Americans Need A Healthcare Ruling Act

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 534 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to be down here with you today, and for the purpose of debate only I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker, that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 534, this rule before us today, brings the first of two Budget Committee reform bills to the floor. As the Speaker is very familiar, the Budget Committee has been working very hard, not just this year but last year as well, to put together an agenda to make the budget more accessible to the American people, to make budgeting in Washington, DC, look more like budgeting back home around the kitchen table. We have the first of those two reform bills coming to the floor today with the passage of this rule.

This rule is a structured rule, Mr. Speaker, that brings H.R. 3578, the Baseline Reform Act, and H.R. 3582, the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act, to the floor.

We all know it's been over a thousand days since the Senate has produced a budget. But here in the House, not only did we produce a budget last year on time, we will produce a budget this year on time, and we will produce another budget, as we did last year, that the American people can be proud of. Knowing that it's a given the American people are going to be proud of that work product, Mr. Speaker, because you and I will ensure it, the question is, will folks be able to understand it. I confess, as a freshman member on the Budget Committee, Mr. Speaker, it's not always easy to do.

The President is going to submit his budget to us in a couple of weeks. I think it was going to be next week. I think he's put it off for another week. I'm looking forward to seeing it when it finally arrives. But my recollection and expectation is going to be it's going to be more than 12 inches tall. Not because the President's doing anything wrong, but because that's the level of detail and sophistication it takes to produce a budget for the United States of America.

So what can we do to make this budget easier to understand? What can we do to make this budget more like the budgeting that goes on around the kitchen table?

The Baseline Reform Act, the first bill that this rule would bring to the floor, does this, Mr. Speaker. It eliminates the assumption that CBO makes today that every Congress is going to spend more next year than the previous Congress. Now, there are, as a function of law, Mr. Speaker, some areas of the budget that do in fact go up.

We know, for example, that 10,000 new Americans every day apply for Social Security and Medicare. 10,000 new baby boomers every day apply for Social Security and Medicare. We calculate that in the law. It exists in statute today to say let's go ahead and raise that spending level based on those new folks accessing the system.

But there's over a trillion dollars in spending, Mr. Speaker, for which there is no law that says it's going to go up next year and the year after that and the year after that. And yet, the Congressional Budget Office today, when they chart out the budget for the United States of America, assumes that that increase is going to take place.

Well, I'm tremendously proud, Mr. Speaker, that at least in my short time here I've seen just the opposite. Every single bill that this body has brought to the floor and sent to the President has reduced spending. Spending was $1.91 trillion in 2010. We reduced it to $1.50 trillion in 2011. We reduced it again to $1.43 trillion for 2012. That's the trend that my constituents want back home, Mr. Speaker, and I think the trend that America deserves.

But more importantly, we've all been involved in those conversations back home where folks say, when is a cut not really a cut? When is an increase not really an increase? Only here in Washington, Mr. Speaker, can we spend $10 last year and $12 next year and call that a budget cut. Only here. The Baseline Reform Act eliminates that.

The Pro-Growth Budgeting Act, the second bill that this rule would bring to the floor, adds a new bit of information to the Congressional Budget Office baseline. It's the same information that President Obama asked for in his stimulus bill, to say, when we spend this $800 billion, what impact is that going to have. We know it's going to be $800 billion out the door. We know we're never going to get that money back. We know that's going to be money that we have to borrow from foreign lands. But what do we get for that $800 billion?

We asked the Congressional Budget Office to score it that way and they did.

What the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act says is let's add that feature for every future bill on the tax side of the ledger.

What happens, Mr. Speaker, when we cut taxes? We know that means less revenue comes in from that one tax, but what does it mean for the economy as a whole? We see it over and over again when we have taxes at their highest. Sometimes our tax receipts are at their lowest. When we have tax rates at their lowest, sometimes our tax receipts are at their highest. The Congressional Budget Office can give us that information, and this bill makes it possible for them to do that.

So, Mr. Speaker, I'm tremendously proud and tremendously enthusiastic about not only the rule but the two underlying bills, and I look forward to that discussion not just on the rule with my friend, Mr. Hastings, but with the Budget Committee later on this afternoon.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to just really take a moment to think about the doublespeak here in Washington, D.C. That's been the biggest adjustment since having the great privilege of being a Member in this U.S. House of Representatives. What my friend from Florida I know very genuinely calls sneaky, I call common sense.

