Providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 21) setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2008 and including the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2007 and 2009 through 2012.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.

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

Mr. Speaker, the motion we are offering today reflects a very simple up or down choice: One, rejecting the largest tax increase in our Nation's history, which is contained in the House budget; two, insisting on the lowest possible level of taxes available in the budget conference; and three, stopping the raid on Social Security's cash surpluses.

Both the House and the Senate Democrat budgets call for historic tax increases, and we in the minority can't do anything to prevent that. But we hope that, with this vote, we can at least minimize the damage that these tax hikes will bring.

Let me take a moment to describe the options that we have to work with as a minority. The House-passed budget would impose a tax hike of $392 billion from such things as reimposing

the tax penalty on married couples, cutting in half the child tax credit, and raising marginal income tax rates on low- and middle-income working families.

This would increase the average family's tax bill by roughly $2,900 a year and likely reverse the economic progress we have achieved over the past few years. So, right along with their higher tax bill, Americans would see fewer jobs and slower wage growth.

This massive tax increase was the only way the House Democrats could accomplish their massive increase in spending. Their budget makes no effort, none, to moderate the growth of spending. It simply requires taxpayers to send more of their money to make the Democrats' budget numbers add up.

In our debate a few weeks ago, the Democrats tried gamely to assert that their budget doesn't increase taxes after all. And as proof, they pointed to the novel policy language that claims that they will extend some of the tax relief provisions enacted in 2001 and 2003. They have these reserve funds that say they don't really want to raise taxes. But if you read the fine print, this would only happen later and only if they hike some other taxes by the same amount. So even with the flowery reserve fund language, the goal, the preference of not raising taxes can only be met if they raise taxes.

But the numbers in this budget tell a very different story. By the numbers, which is what a budget is all about, the House budget raises taxes nearly $400 billion, and numbers do not lie.

The other option is the Senate budget, which raises taxes by about $216 billion, the second largest tax increase in American history. This will include higher taxes on middle-income earners because the Senate budget still raises marginal income tax rates across the board. But at least it attempts to protect the marriage penalty relief, child tax credit and estate tax relief.

Unfortunately, the other Chamber, like their Democrat counterparts in the House, also call for large spending increases. And as a consequence, their budget will continue to raid the Social Security trust funds in fiscal year 2012, something the House-passed budget and the Republican substitute did not do.

So while the Democrat budget in the Senate didn't raise as many taxes, it did raid the Social Security trust fund, and the House Republican and the House Democrat budget resolution did not.

So, what we are simply trying to do is get the best of both products such that it can be had. Accordingly, our motion would simply direct the conferees to do two things: First, reject the House's $392 billion tax increase, again, the largest tax increase in American history, and keep their tax hike to the lowest possible level permitted under the rules. Second, insist on the lowest possible level of taxes between the House-passed and Senate-passed Democrat budgets. This language is included because the motion is required to stay within the scope of the two budgets. We wish we could do more, but this is the scope we have been dealt. Third, it would direct the conferees to stop raiding Social Security for the government's operating budget. They should do this by running a unified surplus, including Social Security, of $96 billion in fiscal year 2012, which is equal to the Social Security cash surplus for that year.

We know that this is possible because we proved it could be done in our own budget. Our Republican budget not only balanced the budget without raising anyone's taxes, we ran a surplus that ensured the Social Security trust funds would not be raided.

So, again, today we are simply asking our Democratic colleagues to do the following: one, reject the largest tax increase in American history; and two, stop the raid of the Social Security cash surplus.

This is a simple choice. A ``yes'' vote supports these objectives. A ``no'' vote rejects them.

And with that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

This assumes a $96 billion unified budget surplus after those tax cuts are extended.

A $96 billion cash surplus unified budget after the extension of those taxes.

I don't know off the top of my head.

The gentleman's budget resolution that passed the House had, I think, about a $150 billion cash surplus and raised all those taxes; so he had a sizable surplus.

If the gentleman will yield, not only did the Republican budget substitute accommodate for that, it accommodated for an extension of all of the tax cuts that expire in 2010 in addition to having a surplus equal to or greater than the unified Social Security cash surplus. So the Republican budget substitute accommodated all of these tax cuts and stopped the raid on Social Security.

Yes.

I can't speak to that number. I don't know that number off the top of my head.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the vice ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Barrett from South Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield myself 30 seconds.

I say to my articulate friend from New Jersey, I think what he mentioned was a real good highlight on the philosophical differences between our two parties. The question is, who is first in line, the taxpayer or the government? We believe that the taxpayer ought to be first in line by keeping more of their hard-earned money, not the government. The State of New Jersey, which is a high tax-paying State, on average under these tax increases will pay an average of $3,780 more under Democrat-passed budget per taxpayer in the State of New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Hensarling from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on either side.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the $96 billion unified surplus reflects the cash surplus, meaning the amount of overpayments on FICA taxes, payroll taxes for Social Security, that gets spent on other government programs that ought to go to Social Security. The interest on top of that is the number that the gentleman from South Carolina is talking about. That reflects past borrowing, past raiding of the Social Security surplus. We would like to fix that, too.

We think that is a good start. Let's say from now on if you pay FICA taxes to Social Security, let's not spend it on all these other government programs. So the cash surplus that occurs in 2012, that is what we are talking about with that $96 billion, not the interest on top that reflects all of the past borrowing and raiding of the Social Security trust fund.

That is the cash surplus, plus interest. We are talking about the cash surplus.

Mr. Speaker, that is not all in the year 2012, I believe. There is a problem with the numbers here.

We seem to have a difference of opinion. But let me make one point: We showed you how to do it.

We showed you with our budget substitute, we do not raise taxes on the American economy and family, and we can also stop raiding the cash surplus of Social Security. And the reason I can tell you we showed you is that is exactly what the Republican budget resolution substitute did, as scored by CBO.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes to make a couple of comments before I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I think I made the point on the Social Security cash surplus. We are talking about how much overpayments people pay in their payroll taxes in any given year. We don't want to keep spending that on other government programs. That is point number one.

