[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4926]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I welcome the President's budget submission, which 
will mark the first time since 2009 that the House, the Senate, and the 
President have all submitted budgets. It's an encouraging development, 
but the larger question is whether Congress can actually use the 
budgeting process to show how we will do business differently.
  Despite the media sideshows about the artificial sequestration 
crisis, the major issues we have to address to fix the budget and our 
current deficit are spending on defense, health care, and the tax 
system itself.
  Although the administration has started us down a path to manage 
Pentagon spending in the future, we have barely scratched the surface. 
There are too many unnecessary bases at home and abroad that should be 
phased down or closed. There's far too much invested in an antiquated 
nuclear arsenal that we haven't used in 68 years and contains many, 
many times more weapons than we would ever need for deterrence. The 
$700 billion scheduled to be spent over the next 10 years must be 
reduced dramatically. We have yet to come to grips with the long-term 
costs of an all-volunteer Army and the right balance between reserve 
and regular forces. Until these fundamental issues are addressed, the 
challenges of the future are going to be difficult to face because we 
spend too much time and energy and money preparing for the conflicts of 
the past while we avoid hard budget reality.
  Health care expenditures continue to be the greatest overall threat 
to the budget, but not because the United States doesn't spend enough 
money on health care. We spend more than anybody else in the world--
twice as much as many countries. But even spending far more than 
anybody else, we're still not able to deliver quality health care for 
most Americans. Instead of fighting health care reform, we should be 
working together to accelerate that process so that we can reward value 
over volume of health care. If the Oregon model of health care that we 
are working on diligently to implement were applied on a national 
scale, it could save over $1 trillion over the next 10 years--as much 
as was fought about in the battle over sequestration.
  We must also reform the Tax Code, which is unfair, complex, and 
costly, with over $160 billion just to administer it. I would suggest 
that we think about implementing a carbon tax, which has the potential 
of reducing the deficit and tax rates for individuals and business in a 
fair and comprehensive form. The carbon tax has the added benefit of 
being the most direct way to reduce the threat to the planet caused by 
extreme weather events promoted by carbon pollution.
  It's very encouraging that the President's budget again speaks to 
infrastructure improvement and investment, but we need to be bolder and 
more comprehensive in our approach, especially at how we deal with 
funding rebuilding and renewing America. At a time when 17 States have 
stepped up to increase transportation funding, it's unacceptable that 
we pay for the highway trust fund with a gas tax that hasn't been 
increased since 1993 and is increasingly collecting less money as fuel 
efficiency improves.
  The introduction of the President's budget is an important step 
forward. It will hopefully spark an earnest, thoughtful, focused 
discussion about how we do business differently, how we pay for the 
needs of a growing and aging America, and how we can get more value for 
the investments we are already making, all while laying the foundation 
for a more prosperous future.

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