[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3120-3126]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             BUDGET OF THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Costello of Pennsylvania). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Rokita) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the majority leader.
  Mr. ROKITA. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor on behalf of a lot of 
colleagues who can't be here right now and on behalf of our colleagues 
who are going to speak to talk about the budget of the United States 
Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon after our legislative business for 
the day because it is the concern of many of us--and perhaps it is the 
concern of all of us who ran for office, who got elected, who honorably 
serve in this body--to say--to make sure, perhaps--that our priorities 
are in order.

[[Page 3121]]

  And, Mr. Speaker, if you simply look at any number of ``debt clocks'' 
that run on all kinds of different Web sites, including one that 
continues live in my office, you see perhaps--I hope it is clear to 
you, Mr. Speaker--that our priorities are not in order. We are over $18 
trillion in debt as I take the microphone right now.
  Mr. Speaker, that is not the half of it. Over the next several 
decades we are scheduled to have over $100 trillion in debt. And that 
is not acceptable. In fact, I can't think of too many things that are 
more immoral than the present-day majority, than our present-day 
citizens leaving this burden to future citizens, people who do not yet 
exist. Talk about taxation without representation. But that is what we 
are faced with. That is what we do every day around here when our 
budget is not in balance and our priorities remain out of order.
  To be clear, Mr. Speaker, we are able to get to this point, as very 
few other countries are, because of the fact we are the world's reserve 
currency, because of the fact that we continue to be able to print 
money, and because of the fact that, despite all our problems, when 
compared in a relative fashion to all the other countries of the world, 
we simply aren't as bad yet. But over time, that can very easily 
change, Mr. Speaker.
  The solution to this isn't all that complicated. We have to stop 
spending more than we take in. We have to keep growing our economy. We 
have to simplify our Tax Code so that it can actually generate more 
revenue than it is doing right now. Of course, we have to reform what 
is driving the debt, and that is our spending. That is what the 
Republicans--in this Chamber, at least--are trying to achieve. We are 
trying to put our priorities back in balance.
  Washington doesn't have a revenue problem, Mr. Speaker; Washington 
has a spending problem. In terms of revenue, we take in over $2 
trillion a year--and these are rough figures--but we spend generally 
over $3 trillion. That is simply not sustainable. That simply can't go 
on if we are to have any credibility on this issue and if we are going 
to remain a strong country, best of nations in the 21st century, and 
continue to win.
  So the House Budget Committee, and specifically the Republicans on 
the House Budget Committee, are about getting our priorities in order. 
And frankly, to our credit, for the last 4 years, Mr. Speaker, we have 
done just that.
  Every year since 2010, we have proposed balanced budgets that, if 
followed, would have led us on a path to prosperity, would have made it 
clear that we are best of class in the world again and the best 
investment going. All we had to do is take the steps outlined in that 
budget and it would have become so.
  This year, we are going to try again. We are going to balance this 
budget. We are going to have a markup in a week or so. We are going to 
propose and present ideas to the American public. Most of these ideas 
they have seen before over the last 4 years. There may be some new 
ones. We are still writing our budget. We are still taking input from 
Members and non-Members alike.
  But one thing the American people can count on: it will be an honest 
budget, it will be credible, it will balance, and it will fulfill the 
promise we explicitly and implicitly made over and again to future 
generations that their generation will be better off than the 
generation before it. Isn't that what we are all about? Isn't that what 
we are supposed to be about?
  But as I speak with you here today, the facts tell a different story. 
In fact, the current generation is the first one in American history 
that is destined and will, by any objective measure, leave the next one 
worse off. It has never happened before in American history. It is 
happening now.
  I know several of us on the Budget Committee refuse to let that 
happen on our watch, and so we come to you tonight with several ideas.
  I want to first recognize a very good friend of mine, a professional 
who came from the private sector and practiced accounting as a 
certified public accountant for over 25 years. He has added tremendous 
value to all the work we are doing on the Budget Committee. Aside from 
budget issues, he is a tremendous asset to nearly every issue that is 
debated on the floor of the House. I yield the floor, Mr. Speaker, to 
my good friend, Congressman Rice of South Carolina.
  Mr. RICE of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman for yielding. South 
Carolina thanks you.
  What an honor it is to stand here before this group to talk about the 
Federal budget. These were a couple of slides that were actually handed 
out to the Budget Committee that illustrate very wonderfully the 
challenge that we face.
  The total revenue for the Federal Government for fiscal year 2014 is 
$3.02 trillion, most of it from individual income taxes. And then 
social insurance is the payroll taxes we pay for Social Security and 
Medicare, and then we have the spending. You can compare the two.
  Revenues are $3.02 trillion. Spending is $3.5 trillion. Our deficit 
is half a trillion dollars, roughly, projected this year. That sounds 
terrible. Of course, 3 years ago, just before I was elected to 
Congress, it was a $1.4 trillion deficit. So it has, in fact, been cut 
well down. It is about 40 percent of what it was. And I will take all 
the credit for that.
  Actually, it has come down dramatically. But we are still on an 
unsustainable path, and it is projected to rise, largely because of 
demographics. The baby boomers are retiring, and the need for social 
insurance is going to rise in the coming decades. It will overwhelm us 
if we do not prepare for it.
  Republicans, Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office, the Office 
of Management and Budget, and any known economist will tell you that if 
we don't deal with this issue, it will overwhelm us. We are on an 
unsustainable path. We are piling billions and billions of dollars in 
debt on our children and our grandchildren every year.
  Right now, we stand at $18 trillion in debt. On our current path, I 
believe the number $25 trillion is what they are projecting at the end 
of 10 years if we don't do something to deal with it.
  If you look at the spending, you can see the red areas are what they 
call entitlement spending or mandatory spending, Social Security being 
the biggest part of that, and Medicare, Medicaid. Then interest on the 
debt is here at $229 billion a year. And then other mandatory, which 
would be unemployment, welfare; the ObamaCare insurance subsidies will 
be in that. You can see that red area is about two-thirds of our total 
spending of $3.5 trillion.

