[House Report 111-565]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Union Calendar No. 325
111th Congress
2d Session HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Report
111-565
_______________________________________________________________________
R E P O R T
on the
SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET ALLOCATIONS
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2011
together with
MINORITY VIEWS
SUBMITTED BY MR. OBEY, CHAIRMAN,
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
July 26, 2010.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union and ordered to be printed
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
89-006 WASHINGTON : 2010 SBDV 2011-1
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington JERRY LEWIS, California
ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
NITA M. LOWEY, New York JACK KINGSTON, Georgia
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut Jersey
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia TODD TIAHRT, Kansas
JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts ZACH WAMP, Tennessee
ED PASTOR, Arizona TOM LATHAM, Iowa
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
CHET EDWARDS, Texas JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island KAY GRANGER, Texas
MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
SAM FARR, California MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
ALLEN BOYD, Florida JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey KEN CALVERT, California
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia JO BONNER, Alabama
MARION BERRY, Arkansas STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
BARBARA LEE, California TOM COLE, Oklahoma
ADAM SCHIFF, California
MICHAEL HONDA, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
Maryland
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado
PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania
Beverly Pheto, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
LETTER OF SUBMITTAL
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC, July 26, 2010.
Hon. Nancy Pelosi,
The Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Madam Speaker: By direction of the Committee on
Appropriations, I submit herewith the Committee's report on the
suballocation of budget allocations for fiscal year 2011.
As required by section 302(b) of the Congressional Budget
Act of 1974, this report subdivides the allocation of fiscal
year 2011 spending authority to the House Committee on
Appropriations contained in H. Res. 1493, providing for budget
enforcement for fiscal year 2011.
Sincerely,
David R. Obey,
Chairman.
Union Calendar No. 325
111th Congress Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
2d Session 111-565
======================================================================
REPORT
ON THE
SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET ALLOCATIONS
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2011
_______
July 26, 2010.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union and ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Obey, from the Committee on Appropriations, submitted the following
REPORT
together with
MINORITY VIEWS
SUBALLOCATION OF BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2011
The Committee on Appropriations submits the following
report on the suballocation of budget allocations for fiscal
year 2011 pursuant to section 302(b) of the Congressional
Budget Act of 1974. This report is consistent with the ``Budget
Allocations'' presented in H. Res. 1493, providing for budget
enforcement for fiscal year 2011.
MINORITY VIEWS OF REPRESENTATIVES LEWIS, YOUNG, ROGERS, WOLF, KINGSTON,
FRELINGHUYSEN, TIAHRT, WAMP, LATHAM, ADERHOLT, EMERSON, GRANGER,
SIMPSON, CULBERSON, KIRK, CRENSHAW, REHBERG, CARTER, ALEXANDER,
CALVERT, BONNER, LATOURETTE, AND COLE
This year for the first time since the enactment of the
1974 Congressional Budget Act, the Democrat controlled U.S.
House of Representatives failed to consider and pass a budget.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service,
the House has passed a budget every year since the
Congressional Budget Act first took effect for fiscal year
1976. This represents a historic and unprecedented failure by
the Democrat controlled Congress to meet a basic responsibility
on fiscal issues: to annually adopt a spending plan that sets
priorities for spending, revenues, deficits and debt for at
least the next five years.
Instead, the Democrat Majority resorted to a tortuous
procedural sleight-of-hand to evade a direct vote in order to
``deem'' the adoption of a one-year resolution that provided
the Appropriations Committee a topline discretionary amount for
FY 2011 while failing to provide a designation for overseas
military contingencies despite promising for years that they
would never fund the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere as
an emergency or outside the regular budget process. This
unwillingness to pass a real budget was only necessary because
of the explosion of debt and deficits unleashed by the reckless
spending of Congressional Democrats and the President.
