Community Recognition Act of 2004

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Just to start off the debate, we are obviously very interested in hearing what the Congressional Black Caucus has to offer. While we may disagree on the specifics, the caucus has almost every year provided its full alternative budget. As the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, I respect the fact that they would do so. I am going to oppose it, I respectfully oppose it; but I certainly appreciate the fact that the caucus would come forth with a full budget proposal. We look forward to hearing the debate as a proponent.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First and foremost, let me say that obviously we do not agree with some of the facts and figures laid out by my friends on the other side in their criticism of not only the Republican budget, which is the base bill here, but also the President's budget.

Mr. Chairman, be that as it may, in good comity with my colleagues, I ask unanimous consent to yield 10 minutes of my time to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to control that time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) for a statement.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), a member of the committee.

(Mr. WICKER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute just to respond.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, as I said in our opening, I respect the fact that we are putting our values on the table. I have enormous respect for that. But let me just at least respond to the gentleman with regard to what he just said about taxes.

Most provisions that they are talking about, that they talk about as being tax cuts for the rich or tax increases on the rich, we have to remember that the bracket they are talking about, 90 percent of small businesses, which are the job creators in my district, in Manchester, Iowa, and it is true for all small businesses; small businesses owned by women, small businesses owned by minorities, small businesses all together, are paying this top rate, and 80 percent of the increase on taxes on this top rate would be borne by small businesses. Two-thirds of the income tax filers in the top income tax bracket have small business income. If we want to create jobs, why would we tax the job creators? That is what we are talking about.

And I respect the fact my Democrat colleagues admit they are taxers and spenders, but do not tax the job creators.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I have no further speakers other than myself and I belive I have the right to close and so I am prepared to close when the gentleman is.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, first, as I did when I opened, I do very much respect the job that has been done by the Congressional Black Caucus in presenting a budget. It is very difficult to do that. I know that just because I have the responsibility of putting together the majority budget, and it is not an easy task. And so I appreciate the job that was done. We simply disagree, and we do so very respectfully.

The title of the budget is ``Investing in America,'' and we just happen to believe that the best investors in America are Americans, not the government. We believe that individuals and families make much better decisions about spending their money than the government can for them. And so the reason why we believe that increasing taxes would be wrong or increasing spending at this time and the dramatic way that you go about that in your budget would just not be the right recipe at this time or the right blueprint as we move forward.

A couple of things that I just want to point out to my colleagues who are coming over and getting ready to vote.

The first is that the substitute offered by the Congressional Black Caucus raises taxes. It raises $35 billion of

taxes in 2005 alone and $192 billion over 5 years. And the way that it raises taxes is on small business; and that is, in my estimation, the wrong recipe at the wrong time when our economy is just poised to begin job creation. Ninety percent of small businesses pay taxes at the rate that they want to increase. More than 80 percent of the increase in taxes on the top rate will be borne by small business. Two-thirds of the income tax filers in the top income tax rate have small business income.

Small businesses represent more than 99 percent of all the employers in this country. And at the exact moment when the economy is poised after 6 months of the largest growth in 20 years, we cannot allow a tax increase to occur on those small businesses because they are the risk- takers, the entrepreneurs, the innovators in America. It is not government.

The innovation is happening outside of Washington, D.C., not inside the Beltway. And we need to encourage that.

I also just want to mention that tax cuts are not to blame for everything. We have heard a lot of people come to the floor today claiming that tax cuts cause the deficit, that tax cuts are the bane of our existence. Let me remind you that tax cuts, as you can see here, represent this white area right above here. This white line. And tax cuts would not have gotten us into deficit. It is spending. It is spending. It is spending that gets us into deficit as well as a downturn in the economy.

So two things that we cannot do, kill the economy or continue increases in spending. Second thing is that I believe the substitute spends too much money. Let me tell you what I mean by that.

Even before you ask us to adopt your budget, look at the large increases of spending that we are talking about. So before anyone comes to the floor yet again today and says somehow that we are cutting this, we are cutting that, we are gouging this, we are gouging that, my goodness we are spending a lot of money out here. In fact, if you want to look at this a little different way, this is the bar chart way. In the last 3 years total growth has been 6 percent. That is enough. We have enough spending. We do not need new taxes.

Please reject, respectfully, the Congressional Black Caucus budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, it is interesting that the title of this budget is When You Are in a Hole, Stop Digging. Yes, they need to stop digging, stop digging in the pockets of families and small businesses and farmers and ranchers. They are digging and digging for more and more and more taxes. More taxes from farmers, more taxes from ranchers, more taxes from families, more taxes from married couples, more taxes that kill jobs and make it impossible for our economy to get back on its feet. When you are in a hole, stopping digging in the American people's pockets and start reducing spending around Washington which is wasteful.

This budget presented today raises taxes at a time when small businesses can least afford it. Ninety percent of small businesses pay at the individual rates. More than 80 percent in the increase in taxes for the top rate that they speak of will be borne by small businesses. Small businesses represent more than 99 percent of all employers, and they employ more than half of the private workforce.

When you are in a hole, stop digging in my pockets and pass the Republican plan that does not raise taxes.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute just to say there has been some discussion here on the floor about how honest this budget is. Let me just point out, we are having a chance to read this thing and it cuts Medicare. Maybe I am missing something, but we are actually going to ask people to vote to cut Medicare. Not only do you cut Medicare, a $156 billion cut to Medicare, but I have read your budget and there is no reconciliation instruction in here on how to cut Medicare or even if you are going to cut Medicare. No reconciliation, just a plugged number in here of $156 billion.

They are advertising that their budget somehow reduces the deficit more. It does not reduce the deficit more. They have got plugged numbers in this budget. Somebody has rushed this budget to the floor with plugged numbers. If you are in a hole, stop digging, huh? Well, you better have a real shovel and not just try and fill it in with fantasy. $156 billion of Medicare cuts. I want you to go home and explain to your seniors that issue.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute, just continuing to look at this interesting budget. The gentleman from Texas says that he is concerned about the numbers being more expensive for Medicare. How come, then, they adopted the CBO baseline? If they think the actuaries at OMB are so correct, why did they not have the integrity to put that into their baseline? Again, they accept CBO. We accept CBO, but they come to the floor, and they demagogue the issue and they say that OMB is wrong and that the actuary is somehow correct. Then have the guts to put it in here. Do not raise taxes on the American people. Cut Medicare which they do in this instance. And now we find that they also cut national defense, $2 billion this year alone. National defense is cut. Where are they going to come up with $2 billion in national defense this year? Where are they going to find that? There are troops in the field right now who need our support, and they are asking for $2 billion this year. We have got to find some more details before somebody can claim that this has the integrity and the honesty to come before us as a budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to just say, put your money where your mouth is. Your budget does not balance. You say balance the budget, but you do not balance the budget. So it is one thing to say balance the budget, and it is another thing to come to the floor without a balanced budget. So you say one thing, and unfortunately the budget says just another.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.

