[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16622]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            THE HIGHEST BUDGET DEFICITS IN AMERICAN HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of my colleague from 
Georgia. He was the president of this freshman class that the American 
people elected in 2010, about 99 new Members, mostly Republicans, but 
Democrats as well. It was one of the largest freshman classes we've had 
in history.
  I remember when the President spoke those words that my colleague 
from Georgia just quoted, when he said by the end of his first term he 
was going to cut the deficit in half. I remember chuckling just a 
little bit and thinking what a low bar to set, having run such a huge 
campaign as he ran in 2007 and 2008, just to cut the deficit in half. I 
thought we could do better. I didn't realize at the time, of course, 
that we were going to begin, during the Obama administration, running 
the highest budget deficits in American history. Formerly, the Bush 
deficits had been the highest deficits in American history. Of course, 
President Obama took those deficits not just to that level, not to just 
twice that level, not to just three times that level, but almost four 
times the level of what were formerly the highest deficits in American 
history.
  This campaign, Mr. Speaker, he spent the entire campaign campaigning 
on raising taxes on the 1 percent. He said he had a mandate to do that 
because he talked about that for 2 years and folks elected him 
President, and they did. Candidly, Mr. Speaker, that's not a new idea.
  I show you here this red line, which represents the tax burden, the 
bills that the top 1 percent of America pays; this blue line represents 
the bills that the 80 percent of the rest of us pay. It goes back to 
1979 and Jimmy Carter. You will see that every single President in my 
lifetime has gone with that tried-and-true formula of asking the top 1 
percent to pay more. Every President in my lifetime has gone with the 
tried-and-true formula of telling the American voter that they can have 
all the government they want, and they won't have to pay for it.
  In fact, as we sit here today, Mr. Speaker, the last year for which 
the Congressional Budget Office has numbers, the bottom 80 percent of 
America, most of us, pays only 6 percent of the income tax burden in 
America. Eighty percent of us pay 6 percent of the burden. The top 1 
percent today are paying 39 percent of the burden.
  Mr. Speaker, raising taxes on people is easy. In fact, if we give the 
President every nickel that he wants in tax increases, it doesn't even 
solve 1 month of deficits in this Congress, not 1 month. In fact, it 
solves about two-thirds of 1 month, and that's if we don't spend any of 
it. And as the Minority Leader just so eloquently said, he wants to 
spend a lot of it on investment in this country. So this whole 
discussion, this whole business of tax increases that the President 
spent 2 years building a mandate for, solves less than 1 month of the 
problem.
  Mr. Speaker, my challenge today to the White House, to my friends on 
the left: Make it hard on me as a freshman conservative. Make it hard. 
Lay out those tax increases right beside solutions to the real problem, 
which is spending, and make those spending reductions so large and so 
powerful and so helpful to the American economy that I'll have no 
choice but to agree to your tax increases so that we can save the 
country by solving the real problem, which is spending.
  There is no leadership, Mr. Speaker, in raising taxes on the 1 
percent. We've been doing it for a long time. The problem in this town 
is spending, and we have yet to see the leadership from the White House 
on that problem. If we give them everything they want, it solves less 
than 1 month of the deficit. We, Republicans and Democrats, Congress 
and the White House, owe the American people so much better.
  Let's not kick the can down the road. Let's do it right now in these 
discussions.

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