[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4832-4839]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             BUDGET SCHOOL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the recognition and I 
appreciate the opportunity to come and talk about a subject that is 
near and dear to the heart of every single taxpayer in this Nation. 
That subject is the Federal budget. It is something that as we debate 
issues here, we say it affects 10 percent or 20 percent or 50 percent 
of the population. Our Federal budget, it affects everyone, Mr. 
Speaker, and I think we should start this second session of budget 
school with a little bit of perspective.
  I have got a copy of the Constitution of the United States, and there 
is also included in this a Declaration of Independence. Now this copy 
is small enough to fit into my pocket. I could put it in my jacket 
pocket and carry it with me all day long.
  What is a little bit frightening, Mr. Speaker, is here is the phone 
book for the news media that covers Washington, DC. We are one of the 
most covered places on the face of the Earth, and here is the phone 
book that covers that.
  Well, I also have the Federal budget. As you can see, it is an 
enormous document. It is much larger. By the time you have the tables 
and the justifications and the analytical information and go through 
the appendix and find what you need, it is a huge document. It is much 
larger in size than the simple documents on which this great Nation was 
founded.
  What we are going to do today is talk a little bit about this budget 
and talk about what our response should be on behalf of the American 
people.
  Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the time. I am coming to the floor as 
a member of the Republican Study Committee. This group of conservatives 
within the Republican conference have developed this project called 
``Budget School'' because we think that it is imperative that the 
American people know what is in this budget and know where to find this 
budget and are fully aware of how their money is being spent because we 
realize it is not the Federal Government's money that is being spent, 
Mr. Speaker, it is the money of the taxpayers of this great Nation.
  This evening to open our session as we begin this period of time 
called special orders which comes at the end of our workday, and 
Congress has finished its regular business for the day, and it is 5 
minutes of 5 in the afternoon here in Washington, and we are moving 
into the period of time called special orders. It is the period of time 
when we can come to the floor and talk a little bit

[[Page 4833]]

more at length about the issues that are very important to us.
  This evening we have several of our colleagues from the Republican 
Study Committee that will join me to talk about the budget and their 
concerns with the increase in spending, the concerns with the increase 
in taxation and their concerns about the long term fiscal health of 
this great Nation.
  I would like to begin our conversation this evening by yielding to 
the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) to hear his comments on the 
budget.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for 
yielding, and there are a couple of points I want to make. One is just 
now a lesson that we have simply learned or seen, I guess, witnessed, 
if you will. The Democrats passed a budget the week before we adjourned 
for a 2-week work recess, so it would have been 3 weeks ago. So 3 weeks 
the Democrat budget is passed, and it had in it $30 billion for AIDS 
money for Africa.
  As we know, the President has been very passionate about getting AIDS 
support for the continent of Africa. Indeed, Africa has suffered a lot 
because of the AIDS problem. But the President called for a $30 billion 
expenditure.

                              {time}  1700

  Now, the Democrats called for a $30 billion expenditure as well in 
the budget 3 weeks ago, but something may have happened in their 
districts over the last 2 weeks. I suspect person after person who's 
paying $3.25 a gallon and who's concerned about the war and concerned 
about health care ignored that and said to their Democrat Member, you 
have got to spend more than the President has promised for AIDS in 
Africa; and don't just spend $30 billion, spend $50 billion. So, when 
we get back to Washington, the first thing the Democrats do is ignore 
the President's request, ignore their own budget, and go $20 billion on 
one vote on one line item expenditure.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Absolutely.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. The budget that was presented is over a $3 trillion 
budget, and it calls for a $683 billion tax increase. And discretionary 
spending is increased in this budget by $280 billion. So, what I'm 
hearing the gentleman say, that's not enough. We've already, day two 
coming back from our Easter district work period, day two we have seen 
them move forward and increase $20 billion more.
  And I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. KINGSTON. That's correct. So, here we are, the first day back 
basically voting on anything of substance, we've already spent $20 
billion over a budget that's only 3 weeks old.
  Now, you had mentioned discretionary spending, and I want to make 
sure folks understand. Discretionary spending means Congress has agreed 