At the same time, Congressional Democrats and the
Administration have played partisan games and sought to shift
political blame from themselves for their fiscal record. For
example, the Administration and many Congressional Democrats
claim President Obama inherited some $11 trillion in deficits
over the next decade when he took office in 2009, with more
than half of this the result of the Bush Administration and
Republican Congresses' ``failure to pay for policies in the
past,'' principally the 2001 and 2003 tax relief measures,
funding for military operations overseas and the 2003
prescription drug benefit.
In reality, since taking office in 2009, President Obama
and Congressional Democrats have added $2 trillion in new
spending to the January 2009 CBO baseline that was in place
when the President was sworn in, including $1.6 trillion in new
discretionary outlays. Of this, the bulk almost 60 percent--was
for discretionary outlays from Democrats' massive increase in
regular discretionary spending, i.e., spending unrelated to
either the stimulus or the war. The Democrat Majority has
increased non-defense, discretionary spending by over 85
percent from FY 2007 to 2009, and have increased this spending
at least another 12 percent so far for FY 2010.
Moreover, projected future deficits are not the result of
inherited policies about which the Administration and
Congressional Democrats are helpless to control. For example,
the President's FY 2011 Budget proposes to continue unchanged
almost 75 percent of the past policies they and Congressional
Democrats claim contribute to current projected deficits and to
do so without paying for them, including:
Providing Alternative Minimum Tax relief, reducing
revenues by $577 billion according to CBO.
Extending all the 2001 and 2003 tax relief almost
all of which is scheduled to expire at the end of 2010--except
for certain upper-income earners and increasing the tax on
capital gains/dividends. According to CBO's re-estimate, the
President's Budget proposal for these policies would reduce
revenues by $2.2 trillion and increase outlays by $311 billion
over the next 10 years.
Moreover, these and other expensive policy
proposals would also be exempted from the statutory PAYGO law.
Likewise, the President's Budget or Congressional
Democrats could propose policies to ``pay for'' the Medicare
Prescription drug benefit they claim added to today's future
deficit projections. They haven't. In contrast they passed a
health care bill that exacerbates the current crisis in
entitlement spending by failing to control rising federal
spending for health care and instead increases the amount of
federal resources that will be directed to health care in the
future, which will continue to put tremendous pressure on the
federal budget.
As a result, as a share of the economy, the President's
projected 2010 deficit is 10.3 percent of Gross Domestic
Product the largest level since World War II. If the
President's Budget was fully implemented, annual deficits would
never fall below $724 billion and would rise above $1 trillion
before the end of the decade, even assuming an economy that has
recovered and the end of military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Debt held by the public under the President's
Budget more than doubles in over 5 years and more than triples
over 10 years while federal borrowing would more than quadruple
between 2010 and 2020.
Rather than beginning to tackle this fiscal disaster by
restraining spending, bringing down today's unsustainable
trillion dollar deficits and restoring confidence in
Washington, the Obey FY 2011 spending allocations adopted by
the House Appropriations Committee on July 20, 2010 would
continue Democrats' explosion of irresponsible spending and
further endanger the current economic recovery as well as our
future economic prosperity with more added deficits and debt.
The Democrat 302(b) suballocations for this fiscal year
would further increase discretionary spending well above the
already bloated 2010 enacted level. Chairman Obey's allocation
represents a $31.3 billion increase or almost 3 percent over
the 2010 regular budget levels, excluding the $23 billion in
new gross domestic spending Democrats added to an emergency
troop funding bill intended to support operations in Iraq,
Afghanistan and in the Global War Against Terror. This year's
allocation would add an additional $108 billion in outlays to
the current CBO March baseline deficits over the next decade if
it is built into the base, including an additional $21 billion
in new borrowing.
The Republican Members of the Committee could not and
unanimously did not support this continued across the board
spending increase and fiscal recklessness and opposed adoption
of Chairman Obey's proposed 302(b) suballocations.
In contrast, the Republican Members of the Appropriations
Committee recognize the Nation can't afford another trillion
dollar Democrat spending spree or the massive borrowing that
will be needed to finance it, which would lead to higher taxes
in the future on American families, small businesses and
entrepreneurs. CBO's recent report on the Long-Term Budget
Outlook shows that under our current budget path, U.S. debt
will soon reach unsustainable levels and put us in the same
situations now faced by Greece and other European nations.
