[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4019-4022]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          THIS IS BUDGET WEEK

  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 sure do appreciate that, and I appreciate 
you being down here with us. I enjoy this time of the evening. It is a 
little quieter on Capitol Hill. Folks are coming and going, but I 
always learn something that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. For all 
the differences that we have here, when you talk to each other 15, 20 
seconds at a time, those differences get accented. When you listen to 
one another for an hour at a time, it is easier to find those strains 
that bind us together. I hope that I am able to touch on some of those 
topics tonight myself, Mr. Speaker.
  I have got the House budget on my mind. It is budget week. I don't 
know if everybody else is as excited about it as I am. This is budget 
week in Washington, D.C.
  I just finished a hearing in the Committee on Rules, and we had folks 
come up and testify about all of their different budget ideas. What it 
means for it to be budget week is that we just voted in the Committee 
on Rules to make every single budget that any Member of this body, 
whether they be the most liberal Democrat, the most conservative 
Republican, or anywhere in between, north, south, east, and west, 
youngest to oldest, any Member of this body that has an idea about how 
to grapple with the budgetary challenges that face this Nation, Mr. 
Speaker, their idea is going to get a vote on the floor of the House 
this week--this week.
  Now, it is heavy duty writing a budget, Mr. Speaker. I serve on the 
House Committee on the Budget. One of the reasons it is so hard, and 
you can't see it, Mr. Speaker, but I have here a pie chart of the 
spending in the United States of America. Now, you and I go through 
bill after bill, day after day, month after month of talking about 
appropriations bills. But as you know, Mr. Speaker, appropriations 
bills, they just deal with what I have shown here in the blue areas, 
the kind of nondefense discretionary spending and defense spending.
  Candidly, that is what everybody thinks of as being the budget. They 
think of transportation, roads, bridges; they think of the environment, 
parks; they think of the judiciary; they think of law enforcement; they 
think of all of these components of government. Well, the truth is, all 
of those things, Mr. Speaker, we have to jam into this little bitty 
piece of the pie, these two blue pieces of the pie, the things that 
Congress focuses on every year in the appropriations cycle.

                              {time}  2000

  This red piece of the pie is all of that spending that is on 
autopilot.
  Now, I have read the Constitution, just as you have, Mr. Speaker. It 
says that all spending is going to originate in the U.S. House of 
Representatives. Well, you have been here 3 months already and you have 
not gotten a vote on this spending at all. I have been here 4 years, 
and I haven't gotten a vote on this spending at all.
  This is spending--all of this that is represented in red--trillions 
of dollars a year, because some of our colleagues in the House 10 years 
ago, 20 years ago, 40 years ago, even 80 years ago, voted ``yes'' to 
turn on an autopilot spending bill. That bill is still on autopilot and 
still spending today. Our opportunity to grapple with this red area, 
Mr. Speaker--this that they call mandatory spending--is by outlining a 
strategy in a budget.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, for 4 years, I have had the voting card of the 
Seventh District of Georgia. It is an honor to carry that card every 
day. And for 4 years, we have been doing Budget Committee work in this 
institution that should make every American proud. It should make every 
American proud.
  But as you know, Mr. Speaker--as I think most Americans know--the 
Senate has not quite been as fortunate. They have been stymied over 
there, trying to pass a budget. Now we have a new American Senate that 
is working side-by-side with the House, because if the House can pass a 
budget and if the Senate can pass a budget and if we can come together 
and reconcile those differences, we will have a governing document that 
begins to allow us to deal not just with the small blue part of the 
budget, Mr. Speaker, but the entire budget--$3.5 trillion in FY 2014.
  Why is that so important? It is important, Mr. Speaker, because we 
have borrowed $18 trillion from our children and our grandchildren. 
Now, I say it over and over and over again. I am going to say it again 
tonight. It is immoral. It is immoral, and it is not even 
intellectually defensible.
  If you are from the part of the Congress that doesn't want to raise 
taxes--and I am in that part of the Congress--don't pretend that 
borrowing a dollar today so that you don't have to raise taxes is 
failing to raise taxes. It is not. If you borrow a dollar today, 
someone is going to have to raise taxes sometime in the future. They 
are going to have to pay that dollar back, plus interest. A vote to 
borrow money is a vote to raise taxes. It is just not a vote to raise 
taxes on you. It is a vote to raise taxes on the next generation.
  Conversely, if you are in the part of this Congress that likes to 
spend money--I am not in the part of this Congress that likes to spend 
money--I want to shrink the size and scope of government, I want to 
make it more accountable, more effective, more efficient, but it is 
hard to do with $3.5 trillion. I want to shrink the size and

