the bucket, 
and we have had to fight every step of the way to get this, but just 
listen to some of these things that we highlight that we know are 
there.
  From 2003, the Federal Government cannot account for $24 and a half 
billion that it spent. We think that accountability is important. A 
White House review of just a sample of the Federal budget identified 
$90 billion spent on programs deemed ineffective, marginally adequate 
or operating under a flawed purpose or design, $90 billion. Well, 
already if we could get support for going after these dollars we would 
be well over $100 billion.
  Housing and Urban Development, $3.3 billion in overpayments in 2001, 
which accounted for over 10 percent of the Department's total budget. 
Now many of us have supported across-the-board cuts, Mr. Speaker; and I 
was joined by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor) and the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) in filing bills that would call 
for either a 1 or 2 or 5 percent across-the-board reduction in 
spending.
  Most folks would look at their budget and say, you know, I can find 
1, 2, or 5 percent by just getting in here and cleaning up some of my 
operations. Well, HUD had overpayments that accounted for over 10 
percent of their budget. If they just cleaned up their books and cut 
out the overpayments, there would be 10 percent right there.
  Duplication. The gentleman from Texas mentioned duplication of 
programs, and there is a lot of that here. We know that when you have a 
big Federal program you have a bureaucracy, you have bureaucrats in 
these great big shiny buildings all around Washington, D.C., and all 
around our country that run the programs. We have on the books 342 
different economic development programs, 130 programs serving the 
disabled, 130 programs serving at-risk youth, 90 early childhood 
development programs, 75 programs funding international education, 
cultural, and training exchange activities.
  Mr. Speaker, we are simply saying, let us put the money in the 
programs where it is going to do good in local communities. Let us get 
rid of the bureaucracy. Let us streamline some of this. Let us get rid 
of redundancies and duplications and be certain that the money is going 
for what it is intended: helping individuals in the communities.
  Washington spends $60 billion on corporate welfare every year versus 
$43 billion on homeland security. Priorities. They are important. Farm 
subsidies go to several Members of Congress and celebrity hobby farmers 
such as David Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Scottie Pippin, and former Enron 
CEO Ken Lay. Something to look at.
  Medicare programs that pay eight times as much for the cost of drugs 
as other Federal agencies are paying for medical supplies. This needs 
to be dealt with.
  Food stamp overpayments that are costing taxpayers $600 million 
annually, many of those payments going to individuals who are not in 
the country legally.
  School lunch program abuse has been estimated by the GAO to be at 
$120 million annually.
  Mr. Speaker, these are all examples of waste, fraud, and abuse that 
have been documented by the OMB, the CBO, and the GAO, agencies of the 
Federal Government. These are agencies that work with Congress to say 
go back and take a second look and look at how this money is being 
spent. Exercise your oversight. And that is what we are doing as we 
move forward on fiscal responsibility and accountability and as we 
bring forward the Deficit Reduction Act.
  I thank the gentleman from Texas for allowing me to join him tonight. 
I thank him for his diligence and his leadership on this effort, the 
leadership that he gives to the Republican Study Committee and that he 
gives here to the entire body of the House.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the gentlewoman for 
her insight and leadership on this subject. Mr. Speaker, she brought up 
just a number of different examples illustrating the point that, again, 
there is so much waste and there is so much fraud and there is so much 
duplication and low-priority spending in this budget, yet Democrats do 
not want to work with us to try to reform this.
  Mr. Speaker, we have 10,000 different Federal programs spread across 
over 600 different agencies, and we have many pressing needs, but we 
owe it to the American people to bring some accountability here.
  Now, again, as my able colleague, the gentlewoman from Tennessee, 
talked about, we know what the Democrats will say about these different 
programs. Well, wait a second, that is really massive cuts in spending.