Point number two: The very fact that the gentleman from South Carolina is suggesting that they are going to accept this motion to instruct, that they are going to accept this, means they agree there are tax increases in this budget.

They are saying right now, I just heard him say it, we don't want to raise taxes on the middle-class. We don't want to get rid of the child tax credit. We don't want to bring back the marriage penalty. We don't want to do away with the 10 percent bracket. So we will accept this motion to instruct. I.e., the other tax increases in this budget are just that, tax increases. Death tax, the marginal income tax rates across-the-board, capital gains, dividends.

Let me just make the point more clearly, by not quoting a think tank that may be left of center, right of center, whatever of center. Let me quote the Washington Post, clearly no paragon of right-wing thinking.

The Washington Post, right after the Democrat budget came out: ``And while House Democrats say they want to preserve key parts of Bush's signature tax cuts, they project a surplus in 2012 only by assuming that all of these tax cuts expire on schedule in 2010.''

They further go on to say about the Democratic budget plan, ``The budget plan expresses support for certain cuts, including the extended child tax credit, elimination of the marriage penalty, and the 10 percent bracket, that would require another reserve fund to be filled with hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases to cover the cost.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished member of the House Budget Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

One additional point I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker, is the point about PAYGO that the gentleman from South Carolina mentioned. As it is well known, we have a problem with their version of PAYGO. When PAYGO is designed to raise taxes, we don't like it. When PAYGO is designed to control spending, we like it. That is why we are for PAYGO on spending, not on raising taxes.

But if this amendment is accepted, if this motion to instruct is accepted, let's just be very clear, it does violate their PAYGO. Because the Baucus amendment, which is what we are referring to, which is the amendment that passed in the Senate, uses their surpluses, quote-unquote, to pay for these tax cuts. PAYGO says if you are going to reduce taxes, you have to offset them with either a tax increase or a spending cut, not with surpluses.

So this amendment, we believe if you are going to have a surplus, it should either go back to the Social Security trust fund and pay down debt, or reduce taxes. That is what we are proposing.

But just so we are very clear with ourselves here, this Baucus amendment, this acceptance of this policy of not raising all of these taxes, just some of them, which is the best choice we have between the two options as the minority, does violate their own PAYGO rule by dedicating their surpluses towards this tax relief, rather than having offsets, either coming from spending cuts or tax increases.

If you are going to reduce taxes, you have to pay for it by either raising taxes or cutting spending. That is what your PAYGO is, correct?

Well, you are violating it if you accept this amendment then.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

I wish we were talking about all of the tax cuts. Unfortunately, what we have in the Baucus amendment, that is only $132 billion in 2012 because the Baucus amendment only extends some of the tax cuts.

The point we are making is, if we want to stop raising taxes and raiding Social Security, we are going to have to control spending. That is what we propose to do; and sadly, that is not what the majority budget does.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell), a member of the House Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith).

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

Mr. Speaker, let me concur that the resolution does say what the chairman says it does. The reason it points to the words in the House budget resolution, which say that the policy of the House is to keep these tax cuts, but we refer to the deeds of the Senate is because the House didn't pay for those tax cuts, didn't extend those tax cuts. The Senate extended those tax cuts.

The House used the words that said, we hope, we wish, we would like to extend these tax cuts, but they didn't do that. They raised the taxes. It is the Senate.

The mere fact that the Senate passed the Baucus amendment in the first place is a repudiation of the claim by the House that they are actually not raising taxes.

The Senate looked at the House budget resolution and said, you know what, this thing is the largest tax increase in American history. We don't want to raise taxes on middle-income earners, child tax credit, marriage penalty, 10 percent bracket; and therefore, they passed the Baucus amendment.

What we are saying is we wish we could extend all of the tax cuts. Since the scope is limited, we are saying, let's stick with the Senate and actually put numbers where the words are in the House by actually lowering the revenue number.

Now, the chairman is right. He is saying it is a reach to reach these surpluses. It is too tough to do it to reach these surpluses if you accept his premise. And the premise of the chairman's budget is do nothing to control spending.

Mr. Speaker, we don't have a revenue problem in Washington. Just the last 7 months alone we had 11 percent revenue growth. That is 3 straight years of double-digit revenue growth at these lower tax rates. We have plenty of money coming in from taxpayers. The problem is we are spending it too fast. That is the problem in Washington, not a revenue problem, a spending problem.

If you accept the premise of the chairman, the esteemed gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), that there is no spending problem in Washington, which I don't accept, then he is correct, you can't balance the budget. You can't stopped the raid on Social Security and you can't extend tax relief.

We disagree. How tough is it to do it? Let me tell you what our budget accomplished, the Republican substitute. We simply said in order to stop the raid of the Social Security surplus and make all these tax cuts permanent, spend $14.977 trillion over the next 7 years instead of the current projection, $15.286 trillion. That is what we are saying. We are saying instead of spending over the next 5 years $15.286 trillion, spend $14.977 trillion. Instead of growing mandatory spending by 5.2 percent, grow it at 4.3 percent.

Is this Draconian, is this crazy, is this hard core? No. It's what families do around a kitchen table every day.

We are simply saying put taxpayers first. Don't make people wait for 3 years to see if they're going to have their per-child tax credit, if they're going to have the marriage penalty, if the estate taxes are going to be higher, lower or somewhere in between. Tell them now. Let's tell taxpayers, first you get to keep your money; then we're going to tighten our belt here in Washington by controlling spending.

Mr. Speaker, the taxpayers deserve this respect. They don't deserve to be jerked around. We should control spending, and by golly, we need to prepare for the retirement of these baby boomers. We need to reform these entitlement programs so we can extend their solvency, extend their reliability, and that is the biggest shame of all.