that year by year that level of spending can fluctuate. Now, that's 
opposed to what we call mandatory spending. And I use the term 
``mandatory'' loosely because nothing is mandatory if you're the 
legislative branch that set laws. But we call things like Medicare, 
Medicaid, Social Security mandatory spending, meaning, not just that 
we're going to spend a certain amount every year depending on a 
formula, but it also means, and I don't know if my friend from 
Tennessee or the other gentleman from Texas or Tennessee know this, but 
we don't have hearings on mandatory spending traditionally.
  I'm a member of the Appropriations Committee. We spend a huge amount 
of money on Social Security and Medicaid, but we've never had a hearing 
on it. Every year we wrestle on some of the mandatory spending and some 
of the discretionary spending, but the biggest portion of the budget we 
don't do hearings on. And I think that it's time that we start talking 
about some of the mandatory spending if we're ever going to be serious 
about balancing the budget.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman will yield.
  There are a couple of things that I would point out. I'm sure people 
are sitting there going, I'm not believing this. I have worked all day 
long, I work all year, I haven't even finished paying my obligations 
for my property taxes, my state taxes, my Federal income taxes this 
year because you have to work until around the first of June to meet 
your obligations on taxes before you're working for money to take home.
  So, what I'm hearing him say is, all that increasing, they want you 
to work further into the year to pay them. Somebody sitting at their 
desk right now, they're thinking, I can't believe this. If they want to 
pull down a copy of the budget, here are some Web sites and some 
resources we would encourage them to use. To get a copy of the 
President's budget, they can go to whitehouse.gov/omb. To get the 
Republican response, which our Republican Study Committee was involved 
in, budget.house.gov/republicans. And to get some of our budget school 
resources, they can go to house.gov/blackburn. They can also go to 
YouTube and Face Book and pull some of this information.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask, before the gentlewoman takes that down, do 
those budgets balance, by the way; or when do they balance out, when do 
they balance? And do they have to be passed by the Senate and the 
House?
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. We're going to 
work through explaining that process this evening because the budget 
has come through the House and it is going to the Senate, it will come 
back to conference committee. And we set all of those different, the 
template, if you will, and then it will go through the appropriations 
process this year.
  And I wanted to show this second poster. You were just mentioning 
about Medicare and Social Security and some of the different functions 
that are entitlements. And then we also have the areas that are seen as 
being discretionary. And you were mentioning discretionary spending. 
And those who want to follow the budget discussion with us can follow 
these different functions in the budget documents that we had mentioned 
earlier.
  And I yield back to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, I think, though, that when you're talking about 
spending, you have to look at everything. And when you have such a 
large portion on mandatory spending, and I think of it in terms of 
automatic spending, and I understand that Social Security, Medicaid and 
Medicare are sacred cows, that if you touch them politically somebody's 
going to twist your words around and say that you're trying to do 
something nefarious, but the reality is if you're ever going to balance 
the budget, you have to look at everything. And there are areas I know 
that we can do a better job on.
  Now I'm on the AG Committee on Appropriations. Many people don't know 
this, and they always complain about how big the USDA is. Sixty-three 
percent of the agriculture budget is in welfare. Food stamps, the WIC 
programs, school nutrition programs, these are supplemental assistance 
programs to the poor. Now, I was here in 1996 when we reformed welfare, 
and it went from 14 million people who were on welfare down to 5 
million people. That was a step in the right direction because you want 
to help those who truly need it, but you don't want to create a system 
where able-bodied people are able to game it and not work.
  But what we're doing in AG appropriations is year after year making 
it a little bit easier to qualify for food stamps. We lighten up on the 
work requirements. We extend it to this group or the other. The WIC 
program is a child nursing supplement program. And Dr. Burgess knows 
well, it's a supplemental program for nursing mothers, but you're 
eligible for age 6. Now, I'm a father of four. I know you're a mama, 
you weren't breast-feeding your children at age 6, I assume.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. And I'm about to be a grandmother. And I appreciate 
the gentleman from Georgia's comments about the historical data that is 
involved in that. And as we look at the budget, and how did this budget 
get to be so big? That is just so very important. And if you look at 
the budget, which is what I have right here on the

