[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25648]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, there seems to be a new-found sense of 
fiscal responsibility on the Republican majority side of the aisle. 
There should be.
  Last year, the fiscal year was a record deficit, nearly $600 billion. 
Not only did the United States of America borrow over $400 billion from 
investors, and a great deal from China and other foreign interests, 
they also borrowed the entire Social Security trust fund surplus for 
the year, about $180 billion, money that was intended to pay for future 
benefits for Social Security retirees to ensure that those benefits 
would be there to pay for the looming retirement of the baby boomers.
  Mr. Speaker, $180 billion extracted only from people who earn salary 
and wages and earn less than $90,000 a year was borrowed and spent. 
Some of it was spent to give tax refunds to profitable corporations, 
some of it was spent to give huge new tax breaks to people who earn 
over $300,000, and some of it was spent on other Federal Government 
purposes.
  Now, they are projecting that the first quarter next year, we will 
borrow more money in one quarter than any quarter in the history of the 
United States of America. So they maybe should get some new-found 
fiscal responsibility on that side of the aisle. They have raised the 
Federal debt by 62 percent in 5 short years. George Bush has more than 
doubled the Federal debt in 5 short years.
  Now, Dick Cheney, the Vice President, of course says deficits do not 
matter, but I think they do, and I think the American people know they 
do. They know they cannot spend more money than they know they have in 
income every month forever. They know they cannot continuously borrow 
money on their credit cards or from the bank.

                              {time}  1915

  Likewise, the United States of America. Now, what are they doing 
about it. Well, they are bringing up with great fanfare a bill tomorrow 
called the reconciliation bill, $53.9 billion of supposed new income or 
cuts and programs. There are some real cuts. There are real cuts that 
will hit hard at middle-income and struggling families. The biggest 
cuts are to the student loan programs, $14.3 billion, adding about 
6,000 bucks to the average kid's public school 4-year cost with new 
interest charges and up-front charges. Cuts in foster care, cuts in 
long-term care. This is the family values side of the aisle over here, 
they like to claim, remember. And many other vital Federal programs.
  And then they are assuming some phony revenues, 50 times as much per 
acre to lease out the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge with unknown 
reserves, as we just got a few months ago for the naval petroleum 
reserve with known reserve closer to the pipeline. So phony baloney and 
mean cuts.
  But that is not even the end of the story. They are going to follow 
these mean cuts and the phony baloney with $70 billion in real cuts to 
the richest among us, predominantly weighted toward those who earn over 
$300,000 a year, particularly toward those who earn over a $1.2 million 
a year. They are averaging $120,000 a year in tax cuts now. Under their 
proposal, it will be even more generous, and that is because those 
wealthy people, also their contributors, are going to trickle down on 
the rest of us and bring new prosperity to America and wipe out the 
deficits with that new prosperity.
  After all, when we wax their yachts, when we cut their lawns, when we 
do other things that they will employ us to do when they are not 
spending the money overseas or on luxury items produced overseas that 
will bring jobs to America. As they say famously on that side, they 
never saw a poor person give anybody a job. No, those poor people are 
doing the work and paying taxes, unlike the rich people who they are 
favoring and showering money upon, and they are borrowing money and 
taking money from programs that are important to middle-income and poor 
people to give to the rich people.
  Trickle down economics. And in the end, guess what? They are actually 
going to increase the debt of the United States and the deficit because 
they are going to cut taxes for rich people by $70 billion. They are 
going to assume some phony baloney and make mean cuts against middle-
income and working families for $54 billion. They are going to increase 
the deficit by $16 billion although they claim that is not true because 
the rich people are going to trickle on us and that will create more 
revenue than the $16 billion of new deficit that is created.
  You might think it is April Fools, but it is not. It is just another 
move by the arrogant majority, thinking that America is not watching. 
Well, I think America is beginning to pay attention; and I urge my 
colleagues to oppose this mean-spirited, short-sighted legislation. 
Assume real fiscal responsibility, reimpose tax fairness for this 
country, and let us give a fair deal to the American people.

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