Providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 95) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2004 and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2003 and 2005 through 2013.

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

I would like to begin by thanking our staff from the Committee on the Budget. They have worked enormously hard to bring us to this point in time where we are able to come to the floor to talk about the budget. Usually we reserve this to the end of the debate, but I just want to thank them because we are at a very unique time in our history. It requires some difficult choices. It requires us to analyze the situation very carefully. We have good people that work for us in both the majority and minority. I want to thank them for the work that they do. They have been asked to do a job, they do it, they do it well, and we find ourselves on the floor ready to debate the bill on time and ready to debate the budget within the procedure that we laid out at the beginning of the year.

Similarly, we ask young men and women overseas to do a job today. They are doing it in fine fashion. They represent us well. They represent our hopes and our dreams. They represent our freedom. They represent America. We are proud of our troops. We are proud of the job that they do, and we are proud that they do the job without blinking an eye, without any hesitation.

I believe they would ask the same of us here today, that while there are certainly trials and tribulations that confound us around the world today, that we do our work, that we are not distracted by a tyrant in Baghdad, and we are not distracted by terrorism around the world. It would be very easy to be distracted by that. It would be very easy to suggest, let's maybe wait for another day. But I think what America demands is that we continue the work of freedom, we continue the work of democracy. That is what they are fighting for, and that is what we need to do as well.

Mr. Chairman, we are at war. I did not have to practice that part of the speech because we were at war even before last night. We are at war against

international terrorism. The President determined that soon after September 11, 2001. That war continues. The fact that we opened up another front last night and that we will continue to pursue that front should not deter us, and we need to plan for it within our budgets. We need to take that into consideration as we debate this budget here today. So we are debating a wartime budget at a time during very difficult economic challenges and at a time when we face deficits for this foreseeable future.

None of us, at least most of us, do not want deficits. In fact, I said in my very first opening statement at the committee this year that I do not like deficits, I do not want deficits, and I will not pretend to this body, to my colleagues, to the President, to the Senate, or to my constituents at home that deficits do not matter. However, we are faced with that; and all of the yelling and screaming and all of the finger-pointing in the world and all of the things that might go on here today will not change that fact, and in fact no one today is bringing forth a budget that balances today or even this year or even next year.

In fact, none of the budgets before us balance, and there is a reason. Because this did not just happen overnight. While there are some who will come here today and blame and finger-point and suggest that the surpluses disappeared because of tax cuts, I would suggest that there are many reasons, many reasons why we face deficits here today.

It is true that just 2 years ago we faced surpluses and we decided to do something about that. We made a very deliberate decision that when Washington has more resources than it needs to meet those challenges in peace time at that time, that it is appropriate to say let us get the economy going again. Remember where we were, the economy was sluggish. President Bush came into office facing a recession. So we decided we were going to reduce taxes and certainly the tax reduction did reduce the surplus. That is represented by this blue amount.

But spending and the economy took most of the surplus and spending on what? An emergency. September 11, 2001, the emergency facing New York, the emergency facing the Pentagon, the emergency facing the airlines, the emergency facing homeland security. In an appropriate bipartisan response, every one of us came to the floor and said it is time to increase spending for those very appropriate purposes. And in addition to that in a bipartisan way, we came to the floor and said we need to cut taxes even further in order to stimulate the economy because the preattack recession got worse. So cheerfully, as a body, we decided it was time to spend a little bit more, stimulate the economy; and as a result, the tax cut took part of it, the spending took part of it, but the economic changes, the economy, the gut punch that each one of us faced whether it was home savings, whether it was increased prices around the kitchen table we had to deal with, whether it was just balancing our own budget around our kitchen table with our family, each one of us was affected by what happened in September of 2001, and certainly it affected our budget.

So we can finger-point, and we can talk about the past, and we can talk about Reagan and Clinton and Bush and, I do not know, maybe somebody even mentioned Roosevelt here today. The fact of the matter is that we are in deficit and we have to do something about it. But we do not start behind the eight ball. We build upon some huge amounts of spending.

Let me show what we have been doing the last 10 years around here. Cheerfully, and again oftentimes in a bipartisan way, look at the spending, each year increasing. In 1993 when President Clinton took office, we had a $1.4 trillion budget. What are we proposing today? $2.1 trillion, a 50 percent increase just since 1993, 4.5 percent each year. So when people go home and they start talking about how kids are going to be thrown out in the street and education is going to be cut and health care is going to be ruined, please remember that before we even talk about this year's budget, we have been increasing spending steadily during that period of time, and I will tell my colleagues when it really took off. When it really took off was when we got to balance in 1998.

Let me show what I mean by that. If we take the spending that we control every year, called discretionary spending or the spending from the appropriation bills, discretionary spending was holding its own, holding its own as we tried to get to balance since we became the majority, and then at 1998 all of a sudden look at it take off. In 1998 we had about $511 billion spent on discretionary spending, and just this last year in the bill that we just finished a month ago, we were at $768 billion, or an average of 7.7 percent each year since we reached balance. So when people talk about how, oh, boy, this cut is going to be tough or there might be ways that this could hurt folks or, boy, there is not a lot of waste, fraud abuse or excess, please remember that we build upon a huge base of spending in discretionary.

Let us look at some of the individual programs. I have heard a lot of talk lately about how Medicare is being devastated by this budget, budgets that were proposed, budgets that we will vote on here today, and budgets that we will consider. Since 1995 when the Republicans took the majority of Congress, we have increased spending for Medicare 56 percent. Was that appropriate? Yes. No one is suggesting it was not, but when people talk about how Medicare is being devastated, it is not because of the spending that Medicare is in trouble. It is because the way the program operates. I can tell you in Iowa people are very happy with Medicare; so to suggest that all we need to do is add more money into Medicare and everything will be fine does not recognize that Iowa does not get a fair shake from Medicare. Many other States, Wisconsin and others, do not get a fair shake from Medicare. So to suggest that all we need to do is pile more money on to Medicare, do not touch the program, just add more benefits and everything will be fine is sticking our heads in the sand. It will not work. But again we build upon some huge increases.

I have heard Governors suggest that Medicaid is in trouble and how the Federal Government has not done its fair share with regard to Medicaid. Look at the Medicaid budget since we became the majority in 1995. It was $89 billion of our budget. Today it has increased 77 percent since we became the majority. We have supported the health care for the poor and the disabled in this country to the point now where again we will continue in this budget to increase Medicaid.

Let us look at education because oftentimes education is used in a partisan way to suggest we do not care about children. Education spending under the Republican majority has doubled. It has doubled. Special education has tripled as a result of the Republican majority again as we move into this budget. This is what we build upon. There are accomplishments that we should be proud of. But when people whine and complain and suggest we are not spending enough, can we ask the question, what did we get for this? Which is why last year we said we need some accountability within our system and not just pour more money into it.

