[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6237-6244]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   BUDGET SCHOOL: THE RIGHT TO KNOW HOW WASHINGTON SPENDS YOUR MONEY

  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 that our majority has set 
up this Special Order hour and those of us in the minority have the 
opportunity to come to claim this time and to talk about issues that 
are of tremendous importance to us.
  Over the past few weeks, some of my colleagues and I have come to the 
floor on a weekly basis, and we have talked about the Federal budget 
and what you find in the Federal budget. And, Mr. Speaker, we think 
that this is a very important thing to do because the budget that the 
majority has brought to us this year is a rather large budget and it 
contains the single largest tax increase in history.
  So we have spent some time talking with our colleagues and with our 
constituents about what you actually find in this document. Now, we 
have called this ``Budget School: The Right to Know How Washington 
Spends Your Money.'' And, of course, as each week we have talked about 
this, you can go to the whitehouse.gov Web site and go to OMB and pull 
down a copy of that budget. Then you can get the Republican response 
from budget.house.gov/republicans and see what we would do, how we 
would go about reducing the taxes that you pay and making certain that 
you, the taxpayer, are keeping more money in your budget.
  Now, if you want to watch some of the sessions that we have had on 
Budget School, you can go to house.gov/blackburn, and there are some 
Budget School resources there. One of the resources that we have used 
is the Basics of the Budget Process briefing paper. You can go to the 
Budget Committee Web site, budget.house.gov/republicans, and be able to 
get a little bit of information about how we actually go through this, 
how you look at the different functions of the budget, where you find 
those, looking at the size of the budget, being able to follow it 
through, looking at the timeline of the budget and how it goes through 
the process of the President's presenting his budget, then its going to 
the committee, how the committee works through the process, brings it 
to the floor, and then this summer as we start through appropriations 
and through the earmarking process. And we're going to be back to talk 
about that part of the budget, the earmarks, as we get into the summer.
  Tonight as we talk about process and what has actually happened, I 
want to welcome to the floor and to this session of Budget School the 
ranking

[[Page 6238]]

member, and the ranking member of the Budget Committee is our number 
one Republican on the Budget Committee, and this is the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), who is known for being one of the top fiscal 
conservatives in the U.S. Congress. And I am delighted that he has 
joined us for Budget School. He is a leader in the Republican Study 
Committee and a leader on the Budget Committee.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. And I 
want to just thank you for all the leadership you've shown not only on 
this issue but that you've shown throughout your career. You fought the 
income tax in Tennessee. You're here fighting for lower taxes here in 
the U.S. Capital, and I want to thank you for all the leadership you 
have shown. And it's a pleasure for me to join you with this.
  I thought, given the comments recently by our majority leader about 
this year's budget, it would be fitting to go through the budget that 
we're talking about.
  The majority leader just said, in one of the publications printed 
here, that we don't need a budget conference report. Now, that's 
happened in the past. Under Republican leadership, when the Republicans 
ran the majority, there were a few times when the Republicans were 
unable to pass a budget. And you know what happens? No priorities are 
set. What happens when a budget is not passed, when a budget is not 
agreed to between the House and the Senate, is that only spending 
occurs or tax increases. And so there's no chance of fiscal discipline. 
There's no chance of putting us on a path to balancing the budget, to 
making sure we get rid of the deficit and pay down the debt. There's 
just spending. And 1 year into the majority, 1 year into the majority, 
they're now showing us that just 1 year in the majority they can't pass 
a budget.