                              {time}  1530

  The blue area is what they call discretionary spending. Discretionary 
spending is the only part that Congress has a play or a say in every 
year. If you break that down further, the discretionary spending, 
defense is this part here in dark blue that is about half of it, and 
nondefense discretionary is the remainder.
  Nondefense discretionary is the thing most people think of as 
government; the FBI, the CIA, the White House, the Department of the 
Interior, Park Service, EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, all these things 
are in nondefense discretionary. People think: Well, gosh, we should 
cut the Department of Education, we should cut the EPA.
  Well, that is great. If you cut every dime of nondefense 
discretionary spending out of the budget, every cent of it, we would 
still have a deficit. If you eliminated every part other than defense, 
we would still have a deficit, so you see how severe the problem is.
  Another thing people don't understand is, because of the sequester, 
defense and nondefense discretionary have been whittled down over the 
last several years; and, in fact, nondefense discretionary spending is 
below 2008 levels right now.
  It is as low as it has been since President Barack Obama has been in 
office because of the sequester spending. Defense spending has been cut 
to the bone. It is below levels that the Pentagon is telling us are 
necessary to

[[Page 3122]]

maintain our readiness in this troubled world.
  Now, there is always waste, and there is always further room to cut. 
The point of all that is, with these things having been whittled as low 
as they have, it is very obvious that we will not be able to handle our 
budget problems.
  We will never be able to reach a balanced budget unless we deal with 
this area in red, what is called mandatory spending, the entitlement 
programs. There is no way to fix this problem without dealing with 
those.
  Now, you say: Well, why don't we just raise taxes? Right now, we are 
taking in, I believe it is, about 17 percent of our gross domestic 
product in tax revenues. It is more money in real dollars than this 
government has ever received.
  We are getting more revenue than we ever have, and it is a higher 
percentage of our gross domestic product than has been received on 
average over the last 40 years. We are already at a higher level of 
revenue. Revenue is not the problem. The problem is that spending is 
out of control.
  For the last 3 years, the House Committee on the Budget has issued 
its own budget. It has been called the Ryan budget. It has been called 
the House Committee on the Budget budget. It has been called the Path 
to Prosperity. That budget takes reasonable steps to balance the budget 
over a 10-year period.
  Now, the President issued his own budget this year. The way this is 
supposed to work is the President is supposed to issue his budget by 
the end of January. This is the first time since he has been in office 
that he has actually done that. We actually got it on time.
  The House is supposed to issue its budget, I think it is, about March 
15th. It goes over to the Senate; they do their version. The House and 
the Senate conference, and then we send it to the President.
  For the first time since the President has been in office, we are on 
track to actually have a budget. It is an amazing fact to me that, 
since President Barack Obama has been in office, we have not had a 
budget.
  You can't run your household without a budget, you can't run a bakery 
without a budget, and here we are, trying to run the most complex 
institution on Earth without a budget. It is not just a lack of long-
term planning; it is a lack of even planning for the current year. You 
have to have a budget.
  Anyway, we are on track to have a budget. The House Committee on the 
Budget has put one out for the last 3 years. The President has issued 
his budget now. The House Committee on the Budget's budget over the 
last 3 years would have balanced in 10 years.
  I anticipate we will do the same thing this year. We will put forth a 
budget that has reasonable adjustments and balances in 10 years and 
stops piling mounds of debt on our children and our grandchildren.
  The President's budget, on the other hand, increases spending from 
$3.5 trillion a year to a little over $4 trillion a year. It adds $2 
trillion in taxes over the next 10 years, and it never balances, ever. 
It continues to pile debt on our children and grandchildren. The House 
Committee on the Budget's budget doesn't raise taxes, and it does 
balance in 10 years.
  This is the projection by the Congressional Budget Office--
nonpartisan, not Democrat, not Republican--of the path that we are 
currently on. The cutoff of the blue area there is where we are today.
  You can see with the demographics and with the burden that we are 
going to be placing on our social safety net and our entitlement 
programs--Social Security and Medicare--right now, where we are, if you 
look back in history--this goes back to 1941--never in the history of 
the United States has the debt as a percentage of our gross domestic 
product been as high as it is right now.
  The debt is about 70 percent of our gross domestic product, the debt 
held by the public. The only other time that it was this high was in 
World War II.
  We can adopt changes. We have time. We can adopt some modifications 
to bring this back under control; but, if we do not, you can see the 
mushrooming effect of the additional debt, interest rates climbing, the 
interest that we pay on our debt rising, the effect of the entitlement 
programs, running our debt to over 100 percent of our gross domestic 
product, which will make it difficult for us to recover from.
  Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman, and I thank the gentleman for 
showing not only Members of Congress, but the American people, this 
