[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24396-24397]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1600
              HEALTH CARE REFORM AND BALANCING THE BUDGET

  (Mr. BURTON of Indiana asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I ran into one of my 
constituents last week, a fellow named Jim Byers, and he said, You 
know, if you guys could balance the budget, I'll bet you could reach an 
agreement on health care. And he said, Why don't you talk to your 
Democrat colleagues about giving a guarantee that they'll balance the 
budget in a reasonable length of time? And if they'll do that then 
you'll probably be able to work out the health care differences that 
you have.
  And so I got today the figures on the Baucus bill coming out of the 
Senate, $487 billion in new taxes, and probably a couple of trillion 
dollars over the next 10 years. So I'd just like to say to my 
colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle, let's get together and 
figure out a way to balance the budget. And if we can do that, then we 
could solve the problem of health care.
  All of us who are privileged to serve in this Chamber are deeply 
involved in the nationwide debate on health care.
  Currently, the Democrat Majority in Congress is trying to craft a 
single health insurance reform bill from the bits and pieces of four 
competing alternatives not to mention President Obama's ``plan'' which 
has never been put on paper.
  At the moment we do not know what, if anything, the House of 
Representatives will vote on. I have made my views clear. I have said 
over and over on this Floor and in my town hall meetings that I will 
not support, and I will strongly work to defeat the House Democrats' 
government take-over.
  Here are some straightforward reasons why I oppose the bill:
  Health care costs will go up for the government and everyone else.
  As many as 2 out of 3 Americans will lose their current health 
coverage and be forced into the government-run plan.
  Raising taxes on small businesses is the wrong solution for an 
economy in a recession.
  The new government run plan will lead to fewer choices and rationing.
  I support health care reform that would expand opportunities for 
small businesses to band together to purchase high-quality health care 
for their employees at more affordable prices, and medical liability 
reform legislation to eliminate expensive defensive medicine.
  Unfortunately these proposals have been blocked. If either of these 
two proposals were law today, we would be starting at a very different 
place with health reform.
  What the House Democrats are proposing goes far beyond fixing the 
problems we all know need to be addressed. The House bill is a complete 
upheaval of our current system. That is why the bill lacks bipartisan 
support.
  As the Democrats in Congress choose to focus the debate about health 
care reform on creating a government run health plan, they are ignoring 
another important issue that directly relates to health care reform.
  That is the issue of balancing the budget, which has not been given 
much attention in this debate by the Democrat Majority. This has not 
gone unnoticed in my Congressional District.
  Earlier this week, one of my constituents named Jim Byers stopped me 
to talk about what we are doing here in Congress to balance the budget.
  Sadly, I did not have an answer for him. For now, it looks as if this 
Congress has decided to take the issue of balancing the budget off the 
table.
  The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday said that 
the deficit for fiscal year 2009 totaled about $1.4 trillion, a $950 
billion increase over the shortfall posted in fiscal year 2008.
  The deficit now represents 9.9 percent of the gross domestic product.
  While revenues were down nearly $420 billion (17%) below receipts in 
fiscal year 2008, outlays increased by over $530 billion (18%), in 
fiscal year 2009. About $245 billion of the spending increase resulted 
from outlays for TARP.
  Since the fall of 2008, Congress has spent:
  TARP--Original Cost: $700 Billion.
  Democrat Stimulus: Base Cost = $787 billion; Stimulus: Cost with 
Interest = $1.1 trillion.
  FY 2009 Omnibus: Total Spending: $410 billion.
  FY 2009 Defense Supplemental: $105.9 Billion.
  State Children's Health Insurance (SCHIP) Reauthorization: $73.3 
Billion.
  This time around, the Majority is trying to ram through a health care 
reform bill that--by

[[Page 24397]]

some estimates will cost upwards of $1 trillion over the next 10 years. 
How does this level of spending square with the goal of balancing the 
budget?
  It can't be done, unless of course, we are prepared to raise taxes or 
cut Medicare to the tune of $500 billion.
  I agree with Mr. Byers. We have to start taking concrete steps to 
balance the budget. I sincerely believe that if the Democrats commit to 
balancing the budget then a bipartisan agreement on health care reform 
can be achieved.
  If not, and they continue to walk down the path of dismantling our 
Nation's current health insurance system without any regard to the 
Federal budget and future deficits, I will fight them every step of the 
way.
  We need to start talking about the other half of the health care 
debate--the budget. If we move forward on health care reform without 
any solid commitment to balancing the budget we are most certainly 
doomed to a future of uncontrollable deficits.

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