Not only does this budget have the largest tax increase in American history; it proposes that we do nothing for the next 5 years to control and reform entitlements to do anything to control spending. That's a shame. That's why we should pass this motion to instruct.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 370, I call up the Senate Concurrent Resolution (S. Con. Res. 21) setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2008 and including the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2007 and 2009 through 2012, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 370, I offer a motion.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, let me say from the outset what we said yesterday in the debate of this bill. But let me refer to third parties, independent, disinterested third parties like the Concord Coalition. They took a look at our budget, and they said unequivocally, and I'm quoting, ``Thus, to be clear, the budget resolution does not call for or require a tax increase.''

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, excellent analytical work, they took a look at our budget and they said, ``The House budget does not include a tax increase.''

And then, finally, the Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution, independent, disinterested said, plainly, simply, ``This budget would not raise taxes.''

We have included in the budget resolution not one place, but twice, in different parts of the resolution, our wholehearted endorsement, our commitment, our pledge, our determination to see that these middle- income tax cuts are preserved and enacted and carried forward when they expire per their terms.

The budget resolution does not cause them to expire. They were designed to expire, written to expire when they were offered and passed. At that particular time, that was part of the provision.

In addition, I am making clear again that our budget resolution allows all of the deductions, credits, exemptions and exclusions that are provided in the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. All of them are provided and allowed to stay in place this year, next year, and for the next 4 years. So there is very little disagreement about us except I am wondering about the arithmetic.

Budget resolution motions to instruct are nonbinding. They are a valid part of the process. But they do present a problem. They single out specific elements of a budget resolution without looking at how one goal, such as tax reduction, interacts with another goal, such as deficit reduction. In that respect, what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have offered is a resolution that calls for support of all of the tax cuts they laid out plus a surplus of $96 billion.

Could I ask the gentleman from Wisconsin, what does this assume about the bottom line before the tax cuts? How big a surplus would you have to have in 2012 in order for there to be, after taking these tax cuts, a $96 billion remaining surplus?

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

How much?

So what is the surplus before these tax cuts are taken?

It would have to be pretty substantial. Isn't the cost of these tax cuts in the first year $180 billion or more?

It's my understanding, roughly speaking, that the cost of these tax cuts, the revenue impact of these tax cuts, in the first year was about $180 billion. If you take that kind of charge against the surplus and still have a surplus left of $96 billion, then you've got about a $276 billion surplus in that year.

Is this the CBO number?

CBO's projection.

And what you would then expect is a $276 billion surplus before the tax cuts?

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, in response to the last speaker, if we support this resolution, it's because we originally provided in our budget resolution, in two different aspects of our budget resolution, our full, wholehearted support for these middle-income tax cuts. We still have, I will have to confess, concern about your arithmetic here, but we supported it in the budget resolution we filed, which passed the House. We endorsed and pledged that we would seek to the extension of the 10 percent individual tax bracket, the child tax credit, research and experimentation tax credit, all of these things. Read the resolution. They're there. We were there before you were, saying that, over the next 3 or 4 years, we need to see that when December 31, 2010, comes along, these tax cuts will survive and be preserved. We are committed to that, black and white print, budget resolution.

I will yield for one question.

No. I'm talking about statements in our budget resolution which state emphatically and clearly, ``It is the policy of this budget resolution to preserve, defend and protect the middle-income tax cuts adopted in 2001 and 2003, which will expire in 2010.''

Now, we do believe, and this also is in our budget resolution, we believe in the PAYGO principle. We believe that the Tax Code is full of deductions and credits and exemptions and exclusions, and you can go through a closet cleaning in the Code and come up with enough offsets to provide for the extension of many of these tax cuts, maybe not all but many, without any adverse impact on the bottom line budget deficit.

I will yield.

There was a provision that allowed for reserve accounts so that we could provide for these tax cuts. But basically we took the position that this decision does not have to be made now, and indeed it can be better made closer in time to December 31, when we see what is the bottom line then. How much debt have we accumulated? What is the total deficit? What is the forecast for the future? At that point in time, we can consider the tax cuts, extension of them.

By my understanding, if you extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that expire on December 31, the cost over 10 years is about $2 trillion. That's a big decision. We think you should make it deliberately and closer in point of time to when these tax cuts actually expire.

Let me say also that not only did we put these tax cuts and state our support for them in the budget resolution, but in addition, when the tax cuts were passed in 2001, we either had substitutes or occasionally voted for independent free-standing provisions like the marriage penalty relief. Democrats were there when that passed the House. I voted for it the first time it came up and voted for it again repeatedly. In our substitutes, we had a 12 percent bracket and then a 10 percent bracket. We had a child tax credit, which we continually increase, and we had the R&E tax credit extension. We had expensing for small businesses. Many, if not all, of the things you are talking about here we voted for, maybe not on your bills but on our bills because these are tax policies favoring middle-income Americans for whom we think tax relief is well in order.

Secondly, we have a problem still with the arithmetic that you've got here.

According to my information, looking at CBO's most recent report, the Social Security surplus for 2012 is $255 billion. If you want to stay out of Social Security, you have got to have a surplus of at least $255 billion, a unified surplus of at least $255 billion, am I correct?

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I understand that. But the Social Security surplus is $255 billion.

Mr. Speaker, on the other hand, if you look at the surplus you are claiming, $96 billion, and also provide for these tax cuts, my information is that these tax cuts have a revenue impact of at least $180 billion.

That would mean in the year 2012 there has to be a bottom line surplus of $276 billion before the tax cuts are taken.

$180 billion I believe is 1 year.

But you haven't shown us the arithmetic. We are not sure your arithmetic is correct.

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

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I have here a copy of the President's budgetary proposals for fiscal year 2008 published by the Congressional Budget Office. If you turn to page 6, you will see that the cost of the tax cuts, extending the tax cuts, which the motion proposes, the cost or the revenue impact of that in the year 2012 is $231 billion. That is what CBO says.