chart that you have right there. I think you are hitting the nail on 
the head. This is exactly the problem.
  If I could just add a few things to it?
  Mr. RICE of South Carolina. I wish you would.
  Mr. ROKITA. Well, if you go back to World War II, the gentleman 
rightly points out, Mr. Speaker, you see that our debt level 
crescendoed, obviously as a result of that war.
  What is different about that period in our history from our current 
situation is the fact that, as the gentleman knows, World War II, one 
way or the other, was going to be a one-time event.
  Thankfully, because of this country's courage and the men and women 
who served for our country, it ended the right way. As a result, the 
event ended, and we immediately began paying down our debt.
  Some might say: Well, we have been there before. What is different 
this time? Why can't we solve the problem this time?
  Well, we can solve the problem because, number one, we are Americans, 
but what makes the situation different, Mr. Speaker, and what the 
gentleman alludes to is what is driving our debt.
  What drove the debt in World War II, again, was a one-time event. 
What is driving the debt now is not scheduled to end, has no end really 
in sight, unless we reform the programs that are driving it. That is 
one of the things that is strikingly different in terms of the current 
path we are on from where we have been before, and that is why we have 
to arrest what is driving the debt, and that is our social entitlement 
programs.
  There is also another difference between now and World War II, and it 
is exemplified in this chart that I have, and that is who owns our 
debt. Of course, back in World War II, the gentleman will remember the 
bond posters that you could see all over the country, where we asked 
our private citizens to finance the war.
  Now, as you can see from this chart, the people we are asking to 
finance our debt not only are our own citizens but--increasingly and 
alarmingly more so--other countries, who by the very definition of 
being other nations don't have our best interests top of mind.
  That makes this a very different situation as well. We are 
increasingly, over time, becoming beholden to other countries to 
finance our spending problem.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue yielding to the gentleman from 
South Carolina.
  Mr. RICE of South Carolina. I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
  Mr. Rokita, were you aware that by the year 2030, according to CBO's 
projections, that our spending just on Social Security, Medicare, 
Medicaid, and our interest, just those four things will take up the 
entire revenue of the United States Government, leaving nothing for 
other mandatory programs, like welfare, like unemployment, like food 
stamps, like all those things?
  It will also leave nothing for other discretionary spending like the 
FBI, like the Park Service, like border security, and like the CIA; but 
even more importantly, it will leave nothing for defense, nothing for 
the Army, the Navy, the Coast Guard, nothing to buy the first bullet.
  By 2030, just those four programs--Social Security, Medicare, 
Medicaid, and the interest on our debt--will take up every dime that 
the United States Government brings in if we don't change something.
  Now, the President's budget adds $2 trillion in taxes, but it adds 
even more than that in spending. What does he spend the money on? It is 
a lot of additional programs. He adds a little bit to defense, he adds 
a little bit across the

[[Page 3123]]

board to other discretionary, but he throws in a lot of other 
programs--for example, his proposal to pay for community college, which 
is a nice idea, a wonderful idea--but the problem is that we can't pay 
for the promises we have made already.
  Mr. Speaker, shouldn't we, before we make new promises, find a way to 
pay for the promises that we have already made?
  The President's budget, in addition to more taxes, more spending, and 
more government programs, it is just another big growth of government, 
which we have seen over and over again during this administration. From 
Dodd-Frank to ObamaCare and other things, you have seen a huge 
explosion in government.
  Now, what has the effect of that been? The President loves to say, 
Mr. Speaker, that he is for the middle class, but I want to show you an 
interesting graph.
  This blue line here going down is the median household income in the 
United States. This is the middle class that the President is always 
saying he is for. You can see from 2008--when he took office--until 
today, that blue line has gone down 8.7 percent.
  Median household income in the country has dropped 8.7 percent--more 
government programs, bigger government, more intrusion on government in 
your life, more intrusion of government in our national economy--and 
you can see the stifling effect that it has on our economy.
  I think we had 2 percent growth last quarter. Here we are, 7 years 
after the Great Recession. We should have had a huge snapback. All we 
are doing is muddling along, trying to swallow this giant addition of 
Big Government that is being created. Middle class income is down 8.7 
percent.
  Look at this, Mr. Speaker. This purple line here represents the 
consumer price index for medical care. Over that same time, it is up 
over 10 percent. This red line represents the consumer price index for 
gasoline, which is now turning down, but it is still above where the 
President took office.
  This green line is the consumer price index for food and beverages 
because, you see, gasoline and heating oil and electricity all go into 
the cost of food. You have to fertilize it, you have to prepare the 
seed, you have to transport it. All those things go into the cost of 
food.
  So, you see, food has gone up 20 percent, gasoline has gone up 10 
percent, health care has gone up 15 percent--all these additional costs 
on the middle class.