[[Page 24505]]

  Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, anybody in this body is entitled to 
their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. Let 
me talk a little about what the facts are, and then we will go back and 
talk about even more waste and fraud in this budget.
  When they talk about massive cuts in the Federal budget, let us put 
this in perspective. If we are, among other things, besides trying to 
reduce the deficit, if we are trying to pay for the hurricane damage, 
so far that bill for the Federal Government has totaled about $62 
billion. Yet the Federal budget over this same 5-year period is $13.9 
trillion. Mr. Speaker, as I do my math, we are talking about less than 
half a cent, less than half a penny, and this is called some type of 
massive cut?
  What it tells me is that, as we are trying to fight the deficit, all 
we hear about from the Democrats is tax relief, we hear about massive 
cuts, and yet we are talking about half a cent. If we cannot find a 
half a penny of savings on the dollar in a $13.9 trillion budget, well, 
we are just not looking.
  Any small business in America, any family in America would laugh in 
our face if we told them, well, there is just no way that we can find a 
half a cent of savings on the dollar to protect your family budget. No, 
we are going to have to increase taxes, or maybe we will just pass 
debts on to your children. Mr. Speaker, that is just totally, totally 
unacceptable.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Yes, I will be happy to yield to the gentlewoman.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. To the gentleman's point as he is talking about the 
budget and what we would do with making some adjustments within that 
budget, Medicaid is an issue that we addressed in the Energy and 
Commerce Committee last week and looked at some forms and some 
redesigning and revitalization of Medicaid, being certain that we 
preserve access to health care for Americans. In this process, we 
looked at the annual expected growth rate of Medicaid, which is 7.3 
percent per year. And by looking at pharmaceuticals, making adjustments 
there, rooting out some waste and fraud and some abuse, closing some 
loopholes, addressing some inefficiencies, we were able to slow the 
growth from 7.3 percent to 7 percent growth per year.
  But, in liberal lingo, the gentleman from Texas knows that that is 
described by our colleagues across the aisle as a cut, when all we have 
really done is to say, let us get the fiscal house in order and be 
certain that we are using the technologies and availing ourselves of 
the efficiencies available.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Well, the gentlewoman is so right. It begs the 
question, Mr. Speaker, how much government is enough? As we can see 
from this chart, already Washington is now spending over $22,000 per 
American family; and this is one of the greatest levels in history.
  For only the fourth time in American history has the Federal 
Government taken that much money away from American families to spend 
up here. And look at this growth curve. $22,000 per family for only the 
fourth time in American history. Again, how much government is enough?
  And, as I stated earlier, just look at the last 10 years. Look at the 
growth of the family budget, which is here, the blue line, versus the 
growth of the Federal budget. The Federal budget in the last 10 years 
has grown a third faster and keeps on growing and growing. And as we 
will discuss later this evening, the trend line is only getting worse.
  But here is a very, very important point to make with this chart, Mr. 
Speaker, and that is, again, as we talk about ways that we can find 
efficiencies in government, as we talk about ways that we can reduce 
the waste, where money is taken from hard-working families in America 
and wasted up here, here is something that every American ought to know 
in this debate. Even once we are successful in passing this Deficit 
Reduction Act and engaging in this process called reconciliation, which 
is a fancy Washington term that just means we are going to start 
reforming these out-of-control entitlement programs, guess what, Mr. 
Speaker? They are going to grow at 6.3 percent instead of 6.4 percent.
  That is the massive cut that the Democrats talk about. It is not a 
cut. We are increasing this spending, but we are not increasing it as 
fast as it would be on mere automatic pilot. But somehow, in Washington 
lingo, as my colleague pointed out, somebody calls that a cut. Now, 
only a liberal in Washington or an Enron accountant can look at that 
chart and somehow call that a cut.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, maybe people are entitled to their own opinions, 
but they are not entitled to their own facts.