If you now add $96 billion to that, the surplus that year must be $327 billion. The surplus, $327 billion. Last year the deficit was $248 billion. If we move to a surplus of $327 billion in the year 2012, that requires a movement in the right direction of $575 billion which is hard to believe.

The point, I am sure, is you are supportive of all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. You are limited by procedural rules to only dealing with that which is in the scope of the two resolutions. But, in fact, I am sure you are supportive of that. If that is true, you have to acknowledge that the number is $231 billion. That is the revenue impact of extending all of the tax cuts. If you add 96, which is the surplus you project, you get a big, big number.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, this goes back to something that our President called fuzzy math. And if I seem hung up on the topic of math, it is because arithmetic is important when you are putting together a budget.

What they are telling us is they can run a $96 billion surplus in the year 2012 even though they are taking tax cuts that will take $231 billion in revenues out of the Federal Treasury. It is a stretch, to say the least. That involves assuming that we will have a surplus in the year 2012 of $327 billion.

How far from that are we today? Last year we had a deficit of $248 billion. If

we are to move to a surplus of $327 billion by the year 2012, there has to be a movement in the right direction, a positive movement of $575 billion. Let's hope it happens, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

They then say and just said we are raiding Social Security. How absurd can you get? Here it is right here. The Social Security surplus is $255 billion. They do not even claim more than $96 billion on the surplus. If they left the tax cut out, they would indeed have enough bottom line, 96 plus 231, to cover the surplus, but they haven't done that.

Here on the bottom line, the back of an envelope, is a simple chart that I bring down to the well with me every time I talk because we need to be reminded. When President Bush came to office, the national debt was $5.7 trillion. Six years later, the national debt is $8.8 trillion, an increase of $3.1 trillion over the last 6 years. That is a 60 percent increase in the debt of the United States. We have not seen anything like it since the Second World War.

Are we worried about fuzzy math? You better believe we are because this is the consequence of it. What the Republican budget resolution would have done had it been adopted is it would have extended again and again the policy of borrow and spend, leaving the tab to our children.

Here is what the tab looked like, in addition to the $8.8 trillion: You can cut taxes today, but what you leave in the wake of what you have done is a debt tax, the one tax that has to be paid because it is the amount of money we have to levy and raise every year to pay interest on our national debt, which is obligatory. It cannot be avoided. It has to be paid.

Here is the difference between interest on the national debt, which is well over $200 billion, headed to $300 billion within the foreseeable future, and look what it does to other priorities, things that are pressing and important like veterans health care, homeland security, and education. All of those things are dwarfed by the increase in interest payments on the debt.

This is a debt tax we have to pay today. All Americans have to pay it. Our children will have to pay it because of our irresponsible fiscal policy. This is why we need to clear up this fuzzy math and put the country back on a firm path to fiscal responsibility.

For the clarification of Members, let me give you my take on what is before us right now. This motion to instruct conferees calls for us to recede, back off the revenue levels in the House amendment and insist on, listen to this, policy statement in section 401 of the House amendment. That is our budget resolution, the Democratic budget resolution.

It is the place in our resolution where one time we have insisted, pledged our support for the extension of these middle-income tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003. That is paragraph A. It is hard for us to disagree with the enforcement of the language that we put in the budget resolution in the first place.

Secondly, paragraph B, insist on the lowest possible levels of revenue within the scope of the conference.

It is hard to tell what that level might be, whether or not it is consistent with the one above, but we certainly will give some consideration to that.

And finally, set forth a unified surplus of at least $96 billion in fiscal year 2012. I hope we can do it, but you have heard me go through the arithmetic out here, and I think it is a reach to even imply that these three variables can be integrated and solved in this one multi varied equation.

If you can do it, fine. If you can come out of all this still having these tax cuts and still having a $96 billion surplus, great. But I have to tell you, I think it is fuzzy math.

But we are wholeheartedly in support of the middle-income tax cuts that are enumerated here. Indeed, they have been lifted straight out of the Democratic budget resolution, and that is why we are supportive of them.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to echo the point he made.

Our chairman, the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina, came to the floor and accurately said both budgets, the Senate budget resolution and the House-passed budget resolution, balance the budget. That is correct. They do. It is certified by the Congressional Budget Office. There is only one reason and way and method how they balance the budget, though, Mr. Speaker: by raising taxes.

The House-passed budget resolution relies upon, requires, in fact, makes sure that it passes the largest tax increase in American history in order to balance the budget. The Senate-passed budget resolution relies upon, requires and ensures that the second largest tax increase in American history be enacted on the American people, on the American taxpayers, in order to achieve balance.

I have two major concerns with this budget resolution, Mr. Speaker. Number one, it is very bad economic policy. And number two, it is an enormous missed opportunity.

Why is this budget resolution bad economic policy? Inflicting the largest tax increase in American history on the American family, business, entrepreneur, on American taxpayers, is bad economic policy. And here is why: Back in 2001, where we realized we had 9/11, and in 2003, where we realized we had a recession, with the dot-com bubble burst, with Enron scandals, we had job losses to the tune where we were losing about 124,000 jobs a month. We had to act quickly to get people back to work, so we cut taxes across the board. We cut taxes on entrepreneurs, on families, on workers, on businesses, on capital. What happened: 7.6 million new jobs were created since then. We have been creating on average over 200,000 jobs a month since then. The stock market turned around. The savings portfolios of senior citizens which were eviscerated in the market crash came back. The Dow hit 13,000 last week, an all-time high. We saw business investment, from negative decline after negative decline for 11 consecutive quarters, turn around and hit all-time highs. More jobs were created. And what happened at these lower tax rates? Revenues came into the Federal Government at a much, much faster pace, at about a 25-year high. So we saw more revenues coming into the Federal Government, which actually brought the deficit down at these lower tax rates.