                              {time}  1545

  At the same time, the median household income has dropped by 8.7 
percent. When the President gets up and talks about how the stock 
market is doing and how the economy has recovered, I can tell you, Mr. 
Speaker, you can look at this chart and very easily see why the average 
middle class family doesn't feel it. They don't agree with it.
  The President's proposed budget, by adding more taxes and more 
government programs, will do nothing but exacerbate this problem, the 
middle class squeeze. We are going to squeeze the middle class until 
there is nothing left. I cringe when the President says he is for the 
middle class. Don't listen to what he says; look at what he is doing.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe in the House Budget Committee's budget that 
balances in 10 years, that makes responsible adjustments to our social 
safety net, that makes responsible adjustments to our discretionary 
programs, and that brings our budget into balance in 10 years.
  When I came to Congress, I thought our debt was the biggest problem 
we faced. I no longer believe that. I know we can handle it. I have 
been through the budget committee. All we have to do is start now to 
make responsible adjustments. The longer we wait, the more difficult it 
becomes.
  My tenure in Congress is and will continue to be focused on American 
competitiveness. I think we have given away a lot of our competitive 
edge to the rest of the world. I think, if we decide we want to 
compete, that nobody can stop us. The only people stopping us is us.
  We have tied a noose of tax and regulation around our own neck, and 
we are running our businesses and our jobs overseas. That is my focus. 
We cannot fix this problem with our budget unless we have growth, and 
the way to increase growth is to increase our competitive status in the 
world.
  This is a list of things created by a Harvard economist and a good 
friend named Michael Porter. He has been to Congress more than once. He 
has talked to over 100 Congressmen about how to make this country more 
competitive.
  These are eight items. One of them is--in fact, the most important 
one is to create a sustainable Federal budget because you see, my 
friends, without a sustainable budget--now, you remember, the Office of 
Management and Budget that works for the White House says we are on an 
unsustainable course. Congressional Budget Office, we are on an 
unsustainable course.
  Step number one to make this country competitive and to bring jobs 
back to this country: create a responsible Federal budget. I submit to 
you, Mr. Speaker, that the President's budget fails miserably in that 
regard. Just as his policies are failing the middle class miserably, 
this budget will make us less competitive in the world.
  Second, it says simplify the corporate Tax Code. Simplify and 
streamline regulation. The House budget assumes many of these things 
that make this country more competitive in adopting its budget.
  Mr. ROKITA. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RICE of South Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.
  Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman again. The gentleman hits the nail 
right on the head. Middle class economics is a term, and it is just 
that.
  Watch what the President does to see how he affects the middle class.
  Mr. RICE of South Carolina. Not what he says.
  Mr. ROKITA. Not what he says, exactly right.
  I also want to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to what the 
gentleman said on his poster board there about the eighth point, create 
a sustainable Federal budget, and the gentleman talked very 
articulately about the need for that.
  It seems obvious, quite frankly, I would think, to every American 
family that must do this inside the walls of their own dwellings, but 
for some reason, it escapes the Federal Government.
  I draw the House's attention, the Speaker's attention, to the wording 
that appears after that comma. It says, ``including entitlement 
reform''--``create a sustainable budget, including entitlement 
reform.'' We touched on this a little bit earlier in the hour that we 
have.
  At this point, I am worried, Mr. Speaker, that some who are watching 
this discussion may think: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I put my 
hard-earned money into these programs, being Medicare and Social 
Security, primarily, every 2 weeks or whenever my paycheck comes, and I 
see the government taking out a lot, and that is my money. That is my 
property. What is Congress thinking? What are these two gentleman from 
South Carolina and Indiana and others who are going to speak here in a 
minute saying when they said entitlement reform? I put in; therefore, I 
should get out.
  I want to take just a minute to address that because, of course, in a 
very real sense, that is what every working American has done. In 
another equally real and more important sense, we haven't. We haven't, 
and that is what is driving our debt.
  Now, the gentleman had a pie graph up earlier that easily showed--and 
he will put it back up--the fact that most of our spending at the 
Federal Government level is on programs that are on autopilot. Right?
  We, as Congressmen, can't vote on these priorities through the budget 
mechanism itself. We have to affect the underlying law. That is to say 
Congressman Rice and Congressman Rokita don't get to determine, through 
the budget process, year after year, what someone's Social Security 
check