I have got the figures right here, and there is a cut in defense of $2 billion in this year. I would suggest you need to read your own budget because there is a cut in defense, and I say that as respectfully as I can. I believe we can find savings in defense, but please do not come here advertising there are no cuts in defense when you put in this first year alone cuts in defense.

So those are the facts, and I believe that again you have got to look at your advertisements meeting the reality of the budget itself.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I do not need the time. I have got my own time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

First and foremost, let me say to the gentleman who is the ranking member of the Committee on Agriculture, the choice will be the Committee on Agriculture's choice on where to find those savings, and I doubt seriously that the gentleman from Texas is going to be promoting opening up the farm bill. At least I would hope that he does not. That is not what the gentleman from Virginia, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, is suggesting.

I would hope that the gentleman from Texas does not believe that we should open up the farm bill. There is certainly no one on this side of the aisle, or I should not say no one, but there is certainly no one who I am aware of who wants to open up the farm bill at this time. That is not where the savings would come from. So I hope the gentleman would allow his own committee to work its will and to work within that committee process.

He asks us to respect the committee process on the one hand, and yet he predisposes that on the other. And I have to tell the Members I do not believe the farm bill is where we ought to be looking.

Second of all, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot say on the one hand, we are going to raise taxes on the job creators, the small businesses, the farmers, the ranchers, we are going to raise taxes on those people, and accept the economic assumptions that the economy is going to continue to grow.

You are saying on the one hand, we are going to kill jobs, we are going to tax small business, we are going to tax farmers; and on the other hand, do not worry about the economy, it is going to continue to grow at the same baseline amount. So you accept our numbers on the economy, which are derived, in part, from the fact that the tax cuts are working and the economy, the last 6 months at least, has had the strongest growth in 20 years.

You are accepting all the good news. You are accepting all the cake. But you cannot at the same time say, oh, no, but we are going to raise taxes on those same people who are creating the jobs, who are providing all that economic development, who are helping to make sure that the economy is growing, who are spending their money, who are being productive; we are going to tax them, and we are going to accept the economic growth. You cannot have it on the one side and then take it back on the other.

So you need to change your economic factors if you are going to come to the floor with a budget that you are going to at least purport. That answers the question.

The very distinguished gentleman from Texas asked me a question. He said, Are our deficit numbers better or worse? The issue is, we do not know because you accept the good news of the economy that the tax cuts have given us, and yet on the other hand you take away the tax cuts.

So on the one hand you say, oh, yes, our deficits are going to get smaller because the economy is going to improve, because that is the same baseline that you have; and yet on the other hand, you take away the goose that is laying the golden egg, by taxing, by digging deeper into the pockets of the very people who are creating those jobs.

You cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let us just get back to this now. We were talking about the economy and, if this is doing so well, how come we are broke? All right. There are a lot of things that contribute to that.

First and foremost, let me say to my friend from Arkansas, you have not heard me blame the Democrats. I blame Osama bin Laden. I blame a lot of the challenges that we had from the natural downturn in the economy. I blame the dot-com bubble bursting. I blame the corporate scandals. I blame a lot of things. You have not heard me blame the Democrats because, no, you are not in charge.

I am not suggesting you are. Yes, you have stopped a few things from going through the other body. Yes, you have stopped a few things from coming through this body. But, no, I am not suggesting you are in charge.

But now we are talking about a plan to move forward. You want to debate history? You can debate history. Let me show you what we are doing moving forward. As I said, the last 6 months of growth in our economy has been at the fastest pace in 20 years, the fastest pace in 20 years. So when you say, if your plan is so good, where are you going, we are going nowhere but up. In fact, the most recent data that came out today said the economy continued to grow at 4 percent. That is the first thing, the economy is growing.

What have the tax cuts meant to jobs? All right, unemployment would have been higher without the tax relief package. It was at this point in time right there that we reduced taxes, and, as a result of reducing taxes, look what happened to unemployment. Unemployment went down as a result of the tax relief package from the line that it was on. In fact, we are at a lower point in unemployment than we were when Bill Clinton had his economic challenges back in 1993. We are reducing unemployment. We are getting people back to work. It is in part because of tax relief.

Last, but not least, let me just mention this: 2 million more jobs would have been lost without the tax relief package. Again, looking here, without tax cuts, we were losing jobs at a record pace. 2.1 million jobs have been created as a result of these new tax relief packages that have been put into place. We are creating jobs. The economy is turning around.

Quit blaming tax cuts for all the problems in the world. My goodness, that is not the case. And when you are in a hole, stop digging in the pockets of the American people for more money, more money, more money. Tax and spend, tax and spend. More spending in Washington, more wasteful Washington spending. My goodness, that is not what we need.

People are telling us they spend their money better than we do here in Washington. Let us allow them to do it by keeping the money in their pockets. Let us keep creating jobs; let us keep the economic growth going strong. This is not the time to raise taxes, as the Blue Dog budget does.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, first and foremost, let me say to my friend from Texas and all of the members of the caucus that I respect the fact that they put together a plan. I should have opened with that. It maybe would have helped take away some of the sting of the opposition that I have, because, as the gentleman knows, it is not easy to put together a plan. The fact that people are willing to put their plan on paper and let everybody see it and let everybody pick it apart, as I am trying to do and others will probably do to me and have been doing, I respect that. But I strongly oppose what the gentleman is offering, and I also strongly oppose some of the advertisement that the gentleman is offering.

The gentleman says, you know, when you are in a hole, stop digging. He is right. When you are in a hole, you ought to stop digging. Digging to me is spending. That is what is digging our hole deeper.

Unfortunately, what the Blue Dog budget does, it does not throw away the shovels. It keeps spending. It keeps growing. It keeps wasting money in Washington.

The gentleman said that we would have to open up the farm bill. First and foremost, we are not going to open up the farm bill. The gentleman knows that. That is a signal to the farmers out there, I have a few in Iowa, he has a number in Texas, that maybe they ought to start worrying about that. Maybe it is a code word to let them know they ought to start calling in and worrying about the farm bill. We are not looking at the farm bill.

Let me tell you what we are looking at. The Agriculture Department testified before the gentleman's committee, the Committee on Agriculture, as well as my committee, that they were proud of the fact that the error rate in food

stamps has gotten down to a fabulous level of 9 percent, meaning 9 cents on the dollar, or almost one dime out of every dollar, is wasted, is abused, goes to the wrong people, is used in an underground market or used as an underground currency, as has been testified. Nine percent is wasted.