                              {time}  2245

  Mr. Speaker, again let me go over even more examples that we will 
have about where we can find savings in this Federal budget. Because, 
again, Mr. Speaker, either we are going to find savings in the Federal 
budget or we are going to attack the family budget by raising taxes or 
we are going to pass debt on to our children. So it is incumbent upon 
us to find ways to reform government and to make it more accountable.
  With that, I notice we have been joined by two of our colleagues. I 
am very happy that we have been joined by the gentleman from Virginia, 
the deputy majority whip, who has been a real leader in this House for 
trying to bring accountability into the Federal budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor) for 
his comments on this subject.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  And I also would like to join the gentlewoman from Tennessee in 
really saluting the gentleman from Texas and his commitment to being a 
prudent steward of the taxpayer dollar. I do not think there is anyone 
who serves in this House who has more of a commitment to the notion 
that the dollars that we spend and we raise here at the Federal level, 
the fact that they are not really dollars that belong to the 
government, they are dollars that belong to the people and the 
businesses that earn them. Again, as a watchdog of the Treasury, I do 
not think there is any other more adamant and loyal soldier than the 
gentleman from Texas; and I do congratulate him on that accomplishment 
and know that he will continue to serve in that capacity.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to also return and just set the record 
straight for some of the statements that were made in the prior hour 
regarding the war in Iraq. If I could just diverge a little bit from 
the topic at hand here regarding the Federal budget, because of the 
statements that were made: ``We are helping cause the local insurgency 
in Iraq.'' The next quote was, ``If you want to end terrorism, get out 
of Iraq. Go after Osama bin Laden.''
  As for the first, I am having a little difficulty following the logic 
of how the presence of American troops in Iraq would cause local 
insurgency. We all know, as we read the news reports every day, that 
there is a stream of outsiders coming in, joining with the Sunni 
insurgency in Iraq, and it has become ground zero for the terrorists 
who wish to do us harm in the United States, who wish to do Israel harm 
in the Middle East and, frankly, wish to do harm to anyone in the free 
world.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say to the individuals in the prior hour that, 
make no mistake, Iraq, Afghanistan, other parts of the world where we 
see the operation of terrorist organizations and cooperation by local 
regimes, that dynamic, that formula is what continues to fuel the war 
that we are engaged in. It is directly the sponsorship of unfriendly 
regimes of these terrorist organizations that allow these organizations 
sanctuary in which to train, that allow these organizations resources 
on which to operate and, frankly, allow them to pull off the terrorist 
attacks that we have seen, frankly, for almost two decades, if not 
longer.
  One of the gentlewomen who were involved in the discussion prior said 
that we, if we want to go after the terrorists, should go after the 
individuals that perpetrated the attacks on 9/11; and, of course, we 
are. First of all, we know that 19 of them perished in their mission 
and demonstrated that their

[[Page 24506]]