Aside from adopting a real budget that sets priorities and
forces tough choices, the first step to restore fiscal
responsibility is to take immediate action to get spending
under control. As a starting point, during the nine
subcommittee mark ups that have taken place through July 15th,
Committee Republicans offered at least 18 amendments to reduce
non-security spending in the FY 2011 appropriation bills. All
together, Republican amendments would have saved $73 billion in
budget authority in FY 2011 and $104 billion over the next
decade, if not more. This would have translated into $129
billion in deficit reduction compared to the House Democrat
allocation, including $36 billion in lower borrowing costs.
Almost without exception, Democrat Members of the Committee
voted against every Republican amendment to save taxpayer
dollars. Committee Republicans would also bring a rescission
bill to the House floor to rescind the remaining billions in
unobligated money from the Democrats' failed 2009 stimulus
bill.
Additionally, Appropriation Republicans proposed an
alternative FY 2011 spending allocation to Chairman Obey's at
the July 20th full committee mark up that would have provided
$1.09 trillion in regular discretionary spending, the same as
last year's level, and put the brake on the runaway growth in
discretionary spending by the Democrat Majority.
This responsible spending plan would have saved the
taxpayer $31 billion this year alone compared to the Obey
allocation and at least $39 billion, if not more, compared to
the President's Budget request. And by ensuring the Democrat
spending increase was not permanently added to future budgets,
the Republican plan saved $341 billion in budget authority over
the next decade compared to the House Democrat allocation.
Moreover the Republican alternative 302(b)s would have
restored $7 billion in harmful Democrat cuts to defense and
security spending that could impair our military readiness and
national security. Instead it would have fully funded the
President's Budget request for defense and security activities
in order to provide a strong military, protect Americans at
home and abroad as well as ensure continued medical care and
critical assistance for our Nation's veterans. At the same time
the allocation would still provide a sensible level of non-
security spending for key investments in areas such as
education, medical research, and transportation among others.
The responsible path would have been to adopt the
Republican savings plan for FY 2011, taking a small first step
toward reigning in out of control spending and lowering the
deficit. Instead, every Democrat Member of the Committee voted
against the Republican 302(b) proposal to restrain spending and
restore unnecessary defense cuts.
Republicans also offered an amendment to Chairman Obey's
302(b) allocations that would have restored a $1.3 billion cut
to the Defense subcommittee. The State-Foreign Operations bill
that was passed out of the subcommittee on June 30th was
already an overly generous $3.9 billion or 8 percent increase
over last year. Inexplicably this bill received another $1.3
billion in the Chairman's 302(b) suballocations, taken from the
Defense subcommittee, thus bringing the State-Foreign
Operations bill to 11 percent over the enacted 2010 level. This
double-digit rate of increase for foreign aid and diplomatic
operations is out of step with the fiscal challenges facing the
country today. Unfortunately this Republican amendment to
restore critical troop funding for equipment and military
quality of life was opposed by every Democrat Member of the
Committee.
The sky-rocketing spending over the past three years by the
Democrat majority has led to devastating levels deficits and
debt that are stifling our nation's recovery and threaten our
future economic prosperity. Congress must act now to control
this spending and avoid burdening future generations with an
unmanageable debt burden that risks our Nation's continued
economic prosperity.
Jerry Lewis.
Harold Rogers.
Jack Kingston.
Todd Tiahrt.
Tom Latham.
Jo Ann Emerson.
Michael K. Simpson.
Mark Steven Kirk.
Dennis R. Rehberg.
C.W. Bill Young.
Frank R. Wolf.
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen.
Zach Wamp.
Robert B. Aderholt.
Kay Granger.
John Abney Culberson.
Ander Crenshaw.
John R. Carter.
Rodney Alexander.
Jo Bonner.
Tom Cole.
Ken Calvert.
Steven C. LaTourette.