All we are asking for is we are saying would you please look around your jurisdiction for some of this waste? It is unconscionable that we have people in this country that are starving, that are going hungry, that are going without food in their belly at a time when we have economic challenges; and the Agriculture Department under President Clinton, and it continues today, was wasting money.

Now, guess what? Do you know why they are proud of the fact it is only 9 percent? Because the error rate is down from 18 percent. They are proud of the fact that we are only wasting now 9 cents on the dollar, instead of 18 cents on the dollar. They are proud of that.

Only in Washington would you be proud of the fact that you are wasting 9 cents on the dollar. That is the only place in the world. There is not a small business in Iowa or anywhere across the country that would be proud of 9 cents of waste on every dollar that they have to deal with in their business. In fact, there is not a small businessman or -woman in this country who would not lock the door at five o'clock and spend the rest of the night, if they had to to figure out where that 9 cents went and why it was being wasted. You could just picture them locking the door and looking through every single one of their books to find that 9 cents.

And yet when it is wasted in Washington, it is defended. They say, well, that is good. We are improving; isn't that nice? And what we are saying in our budget is that it is darn time to look for some of this waste in the budget, and the Blue Dog budget does not do that.

The second thing, I just want to talk about tax cuts real quick. Tax cuts did not cause the deficit. There would be deficits without tax cuts.

As you can see from this chart, the taxes are in this blue area right here. But what is driving the budget into deficit is an economy that has been rocked, that has been hit in its gut by a number of issues, everything from 9/11 to the dot-com bubble bursting to corporate scandal, and we have got to get that economy back on its feet. More importantly, we have to get families earning again and creating jobs, along with small businesses.

It would be the wrong time, at a moment in our history when jobs are about to be created, to gut-punch them again, all those small business people, and say, yes, we need a little bit more for Washington. Before you create those jobs, we are going to fund some more of that waste out in Washington, so we need that money, and to do it and not even accomplish a balanced budget. They raise the taxes, but they do not even get to a balanced budget.

The other thing that I just wanted to say, last, but not least, is on spending. I respect the conservative Democrats, the Blue Dogs. They are probably our last hope when it comes to Members on the other side who have any concern about controlling spending. But they fail to do so in their budget, and it is compounded by such a large history of growth in spending.

This is not a time to increase spending. This is not a time when we need to have growth in government. This is a time to look around the garden and start pulling some weeds, the way every family does across our country, the way every small business person does across our country. They look for ways to tighten their belt. Sometimes it hurts when they tighten their belt.

We are not asking for pain; we are just saying level funding. States across our country are cutting budgets. Families across the country are making ends meet with less. Only the Federal Government, for some reason, believes you can raise taxes for more spending in Washington, D.C. and call that a success story.

That is why we believe the Republican budget is the way to go. It holds the line on spending; it funds our important priorities of strength, growth for the economy, and opportunity for the future. It deserves a vote.

Please vote against the Blue Dog budget.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment in the nature of a substitute, and claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that half of the time I have claimed in opposition be yielded to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for purposes of control.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to observe, get old people? That is kind of interesting.

The one program that seniors in our country depend on is Medicare. Are there any cuts in the Republican budget for Medicare? No. In fact, we funded a new drug benefit last year, and that is included in our budget. But, boy, it is interesting here, as I look at the Democrat substitute, look on the Medicare line, a cut in Medicare, is it possible that you could come to the floor with a cute little sign that says Get Old People and then cut Medicare and yell about it?

I can yell, too, I suppose, but yelling does not make it different. My colleagues get old people with a Medicare cut. Why is it that they would come to the floor with a sign that says one thing and present a budget that does something completely different? At a time when we are trying to modernize Medicare, provide providers with better reimbursements and help provide the first-ever prescription drug benefit under Medicare is not the time to cut Medicare. My colleagues should not have that in their budget.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, we just heard an interesting speech about Medicaid cuts. So, on the one hand, it is okay when you put a Medicare cut into your budget, and then come to the floor and say, do not worry about the Medicare cut in the Democratic substitute, do not worry about that, look over here at the Republican budget where they are cutting Medicaid.

Let me tell Members what is happening to Medicaid.

Let us assume for a moment that was coming out of Medicaid, $2 billion was coming out of Medicaid. Sounds like a lot of money; it is a lot of money, particularly if you are a small business back home and people are trying to raise taxes.

Let me show what happens to Medicaid with and without the reform. Instead of spending $1.15 trillion over the next 5 years, we are saying there are States out there that the Department of Health and Human Services has discovered are wasting or transferring approximately $9 billion per year of what the Secretary of Health and Human Services said were suspicious transfers or suspicious spending. Not one penny of that, he is claiming, is going to nursing homes or seniors, not one penny. He is saying it is suspicious because the States are playing games with that money.

So what we say is, we want to look for that money and find out whether or not the States are doing that. We want to see if we can provide some of that savings, and we want to put it back into the program so it actually goes to nursing homes and actually goes to

people who are in poverty or people who do not have health care or kids in the SCHIP program.

So what we are saying within our budget is, when we find savings, because maybe some States are abusing this program or maybe others are abusing that program, let us take that waste and put it back into the budget so we have a better health care system for our people who are indigent.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to build on the comments by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) because he made them so well.

In Washington, a cut, the definition of a cut and listen to this, if you ask for one thing and it is an increase and you do not quite get the increase you want, then you are cut.

It is like my son, and I hope he is not listening. If my son came to me and he asked me for a $10-a-month allowance, and I only gave him an $8 allowance, would it be fair for him to scream that he was being cut $2? Of course not, because that is just not the way things work. It does not make sense.

In Washington, however, when you do not get the anticipated increase you ask for, you can scream bloody murder that you have been cut. Unfortunately, time and time again Members come to the well or the floor here and they say we have been cut, we are gouging or we are eliminating spending, when in fact all we are saying is let us not grow as fast.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my remaining time in opposition be allowed to be split, 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), and that they be allowed to control that time.

Mr. Chairman, I do.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from Connecticut says there is no change in direction. Let me beg to differ. There is a lot of change in direction, a lot of change in direction in our economy.

Our economy has, as many of us know and many people listening know who are out of work, who have had a difficult time with their jobs, small businesses that have not been able to make ends meet, they know that there has been a change in direction.

We were heading in a downward path with our economy, but the last 6 months have been the strongest 6 months of growth within our economy in over 20 years. And why? Because we adopted the best fiscal policy we could at the time, and that was to say let us give the ability to create jobs to small business.