                              {time}  1930

  They don't have a plan to get us to a balanced budget. They don't 
have a map for the fiscal future of our country. But they can come to 
the floor with spending bills. They can come to the floor to spend more 
money. And in fact, they do have a plan. And this budget is not 
necessary to raise taxes.
  So I would like to talk about exactly what it is that they have been 
proposing, what it is our partners on the other side of the aisle have 
proposed. And if you take a look at what they proposed this year, it is 
the largest tax increase in American history. The biggest tax increase 
before this was back in 1993. That was a $241 billion tax increase.
  This tax increase that they're proposing now is a $683 billion tax 
increase. Now that is a big number. People probably want to know what 
does that number mean? It sounds big. It is going to do a lot.
  Well, here is exactly what they mean when they are talking about a 
$683 billion tax increase. They want ordinary income taxes to go up 
across the board. So for people who got an income tax rate cut, that is 
every income taxpayer in 2003, they are going to go up across the 
board. We are now going to make small businesses who file their taxes 
as ordinary income taxpayers at about a 40 percent tax rate.
  What is interesting is the people in the top tax bracket. We hear a 
lot of people running for President saying, we want the rich people to 
pay taxes. Guess what? Seventy-five percent of those who file in the 
top tax bracket are small businesses. They are not Warren Buffett and 
Bill Gates. They are small businesses who pay their taxes as 
individuals because that's the way small business taxation occurs in 
America.
  What's more to the point is the fact that 70 percent of our jobs in 
America come from small businesses. So they're saying, not only do we 
propose to raise income taxes across the board for all income 
taxpayers, also on the engine of economic growth and job creation in 
America is small businesses. They're also saying, we want to raise 
taxes on capital gains and dividends. Those are the taxes that affect 
the value of our 401(k) plans, our IRAs and our pensions.
  They also want to bring the death tax back into full force so that 
you pay taxes not once, not twice, not three times while you are 
living, but after you die as well. They also want to bring the marriage 
penalty back. We actually repealed the marriage penalty in 2003. They 
are proposing that it comes back in so they can spend that money on 
more government spending programs here in Washington. That hits 
taxpayers an average of $1,400 per married couple.
  They are also proposing to cut the child tax credit in half from 
$1,000 down to $500. That means a tax increase of $500 per child. And 
they are also proposing to get rid of the lower income tax bracket, 
which is a 10 percent bracket, to a 15 percent bracket.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman would yield, I would like to go back 
to this poster for just one moment.
  So what I am hearing you say is you all worked through this process 
in Budget Committee. And as the budget document came to you from the 
President, and then you worked it through committee, this is the 
resolution that the Democrat-led majority came to in that committee, 
that they didn't want to have a budget that stressed priorities. They 
didn't want to have a budget that was going to lessen the burden on the 
taxpayer. What they wanted to do was have a budget that was just going 
to keep the focus on spending and taking more out of the taxpayers' 
pocket.
  And in order to get to their number, their desired number, the $683 
billion tax increase that's going to take place over the next 5 years, 
what they are willing to do is to have those income tax rates go back 
up, the marginal rates go to 39.6 percent, which will affect so many of 
our small businesses.
  And as you so rightly stated, 70 percent of all the jobs in the 
country come out of the small business sector. Capital gains, which are 
very important to our senior citizens, those that are living on 
retirement income, who have worked hard, who have built a nest egg, who 
have saved, we are going to see that go up to 20 percent. The death tax 
is one of those taxes that I think is so egregious because you acquire 
something, you pay tax. You earn the income and you pay tax. You make 
an acquisition and you pay tax. You maintain it and you are paying tax. 
Then if you have a capital gain, you pay tax. If you put that aside so 
that you're leaving something for your family, the government reaches 
in, the IRS reaches in one more time after you're gone and takes it 
again. And that is going to go to 55 percent.
  For staying married, you are going to end up paying $1,400. You will 
go from zero back up to $1,400. Your child tax credit, in the meantime, 
is going to be cut in half. And then that 10 percent bracket, that 
lowest bracket for those that are working and need to have a break, the 
government needs to give them a break, they are going to raise that 
back up to 15 percent. And that is the resolution that the majority 
chose to move out of the Budget Committee.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. That's right. And what the majority is 
basically proposing is they are going to deem this budget resolution. 
They are going to simply say that this is the resolution that we deem 
to be the case, and this is how we are going to manage the fiscal 
affairs of this Congress in this session. So we're planning on a big 
tax increase, and we're expecting it to happen because this is our 
plan, and now we're going to start spending the money.
  And I want to be fair to my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle. They did bring a budget to the floor that does balance the 
budget. It does reach a balanced budget by 2012. The way and the method 
that it reaches a balanced budget by 2012 is this $683 billion tax 
increase. They only increased spending by $280 billion. But they 
increased taxes by $683 billion. So by raising taxes even more than all 
their spending increases, they are actually hitting a balanced budget.
  But take a look at who gets affected by this. I mentioned the actual 
tax policy that they're proposing with their big tax increase to fund 
some of their spending increases and to actually hit

[[Page 6239]]