You know, today in the budget, Mr. Speaker, today in the budget, the CBO doesn't have to follow the law for about a quarter of all Federal Government spending. When they are scoring Medicare and Medicaid, they follow the law to say what's Medicare and Medicaid going to do over the next 10 years. When they're scoring discretionary spending, however, they just guess. They just guess. That's what the process is today: Just guess at what future Congresses are going to be. What are those future Congresses going to do?

Now, I tell you that's an exercise in folly, and you couldn't possibly get it right. That's what the CBO Director told us yesterday, that it's a challenge to put these numbers together. And the more they have to guess, the more inaccurate their result becomes.

So what are these two bills?

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank my friend for asking.

Reclaiming my time, what those 40 years are are 40 years of congressionally mandated action.

But that's what's so different here, Mr. Speaker. There are things that Congress speaks to and things about which Congress is silent. And for reasons unbeknownst to me or the families back home in my district, what this Congress has said, this body that's been instilled with the power of all of our voters back home, we've said we advocate it, CBO just guess.

You know, when you and I were working together last summer on the Budget Control Act, we went exactly the opposite route. As you know, Mr. Speaker, in the Budget Control Act, we said don't guess about what's going to happen next year. We're putting a number in statute for spending. Don't guess about what's going to happen 2 years down the road for that. We're putting a number in statute. And don't guess about another year down the road for that, because we are putting a number in statute.

Look at that, Mr. Speaker. What we've chosen to do, instead of just guessing about the country's future, is to do what the American people sent us here to do, and that's legislate on the country's future. Only here can you spend $10 this year, $12 next year and call that a cut. I don't get it. I don't get it, and folks back home don't get it.

Far from being gimmickry, this is unifying the Federal budget process with what that budget process is for millions of families back home around the dinner table. And to be clear about the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act, Mr. Speaker, because I want to make sure that my friend from Florida and I are working on the same information, the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act does not change the CBO baseline process at all, not at all. The same score that CBO would have done for legislation yesterday, they're going to do that same score for legislation tomorrow if the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act becomes law. What will be different is--and I love this about the direction of this Congress, Mr. Speaker. The difference will be the American people will have a new piece of information to add to the old baseline, a new piece of information.

During the discussion yesterday with the Congressional Budget Office, we got the CBO baseline, but we also got additional information--what would happen if you extended tax cuts, what would happen if you did alternative things called the alternative baseline. The Pro-Growth Budgeting Act says let's build on that. Because, in these times, we can't afford to have any stone unturned for economic growth for this country; and we certainly can't afford to continue, as this town has done far too long if we're candid with ourselves, far too long, keeping the American people in the dark about Federal budgeting issues.

These two bills, again, these are just the first of 10 bills that will be coming to this floor, Mr. Speaker. But these two bills shine a spotlight on the Federal budget process in ways that we can all be proud, and I can discuss that even further later on.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I always enjoy listening to my friend from New Jersey because inevitably I agree with about the first six things he says. All of the facts on which he bases his conclusions, I agree on. And I just reach a completely different set of conclusions.

My friend said that one of the challenges we have in America is that folks think that they're working as hard as they can but they're going backwards instead of forwards. I get that in my district, too. I think the gentleman is absolutely right. Hope is so powerful in this country, when we lose that hope, we really get ourselves in a world of hurt. I think the gentleman is absolutely right.

The gentleman says we can't get the economy back on track unless we get our small businesses moving again. The gentleman is absolutely right. I know it to be true. I see it in my Chambers of Commerce, Mr. Speaker.

But what then? Agreeing that the American people are working as hard as they can, and they feel like they're going backwards. Agreeing that the small business community is working as hard as it can, but it can't find enough consumers. What's the answer?

My friend from New Jersey laid out, as my President did, four giant spending initiatives with borrowed money that he believes if only the Federal Government would get involved in, we could regenerate those two needy areas. And my constituents tell me exactly the opposite, Mr. Speaker.

My constituents say: Rob, if only the Federal Government were not involved in my life, if only the Federal Government were not borrowing all of this money, if only the Federal Government would leave us alone and let us succeed. The government is not the solution, they tell me; the government is the problem.

These two bills today, sadly, I again agree with my friend, do nothing to stop the government from being a problem. And in fairness, the Budget Committee is not in that business. The Budget Committee is in the planning of the financial future business. We need the authorizing committees to actually shrink the size and scope of government.

But what these two bills do, and it troubles me, candidly, it troubles me that it's even an area of debate. What these two bills do is one thing and one thing only, and that's provide additional arrows in the quiver of information that we provide to the American people about the American fiscal situation.