[[Page 4834]]

podium in front of me, and you can see it, you can hardly hold it up 
it's so big, but it comes in sections. This much is just the overview. 
And I said, that pales in comparison when you look at the small size of 
our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence.
  Here's the appendix. And you would get inside this and look for the 
program that you're talking about with the Department of Agriculture. 
Then you would come in here to the Analytical Perspectives. This volume 
is where you would go to look at the analysis that you were just 
speaking of. And then, here are the historical tables.
  And Mr. Speaker, this is where our colleagues go to look at where a 
program was when it started, to trace back through why this program was 
put in place and go back and see if that program is still aimed toward 
meeting what it was put in place for, meeting that original mission, 
how has it changed? And as you're pointing out, so many programs get 
changed on a regular ongoing basis. You go into the analysis and look 
at if you think this is worthy, if those are certainly the type data 
and the type premises on which you want to be operating to fund that 
budget. You look at this appendix to see how much they decided that 
they ought to be putting into that budget.
  So, the gentleman is quite right in explaining how these programs 
grow, and did they begin to move away from their original mission? That 
is why some of our colleagues that are joining us this evening have 
been busy working on fighting waste, fraud and abuse, fighting 
increased spending, fighting wasteful earmarks, and working for the 
past few years to raise this issue.
  And I know the gentleman from Georgia has constituents, and we have 
the gentleman from Iowa, Ms. Bachmann, who is from Minnesota, Mr. Davis 
from Tennessee, who are joining us on the floor this evening to talk 
about this issue and to talk about where we are seeing the movement in 
this budget.
  At this time, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
King) who has worked tirelessly. He was in my freshman class as we made 
waste, fraud and abuse our freshman class project, and as we have 
worked to reduce what the Federal Government spends and begin to try to 
tame this budget and to bring it back in so that it is a friendlier 
budget for the American taxpayer.
  And I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for 
organizing this Special Order and for the privilege to address you, Mr. 
Speaker.
  This budget issue that rolls out in front of us, I'd like to take us 
back to anchor it a little bit on what's really going on. And we 
haven't gone very far into all the news and the indicators we have on 
this economy, but this budget is the largest tax increase in the 
history of America; it amounts to $683 billion in tax increases over 
the next 5 years. That's almost triple the largest tax increase in 
history that took place in 1993. We remember that year, 1993, that was 
a $240.6 billion tax increase, about a third of what this one amounts 
to in `93. We will look back and remember what happened in 1994, 
Republicans took over the majority in the House of Representatives 
partly because of overspending.
  But as we followed this economy a little over a year ago, I remember 
the swearing-in ceremony here on the floor of Congress when Speaker 
Pelosi took the gavel for the first time. I watched what went on when 
all new committee chairs for the first time in 12 years picked up the 
gavel and began to manage their committees. And I watched as the 
chairman of the Ways and Means Committee went on the talk circuit all 
around the country, media stop after media stop after media stop, and 
he was constantly asked, are you, Chairman Rangel, going to make the 
Bush tax cuts permanent? Are you going to preserve any part of the Bush 
tax cuts? And he demurred on a straight answer time after time. But by 
a process of elimination it became clear to the American investor that 
those Bush tax cuts were not going to be made permanent, that every one 
of them was going to be designed to end, expire and fail at some point.
  Now, these tax cuts, the big ones, the ones that matter, was on May 
28, 2007. That was when we had the real tax cuts that inspired this 
economy. And we have been on a growth pattern ever since that time and 
today we're still on that growth pattern in spite of what they say 
about our economy if you just track the DOW. But when the public 
understood and the investment community understood that the chairman of 
the Ways and Means Committee was going to continue down this path of 
spending, that he didn't see a tax cut he liked and he didn't see a tax 
increase that he didn't like, they stopped investing in industrial 
investment.
  The reduction in industrial investment that took place January, 
February, March, April and onwards of 2007 was the lead indicator for 
this economic inactivity that we're seeing today. That was item number 
one, the understanding that there would be tax increases, this 
understanding that we know, according to Adam Smith and Wealth of 
Nations from 1776 when he said ``the cost of any goods is the cost of 
the labor that it takes to produce it and the capital required to 
support the labor.'' And the cost of capital went up because of the tax 
increases that were around the corner, the tax increases that were 
implicit in this budget. When the cost of capital went up, capital is 
always reactive and smart, and capital investments declined. That led 
us into the subprime, and we know about the subprime, but that's only 
really about $150 billion in real losses. There might be a greater 
reaction on that in this Congress, but about $150 billion. That's 
equivalent to a dollar a gallon on gasoline. By the way, there's no 
energy policy either.
  But what this matters to us in this country is, we want to slow this 
growth in spending. We want to balance this budget. We want to bring a 
budget that gets us down to a responsible budget. And we want to get 
into the entitlements, fix Medicaid, fix Medicare, fix Social Security. 
And if we go down this path and we see the tax increases that were part 
of this, we put in it in one term that's relevant, what's relevant to 
us, how does this affect the family of four, mom, dad and two kids that 
are making $50,000 a year? The result of this budget and the tax 
increases that are part of it to a family of four making $50,000 a 
year, it will cost them annually $2,100 in additional taxes.
  And additionally, we're paying more for gas. We have no plan for a 
balanced budget coming out of the majority side. This economy has been 
driven down into the drink because of lack of confidence, lack of an 
energy policy, because of the tax increases that reduce the capital 
investment, especially in industrial investment, and because of the 
subprime.
  Things that you do in a bad economy are not increase taxes, not 
increase government spending. You don't take a larger share out of your 
gross domestic product and roll that into government, that's the 
nonproductive sector of the economy. That's one I'm not feeling 
charitable; I call that the parasitic sector of the economy. We need to 
have more dollars in the productive sector and the private sector of 
the economy; that means less taxes, less government, more personal 
responsibility, more fiscal discipline on the part of this Congress and 
this House where we start the spending here.
  So, I applaud the gentlelady for leading this Special Order. I look 
forward to many more. I look forward to the day when I can say, I stood 
on the floor of this Congress and voted for a balanced budget that made 
it through the Senate to the President's desk, and fiscal 
responsibility, and letting people keep the money that they earn.
  Thank you for yielding. I appreciate it.
  I yield back to the gentlelady from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
  And he is exactly right. In 1993, the $240.6 billion tax increase 
that came about in 1993 is something that people in this Nation stood 
up and said we are not going to stand for this.

[[Page 4835]]