I have a number of very important constituents in my district who are veterans who before last night did their part to defend America and give us the ability to stand here today in peace and freedom in this country and debate issues of importance. And what have we done for them? Again, we build upon some important accomplishments. Spending has grown 40 percent since we reached balanced budget, an average of 6.9 percent each year. This budget will continue that trend with a 7 percent increase for veterans healthcare spending.

So let us look at what the budget is going to do. First of all, I want to put it into context. There is no question that we have three important issues as we come to the table today to discuss the budget, and some of these are even bipartisan, believe it or not. Number one is protecting America. There is not a person who is going to come to the floor today who does not feel that that is the most important thing that we do, and I compliment all of the budgets with regard to that issue. When it comes to homeland security, when it comes to national defense, certainly there will always be those who say we

can do more. In fact, there has even been a few who have suggested that there is a lot of waste within the Pentagon, and I would concur with that. But at this time in our history where our men and women are in the battlefields of Kuwait and Iraq and Saudi Arabia, we need to make sure that we support them; and each one of the budgets that comes here today does just that. It also supports homeland security.

The second most important issue that we have is making sure the economy gets growing again, making sure folks have a job. Because while we are going to talk a lot today about the Federal budget, we all know that the most important budget to each and every one of us is the one that I debate with my wife around my kitchen table and that my colleagues may debate with their families around their kitchen table and our constituents debate with their families around their kitchen table when they are trying to figure out how to pay the phone bill and the light bill and the college tuition and buy the clothes for their kids and the washer that breaks down or whatever it might be. That is the budget that matters; and if one does not have a job and if the economy is not growing in their household, it does not matter what we are debating.

Get a fancy chart. It does not matter what the fancy chart says if one's checkbook does not balance. So unless our budget puts as a top priority getting the economy to grow and create jobs, we have failed, in my estimation, and that is why the most important second issue that we put forth today is getting the economy to grow. It used to be a slogan. I remember hearing it a few years back: ``It's the economy, stupid.'' Maybe that was not an appropriate way to say it, but the point of the matter was important. Make sure the economy is taken care of.

The third issue, and it is an important one as we look forward into the future because again I think there is bipartisan support for this as well, and that is fiscal responsibility. We have all given spellbinding speeches about how the government cannot spend more than it takes in. But do my colleagues know what? There are some times when that has to happen, and by and large we agree when those times are. When there is a war, I do not think anybody begrudges anybody to borrow some money to do that. We have got to take care of business, and we will spend anything it takes to make sure we win and our folks have the right equipment and the right training. The second time we do it is when our country is under attack. Homeland security, again, each and every one of us came down here and cast a vote in support of homeland security spending even though it caused deficits. And there is another time we would do it, and that is when we have a recession or an economic downturn, and both parties during their histories have had to make that challenge. So while we are faced with those challenges, we still want to keep our eye on that fiscal responsibility.

So how do we do it in this budget? We ask a simple thing. We say out of the billions of dollars that we spend around here, do the Members think we could find a penny on the dollar? Most people back home in Iowa tell me I bet we could find a nickel on the dollar. In fact, we have heard amazing stories of people who are deceased getting checks from the Veterans Administration. We have even heard of Social Security recipients who are overseas that we send a check to. We have heard about food stamps that have been stolen. We have heard about all sorts of crazy things involving credit cards at the Pentagon where people have been using it for their own personal expenses.

Tell me there is not a penny on the dollar. Tell me that the earned income tax credit has not been abused. Tell me that Medicare, according to the General Accounting Office, has not had overpayments and erroneous payments. Tell me that at the end of the year bureaucrats do not run in to their boss and say, You know what? We have got extra money in our budget. We had better use it or we are going to lose it. And what we do in this budget is we say each and every committee can find that, and is it not now the time to find it when every State and every family and every business is doing the exact same thing? The Federal Government cannot do that too?

So fiscal responsibility is an important part of it. But we are still going to hear people come to the floor today and talk about deep and devastating, ``excruciating'' was a word I have heard recently, deep and excruciating cuts. Let me show the Members what our budget does. First of all, total budget, here is our budget. This is where we actually are, and look what happens under the budget. It goes up every single year in total spending. So the total budget is not cut.

Let us look at another area. Let us look at non-Social Security mandatory spending. What is that? That is Medicare and all the other, what we call, entitlements or automatic spending. Does that get cut? Every year it has been going up. Every year under the budget it continues to go up.

All right. Well that is not cut.

Let us look at Medicare maybe, see if Medicare is cut. Under our budget, every year it goes up. In our budget it continues. In fact, we say let us modernize it and put in, for the fourth year in a row, a Republican version of a prescription drug package. We are the only body that has passed one, and we will do it again this year, to make sure we modernize the program and make sure that reimbursements and other modernizations for the Medicare program help ensure its seriousness as a health care delivery program for years into the future. So Medicare is not cut.

Well, all right, let us look at total discretionary spending, which includes defense and homeland security. No, that is not cut. Every year it has gone up. In fact, look what happens here. Huge increases. It looks like it slows down here.

Why does it slow down? Because this is where the budget asks for some relief. It says this first year, outside of defense and homeland security and veterans, we just want to look for a little bit of waste, just a little bit of waste.

If there is a Member of Congress that goes home to tell their constituents that there is not any waste in Washington, I want you to ask them if they have read the volumes of General Accounting Office reports that indicate billions of dollars of waste, or the inspector generals that work for the departments that have identified billions of dollars of waste, or if they have talked to the Congressional Budget Office or held hearings on this in committees, because until they do that, do not tell people that there is not wasteful Washington spending. We know there is. For the first time in quite a while, we go after it.

Are we looking to cut some spending there? Yes. But do not believe that we are going to throw people out on the street. You do not have to do that in order to find the waste within the program. Everybody has heard about the $500 hammers and the toilet seats in the Pentagon and all those kinds of crazy programs that we hear about all the time. That is what we are asking people to go find, a penny on the dollar. That is not that much to ask, when we are at the same time running the kinds of deficits we find ourselves in.

So protecting America, that is first; getting the economy to grow, that is an important second thing to do; third, let us do it in a fiscally responsible way. I believe if we build on those three functions, without raising taxes, without huge spending increases, I think we can get this under control, support our troops in the Gulf right now and around the world defending our freedom, and do so in a way that is fiscally responsible, and gets us back to balance in a very reasonable time.

