[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 16026-16031]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          BALANCING THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the recognition. I appreciate 
you staying on the floor with me today.
  It has been a week of inside-the-beltway activity. I can't find a 
single Member of Congress on this floor--and I have been talking to a 
lot of them--who ran for Congress because they thought the most 
important job we were going to have was picking our House leadership.
  It is an important responsibility. It is an important job, Mr. 
Speaker. I can't tell you how difficult it is to lead 435 leaders. It 
is not a shortage of leaders we have here. Sometimes it is a shortage 
of good followers we have here.
  But nobody ran for Congress for that. You ran for Congress because we 
had serious business that the American people asked us to be about, and 
most of that business is not inside leadership conversations. It is 
about the American economy. It is about feeding one's family. It is 
about having a predictable future for one's children. It is about 
opportunity.
  I want to begin, Mr. Speaker, with three of the challenges that are 
out in front of us. The reason good leadership in this institution is 
important is because we have serious challenges.
  When I got here in 2011, we elected John Boehner Speaker of the House 
because John Boehner said we can do amazing things in divided 
government. We don't have to sit back and wait until we control all 
branches of government as Republicans. The Democrats don't have to sit 
back and wait until they control everything, Mr. Speaker. We can do 
amazing things together, and that is exactly what he did.

                              {time}  1345

  And we did it around finding those things on which Americans agree.
  I have up here the looming insolvencies for our major social safety 
net programs, Mr. Speaker. Social Security Disability Insurance reaches 
insolvency next year, next year. It is not 20 years from now, not 10 
years from now. It is next year.
  If you are an American and you are counting on Social Security 
Disability Insurance to provide for you and your family because you 
have paid into it faithfully your entire career--forbid the thought 
something has happened to you, now you must rely on it--we have a cash 
flow situation next year leading to insolvency. That is the smallest of 
our concerns, Mr. Speaker.

[[Page 16027]]