                              {time}  1715

  And I appreciate also that the gentleman mentioned Wealth of Nations 
and made reference to that wonderful work.
  I think another one that we could add to the reading list of those 
who are fiscal conservatives is Road to Serfdom, which is a book, and I 
would commend that, Mr. Speaker, to all of our colleagues, to go back 
and read that work by a wonderful economist, Friedrich Hayek. And it 
talks about how, when you tax more and government spends more, and you 
take more from your people in a Nation, that you're walking on that 
Road to Serfdom.
  As the gentleman was saying, we look at the rate of taxations based 
on our GDP, where we are right now in 2007, and many of us feel like 
this is too high. We are under 20 percent.
  This is the CBO long-term outlook for taxation. You can see by 
looking at the bars, the red one is net interest. Social Security is 
the purple area. Medicare and Medicaid is the orange area, and then you 
have all other spending, which is in green.
  Look at this chart, and look at what happens from 2007 to 2015, where 
we move above that 20 percent. Look what happens by 2030, when meeting 
the cost of your entitlements and your interest are going to take all 
revenue coming in on our current percentage of taxation. And then 2040, 
look at what happens, when you're spending about 35 percent of your GDP 
on taxes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Will the gentlelady yield?
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I will yield.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. As I look at your chart, it occurs to me that 
that's Federal spending. And I'm going to speculate here, though, that 
if we would add to that the State and the political subdivision 
spending on to that, because that also is a share of the GDP, we have a 
significantly higher percentage. And I would think that that percentage 
today may well go to 37 percent.
  I've seen some studies by some very well-respected and highly 
credentialed economists that make the argument that there's a right 
size to government, and that right size to government, when you add all 
the taxation across the spectrum, from Federal to State to local, that 
right size of government taxing a percentage of GDP, they believe, 
falls somewhere between 17 and 23 percent. So I'd just argue that we've 
passed that already, and we've got to go down in those numbers. I'd 
like to see those bar charts go down.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. And the gentleman is exactly right. And we would all 
like to see, and that is the reason that we are here. And my hope is 
that as we work with our colleagues on this budget issue, that we will 
see these charts level off and then head downward, because Federal 
spending is far too high. And then you're exactly right; when you add 
your political subdivisions and the State taxation and spending to 
that, you do see a different picture.
  At this point, to talk a little bit more about what we see happening 
with this budget, I want to yield to the gentlelady from Minnesota 
(Mrs. Bachmann) who has joined us this year and has jumped right into 
the discussion of budget and taxation, and does a wonderful job 
representing our conservative perspective.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I want to thank the gentlelady from Tennessee and 
applaud her and thank her for her efforts as she is leading this 
wonderful budget school for the people of the United States, and I 
would consider her the dean of our budget school, and she's doing a 
wonderful job as dean. And I think that Representative Steve King may 
be considered a tenured professor in the budget school that the 
gentlelady from Tennessee is quite brilliantly hosting for the benefit 
of the American people.
  It's so important that we're taking up this topic and devoting this 
time, because what all Americans share in common is that we, generally 
speaking, all are working for a living. And the one thing that we're 
finding is that more and more of our time is being spent working on 
behalf of political subdivisions. Whether it's the Federal Government, 
whether it's State government, whether it's local government, quite 
often our taxes are taking up perhaps as much time as from when we get 
up on January 1 and go to work, or if it's January 2, until perhaps in 
May or June, almost everything that we make during that time period is 
going to government.
  I know that's hard to believe. But when you add up all the money that 
we're paying in taxes, about that much of our time is going to earn 
money that will, in turn, be handed over to government to spend our 
money. That's what's happening, and that's what we're yielding in terms 
of our sovereignty, is the amount of time that we are spending working 
to provide for our families; that much time is being spent going to 
government, because someone is going to spend the money that we earn.
  The question is, will we have the power over being able to make those 
choices over spending, or will political subdivisions, whether it is 
the Federal, State or local, have the ability to make those choices?
  I want to show you now a chart that we have up here. This talks about 
how much the budget that has just been passed, which the majority, the 
Democrat majority has the largest spending increases in American 
history for the budget and the largest tax increases in American 
history.
  Take a look at the numbers. On every State, from Alabama to Wyoming, 
there's an increase in taxes for every American across the board, on 
average, from Alabama to Wyoming. And these aren't small increases. 
This is over and above what the average American is already paying.
  But take a look at these increases. If you're in the State of 
Alabama, it's over a $2,500 increase in taxes beyond what you're paying 
now. If you're in the State of Wyoming, it's over a $3,100 tax 
increase.
  I represent great people, great people from the State of Minnesota in 
the Sixth Congressional District. In Minnesota, the average taxpayer in 
Minnesota will pay over $3,000 more in taxes than what they're paying 
now.
  Well, take a look at what your grocery bill has been doing. It's been 
going sky high lately.
  And take a look at what we're paying at the gas pump. I was in St. 
Cloud, Minnesota last week. The price of diesel gasoline was $3.81. The 
price of regular gasoline was $3.14. When I took office and was sworn 
in for the first time as a brand new freshman Member of Congress, I 
thought gasoline was too high then, and it was about $2.25 a gallon.
  Well, what has this Congress yielded, the 110th Congress?
  So far this Congress has gone for the largest tax increase in 
American history, the largest spending increase in American history.
  And as the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), and as 
Representative Steve King has said, from Iowa, and also the gentleman 
from Georgia, Representative Kingston has said, this Congress has 
failed to do anything to reform Social Security and Medicare. Every 
American should take pause right now and realize how sobering that is, 
because the United States Government has made a promise to the senior 
citizens of this country, has made a promise. I'm worried that this 
Congress will have difficulty keeping that promise with our senior 
citizens if we don't reform these important programs. We can't do that 
if we are raising the average American's taxes.
  And I will yield back to the gentlewoman from Tennessee after I make 
this important point, and it's this: In the Budget Committee markup of 
Fiscal Year 2009 there was a unanimous vote to increase the marginal 
tax rates.
  What does this mean?
  Whether you are a low-income American, a middle-income American, or a 
high-income American, guess what? Your taxes are going up. That will 
impact you in an already weak economy.
  Unanimously, unfortunately, the Democrats voted to cut the $1,000 
child tax credit in half. That really hurts. My husband and I have five 
kids. We raised 23 foster kids. Do you know how important a $1,000 
child tax credit is to the average family? That's really important. 
Well, they voted unanimously,

[[Page 4836]]

