Providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 95) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2006, revising appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal year 2005, and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2007 through 2010.

Mr. Chairman, to talk about the importance of our communities and our cities, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner), the chairman of that coalition, to talk about the same subject, the importance of our communities and the Community Development Block Grant.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Just to punctuate what the gentleman from Ohio and the gentlewoman from Connecticut said, we believe in local control; and we want to be partners with these communities in solving problems. We disagreed with the President in his budget with the changes that were made to the Community Development Block Grant; so we made that value judgment and change in this budget. We are supporting our mayors. We are supporting our communities. We want to be good partners, and we believe in local control in solving those problems. The big Federal Government cannot solve all these problems that these local folks are dealing with. We want to give them the opportunity to do that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), majority leader.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a veteran and the chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the gentleman of the House who has probably some of the heaviest lifting to do with regard to controlling spending, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), a member of the Committee on the Budget.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

First let me compliment my friend from Texas (Mr. Cuellar), a new member of the committee. I appreciate his service. We have worked together on a number of issues. But let me give a slightly different tack from what he was suggesting with regard to our record on education because I think it is important for us to see what has come before.

First, with regard to education totals, as you can see, we have grown on an average of 9 percent a year for the last 5 years. There are not many programs around Washington that have grown that fast. Homeland security is the only other department that has grown at that rate. Nine percent. This is the total we have spent for education.

Again, is it enough? You might say no. Could we always spend more? Of course. But I want to put it in perspective. Nine percent annual growth over the last 5 years.

Title I, the main program that affects No Child Left Behind, has grown 10 percent per year since 2000 and was funded at $12 billion for fiscal year 2005. That annual growth, again, every year has gone up. Pell grants has grown 10 percent per year since 2000 and $12.4 billion in this fiscal year. No Child Left Behind has grown at 40 percent under President Bush. I understand there will always be this debate that programs are authorized at one level and then they are appropriated at yet another level. Everyone around here knows this, but it is a game that we play with our constituents. There is almost no program that is funded at its authorized level. That is not a floor. It is a ceiling. That is always the way it has been approached in Congress.

Special education, a program that I feel a personal affinity toward and it was a personal goal and leadership that I took with regard to special education to our States and to our schools and to our classrooms and for our kids with special needs, I am proud of what we have done. These green charts do not mean anything compared to what it has meant in the lives of the kids that are receiving a quality education and it has unlocked opportunity for them that is boundless. That is because we have invested some resources there.

I just want to end with this. It is not only about the money. We come down here with these green bar charts as if to say, if I spend this much it means that I don't care and if I spend this much it means that I care a little more, or here I am caring a little bit more now. Watch out, here I am caring some more. It is getting higher. I am caring even more.

And the more we spend, the more we care. And the more we invest, the more we care. And we measure by green charts the compassion, the caring, the value, as if money alone is the only measure.

I have got to tell my colleagues something. Take special education. Go talk to any one of their teachers back home in the special education classroom and ask them whether they have seen these increases in their classrooms. Do the Members know what is going on, Mr. Chairman? The States are taking that money, and it is not getting through their bureaucracy. We are getting this money out of Washington, but it is not getting to the classroom teacher teaching our child.

So their chart may look a little bit bigger; our chart may look a little bit bigger, and our charts look great, and if I care at $5 and they care at $6, maybe they care $1 more, and we get into all of this. And we are not looking at the results. We need to look at the results of these programs and find out whether they are getting to the kids in the classrooms. And I have got to tell my colleagues right now it is not. So we have got to provide the oversight. It cannot just be about the money.

And that is the last chart I want to show. For all of the chest beating about education and the priority, see that little red line of the total amount spent on education in our country? That is what the Federal Government kicks in. We are talking, on any given day, like about 6 percent. The people who are really doing the work here are our local school boards, our local State legislators, our local parents and community leaders. They are kicking in all this amount right here. That is what is being kicked in. It is this little red part that we all of a sudden think is so important and that we beat our chests about.

The Federal Government is not going to solve education, Mr. Chairman. Not with a big red line or a little red line or with this money or that amount of money. It is not about the money. It is about results. We have got to focus on results in education, and this budget accomplishes that.

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

For the purposes of entering into a colloquy, I yield to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Jo Ann Davis).

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the answer is yes to start with. First and foremost, I appreciate her leadership and concern about the research programs that we have for NASA. She does an excellent job there, and we really appreciate the leadership she takes in that.

The gentlewoman knows that the resolution, while it tracks the President's overall number, it does not make any specific decisions about the different funding levels that we have in some of these major categories. It goes actually back to what the gentleman was saying on education. We cannot find in the budget any of what the gentleman from Wisconsin just talked about in education. It is a great speech, but we cannot find it in the budget. And the same is true with so much of this.

So the Committee on Appropriations is the one that is going to make these determinations. The same is true for NASA. And we appreciate that her advocacy and mine is going to have to be brought to bear as we work on that.

So that being the case, I do commit to the gentlewoman to bring back from the conference language clarifying that the budget does not make these specific assumptions regarding the President's proposed level for these programs and urging that the levels for NASA should be reassessed. There is no question that R&D is important, and I know the appropriators agree with that. I know the gentlewoman from Virginia agrees with that. I agree with that, and I have no doubt that they will bring back a bill with that in mind.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

In response to my friend from Massachusetts, he is right and I agree with

him. Let us get that in the Record right now. There are those moments in time. In fact, he was not here for our colloquy earlier; so let me just report to him. I am sure I am not going to get his vote, but I will report to him anyway. We agree with the local control aspects of CDBG. There are so many on our side, including myself and so many others, who agree that this is local control, local decision-making, getting this back to communities.

In the budget that we have, we did not take the President's assumption with regard to CDBG. We do not necessarily foreclose the ability to look at the program and make improvements. But we plussed-up the function for CDBG by $1.1 billion, and we increased it for that purpose; and we also did not make any assumption with regard to the President's new proposal of the Strengthening America's Communities Block Grant or transferring the program from HUD, Housing and Urban Development, to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The bottom line is there are many things that we will disagree with on budgets, and like I said, I doubt I am going to get the gentleman's vote, but I do think we have a bipartisan commitment to this. It is one area that I know we will continue to work on. And there may be other disagreements, but this is an area that we have worked on together.

I commend the gentleman for his leadership, and we are providing that leadership as well. And we hope the President can come forward with a little better rationale as to why this program, in particular, needed the changes that he proposed in his budget. If there are reforms that are needed, then let us reform the program. We will work together. If there are bad apples spoiling it for the rest of the bunch, then let us get rid of those bad apples. Let us figure that out. But let us not throw the baby out with the bath water. I agree with the gentleman.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to just respond and say it is fascinating. It is fascinating how we got into this situation. And if you heard the gentleman who just spoke, if you wondered whether or not he maybe had been reading the newspaper and may be forgetting all of the things that have been happening to our country over the last going on 4 years, you might wonder if anyone has been paying attention, because he is correct.

On September 10, 2001, we were running a surplus. There is no question that that was a good thing, something was very positive about that. But, unfortunately, we learned the very next morning that we had a homeland security deficit, that we had a national defense deficit. Our economy was already in a recession, and we found out we had an economic growth deficit. So even though there was more cash in the Federal Treasury than we were using, and you can call that a surplus, that did not mean we were meeting the needs of our country. There were many other challenges that we had to meet, and that next morning we found out.

And all of the votes, all of the spending votes, I will go back to the record, all of the spending votes that the gentleman was just talking about under our management, the gentleman from Illinois voted for; voting for our troops, voting for homeland security, voting for education. I will go back to each one of those appropriations bills and the gentleman from Illinois voted for each one of those. The only one he does not like, if you take away all of the clutter, is he wants to increase taxes. He did not like that part. But all of the spending he voted for.

So, let us just boil it down: There are people who want to increase taxes, and that is fine, and there are people who want to control spending, and that is also fine. But it is not all of this mismanagement.

People say Republicans did all of this mismanagement. I think Osama bin Laden had a lot more to do with where we are today with the deficit than anybody else, than anybody else.

Mr. Chairman, the purpose of me taking this time was just to remind everybody that it was not just Republicans that were here voting for those things, and there were probably a lot of reasons why we got into this situation that had nothing to do with Jim Nussle or the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). It probably had more to do with Osama bin Laden than just about anybody else.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to my friend the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Chairman, before the gentleman yields time, if I might yield 5 minutes to a Member, and then I would also be willing to contribute a little bit of time to the debate here.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume to just respond gently, firmly in some respects to some of the characterizations I disagree with of the budget that I am presenting and the Republicans are presenting.