And on days like today, Mr. Speaker, with challenges like we have today, the American people deserve the truth. It's not always easy to say it, but we owe it to them to say it, and these two bills move us in that direction.

I would be happy to yield to my friend.

Reclaiming my time, I absolutely believe that our small businesses are overtaxed today. As the gentleman knows, I've introduced the most cosponsored piece of fundamental tax reform legislation in this House, another version of which has been introduced in the Senate, and has more cosponsors than any other fundamental reform bill in the Senate. And what does that bill do--called the FAIR Tax, H.R. 25, Mr. Speaker, in the House--it abolishes small business taxes entirely. It recognizes the economic truth that businesses don't pay taxes, consumers pay taxes.

I absolutely agree, I don't want to just do a cut, I would say to my friend. I want to abolish those taxes altogether.

And what Congressman Price's Pro-Growth Budgeting Act would do is share with the American people, because we know that's going to lose money in year one because we're cutting taxes. The only way the government gets money is from taxes. You reduce taxes, that's a loss in year one. What that bill would do, Mr. Speaker, is provide the secondary impact, the tertiary impact, share with the American people.

Well, what happens in year two? It's like going to college, Mr. Speaker. When you go to college, you lose money. It's a drain on your bank account. And if you equate the drain on your bank account of going to college the same as the drain on your bank account of going to McDonald's, you're going to make some bad decisions. You've got to know the impact of those down the road.

I am happy to yield to my friend.

Reclaiming my time, and seeing the ranking member of the Budget Committee sitting there to my friend's right, I look forward-- and speaking candidly to the gentleman, if we bring a budget to this floor that doesn't allow us a vote on cutting exactly the kind of taxes you're talking about, not only will I be disappointed, I'll be voting ``no.'' We're absolutely going to bring a budget to the floor that is going to cut those taxes, that is going to lower the burden on the American taxpayer so that we can get this economy going again.

Again, these are issues that we agree on across the aisle, Mr. Speaker. It's important that we look at the same facts. When we look at the same facts, even as we are today, we can sometimes come to different conclusions. What these two bills do today is just make sure that we're looking at the same set of facts--not just us, but all of the American people.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HASTINGS from Florida. Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of having our next speaker be the ranking member of the Budget Committee to discuss these budgetary matters that have been discussed by my friend on the other side of the aisle.

But, Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to ensure that the House votes on H.R. 3558, Mr. Van Hollen's proposal to make sure that Members of Congress do not receive a cost-of-living adjustment to our pay in 2013.

At this time, I'm pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), and more time, if needed.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to again find areas of agreement with my colleagues.

I, too, don't know what will happen with the very fine piece of legislation we sent to the Senate yesterday. If experience is any indicator, it will sit there and do nothing, as have all the other fine pieces of job-creation legislation that we've sent to the Senate. I take no pleasure in that, but I share the gentleman's frustration with fearing that fate.

I also share the gentleman's belief that we need to show the American people sitting around the dinner table that we get it. But when Congress sits around the committee table to budget, we say, okay, if rent is $1,000 this year, let's just go ahead and plan to pay $1,100 next year and then $1,200 the year after that and $1,300 the year after that. Let's just plan to do it. Let's just guess the money is going to be there.

But that's not what the American families get to do. American families have to say, if rent is $1,000 this year and rent goes to $1,100 next year, I've got to find something to cut. I'm not getting a pay raise. I don't see that increase coming through. The economy is not getting better for me. I've got to make those tough choices.

Mr. Speaker, if we're going to be honest with folks--and we have to be honest with folks--we've got to tell them there's no spigot of money running on Capitol Hill. If there were, it would be theirs. But there is no spigot of money on Capitol Hill.

And it makes me feel so good to be a freshman Member in this body-- more importantly, while it might have been true for the last 50 years that Congress just assumed every year it would spend more than it did the last, not this Congress, not my colleagues and I working together, Mr. Speaker. What we've said is we know there are not unlimited funds. We know the American people don't have more to contribute. We know that the time for tough choices was before, but it was put off, it was delayed and it was ignored, and the time for tough choices then falls to us. And we've been making them. It's not been easy. It's not areas that we always find agreement on, but we battle through it. When we get to the end of the day, we spent less in 2011 than we did in 2010 in our appropriations bills. We spent less in 2012 than we did in 2011, and I hope that's something that the American people will be proud of.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I would say to my friend, I don't have any other speakers. I am prepared to close if my friend is.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say I'm a few years younger than my friend from Florida. I didn't get the benefit of the ``Let's Pretend'' radio program that he had in his day, but I feel like I've had a little dose of ``Let's Pretend'' here on the floor today.