unfortunately, the Democrats, to cut the $1,000 child tax credit in 
half. That will impact average Americans.
  They also voted to eliminate the marriage penalty tax relief. Why 
would we do that? Why would we want to take away tax credits for people 
who are married? Married people are raising the next generation of 
Americans. We want to help them, not hurt them.
  They also voted to eliminate the capital gains and dividends relief. 
This was the big driver. From 2000 until 2008, this has driven our 
economy forward. This has been a good thing.
  And also, unfortunately, to bring back the death tax.
  This is not the direction we want to go. The direction we want to go 
is one, a budget that the Republicans have put forward, and that's a 
growth budget, a budget to cut your taxes, cut wasteful spending, and 
put in place the mechanisms that will provide growth for this economy 
so that you can keep more of your income and start working for you, 
rather than working for the government.
  And that's why I commend the gentlelady from Tennessee. As the dean 
of our budget school, she has been letting the American people know, in 
the plainest possible language, that we are here because we want to 
work for you. We hear you. We hear the difficulties that you're 
laboring under.
  And I yield back to the gentlelady now to go on and continue to 
explain forthwith to the American people how important this ongoing 
discussion is.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentlelady from Minnesota. And as she 
said, we do have a response to this budget. You can go to 
budget.house.gov/republicans and pull that budget up, because it is a 
budget that is there to encourage growth, reduce taxes, and be certain 
that our constituents have the money left in their pockets.
  At this time I yield to David Davis, the gentleman from Tennessee who 
joined us in this House this year. He was in the State Legislature in 
Tennessee. He knows firsthand how important a low rate of taxation, low 
and reasonable regulation is to having small businesses grow and 
develop jobs. And as we all know, there is no economic stimulus as good 
as a job. And I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.
  Mr. DAVID DAVIS of Tennessee. I'd like to thank my colleague from 
Tennessee. Thank you for your leadership, Ms. Blackburn. You're doing a 
wonderful job. I had the opportunity to serve with you in the State 
Legislature, and we fought off a State income tax together back in our 
home State. And it worked well in Tennessee and it would work well here 
to keep our taxes low.
  As you well know, mothers and fathers all across Tennessee, I'm more 
concerned about East Tennessee, to be honest with you, but mothers and 
fathers all across East Tennessee and across America sit around their 
kitchen tables putting budgets together. They have to make decisions on 
how am I going to fill up my pickup truck or my car and it costs over 
$50 a tank? How am I going to put food on my table? How am I going to 
pay my housing payment? How am I going to pay for my health care? Those 
are some of the things that real Americans, real mothers and fathers 
have to make decisions about.
  And if you look at the gasoline prices and you look at the energy 
bill that actually came out of this House back in December, I voted 
against the legislation. It had new taxes. It had new regulations. The 
only thing it didn't have was any new energy. And I think the American 
people are starting to feel that today, and because of that, they're 
starting to see increases in things such as their food bill going up.
  I know my wife comes home every week and says, I can't believe how 
much our grocery bill's gone up this month. So people all across East 
Tennessee are struggling to make ends meet.
  The Democrat budget resolution fails the test of fiscal 
responsibility miserably. Instead of exercising fiscal restraint and 
lowering taxes, the Democrat budget raises taxes, as you well know, by 
$683 billion over the next 5 years. You heard me correctly. $683 
billion over the next 5 years.
  And as it's been pointed out, that is the largest tax increase in 
America's history. Not only America's history. It's the largest tax 
increase in America's history, but it's also the largest tax increase 
of any country in the world. That's pretty amazing.
  I don't go home every weekend and hear people say, if you could just 
raise my taxes, my family will do better. I hear just the opposite. 
Keep taxes low. Keep regulations low. Lower gasoline prices, and let me 
succeed.
  This budget actually blows away the previous record tax increase back 
in 1993. That was $443 billion.
  These are real tax hikes being imposed on real people. Here are some 
of the staggering statistics for families in Tennessee's First 
District. According to the Heritage Institute, because of the Democrat 
budget, the average taxpayer in my district will be forced to pay an 
increase of $1,596, and it will result in almost 2,000 jobs being lost, 
and a loss of $188 million in the First District's economy.

                              {time}  1730

  That's not what I hear when I go home every weekend to east 
Tennessee: If you could just raise my taxes, increase regulations, then 
it's going to be good for my family. That's not what I hear. I hear, 
Keep taxes low, keep regulations low, lower gas prices and get 
government out of my way and we will be able to do better.
  And by reimposing the marriage tax, you know, I hear comments here in 
Washington that, well, if we could only tax the wealthy. Well, when I 
go home to east Tennessee every weekend, there's a lot of married folk 
that are not wealthy. That's just common sense. And by bringing back 
the marriage tax, roughly 23 million taxpayers will see their taxes 
increase by $466 by the year 2011 simply because they're married. I 
don't know if that's the policy that we need to be bringing forth in 
this Congress. That's not what I hear when I go home to east Tennessee 
every weekend.
  We have a choice between bigger economy or bigger government. Taxing 
and spending is not a road we need to head down. Ronald Reagan once 
said, ``We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed 
enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.''
  I think we, as Members of Congress, need to be more concerned about 
the budgets of mothers and fathers who have to put a budget together 
around their kitchen tables back in East Tennessee and across America 
rather than growing a Federal budget that supports out-of-control 
spending that relies on taking money from the very mothers and fathers 
who are struggling to make ends meet back in northeast Tennessee and 
across America.
  I would like to thank my colleague, Congresswoman Blackburn, for her 
leadership in putting on this budget school; and if we could just get 
back to using some common sense, we will go forward in America. It's 
worked well for over 200 years; we just need to get back to that common 
sense.
  Thank you for your leadership.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee, and as he said, 
the loss to the economy is something we hear a lot about.
  Look at this chart. You can see what happened with Federal revenues 
in 2001, 2002. Look at what happened when we reduced taxes in 2001 and 
then again in 2003, and look what happened, how we took off with a 
growth in Federal revenues. It just shows you what happened when you 
reduce taxes, when the government takes less and allows individuals to 
make those decisions, what to do with that money. When government 
doesn't take first right of refusal on so much of that paycheck and 
allows our constituents to make those choices, you can see there are 
four straight years of increases there.
  To talk a little bit about the impact of the economic policy that's 
before us on his constituents from Ohio, I yield to the gentleman from 
Ohio, Mr. Jordan.
  Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. I thank the gentlelady for yielding and for her 
leadership on this special order hour and her leadership in Congress 
and her work with the RSC along with our chairman.