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

Mr. Chairman, as I said, we built our budget upon three principles, the first of which is protecting America.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) to discuss that issue.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, in Washington sometimes people define cuts not as less money than the year before, but as decreases in anticipated increases. The gentleman who just spoke has issued yet a new one, that is, if we used to have a draft of a budget that possibly found some savings, now we can come and claim that as a cut. We are not cutting Medicare; we are increasing it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Ryun) to continue the discussion on national defense.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Brown).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), a member of the committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I have to scratch my head and wonder out loud how, when we increase the veterans budget in our budget 6.1 percent, the other side of the aisle can call that a cut, yet that is what Member after Member comes to the floor and says.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), a member of the Committee on the Budget, to discuss the second important plank of our budget, and that is economic growth and job creation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, just to respond to the points on the veterans' issues. First of all, we increase discretionary spending 6.1 percent on veterans, we increase the mandatory spending 7 percent, and they call that a cut. They ask us to honor veterans. In fact, in this country we honor veterans so much that we paid 5,500 of them benefits after they were dead. That is how much we honor veterans. That is why we need to look at every program for waste and abuse.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Barrett).

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), a member of the committee.

(Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, could I inquire how much time is remaining on both sides.

Mr. Chairman, that sounds pretty close. It is about as balanced as any of the budgets.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.

I have been looking through my budget, and I cannot find one of the facts that the gentleman just stated. Not one of the cuts he just stated is in my budget document. I have looked through there. I cannot find them. I do not know where the gentleman is coming up with these numbers.

I will say this, though: the person I would like to introduce next to speak basically wrote title II, which is our reconciliation construction regarding waste, fraud, and abuse, asking the committees to go out and look for those instances of waste, fraud, and abuse, ways that we can find deficiencies within this budget, and that is the very distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to my friend, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the very distinguished vice chairman of the Committee on the Budget, to close the debate.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as I may consume. I respectfully claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, obviously I support the work of the committee, the underlying resolution, the budget resolution that is forwarded today. I want to thank the Blue Dog Coalition for coming forth with yet another budget proposal this year. I believe this is a consistent track record for the Blue Dogs in providing a budget resolution for consideration. We will disagree with that budget here today as they disagree with our budget, but I want to start by complimenting them because even last year at a time when the minority did not come forward with a caucus position, the Blue Dogs did. And the so-called Blue Dogs in this instance have done so again and I want to respect that. Only people who have actually gone through the process of writing a budget know how difficult that task can be in making some of the choices one has to make in order to arrive at this.

I disagree with their approach, however, for a number of reasons. First of all, I do not believe what they are putting forward supports our economy. I believe what we need right now is a growth package. The President has put that forward. We indicated that the second most important part of our budget is providing growth to the economy to create jobs. We believe we need tax simplification. We believe we need tax reform. We believe we need to lower the tax on the American people at a time of recession, not just for the sake of lowering taxes but because we know, we have seen this happen in the past many times in history where when we reduce the tax burden on America, when we reduce it particularly to a level at or below the average of taxes and revenues compared to the gross domestic product, that that does have a growth effect, a stimulative effect, on the economy.

And so while we will agree today on national defense and homeland security, probably the biggest departure we will see between these two budgets is regarding growth in the economy and creating jobs. We just happen to believe on our side that getting a growth package through to create jobs is vitally important. We are also going to have a semantical debate here today. I do not want to throw gasoline on the fire, so I am going to try not to. But I have to say that if we are not going to continue an already-reduced reduction in taxes, I mean I do not know what we call that. I know many on my side have come down here and I know it makes my friends in the Blue Dog Coalition cringe when they hear it when we have heard on our side that that be explained as a tax increase, but you might be able to understand why you cringe when you see us cringe when a reduction in the anticipated increase is called a cut.

And time after time today we have seen Members come to the floor on the other side of the aisle and explain that we are making excruciating cuts in veterans and education and Medicare and Medicaid and all sorts of different programs when in fact that is simply not the case. One not only cannot find it within our budget document, but in fact that is not the choice that we request. What we request is that we go through the budget and we look for waste, fraud, and abuse and places where we have been spending money we did not have to, and we do not have all of them but these are just some examples that you do not ask us to go after: Foreign Assistance, the Effectiveness and Accountability of Problems Common to U.S. Programs, Taking Strategic Approach for DOD and the Acquisition of Services, Implementation of an Electronic Benefit Transfer System in the Food Stamp Program, IRS's Efforts to Improve Compliance with the Employment Tax.

I mean, all of these save money. All of these find places where we are just not doing a good job. All of these ought to be a hearing. All of these ought to be a place where we can introduce legislation and we can say that is not a cut. To go through this and to actually look at the General Accounting Office, and we pay them a lot of money. Talk about waste. If you are going to hire people to go through the programs from the General Accounting Office and then you do not even listen to them, my friend, the comptroller general, would not like my saying this, but why do we hire these folks to give us these good ideas of places we can reduce spending, not cutting benefits, not cutting services, not closing nursing homes, not cutting off senior citizens, not eliminating Meals on Wheels or food stamps or school lunches or, oh, my goodness, all of the things that people have come down here wringing their hands about today, but just going through here: Controlling the Weakness in Property Vulnerable to Improper Use, Loss and Theft. There is a real partisan issue, theft. I mean if we are stealing things from agencies, from departments, and I have heard everything from a 61-inch television; I mean, come on.

Does that balance the budget? No. We are not suggesting that alone balances the budget, but we have got to start somewhere.

I could go on. The Deteriorating Financial Outlook and the Need for Transformation in the Postal Service, Medicare, Medicaid, FAA. Here is one, let us see, Significant Weakness in the Computer Controls. And, in fact, I believe we spent $8 million trying to get the Department of Agriculture to go to a new computer system; and guess what, after I think 8 years and $8 million, they found out they could not go to the new system. So we just spent $8 million for nothing on that. Defense Acquisitions, Debt Collection, Food Stamps. Again, there is another one. But if we even look at food stamps, people will say we are somehow throwing the poor out in the street. Medicare, here we go again. Boy, do not touch Medicare, though. Do not even look there. Heaven forbid. It must be a perfect program. Just add more benefits, and it will be fine. I mean, we could go on and on. They are replete. I have got a whole pile over on this side. You do not look at that. And that is an important area where we believe it is time to challenge the committees to do the work to find the savings.

Last but not least, I believe that it is time that we do something together around here, and that is enforce the budget. I know that we are going to disagree today on a number of these topics. The thing that is so frustrating is when time after time Members, and it happens in the Blue Dogs, it happens on our side as well, where we come down here, we talk about our budgets and then during the appropriations process we blow through those things. We find different ways to come through the process without holding to the budget that we agreed to. I would hope that my friends in the Blue Dog Coalition more than anybody else, and I know they do, believe that once we have a budget, it is time to enforce it because if we cannot even enforce that, having this debate today is going to be meaningless.