What the Spratt substitute does, what the Democrats are rushing to the floor to claim today, is that right at the moment when we finally have seen a positive change in direction for our economy, let us give it a gut-punch. Let us kill the jobs. Let us kill small business with a tax increase, exactly at the wrong time.

When you propose the tax increases of this budget, what you do is you kill the jobs, because 90 percent of small businesses pay at that rate that they want to increase. They want this automatic tax increase to occur. More than 80 percent of the increase in taxes on this top rate will be borne by small businesses; and in Manchester, Iowa, in South Carolina, in California and across the country, those are the businesses that are creating jobs. We do not want, we do not need, and we will not support a tax increase right at the moment when the country is getting back on its feet.

Why do they propose a tax increase? Because they want more spending. So many of the Members over the last 2 days have come to the floor wringing their hands about the deficit. Oh, the deficit is so terrible; let's increase spending. Oh, the deficit is going to be passed on to our kids; but let us have more wasteful Washington spending.

Oh, the deficit is terrible because it is going to promote all sorts of terrible things happening within our economy, but let us continue the spending.

Spending and tax increases, spending and tax increases, on and on it goes. You would think over time they would come to the floor with a much more original budget than continuing tax increases and continuing big spending.

It is about time that we finally realize in this country that when you are in a hole, you not only stop digging by controlling spending, but you stop digging in the pockets of the American family, the American farmer, the American small businessperson, who does the spending, who does the working, who does the toiling, that needs to be occurring in order to make this country great and continue the freedom and opportunity for our kids into the future.

We have got to control spending. We do not want an automatic tax increase. Let us not support this substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Schrock), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) so that he may respond.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to myself.

Mr. Chairman, the interesting thing about my friends on the other side is that they know the words of deficit reduction and they know the words of fiscal responsibility, but they have not yet learned the music.

They know the words to the song, but they do not know the music because on the one hand they say that we are gouging, we are cutting, we are eliminating, we are making it more difficult on the spending side of the ledger. On the other hand, they say how our economy needs a shot in the arm; how it needs to be growing again; how we need to be creating jobs. And yet in their budget, they do nothing on the spending side because they increase spending or on the growth side because they kill job creation by raising taxes on small business.

So, yes, they know the words to the song. The words to the song are almost always easy to learn, but the music is a little more difficult to learn. So we would invite you to go back and learn the notes to the song before you come back next time. You have got to control spending in Washington. You have got to get the economy growing. That was the recipe of 1997.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to myself.

What an interesting concept. Let me review the concept the gentleman promoted from 1997.

You mean to tell me that the words to this song are cut taxes and control spending and the deficit goes down. My goodness, what a novel concept. We should write a budget that says that.

In fact, we have. We have written a budget which is the base bill today that reduces taxes, keeps them level; reduces spending, keeps it level; funds the priorities of national security; grows our economy; controls spending; and gives us deficit reduction. Exactly the words to the song, exactly the right music and the reason why you should support the Republican budget.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to myself.

If facts are stubborn things, then why is it that you would increase taxes on those families you have just lamented $1.2 trillion over the course of the Democratic substitute, $1.2 trillion of tax increases. Why would we go through there? I thought, wait a minute, I thought the gentleman knew the song. He was talking the right words. He was saying the right words, but I thought he learned the music too. The music to this is reduce taxes, keep them low, keep spending under control, look for waste. That is what the budget that we have presented does, not increase taxes as the Democrat substitute does.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to myself.

Mr. Chairman, there is not an economist in the country, not one economist who does not say that the economic recession that we had to face began under President Clinton. President George Bush inherited the recession from President Clinton. We worked to reduce it and get it back on a growth path, which we have done.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to myself.

The way that is computed, I would say to my friend, the way of course that is computes is we believe that by allowing a tax increase to occur automatically, that that is a tax increase. So we start with that and then above that is over the CBO baseline. So that is where we come up with $1.2 trillion over the 10 years of your budget.

Mr. Chairman, I would say to my friend, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), look, part of the reason why we are having this discussion is that there are so many people coming to the floor complaining about tax cuts for the rich. We know what you are up to.

I understand that rhetorically, not the gentleman necessarily, but we believe within the party what you are up to, that is, you want to, what you say, is reduce this tax for the highest income tax bracket. I understand that is not what your budget says, but I am saying that is what the votes say on the floor time and time again as they come to the well, and that is, that when that is targeted at that bracket, what you are targeting, we believe, are small businesses which are creating those jobs.

I understand that nobody wants to kill those jobs, but when people in small business are paying at that tax bracket, we believe that kills jobs. And that is why we do not allow those tax increases to expire. We believe that would be a tax increase.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to myself.

Mr. Chairman, let me start by letting the committee know and the House know that we have a letter from Secretary Principi on the subject that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) just spoke about.

Let me just read from the letter and I will be glad to make this available as it was just made available to me:

``I write to strongly endorse the House passage of H. Con. Res. 393,'' this budget. ``The President's budgets have provided historic funding levels for America's veterans today. The Veterans Administration provides nearly a million more veterans with better, faster health care than when the President took office.''

So just in the last 3 years, 1 million more veterans have been invited into the VA than under former President Clinton.

``The President pledged to reduce the average processing time to 100 days and reduce the inventory of pending claims to 250,000. The Department is on track to meet those goals.

``When the President entered office, VA was providing care to slightly under 4 million veterans. Now, at a time when the overall population of veterans is declining,'' and that is unfortunate, ``nearly 5 million patients are being treated. The President's budget reflects his strong commitment on preserving the core mission of the Department of Veterans Affairs.''

He salutes the Congress, he says, and he strongly urges Members to vote for this budget resolution.

A couple of other things I just wanted to mention with regard to veterans spending. The House level for veterans spending is the highest amount between the two bodies that we will have an opportunity to support. The House version is higher than the Senate version because the Senate, when it passed an amendment on the floor, included unspecified receipts, which is an interesting budget code word for copayments, fee increases, means testing. Those are ways that we get those unspecified receipts to be specified.

The result is that, together with Secretary Principi, the House budget we present today is $1.2 billion above the President's request to meet the request that Secretary Principi provided to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the Committee on the Budget. If my colleagues want to support a higher veterans spending amount, they need to support the amount that is provided in this bill.

Veterans organizations are getting snookered out there by being told that the Senate number is somehow higher than the House number. That could not be further from the truth. When you hide fees, when you hide means testing, when you hide copayments into an amendment and then pass it, that is not necessarily a higher amount because in our bill, in our budget, we do not accept any fee increases, any copayments, or any means testing to this program. It is a higher amount than the other body, and it needs our support.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Let me just give my colleagues this again on veterans health care. Overall spending for veterans medical care has grown significantly in recent years. The Congressional Research Service estimates that it has increased from $17.8 billion in 1999 to $28.3 billion in 2004. That is 9 percent a year of increases, and we will continue that as we move forward into the future.