I definitely respect the Congressional Black Caucus in their effort to put together a budget. I admire anybody who tries to go through this process and comes out of the other end with an actual work product that they can come to the floor to defend.

So, as a result of that, I am pleased to yield time so that they can present that budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) so that we can continue this discussion.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) to close the debate.

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

Mr. Chairman, first let me say to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), there is absolutely no one on the Democratic side that I admire more than the gentleman and the partnership we have in working on these budgets. This is the culmination when we come to the floor and have these debates, and I really respect the way he handled the debate. We appreciate that.

We disagree how we are going to accomplish the goals that our Nation needs to set, but we know the goals are pretty important. We have to keep the country strong. There is no question about that. It is really nonnegotiable. There is not a constituent I talk to that would suggest at this point in time in our history we do not want to protect the country. Our borders, everything from terrorism to illegals and drugs and all sorts of things coming into the country, we have to protect the country, number one.

Number two, we have to make sure that the economy keeps growing. That should not be an item up for negotiation. It is so important that families have the resources to deal with the challenges that they face every single day.

We come out here and talk about other people's money very easily on the floor of the House, what the taxpayers send us in order to solve problems; but we really do need to be mindful of the fact that the most important budget that we ought to be focused on is the budget decided and discussed and sweated over and argued about around kitchen tables across the country. That is such an important budget.

We worry about education here, but parents do that every night after their kids go to bed. We worry about health care here, but seniors do that every night when they are laying in a bed in a nursing home. We worry about creating jobs, but small business people do that every night in the quiet of their closed shop. They try and make sure their cash register all added up.

It is funny, I have heard people say we should not worry about the error rate in the food stamp program, which is now 6 percent. Mr. Chairman, 6 cents on every dollar in this country in food stamps is wasted. We say that is an improvement because it is down from 19 percent. The interesting and fascinating thing about that is if a small business person ended the night, closed that shop door and turned the open sign around to closed and rang up the cash register and they were missing six pennies, they would stay all night to find it, all night long to find those six pennies that did not add up in their cash register. But we say, oh, that is an improvement. Amazing. It really is amazing. That is what I turn to first.

This is the record of Federal Government spending over the last 10 years. In these numbers is what I was talking about, the concern of education, the concern of homeland security, the concern of national defense, the concern of job training, the concern of our environment, the concern of transportation, the concern of research and development. All of the concerns that we have talked about are embodied in numbers because in Washington we define compassion from one year to the next, solutions from one year to the next of spending more.

We have all seen that. If I spend just a little bit more from one year to the next year, I must care, I must be solving problems, I must be dealing with real solutions. If I just spend a little bit more money, I will solve all of the problems in the country. Every problem that every family ever addressed around their kitchen table can be solved with just a little bit more Washington spending. That is the fallacy of what we are debating tonight, and that is that if we believe, truly believe that all we have to do is take more money to Washington in the form of taxes and define and design and develop just one or two more programs that hires a number of more bureaucrats, that builds maybe a few more office buildings to be filled with those bureaucrats, and they drive in from Virginia or Maryland or wherever they drive in from, so that they care more about what is going on than the families back home, if we really believe that is solving problems, then Members are going to have a budget to vote for.

It spends more money, it increases taxes, and it purports to solve problems. Unfortunately, we are not solving those problems by doing that. My favorite saying that I heard on the floor, and I do not remember who said it, a long time ago, if you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.

If Members think about it, we have been trying to solve problems in Washington with more spending for quite some time now, and those problems do not seem to go away. Last year we decided to put the brakes on spending. We said yes, we have had the excuse of September 11, of the war on terror, of needing to deal with homeland security and needing to deal with our economy; but it is time to be done with all of that. And so what we did was we said let us put the brakes on spending just a little bit.

What happened? When the economy grows and when we control spending, just like the Republican budgets in the late 1990s when we got back to balance, and President Clinton can take credit for anything he wants, that is fine. But everyone who has studied government knows that the buck stops here when it comes to spending. When it comes to fiscal responsibility and article I of the Constitution, we are the ones in charge of the budget. Members know that.

As a result, last year with fiscal discipline and a growing economy, we were able to reduce the deficit 20 percent in 1 year. That is good news, but we need to build on that.

What our budget does is it says, let us continue to build on that success every year with more and more deficit reduction. That is what we accomplish with the spending discipline within this budget. We say not only should we hold the line on discretionary spending, that is the spending we will argue about every day out here during the appropriations process. We want to actually reduce some spending there. We want to have the first reduction in non-security spending since Ronald Reagan was in town back in 1980. That is good news. We also know that we have to start tackling what we call the mandatory spending, or the automatic spending. And so we accomplish that because we know that mandatory spending, that is this yellow part, the part here that back in 1995 was half the budget and now is more than half the budget and is growing to even more than half the budget, almost two-thirds of the budget if we do not start controlling our spending in these accounts.

I want to give you an example of what we would have to do. As much as there will be all sorts of discussion today, and there has been, and tomorrow about Medicaid, you cannot find the word Medicaid in the budget. The reason is because what we do is we say the committees of jurisdiction, in this instance the Committee on Energy and Commerce, should be given responsibility to look through the programs and see if they cannot only find savings but reform the program, to do a better job of delivering the product to the people who need it. If it is true that people sit up at night worrying about how they are going to pay their bills, how they are going to meet their health care needs, then let us help them figure that out. But let us not continue to do a program that every single Governor would admit is unsustainable. We have got quotes from here to the end of the day from Governors who have written us that have said, This program cannot continue. It cannot continue.

All right. So what do we have? We have one budget on the Democratic side. We actually, I think, will have two or three budgets on the Democratic side that do nothing with regard to Medicaid. No reforms. No changes. Let us continue to always do what we have always done, and that is continue what has been what some people say is fraudulent transfers that are going on at the State level, where Governors

and State legislators are put in a position where they actually have to figure out how to game the system, how to manipulate the system so that they can get more money from the Federal Government. I have heard of situations that colleagues of mine have told me from around the country where we actually have a situation where kids, teenagers who are eligible for foster care, good kids, good teenagers, that are difficult to find families for so that they can integrate and become part of a family again, but the State, a couple of States in particular, what they have done is they have devised a way to lock those kids into mental health residential treatment centers. Why? So they can get more money from the Federal Government. If you are a foster parent or you are someone who is thinking about adopting, opening up your heart, your family, your home to a child, to a kid, to a teenager and giving them a life, try doing that with a stigma of having mental health problems, of having challenges in that regard, because of the stigma of being part of that State program, not because they were helping the kid but because they wanted more money. We are hurting people with some of these programs.

I realize if you measure your compassion from one year to the next with spending, I cared at $92 billion this year. Oops, there I went and I cared a little bit more that year. Then I cared at $101 billion. Then I really cared at $108 billion. Boy, my caring and compassion is going up. That is not how we should measure it. We should measure it on results. Are these programs working? Are they helping families? Are they helping kids? Are they helping communities? Are they solving the problem that Medicaid ought to be solving for people with long-term health care concerns, people with disabilities, people who require indigent care? That is what we ought to be asking.

What do we do in this budget? We say, Commerce Committee, go to work. Invite the Governors to come to Washington to give us their proposal. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and I sat in a room with Governors where they said, ``Don't arbitrarily let the number drive the policy.'' That is exactly right. The number should not drive policy. This number should not drive policy any more than it ought to determine compassion. But there is only one way to get the Governors to come back to Washington. They were here the first time. The only way to get them back the second time is to have a process that requires reform and that is exactly what this budget does. It says, by September, we want you to come back with ideas for reform. Just as a result of this, they have committed to come back by June with a reform proposal that the Governors are going to offer that we can work together with the administration to try and come to a solution and try to come to some agreement on. That is a positive step forward. That helps us with a program that most people think is unsustainable and that helps us solve the problem of making sure that this goes to people who cannot help themselves.

What does the so-called reduction in growth look like? We have heard all the complaints on the floor today. One would think we were just eliminating the Medicaid program. I want to show you the chart of what this looks like after we are all done. This is what the Governors would complain about. This is what some of the advocates are complaining about. In other words, we are asking for just a little sliver, just slow down the growth. But it is growing every year. Every year it grows. We are just asking for a little bit of change, just a little bit of reform, make the program work better, less it help seniors, let it help people with disabilities, make sure it is solving the problem for families that do not have the resources to meet their health care needs. Let us also instill some personal responsibility. Do not just hand it out and give people first dollar Cadillac coverage without saying in return, Folks, you have got to be healthier, you have got to practice prevention, you have got to be personally responsible. That is what reform can give you and a budget without that reform will not give you.