So as I started off with today, we do not support just allowing these tax cuts to expire. We happen to believe that does increase the tax burden. We want to make sure that we have spending restraint. You claim to do it with interest payments; but we want to do it with actual spending, not just with interest payments; and we want to make sure that we figure out a way to grow the economy and create jobs. And for those reasons I respectfully oppose the Blue Dog budget, but wish them congratulations on actually creating one which is something that many people around here claim they want to do, but do not always accomplish.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

What?

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I can tell the gentleman

why. It is a frustration of mine, and it is the reason why I put the budget out that I did this year.

When we got to surplus, and we have seen the chart, when we got to balancing and began going into surplus, particularly into discretionary spending, all of us around here very cheerfully started getting into a bidding war. We could do a little better than you in education, you could do a little better than us in health care. We went on and on and on.

Look at the charts in any of those categories. Once 1998 happened, as my friend knows, we could not say no to anything. It was very difficult to try to control that. That is just the discretionary side, which, as the gentleman knows, is only one-quarter of the budget.

On the mandatory side, think of the last time in a partisan or bipartisan way that we tried to take on an entitlement and even tried to control spending. My friend has quite a bit of control or interest in agriculture, as do I. I sit on a committee that has jurisdiction over Medicare and welfare. We did it in welfare and had some real success.

I just want us to start looking at that process again. That is the reason in this budget I challenge the committees. I do not do it myself. I do not try and tell my good friend on the Committee on Agriculture exactly where that ought to come from. But I do challenge him to look at the reports on food stamps and others and say, can we not do a better job?

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, that is a good point. But that is just the first year. We believe that we need to continue to control that spending in the outyears as well.

We also believe, and that is the reason why the budget was presented the way it was, that the President had some areas where we could control. This was true with President Clinton, President Reagan, President Bush, with all of them.

Congress is responsible for controlling spending under Article I of the Constitution. We like to blame the fellow down the street, but, more often than not, it is the people that we look at every day in the mirror that can do the best job at controlling spending.

As I say, I compliment the gentleman and my friends for putting together a budget. We respectfully disagree with that budget for the reasons that I state.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to hear more from my friends in the coalition.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes just to show my colleague from Mississippi, who does care about this; I do not begrudge him that at all. I just want to let him know that I also share in the concern over debt. But since he was slightly partisan about the issue, let me show my colleagues my chart that shows the difference between what the Democratic Congresses did versus the Republican Congresses.

We were the ones who paid down the national debt by almost half a trillion dollars until we hit this last crisis in 2001 involving the economy, involving the emergency spending, involving what happened with homeland security. Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues want to raise it to a partisan level of whose debt is whose, I can show my colleagues a chart that compares with the gentleman's partisan chart.

What I would rather do is say, look, we are in this together now. I can show a chart that goes back to Reagan. I can show a chart that goes back to Clinton. We can have a history lesson here all day long. We can yell and scream and point fingers at who did what.

Look, we are in a mess. My colleagues did not do it; I did not do it. I mean, there are three huge factors. We had emergency spending that no one, no one would have ever anticipated. What a huge economic sucker gut punch as a result of a recession that was made worse after 2001 and the terrorist attacks. Was there a component part of that of reducing taxes? Yes. We disagree. We deliberately reduced taxes at a time of huge surpluses because, yes, we were paying off the national debt, paid off over a half a trillion dollars of national debt.

So if my colleagues want to come down and point fingers and talk about the past, I can show my colleagues Reagan charts and Clinton charts and things like that.

I think we should talk about the future and what we are going to do about it. The Democrats have a plan. I compliment that plan, even though I disagree with it, because it does begin to address those issues. I have what we believe is a better plan. But let us talk about our plan and let us look forward. If my colleagues want to continue to point fingers on how we got here, my colleagues can take up the time for the substitute to do just that, but I believe we ought to focus on the future and what we are going to do about it.

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

I thank the gentleman, Mr. Chairman. I have enormous respect for the gentleman from Texas and for my friends for writing a budget, because writing a budget in Washington, D.C. for the Federal Government is not maybe the most challenging job in Washington, but it does have its moments of challenges.

Probably one of the biggest challenges in writing a budget, as my friends know, is when we have to explain to politicians who get elected by saying yes that sometimes we have to say no, or sometimes we have to do things that are difficult.

There is no question that when I wrote the original draft of this budget, I asked my colleagues to do something that was difficult. It maybe was more difficult than I had either the right to ask or the ability to ask; but I asked it, not because I thought it was easy, but because I thought it was important for us to at least begin the debate.

Particularly in Medicare, that is a debate that I recognize probably as being difficult maybe more than most Members because I have spent the last 12 years being stung by attacks from opponents back home who, in years where we did nothing to Medicare, were able to come up with phantom votes here and there suggesting that somehow, again, as a Republican, I think maybe just because I registered to vote as a Republican, that somehow I was cutting Medicare. It must be something that is just automatic when you become a Republican, it seems, these days.

But it could not be further from the truth. When it comes to our budgets in Medicare and so many of these programs, as my friends know, particularly since 1998, we have just been spending money around here like it is going out of style in every category. We almost cannot name a category that has gone down by any significant portion over the last 5 years, in particular, since we got the balance.

So it was not so much that I was saying cut, but I was saying slow down. That is all I was trying to say was slow down. That is what I was trying to say in Medicare was slow down. We had put $400 billion in. I asked them to look for that waste within Medicare. We know it is there. I have three great examples that came out of those blue books we were talking about.

The Medicare program pays as much as eight times, just think about this, I would say to my friends, eight times the cost of any other Federal agency when we pay for the same drugs and medical supplies. I do not know, maybe double would be a reasonable level; but eight times does not make much sense to me.

Medicare provides overpayments of $12.1 billion in 1 year. All right? That is just another example.

In 2002, it was estimated that improper, and that is in addition to overpayments, we are talking about just plain improper, fraudulent payments under Medicare were estimated at $13 billion. Let me quickly do the math: 13, 12, that is 25. We do not even know what the cost of the drugs are, but that is $25 billion in 1 year, as an example.

I do not know about the other Members, but that pays for a lot of prescription drugs for seniors. Just in the first year of the drug benefit that almost all of us support, we are only talking about $7 billion as a drug benefit. That is just the first year of the phase-in. That is three times, almost four times, the amount of the initial drug benefit we waste in the Medicare program. That is before we even talk about reimbursements.

My friend, the gentleman from Texas, and I have been laboring on the Rural Health Care Coalition since I think the day the gentleman walked in this place, and certainly the day I walked in. Medicare is not serving our seniors because of a crazy reimbursement system that has been out there. But we come down here to the well and we say, oh, gosh, do not touch that, it is Medicare.

