[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4824-4825]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE BUDGET CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Vermont (Mr. Welch) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELCH. Madam Speaker, today, I intend to use my 5 minutes to talk 
about the budget crisis that is before Congress. We have to make a 
decision whether to continue the operations of government. That's the 
debate that is now under way with the continuing resolution, and we 
soon face the question of whether or not Congress will extend the debt 
limit.
  Now, let me start by acknowledging the obvious. America has to get 
its fiscal house in order. How we got here is debated, but certain 
things are indisputable. We have two wars that have been paid for on 
the credit card. We had tax cuts that went to the high-income Americans 
that are on the credit card. We recently extended them at the cost of 
$700 billion to the deficit. We had irresponsible behavior on the part 
of Wall Street that required rescuing the financial system in America 
so that Main Street could fight and survive another day. And then that 
led to a collapse in the economy and 10 percent unemployment that 
required governmental action in order to try the

[[Page 4825]]

stabilize the economy. We have a long way to go in restoring the 
economy, but that has to be our first mission.
  The Republican proposal on how to address this budget in these 
continuing resolutions will fail. The reason it will fail is because it 
fails to do what must obviously be done if we're going to have long-
term fiscal stability, and that is put everything on the table. The 
cuts that are proposed by the Republican majority, unwise as they are, 
cannot do the job.
  The total focus of the Republican effort in its budget plan to 
restore fiscal balance is to attack 12\1/2\ percent of the budget, the 
non-defense discretionary portion of the budget. It happens to be 
programs that are benefiting Americans in many cases, but leaving aside 
the debate about whether we should cut low-income heating assistance 
for the most vulnerable Americans or cut Pell scholarships that allow 
aspiring young people to enter the middle class, we could cut the 
entire non-defense discretionary portion of the budget and we could 
continue to have an annual deficit of $1 trillion.
  So, if we're going to get to budget balance and fiscal stability, 
which we can do, we have to put everything on the table, and that means 
tax expenditures. The tax breaks that have been written into the Tax 
Code over the years by Republicans and Democrats alike actually cost 
taxpayers more than the entire appropriations budget, and many of us 
are asking the question: Why is it that we are going to be continuing 
$5 billion in tax breaks to very profitable oil companies when oil is 
now selling at $106 a barrel? Why are we allowing that but at the same 
time cutting low-income heating assistance and turning down the 
thermostat of cold Vermonters and cold Americans?

                              {time}  1010

  Why is it that hedge fund millionaires and billionaires literally pay 
a lower tax rate than their chauffeurs, their drivers, their cooks, 
their secretaries?
  We have got to put tax expenditures on the table. We have to put the 
defense budget on the table. How is it that America is spending over 
$700 billion a year? How is it that we are putting two wars on the 
credit card and not facing the fiscal responsibility to tell Americans 
how we are going to pay for that but are simply putting that burden on 
generations of Americans that will come after us?
  We have to reform health care. The first act of this Congress was to 
repeal the health care bill. And debate as we might about what's the 
best way forward on health care, no one can dispute that our first goal 
has to be to bring down the cost of health care; because whatever kind 
of system we have, if the cost is increasing two and three and four 
times the rate of inflation, job growth, and profits, it's not 
sustainable. And the health care bill that has been repealed by this 
Congress, this House of Representatives, that is going to add over $200 
billion to the deficit over 10 years.
  So we have to put everything on the table. That's defense. That's tax 
expenditures. That's entitlements and how we can reform them so we can 
maintain benefits, not slash benefits. And Democrats have to be willing 
to come to the table on the traditional line items in the 
appropriations bill where we have to kick the tires and find ways to be 
responsible. If we do that by putting everything on the table, we have 
a chance to be successful and be on a path to fiscal stability and 
solvency. Refusing to put everything on the table guarantees failure.

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