[[Page 3124]]

is going to be, what Medicare services people are going to get or not 
get. That is not done necessarily through the budget.
  We talked about the need to reform those programs in the budget 
document, but it is not done through the budget language only. You have 
to reform that underlying law. Two-thirds of our budget, again, as the 
chart shows, is on autopilot. It goes year after year after year and 
gets worse after worse, and that is what is driving our debt.
  Now, to my point about have we paid for those programs or not, this 
is a chart that describes the average American working couple. This is 
a Medicare example, so this is not Social Security. This is Medicare.
  It shows that a couple making a combined $71,500 a year, on average, 
over a lifetime, has put in roughly about 30 percent of what they are 
taking out of Medicare.
  Let me say that again. They are putting in 30 percent. We are putting 
in, the average American couple, putting in 30 percent of what we are 
going to take out of Medicare. The rest, Mr. Speaker, goes on the deck, 
and that is the crux of the problem.
  If you go to the second set of bars, you see that the problem only 
gets worse, as a percentage of the amount we are putting in is only 
going to go down. That is what makes this a moral situation, a moral 
case that we are making the children of tomorrow pay, so that we can 
have more on our plate now, quite frankly.
  It is just not Medicare. Social Security is in a much better position 
than this, but it is on the same trend. It is not just our health care 
and our social entitlement programs. It is the highway trust fund, for 
example, which I hope we address, not only in our budget document, but 
throughout this Congress. To date, the President hasn't done that. So 
that is really the problem here.
  I yield briefly back to my good friend from South Carolina, 
Congressman Rice, and then move swiftly to Mr. Womack from the great 
State of Arkansas.
  Mr. RICE of South Carolina. In closing, my friend, I just wanted to 
point out what the House Budget Committee does to bring the budget 
within balance within 10 years, and it is not all this but three major 
things.
  One, it repeals ObamaCare, which costs $2.1 trillion over the next 10 
years.
  Two, it initiates what is called premium support for Medicare, what 
you are just talking about, and it doesn't do away with Medicare, and 
it doesn't affect anybody who is either retired or retiring within 8 
years.
  What it does for people that are outside that window, Medicare is 
still offered, and they will allow four other insurance companies to 
bid for Medicare coverage.
  The government won't pay for the cheapest; it will pay for the second 
cheapest. If you want to buy a cheaper policy, you can, but it brings 
private industry in it. If you want to buy a cheaper policy, you can, 
and you will get money.
  If you want to buy a more expensive policy, you can, and you will 
have to pay a little bit more for it. That is a huge savings in 
Medicare and something that we have to do.
  So premium support for Medicare, repeal ObamaCare, and, third, it 
doesn't cut discretionary spending, defense and nondefense, but it 
slows the growth a little. Those three things go 80 percent of the way 
to bringing our budget within balance within 10 years.
  Let me tell you, my friends, we don't have a choice. We are piling 
debt on our children and grandchildren. CBO, OMB, they will all tell 
you, Social Security trust fund, it will be broke in 2030 or 
thereabouts. Medicare trust fund will be broke in 2030 or thereabouts.
  You know the problem with Federal trust funds? They are not funded, 
and you can't trust them. Other than that, they are great.
  Mr. Rokita, I appreciate you allowing me to participate in this.
  Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman for his leadership.
  The gentleman is exactly right. If we act now, no one who is on or 
near to be on any of these programs has to be affected. We can easily 
take care of the promises that were made and that these folks, again, 
who are on these programs or near to be on these programs have rightly 
relied on, and that is because we are still the world's reserve 
currency. We are not Greece.
  If we make these reforms now, we are talking about the reforms 
affecting folks a generation ago, those in my age bracket or younger, 
who would have time to prepare for the new situation.
  People who are having kids today, who will live probably past 100, 
they will have the time, under a new program that reflects the 
realities of living in the 21st century and, frankly, how long we live 
in the 21st century.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack), a 
good friend of mine, the former mayor of Rogers, Arkansas, a decorated 
military officer who is also a great friend and a great leader in this 
Congress.
  Mr. WOMACK. I thank the gentleman, first of all, for his great 
leadership on this subject.
  The gentleman from the Hoosier State and I came in together. Back in 
2010, we were elected to this Congress, and I can't speak necessarily 
for the gentleman, I can only speak for myself, but I would almost bet 
that my friend from Indiana would agree that we came up here to tackle 
the Nation's biggest problems.
  Mr. Speaker, the Framers of our country were visionaries. They got it 
right on the formation of the country and the established government 
that guides our every decision. They not only had the foresight to 
establish constitutional principles and processes that addressed the 
challenges of the day, but that sustain and guide our Nation now 2\1/4\ 
centuries later.
  What you have just heard in the last few minutes, and I have been 
witness to the presentation made by my friend from South Carolina, with 
commentary from the gentleman from Indiana, I am going to present many 
of the same arguments in the time that I have before you today because 
I think they are worth repeating, and my chart may show it a little bit 
differently.
  Mr. Speaker, I came to the Congress and was immediately placed on the 
Appropriations Committee. As a member of that committee, one of my jobs 
is to look after the discretionary piece of the Federal budget. As has 
already been mentioned, the discretionary piece of the Federal budget 
is getting squeezed.
  There was a time in the not too distant past that discretionary 
spending was the largest share of spending and, as was mentioned by my 
friend from South Carolina, things that you recognize your Federal 
Government for. He articulated a number of those.
  When you look at this particular chart, this end of the chart would 
represent 1962. The other end of the chart is just about 3 years from 
now, in 2018, you can see--in case you have trouble seeing, let me just 
go through the color coding here.
  The purple at the top is the amount of money that we have to pay, 
year in and year out, to service our debt. Those of you at home, Mr. 
Speaker, that have a credit card bill that comes in every month, there 
will be a category there or a block there that says minimum payment 
due.
  The minimum payment is usually the reflection of interest due on that 
account and not necessarily a reduction in the principle amount owed. 
That is exactly what this purple is. That is the minimum payment due, 
year and in and year out, that we have to make in order to satisfy the 
creditors, the people that have given money to this country, loaned 
money to this country for governmental purposes.