a balanced budget. But let me just say who is going to actually be 
affected in America by this. One hundred sixty million taxpayers will 
see an average increase of more than $1,800 per year, $3,000 per 
taxpayer in Wisconsin, more than 6 million low-income individuals and 
couples who currently pay no income taxes will no longer be exempt. A 
family of four earning $50,000 will see their taxes increase by $2,100. 
Approximately 48 million married couples will face this average tax 
increase of $3,000 per year. Low-income families with one or two 
children will no longer be eligible for the refundable tax credit. 
Roughly 12 million single women with children will see their taxes 
increase by $1,100 per year. About 18 million seniors will be subjected 
to tax increases of more than $2,100 per year. And the tax bill for an 
estimated 27 million small business owners will increase by more than 
$4,000 each. These are real people, real Americans, really hardworking 
people struggling to make ends meet.
  And these are real tax increases at a time when people are having a 
hard time just to make ends meet right now because of all these high 
prices, you see the price of food going up, groceries, gasoline, health 
care premiums, across the board.
  I just did a telephone townhall meeting the other night. So many 
constituents said, Congressman, my paycheck is not stretching as far. 
People's paychecks aren't going as far as they used to go. Inflation is 
before us. The consumer price index just reached a 4.3 percent 
increase. And so what we see happening right now is with all these 
price increases in gas, groceries and health care, people's paychecks 
are not going as far as they used to go. It is eroding the standard of 
living of people.
  We are possibly going into a recession. And the last thing we ought 
to be doing right now is raising all these taxes on all these 
hardworking Americans. We shouldn't be raising taxes on seniors. We 
shouldn't be raising taxes on people who get married. We shouldn't be 
raising taxes on parents with children. We shouldn't be raising taxes 
on small businesses.
  What we should be doing in Washington is controlling our spending 
appetite. And that's the problem. That's the problem with this budget 
that has passed the House. That's the problem with the budget that the 
other side of the aisle is planning. They don't want to control 
spending. They don't want to cut spending or even control it. They want 
to increase spending.
  In order to hit their commitment of a balanced budget, they will 
increase taxes even more than that. My fear is that this will take this 
possible recession we are going into and make it even worse, because 
people are having a hard time making their paychecks stretch as it is 
today.
  Take a look at what Republicans believe and at the budget we passed. 
This is just a simple graph. The red line is the line of revenues that 
the Democrats chose to pick on their way to a balanced budget. The 
green line is the path that we brought with our budget, the 
Republicans. What does that line do? It says that we are not going to 
raise taxes. We are not going to raise taxes on income, on families, on 
people with children, on seniors or on small businesses. And we're 
going to repeal this alternative minimum tax. And we're going to 
balance the budget faster and better by cutting and controlling 
spending. Because if you take a look at the real problem in our fiscal 
situation, it's really spending that drives our problems.
  And if I could just mention this one thing before I yield back to the 
gentlelady because I think we ought to have a conversation here, take a 
look at where we are today. And this chart is fairly confusing, but if 
you take a look at it, the blue line is the line that we want to be on, 
which is not raising taxes. The red line is the line that the Democrats 
are trying to propose, which is all these tax increases, the $683 
billion we just articulated. The green is the future trajectory of 
spending.
  So even if you take all these Democrat tax increases, that will only 
give you a temporary balanced budget. Because if you don't address 
spending in Washington, if you don't address our entitlement programs, 
the spending path that we are on will swamp any level of taxes. We're 
going to go into permanent deficits and massive debt.
  So this notion that we can have a lasting balanced budget by just 
raising taxes is wrong. This notion that we should just raise taxes and 
increase spending is dangerous. And the reason that notion is dangerous 
is because spending is already out of control. And it is on a path that 
is really dangerous.
  If I could just briefly mention this, the budget resolution that the 
Democrats brought to the floor on just two programs increases the debt 
by $14 trillion on just two programs. By saying we are not interested 
in controlling spending, by saying we are not interested in controlling 
and reforming government or fixing our entitlement programs, just the 
debt to Social Security and Medicare goes up by $14 trillion under the 
Democrat's budget. That's just two programs.
  Every year we don't do anything to fix, save and make solvent Social 
Security and Medicare, we go another $2 trillion in debt just in those 
two programs. Our friends on the other side of the aisle are saying, 
instead of taking care of this $39 trillion debt we have with these two 
programs, we're going to raise it to $53 trillion. And that's wrong.
  We believe that the way to fix our fiscal problems is to let 
Americans keep more money in their paychecks. It's to protect their 
paychecks, stop the pork barrel spending, control spending, reform 
government and reform our entitlement programs. Because we owe it to 
the next generation to leave them better off than we were left off. 
That's what my mom and dad told me growing up, that the whole point of 
America, the legacy of this country, is that you leave the next 
generation safer and more prosperous with a better chance at a better 
standard of living.
  But for the first time in the history of our country, we have a real 
serious chance of severing that legacy, of discontinuing that 
tradition. Because if we give our kids and our grandkids the kind of 
debt that they are right now slated to get, and if we say for the next 
5 years, as our friends on the other side of the aisle are now saying, 
we're not going to do anything to help that, we're not going to do 
anything to fix that, we are, in fact, going to add to the problem. We 
are going to raise taxes, increase spending and make it even worse for 
our children and grandchildren. We are going to sever that legacy. And 
our kids and our grandkids will not have a higher standard of living. 
They will not have a better government. They will not have more freedom 
in their lives. And they will not have more money in their paychecks.
  And if you want to just bring this point finally home, this is the 
chart that the General Accountability Office has given us. This shows 
us that what is unique about our budget and our fiscal history is that 
for the last 40 years, our government has been remarkably same in size. 
The Federal Government has had to take 18.3 cents out of every dollar 
earned in America. That is 18.3 percent of gross domestic product. So 
18.3 cents on the dollar earned in America for the last 40 years is 
what Washington had to tax to pay for the Federal Government, to pay 
for everything, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, national defense, 
the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce.
  But what is happening is the baby boom generation is retiring. And 
the first baby boomer retired just a few months ago. She was a retired 
school teacher in Maryland who started collecting her Social Security 
benefits. And behind her are 77 million more retirees. And so the 
problem for our country is with what we call a pay-as-you-go system, 
where current workers pay their current taxes to support current 
beneficiaries, that works out fine if you have an equal number of 
beneficiaries, retirees and workers. But we are doubling our retirees. 
We are going from 40 million retirees to actually 78 million retirees. 
But we are only increasing our workers in this country by 17 percent. 
So there is about 100 percent increase in the retirees in this

[[Page 6240]]

country in one generation, but only a 17 percent increase in taxpayers.
  So what does that do for our children? Well, I can tell you what it 
does for my children. My son, Sam, is 3 years old. My son, Charlie is 
4. And my daughter, Liza, is 6. And by the time my three kids are 
exactly my age, exactly my age, they will have to pay 40 cents on the 
dollar just to keep today's Federal Government going for them at that 
time.