hatred of us knows no bounds. They avenged that hatred, including 
taking their own lives.
  So we are engaged in a war for the free world, and the sooner that 
all of us in this House recognize that and support this President and 
this administration in what we are trying to do, and that is to secure 
our homeland and to provide national security for Americans, the 
quicker it is that we will see victory.
  The fact that we are being accused by some on the other side of the 
aisle for not having a strategy, nothing could be further from the 
truth. Our strategy has always been very straightforward:
  One, counter the insurgency and assist the Iraqis in forming their 
own military police and military so that they can take care of 
themselves. That is ongoing. Reports show that over 85 battalions of 
Iraqis are engaging with our troops, embedded with our troops, and 
fighting with us alongside our brave men and women in this War on 
Terror.
  Secondly, we are to identify the Islamic jihadists and allow our 
Special Forces to deal with them; and I know that all of us in this 
House know that that is being dealt with.
  Thirdly, we are using the appeal of democracy to attract the Sunni 
minority into the government to allow them the freedoms, allow them 
protections that a minority enjoys in a democratic state. As we saw 
1\1/2\ weeks ago, the ratification of that constitution guarantees 
those minorities their rights, and we will see in another couple of 
months the elections of the full and permanent parliament.
  So, again, Mr. Speaker, to underscore my opposition to their 
statements and the fact that I differ strongly with the representations 
that were made.
  Now, back to the subject that the gentleman from Texas and the 
gentlewoman from Tennessee were engaged in and the fact that I, too, 
join with them in calling on our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle to lay down their partisanship, to join us, as 51 of their fellow 
party men joined the Republicans in 1997 in engaging in what was then 
the first Deficit Reduction Act under reconciliation since the 
Republicans took majority. I ask them to do that because it is 
imperative that we renew our commitment in this House to the hard-
working American taxpayer and for what they do for their families every 
day. We owe it to these families to be good stewards of their money.
  We all were elected here in our various districts by constituents and 
their needs. We certainly are here and are being judged each and every 
day by what we do and how we cast our votes. I know, Mr. Speaker, that 
I was elected by my constituents to take a good, long look at the way 
the government operates and to try to make the improvements to 
government and the structure so that it can be more efficient with the 
use of the taxpayer dollars; so that we can, as the gentleman and 
gentlewoman pointed out, root out the waste, fraud, and abuse that 
unfortunately has continued to grow as the bureaucracy expands.
  Both the gentleman from Texas and the gentlewoman from Tennessee 
talked about the waste, fraud, and abuse in some of the entitlement 
programs that exist. Take, for instance, the Medicaid program. This is 
a program, as we know, that is a partnership between the Federal 
Government and the States. It is a program that offers to some in this 
country a very necessary support for the health care of those indigent 
citizens in our society. But if we look at the pattern of growth of 
this program, it is something that I think strays far from the original 
intentions of those in this body that created and passed the enabling 
statute. Over the past 5 years, this program has grown by 56 percent. 
Frankly, it is an unsustainable growth rate, given the increasing costs 
and escalating costs in health care.
  So the reforms that we will have a chance to vote on next week, as 
the gentlewoman pointed out, under the Deficit Reduction Act, these 
reforms attempt to slow the growth and identify areas where waste, 
fraud, and abuse has been fueling that growth. And even after we enact 
the reforms under the Deficit Reduction Act, we will still see Medicaid 
with a 7 percent growth rate. So what we are doing is identifying 
savings.
  How are we doing that? Well, first of all, we see the creation of 
health opportunity accounts. This will be a pilot program that will 
enable certain States to afford Medicaid beneficiaries the opportunity 
to set up essentially a health savings account. And we know that we 
provided that ability for anyone in the Medicare bill as well a few 
years back. We created the opportunity for individuals to purchase 
high-deductible catastrophic health care plans so that we could lower 
the cost of health care for American families and also emphasize the 
family's role in deciding the destiny, if you will, of their health 
care provision and to emphasize the role of that family in making 
choices as far as health care is concerned. We are going to afford the 
same opportunity to beneficiaries under the Medicare program as well.
  Additionally, once we pass the Deficit Reduction Act, we are going to 
able to root out the asset transfer fraud that is going on with many in 
this country, which essentially allows those who could otherwise afford 
to pay for their health care services to become wards of the State. 
Again, this is far from the original intention of those who enacted 
this program of Medicaid. Medicaid is for the truly indigent, for truly 
those who cannot help themselves and are in need of health care.
  We also provide for, in the Deficit Reduction Act, the cessation of 
States somehow going about double dipping, if you will, in order to 
gain more access to Federal moneys. We want to cut that out as well 
because, again, this goes against the original intention of what this 
program was supposed to do.
  And the list goes on. Areas such as student loans, we wanted to make 
sure that we have an adequate supply or availability of financial aid 
as we see enrollment continuing to grow in our colleges and 
universities, as we see increasing tuition costs in our colleges and 
universities. And that is exactly what this bill does assure as well, 
that the financial aid will continue to be there. But, as it increases, 
we also increase the loan limit amount but also reduce the fees that 
our students will pay. Again, it is very important to afford access to 
our students to our education system in this country but at the same 
time make sure that the Federal dollars are used in the most 
appropriate and efficient manner.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HENSARLING. I yield to the gentlewoman from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the gentleman to go back 
to one point on Medicaid. I think it is so important, and many of our 
constituents and many members of this House, I think, would be 
interested in it. I would love for him to talk one more time briefly 
about the health opportunity accounts, because this is something that 
will give individuals ownership over the decisions that they make and 
have to make in their health care choices.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I could not agree with the gentlewoman more. 
Because there is one thing that I really have an aversion to, and that 
is somehow Washington knows best, that somehow we are going to provide 
a one-size-fits-all blanket solution to health care. And she is right, 
these health opportunity accounts get away from that. They allow 
individuals to determine the fate of their health care and how that 
will be provided, and that is exactly what these health opportunity 
accounts do.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think 
this is something that is so very important because what it says is 
every individual has the right to go in there and have that ability to 
make decisions, establish that relationship with that physician; and if 
they take responsibility and if they take ownership, then here is a 
great way that they can do it.
  In addition, we are going to see the flexibility that many of the 
governors have said we need, flexibility in order to be certain that 
health care remains viable and accessible for all of our citizens.

[[Page 24507]]


  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, the other gentleman from Texas I believe 
also has been a champion for the restoration of fiscal sanity here in 
Washington because we owe it to those American taxpayers.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HENSARLING. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