I feel a kinship with my friend and what that must have been like to hear that because what we have heard here on the floor is, let's pretend that there's not a serious crisis that we have to get our arms around. Let's pretend that we do have the money to spend more and more and more each and every year. Let's pretend that if we give the American taxpayer more information with which to make informed decisions, that will somehow do us harm.

Mr. Speaker, these bills are about common sense. These bills are about ending the Washington double-speak that has been a frustration to folks back home for far, far too long.

I'm joined here on the floor by Sheriff Rich Nugent from Florida, one of my freshman colleagues here in this body, Mr. Speaker. And as a sheriff, he told us in the Rules Committee yesterday he had some pretty serious responsibilities. There are no easy parts of being sheriff; it is all got-to-happen kind of business. But when he made his budget year after year after year, even though lives were literally hanging in the balance, he didn't get to assume he could spend more next year than he did the year before. He had to justify each and every dollar.

And that's important because the budget process is convoluted. We're doing our best to make it simpler, but folks might not understand exactly what's at the heart of these issues. And when it comes to this Baseline Reform Act, Mr. Speaker, what it's saying is, if the law of the land has a program, let's say we're buying flags to fly over the United States Capitol, if that program is slated to last for 10 years, the CBO will fund it for 10 years, they will estimate it for 10 years. If it's estimated to last for 5 years, CBO will estimate it for 5 years. And if it's supposed to last for 1 year, they'll do it for 1 year. What they won't do is say that just because the entire Congress is spending $50 million, that next year the Congress will be able to spend $60 million because of inflation. What it says is: don't guess.

If the Congress wants to speak to how much money should be spent, the Congress should speak. And in fact we do, day in and day out, mandatory spending, appropriation spending. But the CBO should not be asked to guess. If you want to know what the challenge is, Mr. Speaker, we heard it in the Budget Committee yesterday when the CBO Director came to testify. We talk so much about the Bush-Obama tax cuts expiring. If we kept them all, if we kept all of the tax cuts--in fact, if we went back to the tax cuts that expired in 2011 and we brought those back, too, reduced the American taxpayers' burden to the tune of every single tax cut that's on the books, America's tax burden would still be higher over the next decade than it has been historically over the last 50 years, if we kept them all.

What if you let them go away, Mr. Speaker? If you let all those tax cuts go away, America's tax burden would rise to the highest level in 50 years, the single highest level in 50 years. How much debt would we pay back if we raise the American tax burden that high, Mr. Speaker? Not one penny. Not one penny. How much of our deficit would we get rid of? Would we be able to finally have at least 1 year of a balanced budget? No. We can raise the American tax burden, Mr. Speaker, to the highest level in the last 50 years, and we still wouldn't balance this budget.

Mr. Speaker, the challenge is not revenue. The challenge is spending. And these two bills make sure that both on the revenue side and the spending side the American taxpayer has access to absolutely every bit of information they need to make good decisions.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I again ask my colleagues for their strong support of this rule and their strong support for the two underlying pieces of legislation.

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

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

I thank my good friend from Georgia for yielding me the time to go forward with discussion of this particular rule.

The rule provides for consideration of both H.R. 3578, which is referred to as the Baseline Reform Act, and H.R. 3582, the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act. Both of these bills, in my opinion, impose convoluted new rules on an already complicated budget process, an attempt to enshrine the majority's ideology into what is supposed to be an objective analysis.

What my friends on the Republican side are presenting as commonsense reforms are actually, in my opinion, nonsense reforms. These budget process changes are mere gimmicks to defend the elimination of spending on essential government services and to dress up tax cuts for those in our society who are well-off in the phony disguise of benefiting average Americans.

These changes tie Congress and the Congressional Budget Office up in knots in an effort to prove that conservatives' ideology about taxes and spending is going to grow our Nation's economy--not creating more jobs, not stimulating demand, not investing in infrastructure or education, or any of the many endeavors that are critical to improving the lives of all Americans.

Rather, what my friends, the Republicans, are trying to do is, in my opinion, create a Frankenstein budget process: add a procedure here, add a little bit of a procedure, sever a rule over there, zap it with some electricity or hyperbole, and now you have a budget process that proves tax cuts for the wealthiest among us are the only way to grow our economy. But guess what? It still ain't human, and it certainly isn't humane.