I understand that between today and tomorrow we have got a big decision to make. The decision as it boils down to me is very simple. If you believe that taxing a little bit more, taking a little bit more out to Washington from all of these hardworking families across the country and hiring more bureaucrats and inventing more programs and trying to solve more of these problems from Washington, if you believe that is the solution, you need to vote for the Spratt budget. You need to vote for the Democrat alternative budget because that is what it does. It says increase taxes, increase spending and you will begin to solve these problems.

But there is an alternative and it is the majority. What the majority is saying, Stop the madness. It is the spending. We have got to get the spending under control. We know the other body left to their own devices may not do it on their own. We have already seen in a kind of a disappointing way that they have not really stepped up the way the President has and how we believe the way I have.

In closing, let me just say that we will be able to give, I believe, our kids and our grandkids the opportunity of a debt-free world if we begin with a small step again this year. I ask Members to support the majority budget.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, and I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) be permitted to control 10 minutes, or half of the time in opposition.

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

I will vote against this budget, and let me say why. It is because of my responsibility and duty to protect the base bill, the base resolution, the product that was worked and crafted in a very genuine way through the committee process, one that has the support of our majority, one that has the support of our leadership, one that has the support of our chairman, and one that I dare say has, and I believe has, the support of my friends who bring forth the budget resolution tonight.

As I said before when the Congressional Black Caucus came forth, anyone who has the guts to come out here with their own budget I have to applaud. I may oppose it, but I have to applaud it because I know what it takes to put together a budget. Whether the alternative budget has one person who supports it or 80 Members or 218 Members to support it, I commend the coalition for coming forth with their budget. I said the same to the Congressional Black Caucus because they have done this in a very responsible way every year I have been in Congress and for many year before. I really mean that. Anyone who is willing to put the sweat equity into it gets my admiration.

I reluctantly oppose this alternative because if given the opportunity to have a perfect world could we, should we work for more spending control? Yes, there is no question. For all of the haranguing that happens out here about the cuts, we know there are a lot more weeds in the garden we could pull; we know there is more reform that we could drive. We know we could work harder and probably find more spending to control.

We have some practicalities, however. One is we have some committees that have to do the work of achieving those reforms. I have worked with each one of those committees and the committee chairmen to arrange the agreements which bring the base resolution here today; and I respect that process, and I will support that process.

In addition, we have a President who is for really I think the first time since I have been in Congress willing to step up during a very challenging time in our Nation's history when we are at war and say even though it would be easy to use the war as an excuse and not worry about what is happening on the domestic side, the President of the United States has said we are going to control spending, work on the entitlement programs, and try to reform the programs and to meet the needs out there.

The fact that the RSC comes forward with a budget that goes a little further, as I say, I respect that; but I do not think that we are going to get the support behind it that we need in order to get it done. At the end of the day, that is what we need. We need the budget to pass so we have something to enforce.

I want to speak to that briefly because as congressional watchers may have seen or misinterpreted, the intramural discussion that went on and fighting that may have seemed to be happening between friends and colleagues, I interpret what the RSC was doing, the Republican Study Committee was doing with regard to enforcement to be the exact right attitude to have. That is if you are going to do the work of having a budget, then let us enforce it.

The good news from my standpoint is last year when we were not able to get a budget through both bodies, the House took the version we passed, we deemed it, and we enforced it. We stuck to it. At the final analysis of the Congressional Budget Office when all of the smoke cleared and they finally were able to close all of the books, you know what we blew that budget by, a $2.4 trillion budget, and we missed it by $400 million.

Now Members could say we missed it, but I would say for not having a budget in both the House and Senate and not having the budget being the force of law with the President, I would say that is a pretty good track record and one that I give a lot of credit to our Speaker, in particular, for having accomplished. I give them much credit not only on the work product of coming forward with a budget, but also their desire to enforce it. I stand ready to work shoulder to shoulder and side by side with them as we not only get that budget done, but enforce the budget the rest of the year. I commend them on their work product, and I reluctantly will vote against their budget.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, today we are here to debate the budget resolution for 2006, the Federal Government spending blueprint that will guide all of this Congress' spending and revenue decisions for the coming fiscal year.

Let me start by thanking my staff on both sides, Republicans and Democrats. What Members will hear today, this is probably one of the heartiest debates of the year when we talk about the priorities for the coming year. As Members might imagine, because we come from different backgrounds and different States and different philosophies, we have different ideas of what is important, Members will hear quite a bit of debate from time to time that will sound rancorous. It will sound like we do not agree on anything and everything is going to be difficult, and I do not think it is quite that bad.

We have some pretty important priorities that we all agree upon, and we share a number of the goals. How to achieve those goals is in part the budget process: how are we going to get it done, and how are we going to accomplish it. That, unfortunately, gets into the details where we may disagree.

I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), my partner and friend who will come forthwith his own budget today, and we appreciate that. Members will hear his ideas and our ideas. We will get to debate those ideas, and we will come out at the other end with a better understanding of exactly how both sides will approach the problem, the challenges we will have; and we will hear about some of the ways to solve this.

Long before today, long before this debate started and quite honestly before we received the President's budget, we knew what the priorities were going to have to be. If you attend any town meeting in Iowa or across the country, Members are going to hear these same kinds of themes: we have to keep the country strong and defended. If we are not strong, we are not free; and if we are not free, we have lost everything. We have lost the most important gift we have been given, that has been bestowed on us, and that we feel so passionate about being able to bestow on generations to come here in this country and around the world. We need to continue to be strong.

Second, we need to continue to grow the economy. We really do. We need to create jobs and keep the opportunities flowing for our kids and grandkids because we know when we are strong and growing, we are able to accomplish so much in the world. Our economy must continue to grow.

Last but not least, and I can tell Members this is true wherever you go, people around the country are frustrated by the attitude and almost arrogance that government can solve all of our problems, that somehow another government program will solve the problem, or more government bureaucracy or more government regulations or just another law or more employees working in fancy white buildings downtown, if we would only do that we would solve the problem, and that means spend much more money, too much money.

So America's continued greatness comes from, I believe, the unlimited opportunities that our freedom provides, but we have to get our hands around this out-of-control, unsustainable spending. Right along with our well-meaning folks who come along, we have created a government that is too big and spends too much, and we have to get control of that spending if we are going to be successful.

As I have said, these must be our Nation's highest priorities, continued strength, continued growth, and making sure we can restrain spending because none of the rest of it, all of the good things that the Federal Government does in so many areas such as education and health care and veterans benefits and agriculture and transportation and energy and science, I could go on and on, we all have our favorite areas where we think the government ought to invest, but none of that continues to happen, none of that will be achieved if we are not strong, if our economy does not grow, and if we cannot get our arms around the spending.

So we chose to write a budget that ensures that first and foremost our needs must be met, gives all other priorities a fair shake, that is what the

budget process does, it puts in a $50 billion what we call a place holder, recognizing that we need to fund next year's likely emergency request for the war on terror, we have to plan for that; and it continues the progress that we have made in reducing the deficit and getting our spending on a sustainable path.

Last year was really the first year that we have been able to move beyond the crisis mode that we have had in our budget in response to September 11, 2001. We began a path to get hold of our out-of-control spending and to reduce the deficit. We had, I think, some pretty good success. We ought to recognize that we made some progress last year and realize how it happened. Despite cries from many different quarters in the country that all we need to do is just raise some taxes, tax the wealthy is always what people say, tax all those small businesses that are creating jobs, tax those farmers, tax those families that are sending their kids to college and are trying to make ends meet around their kitchen table, just give them more taxes and we will solve the problem. We decided we were not going to raise taxes. As a result of that, the economy continued to expand, and, due in large part to those economic policies, we now have strong, sustained economic growth and job creation. We also, for the first time in a long time, managed to slow the rate of this nonsecurity spending that has been out there, for the first time below the rate of inflation. I think that is a whole lot more reasonable than what we saw in years past.

Let me just show my colleagues what we did last year. This is what happened in just one year. The President when he came in, almost a year ago right now, the budget deficit was going to look like this, $521 billion. We all said that was not what we wanted, that we did not want to do that. We wanted to see if we could get our arms around it last year. We knew it was going to be tough. We knew there were going to be all sorts of complaining, claims that we were not keeping the priorities straight, but when the President started, this is where we started, at $521 billion. In one year alone, 20 percent, $109 billion was reduced on that deficit. $109 billion or 20 percent in one year.