What this budget resolution does is it puts that economic recovery plan in jeopardy. By raising taxes on people and businesses and entrepreneurs, you are reducing job growth in America. You are raising the cost of capital.

We have a problem, Mr. Speaker, and that is we live in the era of

globalization. The oceans no longer separate our economy from the rest of the world. Ninety-five percent of the world's consumers don't live in this country. They are overseas.

So, Mr. Speaker, we have got to wake up. Wake up to the fact that we have real competitive pressures. Countries like China and India, let alone Japan and Europe, are giving us real competitive pressures, real competitive challenges. And when we go back to the old adage of taxing, taxing and taxing, what we are going to do is tax more and more jobs overseas to these other countries. By taxing our economy and our businesses and our workers more and more than our competitors tax theirs, you know what happens? They get our jobs. That is a mistake. That is wrong.

America taxes capital more than any other industrialized country in the world except for one, Japan, and they just finished two decades of recession. So it is really bad economic policy to have all these tax increases.

You just heard the gentleman from Massachusetts talk about the reserve funds they have in this budget. They really want to make sure that they don't raise these taxes. So they put a reserve fund in the budget. And the reserve fund basically says, we don't want to raise these taxes; we would like to come up and pay for them, but our money is not there.

A budget is basically a page full of numbers, and numbers don't lie. The numbers in this budget require these taxes to go up, require these taxes to sunset; otherwise, they don't balance the budget.

You can't have it both ways. You can't balance the budget on the left hand and then say we are not raising taxes on the right hand. It is one or the other. So regardless of how many empty promise reserve funds you have in a budget resolution, the numbers don't lie, and the numbers say these taxes are being raised.

Now, as to the point that the sunset was put in by the Republicans, not by the Democrats, and we are simply letting this Republican policy manifest itself, and we are budgeting for it, that is not quite true, Mr. Speaker. And I remember being a member of the Ways and Means Committee and working on the conference committee at this time. When these tax cuts went through the Ways and Means Committee in the House, when these tax cuts passed the House floor, they were permanent. They never had a sunset in them. What happened? This arcane rule in the Senate called the Byrd rule was put in place. And the Byrd rule said for these tax cuts to be permanent, it needs 60 votes in the Senate. What happened? We had 52 Republicans voting to make them permanent; no Democrats would vote to make these tax cuts permanent. So the Democrats filibustered making these tax cuts permanent, and because of the Democrat filibuster in the Senate, these tax cuts were made temporary. The only way to get this tax relief to the American economy, to the American people, to get out of the job loss, to get out of the recession, was this temporary tax policy because of the Democrat-led filibuster by then Senator Daschle at the time in the Senate. That's why there's a sunset in this law.

We always kind of wondered at the time, why would they stand in the way of the taxpayer and make these tax cuts temporary? Why would they insist upon these sunsets? Well, now we know why. Because it is how they balance the budget because they plan on, bank for, certify, require, rely on these tax cuts going away.

The second reason I think this is a bad policy is it is an enormous missed opportunity, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman from South Carolina, who really is a gentleman from South Carolina, and I mean that sincerely, had a lot of good hearings in the Budget Committee. We have had a few in Ways and Means as well. We had all these experts coming to us from the left and from the right, from think tanks on the left side of the aisle and think tanks on the right side of the aisle, we had the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve Chairman, the Treasury Department coming to us, all saying the same thing: Entitlements are growing out of control. The entitlement program problem is enormous. We are doubling the amount of retirees in this country within one generation; yet we are only increasing the amount of workers coming in behind them by 17 percent.

We have an enormous unfunded liability, about $49 trillion. It's a mind-boggling number. But when you take three entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, those three entitlements right there, Mr. Speaker, will consume 100 percent of the Federal budget by the time my children are my age.

So all these experts came to us and said, Do something. You're the Budget Committee, you've got to do something to control the growth of entitlements. It's going to bankrupt America. And if we don't do anything, if we keep the government we have today and do nothing to reform entitlements, by the time my children are my age, they will literally have to pay double the amount of taxes for that Federal Government at that time.

Let me say it one other way, Mr. Speaker. Since about 1960, Washington has funded the Federal Government by taxing the U.S. economy by about 18 percent of the economy. About 18 percent of the gross domestic product has been required to pay for the Federal Government. It's been remarkably consistent. Now, if you take today's government, add no new programs, take none away, and transfer that out to about 2040 when my kids are my age, just to keep today's government afloat at that time you will have to tax 40 percent of GDP, 40 percent of the national economy just to pay for that government because of three entitlement programs.

You can't compete with China and India by taxing our economy at 40 percent, let alone Germany and Japan. You can't prepare for globalization. You can't help people get careers for tomorrow and enjoy higher standards of living if we don't address our entitlements right now.

That is the biggest travesty of this bill, Mr. Speaker. This bill says we will do absolutely nothing, nada, zilch, nothing at all either in the Senate budget resolution or the House budget resolution to attack and reform entitlement programs, to attack this problem for 5 years. This budget says let's do nothing to fix our entitlement programs for 5 years. That means we accelerate and exacerbate the bankruptcy of Social Security, of Medicare, of Medicaid. How is that helping senior citizens if we push these programs faster toward bankruptcy? I think that's wrong. I think we need to fix these programs so seniors can better rely on these programs.

And you know what, Mr. Speaker? In Wisconsin we say this a lot, and I think people say it around the country, and prior generations always told this to me, my parents and my grandparents, they said, the thing about America, what's beautiful about America is that one generation works hard and leaves to the next generation a country that's better off. The dream of parents is to leave your children with a country that's better off so you can enjoy a higher standard of living. That is the beautiful legacy of America.

Mr. Speaker, we are at risk of severing that legacy. If we don't address these entitlements, if we simply go the old easy Washington route of simply raising taxes and raising spending and doing nothing to address this entitlement problem, we will really run the risk of severing that legacy and giving our children a lower standard of living than that which we enjoy today.