                              {time}  1945

  That is exactly right. By the year 2040, today's Federal Government, 
which costs about 20 percent of GDP, 20 cents on the dollar, we are in 
deficit and raising about 18.8 percent, it is going to cost 40 percent. 
And that is if we do nothing.
  That is what it is all about. If we do nothing and we let government 
go on as it is, add no new programs, take none away, our government 
will double in size within one generation. So my children, instead of 
sending, like we are, about 18.3 cents on the dollar to Washington to 
pay the bills, will have to send 40 cents on the dollar to Washington 
to pay the bills, the bills we are giving them, the debt we are giving 
them.
  That is unsustainable. You can't win globalization. You can't compete 
with the likes of China and India. We are having a hard time doing that 
right now. You can't compete with the likes of China and India and 
Europe and Japan when you are taking 40 cents out of every dollar just 
for Washington, before you get to local government, State government, 
gas, groceries, healthcare. This is the future we are consigning our 
children and grandchildren to. And the budget that is before us today, 
the budget that the Democrats passed on the floor just this last 
moment, says, you know what? Here is our answer. Do more spending, more 
taxes. Make the problem worse. Increase the debt to two programs by 
just $14 trillion. It is irresponsible. It is wrong. It is going to 
sever this legacy to our children and grandchildren.
  We need to leave them with a better country, a safer country, a more 
prosperous country, one where they can compete and thrive and survive. 
I don't want to just have my children survive globalization. I want 
America to win globalization, to shape globalization, to make sure that 
our kids can have careers that they like, that they love, that they 
enjoy, so they have a higher standard of living.
  But in fact that is not what is going to happen if we don't get our 
fiscal house in order right now. If we sign on to these tax increases 
and these spending increases, what we will do in the short run is we 
will make the recession worse. We will take more money out of the 
paychecks of working Americans at a time when they are having a hard 
time staying afloat right now. We will put more debt on to the backs of 
our children by building up all the spending in the baseline around 
here.
  We need to say no to spending sometimes around here. There is one 
little easy piece of spending that I think we could say no to, and that 
is earmarks. Earmarks are what we call pork-barrel spending. Our 
budget, the Republican budget, not only balanced the budget by 
controlling spending and kept taxes low, but our budget said for one 
year, let's just have Congress say no earmarks for a year. No more pork 
for one year. A pork-free diet in Congress for just one year.
  Do you know what we can accomplish in our budget by saying no 
earmarks for one year and keep banking that money, carrying out those 
savings? We can make the per-child tax credit permanent, make it stay 
at $1,000. We can permanently repeal the marriage tax penalty and 
prevent that $1,400 average tax increase on married couples from 
happening, by just saying no pork for one year and saving that money. 
That is what our budget does.
  So the question on just the earmarks is, is it pork for Members of 
Congress, or is it paychecks for working Americans? We chose paychecks. 
Our friends on the other side of the aisle are choosing pork. That is 
wrong. So when you take a look at the short run, more pork, less money 
for people's paychecks. Higher taxes, less economic growth, more job 
loss, higher taxes on small businesses, on seniors, on families, on 
married people, on children, on people with children.
  What you are seeing is they are going to increase the debt. They are 
going to increase the already unsustainable path that we are on and 
this unsustainable debt we have today. This is why we take this 
seriously. This is why we come to the well of the House to say we need 
to get our fiscal house in order, and the other side is recklessly 
spending with abandon.
  Now, I want to say this as a Republican: Our party did not do a good 
job on this either as well in many instances. There are ways in which 
we should have done better. And that is why it is important for those 
of us who see what is going wrong to fix it. That is why it is 
important for us to have proposals to fix these things.
  So nobody is perfect in Washington. Republicans did too much 
spending, but Republicans look like fiscal scrooges compared to the 
Democrats today. They look like they are the austerity Congress 
compared to the Democrat Congress today, because the Democrat Congress 
today is putting no limits on anything. They are saying bring a budget 
to the floor and just bring up more spending, bring up the taxes, and 
let's just let our children and grandchildren pay the bill. That is 
wrong.
  So I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for her courageous 
leadership on this. It is not easy to say no to all of the people that 
come looking for spending. Most people who come to visit their 
Congressmen and their Congresswomen say we need more money for this, we 
need more money for that. Every time you say yes to that, it is more 
money out of the paychecks of working men and women in America. This 
Congress chose less money for paychecks, more money for Washington.
  I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for being strong and 
being a leader on this and for fighting those kinds of instincts, and 
being a voice in the wilderness for fiscal discipline. I appreciate 
that.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman for his leadership at the 
Budget Committee and for being there in the fight on this, to make 
certain that we bring forward these issues, to point out that we are 
focused not on immediate gratification when it comes to this, not on 
saying yes to pork-barrel projects. We are focused on the long-term, 
what is the legacy going to be.
  As you pointed out in your charts, by the time we get to 2030, it is 
going to take every dollar of our existing tax base to cover Social 
Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That is it. I mean, it will just be 
the entitlements that get covered.
  And for our children and grandchildren, if you were to take a dollar 
and extract 40 cents out of that, and there again, that is just the 
Federal Government portion, it is not your State, it is not your local 
communities, it is not your county, it is just the Federal Government. 
They have that right of first refusal on your paycheck. And now when 
you earn a dollar, before they give you any of it, then by the time we 
get to 2040, they are taking 40 cents out of that dollar and then 
giving you 60 cents for yourself, for your family, for your State, your 
county and your community.
  That is a frightening, frightening thought for this next generation. 
That is not the legacy that we want to leave them. We should be about 
securing the blessings of this great Nation for our children and our 
grandchildren and future generations. It is truly indeed regrettable 
and even shameful that the focus would be only on the here and now and 
not on what is to come for generations to come.
  I want to yield now to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), who is 
a CPA. When we talk about fiscal responsibility, many times this is 
someone that we turn to and say, tell us what you know and give us your 
best insights. For that wisdom, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. CONAWAY. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for 
yielding me time. I always enjoy hearing the young whippersnapper from 
Wisconsin, who has been here for a long