Why? Two reasons. Number one, the economy grew. The economy grew faster than anybody expected, because when you unleash this 10-plus- trillion-dollar economy and allow it to just chug along and create jobs and have people investing and creating those opportunities for our young people around the country and others to make money for themselves and deal with their own problems and their own challenges, our economy is a wonderful thing and when it has just a little bit more growth than we expect, that brings in a lot of revenue to our Treasury. In one year, we reduced the deficit 20 percent. In that same year, even with tax reductions, more money came into the Treasury than the year before. This is not a science experiment. It is a fact. When you reduce taxes and you cause economic growth, oftentimes, and last year was an example of this and already we are seeing it this year, more money comes into the Treasury. That combined with holding the rate of growth of spending, we were able to reduce that deficit and get back eventually to balance. We took the first steps by keeping the economy growing, creating jobs, beginning to restrain this out-of-control spending.

But while both of these items are critical alone, they are not going to get the job done. We have so many Members who understand that every year we come down to the floor on appropriation bills and we battle over a million here and a million there, and I know it all adds up, but there is a part of the budget that is not being addressed. I will get to that in just a moment.

This year in the budget, much like the President's budget, we take the necessary next step for slowing spending, at the same time ensuring that our priorities are met. This includes reducing the top line number for all the nonhomeland, nondefense spending by eight-tenths of 1 percent. What we are doing is we are saying we are going to take the President's number for defense and for homeland security, we want to keep the country strong, but in all other areas of our discretionary spending, we are going to start weeding the garden. We want to look through all of those programs and find ways to save money, find ways for us to reform programs, find places where we are wasting money, where money is not being spent appropriately, and as a result of that be able to reduce some of those increases.

Additionally, and probably more important, this budget begins to address the unsustainable growth on the other side of the budget, the 55 percent of the spending that simply operates automatically. This is the dirty secret of budgeting that most Members do not want to talk about and that is what we call mandatory spending. What is mandatory? What could possibly be mandatory about spending in Washington? When Congress sets up a law that says a check is going to be written if certain eligibility is met and regardless of any other changes in demographics or anything else, money just keeps going out, the program keeps chugging along, without any checks, without any balances, without any opportunities to take a look at whether the program is meeting the needs. That is automatic spending. That is the mandatory spending.

What we did a number of years ago in welfare reform is we said the program is not helping people, it is not helping families, it is locking people into the dependency on government, asking no personal responsibility in return. Unless we reform the program, we are not going to get our spending under control. People are just going to keep getting the checks and nothing is going to ever change. Generation upon generation was going to be locked in this spending. And so what we did just 10 years ago and what we want to do again here is tackle some of that automatic spending.

Let me show you what is happening to it. The yellow area here is the portion of the budget that back in 1995 when we tackled welfare reform was about half of the budget, this entitlement spending or automatic spending. We tackled it back then. Thank goodness we did because it was growing out of control in the welfare programs. We now need to look in other areas because look what has happened in just 10 years. In just 10 years, more than half of the budget is now done automatically, is not going to be done on the floor here, in our appropriations process, is not going to have the oversight, is not going to have the opportunity to reform because we are not paying attention to it in our budget. This year we are. This year we are going to. This year we are going to ask the committees to reform the programs and begin weeding the garden, looking for ways to deliver these programs more efficiently.

Why? Because as we see, if we do nothing, it grows unsustainably out of control, which is the word the Governors use for Medicaid, unsustainable. The Medicaid program is unsustainable. They know it is growing too fast. They know that on an average year, Medicaid grows 7.5 percent. Out of control. 7.5 percent. And so this year what we are going to do is we are going to begin to tackle this automatic spending. Our current rate of growth of spending in this mandatory area is 6.4 percent. All of it is growing at 6.4 percent. Nothing changes. 6.4 percent. Again, every year, another 6 percent, every year growing and compounding and growing and Congress is doing nothing. Our constituents are getting frustrated. And so what we need to do is we need to go in and reduce that growth just one-tenth of 1 percent. That is all we are asking for. We are saying instead of growing at 6.4 percent, it is going to keep growing at 6.3 percent. But let us get the committees and let us get the Congress and let us get the Governors into a room and let us begin talking about these programs, reforming them and getting them under control.

I will note that there is a very interesting phenomenon about this decision to slow the rate of growth which ends up being about one-tenth of 1 percent over the next 5 years. It has created a very interesting phenomenon, because what happens about this time of year is people come to the floor and they start saying things like, oh, these cuts are outrageous, these cuts are unconscionable. Why do they keep calling it cuts? Because in Washington, a cut is a decrease in an anticipated increase.

Let me explain what I am saying here. What I am saying here is that in Washington, if you do not get what you expected from one year to the next, if you do not get the increase you thought you were going to get, they run to the floor, they run to the press conferences, they run to wherever it is they can run and complain and suggest that they are being cut. It would be as if your son came to you and you have been negotiating your lawn mowing fee, his allowance maybe over the last number of years and you were able to pay him 10 bucks every time he mowed the lawn. This year he came to you and he said, ``Dad, I want 15.'' You said, ``Son, I love you. You're a great son. You do a great job. I'd like you to trim a little bit more, but you're doing a pretty good job with the lawn. I'm not going to give you 15, I'm going to give you 12.'' If he ran to the microphones with a lot of people around here, they would claim he was cut $3. My goodness, what an outrage. You should love your son. You should love what he does to your lawn, that he should get an increase to $15. My goodness, what an outrage, instead of recognizing that it was a $2 increase. That happens so often around here.

I understand that we are going to hear some of that rhetoric today, but we are slowing the rate of growth. We are just saying it needs to be slowed down. Just slow it down. Let us reform the programs. Let us get the people in a room who need to be part of the discussion to reform these programs and let us slow down the spending and make sure that the programs that we are talking about, which are so vitally important to people, take the food stamp program. That is for people who are hungry. Take the Medicaid program. That is for people who do not have health care. Take a number of these programs and suggest that they should grow out of control? Or suggest they should meet the changing needs of a population, and that is something that we have to continue to do and it requires constant weeding of the garden and constant attention if we are going to get that done.

The problems facing our mandatory spending did not happen overnight. We are not going to fix this overnight. We are not suggesting this is being fixed overnight. It is like going from 60 miles an hour to slam on the brakes to zero? No. That is not what we are doing. We are just saying, slow down, figure out a way to make these reforms.

One thing I will guarantee you is that if there is no budget, if you do not put these kinds of instructions into the budget, if there is no budget or if an entity or a Member comes to the floor with a budget today that does not have these serious kinds of instructions in the budget to reform the programs, I will guarantee you they will not get fixed. I would suggest to you doing nothing is not an option. You cannot complain about Medicaid and offer no solution. You cannot complain about the error rate in food stamps and say there is no solution. You cannot complain about these programs and say there is no solution. We do not think there is a silver bullet but we want to set up a process to begin the discussion to fix these programs. We can do this. It is going to take time. The budget recognizes that, the budget we brought to the floor today, that we need a reasonable pace to get there. We set September as a deadline so we can invite all of the interested parties in to begin this. It builds on the critical work that we have done over the past number of years to shore up and strengthen national defense and create jobs and make sure that we continue our reduction in spending. I believe it is a doable, a fair and honest budget, one that we can work with the President in order to make sure it gets put into place.

I want to end with this. We plan to enforce this budget. This is a good budget. Just like last year, we plan to enforce this budget. Whether this is by way of announcement or however you want to do it, do not worry if we do not get an agreement with the Senate, with the other body. I understand that the other body has decided to walk away from the President on the budget. They are not going to do real reform. It does not look like they are going to try and control spending. I am very frustrated with what I see over from the other body. They are watering it down every step of the way. The courage unfortunately does not appear to be there in order to make some of these big changes that I think our Nation demands at this time. But I will tell you that in the House, just like last year, we enforced the budget. There was a controversy for those Congress watchers that have been brewing on the floor this week about people who wanted to really enforce the budget. Thank goodness we do that. Last year we enforced the budget. The Speaker did. I did. We were able to hold the line on spending, keep within that budget. As a result, we got the deficit reduction that we needed. Just like last year, we will do that again this year. I do not need any special rules. I do not need any Member to tell me that that is how we ought to do it. That is my commitment. That is the Speaker's commitment. That is the majority's commitment. When we pass something, we mean it. That is what we lived under last year.

We have had terrible extra budgetary spending in an emergency basis. I understand people are frustrated with all the extra spending. I want to show it to you. Every year we have had to do extra spending. I understand that. On September 10, 2001, we had a surplus.

There is no question, we had a surplus on September 10 of 2001. We all know what happened the next day. And we all know and we all joined in the spending to meet the needs of our changed world. None of that was in the budget. We knew we had to do it. We knew we had to keep the economy strong. We knew we had to support our troops. We knew we had to combat terrorism. We knew we had to protect the country.