[[Page 4020]]

scope of government, but if you are on the side of this Congress that 
wants to grow spending, a vote to grow spending without paying for it 
today--a vote to borrow--is a vote to cut spending on someone else 
years from now.
  We have seen it in all of the countries around the planet, Mr. 
Speaker, that are struggling with economic collapse. When government 
has to shrink, when austerity measures kick in, the people that pay the 
price are not the wealthy in society. The people who pay the price are 
those who are most dependent on government benefits.
  A vote to spend money today that we don't have--a vote to borrow 
today--is a vote to cut the benefits of our children and our 
grandchildren, who will need it more than we do today.
  So, whether you are focusing on balanced budgets from a tax 
perspective or whether you are focusing on them from a spending 
perspective, Mr. Speaker, we should be able to come together and decide 
that grappling with those issues--putting forward a plan to deal with 
those issues--is better than hiding our head in the sand.
  This is why. What I have graphed here, Mr. Speaker, with the red line 
is traditional revenues. It is tax revenues in this country--take all 
the taxes that we bring in together. I charted them as a percent of 
GDP, gross domestic product. What that means, Mr. Speaker, this looks 
like a level line but, of course, the economy continues to grow. And 
every time the economy grows, tax revenues grow. And so this is level 
as a percent of the size of our economy, but it is a growing number of 
taxes every year--again, up to $3.5 trillion now and $3.8 trillion for 
FY 2016.
  Well, these blue lines represent spending on those mandatory spending 
programs I just talked about: those programs that are on autopilot, 
those programs that we don't deal with in this institution every year, 
those programs that escape the collaborative scrutiny of this body.
  Here is what you see. This chart goes back to 1965, Mr. Speaker. Back 
in 1965, interest on the national debt was a small part of our economic 
pie. Social Security was a large part of our economic pie, but smaller 
than it is today. Medicare was a very small part. Medicaid was a very 
small part.
  What you see on this chart, Mr. Speaker, is that they grow larger and 
larger and larger. Now, that is not larger and larger and larger in 
terms of actual dollars. They are growing larger and larger and larger 
in terms of actual dollars, but this chart is reflecting them growing 
larger and larger and larger as a percent of everything the United 
States produces.
  And what you see, Mr. Speaker, is that even though all the tax 
revenue we have been able to squeeze out of this country, whether it 
was a Republican as President or a Democrat as President, whether it 
was Republicans running the country or Democrats running the country, 
America was unwilling to contribute more than about 17 to 18 percent of 
GDP in tax revenues.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, if you go out to the end of our budget window 
here, which is about 2025, you will see that, based on current law, 
current spending, spending just rising at that rate of inflation as 
required by current law, the combination of Medicaid, Medicare, Social 
Security, and interest on the national debt will consume every penny 
that the Federal Government raises--every penny.
  I showed you on this chart earlier, Mr. Speaker, what Congress deals 
with here in blue--defense and nondefense--which most people think of 
as the government. That is only about a third of the pie. Social 
Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the national debt--those 
mandatory spending programs--is where most of the money is being spent 
today. That wasn't true 30 years ago.
  Back in the 1960s, 40 years ago, Mr. Speaker, I would say about a 
third of government spending was what we will call these income support 
programs--these direct spending programs on behalf of citizens. About 
two-thirds of what we spent was investment in America. We were building 
things: the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, the National 
Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control. We were building 
things. We were defeating the evil empire.
  National security was a larger piece of the pie in those days. Two-
thirds of the budget was an investment in America. But today, Mr. 
Speaker, those numbers have exactly inverted. We spend about one-third 
on investment in national security and two-thirds on income support 
programs. By 2025, Mr. Speaker, those programs threaten to consume 
every penny the Federal Government has.
  Look out there at the end of this window, Mr. Speaker. We are not 
talking about raising taxes a little. We are talking about just to fund 
these programs--no parks, no courts, no judges, no prisons, no roads, 
no environmental regulations; nothing except Medicaid, Medicare, Social 
Security, interest on the national debt--we would have to increase 
taxes almost 50 percent just to pay for those programs.
  That is not sustainable. Everyone in this Chamber knows it is not 
sustainable. And my frustration, Mr. Speaker--and I hope you haven't 
found the same one quite yet--is that we all know what the truth is, 
but we don't all want to admit what the truth is.
  There is no question that we can't pay for these programs. There is 
no question that Social Security is headed towards bankruptcy. Who is 
doing anything to solve it? Social Security Disability is going to go 
bankrupt 18 months from now in the year 2016. Social Security 
Disability Insurance--that trust fund that is available for folks who 
have been stricken with disabilities and can no longer work--runs out 
of money.
  Everyone in this Chamber knows it. That is not Rob Woodall, 
conservative Republican, predicting that. That is the Social Security 
Disability Insurance trustees--the nonpartisan trustees--telling us 
that we are going to run out of money. The nonpartisan trustees of the 
Medicare Program are going to tell us it is going to run out of money. 
The nonpartisan trustees of the Social Security retirement program tell 
us it is going to run out of money.
  Where are the reform proposals from this institution? It is hard, Mr. 
Speaker. We all know what the truth is, but folks don't want to admit 
it.
  I am going to bring us back to budget week. What I love about this 
week, Mr. Speaker, is that we focus on those big problems, those big 
drivers of spending, those social safety net programs that are so 
essential to so many Americans. This is the week we lay out our plans 
to save them. This is the week where we talk about doing the heavy 
lifting that we don't talk about the rest of the year.
  I want the courage that we show in this week, Mr. Speaker, I want the 
ideas that we discuss this week to be the outline by which we live the 
rest of the year. I always hope for that. I don't always get that. I am 
hoping for that again this year.
  Let's talk about the plan, Mr. Speaker, that came out of the House 
Budget Committee. Now, the House Budget Committee is a fabulous group 
of people. If you have not gotten a chance, Mr. Speaker, it is 
budget.house.gov. It is completely transparent. You can see anything 
you want to see about the House-passed budget and our deliberations.
  We just had a markup last week, Mr. Speaker. We started about 10:30 
in the morning. We finished just a little after midnight that day. We 
came back the next day and went for about an hour more. We discussed 
every single amendment that anyone had to offer, Mr. Speaker. We talked 
about the big ideas. We talked about unemployment. We talked about job 
creation. We talked about job training. We talked about national 
security. We got deep into every single issue that matters to families 
back home in my district--every single one--and back home in your 
district, Mr. Speaker. And this is the plan we have laid out.
  What I have charted here, Mr. Speaker, is the path of debt. The path 
of debt runs from back in World War II, where we had to borrow about 
100 percent of the size of our economy. Granted, the economy was much 
smaller then, but as a percentage of the size of our economy--that is 
the way the economists