For the Baseline Reform Act, Mr. Speaker, Republicans propose that the Congressional Budget Office not include annual inflation when making their budget estimates.

When I was a child--10 and 11 years old--we didn't get radio programs very much, but we got radio programs on Saturdays. One of the programs that I enjoyed listening to so much as a little boy, while sitting on the rug in the living room, was ``Let's Pretend.'' I never did know then that I would be here in this august institution, sitting around with people who are pretending in the budget process that inflation doesn't exist when they're making budget estimates.

I talked yesterday with one of my friends on the Rules Committee that I'd been down in Florida and that I'd had a major water issue at my home in Florida. For the last 2 or 3 months, my water bill had been exorbitant, and I couldn't figure out why. Ultimately, this morning, I learned for the first time that there is a substantial leak inside the house, so the plumbers are

there, and I'm already out more than $1,000.

Later on, I'm going to be voting about my salary. Yesterday, I voted about the cost of living for Federal employees. I think we do them a terrible disservice by disallowing them the kinds of increases that take into consideration the exact same kind of things that I and other Members of this House and other people around this Nation are experiencing when it comes to their personal undertakings. We've been without an increase here, and, yes, this Nation is in serious trouble. Yet the people that we tend to attack are the people who are at the lowest end of the scale and the middle class people--the police officers, the firefighters, the schoolteachers--who make $35,000, $40,000. One or two of them, luckily, makes $60,000 a year. What we wind up doing is taking them to task. They have the same plumbing problems that I do. There is inflation, and you can't do a budget without contemplating it; but if you wish to pretend, then I guess that's what we will do is play Let's Pretend.

This seems like a rather mundane technical change, but it isn't. I would be pleased to support this, Mr. Speaker, because it means that, in making my own personal budget projections, I could just simply ignore the costs for everyday items, but I don't know a single thing that I've bought in the last 3 years that has gone down in price. I could just simply ignore the fact that costs for everyday items and activities tend to go up every year, indeed, every month. Around this place, if you're looking at the local gas stations every day, every week, I can just assume that what I'm paying today, if I wanted to, I guess, I could keep paying 10 years from now and still expect the exact same numbers of goods and services.

But, of course, we all know that that isn't true. Simply wishing away or pretending inflation away won't make it so. Fuzzy math does not equal fiscal responsibility. By eliminating inflation adjustments from discretionary spending projections, my friends, the Republicans, are actually just reducing the funding for a Federal program. Since the dollar amount would stay the same every year, the number of services that could be covered would decrease.

This morning, I had the good fortune of having in the office a fine group of safety patrol students from Pleasant City Elementary School in Palm Beach County in West Palm Beach. I was talking with them about the fact that I would be here discussing the budget and how everything affects their lives as well as the lives of all American citizens around this country and that, if we were to allow this budget process to take place, all we will have is a continuing decrease over the long term of things that I may wish for those children at Pleasant City Elementary School or at Cove Elementary, whose counselor was also here. We were discussing the number of teachers who have been laid off and the number of music programs that no longer exist.

So let's just pretend that they don't cost but the same thing at one time, and you will find over the long haul that you'll get these decreases, which will result in massive decreases in essential services like fire services and police services and school teachers that millions, indeed all Americans, rely on.

This technical change then is actually a backdoor effort to slowly starve necessary government programs rather than to be up front about which programs Republicans want to eliminate. The celebrated conservative Grover Norquist made it very clear. H.R. 3578 says that, every year, every program and agency should be assumed to get smaller and smaller automatically. I refer to Mr. Norquist as an ideologue.

He said, ``I'm not in favor of abolishing government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.''

I somehow or another am at odds with that kind of thinking when we're about the business of helping more people, as I explained to the children, who are in the category of the neediest, and here we are protecting the greediest in our society.

This technical change then is actually a backdoor effort to slowly starve necessary government programs rather than to be up front about which programs Republicans want to eliminate. They would rather put sneaky rules into place to guarantee the outcome they want without having to have an open debate. That's the kind of budget process that only Igor, the Frankenstein monster, could love.

Through the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act, Mr. Speaker, Republicans want to introduce dynamic scoring into the CBO's projection process. Once again, this seems like a minor technical change; but when you look closely, you see that this is an effort to zap electricity into Igor- the-monster-budget, which in the final analysis is tax cuts for those of us in society who are better off and for the wealthier even among that class.