                              {time}  2300

  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia and 
also the gentleman from Texas for having hosting this special hour.
  I would like to make a couple of points of a general nature and talk 
about some specific things. I am a CPA. I have spent 30-plus years in 
business watching what happens when tax rates go up and businesses have 
to deal with increased taxes. I have also helped businesses as their 
tax bills go down and what they do with that money. They put that money 
back into their business, they reinvest it in equipment, they hire 
people. They do things that create jobs for this economy.
  We have got a growing economy. One of the things that got lost in 
some of the noise up here is that in January of this past year, the CBO 
estimated the tax collections for the Federal Government to be $2.057 
trillion.
  The other side makes an awful lot of talk about raising taxes, that 
we need to raise taxes. Well, I would submit that this Republican-led 
House has raised taxes the correct way. We have raised taxes because we 
have got more people working in America than have ever worked before. 
We have got more people paying taxes than ever before. As a result of 
that, the numbers that came in for out of the CBO for the fiscal year 
ended September 30, 2005, was in fact $2.154 trillion, or some $97 
billion more than we thought we were going to have.
  We kind of got lost in our Katrina efforts of $60-plus billion, which 
were unexpected expenses. What we probably should have done is looked 
at those unexpected revenues and said that is a good place to pay for 
those Katrina expenses. We reduced the deficit by some 23 percent.
  So we have a growing economy, and that growing economy is important 
to the continuing fiscal responsibility of this House.
  Cutting spending is difficult to do. Family budgets cannot run on a 
deficit very long. Businesses cannot run at a deficit very long. About 
the only entity in the world that can run on a deficit for any length 
of time is the Federal Government. Simply because the Federal 
Government can do it certainly is no reason why the Federal Government 
should do it.
  Let me put it in perspective. The budget that we passed in April and 
we are chewing on right now called for us to spend some $2.56 trillion. 
Now, under any circumstance, that is a lot of money. It is just a lot 
of money. But it really does not mean much to us in those terms. Let me 
give you a term that kind of helps put it in perspective.
  In the fiscal year we are in right now, which started October 1, 
2005, this government will spend $81,177 every second. I am going to 
wait about 4 seconds here and well run up about $320,000. A lot of that 
money is spent correctly, but much of it is spent in ways that we 
probably ought to leave that money with our taxpayers.
  My colleague from Texas said earlier, every single dollar that the 
Federal Government collects came out of somebody's earnings, some 
business' earnings. We have got people all over this country that go to 
work every day to try to make money, they try to figure out a way the 
services they can provide to an employer or some product they can build 
and sell for a profit, use their ingenuity, use their sweat equity, use 
the hard work to make that money, and the Federal Government comes in 
and takes a slice of that to help run this Federal Government. That is 
just the scheme we have in place.
  But do not lose sight of the fact it is taken away from those 
taxpayers really at the point of a gun, because we require that they 
collect those taxes from you.
  The other side always makes a lot about tax cuts and quote-unquote 
paying for those tax cuts. Money that is collected in the general 
revenue, general income taxes, goes into one large bucket. Let us put a 
disconnect, as we should, between the way we collect the money and the 
way that money is spent.
  So when the other side talks about this reduction in spending as a 
result of this tax cut, that is really illogical in the sense you 
really cannot connect those dollars. We do not put in an increase in 
capital gains to pay for some extra program. We do not do it that way. 
So let us make sure we disconnect the tax connection scheme from the 
way the money is being used.
  Finally, let me give you one quick anecdote and help put some 
perspective on this. I helped raise money in West Texas through the 
United Way for a number of years, and generally every year we were 
blessed with the philanthropy of that community giving more money to 
the United Way and its agencies each year than it did the previous 
year.
  Well, we went through a string of about 15 years where we raised more 
money than we did the year before, all the agencies got a little more 
money. But we had a catastrophic year, it happened about the time that 
the price of oil went to eight bucks a barrel back in 98-99, and we 
actually raised less money.
  So all of the agencies that were dependent on those United Way 
collections actually got a real cut; not a reduction in the growth, but 
a real cut in their spending. So they had to go back and look at 
everything they did. They had to go back and make hard choices between 
what were programs that they decided they had to set a priority on. 
They had to force themselves through a catharsis of having to readjust 
how they spent money.
  Today, every single one of those agencies is still around, they are 
still after their core mission, they are still doing the great work 
they have done, but they are better at it as a result of having gone 
through the tough times.
  So when people talk about reducing the amount of funds available to 
an agency, what we are really talking about is asking that agency to 
figure out a way to do your mission better and more effectively.
  So, the gentleman from Texas is great to have hosted this hour. We 
have chewed up an awful lot of it. I suspect the gentleman has a lot of 
things you want to say.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I certainly thank 
the gentleman for joining us this evening. Would it not be wonderful if 
they had a few accountants on the other side of the aisle who could 
actually let them know how you are supposed to count numbers?
  The gentleman from Texas, my home State, made some excellent points. 
We have gone over a number of the different wastes that we find in the 
Federal budget. But, again, as we face our challenges, as we face 
trying to bring this Federal deficit down, and we are making progress, 
we are making huge progress under this Republican administration and 
this Republican Congress, but we still have a ways to go.
  If we are going to bring the deficit down, if we are going to find 
the funds to help offset this hurricane relief, the money is only going 
to come from one of three places. The Democrats do not want to tell 
you, but they want to raise taxes. There are food stamp overpayments 
that cost $600 million annually, yet the Democrats want to raise taxes 
on American families. The school program abuse is costing over $120 
million annually, yet Democrats want to raise taxes on American 
families. Veteran program overpayments cost $800 million annually, yet 
Democrats wants to raise taxes on American families. And the list goes 
on and on and on.
  Mr. Speaker, let us take a look at tax relief, because all we hear 
from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is that if we would 
only raise taxes on the American people, we could be fiscally 
responsible. Let us take a look at what tax relief is all about.
  Number one, when you look at the amount of tax relief that we have 
passed in the Federal budget, let us assume for a second that all tax 
relief, as the Democrats would lead you to believe, is somehow wasted 
money. They