Heaven forbid we would try and do something around here in any of these programs in order to try to control them, because around here in Washington our level of compassion and concern has been equal to the amount of money we are willing to put into the program.

So instead of saying to Medicare, the Defense Department, agriculture, I do not care what it is, instead of saying, where did that $13 billion go; we are not going to give it to you again next year until you find it, instead, what we say is, oh, quick, quick, let us pass a budget that puts in $400 billion more.

Let us hurry up and do that because heaven forbid we would look at a senior citizen straight in the eye and say, Do you know what? The program is not working as well as it should. It is not doing the job we promised; it is wasting money.

So that is what I was asking for. The gentleman is right, I did not get the votes for that. We will live to have that discussion another day because my guess is that in order for the actual bill to come to the floor, we are going to have to make some of those adjustments.

I could go on. That is the most politically sensitive one in the bunch. I could go on and on through less politically sensitive issues. But what I am asking us to do, and it is article 1 of the Constitution that I believe gives us that responsibility. The gentleman showed a chart that defines it by President. I could show a chart, and I know we are talking about the partisan jabs, I could show a chart that showed the exact same figures but showed them under Republican and Democratic Congresses.

It does not matter, as I said to my friend from Mississippi, it does not matter what happened in the past. It matters what we look to do in the future. My colleagues have got a plan. We disagree with it because it does not, we do not believe, do the one thing that we believe can help us here the most, and that is stimulate the growth in the economy that brings in so much of the revenue that we need.

The second thing it really does not do, and we disagree with the President on this, mostly not because we disagree with the President, but because it is our job to control spending. If we do not do it by the time the bill gets to his desk, it is not going to get done, and so that is why we asked for the waste, fraud and abuse within these reconciliation instructions.

Last but not least, and I think my friend wants us to yield, the balanced budget amendment, and I am a cosponsor and have been and voted for it. The one problem with a balanced budget amendment, of course, is it takes about 8 years to get it into place, and what we said in 1995 and what we are both saying here today in a bipartisan way, regardless of our plan, let us just do it. Forget about the amendment for a second. Let us do it. Let us actually go in

and balance it as opposed to just saying that we ought to have a constitutional amendment to do it.

The one thing the balanced budget amendment does provide is an exception. Two things actually. One is national emergency, and certainly I think September 11, obviously we in a bipartisan way agree that that is a national emergency; and the second is war, and clearly, we are in a war. So while I support that, I think we ought to just do it.

We put ourselves on a path under both of our plans, but we believe ours is a better path, and that is the reason.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his comments.

As I say, I respectfully oppose the gentleman's and the Blue Dogs' substitute.

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

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the time in opposition be divided evenly between the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and myself.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), chairman of the Committee on Government Reform.

If the gentleman will yield, the gentleman is correct.

The gentleman is correct.

That is correct.

I believe that is correct.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).

If the gentleman will yield, I would be happy to respond.

That is my understanding. The budget is intended to protect farm programs and the crop insurance program. Our committee will work with the chairman and other members of the Committee on Agriculture such as yourself to ensure that we protect critical farm programs and the crop insurance program. This includes an adequate funding level for programs authorized under last year's farm bill.

The gentleman is correct. I appreciate his help and support in this endeavor.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague calls this a wartime budget, but everyone should understand there is nothing in this budget to pay for the war in Iraq that is now underway. There is not even anything in this budget to pay for the war against global terrorism which is being waged in places like Afghanistan.

The administration deliberately omitted any provision for those costs in this budget for various reasons. They claim that they could not estimate accurately what those costs are likely to be, but we all know that there will be what we call in this House a supplemental appropriation coming,

and it will run into billions of dollars, maybe 50- to $100 billion for the war in Iraq itself, and after that the postwar occupation will cost, the CBO says, between $1.8 billion a month and $3.8 billion a month.

We have a huge, huge cost item that is not included here. I say that because everyone should understand that there is no surplus left in this budget. My friends, proposing a tax cut now that is as large as the last tax cut we undertook in 2001 will only drive the bottom line of the budget deeper and deeper by the proposals they have made here.

Two years ago, we had the happy circumstance of a budget that was $5.6 trillion in surplus, or so we were told by our forecasters at the Office of Management and Budget in the Bush administration. Two years later, we open this budget season on a somber note, not just being at war, that is a grave situation, but that $5.6 trillion surplus, according to the Office of Management and Budget, is gone.

First of all, they said we overstated the surplus by at least $3.2 billion. The real surplus was not $5.6. We are now told it is about $2.4 trillion over the time period 2002 through 2011. Of that $2.4 trillion, OMB tells us $2.5 trillion has already been committed, mostly to tax cuts undertaken in 2001, and, to some extent, to defense spending increases and other spending increases. But, in any event, the surplus is gone.

We are actually in deficit as we stand here, and everybody is on notice that every dollar of additional tax reduction that you decree in this budget resolution will go straight to the bottom line. It will go straight into the deficit and add to the deficit, dollar for dollar. Knowing this, there is no way around it. What our Republican colleagues propose is they propose another $1.35 trillion in tax reductions, tax cuts, which will go straight to the bottom line and add to the deficit.

Here is the situation: This is the first table in CBO's analysis of a couple of weeks ago of the President's budget, which was sent to us about a month ago. Strikingly, if you add from 2002, the first fiscal year that the Bush administration was in office, through 2013, which is the last year in our 10-year budget time frame, the total amount of deficits that the Bush administration's fiscal policies will yield is $5.158 trillion. That is what they propose to add to this national debt under the Bush administration.

Now, my Republican colleagues, and I will give them part credit, saw this number, and I think they could not stomach it themselves, $5.158 billion under the Bush administration's fiscal policies. They undertook to provide some offsets. They did not give up the tax cut. No, they went with the full tax cut, or slightly less, but they undertook to come up with some offsets.

The first thing they proposed to do was to tell the Committee on Ways and Means, which has jurisdiction over Medicare, and the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid, cut $372 billion out of those two programs.

They have now relented and backed off their own proposal. They reduced the instruction to the Committee on Ways and Means from $262 billion to about $62 billion, and they have reduced the instruction to the Committee on Energy and Commerce from $110 billion to $107 billion. But both of those cuts could come out of the two health care entitlements that we have in this country that so many people, maybe from 50- to 60 million to 80- to 90 million people, are dependent on. That is what they propose to do.

This budget says a lot about priorities. What happens with the rest of the budget in order to make room for this tax cut?