[[Page 6241]]

time, his thoughts, the ranking member of the Budget Committee and also 
serves on Ways and Means.
  A couple of points that I would like to add on or pile on with what 
my good colleague from Wisconsin talked about. You will hear in these 
chambers over the next several weeks, months and years that the 
Democrats do not intend to raise taxes on everybody, as the charts have 
shown is going to happen if we do nothing. Their intentions are good. 
They don't intend to raise the lowest tax rate from 10 percent to 15 
percent, or a 50 percent increase in tax rates. They don't intend to do 
that.
  But by these budget proposals they brought in in the last 2 years, 
they commit all of the money that those increased taxes raise. So in 
order for them to make good on their promise of not raising, as 
example, the 10 percent rate to 15 percent, they have got to raise 
taxes somewhere else in the system to make up for those revenues.
  So your chart says we have a right to know how Washington spends its 
money. We also have a right to know how Washington raises its money as 
well, and that is one of the categories that this one falls into.
  I have seven grandkids, about the same age as Paul's young children, 
and when I look at what we are doing in this Federal Government, I try 
to translate that into what impact it has on their lives, on their 
opportunities when they are in our positions.
  We have built a world around the concept that let's take care of 
today's problems with tomorrow or the next day's money. As we look at 
the problems that face us, and they are daunting, no doubt about it, if 
they are worthy of being fixed, then they are worthy of taking our 
money to fix those problems and not taking money away from our kids and 
our grandchildren to do that fix.
  When folks come to Washington from Texas to ask me what can we do, 
how can we help you do your job better, every single time I go through 
this speech about $53 trillion in unfunded promises that we made to 
each other, a process that we have to begin the renegotiation of those 
promises, and that they as community leaders have to begin self-
assessing whether or not what they are asking Washington to do has a 
constitutional link to the Federal Government.
  In other words, if they want money for a particular project in San 
Angelo, Texas, or Midland, Texas, is it right to take tax dollars away 
from somebody in El Paso to pay for that project, or is that a project 
that ought to be handled by the local folks? Because as Paul said, 
every time you ask the Federal Government for help in something, that 
means spending goes up, and we have a very terrible time of saying no.
  So if we can get our community leaders, our mayors and county judges 
and others to do a better job of analyzing what they are asking us for 
so that it really does have a constitutional Federal nexus to what they 
are trying to get done, then that is a step in the right direction to 
make this happen.
  I want to talk a little bit about the budget process, because that is 
really where the spending piece of this wreck occurs. I serve on the 
Budget Committee with Mr. Ryan, and that top line number is incredibly 
important, because whatever it is set at, whether it is on a vote 
between the two Houses or a vote in the House or then some sort of 
gentleman's agreement with the Senate, that amount of money is going to 
get spent, come hell or high water.
  There is no way to stop it, because as the appropriations bills come 
to this floor, they have already allocated that top line number among 
each of the subcommittees. And if we on the floor are able to work to 
win an amendment to the appropriations bill that strips spending out in 
some fashion--now, we never win those, but we come down here and try 
every time--should lightning strike and we actually strip a program out 
of an appropriations bill, that money does not get saved. That money 
simply goes back to the committee to spend on something else. Our 
budgetary processes don't allow us to come down here and effectively 
drop that top line number.
  So I have a bill in the hopper that says if we are successful in 
reducing the spending in a particular appropriations bill, that that 
money goes to offset the deficit, or that money does not get spent, 
which is how most folks in West Texas thought our system would work up 
here. If we won a fight on the floor on a vote of more than half the 
Members that the Appropriations Committee got it wrong and that they 
sent a priority that that money should not have gotten spent on, that 
is money we could save in the budget and not get spent. So working to 
try to correct that is awfully difficult.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman would yield, the bill that he just 
referenced I think is so important, because what it does is to redirect 
the funds as the budget works its way through the process. You 
mentioned the top line number, and that is the number that gets set in 
the Budget Committee, and then as we move through this process with the 
appropriations, and we are going to be back on this floor during that 
season talking about earmarks, but those are hard-fought battles.
  But let's say that we eliminate a program and that program saves $50 
million, eliminates $50 million in spending. Then that money is not 
used as a savings. It is not realized as a savings for the taxpayer. It 
goes back to the committee and the committee can choose to spend it 
another way. And your legislation, and they can go to your website and 
get more information on that legislation, would require that the 
Federal Government use that money to lower the deficit.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you. That is exactly right. It is the Savings in 
Appropriations bill. What it says is the Appropriations Committee, in 
all of the hard and worthy work they do, they get one bite at the apple 
of setting priorities. We give them the top line number. They get a 
bite at it. And if they bring that bite to the floor and more than half 
of us disagree with what they did, then that money should be saved to 
the taxpayer, go against the deficit or increase a surplus, should we 
ever get into it. That is not the way the mechanics of our system work 
today.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I appreciate that explanation from the gentleman from 
Texas, and I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin for a comment.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I have explained this to constituents at home 
in Wisconsin and they are just dumbfounded. They think that if you come 
to the floor and bring an amendment to eliminate wasteful spending, 
let's just say we did an amendment to get rid of the $50 million Rain 
Forest Museum that is being built in Iowa City, Iowa. You could come to 
the floor and say, you know what? We probably shouldn't be spending our 
taxpayer dollars on this $50 million Rain Forest Museum, this 
rainforest in a bubble in Iowa. Let's not do that. We could pass that 
amendment and that $50 million couldn't go to that Rain Forest Museum. 
But by the way the rulings of our Congress work today, that $50 million 
won't be saved. It will be spent somewhere else in the government.