We decided we would do whatever it took. That is whatever it took. And it meant we had to run deficits. But just like last year, we made a commitment to reducing the deficit. We did it 20 percent last year. We are going to do it again this year. We will get to cutting the deficit in half by 2009. We will get that accomplished and then some, and we will get back to balance. But we have got to stick to a plan.

We will do whatever it takes, not only to protect the country, but we will do whatever it takes not to pass on that legacy to the next generation. We cannot do it all in 1 day. We cannot do it all in 1 year.

We made progress last year. This budget builds on that progress, meets the needs of our country, and it is a good budget that I hope my colleagues adopt.

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

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to have our Members talk a little bit about our continued strength as a Nation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw), a member of our committee, to talk about national defense.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Ryun) to talk about homeland security.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I say they have demanded and we are responding; but I do not hear any of them saying we want a tax increase like the Blue Dog budget is going to offer. That is not what they are saying.

We do not need more taxes to come into Washington from this oversized government. We do not need that from the Democratic substitute. We do not need it from the Blue Dog budget. We do not need a tax increase. There is not anybody balancing their checkbook around their kitchen table in Iowa saying, gee, Mom and Dad, let us figure out a way to pay more in taxes.

They want us to control spending. So we will talk about controlled spending.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam) to talk about the discretionary part of the budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) to talk about automatic spending or mandatory spending. We do not need a tax increase. We need to control spending.

Mr. Chairman, we do not need a Democratic tax increase. We need to keep the economy growing.

Mr. Chairman, to speak about that issue, I yield 10 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), vice chairman of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the gentleman.

I would point out that when the Bush budget summit agreement came to the floor of this House in the fall of 1990, after many arduous months of negotiation with the Bush administration and the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership in the House, only 88 Republicans supported the passage of that bill, which had the President's support behind it.

In 1993, when we passed the Clinton Budget Act and began the unprecedented march towards lower and lower deficits, eventuating in a surplus of $236 billion in the year 2000, not a single Republican in either House voted for that deficit reduction effort.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentleman for his kind remarks.

Mr. Chairman, I yielded to myself to clarify what is in the budget proposal we are proposing versus the budget resolution reported by the committee and sponsored by the Republicans.

Our budget, let me make this clear, matches dollar for dollar their budget on national defense and international affairs, there is not a dime's worth of difference over a 5-year period of time. But our budget does single out veterans as one group deserving of more spending, more than just a current services budget, because the demands are clearly there. So our budget provides $1.6 billion more than theirs, than the Republican resolution, for veterans health care in 2006. And between 2006 and 2010 we provide $17 billion more for veterans health care.

Our budget resolution contains no reconciliation instructions to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. What does that mean? Their resolution calls upon the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to report savings out of mandatory programs that will save $798 million. There are only two places those savings can come from: either cutting disability benefits or raising the fees that veterans must pay to use veterans facilities.

Our budget resolution contains special provisions for our troops to make sure that the increases in life insurance to $400,000 for combat fatalities voted up in the supplemental for 1 year will be extended for future years, and that the death gratuity raised to $100,000 will also be continued for future years. And we will provide more funding for family separation centers, for deployed troops, and more community- based health care for returning troops and their families, two things that have been critically noted.

Our resolution recommends that the funds be taken from the Missile Defense Agency and advanced satellite programs to pay for these personnel benefits. We think it is a good trade-off.

Our resolution also contains more in the four functions that fund homeland security and make special provisions for increasing the budget for cooperative threat reduction, so-called nonproliferation, by $200 million.

So in summary, for our veterans, for our troops and for the emerging threats facing us, terrorists armed with WMDs, our budget is not only better funded, but better focused than theirs.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) for a response.

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

(Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the House Democratic Caucus Chairman.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, the ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to amplify on what the gentleman from Oregon has stated.

Our budget would be $2.9 billion above theirs for the year 2006 for resources and the environment. That

makes a big difference when it comes to EPA, safe drinking water, the Land and Water Conservation Act; and over 5 years, our budget is $23 billion in resources and environment better than their budget.

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

Mr. Chairman, before yielding to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar), I yield myself such time as I may consume because he is going to address education. I would like to make it clear that education is one of those areas in our budget where we have made a decided improvement and have a notable advantage over the Republican resolution.

Our budget resolution rejects their education cuts. Our budget resolution provides $4.5 billion more for next year, 2006, and over the next 5 years $41 billion more than their budget resolution. This kind of funding, this level of funding, cannot only preserve current education programs such as vocational education, funded at $1.3 billion which the President and their resolution would simply exterminate, wipe out, it can also support increases in priority programs like special education. The additional funding we are providing can also help close the gap in funding for No Child Left Behind, $12 billion below this year and next year below where it was authorized to be when the act was passed.

Our budget rejects the reconciliation instructions to the Education Committee calling for $21 billion in savings over 5 years. We do not know where that is coming from. We do not include the President's student loan proposals that would raise loan fees. We do not end the students' ability to consolidate their student loans at fixed interest rates. We do not eliminate Perkins loans, for goodness sake, and we do not force colleges to repay prior Perkins contributions. We do provide the funding to raise the Pell grant, not just $100 every year for 5 years but $100 every year for 10 years. The Bush administration and the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and the Republicans claim that is provided for, but that can only be funded in their budget through reconciliation; that is, through taking it out of other student loan programs.

We have a decidedly different approach to education, a much greater emphasis on education. It is one of those things in our budget which we have singled out as deserving of additional funding. Even though we keep everything at the level of current services, a few things we plus- up to the detriment of other things, but education is one of those things we emphasize and plus-up.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), a former mayor, to talk about community development programs in our budget resolution versus theirs.

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

I take the chairman of the committee, my good friend, at his word; but I have to point out the language of the resolution does increase the allocation for Community Development and Regional Development programs by $1.1 billion more than the President requests. But it is still $1.5 billion below this year's level adjusted for inflation.

What we have done in our resolution is to make amply clear that the CDBG will survive intact and will be fully funded, not suffer some crippling cut, as we have provided $9 billion more than their resolution for Community Development programs over 5 years. That will guarantee, virtually, if the committees are willing, that the CDBG and other important Regional Development and Community Development programs will not have to be cut.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

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

Mr. Chairman, do I have 18\1/2\ minutes remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 15 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, for purposes of control.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, so he can discuss the alternative that the CBC is offering.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time for the purpose of closing general debate.

Mr. Chairman, we have put before the House a substitute resolution as an alternative to the resolution supported by the Republicans and reported by the committee.

What does our resolution do? First of all, in the realm of fiscal discipline, we would reimpose a rule found to work and work well during the 1990s, a rule that was first implemented by a bill signed into law by President Bush, the first President Bush, in 1990 as part of the Bush budget summit agreement, which laid the foundation for the phenomenal success in the 1990s when we finally moved the budget out of intractable deficits into a surplus in 1998 and into a monumental surplus of $236 billion in the year 2000.

Part of the budget process changes that helped us achieve those impressive results was a rule called pay-as-you-go, which simply stipulates that before anyone can increase an entitlement or mandatory spending program, add to its benefits, they have to either pay for the benefits by an identified revenue source, or they have to offset the increased expenditure by decreasing expenditures elsewhere.

In addition, it provides when anyone wants to cut taxes, when we have a deficit, must offset the tax cut so it will not contribute to the deficit; it will not further enlarge the problem on the bottom line. So we first of all would reinstate the PAYGO rule. As I said earlier, this is not just some notion we have concocted. Three times Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve has testified before the Committee on the Budget that he would reinstate the PAYGO rule and he would apply it to expiring tax cuts that are renewed.

On the spending side of the ledger, we have brought spending back to current services, in many cases restoring deep cuts made by the Republicans. We have brought it back to current services, but we have held it at that level. Current services is basically today's spending level carried forward with inflation.

What do we do by instituting those two practices? What do we accomplish? Well, our budget moves to balance in the year 2012, which the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) cannot say with respect to his budget resolution.

Secondly, we incur less in deficits each year and over the 10-year period of time that we run out our numbers, even though we provide current services funding.

Thirdly, we protect Medicare and Medicaid. The Republicans would cut Medicaid by $60 billion. I met with Governors, Republicans and Democrats, who have told us a cut of that magnitude would be devastating and we should not cut Medicaid by any significant amount so that when the program is revised, it has to be revised in pursuit of some arbitrary savings number.