We have new competitive pressures from other countries unlike any we have seen before. Raising taxes on families and workers will not bring more prosperity to America. It will give jobs to other countries. Doing nothing to attack the entitlement problem in this country will only ensure that an unprecedented mountain of debt is befallen onto our children and our grandchildren, and they are going to have to pay far higher taxes than any American has ever paid in the past.

This, Mr. Speaker, is why I say vote against this rule and vote against this budget resolution, which includes and relies on the largest tax increase in American history and the biggest missed opportunity by doing nothing to reform entitlements over the next 5 years.

This could have been a bipartisan opportunity to fix these problems. Sadly, it's not.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

No. It increased Medicare spending. It just didn't increase it as fast as it is projected to grow at this time.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

The President's numbers on the 10-year? I think they are probably correct; I have no reason to dispute them. But remember, Medicare spending goes up every year and thereon after under either of these budgets.

The question I have for the chairman is, if we're not going to fix these entitlements in the budget, then where are we going to fix them? If we don't put it in the Federal budget, then how do you get it done? If you don't have reconciliation protection to do entitlement reform, then when are you ever going to do it?

The 1997 bill that President Clinton passed through on a bipartisan basis was reconciliation.

Will the chairman yield for an additional question?

Why doesn't the gentleman's PAYGO apply to discretionary spending? Why doesn't the gentleman's PAYGO apply to current Federal spending?

May I make an entreaty to the chairman?

I would love to work on a bipartisan basis to put discretionary caps in place. I would be delighted to work with the chairman of the Budget Committee to put discretionary spending caps in place. Is that something that you would be willing to work with us on?

Mr. Speaker, this rule simply makes in order a motion to go to conference on the House and Senate budget resolution. That's all it does.

The budget resolution, in turn, frames all that we will do in fiscal year 2008, next year; and it helps keep the process fiscally disciplined as we move forward. Usually, this procedure is accompanied by, expedited by, unanimous consent. In this case, we couldn't be assured of unanimous consent, so we are, instead, moving forward with the rule.

Now, naturally, we in the House think that the House-passed budget is a better expression of our goals. But both resolutions to be resolved in conference, both are Democratic products, and we think both are vastly better, far better budgets than the Republicans offered this year or last year, for that matter. It's a matter of record. Last year the Republicans failed to pass a concurrent budget resolution. They couldn't get the two Houses together.

When we came back here in November, we had to finish up the unfinished work. Only 2 of 11 appropriations bills were passed, partly because they didn't have the framework of a budget resolution in which to proceed.

Just weeks ago, we had the Republican budget on the House floor. It fell 60 votes short of a majority, way behind. So unless we do what we are doing today, we are going to find ourselves shortly in the same situation we were last fall when the work was undone at the end of the year.

Both budgets, both the House and the Senate budgets, have this goal. Both budgets are designed to bring the budget back to balance by the year 2012. The House resolution carries forward, I'm proud to say, carries forward our commitment to pay-as-you-go. And the Senate resolution includes a pay-as-you-go rule of its own.

There are a number of initiatives, it's true, in this bill. A number of new initiatives. One is the Children's Health Insurance Initiative, but none of these initiatives, including CHIP, will be undertaken, none of them will be undertaken unless there are offsetting revenues or offsetting expenses to make them budget neutral so they do not have any impact on the bottom line.

This budget resolution and the Senate resolution both contain program integrity measures requested by the President, augmented by us in our budget resolution to crack down on wasteful spending. We're proud of that. We want to see that money appropriated. We want to see some that could be saved on wasteful sending.

Both budgets, and let me emphasize this, both budgets support middle- income tax relief. We'll say it again and again and again. It bears repeating because it's absolutely true.

The House budget resolution sites in its text income tax cuts that were passed in 2001 and 2003, and it supports, not in one place, but two, wholesomely supports the extension and renewal of those tax cuts past 2010, when they will all expire.

Now, let me make something clear. This budget resolution for the next 4 years does not take a thing away from any taxpayer. The tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 remain unaffected, remain standing and in place.

In addition, let me make clear that when the tax cuts adopted in 2001 and 2003 expire at the end of 2010, it's by design. That's the way you wrote the resolution. That's the way you wrote the bill that passed it. And we do not propose anything here in this bill about not renewing those tax cuts when they come up. We simply say that's a bridge we will cross when we get to it.

But in the Senate, Senator Baucus has offered an amendment that will require a vote before the year 2010 to renew those middle-income tax cuts that sunset in the year 2010. The Baucus amendment limits these tax cuts to $180 billion in annual revenue reduction, the amount of the surplus that is anticipated in 2012 in the budget resolution.

In the meantime, let me say again, all the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 were provided for, allowed and in place under this budget resolution. It is completely specious to say that we have raised taxes by one dime. Completely specious.

If you don't believe, let me say once again or let me show you in writing what Mr. McGovern just introduced. Here is the Concord Coalition. Nobody would dispute their bona fides or their unpartisan character. Here is how they sum up their analysis of our budget resolution: ``Thus to be clear, the budget resolution does not call for or require a tax increase.'' That is the Concord Coalition.

Next is the Brookings Institution, Hamilton Project: ``This budget would not raise taxes.'' An independent group, no axes to grind. That is their opinion.

And, finally, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: ``This claim is incorrect. The House plan does not include a single tax increase.''

Those are three outside organizations with no axes to grind. They looked at our resolution. That is the judgment they rendered on it.

Now, let me move on to say that both the House and Senate budget resolutions meet the President's request for national defense. They protect our country, and they exceed the President's request for veterans' health care. Funding for veterans' health care in our resolution is 6 billion bucks, $6 billion, above the 2007 level and more than $3 billion above the President's request.