[[Page 4837]]

  Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government spends a lot of money. The 
American people understand that instinctively. In fact, let me give 
some context to it.
  The United States' economy is a $14 trillion annual economy. The 
second largest economy in the world is Japan, approximately $4 trillion 
annual economy. The third largest economy, if you define it this way, 
would be the Federal Government. So 1 year of spending by the Federal 
Government would be the third largest economy in the world. $3 
trillion, the largest budget in history, is what passed on this floor 4 
weeks ago.
  Again, to provide a little context to that. $3 trillion budget. 
That's the Federal Government spending your tax dollars, the American 
families' taxpayer money for families in Ohio and across this country 
spending at $100,000 a second, $6 million a minute, $350 million an 
hour. I mean, even by politicians' standards, that is spending money 
like crazy.
  The Federal Government spends, again, just to provide some context, 
and I appreciate the work that everyone has done and what the previous 
figures have said. The Federal Government spends $25,000 per year per 
family. Instead of spending $25,000 per family, if we would just spend 
$20,000 we could balance the budget in 1 year. Just spending $20,000 
per family, we could do it.
  The previous speakers have talked about the tax burden that was also 
contained in this budget, $600 billion in taxes. You always hear about 
tax-and-spend politicians. I actually argue that it's just the 
opposite. In fact, the gentleman from Tennessee just talked about this. 
It's spending tax. Spending always drives the equation.
  So to make sure that this $3 trillion could be spent, this budget 
contains the largest tax increase in the history of our country. At a 
time when families are already dealing with tough economic situations 
in their family and in their communities, the last thing we need is 
higher taxes.
  You can compound all of this situation by what we heard last week. 
And I just want to read from the trustees' report, the 2008 Social 
Security and Medicare trustees' report, because I think it's poignant 
to this, a discussion about where we are at this point in our Nation's 
history. The trustees said, We are increasingly concerned about the 
inaction on the financial challenges facing the Social Security and 
Medicare programs. The longer action is delayed, the greater will be 
the required adjustments, the larger the burden on future generations, 
and the more severe the detrimental economic impact on our Nation.
  The longer we wait to do anything, the tougher it is going to be to 
address it and fix the problem.
  In fact, outgoing Comptroller General David Walker has said this: We 
run the risk, for the first time in American history, turning over a 
worse financial picture to the next generation. It's never happened 
before in the history of the United States.
  One of the reasons we are the greatest countries in history is 
because parents make sacrifices for their children so they can have a 
better economic situation, a better life, a better standard of living 
than what we have. We run the risk of beginning to turn that. We have 
got to begin to address that.
  I just want to bring up two simple concepts that were proposed in the 
Budget Committee by Members of the Republican party and the RSC. We 
offered two simple ideas. One was, it's time for a second Grace 
Commission. If you remember, President Reagan put together the Grace 
Commission. He had outside business people come in and look at the 
Federal Government, look at the government, say, Where is the waste? 
Where is the fraud? Where is the redundancy? Where is the 
ridiculousness? Let's get rid of it and save taxpayer money and better 
spend taxpayer money.
  Back in the 1980s, they identified $400 billion in waste, fraud, and 
redundancy. Certainly we can find some savings by doing that. The Grace 
Commission, unfortunately, was defeated in committee.
  We also offered an amendment that said let's hold the line on 
spending. Outside of the military, let's just hold the line, and let's 
keep the baseline lower, which saves us a lot of money in the outyears. 
And we made the argument in committee that this won't solve the 
problem, but this will better position our Congress, better position 
our government to deal with what we know is coming, to deal with what 
the trustees reported last week is coming relative to Social Security 
and Medicare. Two simple ideas that we couldn't even get passed in 
committee because the majority party wouldn't go for it. Things that we 
need to do to long-term begin to address the situation.
  As the previous speaker said, and I will close with this and turn it 
back over, he's confident that we will get this right. I am, too. Not 
because the politicians in Washington get it but because the American 
people do. The old adage is often true: Most politicians don't see the 
light; they feel the heat. And they feel the heat from their 
constituents because their constituents have the common sense of the 
folks, like in East Tennessee and back in western Ohio as well, and 
they understand the situation is real, they understand it's time for 
politicians and elected officials to step forward and say, Enough is 
enough. Let's fix this because it's about our kids and about our 
grandkids.
  That's why I applaud the leadership of the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. Speaker, we have had some absolutely wonderful freshmen to join 
us this year, and the gentleman from Ohio is one of them; and we are 
just so grateful to his constituents who have sent him here to join in 
on seeking fiscal responsibility for this great Nation of ours. We 
appreciate his leadership, as Mr. Davis and Ms. Bachmann, and the work 
that they have done.
  And now someone who came to this Congress and has been a leader 
serving on the Budget Committee working toward fiscal responsibility.
  I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. And I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee 
for all of your work on this matter and others as well, shining the 
light of day on the budget process here in the House under Democrat 
control of this legislature.
  That last point, under Democrat control, here we find ourselves 15 
months into the 110th Congress under a new Democrat majority in this 
House, and we have to ask that basic question, What has that Democrat 
control of 15 months brought? Well, in outside groups in the media, it 
has been reported this has been one of the most inefficient and 
ineffective Congresses in passing legislation out of the House and 
making it to the President's desk and getting it signed, in most 
people's memory. And that is a bad thing when it comes to trying to 
solve the problems that are addressing America's families and America's 
pocketbook as well.
  I would like to spend my couple of minutes personalizing this budget 
process from the great State of New Jersey and other residents of my 
State as well and how it impacts upon them.
  New Jerseyans are already overtaxed. Just recently, the legislature 
in Trenton, the State capital, raised taxes. They raised the sales tax, 
they raised corporate taxes, they raised user fees and what have you. 
And now there is talk about, in our State, maybe doubling or tripling 
the tolls on the road, and not to speak, of course, about property 
taxes which are going through the roof in our State. So New Jersey 
families are already taxed.
  What do we see here in the Congress under Democrat control with the 
budget that they have passed through this House? Well, for New 
Jerseyans it would amount to around $3,700 increase, a $3,700 increase 
in taxes on the American family or the New Jersey family. More of their 
hard-earned money being taken from them and sent to Washington.
  And what else? Well, another independent analysis, this one done by 
the Heritage Foundation, shows that folks in my district, the Fifth 
District in New Jersey, which my district represents, they would lose 
upwards to

[[Page 4838]]