Since 1999, spending on veterans medical care has increased from $16 billion to $28 billion a year, a 75 percent increase; and over the past 2 years, appropriation for veterans medical care increased rapidly, by 11 percent in last year alone.

To come to the floor and suggest today that we are not meeting our promises to veterans is based on the veterans service organizations and what they call their independent budget. Look, I will tell my colleagues the same thing I tell them and tell my veterans at home. They, of course, have earned the right to request any amount they believe they deserve. That is not the issue. Of course they have the right to make that request.

Our job, though, is to make sure that we fund and we make sure we are meeting the demands of veterans, and veterans under President Bush have gotten not only a promise fulfilled, but we are helping to ensure that the lines are shorter; that the care is better; and that it is delivered to as many veterans as possible under this bill. We continue that promise, and we do it at a faster rate than the other body.

The veterans service organizations have been alerting Members because they thought mistakenly that the Senate had a higher number than the House. That is the reason that they were agitating over this; but when they have read it, when we have read it and when others independently have read

it, they discovered that there are these unanticipated fees, unanticipated receipts, possibly means testing, possibly all sorts of things that are hidden in there in order to make that number look just a little bit bigger.

Well, we are not going to do that to our veterans. We have already rejected that proposal; and as a result, the highest number that my colleagues can support is for the House base bill presented by the Republicans.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Modification to Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute No. 4

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, but just for clarification I would yield to my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) under my reservation and just ask the question, Is there any bottom line impact on a monetary basis to the budget?

I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

That is my understanding; and, therefore, I have no objection and believe that can be supported.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

The Washington Post has something to say about all of this discussion on veterans, and let me just read this to my colleagues because The Washington Post, I do not think anybody would accuse The Washington Post of being somehow shilling for the Republican Party.

It says here, in fact, in an article on March 24, just yesterday, ``Veterans Funding Dispute not a Simple Matter,'' is the headline. And it says, in fact, Bush has never cut the agency's budget: ``The President has proposed increasing its discretionary budget, funding for programs not required by law, in each of his annual budget proposals.''

In fact, it goes on to say: ``The bulk of that money would go to the agency's health care programs. Over the course of his administration, Bush, along with Congress, has increased that portion of the agency's budget by $7 billion.''

Now, again, there has been CBO discussion, there has been OMB discussion, there has been veterans discussion. This bill, that bill. Listen to The Washington Post. They even say our budget is not cutting funding for veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Okay, Members do not believe The Washington Post, we will go back to the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. The Washington Post may be understandably grumpy that Democrats are not standing with them, but we will get back to that in a minute.

I want to show Members what was going on during the time when President Clinton was in charge of the VA budget. Look at that flat line. Look at that flat line for veterans. Look what happened when President Bush took office, look how we have been increasing it.

It is one thing to come down here and claim what a terrible job Republicans are doing and what a terrible job that has meant for VA health care, but here are the facts: Under Republican control, under Republican Presidents, VA health care has gone up.

But it is not just the number for health care, look at the number of veterans that we are serving. During this period of time, the budget authority for veterans' medical care, look how we are serving more veterans.

Back during that Clinton period, which is the red period, we were not serving as many as we are now. That is why this is a good budget.

Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry. Does the gentleman ask unanimous consent to have this added on?

Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry. Is it appropriate to make a request to expand that last minute by unanimous consent?

Mr. Chairman, we have no further requests for time, so if the gentleman from South Carolina would go ahead and close debate on the Spratt amendment, I will close on it as well.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, first I want to congratulate the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) on his great work to produce a truly fiscally responsible budget. It takes a big step in the right direction. But the Republican Study Committee budget takes even more steps in the right direction.

Budgets are so much more than green eyeshade exercises for accountants. They are so much more than esoteric econometric modeling. Beyond the numbers, they are really about values and priorities. The values and priorities of the budget I offer today are simple, less government and more freedom. Of all the budgets introduced in Congress today, none, and I repeat none, contain less government or more freedom than the Republican Study Committee alternative which I have the honor to introduce today.

Permit me to summarize what this budget does. First, for only the second time in a decade, we would actually reduce the size of government. In the aggregate, we reduce nondefense discretionary spending by 1 percent and reduce the rate of growth in mandatory spending by 1 percent. Why is this important? Because it is a fact. It is an eternal truth that as governments expand, liberty contracts. That means fewer opportunities for Americans to choose the best health care for their families, to choose the best educational opportunities for their children, or to find the best job in a competitive market economy.

Secondly, this budget fully funds the Commander in Chief's defense and homeland defense request. This is a Nation at war. For many years this Nation ran a defense deficit with deteriorating infrastructure, outdated equipment, and lagging military pay. We must continue to close this defense deficit because there can be only one outcome to this war, victory for freedom and defeat for terrorism.

Next, Mr. Chairman, this budget cuts the deficit in half in 3 years. As the father of a 2-year-old daughter and a 6-month-old son, I take a back seat to no one regarding my concern about the deficit. But we must all realize that the deficit is a symptom. Spending is the disease. And by any measure, spending is out of control. For only the fourth time in the history of our Nation, the Federal Government is now spending over $20,000 per household. This figure is up from just 5 years ago of $16,000 per household, representing the largest expansion of government in 50 years. Last year, what we call mandatory spending reached 11 percent of our economy for the first time ever. Nondefense discretionary spending is now almost 4 percent of the economy for the first time in 20 years, and almost every major Department of the government has grown precipitously way beyond the rate of inflation.

Besides being out of control, much of this Federal spending, unfortunately, is just pure waste, fraud, and abuse.

Until recently, Medicare had routinely paid as much as five times for a wheelchair as the VA had, simply because one bid competitively and the other did not. In the last year of the Clinton administration, HUD wasted over 10 percent of their budget making improper payments, $3 billion lost. We spent almost $800,000 for a toilet in one national park and the toilet did not even flush. And we are just scratching the surface here.

Example after example shows that many Federal programs routinely waste 5, 10, 15, 20 percent of their taxpayer-funded budgets and have for decades.

Mr. Chairman, this has got to stop. Government is inherently wasteful. It does almost nothing as well as we the people, and it must be limited. And until we do limit it, we will never prioritize, much less root out the waste, the fraud, the abuse that permeates every corner of our Federal budget.

Again, this Republican Study Committee alternative is the only budget that actually reduces government and thus begins the vital process of protecting the family budget from the Federal budget.