Both budgets are also designed to reduce the deficit and bring the budget back to balance, as I said earlier. That will decrease our reliance on foreigners who buy our debt. Since 2001, foreign ownership of Treasury bonds has more than doubled to $2.2 trillion, making our economy vulnerable to global markets and the whims of foreign investors.

If I could see this chart next to show you the total debt accumulation under this administration. On the back of an envelope, this shows you what we are about, what we want to avoid. When this administration came to office, the national debt was $5.7 trillion. In the last 6 years, they have added 60 percent to that sum, $3.1 trillion in additional debt. And as a consequence, the national debt stands at $8.8 trillion. This is what Republicans have produced. This isn't about claiming or argumentation or anything else. This is a matter of record. You can look it up, from $5.7 to $8.8 trillion.

Finally, this budget resolution maintains the priorities that we Democrats stand for and are proud of. We put families first. We put children first by investing in health care; child care; education; Head Start; and as I said earlier, tax relief to middle-income families. Both budgets, both budgets, plan huge steps, and this is one of the great initiatives we hope to achieve in this Congress, huge steps to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program so that it covers most of the 9 million children without health insurance in this country, and we propose to do that with offsets so that there will not be a dime of the cost of that added to the bottom line.

In summary, Mr. Speaker, in short, this rule will make in order the steps necessary to send our budget resolution to conference so that they can move us forward on a fiscally responsible, fiscally disciplined path.

I urge support for this resolution so that we can move forward with the budget process.

I would say to my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin, and I mean that compliment, I return the compliment, that I nevertheless vigorously disagree with some of the points you just made.

Facts are stubborn things, and the fact of the matter is that during the Clinton years, on average 237,000 jobs were created every month over an 8-year period of time. The Bush record is half that amount, if that. During the past month, you're leading with your left making that point at this point in time because during the past month job growth was just 88,000 jobs.

Secondly, with respect to Medicare, we know that Medicare has to be dealt with, but you know as well as I that this is not the forum. We need a much bigger group. We need the administration involved in the process. It is a very difficult undertaking to make the systemic changes that are necessary. And before we commence those negotiations, we need to do what President Clinton required in 1997, everybody needs to put some ante on the table. Everybody's got to have some skin in this game to be a player in this process of trying to diminish the cost of the health care entitlements to the United States. It has to be done, but this is not the correct forum for doing it.

The gentleman's budget resolution, I believe, cuts Medicare by $250 billion.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Well, the President's budget cut Medicare by $252 billion over a 10-year period of time and cut Medicaid by 50 to $60 billion over the same 10-year period of time.

Those numbers are correct, are they not?

Well, I can only surmise what happened to your budget resolution. One reason it didn't muster, besides the fact that you lost 40 votes, as you recall, is I am sure there are certain Republicans on your side of the aisle who did not want to vote for those massive cuts emasculating Medicare and Medicaid.

If I could reclaim my time, it takes a bigger forum than the Budget Committee provides. It takes more participants than just the Congress. Everybody has got to be a player in this game to make it happen in a significant way because it has got to involve, as you and I know, systemic change. No question about it.

And, finally, PAYGO. We are proud of the fact that we adopted the PAYGO rule in 1991, and it contributed significantly to the fact that over a period of 8 years during the Clinton administration the bottom line of the budget got better every year for 8 straight years to the point where we had a surplus of $236 billion under the Clinton administration resulting in part from the Balanced Budget Act of 1993 and 1997. $236 billion we handed over to President Bush. By the year 2004, between 2001 and 2004, we went from a surplus of $236 billion to a deficit of $412 billion. That happened on your watch. The Republicans controlled the House, they controlled the Senate, they controlled the White House. There is no way you can escape responsibility for what happened in those circumstances.

I yield to the gentleman.

PAYGO is never applied to discretionary spending. It would be very difficult at this time to do it when every year we have an end run around discretionary budget with the President's supplementals for Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be very difficult to cap discretionary.

Your party, on its watch, allowed PAYGO discretionary spending caps, all of those constraints in 1990, to expire and did not renew them. The main reason you didn't was you knew if we had a double-edge PAYGO applicable to tax cuts as well as mandatory increases, you would be unable to pass additional tax cuts as part of your agenda.

Yes, sir.

We'll talk about it. If we've got a forum, the Budget Committee, once we've got this budget resolution behind us, and that is the order of the day, there are lots of things along those lines that we can explore, and we will.

Let me conclude by saying everybody should vote for this budget resolution if they want to see an orderly, fiscally responsible, disciplined process in the next fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I

call up House Resolution 370 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

I yield myself such time as I may consume and I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. I also ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 370.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 370 provides for consideration in the House of S. Con. Res. 21, the Senate version of the concurrent budget resolution for 2008. It also provides for the House to insist on the House-passed version of the budget resolution and to request a conference with the Senate.

The rule is very simple. It allows the House to disagree with the Senate budget resolution and request a conference. It doesn't interfere with the motion to instruct conferees; it just allows the House to go to conference and appoint conferees.

This rule is necessary, Mr. Speaker, because the Republican leadership refused to agree to the customary unanimous consent request required to go to conference on a Senate numbered bill. In fact, there is no instance in recent memory where a separate rule has been adopted to go to conference with the Senate on a budget resolution due to the objection of a unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I am having a hard time figuring out why my Republican friends are choosing to be obstructionists on even the most routine housekeeping measures. They talk a lot about civility and comity in the House, but apparently it is just that, talk, because their actions point to a very different strategy.

The new Democratic majority, on the other hand, is committed to results. We were elected to get things done, and that is exactly what we will do, with or without the cooperation of the Republican minority.

This rule does not block a vote on approval of the Senate budget resolution, as amended. It does not interfere with the motion to instruct conferees. It simply allows the House to insist on its version of the budget resolution and to request a conference with the Senate, nothing more. So let's pass this rule and get the budget resolution into conference.