2,000 jobs. So mind you, the budget that the Democrats have passed 
would do two things: raise our taxes in my State by around $3,700 for 
the average family, and we would lose 2,000 jobs. All a bad thing now 
under the Democrat's Congress.
  So while it may have been one of the most ineffective and inefficient 
Congresses under the Democrat leadership, they are doing some things 
all bad.
  Let me take a moment, if I may, to address three points that went 
through the budgetary process when the bills came through the 
committee.
  If you hadn't been turned on C-SPAN from 10:30 in the morning when 
the bills came through with the Budget Committee initially until around 
1 o'clock the next morning when the bill finally came out, you may have 
missed exactly what the Budget Committee did under the leadership of 
the Democrat Conference.
  Let me touch upon three of them. Democrats proposed their budget. 
Republicans tried to take a bad bill and tried to make it better with a 
number of amendments, and I will go through very quickly, if I may, 
three of those amendments. In each instance, when we took our 
amendments and said, Here is an idea that maybe would make your bill a 
little bit better, they voted unanimously, and it shows the 
bipartisanship is not there in that committee, unanimously against our 
ideas.
  First idea. AMT, alternative minimum tax. We suggested that this very 
harsh tax should be repealed. Remember, it was the AMT started under 
1969 under a Democrat Congress, in the 1990s under a Democrat 
President, Bill Clinton. We Republicans tried to repeal it. He said no. 
Now we said we have to get rid of this unfair tax that in just a couple 
of years from now, around 34 million American families would see their 
taxes go up incredibly. They said ``no'' to our amendment.
  Secondly, again, Democrats unanimously voted against another 
amendment that we suggested to their bill with regard to earmarks. We 
all have problems with earmarks. It made the news heavily in the last 
months, what have you. We see the waste, fraud, and abuse there. We 
suggested we could save a billion dollars in earmarks and let's 
appropriate it over to veterans and for their good causes. That was our 
amendment. They voted unanimously to oppose it.
  And finally in the area of Social Security. You would think here is 
one area that there would be bipartisanship, that they would reach 
across the aisle and try to get something done. Again, no go. Earmarks, 
again, was the basis of our areas that we thought we could save some 
money. There was so much waste, fraud, and abuse with their earmarks. 
We said, Let's save some of the money there. Let's make sure that 
Social Security is here for seniors today and for the next generation 
and next generation. Let's stop robbing from the Social Security trust 
fund. We put in an amendment to do that. What do the Democrats do once 
again? Unanimously they voted against that amendment as well.
  The amendments all went down. The bill passed as the Democrats 
initially proposed it, in essence, and that bill, of course, is bad for 
my constituents, bad for New Jerseyans as we will be losing jobs, 
seeing our taxes go up.
  So, again, I close where I began, commending the lady for bringing 
this information to the American public as we work together to make it 
a better situation.
  Thank you.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, and I do thank 
him, Mr. Speaker, for his continued leadership. As I mentioned, we were 
freshman classmates in the 108th Congress and have worked each session 
of these past three sessions of Congress to bring to light the needed 
changes that are there for our government budget processes, the way we 
go about building this budget, and the way we handle the taxpayers' 
money.
  Another of our 108th freshmen who worked making waste, fraud, and 
abuse our class project as we developed to the wasteful Washington 
spending and the Washington waste watchers and started shining some 
light on earmarks and the need to change that practice on wasteful 
spending, on increased taxation, on programs that may be have outlived 
their usefulness, and that is the chairman of our Republican Study 
Committee, Jeb Hensarling of Texas.
  And as I mentioned, we are all Members of the Republican Study 
Committee, and I want to yield to our chairman, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Hensarling) for his comments and remarks on the budget 
process and welcome him to this session of budget school.

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for yielding, 
and I certainly thank her for her leadership and ingenuity in putting 
together this budget school for the American people. It is their money. 
Too often people come to this floor and they think it's their money. 
It's not. It's the people's money, and they need to know what the U.S. 
House is doing about it.
  The gentlewoman had so many great speakers from our Conservative 
Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, and I think I just want to sum 
up really what is probably a tale of two budgets: the Republican budget 
and the Democrat budget. And, unfortunately, for the American people, 
it was the Democrat budget that was passed into law.
  Number one, the Democrat budget included the single highest tax 
increase in American history on American families at a time when we 
know the economy is struggling, American families are struggling. I 
have two small children. I know what's happened to the price of milk. I 
know what's happened to the cost of a loaf of bread and to all the 
various and sundry cereals that they see advertised on Saturday morning 
that my wife and I are compelled to buy. Groceries have gone up. 
Gasoline has gone up. Ever since the Democrats took control of the 
economic policy of America 15 months ago, all we have seen is that 
American families have to struggle.
  But what are the Democrats doing on top of this as American families 
are struggling? They are imposing a tax increase of almost $3,000 per 
American family over the course of the next 3 years. I mean, Mr. 
Speaker, this is just simply unconscionable. In my district in East 
Texas, the average family will see their taxes increase $2,734. Small 
businesses, as we struggle to make sure that we keep our jobs, that we 
expand our jobs, small businesses, their taxes are going to go up by as 
much as 13 percent. Taxes on capital gains will go up 33 percent; 
dividends, 164 percent. Mr. Speaker, you can't have capitalism without 
capital. You can't have the job engine if you take that away. And so at 
a time when people are concerned about their paychecks, the Democrats 
are going to take even a bigger bite out of their paychecks and the 
people who create those paychecks in the first place: the small 
business. I mean, Mr. Speaker, this is just unconscionable.
  The death tax is going to go from zero percent up to 55 percent. 
People work their whole life to put together a farm, a ranch, a small 
business; and all of a sudden Uncle Sam can come in and take over half 
of it, and there's just not enough left to go around. The child tax 
credit is going to be cut in half. The lowest tax bracket is going to 
be increased by 50 percent. The marriage penalty will return. This is 
the Democrat plan for economic growth? This is the Democrat plan to 
help struggling American families?
  A tale of two budgets. The Republican budget has no tax increase, Mr. 
Speaker. I repeat, no tax increase.
  Another incredibly distinguishing aspect of the tale of two budgets 
is that the Republican budget says enough is enough on these earmarks. 
No more bridges to nowhere. It's your money. So the Republican budget 
included an earmark moratorium. They said you know what? The system's 
broken. The system's wasteful. We're going to stop it. We are going to 
ensure that there's a select committee to see if there's a better way 
to spend the people's money. And, instead, the Democrat budget rejects 
that. And, instead, what do they have? They have almost $15 billion for 
congressional earmarks that all too often represent the victory of