Next, Mr. Chairman, the RSC budget promotes economic growth by providing tax relief, $183 billion over 5 years. This will ensure that we do not imperil our economic recovery by raising taxes as all the Democrat alternatives propose to do. This figure accommodates the President's request and will help ensure that tax relief such as the child tax credit and the marriage penalty tax relief will not be canceled.

Now, my friends on the other side of the aisle have said that tax relief represents a huge government expenditure that creates huge deficits. They are wrong. First, it is not the government's money; it is the people's money. Secondly, when it comes to the deficit, the tax relief is miniscule compared to the spending, roughly $180 billion over 5 years compared to over $13 trillion of spending over the same time period. In other words, if you do the math, tax relief is only 1 percent of total spending. One percent.

If the Democrats truly care about budget deficits, they should focus their attention on the spending side of deficit, which represents 99 percent of the problem.

Finally, tax relief has proven to be part of the deficit solution, not part of the deficit problem. Tax relief has helped ignite our historic economic recovery, created jobs, and brought our unemployment rate down. And most importantly with respect to the deficit, Treasury reports show that after cutting tax rates, we increase tax revenues. That is right. Tax revenues are up.

The final thing that the Republican Study Committee budget does is to ensure we live up to our commitments to the American people. In other words, when we pass a budget, we enforce that budget. Too often through advance appropriations, so-called emergency spending and other devices, Congress has ignored its own budget. This too must stop. Through closing loopholes and creating Family Budget Protection Accounts, the Republican Study Committee budget takes a giant step towards ensuring that Congress indeed means what it says when it passes the budget.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, budgets are truly about priorities and values as much as they are about numbers. Our budget prioritizes the family budget over the Federal budget. It values less government and more freedom. For the sake of our own children and the future of the Nation, the Republican Study Committee substitute should be adopted by the House.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.

If the gentleman is concerned about spending, this budget actually does cut spending. I would encourage him to sponsor it. Additionally, 99 percent of our deficit problem is on the spending side. So I do not understand why 99 percent of the rhetoric is on the tax side, on the other side.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Medicaid spending is up 89 percent since 1995, and if the other side is concerned about the affordability of health care, perhaps they would join us in doing something about tort reform, medical liability reform and excess government regulation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, budgets are about values. They are about priorities. This is a budget that indeed values less government and more freedom. It prioritizes the family budget over the Federal budget. We have had a lot of talk about the deficit, and the deficit is a very serious problem in our Nation. But the deficit again, Mr. Chairman, is a symptom. Spending is the disease in our society. By any measure, it is spending which is out of control. When we are spending over $20,000 per American household for the first time since World War II and for only the fourth time in our Nation's history, spending is out of control. We hear about all of these massive cuts. But, Mr. Chairman, I do not see them. Since 1995, Medicare spending is up 54.6 percent. Medicaid spending is up 89 percent; Labor-HHS-Education appropriations since 1998 are up 71.6 percent; Interior appropriations in the same time period are up 42.1 percent. And the list goes on, always outstripping the rate of inflation.

But, unfortunately, the same is not true with the family budget. Since I have been on the face of the planet, the Federal budget has grown seven times faster than the family budget. I believe this is an unsustainable and unconscionable growth rate. It is time for us to finally protect the family budget from the Federal budget.

By adopting the Republican Study Committee alternative, we take the first step towards doing that. We have had a lot of debate about tax relief as well, and we certainly have a philosophical debate with our friends on the other side of the aisle. But, Mr. Chairman, once again, we have cut tax rates; and guess what, we have more tax revenues because we have given tax relief to small businesses, we have given tax relief to families. They have gone out, they have rolled up their sleeves, they have created new businesses, they have expanded their businesses. This should not be news. The same was true during the Reagan administration. We cut rates, and we had more tax revenue. The same was true in the Kennedy administration. It is the thing to do when you are facing a recession, put money in the pockets of the people.

Our friends on the other side of the aisle speak about spending priorities. I, too, want to spend more money on housing. I want to spend more money on nutrition. I want to spend more money on health care. I am just not indifferent as to who does the spending. Democrats want the government to do the spending. We want families to do the spending. And we know the difference. The family is who needs to be protected in this budget process, Mr. Chairman. Once again there is only one budget here, one budget that will actually reduce the size of government, and that is the Republican Study Committee alternative.

And so, Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, if budgets are indeed about values and priorities, this is a budget that values less government and more freedom. It is a budget which prioritizes the family budget over the Federal budget. I encourage my colleagues to adopt it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, as the designee of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hill), I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Blue Dog budget that we offer at this time is designed and based entirely on the simple philosophy that when you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging.

Our country has a massive problem with fiscal deficits today. Our budget is built around the simple concept of pay as you go. If we want to pass a tax cut, cut spending to make room for it or raise some other tax to keep it from going to the bottom-line deficit.

In other words, we are suggesting taking the shovels away from Congress and the President. Our plan would cut the deficit in half in 2 years and put the budget on a path back towards budget surpluses in 2012 and balance in 2010. Our budget has $210 billion less debt over the next 5 years than the resolution reported by the Committee on the Budget.

The Blue Dog budget includes the pay-as-you-go rules that were adopted by a bipartisan vote in the Senate, as well as enforceable limits on discretionary spending. The Blue Dog budget adopts the tough spending limits by adopting the President's overall spending levels, but reallocates funding to put more resources into veterans, education, health care, and other priorities, and keeps from reopening the farm bill and also providing assistance to small businesses, manufacturers, firemen and policemen, the first responders in the war on terrorism.

We strongly support the President in the war on terrorism. Our budget provides the President with everything he requested for defense and homeland security and sets aside a reserve fund for additional funding for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as we did last year.

Our budget provides tax relief for all taxpayers by extending the expansion of the 10 percent bracket, the marriage penalty relief, and the child tax credit. We also provide for immediate and permanent estate tax relief for small businesses, family farms and ranches. We offset the costs of extending tax relief, pay as you go, for middle- income families and pay for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan by asking those with incomes over $200,000 to have a little less of a tax cut until the costs of the war are paid and the budget is put back on a path towards balance.