[[Page 4021]]

take a look at what we do to make sure that we are still on good 
financial footing--100 percent of the size of our economy to defeat the 
Nazis to win World War II.
  Mr. Speaker, we are almost back at those same high levels today. You 
see it represented here by the dark blue line. We are almost back there 
today.
  Do we have severe economic challenges today? Of course, we do. Is the 
world a dangerous place today? Of course, it is. Are we united as a 
nation and fighting those challenges the way we were fighting World War 
II? Of course, we are not. Of course, we are not. But by engaging in 
this degree of borrowing when we are not facing an international 
challenge of the size of winning World War II, we are trading away our 
opportunities to face that challenge should it arise in the future.
  We are borrowing today, Mr. Speaker, for consumption when we borrowed 
in 1945 for investment. We are borrowing today to pay the current bills 
of just running the Nation when we borrowed in 1945 to defeat evil. 
What are we going to do when we are forced to confront evil of that 
magnitude again? I am not sure, because we have traded away, through 
borrowing and spending on today's consumption, the opportunity to spend 
big to win those global challenges.
  So look at beyond the dark blue line, Mr. Speaker. This is what you 
are going to see there. The red line of debt, which you see rises far 
above World War II level borrowing--in fact, double World War II level 
borrowing--that red line is what happens if we close the doors of the 
Congress today. If we turn out the lights and never pass a new law, if 
we turn out the lights and never make a new promise, if we turn out the 
lights and promise not to spend one more penny than that that is 
already required by the laws on the books--and the White House does the 
very same thing, turns out the lights--that red line represents the 
level of borrowing necessary simply to keep today's promises. No new 
promises. Today's promises.
  I laid out the future that we are trading away. I laid out the 
opportunities to react to crises that we are trading away. I laid out 
the burden that this is putting on future generations. That is just 
where we are today. If we do nothing and let current law continue, the 
problem doesn't just get worst. It gets twice as bad.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I am tired of hearing folks complain about what 
happens here and there. I am tired of hearing folks say, I know what 
all the problems are, but I don't have any solutions to offer. I just 
want to tell you who to blame for your woes. I don't want to be 
responsible for providing solutions.