  We go next to Medicare, insolvent in 2030. Medicare. Social Security, 
insolvent in 2035.
  Social Security and Medicare, as you know, Mr. Speaker, are funded by 
payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are that FICA line on our pay stubs. It is 
the largest tax, at 15.3 percent of every worker's paycheck in this 
country. It is the largest tax that most American families pay.
  I want you to think about that. Here we are talking about earning the 
American people's trust. Here we are talking about delivering for the 
American people on their priorities. The largest tax that most 
Americans pay goes to fund two programs that we know with certainty, as 
we sit here today, aren't going to survive in their current 
configuration. The cash flow just won't allow it.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I am not here to preach doom and gloom. I am here 
to preach opportunity. I am preaching opportunity because I work with 
434 other people here who also believe that, if we work together, we 
can do amazing things for the American people.
  I have got a chart here, Mr. Speaker. You can't see it from your 
perch. But it is the projected economic growth rates in this country. 
Again, I am trying to distinguish what is happening in terms of a 
leadership discussion here from what is happening in a broader 
leadership discussion about America.
  And what I show here is that year after year after year for the 
past--I have 3 years represented here on the screen, Mr. Speaker, but 
it goes back 5 years. Every year the Congressional Budget Office--that 
group of economists that help us to craft the numbers in a bipartisan 
way--every year the Congressional Budget Office reports that their 
anticipated economic growth for America is lower in this year than it 
was the year before. And it was lower last year than the year before 
that. And it was lower that year than the year before that.
  When we fail to succeed together, Mr. Speaker, it is not an academic 
conversation. When we succeed in the wrong way, it is not an oops 
moment. It has a real impact on economic growth in this country.
  These may be colors on a chart, Mr. Speaker, but what they represent 
are jobs for families. What they represent are manufacturers who 
decided to stay in America or leave America. What they represent are 
entrepreneurs who either succeeded in their business or who were 
crushed by regulatory burdens. These decisions we make have 
consequences, Mr. Speaker.
  I have an interest rate chart here. You can't tell, but what you 
would see if you could see it, Mr. Speaker, is that we are borrowing 
money today at the lowest interest rate in American history. It is 
virtually free. It is virtually free today because we have the best of 
all the worst economies on the planet.
  Folks are interested in buying our debt. Right now there are stories 
in The Wall Street Journal about the Germans dumping our debt, about 
the Chinese dumping our debt. But because markets are frightened around 
the globe, there is more demand than there are folks selling.
  I put the interest rates up, Mr. Speaker, because I am talking about 
solving big problems today. We are going to talk about big problems. We 
are going to talk about solutions that we have come to here in this 
body. But too often, when we talk about balancing the budget, it sounds 
like it is a numbers game.
  The only numbers game balancing the budget is the numbers game 320 
million because that is how many Americans live in this country and are 
counting on us to succeed for them.
  When we borrow money, we end up paying interest on that money.
  I am so weary of the political ecochamber, Mr. Speaker, that tells 
the story of the folks on the left who say, ``I want every program in 
America to succeed, and, in fact, I want to spend even more on it'' or 
the folks on the right who say, ``I will never ever raise your taxes. 
You don't have to pay for those programs that you want.'' Because both 
sides are wrong.
  What I have here, Mr. Speaker, is a chart of the interest that we are 
paying on our national debt today. Now, we will talk about the interest 
we are going to be paying 10 years from now if we don't solve the 
problem. But this red line represents the interest we are paying on our 
national debt today: $229 billion this year.
  Balancing the budget is not an academic conversation. Balancing the 
budget is the difference between spending $229 billion on interest on 
the debt versus other American priorities.
  You can't see it, Mr. Speaker, but education is represented by this 
blue line. I want you to see that. The Federal Government spends more 
money in interest on our national debt. Even though we borrowed that 
money at the lowest interest rates in American history, teaser rates, 
we spend more in interest on our national debt than we spend on 
education for our children.
  We are trying to pass a transportation bill right now, Mr. Speaker. 
We are trying to put people back to work in America building roads so 
that we will have the best infrastructure in the world, so that we will 
move goods and services to market better than any other nation in the 
world, so that we can have our people moving from place to place, 
creating jobs and economic activity better than anyplace else in the 
world.
  We spend half. Half of what we spend on interest payments this year 
we will spend on transportation, Mr. Speaker. We spend the same amount 
on interest payments in 2015 that we will spend on education and 
transportation combined.
  I want you to think about that, Mr. Speaker. We could double the 
spending on education in this country, as my friends on the left 
propose to do. We could double spending on transportation in this 
country, as my friends on the left propose to do, if we would balance 
the budget and get out of the interest payment business, as my friends 
on the right propose to do.
  This is a common goal. This is a shared focus. This is not something 
that divides us. This is something that unites us.
  Environment and natural resources: $41 billion is being spent by the 
Federal Government this year. We spend five times more than that on 
interest payments.
  Science, space, and technology, Mr. Speaker: Who is going to have 
that next manned mission to space? Who is going to be the first to have 
a human being on Mars? What are we going to learn out beyond the stars? 
We spend one-tenth the amount of our interest payments on that 
priority.
  Energy policy: How many times have we heard the refrain ``an all-of-
the-above energy policy. Let's find next-generation energy solutions. 
Let's focus on wind and solar and fuel cells''? I don't dispute any of 
that. I dispute the commitment that we have to it when we spend 23 
times more on interest payments than we spend on all energy policy 
combined.
  When I am talking about balancing the budget, Mr. Speaker, when I am 
talking about making tough choices, I am not talking about an academic 
conversation about making the numbers balance. I am talking about a 
reordering of American priorities, where we would rather spend money on 
our children, on our roads, on our environment, on exploration, on 
next-generation energy, than we would paying back debts of the past.
  We are going to make good on our debts. But we can control whether or 
not we are paying those debts down or whether we are running those 
debts up. Interest that we pay on our national debt isn't a number on a 
ledger. It is a category that pushes out so many other American 
priorities.
  That is this year, Mr. Speaker. This chart represents this year.
  If you fast-forward 10 years, under current law, we will be spending 
more on our national debt than we spend on national security. I don't 
mean paying back our debt, Mr. Speaker. I mean we will be spending more 
in interest payments on our national debt than we will be spending 
protecting the national security of the United States of America.
  That is why the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral

[[Page 16028]]

Mullen, said the largest threat to America's national security is 
rising debt, because our debt and the accompanying interest payments 
are squeezing out so many other American priorities.
  Mr. Speaker, folks don't understand how the American budget works. I 
put a pie chart up here that captures that. We are going to get into 
some pretty serious debates here on the floor of this House in the next 
couple of months, primarily about something that we call discretionary 
spending.
  Discretionary spending I have represented up here, Mr. Speaker, by 
blue pie slices on the pie chart. Defense and nondefense spending are 
the two big categories, which means defense and almost everything else 
you think of as the Federal Government. Those are the decisions--these 
in blue, Mr. Speaker--that you and I have to make every year. That 
distinguishes it from these decisions in red.
  Social Security spending, Medicare spending, Medicaid spending, 
interest on the national debt, other mandatory programs. These programs 
in red, Mr. Speaker, as you know, we won't revisit those this year.
  Yes. The Constitution requires that every dollar appropriated from 
the Treasury be appropriated from the House. But the House, in 1935, 
decided that some of these dollars needed to go out the door, and they 
are still going out the door today. We can't change it without passing 
a new bill in the House, a new bill in the Senate, and a new bill that 
the President signs.
  We spend all of our time in this body, Mr. Speaker, arguing about 
nibbling around the edges on the blue categories of the chart, which is 
the small third of the pie. The real challenge in balancing the budget 
lies in these red slices of the pie, and I am going to tell you why.
  What I have charted here is a look at revenues in this country as a 
percent of GDP. So often we measure our success against the size of the 
economy. What are we spending relative to the size of the economy? 
Because if our population grows, if the economy grows, of course our 
tax base will grow. And so, too, in many cases will our expenses grow. 
So we chart these things against the size of the economy.
  This red line represents our historic revenues going back to 1965: 
all of the taxes through the Nixon administration, into the Ford 
administration, Carter administration, Reagan administration, all the 
way through to today. In fact, we chart it out into 2045. When you see 
this line go flat on revenues, Mr. Speaker, it is because we are just 
predicting they are level as a percent of the economy.
  But what I have also charted are the spending priorities that were in 
the red slice of the pie shown earlier, the mandatory spending slices 
of the pie.
  This blue line represents Medicaid and other Federal healthcare 
expenditures, like the President's Affordable Care Act.
  This green line represents Medicare, created in 1965. It used to be 
nonexistent. Now it is a very large slice of the pie. Again, it 
represents some of the largest taxes that the American people pay.
  This light section here represents Social Security, Mr. Speaker, and 
this blue line represents net interest.
  Mr. Speaker, if you could see it out on the end of this chart, what 
you would see is Medicaid spending is growing quickly, but on a 
predictable line. Medicare spending is growing quickly, but on a 
predictable line. Social Security spending is almost flat, Mr. Speaker, 
even though it is a big part of the pie.
  What is growing is interest payments. And when the blue line crosses 
the red line, that is where these four programs--interest on the 
national debt, Social Security payments, Medicare payments, and 
Medicaid payments--where those programs alone consume every single 
penny in any tax paid by any American. This is out about 10 years from 
now, Mr. Speaker.
  About 10 years from now every single penny that every single American 
pays in taxes will be consumed by these four programs. These programs 
will be insolvent because there is no more money.
  Every other priority will have been squeezed out of the budget. And 
``by every other priority,'' Mr. Speaker, I mean we are cutting 
transportation to zero, we are putting education to zero, we are 
cutting national parks to zero, we are cutting national security to 
zero.