Under this bill, the CBO's analyses are tweaked so that tax cuts for the wealthy seem like they grow the economy while actual investments in the needs of everyday Americans do not. Republicans make it easier to cut taxes for those of us who are well off and for those of us who are rich than to build bridges and schools for the rest of us.

This bill specifically instructs the CBO to ignore the positive economic effects that would come about from investments in things like infrastructure and education, as if spending on things that Americans want and need won't boost the economy. They would have us pretend. The CBO has already projected that extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest among us would actually reduce growth in the long run; but rather than face the facts, Republicans simply want to change the rules so that this analysis is turned upside down.

My friends on the Republican side have been so concerned about building actual bridges to nowhere that they've turned the budget process into its own kind of bridge to nowhere. Rather than using the budget process to lead this country into a new era of economic growth, my friends on the other side of the aisle want to cut taxes for very wealthy people, cut programs for everyone else, and then feel like they've set this country on the right track. This is no way to run an economy, no way to run a budget process, and no way to stick up for millions of struggling Americans who need us to focus on improving the economy.

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

Would the gentleman yield?

Well, now guessing, then why are we mandating 40 years? How in the world are we going to guess and have them predict what 40 years are going to look like?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

I yield the gentleman 15 additional seconds.

I'm prepared to close, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I genuinely enjoy working with my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Woodall). He not only brings passion to the job, but an extraordinary intellect. We serve together there on the Rules Committee.

And I don't mean to make light of the fact of what he just got through saying about our telling the American public that we know that there are no large amounts of funds available because we--and I like the fact that he said ``we''--put things off, but I can't ignore the fact that a large part of that putting things off came about by virtue of our being in Iraq and Afghanistan and spending $1 trillion with borrowed money that we did not have and not going to the American people and asking that we sacrifice to pay for them. Seventy-five billion of it came from passing a Medicare prescription plan that we did not pay for. And there are other measures--and I can cite what the Democrats and Republicans are fond of saying and what my mother said to me, which was true. When she was alive, she said, well, if Clinton is going to blame Bush and Bush is going to blame Carter and Carter is going to blame Nixon, why don't you all just blame George Washington and get it all over with if you keep pointing back to somebody else.

But now the rubber has hit the road. With these two bills, Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side want to drastically reduce essential government programs and, second, to enshrine tax cuts--and I don't like talking about the rich, as it were. My ultimate plan would call for all of us that are better off to try and do everything we can to help those who are vulnerable in our society and those who are the neediest in our society. But there are those who are in the super category that have not been paying the kind of taxes that many of us pay. You have to put this stuff in real terms.

Last year, I paid $41,000 in income taxes. If people don't believe that, I'll bring my taxes down here and show it to them sometime. Now, I don't have investments. I don't have offshore bank accounts. I don't have any stock and any bonds, but the simple fact of the matter is a lot of Americans are in the same category as myself. But they want to give tax cuts to those who are wealthy, who paid less than I did and less than people making $50,000 did. And to my way of thinking, that's just not fair, and that's all that America is looking for is a level playing field, not one that gives the wealthiest more and the poor less.

If they achieve these changes, they'll succeed in creating a budget process that overwhelmingly favors tax cuts

for those that are wealthier while creating near impossible hurdles for ordinary programs to keep pace with the rate of inflation and, thus, stay in business, while Republicans cry that it's still alive. Millions of other Americans will still be struggling to find jobs, to pay off their students loans, to access affordable health care and decent housing, and to survive in an economy that favors those who have the most rather than those who have the least, favors those who are the greediest rather than those who are the neediest.

Dr. Frankenstein was eventually repulsed by the monster that he created. These technical changes to the budget process are equally repulsive, for they add up to a system of government spending that is helpful to those who need it the least and harmful to those who need it the most.

Tying our hands in convoluted knots in order to advance a conservative ideology is not the way to run an honest, objective, transparent, and open budget process. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' against this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the previous question amendment in the Record along with the extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank my friend for yielding.

For a long time, Americans have believed if you work hard every day and play by the rules, you'll be able to earn enough to own a home and educate your children and retire with some dignity. It's the American Dream.

Precious numbers, or large numbers of people, rather, are now disbelieving in that because it's not really happening in their lives. They're working as hard as they can, but they seem to go backwards, not forward, and they work so hard.

You can't reignite the American Dream unless you reignite the middle class, and you can't reignite the middle class unless you reignite small business. Small businesses in this country create about two out of every three jobs created in the country. In the last 20 years, 80 percent of the new jobs have been created by businesses that are younger than a year old. So new small businesses are the key to getting things done.