Finally, we match funding for defense, function 050, dollar for dollar the same as their resolution. We match funding for international affairs, function 150. There is no difference between us there, but we have made some changes in our budget resolution which recommends that resources within the defense budget be shifted to personnel benefits and in particular to see that the $400,000 life insurance increase just

provided in the supplemental will be carried forward and that the $100,000 increase in death gratuities will also be carried forward and funded in the future.

So we have a budget resolution with many positive features to it, but also with fiscal discipline. A signature element is that in the year 2012 it gets to balance, but it gets there with balanced priorities.

Mr. Chairman, when Lem Keyserling wrote the Full Employment Act of 1946, he was an ardent Keynesian, and he believed that the government had a major role to play in stimulating an economy, in seeking to maintain full employment. And if he believed that theoretically, he believed it even more deeply after the war when the enormous demand generated by the war for once made this a full employment economy. The whole country supported the concept.

Keynes believed in deficit financing when the economy was stuck in a liquidity trap and could not get loose. But he did not believe in the kind of deficit financing that we are running today. I think he would be appalled both by the current account deficit which we are running, $618 billion, more than most economists thought was sustainable. It exceeds 5 percent of the GDP. And certainly I do not think he would find at all pleasing to his understanding of economics a budget deficit expected this year to be $427 billion. Not even Maynard Keynes would look approvingly on that.

We have come so far from the year 2000 when after 6 or 7 straight years of

fiscal discipline, we finally put the budget in surplus, a surplus of $236 billion. We had a meeting on the Democratic side of the Committee on the Budget with Mr. Greenspan about what is the best approach we should take to this surplus that we find ourselves enjoying. And it was agreed among everyone there and among Democrats and Republicans in the House that one thing surely we should do since we now have the resources to do it is no longer borrow and spend the Social Security trust fund, the surplus in it.

Indeed, our proposal was that we use this surplus in the future instead of funding new debt and buying new government bonds, instead going into the open market, buying outstanding Treasury bonds and that way reducing the Treasury debt held by the public, increasing net national savings which woefully deficient and lowering the cost of capital and boosting the economy.

It was the first and best step we could take towards shoring up Social Security and making it solvent. It was a truly conservative idea, and we urged it upon the Bush administration when they came into office. But they took a much, much different, almost opposite, path, and that is, big tax cuts tilted toward wealthy Americans.

We did not deal then with our long-range liabilities to Social Security as we could have for the first time in a long time, and today we are suffering the consequence of that. We are dealing with second- best proposals.

What do we have instead? Well, instead of being here on this pinnacle with a $236 billion deficit surplus, we are down here with a $427 billion deficit this year, according to CBO.

Now, the President has told us he has plans and a budget that will cut this deficit in half over a period of about 5 years. But when we put back into his budget everything we know is likely to be incurred as a cost, whether it is the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan, whether it is the cost of fixing the AMT, the deficit that we are dealing with today does not get better. It does not go away. It does not go down; it gets bigger. And by the end of our timeframe, 2015, we have a deficit of $621 billion.

Read the CBO analysis of the President's budget. By the end of that timeframe, we accumulated 5.135 trillion additional dollars as part of the national debt. That surely cannot be the kind of economy that Lem Keyserling or Maynard Keynes had in mind.

Look at this very simple table here, and it tells you a world of facts about what has happened over the last 4 years. Three times in 4 years this Congress at the request of President Bush in order to accommodate his budget had to raise the debt ceiling of the United States three times by $2.234 trillion.

At the present rate, we are adding $1 trillion to our national debt every year, every 18 months, $1 trillion every 18 to 20 months to our national debt. Nobody in his right mind thinks that that course can be sustained. And yet look at the Bush budget again. It only promises in our estimation more and more debt, not less debt.

How do we get away with this? No country in the world could have the kind of current account deficit we have or certainly have the kind of budget deficit that we mitigate the effects of it. Do not feel, do not see the consequences, and therefore do not feel compelled to do anything serious about it. We sell much of our debt to foreigners and that mitigates the effect.

These are not good vital signs for the economy of the United States. And surely one of the things we should be about now is the adoption of a resolution which will take us back to where we were in the year 2000, back to surpluses because we need to be saving, not spending as the baby boomers begin to retire.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald).

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 154 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a great day in our great Nation, and it is an honor to be here to begin the debate about the fiscal blueprint for our Nation, the priorities of our Nation.

House Resolution 154 is a structured rule that provides for consideration of House Concurrent Resolution 95, establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2006 and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2007 through 2010.

Mr. Speaker, as a member of both the Committee on Rules and the Committee on the Budget, I am pleased to bring this resolution to the floor for its consideration. This rule provides for 5 hours of general debate with 4 hours equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget, and 1 hour on the subject of economic goals and policies equally divided and controlled by the gentleman of New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) or their designees.

The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the concurrent resolution.

This rule makes in order four amendments which are printed in the Committee on Rules report accompanying the resolution. Each is debatable for 40 minutes, the time equally divided and controlled by the proponent and the opponent.

The rule waives all points of order against the amendments printed in the report, except that the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute shall constitute the conclusion of consideration of the concurrent resolution for amendment. It also permits the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to offer amendments in the House to achieve mathematical consistency.

This is a fair rule. The Committee on Rules has allowed substitute budgets to be considered on the House floor. They range across the political spectrum affording Members of varying philosophies within each political party and across political parties an opportunity to support the budget they deem appropriate for our Nation.

Since before my time in this body, the Committee on Rules has consistently afforded the minority the opportunity for its alternative to be heard, with the only exception being the fiscal year 2003 budget when there was not a budget alternative offered. I am pleased this rule provides a chance for all our Members to express their views on how our Nation should prioritize its spending.

The congressional budget is an important tool of the Congress, allowing us to set priorities for the coming fiscal year. Therefore, this budget provides for America's most urgent needs. The driving forces behind this budget are continued strength, continued growth, and restrained spending.

The congressional budget is the ultimate enforcement tool, allowing Congress to clearly identify its priorities for how taxpayer dollars should be spent. It allows us in a time of war to ensure that our Nation's soldiers are sufficiently equipped. Prioritizing guarantees that our economy continues to expand, providing jobs and opportunities for more Americans each and every day.

Finally, this tool allows us to make certain that our government acts in a fiscally responsible manner to ensure opportunities and safety for future generations of Americans. This budget ensures that our Nation remains strong in the face of terror. We continue the multiyear plan to enable the military to fight the war on terrorism now and to transform itself to counter unconventional threats in the future. This budget works to prevent attacks, reduce vulnerabilities, and improve readiness.

Continued economic growth is vital for our Nation to fund her priorities and give opportunity to her people. Today, the general consensus of both private and public forecasters is that the U.S. economy is in a sustained expansion with solid growth of real GDP and payroll jobs and with low unemployment and low inflation.

The speed and strength of the economic recovery of the last several years has been due in large part to the tax relief packages given to the American people along with the extension of that tax relief passed last year. These policies continue to promote sustained economic growth and job creation.

I am proud to be a member of the Committee on the Budget that this year reported out a historic budget that sets in motion a glidepath to cut the deficit in half both in dollars and as a percentage of gross domestic product in 5 years. This budget wisely targets both discretionary and mandatory spending in an effort to set priorities.

The Committee on the Budget calls for a reduction in total nondefense, nonhomeland security discretionary spending. And for the first time since 1997, the budget includes reconciliation instructions to authorizing committees calling for the slowed growth of mandatory programs.

Mandatory spending is the guaranteed spending that grows each and every year, mostly without reform or review. It currently consumes 55 percent of the budget; and if it continues unchecked, it will reach 61 percent of the budget by 2015.

More than half of the government's spending today is on automatic pilot. This is neither sound policy nor sustainable fiscal policy. Congress is on its way to losing control over spending priorities as entitlements squeeze the budget more and more. Reconciliation instructions are the critical step to begin the process of getting our mandatory spending back to a sustainable level.

I am hopeful that while the authorizing committees are reviewing their programs they may also conclude that many of these mandatory programs would be better suited as discretionary and, therefore, subject to greater oversight by the Congress.

I am proud of the work the Committee on the Budget has put forward this year. I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle), the chairman of that committee, for pushing forward with fiscal discipline and bringing us this outstanding budget for consideration.

I urge Members to support the rule and the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito), my distinguished colleague on the Committee on Rules.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the concern of the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means in regard to the alternative minimum tax. The gentleman will be delighted to learn that this budget makes accommodation for a further AMT extension of relief so that middle- class Americans are not impacted by that AMT provision that originated in the Committee on Ways and Means. The gentleman from New York will be further delighted to know that the budget process allows the flexibility and the discretion for that authorizing committee to make those changes rather than having the Committee on the Budget direct them for them.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), chairman of the Committee on Rules.