In saying it is a wartime budget, they attempt to make room in the rest of the budget, at least partially, to offset this enormous tax cut of $1.350 trillion. What does that mean? That means they cut with abandon, left and right. They cut our young, our children, in terms of education; they cut our seniors in terms of Medicare and Medicaid; and they cut some of the most worthy citizens in our society, the sick and disabled veterans. They put an instruction in this budget, which I cannot believe, and neither can any veterans' organization in America, to cut $15 billion out of veterans' disability compensation and some $12 billion to $13 billion out of veterans' health care facilities. They cut education by $40 billion below what is necessary just to keep it level with inflation. They cut Medicaid, as I said.

All of this is necessary to accommodate their tax cut. It is not necessary because of the budget circumstances we find ourselves in. This is self-inflicted pain. Yes, it will be painful if these cults are made, you had better believe it, but they are not necessary. You do not have to make them.

To prove it we have come up with a budget resolution about a better bottom line. We get to a surplus in the year 2010. It takes them until 2012 to get to a surplus. In the process of getting there, we have a lower deficit every year than they do, we accumulate $851 billion over 10 years less in national debt than they do, and we adequately provide for education. We do not eviscerate Medicare, we do not cut Medicaid, because it is already strained as it is, and we certainly do not cut our veterans in a time of war, or any time, for that matter, by $30 billion in just mindless cuts.

So there is an alternate way. There is a better budget. It is a fiscally more responsible budget, and it meets the obligations we have. Members of this House today have a stark choice, a clear choice, in terms of values, in terms of fiscal responsibility. The right vote is our budget resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin).

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

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

Mr. Chairman, we, too, fully fund homeland security. By the best of our reckoning, we are providing at least $24 billion over and above the increase that the President is providing. It is allocated among lots of different functions: community and regional development, the Justice Department. We have identified and also specified in a sense of the Congress that we have $24 billion there.

In addition, we have put into our budget resolution the stimulus proposal that we made on January 6 of this year. If it were adopted, there would be $10 billion for the States to undertake homeland security projects in places like seaports, which were woefully underprovided for.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, I would point out to everyone that in doing our budget, we have left a contingency reserve of $54 billion. It could be used for lots of things; but it could be used, among other things, for homeland defense and for national defense generally, if and when a supplemental comes.

I want to make it clear there is very, very little difference between us when it comes to national security, not at a time like this. We are fully providing for homeland security, and then some, in particular.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, let me say to my friend, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Brown), that this resolution on the floor calls for $15 billion in cost reduction of the veterans health care system. It also calls for a $15 billion decrease in mandatory programs, which means veterans' disability compensation.

We can argue over what is an increase or decrease, but every veterans organization in this town thinks that they are being hit and hit hard by this budget resolution. There is no doubt about it; it is still about a $28 billion or $29 billion hit after the minor modification the gentleman made to make this resolution presentable.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson), and I ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to yield blocks of time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

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 myself 1 minute, before yielding to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford), to respond to our distinguished chairman, who wants to know where all these cuts we are alleging come from.

They come from the budget documents. His budget calls on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for example, to reduce spending by $107,359,000,000. The only thing they can take that out of is the Medicaid program.

He calls on the Committee on Government Reform, which has jurisdiction over the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan and the Civil Service Retirement Plan, to effect cuts in those programs of $38,319,000,000 to achieve savings.

They are there. If you look at function 550 in this budget, which is the health function, if you look at the level of funding, it is $2.4 billion below what is necessary to maintain purchasing power. We say ``current services.'' That has got to come out of some of the organizations like NIH who get their funding from this particular function of the budget. It is there. No question about it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford).

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

Mr. Chairman, let us just go to the bottom line and look at the differences between the two proposals that will be the chief proposals before the House when we vote tonight on the budget resolutions, the Democratic proposal and the Republican proposal.

As anyone who can see this chart can easily see, under our budget in every year from 2004, next year, through 2013, the Democratic budget has a lower deficit than the Republican budget, and by a significant margin.

What is more, every year our bottom line gets better and better and better, until in the year 2010 we are in unified balance. All accounts included, we have no more deficit by the year 2010. And we do not get there with improbable, unlikely spending cuts of the kind you have heard mentioned on the floor today. We get there with good, solid economics and with complete fairness to things that are important to us. It is a huge difference.

But this tells it all: Over that 10-year period of time, the cumulative difference between us and them, between Republicans and Democrats, between our resolution and their resolution, is $913 billion less public debt. So as we move from a deficit to a surplus, we accumulate $913 billion less debt than do the Republicans in their resolution. That is an enormous difference, particularly for anybody who says that deficits matter.

We insist that deficits do matter. This administration has taken a different attitude. The Director of Management and Budget says we should not start hyperventilating over all these deficits. We think they matter. We think in the long run they affect the growth of our economy, they affect jobs and things that matter to people, they affect the interest we have to pay on our national debt.

This is the difference between us and them. By 2010, we are in balance. It takes them until 2012 to get there. Along the way we accumulate $913 billion less debt. But what is most important is ours is feasible and credible and probable; theirs is infeasible, unlikely, and, to my way of thinking, unbelievable.

The Republican budget presents us with two choices: We will either have devastating cuts, in which event they may get to balance in 2012, or those cuts will not be achieved, in which event the deficit itself will have done devastating damage.

That is the choice before us, and that is why the Democratic balanced budget resolution is far and away the better choice for everybody in this House.

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

Unfortunately, this Republican budget is likely to force the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to slash the pensions of 34,000 Coast Guard retirees and 645,000 railroad retirees and their dependents and cut the relief provided to families of the victims of September 11.

Who in this House believes that we should cut the September 11 Victims' Compensation Fund to finance tax cuts for the rich? As a Nation at war, who believes that the men and women of the Coast Guard protecting our shores, ensuring the safe passage of U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf should be worrying that Congress might cut their retirement?

This budget shows a callous disregard for the families of the victims of September 11, the men and women of the Coast Guard, railroad retirees, as well as the infrastructure needs of this country.

The budget resolution directs the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to cut $3.7 billion for mandatory programs over the 10 years and to find savings from waste, fraud, and abuse and produce greater efficiency. Those platitudes may make for good rhetoric, but the policies will have devastating effect on the retirees and on the families of the victims of September 11. The Congressional Budget Office says 90 percent of the programs of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure's mandatory accounts include the September 11 Victims' Compensation Fund, Coast Guard retirement pay, railroad retirement pensions, and unemployment compensation for railroad workers. Is that where we are supposed to find waste, fraud, and abuse?

The Victims' Compensation Fund makes payments to the victims who were injured and the families of those who were killed in the September 11 attacks. Mr. Chairman, no one in this Chamber can possibly ever forget the tragedy of September 11, and I hope the families are beginning to put their lives back together again. How in good conscience can we retreat from the solemn commitment made on this floor to help them rebuild their lives?