                              {time}  1400

  This is not an academic conversation about balancing the budget. It 
is a national security conversation because we need to fund that 
priority. It is an education conversation because we need to fund that 
priority. It is an environment and parks conversation because we need 
to fund that priority. These mandatory spending programs threaten to 
consume every single penny of Federal revenue.
  Just to be clear, Mr. Speaker, in case there is any confusion, some 
folks say: Well, Rob, why don't you just raise more revenue? Let's just 
raise taxes on the American people, then we will have enough money to 
make that happen.
  Mr. Speaker, what I am showing you in this chart is, no, that won't 
solve the problem. This green line, I go from 2006 out to 2044 here, 
Mr. Speaker, and this green line represents historical revenue. When we 
hit this big economic downturn over the past 5 years, Mr. Speaker, 
revenues collapsed. It turns out if the American people can't find a 
job, the American people can't pay any taxes. That is pretty common 
sense.
  I say to my friends on the left, Mr. Speaker, if you want more taxes 
in the tax base, create more jobs. If folks have jobs, they can pay. 
When we ran out of jobs, we ran out of money, yet we spent even more 
because American families were hurting in that period of time.
  Well, I graphed this out to 2044, Mr. Speaker, and what you see is, 
under current law--this red line represents current law--if we add no 
new programs, if we don't spend any additional dollars, we just follow 
the current law, make no new promises to the American people, the 
spending required by current law more than doubles current revenues.
  So we are not talking about raising somebody's taxes a percent or 
two. We are talking about doubling everyone's taxes all across this 
country in every category. And when we do that, Mr. Speaker, that will 
solve the problem until about 2030, and then that won't be enough to 
fund it either.
  Taxes are not the problem. Our problem is that we are not raising 
enough money. Our problem is that current law is spending too much 
money, and we have got to come together to fix it.
  Well, now I get to the good news part of the presentation, Mr. 
Speaker. I am talking about bad news and the debt is squeezing out 
every other funding priority in America. I am talking about bad news 
that the major social programs of this Nation are fiscally insolvent. I 
am talking about bad news because there is just no way to tax the 
American people at a high enough rate to fund those priorities. The 
good news is we have come together in this body to work on the spending 
side together.
  Look at this, Mr. Speaker. It is unbelievable. Folks sometimes ask me 
back home, Mr. Speaker, they say: Rob, why do you take so many charts 
down to the House floor? Why are you down there talking about this? Do 
you know what my answer is? Because no one believes me. No one believes 
me.
  If you go home, Mr. Speaker--and I challenge you to do this. Go home 
and tell your constituents that when the big class of 2010 got here, 
when Republicans took over the House in 2011 and so we had divided 
government--again, as John Boehner always says, you can do big things 
in divided government. When Republicans took over the House, President 
Obama was leading the White House, we were spending $3.6 trillion as a 
nation--3.6 trillion.
  Now, the baby boomers began to retire in this window, so 10,000, Mr. 
Speaker, 10,000 men and women every day who had been paying Medicare 
and Social Security taxes their entire lives began applying for the 
benefits that they had earned through that lifetime of work. So we have 
Social Security and Medicare spending, two of the biggest categories of 
Federal spending, growing exponentially because of all these new 
applicants to the program, all these folks coming to cash in on their 
benefits.