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

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

I thank the gentleman and the previous speakers for drawing attention to the looming crisis that impacts people my age in Social Security, the people who frankly have come to the conclusion that unless Congress acts sooner rather than later, there will not be that program and that dramatic and important action is needed. But coming back to the rule on the budget, which is the order of the day, it is also good to know that it is more about what reforms we will be taking up later this year are dominating the discussion, which I take to mean and assume to mean that the overall and underlying budget itself is a sound one and that the rule is fair.

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

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

This is a vigorous debate about the priorities that are embodied in our budget blueprint. But for the second day in a row now, we have had this characterized as a government without a conscience. Yet since 1995, we have seen dramatic and historic increases to IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Title I, historically high numbers. Veterans health care, $18.9 billion in fiscal year 2000, $30 billion today. Education numbers, up in double digits. HHS and NIH, doubled. That is not a government without a conscience. That is a government that has seen unsustainable rates of increases to discretionary domestic spending. This budget turns that corner and begins the process of slowing the growth in mandatory and discretionary but continuing to provide for those priorities, continuing to make those tough decisions in ways that have been avoided by prior Congresses.

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

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

I am delighted to provide the gentleman some facts. Fact number one, title I has grown 10 percent per year since 2000. Pell grant funding, grown 10.3 percent per year since 2000. No Child Left Behind funding, grown 40 percent. Special education since 1996 has more than quadrupled. Funding for IDEA has quadrupled since 1996. IDEA funded only 8 percent of the per pupil expenditure in 1994 and 1995. Now it is nearly 20 percent. The Education Department discretionary budget authority has increased 146 percent since 1995. Those are the facts.

Was there not a conscience in the Congress prior to 1995? Is a 146 percent increase unconscionable? The commitment to education, the commitment to health care, the commitment to the NIH, the commitment to defense and the commitment to policies that expand and grow our economy and give Americans tremendous opportunities have been embodied in our budgets and are embodied in this budget.

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

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

There will be that opportunity, this being the rule on the budget; but I will engage in a bit of discussion about the Social Security because I am one who will gain or lose a great deal, being someone who will reach that retirement age at that year of insolvency. And it is shocking to me that the party who gave us Social Security, and should be very proud of it and are, are almost in complete denial about the looming crisis that it faces and refuse to accept the fact that, regardless of which option we choose to solve the problem, that it is something that should be kicked down the road to future generations, to future Congresses, to future years.

And there is a stone wall of resistance to any discussion at all about for once Congress getting ahead of a big issue, for once Congress actually dealing with the problem before it is crashing down around our heads, for once Congress actually being bold and looking into the future beyond the next budget cycle, beyond the next election, beyond the next short-term problem and actually tackling it and dealing with it.

Anyone who has been through their freshman orientation upon being elected has a bipartisan group give them the long-term unfunded liabilities of this government, and we acknowledge that there are vast differences in the approach to saving Social Security. But, unfortunately, largely with one bold, brave exception in the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), there has been total resistance to have any constructive effort to bring about a solution to this problem.

I yield to the gentleman from North Dakota.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I look forward to that constructive effort because we share that passion that those 55 and older, those at or near retirement, will not be impacted. But by golly, we have got an obligation to those people who are under 35 or under 45 or whatever number we finally arrive at, people who have time to plan and people who know, and all of us know, of all stripes, that there will be a problem in either 2040 or 2041 or 2042. We can argue over months and weeks all day long, but the point is we are not doing anything to take care of that first-year teacher, that first-year firefighter, that first-year soldier that all of us stand up on a regular basis and claim to speak for.

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

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

I would respectfully request that the gentleman give us the page number and paragraph of this budget blueprint that cuts the Witness Protection Program.

As the gentleman knows, the budget document is a broad blueprint for spending that directs the authorizing committees, those committees of members who have developed expertise in their areas, to find savings through reconciliation instructions. It allows Members like the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) on the Committee on Ways and Means to best formulate those revenue measures that avoid AMT taxing; that allows members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce to deal with the issues facing Medicaid program, which all of the Governors acknowledge is swallowing up State budgets; that allows the Committee on Agriculture to fund within their committee's jurisdiction those savings in a variety of programs.

This budget blueprint is a sound document that sets the course for our Congress and for our Nation for the coming year; and the cuts that the gentleman refers to are reductions in the rate of growth in those programs, with the exception of the reconciliation instructions, which are a remarkable and historic first step to this Congress restraining spending and funding priorities and simultaneously getting our arms around the deficit that both parties are understandably concerned about.

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

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

The untrained observer would believe that we were debating a Social Security bill here this afternoon. In fact, it is the rule on the budget blueprint for this country for fiscal year 2006, a budget blueprint that does a number of things important to the American people.

It puts our soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines and Coast Guard and Reservists and Guardsmen foremost, fully funding the President's defense request, budgeting for the continued global war on terror to the tune of $50 billion; prioritizing, even making tough divisions, something that we are loathe to do often in this process, but it is what we are here for, making tough decisions about priorities, priorities in government, priorities in households, priorities in our individual lives, something every American is accustomed to.

It continues to invest heavily in our Nation's defense and homeland security. But it also recognizes that these challenges that have come about since 2001 have also required us as a Nation to make some tradeoffs. And so for the first time since the Reagan administration, it calls for an eight-tenths of a percent reduction in nonsecurity discretionary spending. It directs the authorizing committees to find savings on the mandatory side of spending, discretionary being just over a third of the budget anymore; mandatory nearing two thirds, essentially on auto pilot.

So a balanced approach to finding savings in our government such that we may begin to get our arms around the deficits and cut the deficit in half in 5 years so that we do not shoulder young people just entering the workforce, school-age children, children not yet born with these massive debts. We begin the difficult process of fiscal restraint, something that is anathema to this body oftentimes, all too often.

It has been said in the context of the Social Security debate that the other side does not believe the solution to solving Social Security's problems is to privatize it. We do not believe the solution to Social Security's problems is to do nothing. We have led with our chin on this issue, and I am very proud of that effort; and I am proud of the manner in which we have conducted this debate because it will undoubtedly be an extensive debate occupying a good part of the 109th Congress.

It is an opportunity for this Congress to lead, to lead the American people to an understanding of an issue that is at a total insolvency point occurring in 2042, but its impacts on the Federal budget beginning as soon as 2008. And as a young person who will be impacted by that, it gives us an opportunity to look beyond the short term and be truly visionary in the great ways that this Congress is capable of being.

We have done a lot of great things over the past several years: doubling NIH, continuing to invest in research and cures and trials to make the human condition better. And, frankly, we have succeeded to the point that the reason why Social Security faces insolvency is because the life expectancy of Americans continues to grow. Every 5 years that pass, life expectancy goes up a year. This budget continues to fund our priorities, continues to invest in people, and continues to lay the groundwork for policies that allow people to pursue their own version of the American Dream, to find opportunity in a growing, expanding economy; that allows for job creation, that does not punish entrepreneurial spirit, that allows people to continue to invest in their businesses, to have more money in their own pocket to make decisions about their own children's future, about their own opportunities, and about their own hopes and dreams.

And with that I urge my colleagues to support the rule, which is a very fair and balanced rule, and to support the underlying budget produced by the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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

It is a real privilege to rise tonight to take on the role of discussing the statutorily required Humphrey-Hawkins side of this debate; that is, to consider how this budget fits into the overall economic policy of the United States.

We have heard so far a very engaging debate, and may I say, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget has done an extraordinary job of defending the details of this budget. He has been powerful and persuasive and intelligent and, I think, has made a compelling case. The argument that we are going to make in the next hour has to do more with how this fits into the overall economic priorities of the United States. This in my view is perhaps one of the most important reasons for passing this budget, because as we look at where America is today, as we look at the economic challenges we are facing, it is clear that we need to have a strong and responsible fiscal policy that encourages economic growth, that controls spending, and by controlling spending brings down our deficit over time, reassures capital markets and sends the message that the American economy continues to be the safest place in the world to invest. If we continue on the path directed by this budget resolution, we have an opportunity, I think, to lay the groundwork for an unprecedented expansion and to create opportunity and economic growth in the American economy that is so badly needed in many of our communities, including many parts of my district.

There is no question, Mr. Chairman, that the challenges we are facing today are substantial, the deficit is a serious problem and the proposed remedy contained in this budget resolution involves some very strong medicine and, for many individual Members of the House, some very, very difficult policy decisions. We need to pass this resolution because the broad parameters of spending that are the real budget resolution, the blueprint that is the substance of this budget resolution is precisely the vehicle we need to move in the right direction to make sure that we control spending and create the opportunity to continue the economic expansion which is only now just beginning.