[[Page 24508]]

do not realize it is not their money. It is money that belongs to 
American families, it is money that belongs to small businesses, people 
who go out and work hard and create jobs. Number one, it is not their 
money, it is the people's money, and we will never forget that.
  But let us assume for a fact that somehow we wasted money by allowing 
American families to keep more of it.
  Mr. Speaker, in a $13.9 trillion budget, tax relief is less than 1 
percent of that budget. So when we talk about what is necessary to 
bring down the Federal deficit, again, over 99 percent of the challenge 
lies on the spending side. But the truth is, Mr. Speaker, letting 
American families and small businesses keep more of what they earn is 
not part of the deficit problem, it is part of the deficit solution.
  Again, any Member is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not 
entitled to their own facts. I have in my hand here the latest report 
from the U.S. Treasury talking about tax revenues. And what do we 
discover? Well, we discover that since we passed tax relief for the 
American people as part of an economic growth program, well, guess 
what?
  Mr. Speaker, corporate income taxes are up 47 percent. Individual 
income taxes are up almost 15 percent. Total receipts are up almost 
$300 billion. Again, this is not my opinion, these are the facts.
  Look at this chart, Mr. Speaker. Look what has happened since we 
passed tax relief for the American people. Every year we see tax 
revenue going up.
  So in many respects, again, it is a bit of a tax increase, but it is 
the right tax increase. It results from economic growth. And what has 
happened is not only, not only, Mr. Speaker, have we managed to bring 
in more revenues to the government and bring the deficit down, the 
deficit has now declined $319 billion.