[[Page 16029]]

  And what happened in divided government? We came together in this 
body in what is the best vote I have taken in 4\1/2\ years with a 
voting card, and we passed the Budget Control Act. I didn't get 
everything I wanted. My Republican colleagues didn't get everything 
they wanted; my Democratic friends didn't get everything they wanted; 
and the President didn't get everything he wanted; but we made a step 
forward for America, and we cut total Federal spending.
  We changed our priorities, Mr. Speaker. We began to look and see what 
was essential Federal spending and what was just kind of nice to do? 
What did we have to do to meet the promises we made to America, and 
where were those dollars that we weren't getting as much utility out 
of? So total Federal spending--not funny, Washington, D.C., math with 
inflation-adjusted dollars--total dollar bills going out the door from 
the Federal Government dropped from 2011 to 2012.
  I had never seen it before in my lifetime, Mr. Speaker, never seen it 
before in my lifetime. But we weren't done, because when you put 435 
minds together in here, you really can do some neat things, Mr. 
Speaker. In divided government where we all have skin in the game, 
where we are all trying to accomplish a goal, you can do some amazing 
things. So from 2012 to 2013, still with 10,000 men and women a day 
applying for new Social Security and Medicare benefits that they had 
earned, we cut total Federal spending again--again, not funny 
Washington, D.C., math, but reprioritizing what those goals were the 
American people sent us here to achieve and trying to achieve those 
goals, not because it is a mathematical exercise, but because if we 
don't, interest on our national debt is going to squeeze out all of the 
other priorities that we share as a nation.
  Mr. Speaker, 2 years in a row, while the population was growing, 
while the economy was struggling, and while seniors were retiring at a 
record pace, we came together and reprioritized Federal spending to 
unburden the next generation. Mr. Speaker, we couldn't do that alone as 
Republicans, and we couldn't have done that alone as Democrats. We 
could only do that working together, and we did, 2 years in a row, 
first time, Mr. Speaker, in anybody's lifetime on this floor.
  I have charted it a different way, Mr. Speaker, because we spend so 
much time beating up on each other as if we are failures. I tell folks 
back home that Congress has about a 12 percent approval rating, and we 
seem to use that entire 12 percent approval rating to tell everybody 
how awful we are: Oh, it is just terrible; folks can't get along; they 
all hate each other; everybody is on the take; and Washington is a 
giant cesspool. Please send me back for 2 more years.
  Where does that come from? What kind of sense does that make.
  We have had a lot of conscientious people on the floor of the House, 
Mr. Speaker, who leave their families and who leave their communities 
to come here on a mission that their constituents sent them to do, and 
in every category--I have charted three things here, Mr. Speaker. I 
have charted what we call discretionary spending, that is what most 
people think of as government: parks, courts, environment, 
transportation, and national security. All of those things that you 
think of as government, if you are on the green line in discretionary 
spending.
  This red line is the mandatory spending. That is the interest on the 
national debt: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Those mandatory 
programs, dollars go out the door every year.
  This blue line is total spending across the whole government, Mr. 
Speaker. What I have shown here--and again, these are not inflation-
adjusted dollars; these are actual dollar bills going out the door--
this dotted line in each category represents where the spending was 
going, where the Congressional Budget Office--again, it is a 
nonpartisan group of economists here--predicted the Federal Government 
was going to go when John Boehner took over as Speaker in 2011, before 
we had divided government, before we were able to come together and do 
big things.
  The solid line represents what is actually happening with Federal 
spending, what is actually happening. What you see, Mr. Speaker, is 
that even on the mandatory spending programs, we are getting reductions 
over what was anticipated. Certainly on the discretionary spending 
programs we are getting reductions over what was anticipated. In total 
Federal spending, we are getting reductions. Folks think nothing is 
happening here. They say: Rob, for Pete's sake, you have to go and you 
have to balance the budget. You have to make these things happen.
  I can't make everybody agree with me on everything. Put me and two or 
three other Members together, Mr. Speaker, give us all the powers of 
government, and we could probably solve this in a week or two. But 
there are 435 of us, and that is not all of us. That is just here. We 
have another 100 folks across the way in the Senate.
  Do you know what they say about the Senate, Mr. Speaker? They say the 
difference between a Senator and God is that God knows He is not a 
Senator. You have heard that one, haven't you?
  The power that is on the other side of the Hill has to be reckoned 
with, too, not to mention folks down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But 
we all got together, 100 of them, 435 of us, and 1 President at 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue, and we bent the lines on spending.
  Now, is spending still going up, Mr. Speaker? It is. What you see 
here is that we have curtailed it inside our current window. It is the 
outyears where the rise really begins.
  Why is it rising? Look here. Discretionary spending, these are all of 
those priorities we talked about earlier, that is going down in kind of 
a flat line going out over the 10-year horizon. It is mandatory 
spending that is still going up. Even with the changes we have made, it 
is still going up.
  When we talk about what the problem is with spending in this country 
and we talk about what the challenge is with balancing the budget, it 
is not that we are spending a little money here or a little money there 
on education or transportation or the courts or the parks or even 
national defense. The problem is that you have promised me--I am in my 
forties, Mr. Speaker. You have promised me Social Security and Medicare 
benefits that you can't possibly live up to. There is no cash flow 
model that leaves enough money in the trust funds for me to access it 
when I retire, and you need to be honest with me and tell me that today 
while I have another 30 years to prepare for it.
  They did a survey of young people, Mr. Speaker. More young people in 
America, more millennials believe that they would see a UFO in their 
lifetime than see a Social Security check in their lifetime.
  Now, I have just told you this is the largest tax that most Americans 
pay, and we have so broken the trust with the American people as a 
spending body here in government that young people who are paying that 
giant FICA tax, the largest FICA tax in American history, they don't 
believe they will ever see a penny from it.
  We have made these changes together, Mr. Speaker. We can do better. 
We can make more. But the arguments that the American people are going 
to hear--and this is critically important. The arguments that the 
American people are going to hear over the next 4 months are going to 
be about $1 billion here and $1 billion there when we have a $100 
trillion problem.
  The arguments that folks are going to hear over the next 4 months, 
Mr. Speaker, are all going to be focused on this sliver down here in 
the green area. This body is going to become consumed with nibbling 
around the edges on discretionary spending on which we have already 
succeeded. We have already begun the process of redefining those 
priorities. Where we haven't done enough is on mandatory spending.
  I have got to find a way, Mr. Speaker, we have got to find a way to 
come together to do the heavy lifting that is mandatory spending. No 
one is going to go to any senior in America and tell them that we are 
going to pull the rug out from under them now that they