                              {time}  1600

  As you can see, Mr. Speaker, this chart shows that that area in 
purple has grown through the years. It tightened up a little bit back a 
few years ago. But now, if you look at that last piece of it, from 
right here, you will notice that it is taking a dip. And if we extended 
that chart out for many more years, it gets progressively worse.
  The next color is red, and that is the reflection of mandatory 
spending,

[[Page 3125]]

talked about by the gentleman before me, that constitutes how much 
money we have to spend year in and year out to pay for the programs 
that people all across this country are entitled to. The biggest driver 
of the long-term consequences of mandatory spending would be Medicare. 
There are many charts that will show you the glide path Medicare is on.
  Mr. Speaker, something happened last night at midnight that affects 
the ongoing cost of that piece of mandatory spending. That is, 11,000 
people celebrated a birthday as we rolled into the new day; 11,000 
people aged into that program. Now, Mr. Speaker, tonight at midnight, 
something else is going to happen that is going to influence the growth 
of that area in red; and that is, another 11,000 people, or 
thereabouts, are going to age into this program that they automatically 
qualify for when they turn 65. Thankfully, more and more people are 
living well beyond 65, and I am glad for that.
  If you look at that red, coupled with the purple, you can see that 
since 1962, it has commanded a much larger share of Federal spending, 
and it is putting a tremendous squeeze on the programs that people like 
me, as an appropriator, have to work with to fund the other essential 
forms of government.
  In fact, I have a lot of people say to me when I go home: You know, 
Mr. Womack, you are an appropriator. You are in charge of all this 
spending. You ought to be able, with your vote and with your leadership 
on that committee, you ought to be able to see that the books of the 
Federal Government are balanced.
  But, Mr. Speaker, if you look at the last two colors--the green, 
which is nondefense spending, and the blue, which represents defense 
discretionary spending--these two colors have gotten smaller and 
smaller and smaller, so small now that they represent about a third of 
our spending. And you do the math.
  Mr. SANFORD. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROKITA. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from South 
Carolina.
  Mr. SANFORD. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for raising what I 
think is such a fundamental point with regard to government spending. 
It really raises the crossroads I think that we are at as a society. 
Because in my mind, I keep going out to about 2025, which you well 
illustrate on that chart. And at that point, we are only going to have 
enough money for interest and entitlements and nothing else, without 
either raising taxes substantially, cutting benefits substantially, or 
running very large deficits going forward. And ultimately, there comes 
a point of no return, as you correctly point out with your charts, 
wherein the world financial markets won't lend you anymore.
  So I think you are on to a remarkably important theme, and I think it 
underscores the degree to which we are going to have an important 
debate in this Chamber in really the next month because what the 
President has essentially said is that I am not going to deal with 
this.
  If you look fundamentally at the White House budget, at the core, it 
abandons this notion of financial discipline. I mean, it adds $2.2 
trillion of new taxes. It adds $8.5 trillion of new debt. It goes from 
running structural $500 billion deficits to $1.1 trillion deficits, 
with no end in sight to the deficits that continue to grow.
  So this theme that you are getting on with regard to the mandatory 
component and the interest component of government spending I don't 
think can be underscored enough. And I don't want to interrupt you, but 
it just hit me as you were talking.
  Mr. WOMACK. Well, I am glad the gentleman did interrupt.
  And to carry our colloquy just a little bit further, the gentleman 
from South Carolina is a former Governor of South Carolina, so he has 
had some experience dealing with balanced budgets and having to live 