                              {time}  1915

  Nonsense, nonsense--this body is not filled with men and women, Madam 
Speaker, who came here to find blame. This body is filled with people 
who came to solve problems.
  Blue line, problem solved--that blue line, that light blue line, 
Madam Speaker, represents the House Budget Committee mark. If this 
institution passes the budget for FY16, for the next 10-year window, if 
they pass the budget that we worked out in that Budget Committee, we 
don't just avoid the economic catastrophe that is represented by 
current law, we reverse the trend.
  Madam Speaker, it is hard. Golly, I want to be able to tell children 
and grandchildren across this country that we are balancing the budget 
tomorrow. We are not. We are not. We can't.
  Unless you want to raise taxes right through the roof and crush 
working American families, unless you want to cut spending right to the 
floor and crush our opportunities at national security, you can't 
balance the budget tomorrow. The problem is too big.
  We laid out a 10-year glide path. It doesn't put the tough decisions 
off for 10 years, but it begins making the tough decisions today, 
begins bending that curve of borrowing today.
  Madam Speaker, $4.7 trillion in interest is what we are projecting to 
spend in the 10-year window--$4.7 trillion on interest alone.
  Madam Speaker, the budget for the entire United States of America 
last year was only $3.5 trillion. We are only proposing, as a budget 
for next year, $3.8 trillion. Our interest payments, borrowing at the 
record-low teaser rates that we are borrowing at today--record-low 
rates--are going to see us pay $4.7 trillion in interest over the next 
10 years.
  It is like taking 18 months off. Think about that. If our budget is 
about $3.8 trillion for FY16, $4.7 trillion, that is about a year and a 
quarter off. Again, turn out the lights, send everybody home--no more 
national security, no more schools, no more roads. That is what debt is 
costing us, a year and a quarter of productivity out of the next 10, 
and that is when we take these important steps to begin to curb it.
  Compare the difference in vision, Madam Speaker. This blue line 
represents our vision. The light blue line represents our solution to 
the red line, which represents current law.
  Madam Speaker, why is this so hard to do? Because this chart 
represents the President's vision--leadership is a two-way street. We 
need folks leading on both sides of the aisle. We need folks leading on 
both sides of the Congress. We need folks leading on both ends of 
Pennsylvania Avenue. Leading often means taking something that you 
disagree on and selling the other guy on why you are right.
  For us, Madam Speaker, we take our balanced budget proposal. We take 
it to the other side of the aisle. We take it on the other side of the 
Capitol. We take it on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and we try 
to sell it.
  We believe that balancing the budget is the right thing to do. We 
believe that borrowing from our children and grandchildren is immoral. 
The President takes a different view, and I don't fault him for taking 
a different view. I question his math. I question the economic guidance 
that he is relying on. I don't question his motives.
  His view--which is represented by the deficit here in blue, our 
annual deficits are represented in red--represent the budget the 
President sent to Capitol Hill this year. Now, this budget is 
substantially similar to the budgets he has sent to Capitol Hill every 
year.
  If the President was standing here tonight, Madam Speaker, I don't 
think I would be mischaracterizing him if I say what he would tell you 
is he wants to freeze our debt as a percent of the size of our economy, 
and as long as our economy is rising then, he believes we can continue 
to let our debt rise. He calls that primary balance, when you lock in 
your debt as a static percent of GDP but continue to borrow forever--
forever.
  What I am showing you here on this chart, Madam Speaker, is our 
budget alternative, produced by the Budget Committee, to be voted on in 
the House tomorrow. What our budget does is take deficits for about 
$350 billion next year down to zero.
  I don't even know if you know this word down on the end, Madam 
Speaker. It says ``surplus''--no reason you should know it. We haven't 
seen one in your time on Capitol Hill. I would argue we haven't seen 
one in my lifetime.
  We talked about them happening in the nineties, but as you know, that 
was a little funny math there, the Social Security trust fund and other 
issues. It has been a long time since we have seen a surplus in our 
budget, but that is what our ideas produce. That is what our tough 
choices produce. That is what our commitment to solving problems 
produces.
  The President, on the other hand, raises taxes over $1 trillion, new 
taxes over $1 trillion, and continues to spend, so much so that in the 
years that we are balancing, Madam Speaker, the President is borrowing 
an additional $1 trillion a year.
  He would tell you that the reason he is borrowing it is because 
investment in America is important, and it is. He would tell you that 
the reason he is borrowing is because, if we don't invest in challenges 
today, we are not going to be able to reap the benefits of those 
challenges tomorrow, and he is right.
  We are not arguing in this institution, Madam Speaker, we are not 
debating in this institution, we are not grappling in this institution 
about the merit of investing in America. We all believe that we should.