[[Page 16030]]

have already retired. Nobody is going to do that. Nobody is proposing 
that. Nobody is talking about that. And if you are a senior citizen in 
America, Mr. Speaker, rest assured that the only thing anyone is 
working on here is making sure the trust funds survive to pay you those 
benefits that have been promised.
  When we are talking about making changes, we are talking about making 
changes to my generation and younger folks to connect the reality, 
which is we can't afford those promises with the reality that I am 
still paying those taxes and redefining that relationship, Mr. Speaker, 
in a way that America can keep the promises.
  I don't mind delivering bad news to folks. You have to pay for what 
you want in this country. If you want more benefits, we will have to 
raise your taxes. If you want fewer benefits, we can cut your taxes. 
Right now, we are providing more benefits without raising taxes. We 
won't raise taxes on each other. We will raise taxes on our children 
and grandchildren instead. We won't cut benefits for each other. We cut 
benefits for our children and grandchildren instead. There is a better 
way forward, but we are going to find it together.
  Again, I put the charts up, Mr. Speaker, because folks won't believe 
it. These are actual dollars, not inflation-adjusted dollars. This 
chart represents the dollars that we have control over in this body, 
the dollars that we have to get together and decide on every year. 
Again, two-thirds of the budget goes out the door whether this body 
shows up for work or not. It is on autopilot.
  The dollars that go out the door because we show up for work we have 
been reprioritizing, reallocating, and refocusing every single year. 
The result of that is a more effective and more efficient Federal 
Government to accomplish the priorities the American people have sent 
us here to accomplish, and we are borrowing less from our children and 
our grandchildren.
  It is a morality issue, Mr. Speaker. These are our Federal deficits. 
This is the money that we are borrowing from our children and our 
grandchildren.
  When George Bush was leaving office, and if he were here on the floor 
of the House today, Mr. Speaker, he would tell you, it was no source of 
pride for him as he was leaving office that he ran up the single 
largest deficit in American history. It was a Republican in the White 
House, it was Democrats running Capitol Hill, but together, in divided 
government, they came together and ran up the single largest annual 
deficit in American history.
  This one, Mr. Speaker, you can't see it, this little bitty one that 
is almost too small to read on the chart, this was once the largest 
deficit in American history.