                              {time}  2000

  Most people think, if you actually go and eliminate wasteful 
spending, you actually save the money, but that's not the system. It 
gets spent somewhere else by the rules, somewhere else in the Federal 
Government.
  Mr. CONAWAY. If the gentleman would yield.
  If they think that more than half of us vote to say that's a bad 
priority set, I mean, that's just a bad piece of deal, that the 
majority would win in that circumstance. But under our rules, and they 
have been in place for a long, long time, it goes back to the 
Appropriations Committee. They get a second bite at the apple in 
setting priorities, it's just not the way most folks run their project.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. If the gentleman would yield, because we can 
pass amendments eliminating programs or cutting back wasteful spending. 
By the practice and the rules of this Congress, that money just gets 
spent somewhere else.
  I simply want to applaud the gentleman, I want to applaud him for 
coming up with a creative, innovative, idea

[[Page 6242]]

to get these rules back to the world of common sense. Then we could 
actually go after wasteful spending, we actually save the money, and 
give it back to the taxpayer by lowering our deficit, than just finding 
other places to spend it, which is what happens today. I just want to 
thank him for taking on this very important fight.
  Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman. I want to make one more point, 
and I will yield back and visit with the gentlelady from Tennessee, and 
that a third of the budget that we work on every year is annual 
discretionary spending. In other words, it's money that we should be 
deciding, can we afford this this year or can't we, a legitimate 
setting of priorities.
  The other two-thirds of the $3.1 trillion that we spend is going to 
happen on autopilot. It will happen whether we do anything or not. We 
have to act aggressively and make hard decisions to go after that two-
thirds.
  This year's budget proposal took a pass on the hard work of 
addressing the two-thirds of the budget that we referred to as 
entitlements or mandatory spending or automatic spending--I won't 
offend some of my colleagues by using the word ``entitlement''--but it 
takes courage in this body to go after those spending programs.
  They are the ones that are on the charts, are driving us to 
bankruptcy under our current system of government if we don't have 
courage to begin to say we have to renegotiate those promises. We have 
made promises that we just can't pay for.
  But a third of the budget that we can do something about, we ought to 
have rules on this floor that allow the majority's will to be reflected 
in whether that money gets spent. I yield back.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman.
  I want to welcome another member of the Budget Committee to our 
discussion this evening. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-
Balart) was a freshman with me in 2002, and we all worked together 
starting the Washington Waste Watchers. Waste, fraud and abuse, 
fighting waste, fraud, and abuse was our freshman class project.
  We certainly have stayed at the forefront. The gentleman from Florida 
has stayed at the forefront of fighting wasteful spending and then 
seeking ways to reduce that, seeking ways to approach the budget 
process, changes, and also looking for ways to reduce the burden of 
taxation.
  I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I want to thank the gentlewoman 
from Tennessee for your steadfast leadership on this issue, your 
leadership is really common sense to a system, a city that is, frankly, 
broken. Washington is broken.
  You know, there are so many, many examples that we can show that 
Washington is, frankly, broken. It's stuck in this sort of like a 
perverse dance, frankly, of taking one step forward to help the 
taxpayer and 3 or 4 steps backwards in hurting the taxpayer.
  I would like to give you an example, just one of those examples that 
when the American people see what is going on here, of course, they say 
Washington is broken. Of course, they say that there is no common sense 
in Washington.
  Look, what are the good moments? One of the fine moments is when the 
economy starts slowing down, this Congress, on a bipartisan level, got 
together, and in a bipartisan level made the determination that the way 
to get the economy moving again was how, was how? It was to lower 
taxes.
  That debate took place, and it was very clear, on a bipartisan level, 
Congress decided, House and the other party, the other body, both 