                              {time}  2310

  The deficit has now declined $319 billion, because we have more 
revenues. The deficit is coming down. But, not only that, 4 million new 
jobs have been created; 4 million new jobs. We are enjoying the highest 
rate of homeownership that we have ever enjoyed in the entire history 
of the United States of America, all due to tax relief. Yet, Democrats 
want to raise taxes on the American people. They are trying to raise 
them right now.
  Mr. Speaker, that is just not right. They want to take the child tax 
credit away. They want to bring back the death tax. They want to take 
away accelerated depreciation for small businesses. They want to bring 
back the marriage penalty. All of this they are actively trying to do, 
trying to increase taxes on the American people to pay for all of this 
waste and all of this duplication that you have heard cited this 
evening.
  But, Mr. Speaker, again, we cannot have tax increases. That is the 
wrong prescription for the economy.
  Now, some people may say, well, it does not quite make sense. How do 
you cut tax rates and get more tax revenue? And how does this work into 
this whole debate about what is compassionate and what is not 
compassionate?
  Well, Mr. Speaker, it was a number of months ago, but I went to go 
visit a small business in my congressional district back in Texas. I 
went to a small business that is called Jacksonville Industries in 
Jacksonville, Texas. They are a zinc and a dye-casting business and, 
due to competitive pressures, they were on the verge of having to lay 
off 2 people, 2 out of about 20, I believe, so that would have been 10 
percent of their work force. That would have been pretty sizable. But 
due to our tax relief, they were able to go out and buy a new piece of 
modern equipment that helped make them more efficient. Now, I could not 
tell you exactly what it did, but I saw it, it was big, it was noisy, 
it was large. But most importantly, Mr. Speaker, it made them more 
efficient. Instead of having to lay off 2 people, they were able to 
hire 3 new people. Now, think about that, Mr. Speaker. That is 5 
people. Five people that could have been on unemployment, 5 people that 
could have been on welfare, 5 people that could have been on food 
stamps.
  Now, that is how the Democrats measure compassion. They only know one 
way to measure compassion, and that is how many welfare checks do you 
write. We believe that compassion is measured by how many paychecks you 
write. So instead of having 5 people over here on welfare and 
unemployment and food stamps, there were 5 people that, due to tax 
relief, had good jobs. They were able to put a roof over their heads. 
They were able to put food on their tables. They were able to help 
provide education and transportation for their children.
  Again, compassion is not measured by how many welfare checks are 
written, it is measured by how many paychecks that are written.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we need to remember, as we are debating fiscal 
responsibility in the people's House, we need to think in terms of it 
is not a question of how much are we going to spend on education, how 
much are we going to spend on nutrition and how much are we going to 
spend on housing, but it is a question about who is going to do the 
spending. Democrats can only measure compassion by spending done by the 
Federal Government. And what we end up with, again, is all this waste, 
all this fraud, all this abuse, all this duplication. We want families 
to do the spending, and we know the difference between the 2. So tax 
relief is all about helping families, it is helping small businesses. 
So as we debate fiscal responsibility and how to bring down the 
deficit, we must recall that tax relief is part of the solution, it is 
not part of the problem.
  Mr. Speaker, it is so important that we begin the work of reforming 
these different programs, because if we do not, the fiscal future of 
America, frankly, is very, very worrisome.
  Right now, if you look at any of the different offices in Washington 
that are charged with accounting, the General Accountability Office, 
the House Budget Committee, the Congressional Budget Office, they will 
all tell you essentially the same thing, that we have spending patterns 
in the government today where we are going to have to double taxes on 
the American people in one generation just to balance the budget. You 
got medicare growing at 9 percent a year, medicaid at 7.8, Social 
Security, 5.5.
  These are important programs and they need to be preserved, but they 
have to be reformed, because they were instituted many, many years ago, 
many decades ago in a different era. They were not built in the 21st 
century, they are not meeting the demands of the 21st century, and they 
will not be here for our children, unless we reform them.
  So as the Democrats attack tax relief and as they claim that there 
are somehow massive budget cuts going on, remember what their 
alternative is. Their alternative is going to be to double taxes on our 
children. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that that is simply, simply 
unconscionable. It is unconscionable, and a future that we must avoid.
  Mr. Speaker, this kind of graphically represents that future. Today, 
government is taking up roughly 20 percent of our economy, roughly 20 
percent of what we produce. Look what is going to happen in one 
generation. If we do not do anything to reform this out-of-control 
entitlement spending, if we do not start on the deficit reduction 
today, you are going to see government double, absolutely double in one 
generation.
  These are the tax increases that are going to be needed to pay for 
that, something that we never see the Democrats talk about, but it is 
their plan, because they say, well, we are going to balance the budget. 
That is what they tell us. They say, we are going to be fiscally 
responsible. Yet, they will not reform any single government program. 
They will not reform any of them. So what is left? Doubling taxes on 
the American people in one generation.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I became a father 3\1/2\ years ago, and I am very 
blessed that my wife and I have 2 small children, a 3\1/2\ year old 
daughter and a 2 year old son. They have changed my

[[Page 24509]]

life in so many wonderful ways. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, I spend a 
whole lot of time now thinking about the next generation. Too many 
people here, though, are thinking about the next election. I do not 
want to leave my children this legacy of tax increases. I do not want 
to leave my children a legacy of debt. I want to leave my children and 
the children of America a legacy of more hope and more jobs and more 
opportunity and more freedom. That is what we are working on here. We 
have got to protect the family budget from the Federal budget, but we 
have to start today with this Deficit Reduction Act.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can come together. I hope we can work 
together as Republicans and Democrats and Independents and do something 
about this, because there is too much waste, there is too much fraud, 
there is too much abuse, there is too much duplication. The future can 
be brighter. It can be brighter for my children and your children and 
all children if we will only start today to save the family budget from 
the Federal budget by working on this Deficit Reduction Act.

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