Over the past few years, America has gone through a challenging time economically. Nowhere is that more evident than in my district, but at the same time there are very encouraging signs. We know that we have been running a deficit. We know we have been running a deficit because, first of all, understandably, we have been in the throes of a recession and we have never run a surplus during a recession. Second of all, we have never run a surplus in wartime. And even as we have been undergoing a very difficult episode, a combination of a slowdown which

began during the last administration coupled with the substantial damage to our economy that occurred in the wake of 9/11, at the same time we have had to take on a war on terrorism that was not of our choosing. The combination of these two factors, the loss of revenue because of the slowdown of the economy and at the same time the challenge of meeting the war on terrorism have been a substantial drain on our resources. Yet our underlying economy continues to be sound and clearly we have a path that we can pursue that brings us back toward a balanced budget and providing the kind of policy in place that will continue to meet the needs of America.

This budget resolution is precisely what we need. We recognize that an uncontrolled deficit can put pressure on interest rates, increasing the cost of borrowing and putting the brakes on economic growth and investment. Without economic growth, we are not going to be able to generate the revenue to get back to a balanced budget. We also recognize that a lax fiscal policy could further weaken the U.S. dollar in global markets and undermine its standing as the reserve currency of the world economic system. This has been one of the core advantages that America has retained relative to our global competition. That is why the decision we make with this budget is going to be so very, very important.

This budget is a blueprint for injecting spending restraint while encouraging economic growth and stability. Its adoption will signal to the financial markets that a fiscally conservative Congress once more is prepared to sally forth to make difficult decisions necessary to control the Federal deficit and maintain our economy on a growth path. This budget vehicle provides fiscal discipline that will strengthen investor confidence in the renascent economy and act as a powerful tonic to continue on the path of economic growth. It provides for controlling spending without raising taxes, which is precisely the formula that has worked for us and can continue to work for us.

Mr. Chairman, we recognize that we need to maintain a pro-growth tax policy. That is essential to move America toward a balanced budget. This budget resolution allows us to continue and make permanent the successful tax policies that have allowed us to grow the economy. What it does in a nutshell is it cuts the deficit in half over a 5-year period. Perhaps more importantly, Mr. Chairman, it shrinks over time the national debt relative to the economy. That is the burden on the national economy that the capital markets understand. If we have a national debt that is growing relative to the economy, it will roil capital markets over time if it grows excessively. But what matters to the economy is not the absolute size of the debt, it is the size of the debt relative to the economy.

If we can continue to grow the economy and grow the economy faster than the national debt, then that will be a source of confidence and a source of growth in the economy. Mr. Chairman, that is precisely what this budget resolution does in a sound, responsible way. It maintains a strong commitment to economic growth and pro-growth tax policy by controlling discretionary and mandatory spending.

Mr. Chairman, I will have further remarks in support of this resolution.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 7 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), a fellow member of the Joint Economic Committee.

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

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

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

I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to be here to make this presentation as required under law by Humphrey-Hawkins because I think it is very important perhaps that the record be set straight.

Any Member of the House who is serious about controlling the deficit, about maintaining the forward movement in the economy, growing jobs, and the social justice that could only come through economic growth should be prepared to strongly support this budget resolution.

Mr. Chairman, a couple of points I think need to be made in response to the interesting presentations that were made on the other side.

First of all, on the issue of jobs. We have heard the criticism that our friends on the other side of the aisle try to blame President Bush for an economic slowdown that he inherited from the Clinton administration that was exacerbated by 9/11. The truth is economic policies that have been adopted by this Congress, working with the administration, have been successful in helping the U.S. economy rebound from the recession into a sustained expansion, with strong growth in the gross domestic product and payroll jobs.

Despite all of the problems that this President inherited, the tax relief policies of the past 4 years that our friends on the other side of the aisle are striving to sabotage have helped to restore economic growth and job creation.

During 2004, real GDP grew 4.4 percent, the strongest annual performance in 5 years, one of the strongest growth performances of the past 20 years, belying the glooming forecast we have heard on the other side.

Private forecasters' projections for real GDP growth for this year are being revised upward. Growth for 2005 is expected to be at a 3.7 percent robust rate. More Americans, Mr. Chairman, are working today than at anytime in our Nation's history, and employment is at a record level of more than 140 million. The unemployment rate in February was 5.4 percent, lower than the averages for each of the last three decades. Payroll employment rose by 2.2 million jobs during 2004. It is up by more than 3 million jobs since May of 2003. Last month, we saw employment gains of 262,000 jobs, more than a quarter of a million new jobs in the month of February alone. This suggests that there is clearly forward motion in the economy.

Mr. Chairman, let us compare that to some of our trading partners. Those who last year invoked the Great Depression in describing recent economic conditions have been, after all, often favoring policies that would increase government intervention in the economy. Yet some of those countries where those sorts of policies are applied are not doing as well as we are.

Economic growth in Europe is generally slower than that of the United States. The unemployment rate in Europe is much higher than in the U.S. In January of 2005, Europe had an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent, substantially higher than our U.S. level of 5.4 percent.

The fact is, by following on a path of high growth and low taxes, we are moving the economy in the right direction, and ultimately, if we are prepared to put in place fiscal policies that restrain the deficit, that will allow us to grow the economy in the right direction.

I have heard a couple of extraordinary claims on the floor of the House that we are facing a record debt. I suppose that is true if we look at this in a purely static, green eyeshade perspective, but what really matters with the national debt, as I said before, is its size relative to the economy. The fact remains the national debt today is significantly lower, relative to the economy, than it was in the early 1990s when their party controlled Congress and controlled the reins of spending.

We have heard about record deficits, but here again we propose in our budget resolution to cut the deficits in half relative to the size of the economy. That will send the right message to global markets.

We have heard a little bit tonight about the trade deficit, and I must say that is something where I have some sympathy with the critics. Our trade deficit is much too high, but those who are making these claims tonight perhaps should be questioning whether they supported the Clinton-era trade policies that this administration inherited and put us firmly on the path to large trade deficits.

We have also heard from the other side that they are concerned that there is not enough room in this budget to deal with the problem of the AMT. As cochairman of the Zero AMT Caucus, I have to be sympathetic with their raising the issue, but the fact remains eliminating the AMT is only going to

be possible as part of fundamental tax reform. This budget put lays in place, creates the groundwork for us to go forward later this year and take a look at fundamental tax reform.

We also, notwithstanding this budget, have every opportunity to move forward later this year and consider the issue of Social Security solvency. I believe that the President is right to raise this issue. Anyone who has studied this issue carefully has to concede that for the long-term health of the Social Security system we have a choice of either going forward with a laissez-faire approach that has long been advocated on the other side and ultimately have to see truly draconian cuts as a result, or if we act now we can put in place reforms that will allow us to preserve existing benefits, also provide a solid retirement for the next generation and do so by improving the rate of return within the Social Security system. Nothing in this budget resolution is inconsistent with that initiative.

I am very, very pleased to address the concerns raised by the gentleman from New York about the supposed monolithic government in the Congress that has worked with a Republican administration to do some things that the gentleman finds distasteful. The fact is our economic policies and our economic challenges today are at least partially the result of the gridlock that existed before the last election in which the Senate was at least not able to move forward on key issues like a stimulus bill, like an energy bill, like tort reform, that directly speak to our economic health because of the gridlock implicit in the rules that gave the minority a veto over many of these provisions. Monolithic government is not the issue. The issue here is whether we can move forward and get to a balanced budget ultimately. Our resolution clearly is the one strongest able to do that.

We continue to grow the economy without raising taxes, which clearly is the agenda on the other side, raising taxes that would slam the brakes on economic growth.

At the same time, it is obvious from the laundry list we have heard tonight if the other side were in the majority we would be contemplating a saturnalia of new spending. I can think of a lot of things that I would love to spend money on in the Federal budget, but the fact remains we need to set tough priorities if we are going to get back to a balanced budget. Our spending resolution does just that.

What we provide is low taxes, controlling Federal spending and ultimately the prospect of falling deficits and low debt and ultimately the right economic direction for this country, a true blueprint for economic growth, expansion and opportunity.

With that, I urge all of my colleagues to support the Republican budget resolution. Regardless of any concern about any particular program, we need to move forward with the broad outline of spending that this resolution fairly lays out and put it in place so that we are able to get to a balanced budget over time as we reassure capital markets that we are truly committed to controlling spending without raising taxes.

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