parties to lower taxes in order to incentivize the economy. It was 
actually a good moment for this Congress.
  But then what happened just days after that? Just days after this 
Congress lowers taxes on the American people by $107 billion, because 
we understand that lowering taxes helps the economy, helps the American 
people, small businesses and families. Just days after that, the 
majority party comes to this floor with a budget that raises taxes, 
increases taxes by $683 billion over 5 years.
  You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a mathematician to 
understand if everybody agrees, both parties, that lowering taxes by 
$103 billion is something that would help the economy, and that's what 
we did, doesn't it seem logical that days later coming back and passing 
a budget that increases taxes, not to the level of that, making up for 
that $103 billion, no, no, no, increases it by $683 billion over 5 
years.
  Of course people look at Washington and say what are you guys 
thinking? Don't tell me that you are helping the economy by lowering 
taxes by $100 billion and then, days later, think that we are going to 
be surprised, we are not going to understand that you then propose 
raising almost $700 billion on the same taxpayer, that you are lowering 
taxes because it helps the economy.
  If there is an agreement, a bipartisan agreement, that lowering taxes 
by $100 billion helps the economy, which there is, is it that hard to 
understand that the flip side of that is that if you raise taxes by 
$700 billion it hurts the economy? Yet that's what this Congress did 
over the objections of those of us that are speaking here, and many 
others, but that's what the majority party did.
  So, again, why is it that Congress has the lowest number, frankly, 
approval rating since probably these things have been counted? Because 
they must think we are nuts, because they must think we are totally, 
absolutely, insane and crazy and have absolutely no idea what we are 
doing.
  Again, I may not be the smartest guy in the whole world, but it 
doesn't take the smartest guy in the whole world, as you know, to 
understand that if there is a bipartisan consensus that lowering taxes 
in a year, $100 billion helps the economy. There should be a consensus 
that raising taxes by $700 billion for 5 years would do just the 
opposite. Oh, no, because our desire, the majority's desire to just tax 
and spend and tax and spend, just, frankly, goes above and beyond any 
common sense, any logic, any sense of reality.
  I just want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for your 
leadership, because you have not stopped fighting for the taxpayer, for 
the small family, for families, for small businesses, for farmers, for 
the people, real life, not D.C. D.C. is broken. Again, thank you for 
your common sense. Thank you for your fight for the taxpayer.
  I also need to add to that. One of the people that I frankly most 
admire in this process is Congressman Ryan of Wisconsin, who is the 
ranking member of the Budget Committee, who understands the budget 
better than, frankly, anybody else, and who has taught me so, so much. 
Mr. Conaway brings to this process something that is so greatly needed, 
which is common sense.
  I thank the three of you. Look again, yes, frankly the American 
people have reason to be skeptical, when they see that we lower taxes 
on one side because we say it's in a healthy economy, and then, days 
later, the majority raises taxes way above that and pretends that it's 
not going to have an effect, hoping that people will not learn the 
truth. But the problem is that that truth is out there, and people's 
pocketbooks are going to be hit really, really hard.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Yes, absolutely.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Does the gentleman remember when we had a 
markup where the budget was written in the Budget Committee, and we had 
36 amendments? Remember the different kinds of amendments we had, and 
the votes, we had votes on whether or not it's right to cut the child 
tax credit in half, whether it's right to bring back the marriage 
penalty, whether we should or should not raise income tax rates across 
the board for all income taxpayers. Vote after vote after vote, on all 
these taxes, and our friends on the other side of the aisle, the 
Democrats voted time over again to raise those taxes on individual tax 
rates.
  They voted specifically to cut the child tax credit in half. They 
voted specifically to bring back the marriage tax penalty. They voted 
specifically to

[[Page 6243]]