within your means, as a former chief executive of a State, one of the 
50 States in our country. So you have a great appreciation for how 
important it is to be able to craft budgets that live within your means 
and address the major drivers of what could be deficit spending at the 
State level.
  Mr. SANFORD. Just on that point, though, it is so interesting that 
ultimately it is not just about balancing budgets, because I think that 
a lot of people from across this country look at the carrying on and 
the going on of Congress, and they say, You know, it is about green eye 
shades, and it is about trying to balance some numbers. No. It is about 
sustaining this Republic.
  Admiral Mike Mullen, when asked, What is the biggest threat to the 
American society? he didn't answer ``China,'' he didn't answer 
``Russia.'' His answer was: The biggest threat to the American way of 
life is the national debt.
  If you were to look at a whole host of different folks across recent 
history--I mean, Paul Kennedy wrote I think an excellent book entitled 
``The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,'' and its premise was that 
economic supremacy was the precursor to military supremacy, for a 
civilization to be able to continue to project force.
  I think it is so interesting that the Prime Minister of Israel was 
here earlier today. We heard Prime Minister Netanyahu lay out his 
concerns with regards to some things happening in the Middle East. But 
America's variability, whether it is in engaging with an ally like 
Israel or whether it is engaging in a whole host of other conflicts 
that are innumerable and guaranteed across the next 25 years or so, our 
ability to impact those things will be driven, frankly, by these 
economic numbers.
  I think it has been maligned, but Reinhart and Rogoff, a professor 
from the University of Maryland and a professor from Harvard, wrote a 
book entitled, ``This Time Is Different.'' They chronicled 800 years of 
financial history, and there have been some questions about how they 
got to some of their numbers. But the larger premise was in that title, 
``This Time is Different.''
  What you are pointing out is that, no, it is never different; math 
always works. And there is something fundamental about our 
civilization's need for not just a balanced budget for balanced 
budget's sake but to be able to sustain our ability to project power 
and maintain a way of life that we love, I think, that is underlined in 
these very charts that you are showing.
  Mr. WOMACK. I thank the gentleman.
  Reclaiming my time, I just want to say, before I go to my next chart, 
that this isn't an option for us, to allow this to continue on this 
path without the interaction of this Congress and solutions offered by 
this Congress, many of which are going to be big deals because when you 
get this far along into a problem, the solutions to the problem get 
much larger. They are going to require a lot more political courage. 
But we have to address it because if we don't, in just a few years 
beyond the 2018 timeframe that this chart shows, there will be no money 
left for the items that you see in green and blue.
  And let me hasten to remind you that the items in blue are national 
defense.
  Mr. SANFORD. On that point, I love keeping strange jotted notes in my 
office.
  Again, the number that you are getting at--because you are now 
touching on national defense--you know, Habsburg defaulted on all or 
part of its debt 14 times between 1557 and 1696. Pre-revolutionary 
France saw 62 percent of its royal revenue going to interest payments 
alone. Britain, between World War I and World War II, saw interest 
payments climb to 44 percent of the British budget. In the Ottoman 
Empire, interest payments and amortization rose from 15 percent of its 
budget in 1860 to 50 percent in 1875.
  In other words, this music has been played before with disastrous 
consequences, and that is why I think it is relevant.
  Keynes actually quoted Lenin, of all folks, and Lenin's quote was 
this: ``There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing 
basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all 
the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction and does 
it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.''

[[Page 3126]]