Now, if you talk to small business people around the country, as we have in our districts, here's what they'll tell you: Their number one concern these days is they don't have enough customers. There's not enough people eating in their restaurants or buying goods in their stores or buying the manufactured goods that they do or buying the software code that they write. They need more customers.

So 147 days ago, 147 days ago, the President of the United States came to this Chamber and said we ought to do four things to stimulate customers for those small businesses and grow the middle class:

First, he said, we should repair our Nation's aging bridges and railroads and highways and put construction workers back to work, and building schools in the process. The Congress has never voted on that proposal.

The second thing the President said is, when a small business hires people, their taxes should be cut, so a tax cut for small businesses that hire Americans. The Congress has never voted on that proposal.

The third thing that he said is, because of the economic distress of our country, cities, counties, and States are laying off police officers, firefighters, teachers, which hurts public safety and hurts education. But it also hurts businesses, because police officers and firefighters and teachers, without a paycheck, aren't going to be buying things in the stores or eating in the restaurants or spending their money. The President said let's take some money and help States and localities rehire and put those teachers back in the classroom and put those firefighters back on the apparatus and put those cops back on the beat. We've never voted on that proposal.

And finally, the President said, look, we cut Social Security taxes, we cut the payroll tax for really all working Americans in 2010, at the end of 2010, and that tax cut is about to expire; and if we let it expire, it will be about a $1,000 tax increase for middle class Americans, which will not only hurt those families, but it will hurt the economy by draining their purchasing power from the economy, so let's extend that Tax Code. We did manage to do that for 2 months, and that's about to expire, now, in 27 days. We'll be back at that by the end of the month.

Now, if that's the urgent agenda for the country, what are we doing today? What we're doing today is passing a change in budget rules that essentially says the following: If you're really optimistic about what a tax cut might do to the economy, you can assume that optimism for the purposes of keeping score in the budget. This is like a family sitting down and planning its budget at the beginning of the year and saying, I think we're both going to get a raise this year. You're a teacher. I'm a truck driver. I think we're both going to get about a 5 or 10 percent raise, so let's plan the family budget based on that. I think scarcely any of the constituents who send us here would ever draft their family budget in that way. If this rule goes through, that's the way we'll draft the Federal budget.

It has become an article of faith, religious orthodoxy on the Republican side that tax cuts produce higher revenues. At best, the evidence is ambiguous. Most the time it doesn't. Maybe sometimes it does, but I don't think--I think we should respect the establishment clause of the Constitution and separate church and State. If the Republican religion is the tax cuts always produce more revenue, I don't think we should write that religion into the law of the country because it's not always right.

Now, beyond that, if we go home to our constituents, our middle class families, our businesses, and they ask: What did you do this week?

They ask: What did you do this week? Did you get any bills that would bring more customers in? Did you help me grow more jobs?

Now, here's what we did: We adjusted the CBO baseline for the consideration of future revenue policies of the United States.

This is a very interesting graduate school debate. Maybe some day if we're flush with cash again it would be a good policy debate. It is the wrong bill at the wrong time, and it shouldn't be on the House floor.

Let's at least put up for a vote the four specific ideas brought to this Chamber by the President of the United States to regrow the middle class and put Americans back to work. And when we've done the real job that we're sent here to do, then we can get to the graduate school seminar on congressional budgeting.

Would the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for his friendship and his compliment, and it's a pleasure to serve with him. I would just ask him on the specifics: Do you favor a tax cut for small businesses that hire people?

Will the gentleman yield?

I'm familiar with his FAIR Tax. I respectfully disagree because I think it imposes a national sales tax, which I don't support. But let me ask two further questions, and I thank him for his time.

Do you think that we should put up for a vote the idea of cutting taxes for small businesses that hire people, and if so, how would you vote on it?

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Hastings. Before I say a word about the legislation which Members of Congress would have an opportunity to vote on if we defeat the previous question, I just want to say a word about the bills that are the subject of the rule here today.

I would be very happy to yield to Mr. Hoyer.

I thank Mr. Hoyer.

Reclaiming my time, with respect to the two bills that are the subject of this rule, we are going to have more time to debate them later. I would just say to my friend from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) that the American people would love to be able to wish away inflation. I just came from a hearing in the Budget Committee. I'm sure the Chairman of the Federal Reserve would love to be able to wish away inflation.