                              {time}  1415

  Then we left divided government. We went to unified government where 
one party controlled everything, and we went to this deficit for 1 year 
and this deficit for the next year and this deficit for the next year, 
deficits, Mr. Speaker, two and three times larger than the deficit that 
George Bush set as the highest annual deficit in American history.
  Mr. Speaker, those were dark economic times for the country. 
Everybody has hindsight that is 20/20. No, I wouldn't have supported 
that spending had I been here at that time. I wasn't in Congress at 
that time. But those deficits are a reality. Those dollars have been 
borrowed.
  That money is now being repaid with interest every day of the week. I 
take that back. No, it is not. We don't repay a penny of our debt. I 
don't know if we have ever had that conversation. We don't repay a 
penny.
  Let's be clear. We pay interest on our national debt. We just keep 
borrowing. When a principal payment comes due, we borrow more money 
from someone else to pay back the interest and principal that we 
borrowed from somebody years ago. We don't pay back a penny. We just 
borrow more and more and more. These represent increasing borrowing 
amounts.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, this is the first budget that that class of 2010 
got to work on together. This is the second. This is the third. This is 
the fourth. This is where we are right now.
  We are making progress together. We are doing this together not as a 
mathematical exercise, but as a moral imperative not to borrow and 
mortgage the future of our children and our grandchildren. We are 
headed in the right direction, but we have to do more.
  I don't want to look like I am patting us on the back, Mr. Speaker. 
The challenge is enormous. And, yes, we are grappling with it. But, 
look, this chart represents historical deficits back again as a percent 
of GDP. These other charts I showed you were in actual dollars going 
out the door.
  We use percent of GDP so we can kind of compare apples to apples 
because a dollar going out the door in 1942 would have been more money 
going out the door today. So we do it as a percent of the economy to 
try to make it be comparable.
  We go back here to 1965, Mr. Speaker. We borrow, borrow, borrow, 
borrow, borrow. Throughout all the 1980s we borrowed. Do you remember 
those conversations in the 1980s, Mr. Speaker, where folks thought 
Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill and Congress were going to borrow us into 
oblivion? We thought the 1980s were the dark days of Federal spending 
because we were running up deficits that were so large.
  Here those are, Mr. Speaker, these, what looked like high points 
then, but turned out to be low points by more recent history standards. 
These are those 1980 deficits. These are the early Clinton deficits. 
These surpluses are the successes that Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton 
had together, again, divided government producing results. We went back 
to unified government here with not-so-good results. We went to divided 
government. Now we are getting back on track.
  But if you look at--and I project it another 10 years out, Mr. 
Speaker. If we do nothing, deficits begin to rise again. Under current 
law, if we do nothing, deficits begin to rise again.
  Yes, we have come together on the Budget Control Act and we have done 
amazing things. We have come together to end what was called the 
sustainable growth rate. They call it the doc fix. I don't know why 
they call it that. It was a patient fix. It was this gimmick in law 
that was undermining healthcare security for all seniors. We came 
together and we fixed that.
  We made changes to the Medicare program that both solved a current 
problem and prevented future problems. Reinvesting more money in the 
trust fund, putting off those deficits, we can do those things 
together.
  But we have got to start now, Mr. Speaker. Again, we are going to 
talk over the next 4 months about $1 billion here and $1 billion there. 
I want to talk about $1 trillion here and $1 trillion there. This 
chart, Mr. Speaker, represents the nature of our challenge.
  If we want to get back to what I would call Federal debt levels that 
are historically normal, if it is okay to confess that, yes, we have a 
chart that says: As America, let's not have debt that is incredibly 
high. Let's just have debt that is kind of an average high.
  That is what we are going to define as success, just an average high 
debt, average dangerous debt. We are going to define that as success.
  And to get to that point, Mr. Speaker, if we start today, we are 
going to have to deal with about 1.1 percent of GDP. That is going to 
be the size of the change. We are going to have to deal with about 1 
percent of the size of the entire economy.
  What is that going to be? A 1 percent increase in taxes? A 1 percent 
reduction in spending? No. It is much larger than that. GDP is the 
entire American economy. Federal spending and Federal taxes are just a 
very small part of that.
  When we talk about moving the needle on 1 percent of GDP, we are 
talking about big, big dollars. It is a huge challenge, huge challenge, 
if we started today.
  The tale I am telling, Mr. Speaker, is, if we wait 5 years, the 
challenge gets 30 percent harder. It is a huge challenge today. Some 
would argue it is an insurmountable challenge today.