I commit to them that I will oppose this Republican budget plan that will cut their funding. Similarly, the 36,000 Coast Guard officers and their enlisted personnel and the 34,000 Coast Guard retirees, we pledge to them on our side that we will oppose this budget resolution and its cuts in Coast Guard retirement pay.

Coast Guard cutters, as we debate this budget resolution, are on combat patrol with the U.S. Navy, securing the shipping lanes and the safe passage of Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. At home the Coast Guard continues to protect our shores and our ports. Just this week the Secretary of Homeland Security initiated Operation Liberty Shield, increased security at our ports, protect infrastructure, key assets. The Coast Guard under Operation Liberty Shield is increasing its patrols of waterways, escorts of ferries and cruise ships, sea marshals on board vessels of high interest. We get more out of our investment in the Coast Guard than virtually any other agency of the Federal Government. Why should we make them worry about this Republican effort to cut retirement pay?

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H. Con. Res. 95, the FY2004 Budget Resolution. Regrettably, this Republican Budget is likely to force the Transportation Committee to slash the pensions of 34,000 Coast Guard retirees and 645,000 railroad retirees and their dependents, and cut the relief provided to families of the victims of September 11th. Who in this House believes that we should cut the September 11th Victims' Compensation Fund to finance more tax cuts for the rich? With the Nation now at war, who in this House believes that the men and women of the Coast Guard, who are protecting our shores and ensuring the safe passage of U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, should be worrying that this Congress may cut their retirement? This Budget displays a callous disregard for the families of the victims of September 11th, the men and women of the Coast Guard, railroad retirees, as well as the infrastructure needs of this country.

Section 201 of the Republican Budget Resolution directs the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to cut $3.7 billion from its mandatory programs over the next 10 years. We are told to find these savings from ``waste, fraud, and abuse'' and to produce greater efficiency in our programs. While these platitudes of ``waste, fraud, and abuse'' make for good rhetoric, these policies will have a devastating effect on these retirees and the families of the victims of the September 11th attack.

The Congressional Budget Office says that 90 percent of the Transportation Committee's funding of mandatory programs includes these three:

The September 11th Victims' Compensation Fund,

Coast Guard retirement pay; and

Railroad retirement pensions and unemployment compensation for railroad workers.

And this is where we're expected to find ``waste, fraud, and abuse''?

The September 11th Victims' Compensation Fund makes payments to the victims who

were injured and the families of those who were killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Mr. Chairman, no one in this chamber will forget the tragedy of September 11th. I can only hope that families of the victims of September 11th have begun to put their lives back together. How can we, in good conscience, retreat from our solemn commitment to help them rebuild their lives? I commit to them now that I will oppose this Republican plan that could cut funding from the families of the victims of September 11th.

Similarly, I commit to the men and women of the Coast Guard, both the 36,000 Coast Guard officers and enlisted personnel and the 34,000 Coast Guard retirees, that I will strongly oppose this Republican Budget Resolution and its likely cuts in Coast Guard retired pay.

As we debate this Budget Resolution, Coast Guard cutters are on combat patrol with the U.S. Navy to help secure shipping lands and the safe passage of Navy ships in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. At home the Coast Guard continues to protect our shores and ports. On Monday, March 17, the Secretary of Homeland Security initiated Operation LIBERTY SHIELD to increase security at our Nation's borders and protect our critical infrastructure and key assets. Under Operation LIBERTY SHIELD, the Coast Guard is increasing patrols of major U.S. ports and waterways, increasing its escorts of ferries and cruise ships, providing armed Sea Marshals onboard every high interest vessel arriving at or departing from U.S. ports, and enforcing security zones in and around critical infrastructure sites in key ports and petroleum facilities close to large coastal communities. In addition to its military and homeland security missions, the Coast Guard continues its search-and-rescue mission--responding to nearly 37,000 calls and saving 3,654 lives in 2002--and many other missions. The Coast Guard has long been stretched thin, but has always been ready--``Semper Paratus''--to answer the call. I have always maintained that the public gets more out of its investment in the Coast Guard than virtually any other government service. The enlisted men and women and officers of the Coast Guard should not have to worry about this Republican effort to cut their retirement pay.

The Republican Budget Resolution also is likely to result in significant cuts to railroad workers' retirement and unemployment compensation programs. Railroad workers, unlike other workers, are not covered by the Social Security system. They have their own retirement program. Last Congress, the bipartisan leadership of the Transportation Committee, with the strong support of rail unions, railroads, and rail retirees and their dependents, introduced H.R. 1140, a bill to revise the railroad retirement program to restore rail worker benefits and decrease railroad payroll taxes. The House overwhelmingly passed this legislation, by a vote of 383-33, and it became law. Today, the Republican Budget Resolution forces the Transportation Committee to consider changing this Act to cut railroad worker retirement benefits and unemployment compensation. I commit to the 248,000 rail workers and the 645,000 rail retirees and their dependents that I will fight any attempt to roll back the benefits so recently restored to you.

Beyond these devastating cuts required by the reconciliation instructions, this Budget Resolution does little to meet our infrastructure investment needs. For the reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21), the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee urged the Budget Committee to provide $50 billion in budget authority for highway, highway safety, and transit programs. In its letter to the Budget Committee, 74 of the 75 Members of the Transportation Committee stated that we must provide this level of funding in FY2004 to maintain our surface transportation systems and have any hope of improving the overall condition of the Nation's highway and transit systems.

Regrettably, this Budget Resolution provides $39 billion for these programs--little more than the status quo for TEA 21 reauthorization. Through the vigorous efforts of the bipartisan leadership of this Committee, the Resolution also provides a reserve fund that would allow for additional allocations if this or other legislation includes increases in Highway Trust Fund receipts. Although this does provide the Transportation Committee with the opportunity to address this issue at a later date, this Resolution does nothing to address our enormous highway and transit infrastructure needs in the fiscal year ahead.

Moreover, the Republican Resolution cuts the amount of highway and transit funding that actually may be obligated in FY2004 below the CBO baseline. Specifically, the Republican Budget Resolution assumes a cut in the transit program of $98 million in FY2004 and $2.5 billion over the next six years. This cut is directly contrary to TEA 21's goal of modal balance. Under TEA 21 we significantly increased transit funding by guaranteeing $36 billion for transit. As a result of this increased investment, transit ridership has added 1.6 billion riders--more than 900,000 new riders each day--over the last five years. This transit renaissance could be threatened by these cuts in transit funding.

At a time when our Nation's infrastructure faces huge unmet safety and security needs, congestion is crippling our cities, and our economy has lost 2.5 million jobs in the past two years, the Republican Budget Resolution cuts these vital programs that could address infrastructure security needs and congestion problems and create family-wage jobs to grow our economy. Instead, it provides more than $1 trillion of new tax cuts.