raise income tax rates across the board, to bring back death taxes, to 
raise capital gains and dividends taxes. They did this so they could 
pass a budget that increased spending.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Florida, who has the most passion 
and who so well articulates the problems we have in America today. I 
want to thank you for your knowledge, your passion, and your 
understanding. I also want to just ask you if you recall all those 
votes and all those differences that we have seen here in just this 
Congress in this last short year.
  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I thank the gentleman. If I may?
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Frankly, that was one of the 
saddest days that I have experienced in this process, because, you 
know, there is so much rhetoric that's thrown around here. We hear the 
rhetoric, that, oh, no, these are tax cuts on the wealthy.
  Then you and others came up with a specific amendment to say, no, no, 
let's just talk about the issue. Let's take rhetoric off the table for 
a second. Let's not be partisan. Let's just look at the issue. Let's 
see if there is something that we can agree on.
  Those amendments were brought to the committee. Those amendments 
were, as you just mentioned, the per child tax credit, and then we kept 
hearing, but those are tax cuts on the wealthy. I remember the argument 
and the discussion, again, not only the wealthy get married.
  Tax cuts, remember the 10 percent bracket.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Yes.
  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Individuals that are the working 
poor that now earn so little that they don't pay Federal income tax, 
and they should not, are now going to be required to start paying 
Federal income taxes. But they say those are tax cuts on the wealthy.
  It's not the wealthy. When you cut to the chase, you get the most 
smoke and mirrors, and we were able to bring these individual 
amendments to the committee. The sad part, the reason I say that was 
really sad, is because those amendments are defeated on a partisan 
vote, on a partisan vote, amendments to keep the taxes low.
  If you have children, amendments to make sure that people who are 
working poor, that have a hard time paying for gasoline and paying for 
groceries and don't pay Federal income tax, because they are so poor 
right now, still don't have to pay them. They voted against those 
amendments.
  There is a reason why people are skeptical and people don't believe 
what comes out of Washington. Frankly, they have a very good reason to 
have that attitude.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Some of those amendments were cosponsored in regular legislation by 
Democrats. Yet when it came to the Budget Committee they voted against 
them. In their own bills on the floor over here, they voted against 
them, just partisan, partisan politics. It helped to add to that 
cynical attitude that you are referring to.
  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I agree, and I will conclude.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. If the gentleman will yield, I think that there was 
also an amendment presented that day in those 36 amendments that would 
have allowed your State of Florida and your State of Texas and my State 
of Tennessee to continue to deduct the sales tax deductibility that 
some of us worked very hard in 2003 to have that deduction restored for 
our States, where we did not have a State income tax. We have a sales 
tax. That is an issue of tax fairness, and it was a party-line vote to 
take that deduction away.
  In my State of Tennessee, that is about a $1,600 deduction per 
family. That ends up being real money in the pockets of our families. 
This new $683 billion tax increase that the majority has brought 
forward and laid on the table here in this House and said we are for 
it, that is what they want, that is what they think should be the 
priority. That bill, their budget, will take another $2,668 per tax 
filer out of the pockets of my constituents and send it here.
  I yield back to the gentleman from Florida.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. This is just not that complicated. 
The question is: Is government here to help serve the people? Or are 
the people here on this planet and in this country to help fund 
government exclusively? And that is the battle. We hear that time and 
time again when we try to reduce taxes on working people, working 
families, they say you are going to hurt government if you don't allow 
us to increase taxes. Hurt government? Excuse me, since when is the 
role of the government just to milk people as much as it possibly can.
  Again, there is a reason why the rankings of this Congress are the 
lowest they have ever been. I guess some think nobody is watching; and, 
therefore, we can say we support tax cuts and even sometimes file 
legislation, and then vote against amendments on the budget to lower 
taxes, the per child tax credit, the death penalty and the marriage 
penalty so you don't have to pay more just because you are married. 
Even the death tax.
  Quoting the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney), as partisan as this 
process is, can we not at least agree that there should be no taxation 
without respiration? No, not in this process. In this process with the 
people in control now, they are going to milk the taxpayer and spend 
every penny, and when that is spent, they are going to look in the 
cushions of people's homes to see if there are loose quarters and take 
those as well because government knows best because there is no money 
we can't spent. And, frankly, the American people know better. They are 
wise.
  I thank all of you, particularly the gentlewoman from Tennessee for 
your leadership and bringing commonsense to this process.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I hope the people of Tennessee realize a big 
reason they don't have an income tax imposed upon them is because of 
Marsha Blackburn. You led that antitax fight in Tennessee to prevent a 
new income tax from being imposed on the people of Tennessee. And now 
in Congress you have led the fight up here to see that they can have 
the same kind of deductibility of their sales taxes as those of us who 
come from States that have income taxes have that deductibility.
  So I want to thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for being a champion 
of the Tennessee taxpayer. I am a Badger. I am a Wisconsin fan. I am a 
Packer fan. I am not a big Titan fan or a Volunteer fan, but I am a 
Marsha Blackburn fan because you fight for taxpayers. We need more 
people in Congress fighting for taxpayers, just like we have champions 
like the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Diaz-Balart, and Mr. Conaway from 
Texas. Texas has a lot of people who fight high taxes, but Mike Conaway 
is one of the guys leading here.
  I am glad we got together to set the record straight on the budget 
and on the fiscal path that we are on in this country, and set the 
record straight for what future lies before our children and 
grandchildren if we don't take our responsibilities here seriously and 
change our course.
  I want to thank the gentlelady for hosting this hour.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, and I yield to 
the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. CONAWAY. On policies we debate in this Chamber, we always have 
choices. And it seems as though recently with respect to spending, the 
choice is to spend more. With respect to taxes, the choice is to tax 
more. With energy, the choice is to raise energy costs. All of those 
things are not good for the American taxpayer. All of those things are 
not good for the health of this country. And in particular, the seven 
grandkids that I love the most, it is clearly not good for their 
financial health or well-being, and we clearly need to do something 
about it.

[[Page 6244]]

  I thank the gentlelady for letting me participate tonight.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. The gentleman from Texas talks about his seven 
grandchildren and the gentleman from Wisconsin talks about his three 
children. I have two adult children, and I am going to have a grandbaby 
in just a few days, and it is so disappointing when you see what that 
child is going to be responsible for when they come on the face of this 
Earth.
  This year alone, Washington is going to spend over $25,000 per 
household and that is going to be a heavy burden for every man, woman 
and child to bear.
  Just as a reminder, our budget school, the right to know how you 
spend your money, if you want to see how the Republicans would have 
approached this budget this year and not raised taxes, how the 
Republicans fought a $683 billion tax increase, $683 billion, this is 
where you go: Budget.house.gov/Republicans, and you can pull that 
response down. To get more information on our Republican Study 
Committee, budget and school resources, go to House.gov/Blackburn. That 
is a great way to figure out how we think is the best way to approach 
fiscal responsibility, how to be a good steward, a wise steward of the 
taxpayer dollar.
  Madam Speaker, I thank you for having yielded the time tonight.

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