[[Page 16031]]

  If we fail to address it today, Mr. Speaker, it will be 30 percent 
harder just 5 years down the road. Mr. Speaker, wait 10 years down the 
road and it is almost twice as hard. It is almost twice as hard to 
conquer 10 years down the road.
  We don't talk about Social Security going bankrupt in 2035 because we 
are trying to be alarmists. We talk about it going bankrupt in 2035 
because the time to solve that is today. We talk about Medicare going 
bankrupt in 2030 not to be alarmists, but because the time to solve 
that is today.
  These funding challenges that we have are hard today. They are twice 
as hard tomorrow. We have got to find the courage today to come 
together and make these changes.
  Now, that is to keep things as they are. If what you want to do is to 
make things better, you see, the challenge is even harder. If what you 
want to do is begin to pay some debt back, the challenges are even 
larger.
  I am not setting my sights on the big line, Mr. Speaker. I am trying 
to focus on the little line because success begets success.
  When we came together and solved the Budget Control Act, we were then 
able to come together and solve the Medicare challenge. When we came 
together and solved the Medicare challenge, we were then able to come 
together and solve our defense challenge. One time and one time and one 
time and one time. When you wake up 365 days later, you find out you 
have really gotten some work done.
  There are a lot of numbers on this chart, Mr. Speaker, and I will 
send you a copy of it. But we are talking about a 14 percent revenue 
increase or a 13 percent spending increase today, today, to begin this 
process.
  The size of our challenge today, the challenge that I said was easy, 
the challenge that I said we could achieve together, the challenge that 
I said divided government gave us an opportunity to be successful at, 
that is a 14 percent revenue increase, 14 percent tax hike today, or a 
13 percent spending cut today. And then we are going to need to do it 
again next year and again next year and again the year after that.
  This is the easy challenge, Mr. Speaker. We have come together to 
create the largest deficit reduction package in the history of the 
country. Republicans, Democrats, Congress, the White House, we did it. 
We have time to do it again.
  I know there is an election year coming. I know folks want to focus 
on who is going to win in November. I know folks want Democrats to try 
to take over Congress or Republicans to try to take over the White 
House. I know that is the national conversation.
  But whichever side of that battle you pick, wouldn't your candidate 
be advantaged if Republicans and Democrats had been successful for the 
American people on yet another big challenge?
  There is only one way forward, and it is hard. There is only one way 
forward, and it is together. Please let us not burn bridges quibbling 
over $1 billion here and $1 billion there over the next 4 months. One 
billion dollars is a lot of money, a lot of money. But our problems are 
trillion-dollar problems, and I want us to join together to solve them 
because I know that we can.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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