Most importantly, our budget would reduce the debt tax that all American families, as well as our children and grandchildren would have to pay, in order to pay interest on our national debt.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I would just say to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, only 2 percent of the small businesses are affected by the tremendous rhetoric that the gentleman from Iowa just put forward on taxes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds to respond to my friend. I was getting my hopes up because he gave all the reasons why he should support the budget; but the idea of a slush fund, it is the same thing that is in the majority Budget Committee's report that comes before the House. We only say you can spend more if you pay for it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

Mr. Chairman, that is a total misrepresentation of our budget and the gentleman knows it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to respond to the chairman. The cuts in Medicare that he mentioned are the advertising dollars that are being spent to justify the Medicare prescription drug bill that I was told by the same chairman and the Budget Committee was going to cost $400 billion. I was misled as everyone else in this body was misled because the cost was $530 billion. That is the cuts we are proposing. You do not need to advertise false numbers, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sandlin).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

I yield to the chairman for a simple request. Does the Blue Dog budget reduce the deficit more than the chairman's budget? Yes or no?

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Okay, Mr. Chairman. He does not want to respond. I was just asking him because I really dislike the kind of rejoinders that we are getting into now because it is ``he said, you said, I said,'' and it means nothing.

But since we are into this now, let me talk about the chairman's budget as it affects agriculture, both in mandatory and discretionary spending. And this is not about agriculture not being willing to take our share of the cuts, as the gentleman from Connecticut said yesterday. Agriculture has always been fiscally responsible and will continue to be. However, the Chairman's budget will result in a disproportionate amount of cuts from agriculture.

Keep in mind that in order to keep agriculture at last year's spending level, the appropriators will have to cut $650 million out of the farm bill as they did in the fiscal year 2004 appropriation. If we assume that in the chairman's budget the discretionary cuts will be proportionately divided among the appropriation bills, then this number will rise another $1.6 billion. That is correct. That is the chairman's budget.

And I want to ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to read their own budget, what they are being asked to support today and how it is going to affect rural districts in conservation, water issues, rural development, environmental issues, research, because this is real.

And I commend the chairman because he honestly and sincerely is trying to do what his party has asked him to do. And it is real. His budget is real in what he proposes to do, including increasing the deficit $260 billion over the next 5 years. That is real. But he does it openly and honestly as he is defining it.

What I resent is his defining our budget as not being honest. His is honest. His will reopen the farm bill. Reopening the farm bill, which is what we will do under the reconciliation instructions that, if his budget passes, it will occur. And there are some on that side of the aisle and some on this side of the aisle that might want to do that. But I do not think a majority of this body want to go down that path.

So we want to talk about numbers, and we want to go through the little game we have been playing. Let us go through that little game.

This is not a game. In the agriculture function, this is real. The chairman is honest in bringing it to the floor and saying, this is what we will do if we pass their budget. Think about that before voting for this budget on final passage. Vote for the Blue Dog budget. It avoids that kind of a problem.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

The Blue Dog budget assumes that we need a change. The gentleman's budget and economic game plan that he has been so proud of since 2001 has given us the largest deficits in the history of this country. We have borrowed $1 trillion in the last 2\1/2\ years. We are going to borrow another $1 trillion in the next 1\1/2\ years, and yet he comes and says his numbers are better than our numbers.

We simply propose a change, and it ought to be a bipartisan change and it ought to be one that adopts pay-as-you-go so that we get back on a fiscally responsible direction for this country. We thought we had a bipartisan support for that. It passed the Senate in a bipartisan way. What happened in this body?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say in the function 050 defense, the gentleman was correct in the spreadsheet that he looked at that in the resolution, we do not cut defense. We had an error in the numbers. We could not cut defense. We adopt the President's numbers on defense. That is the way our resolution states.

We also do not cut Medicare benefits for seniors by one dime. We use the CBO numbers for its prescription drug benefit, and all we say is if it turns out that that cuts, we are using the same numbers that the majority is saying. That is all.

It is factual to say, though, that this will reopen the farm bill, because I know that the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Goodlatte) and I recognize that if you are instructed to reconcile $2.2 billion out of discretionary spending, that is tough to do. What are you going to cut out? The Farm Service Agency, $1.4 billion? Agricultural research, $1.2 billion? Conservation spending? Where are you going to go? It will reopen the farm bill. If the majority succeeds in passing their budget, then we will do so; and it will not be pretty.

Everybody talks about taxes. We have been talking about the debt tax. In 2004, the average family will pay $4,391 in interest under the game plan that the chairman has just so eloquently defended. I have never heard anyone stand on this floor and defend losing jobs, as he just did. But $4,391 will go to $7,000 per year in a debt tax increase, and you cannot repeal that tax.

We have borrowed $1 trillion in the last 2\1/2\ years. We are going to borrow another $1 trillion in the next year and a half following the game plan that the chairman has eloquently defended at the behest of his leadership in this House.

We respectfully differ on this side of the aisle. We think it is time to quit digging. The budget plan that you have before you will not do it. The only one that will do that on the floor of the House today is the Blue Dog plan, and perhaps the Democratic alternative.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

(Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to allocate portions of his time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman just said that we have cut taxes and revenues have gone up. In fact, taxes were cut in 2001. Revenues, individual income taxes were $994 billion that year. The next year they went down to $858 billion. The next year down to $793 billion. This year the estimate is $765 billion, well below the $994 billion level when taxes were cut on individuals. The facts simply do not bear out the statement he made.

Let me also straighten out some other facts. First with respect to Medicare. The chairman, in putting together his mark, decided that he would adopt the CBO baseline for Medicare spending as opposed to the OMB baseline, which was $535 billion. CBO is $400 billion. So ignoring the President's actuaries, he put in the lower number. We, in order to have an apples-to-apples comparison with that resolution, have adopted the CBO baseline. Also, there is no difference between us in Medicare benefit spending. However, because the administration of the program can be improved, we provide $805 million more over 5 years for Medicare administration.

Also, on the mandatory side, we provide $8 billion for the Family Opportunity Act, an act that has enjoyed bipartisan support because it provides Medicaid coverage to children with special needs in families who otherwise would not qualify for Medicaid and cannot obtain private insurance. This is compassionate conservatism. We provided $8 billion to fund that program so we can finally get it established, and we added two more provisions in our budget resolution.

First, we said if the price of Medicare, in fact, exceeds $400 billion, then the prohibition against negotiating drug prices included in the Medicare prescription drug law should be suspended and we should negotiate lower prices. Secondly, we said take some of the excessive subsidies provided for the HMOs and redeploy that money. In the Committee on Ways and Means, we have got reconciliation instructions to that effect. Redeploy that money to make the Medicare prescription drug benefit better. We have a manifestly better set of provisions for Medicare and Medicaid in our budget resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

The Chairman. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes to respond to the gentleman.

The gentleman may not be aware of it, but this budget resolution which I am now offering as an alternative provides $6 billion more for homeland security than the Republican resolution, the committee resolution; it provides $5 billion more for law enforcement programs under the Justice Department; it provides the very same amount for national defense. So his criticisms are highly off the mark.

Let me also take a minute to respond to my good friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) with respect to tax cuts.