This Budget Resolution reflects more than misplaced priorities. It is an assault on working men and women from the Coast Guard to the Maintenance of Way railroad employees.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose the Republican Budget Resolution and urge my colleagues to vote ``no''.

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

Mr. Speaker, there is something in politics called having a tin ear. That means being totally oblivious to everything around you.

Right now we have troops in the field, a war has begun, and we should be doing everything we can to speak with one voice and achieve national unity. Yet the Republican leadership insists at this moment in bringing to the floor one of the most partisan, divisive issues of the entire year. I question their judgment and their timing. I would hope that we would move fairly quickly today to a resolution supporting our troops in the field. Unfortunately, our Republican friends prefer to have on the floor a matter of high partisanship which will divide this Congress.

Like all of my colleagues, Republicans as well as Democrats, and like the American people themselves, I fully support our troops. I hope and pray that they will accomplish their mission as quickly and safely as possible.

For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I have argued that we should not be considering this bill today. Republicans have offered a budget that is as partisan as it is divisive, as dishonest as it is dangerous to the country, and, at a time like this, when the United States Congress should be demonstrating its unity to the world, I fear that bringing it to the floor guarantees a divisive debate.

But that is what Republican leaders have done today. And unfortunately, there is no minimizing the differences between the Democratic and Republican budgets. The Democratic budget alternatives offered by the Committee on the Budget ranking member, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), is a responsible plan to strengthen national security and restore economic growth and fiscal responsibility. It tightens Federal spending and balances the budget using honest accounting, but it still meets priorities like defense, education, and health care, and it does more for homeland security than the Republican budget does.

There are two other budget alternatives offered by groups of Democrats: the Blue Dogs on one hand, and the Congressional Black Caucus and Progressive Caucus on the other. They are worthwhile, and I am glad that they are in order under this rule.

The Republican budget stands in stark contrast, Mr. Speaker. The Republican budget is intellectually dishonest, morally indefensible, and just plain bad for our economy and our Nation. It explodes the deficit and raises the death tax on all Americans. It shortchanges homeland security to pay for tax breaks for millionaires, and it proves once again just how out of touch House Republicans truly are.

At a time which this Nation must come together, Republicans offer a budget that will pull us apart. Simply put, the Republican budget separates Americans into two categories: winners and losers. The winners are the wealthiest few who get hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks; the losers are everyone else, the people who have to sacrifice to pay for those tax breaks for the wealthiest few.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, never have so many been asked to sacrifice for so few.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican budget skimps on homeland security. It slashes priorities like education and health care. It shortchanges veterans and farmers, and it still explodes the deficits. That is because the Republican budget is a shameless work of fiction. It calls for draconian cuts, cuts in priorities like veterans' benefits, student loans, and law enforcement, and still gives massive tax breaks to the wealthiest. But it requires the tax breaks to be enacted by April 11 and gives Republicans until July 11 to make the spending cuts.

Mr. Speaker, when you get your dessert before you eat your spinach, you never eat your spinach. Any American parent can tell us that, and so can anyone else who has watched the Republican budget charade drive up the deficit over the past few years. As the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the foremost proponent of fiscal responsibility in this House, told us yesterday in the Committee on Rules, the tax cuts will be enacted, and the spending cuts will be abandoned, and the deficit will continue to explode.

Why are Republicans foisting this dangerous budget on America and on our economy? Mr. Speaker, for one simple reason: because they stubbornly insist on giving massive tax breaks to the wealthiest few.

They say that to govern is to choose. Well, take a look at the consequences of the choices Republicans have made in this budget. American troops are at war, but Republicans chose to shortchange the veterans who defended this Nation in past years and to give tax breaks to millionaires. That is why the Veterans of Foreign Wars opposes the Republican budget. Republicans chose to slash education, and to give tax breaks to millionaires. They chose to cut health care for children and seniors on Medicaid, and to give tax breaks to millionaires.

They chose to cut assistance to farmers and to give tax breaks to millionaires. That is why the conservative Farm Bureau opposes the Republican budget. Republicans are even shortchanging homeland security; and once again, they are making sure millionaires get all the tax breaks they want.

Mr. Speaker, despite all these cruel cuts, cuts that touch almost all Americans and their families, this Republican budget still explodes the deficit. All the budget gimmicks and phony accounting in the world, what President Bush once called fuzzy math, cannot hide that truth.

All in all, the Republicans are proposing an economic horror show at a time when Americans are still suffering from the latest Republican recession. Since President Bush took office, 2.5 million Americans have lost their jobs in the private sector, the surplus has gone, and last year's deficit was $317 billion.

But Republicans refuse to face that fact, so they propose a budget that would actually harm the economy by driving the Nation deeper into debt, raising the debt tax on all Americans and their children, and increasing families' mortgage payments and credit card bills.

Moreover, this Republican budget does not account for how we are going to pay for a war with Iraq that has begun. So yesterday in the Committee on Rules the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the top Democrat on the Committee on Armed Services, offered an amendment to set aside $20 billion in a contingency fund to begin paying for the war. But Republican leaders refused to allow the House to vote on it.

Mr. Speaker, from veterans and farmers to students and seniors, this budget asks almost everyone in America to sacrifice. Everyone, that is, but the millionaires who get the big tax breaks. That is not just wrong; it is fiscally irresponsible. It is bad for the economy, and it is bad for America.

Mr. Speaker, as I said at the beginning, we are one country and we are one Congress, especially when our troops are risking their lives abroad to protect us here at home. I am very disappointed that the Republican budget fails to demonstrate that.

I urge my colleagues to reject the Republican budget and vote for the Democratic alternative offered by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), and join Democrats in restoring fiscal responsibility and protecting the economy against more of the same failed Republican economic policies.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, the preceding speaker asked what were the differences between the surpluses piled up during the second half of the Clinton Presidency and the deficits piled up during the first 2 years of the Bush Presidency.

True, there was a terrible attack on our country, and we have had to pay quite a bit because of the consequences of that. But I would suggest that the $1 trillion tax cut forced through by the new administration is the main reason why we face the deficits we have today. The $1 trillion, which primarily benefited the wealthy, forced through by the new administration, is the primary reason why we have the large deficits we have today, rather than the surpluses enjoyed during the Clinton Presidency.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the ranking Democrat on the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda).

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

Mr. Speaker, we are ready to proceed to consideration of this rule. The rule lays out three different Democratic alternatives. Unfortunately, the Committee on Rules chose not to make in order some very important amendments, specifically the amendment offered by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton). We all support the troops. It is time for us to put our money where our mouth is. Unfortunately, this budget resolution does not provide any money for the ongoing war in Iraq. The Skelton amendment should have been made in order. It is regrettable the other side of the aisle did not give the House the opportunity to do what we all should be doing today.

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