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

Mr. Speaker, if I could respond to the gentleman from Texas, I don't know what he's talking about. The fact of the matter is that the Democratic budget resolution does not contain a single tax increase. Period. The Concord Coalition stated that the budget resolution does not call for or require a tax increase. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the House plan does not include a tax increase. The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institute says the budget would not raise taxes.

Mr. Speaker, I sat on the Budget Committee. I had the honor of serving under Chairman Spratt. And I would say to the gentleman from Texas, if he reads the budget resolution, it actually supports the renewal of the middle-class income tax cut.

Section 401 of the budget resolution commits the budget to the support of the middle-class tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, including the child tax credit, the marriage penalty relief, the 10 percent individual income tax bracket, estate tax reform, research and development tax credit, and the deduction of State and local sales taxes.

Section 203 of the budget resolution clearly provides a reserve fund for the extension of those tax cuts so long as the legislation complies with the House pay-as-you-go rule.

Now, the gentleman from Texas gets up here and brags about the fiscal record of the Republicans in the Congress. Well, the American people, I think, saw through the misplaced priorities of the Republican Congresses, as evidenced by the results of the November election.

But so there is no misunderstanding, let me make it very clear to everybody who is watching. We need to correct the fiscal course of the country because the fiscal outlook that we are confronting has deteriorated dramatically over the past 6 years because of the Republicans misplaced priorities.

In 2001, the Bush administration inherited a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion. That's $5.6 trillion. Within 2 years, that surplus was gone, and the United States began accumulating an amount of national debt, adding $2.8 trillion to our Federal debt burden since 2001.

Now, to make matters worse, most of that debt has been purchased by foreign investors, making the U.S. economy more vulnerable to economic and political instability and political pressure from abroad.

So for anyone to get up here and to brag about the Republican record on fiscal matters, I think, to me, defies comprehension. The record is clear. You have messed up the economy of this country in terms of this incredible debt that we have now put on the backs of our kids and our grandkids and our great grandkids. What the Democratic budget is trying to do is restore some fiscal discipline, pay-as-you-go, and to get this country back on the right course.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 8 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt.

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

Mr. Speaker, just because my colleagues on the Republican side say that the Democratic budget raises taxes doesn't mean it's true. Let me repeat that so no one misses this point. The budget resolution that we are talking about does not contain a single tax increase. That is a fact. Sometimes facts are a stubborn thing, but that is the fact. And the Republican spin machine can say whatever it wants; but the fact of the matter is, and I repeat, this budget resolution does not increase any taxes.

Secondly, I appreciate the fact that the gentleman from Texas was waxing nostalgic about the Clinton years when President Bill Clinton was the President of the United States and we were getting our fiscal house in order. But what I was talking about was what happened when President Bush became President and we had Republicans in the White House and in the Congress, and that is when we saw the skyrocketing of our Federal debt.

You know, budgets do reflect the priorities of a nation. And one of the reasons that I think people decided to vote for change in the last election is because they did not appreciate the priorities that were put forth by the previous Republican Congresses. They did not appreciate our veterans being shortchanged; they did not appreciate the most vulnerable in our country being shortchanged. If anyone has any questions about whether or not we were adequately funding veterans health, just recall the recent scandals of Walter Reed and at so many other of our veteran hospitals all across the country. You know, we voted in this Congress to send our young men and women into war. The least we can do is to make sure that the necessary funding is there to take care of them when they return, and the Democratic budget does that.

Let me also say for the record, Mr. Speaker, that notwithstanding all of the flowery language that we've heard from the other side, it is important to remember that in the last 6 years poverty has gotten worse in America. There are more people today than 6 years ago that need to rely on food stamps and other government programs just to get by.

So these fiscal policies that have resulted in skyrocketing debt, that have resulted in foreign countries like China purchasing our debt, I don't know how that serves our national interest, have not produced this incredible economic boom that we're hearing today. And I would encourage my colleagues to look at the statistics, to look at the facts, to talk to some of the people who have gone from being in the middle class, who have now fallen below the poverty line. There are far too many people that have done that, and what we are trying to do is to make sure that there is opportunity for everyone.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt.

Mr. Speaker, let me just repeat for the record that section 401 of the budget resolution commits the budget to support the middle-class income tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, including the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, the 10 percent individual income tax bracket, estate tax reform, research and development tax credit, and the deduction of State and local sales taxes.

Section 203 of the budget resolution clearly provides a reserve fund for the extension of those tax cuts so long as the legislation complies with the House pay-as-you-go rule.

I would simply say to my colleagues that under their watch, that many middle-class taxpayers actually saw their taxes go up, because when the Federal Government cut essential programs to States and cities and towns, people saw their property taxes go through the roof.

I think one can make an argument that people are paying far too high gas prices right now because of the years that were squandered under the Republican leadership, emboldened to the oil industry and refusing to invest adequately in alternative sources of energy.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that this is a good budget, and I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the rule and support the budget.

Mr. Speaker, if I could inquire how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, let me just say that I think there is a reason why the Republicans lost the last election, and that is that the people of this country were fed up with their priorities. They were tired of budget resolution after budget resolution that shortchanged our veterans, that shortchanged our schools, that shortchanged our environment, that shortchanged our senior citizens, that shortchanged health care.

As I pointed out earlier, Mr. Speaker, there are more people in poverty today than 6 years ago. There are more people who are food insecure today than 6 years ago. That is not a record of accomplishment that I would want to brag about on the House floor.

The budget that Mr. Spratt has brought before us achieves key objectives in six areas. It is fiscal responsibility, defending our Nation, putting our children and families first, growing our economy, preserving our planet, and promoting an accountable and efficient government.

Mr. Speaker, we have inherited this incredible budget deficit and this debt from the previous majority. It is not easy to try to clean up this mess, but that is what the underlying budget before us tries to do.

I would urge all my colleagues to vote for it. It is the right thing to do.

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

The previous question was ordered.