[[Page 4022]]

  What we are talking about is whether or not we should pay for that 
investment. If we think it is a good idea, should we find the money for 
it today? Or do we just think it is enough of a good idea for our 
children to figure out how to pay for it or our grandchildren to figure 
out how to pay for it?
  But it is not so much of a good idea that you and I would actually 
burden ourselves with making the tough decision today--nonsense. I 
reject that vision. I reject the President's growing deficits out. I 
reject the President's budget that says: Not only am I not going to 
balance tomorrow, not only am I not going to balance in the next 10 
years, I am not going to balance the budget ever.
  Now, that is not a small thing we are arguing about. This isn't just 
some sort of partisan sniping that happens between Republicans and 
Democrats. There is a fundamental disagreement about who we are as 
Americans, about what the role of Federal Government is.
  The House Budget Committee says: Let's try to balance this budget in 
the next 10 years. The time to stop burdening our children and our 
grandchildren with debt is now.
  The President says: I have spending priorities for America. Let's 
grow the amount of money we are borrowing every single year. Let's 
balance the budget never.
  I don't know if you get this in townhall meetings back home like I 
do, Madam Speaker, but folks say: Rob, why can't you guys just work 
this out? Why can't you get together, close the doors, work this out? 
We have serious problems. You need to solve the serious problems.
  Madam Speaker, I have got a President who is prioritizing balancing 
the budget never, and I have got a House Budget Committee that is 
prioritizing balancing the budget in the next 10 years. Those aren't 
small differences. The differences could not get much larger.
  I don't expect to sell everyone in this institution on the Budget 
Committee's ideas for balancing this budget, Madam Speaker. I am not 
going to get every vote in this Chamber. I am going to keep selling it, 
but I am not going to get every vote in this Chamber. I recognize that.
  What I am going to prioritize is selling folks in this Chamber on the 
fact that if we choose to borrow money, we are either taking it from 
the next generation's benefits, or we are taking it from the next 
generation's tax bill.
  The bill is going to come due. These deficits that the President 
proposes are going to come due. These deficits that we have already run 
are going to come due. It's either a benefit cut for the next 
generation or a tax increase for the next generation. There is no free 
lunch.
  Now, I don't purport to have all the answers, Madam Speaker, though 
we have got a pretty good blueprint here. What I do propose, though, is 
that we are going to be closer to finding the answers if we bring all 
of the ideas together.
  I see my friends from the Rules Committee sitting here in the corner 
tonight, Madam Speaker. They have been upstairs grinding through the 
paperwork. It was a little more complicated rule tonight than it 
ordinarily is because we took every single idea that any Member of this 
Chamber had about balancing the budget. If you wanted to write your 
budget, it is made in order for debate this week, budget week.
  I don't know which budget is going to win, Madam Speaker, though I 
have my preferences. What I do know is that if you are in the solutions 
business, you had your shot this week. If you are in the solutions 
business, you had a chance to put your money where your mouth is, 
literally, your money, all of our money, all taxpayer money, these 
budgets together, in a document.
  We are going to debate some doozies this week. We are going to debate 
some budgets that purport cutting spending virtually in half, and we 
are going to debate some budgets that virtually double taxation in this 
country. We will see where those chips fall.
  Madam Speaker, that didn't sound like the exciting thing that it is. 
That is what is so interesting to me about the work that goes on. 
Everybody is out in front of the cameras all day long, every day, 
talking about the issues that the pundits want to talk about.
  What our reading clerk just did here, in 15 uneventful seconds, is 
set into motion the most open, the most comprehensive, the most 
optimistic week of public policy debate this institution will see in 
2015. I am honored to be just a small part of that.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________