  What you are laying out with the chart which you so appropriately lay 
before the Congress is the very formula that Lenin, himself, was 
talking about in things that will challenge not only defense but the 
way in which a government sustains itself.
  Mr. WOMACK. I appreciate the gentleman's perspective.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to show you this one.
  I was fortunate to get elected in 2010 by a significant majority of 
the people in the Third District of Arkansas. I consider that area of 
our State to be the most dynamic in all of our State. It has got a lot 
going for it. It has got great jobs, great health care, wonderful 
educational institutions, effective governments, the University of 
Arkansas Razorbacks. I mean, there are a lot of great things you can 
say about the area that I represent. And it is different than a lot of 
places around our country, I will submit to that.
  While I made a promise to the people that elected me, the biggest 
promise that I made, the one that I hold closest to my heart and the 
promise that drives all of the decisions that I make, particularly to 
my friends that have joined me here in the Chamber today regarding 
budgets, deficits, debt, long-term spending, and those kinds of things, 
are the promises I made to these two young men right here. This is 
Liam. He is 8. And that is Kaden. Kaden is not even 2 yet. They are 
cousins. These are my grandkids.
  When I look into the eyes of these two precious little boys, I see 
the innocence of youth, but I also see something that they can't see. I 
see a tremendous burden that is growing every day, every week, every 
year that these two kids have had nothing to do in creating, and that 
is a mountain of debt and interest payments for borrowed money that go 
as far as the eye can see.
  Mr. SANFORD. Will the gentleman yield on that point?
  Mr. WOMACK. I will.
  Mr. SANFORD. Again, I think you are capturing, in essence, the 
totality of this debate because there is a guy up at the University of 
Boston called Laurence Kotlikoff, and he wrote a book called ``The 
Coming Generational Storm.'' Its premise is really built around your 
two grandkids because he says that the imputed tax for a child born 
into America today is about 84 percent, 84 percent.
  I mean, our civilization won't work. A market-based economy doesn't 
work with an 84 percent tax rate. Yet that is what he said is coming 
those two young children's way in the event that nothing is done to 
change the course and the trajectory of the way that Washington is 
spending money. He says that the total debt really amounts to around 
$200 trillion. So it hit me, as I was looking into your two 
grandchildren's eyes there in the photograph.
  Mr. WOMACK. I want to give you some perspective before I close, Mr. 
Speaker.
  The only budget that we have laying out there right now is the 
President's budget. It arrived on time. It never balances--never--and 
continues to add a lot of taxes and a lot of debt and a lot of interest 
burdens on the generations of these two kids right here.
  But here is what is inescapable: the net interest on the debt that we 
will pay this year--and I might need some help on this, Mr. Rokita--I 
think it is around $250 billion?
  Mr. ROKITA. Yes.
  Mr. WOMACK. Around $250 billion. It is a lot of money. We could build 
a lot of roads and bridges, educate a lot of people, pay for a lot of 
things with that $250 billion, give or take.
  The President's budget, if you rolled it out for 10 years, in the 10-
year window before this young man can vote and before this young man 
turns 12, the net interest on the debt will rise to $785 billion a 
year. That is not a sustainable path, and that is why I was pleased to 
accept the appointment to the Budget Committee as one of the three 
appropriators assigned to this committee. That is why I enjoy the work 
that I do. That is why I appreciate so much my friend from Indiana, my 
friend from Georgia, my friend from South Carolina, and the others that 
will parade down here and talk about these issues. They are the most 
serious things that affect domestic America today.
  And out of deference to these two young men and to their parents--
Will and Amanda, and Kayle and Philip--it is my hope and my prayer that 
we will find the courage to support the solutions, as large as they may 
be, to save America's next greatest generation.

                              {time}  1615

  Mr. ROKITA. Well, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas. Clearly, Mr. 
Speaker, you see why he was elected mayor of Rogers, Arkansas. You see 
why he has been a leader in our U.S. military, and you see how and why 
he leads on the floor of this House.
  I want to, again, thank Congressman Tom Rice from South Carolina for 
speaking today, and Congressman Mark Sanford, former Governor of South 
Carolina, now Congressman of the First District, for speaking today. 
Again, I thank Congressman Steve Womack.
  With the time we have remaining, I yield to a good friend of mine who 
came in at the same time as Steve Womack and I in a wave of 87 new 
Congresspersons, the new crew, as I call it, my good friend, Rob 
Woodall, also a member of the Budget Committee, to put some icing over 
what we have learned over the past hour.
  Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend from Indiana for yielding, and I 
appreciate his leadership. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you have 
thought about it--you have not been in this institution very long. You 
came here with a lot of hopes and dreams. The gentleman from Indiana, 
the vice chairman of the Budget Committee, has been here 4 years. He 
has been here 4 years. What I have loved about this institution the 4 
years I have served here is that what was once a seniority-based 
institution, what was once if you could just hold on to your little 
piece of power long enough, you might one day rise to a place where you 
can be influential.
  When we came in that big class of 2010 and a new leadership structure 
was swept in here, folks said: No more. They said: We want to find 
folks who have talents and skills and who have the ability to lead, and 
we are going to put them in places where they can do that. I am so 
proud the gentleman from Indiana is able to fill that role for me. I 
sit on the Budget Committee, too, and I get to take advantage of his 
leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Arkansas was down here earlier, and I 
don't think I am telling secrets out of school--I am sure the vice 
chairman will correct me if I am--but he raised his hands in one of 
these closed-door meetings and he said: I want to do the big things. I 
want to do the big things. I don't want to nibble around the edges. I 
don't want to just rearrange the dollars here and there. He said: I 
want to solve the problem once and for all, and I will do whatever it 
takes to make that happen.
  I know that has always been the philosophy that the gentleman from 
South Carolina has brought to bear, that I want to do the big things. 
Let the political chips fall where they may. It is a funny thing. It 
turns out, Mr. Speaker, that if you do the right things for the right 
reasons, sometimes elections take care of themselves. You can spend all 
your time worrying about elections or you can worry about doing the 
right thing for the right reason.
  Mr. Speaker, I brought this chart here so you can see it, too. The 
blue line charts the revenue in this country. The red line charts the 
spending in this country. It is there as a percentage of GDP. There is 
no set of circumstances where revenue will ever match spending, Mr. 
Speaker. The President didn't provide that leadership; my friend from 
Indiana is. That is why I am so proud to be on the floor with you 
today.
  Mr. ROKITA. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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