What the gentleman is proposing is that we put together a budget that, unfortunately, would get more and more misleading over time, a baseline for our budget, because it would simply wish away inflation.

With respect to the other bill, as some of my colleagues, including the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), have pointed out, what it does is create this mirage that somehow by providing tax breaks for folks at the

very top, you're going to get the economy moving when in fact the most recent Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that at the end of the 10-year period, if you do that, because you add more to the deficit, you actually slow down economic growth. Unfortunately, the way they've got this framed, we don't get that analysis.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there's one thing that we can do to show families across the country that we get it, that we realize that they're struggling, and that is, every Member of Congress should set an example by voting for legislation that says in these tough times, we are not going to take for ourselves a cost-of-living increase. If Members vote to defeat the previous question, they'll have an opportunity to vote up or down on it.

Now, as Mr. Hoyer said, yesterday there was a piece of legislation on the floor that said we're only going to limit the COLA for Members of Congress if we also punish other Federal employees who have been serving this country, employees who have already contributed in the last 2 years $60 billion to reducing the deficit, folks like people in the intelligence community who helped track down Osama bin Laden and folks who were helping protect the safety of the food supply.

I thank the gentleman.

I think we should be willing to stand up in front of the American people and just have a clean up-or-down vote, just have a clean up-or- down vote on making the statement that we Members of Congress understand how people are struggling and we're not going to take a cost-of-living increase this year. We haven't taken it for the last couple of years. The country is still struggling and people are still struggling.

My friend mentioned American families talking around the kitchen table looking at the budget. Let's show that we understand the reality that many of them are facing. Members of Congress can afford to lead by example, and I hope we will. It will be an important statement, I think, of where this Congress stands.

So, again, I thank Mr. Hastings for his leadership. I know at the appropriate time he's going to call for the previous question. If you want to vote to make sure that we pass legislation to not provide cost- of-living increase raises to Members of Congress, then you should vote to defeat the previous question. Vote ``no'' on the previous question.

The last point I would make is that it's very possible the Senate will not take up the piece of legislation that the House passed yesterday because many of them may not want to punish Federal employees. At the same time, this provision that we're offering, being a clean up-or-down vote, the Senate would have to make a judgment as to whether or not to vote up or down on the question of congressional pay.

So I hope all of our colleagues will vote to defeat the previous question so we can send this important message and make this statement.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question to allow us to bring up H.R. 3858, which would freeze salaries for Members of Congress for another year through 2013.

I have consistently supported and voted for freezing member salaries, yet I along with 116 other members--in bipartisan fashion--opposed a bill last night that the Republican Leadership mischaracterized as doing just that. In fact, that bill was nothing more than a Trojan Horse to allow House Republicans to once again use federal employees as a punching bag.

My Republican colleagues thought they were being clever by pairing a continued freeze on member pay with a continued freeze on federal employees. As one reporter correctly pointed out, it was nothing more than a cynical, political dare from House Republicans so they could run ``gotcha'' ads against those who opposed it.

Of course, the Republican leadership conveniently ignores the fact that our dedicated federal employees already have had their pay frozen for two years, contributing $60 billion to our deficit reduction efforts.

Just 14 percent of our 2.3 million federal employees live within the National Capital region. The rest provide vital services in communities throughout America every day. They guard our borders, protect the safety of airline travel, fight forest fires, and track down online child predators. So following the cynical approach of House Republicans, one might argue that passage of last night's bill could aid and abet terrorists, cross-border gun runners, and child pornographers, right?

The public holds us responsible for getting our fiscal house in order, and it is appropriate that we continue the pay freeze on member salaries given the current situation. Continuing to go after our civilian workforce not only damages the public service profession, but it also puts at risk those services on which our public relies on a daily basis.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as follows:

An amendment to H. Res. 534 offered by Mr. Hastings of Florida

At the end of the resolution, add the following new

sections:

Sec. 3. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the

Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare

the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on

the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.

3858) to provide that Members of Congress shall not receive a

cost of living adjustment in pay during 2013. The first

reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of

order against consideration of the bill are waived. General

debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one

hour equally divided among and controlled by the chair and

ranking minority member of the Committee on House

Administration and the chair and ranking minority member of

the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. After

general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment

under the five-minute rule. All points of order against

provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion of

consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall

rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as

may have been adopted. The previous question shall be

considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to

final passage without intervening motion

except one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has

come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next

legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third

daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve

into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of

the bill.

Sec. 4. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of the bill specified in section 3 of this

resolution.