This resolution in section 201 says very clearly, it is the policy of this budget resolution to balance deficit reduction to middle-income tax relief. In that respect, we call for the Committee on Ways and Means to reconcile and extend the child tax credit, which will expire otherwise; the marriage penalty relief; the 10 percent bracket; to provide relief from the alternative minimum tax; to eliminate estate taxes on all but the very largest estates; to extend the research and experimentation tax credit; to accelerate the refundability of the child tax credit from 15 percent; and to include combat pay in determining refundability; and on down the list with five more illustrations of where we are calling for middle-income tax relief.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to my good friend, the chairman of the committee on which I also serve with the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).

I think he would readily agree, having served in the Army, that morale is an important operational necessity. What we are trying to provide for in our resolution is, we have $422.7 billion next year for national defense, plus a huge supplemental. We are simply saying, can we not give some primacy to personnel benefits and move around just a bit of that money to address a long-standing bone of contention, namely, the fact that widows of deceased service members have drastic reductions in their pensions when they reach the age of 62.

The gentleman knows that amongst reservists there is a big issue about TRICARE. We should be doing something to extend TRICARE to reservists in certain situations. Certainly, I think the gentleman supports the selected pay increases for the senior NCOs and junior officers, critical to keeping that core component of the services intact.

That is what we are trying to provide for, Mr. Chairman. That is all. We are trying to say, out of $422 billion, that kind of money, surely we can give some primacy to these priorities.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say to the gentleman, the House Republican resolution calls upon the House Committee on Armed Services, by May 15, to come up with $2 billion a year in permanent savings out of operations that are now deemed to be wasteful or inefficient, and then to allocate those savings to some additional priorities.

We are saying the same thing. We simply picked up on that idea and said, fine, here are three good personnel priorities to which this $2 billion in savings could be committed every year.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds. Selected pay increases and TRICARE for reservists are for fighters, warfighters, not for nonoperational purposes or retirement purposes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Chicago, Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to myself.

Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman was off the floor when I read page 87, title II, section 201, outlining the tax cuts that we are calling for and stating the purpose of the resolution, which is to preserve and serve middle-income tax relief.

I would defy the gentleman to take this and in the four corners of this report show me where the $1.2 trillion additional tax increases are coming from. How is that number derived?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to myself.

The only bracket we refer to is the bracket that would include those making over, earning, having incomes over $500,000 a year, which is our definition of a wealthy person. So we are saying do not take all the benefits away from those taxpayers that have been provided by the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, but consider cutting them in half, for example, in order to raise the revenues, to offset the costs of extending middle- income tax provisions like the 10 percent bracket, the child tax credit and the marital penalty provisions.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the manager's amendment be modified with the modification I have placed at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

There is not at all.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I am prepared to begin the closing arguments, if I may reserve the time not yet used and add it to the 5 minutes for closure.

Mr. Chairman, we have to bring to conclusion this resolution, and then we move to a final conclusory debate on the surviving resolution, if this resolution does not prevail. Is that the sequence?

Mr. Chairman, as the designee of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and pursuant to the rule, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

The Chairman pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment in the nature of a substitute.

The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute is as follows:

Amendment in the nature of a substitute No. 1 offered by

Mr. Cummings:

Strike all after the resolving clause and insert the

following:

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am proud to introduce the Congressional Black Caucus 2005 fiscal year budget alternative. Our theme and philosophy for the CBC 2005 budget alternative is ``Investing in America's Future, Restoring Fiscal Responsibility and Fulfilling Our Shared Sacrifice.''

Before we begin, I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Majette), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), and all the Congressional Black Caucus members on the Committee on the Budget and the entire Congressional Black Caucus for their diligent work in putting this budget together. The Congressional Black Caucus thought it vitally important that we provide a Federal budget that goes to the center of people's lives.

Contrary to the rosy picture painted by the President, the majority of Americans are hurting under the Bush administration's fiscal policies.

Over 40 million Americans are without health insurance. Almost 9 million Americans woke up this morning without a job, and thousands of those individuals have become discouraged by the stagnant economy and have given up looking for work. Most alarming, Mr. Chairman, the American dream of a quality education remains out of reach for millions of children and families. The Congressional Black Caucus budget alternative answers all of these pressing issues and at the same time places our Nation back on the path of fiscal responsibility and accountability.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), distinguished member of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Majette).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) and chair of the Asian-Pacific Caucus.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), the first vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from the great State of Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown), the second vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. Chairman, we are supported tremendously by the Hispanic Caucus and certainly the Asian Pacific Caucus, and we are very pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), a member of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) to respond.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens).

(Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson).

(Mr. LAMPSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I want to take a moment to simply thank many people who worked on this, including certainly the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) who has spent a phenomenal amount of time on this along with the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Majette), and others who have just for the last month or so spent countless hours.

I also want to take the time out to recognize our staff, certainly Paul Brathwaite, the policy director of the Congressional Black Caucus, Lee Perselay and Alana Fisher, Michael Goodman and Norman Meyer, and so many others who gave so much of their time, their blood, their sweat, and their tears because they want to see a better budget and they want to see America do better.

Therefore, Mr. Chairman, at this juncture, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), a member of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I too want to thank the chairman of the committee for yielding and giving us the additional 10 minutes. We really appreciate it.

I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Reclaiming my time, I am closing now.

Mr. Chairman, again, we thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) said it and the members of Congressional Black Caucus said it quite well. What we are addressing here and the reason we called our budget ``Investing in America While Ensuring Fiscal Responsibility'' is that we believe very strongly in a balanced budget. We believe very strongly that we must address the issues of terrorism. It is very significant and very important to us. But at the same time, we do believe that we need to take care of Americans right here at home.

Many of our members in the Congressional Black Caucus look at our schools, and we are extremely concerned. That is why we spent a phenomenal amount of time and put a lot of emphasis on No Child Left Behind to make sure that it is properly funded, because we want those children to have a future.

I have often said that our children are the living messages we send to a future we will never see. We want to make sure they go into that future well educated, well prepared, and well ready to take on the many opportunities that will be before them. We also make sure that we secure funding for initiatives such as the COPS program because we realize that our neighborhoods have to be safe in order for people to live the best lives that they can.

Again, we look at the budget from the standpoint of this, and it is a very simple thing, Mr. Chairman. It simply is that we have one life to live. This is no dress rehearsal, and this so happens to be that life. It is our belief that the balance that we have provided in our budget is a much better alternative than the budget that the other side has presented and the President's.

Mr. Chairman, I urge Members to vote for the Congressional Black Caucus' ``Investing in America While Ensuring Fiscal Responsibility'' budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.