[[Page 4839]]

seniority over merit, special interest over the general interest, and 
secrecy over transparency.
  In the Democrat budget, in the last budget, they financed $2 million 
so that one of their committee chairmen could build a museum to 
himself; $100,000 is sent to the Los Angeles Fashion District for 
landscaping at the same time they are increasing taxes on American 
families. They earmark $300,000 to train people to work on Hollywood 
movie sets while they're taxing hardworking American families. And the 
list goes on and on. They are the party of congressional earmarks. 
Business as usual.
  Some say it's not a whole lot of money. Well, Mr. Speaker, I hope I'm 
never in Congress so long that I conclude that $16 billion of the 
people's money is not a lot of money. It's a lot of money to the people 
in the Fifth Congressional District of Texas. And at the time when they 
are trying to keep a roof over their head, send their kids to college, 
pay for a gallon of gasoline, pay for a gallon of milk, to sit there 
and be building museums to sitting Members of Congress, to be sending 
money to the L.A. Fashion District is simply unconscionable.
  So, Mr. Speaker, again, when you look at two budgets, it's not just 
about numbers; it's about visions. At a time when we need more jobs and 
more growth and we need to secure the family paycheck, all the 
Democrats offer are more earmarks, and they offer tax increases on the 
American family as much as $3,000 per year.
  The Republican budget has no tax increase. It will help the family 
paycheck. It will help create small businesses. It has spending control 
and will lead to a brighter future for our children and future 
generations and provide them with greater freedom and greater 
opportunity. That is the tale of two budgets and how the American 
people's money is spent.
  So I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for this wonderful program 
on the budget. I thank her for her leadership within the Republican 
Study Committee, the Conservative Caucus in Congress.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Texas for the leadership 
that he provides every day on these issues.
  And at this point, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Bartlett), who has such a wonderful understanding of the 
budget.
  And as I mentioned earlier, we have our Constitution and our 
Declaration of Independence, a little tiny document. Then we've talked 
about the appendix of the budget, this big volume right here. And what 
you're going to find there with some of the line items, as our 
colleague from Georgia was talking about, is the ag program. That's 
where you find that information. Then there is analytical and 
historical data that we look at and what we actually find with our 
trust fund and with our debt.
  And to provide some insight into this, I yield to the gentleman from 
Maryland for his insight into the budget and the budget structure.
  Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I thought it might be instructive for the last couple of 
minutes of this hour to kind of put what we've been talking about in 
perspective.
  When you say ``budget, ``you have to know which budget we're talking 
about because we have two budgets in Washington. We have the one we 
talk about publicly, and then we have the official budget that we have 
to deal with, and they're different. You will understand in a couple of 
moments why they're different.
  When we generally talk about public, you'll hear what we call the 
unified budget. Now, the unified budget is all the money that comes 
into Washington and all the money that we spend. But about 10 percent 
of the money that comes into Washington shouldn't be Washington's money 
to spend because it's moneys that they've taken from you, like Social 
Security, Medicare, railroad retirement, and about 50 others, 
presumably to be put in trust for you. But they do not put those moneys 
in trust for you. What they do with them in Washington is immediately 
convert them to a nonnegotiable U.S. security and spend them.
  When we talk about debt, there's the national debt and the public 
debt, and I will bet you, Mr. Speaker, that not one person in fifty out 
there knows the difference between the national debt and the public 
debt.
  Our time's going to run out in just a couple of minutes, and I would 
like to come back to the floor to talk again. But there never was a 
moment in time during those years during the Clinton presidency when we 
said we were paying down the debt that, in fact, the national debt went 
down. Because what we were doing with the lockbox money, which was 
surplus money from Social Security and Medicare, we were taking that 
money and paying down the public debt. The public debt did go down, but 
for every dollar the public debt went down, the trust fund debt went up 
another dollar. So there was no change in the total debt, or the 
national debt. But there were some trust fund moneys that were not 
lockbox moneys. In fact, only two of them were lockbox, Social Security 
and Medicare; so we happily took that additional money and spent that, 
and so the national debt did go up. As a matter of fact, there was not 
a moment in time during those years when we said we had a budget 
surplus when, in fact, the national debt went down.
  There's a lot of duplicity in Washington. It probably shouldn't 
surprise you to learn that you shouldn't believe everything that comes 
out of Washington. I have the numbers here for that debt, and a half 
hour ago when I came to the floor, the public debt was over $5.3 
trillion. They call this the intergovernmental holdings debt, which was 
just a little over $4 trillion. I have $4 trillion here, $5 trillion 
here, and the total national debt was $9.446 trillion.
  I would very much appreciate coming back to the floor at another time 
to expand on this because I think it's very instructive for people to 
know, as your budget school says up there, who have the right to know 
how Washington spends your money.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think individuals 
can see how instructive and how exciting our next session will be 
because we're going to talk a little bit about this budget, and I thank 
the gentleman for his insight.

                          ____________________