Pro-Growth Budgeting Act of 2012

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

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

Let me first begin by thanking the chairman of the Budget Committee, Congressman Ryan, who has put in an incredible amount of work, diligent work and commitment, in reforming our broken budget process. He and the entire committee staff have worked tirelessly to bring about more accountability and transparency to this process. I thank them for that. In fact, all Americans should thank them.

Budget reforms would also not be in the spotlight were it not for the work of a number of Members, but there's one Member I would like to acknowledge specifically, and that's our conference chairman, Jeb Hensarling, who has been steadfast for many years championing the Family Budget Protection Act of 2007 and the Spending Deficit and Debt Control Act of 2009 that focused on reforming our broken budget process.

Mr. Chairman, there is no question that our number one priority in this body must be enacting policies that help our economy create jobs. It is clear that the President's policies have failed and they are making the economy worse. Because the President clearly can't run on his record, he has denigrated into the process of division and envy politics in this country. Terribly distressing.

House Republicans have a plan. We have got a jobs plan. It is a plan to put the American people back to work, and so we are delighted to be able to have an opportunity today to talk about one part of that plan.

The economy is growing way too slowly, as you well know. Not nearly enough jobs are being created, which is one of the reasons that we introduced H.R. 3582, the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act, which as my colleague said, could be titled the dynamic scoring act.

As you well know, the current model for the CBO determines the cost of legislative proposals by a static method that doesn't take into account macroeconomic factors like increasing revenue, reducing the deficit, paying down the debt, things that have economic consequences in our society.

Economists from across the political spectrum agree that major legislation considered by Congress has significant effects on economic growth, and we ought to be looking at that consequence. While current law requires the Congressional Budget Office to provide Congress with information on the fiscal impact of all legislation that is reported from the committee, there is no requirement for analysis of the economic impact. This bill remedies that issue by requiring the Congressional Budget Office to provide macroeconomic analysis for all bills that have a budgetary impact--this is the threshold--a budgetary impact of more than 0.25 percent of the gross domestic product. That equals, Mr. Chairman, about $39 billion in 2012.

This does not change the traditional CBO static scoring method at all. This analysis will be in addition to current law. It gives Members of Congress more information around which they are able to then make appropriate decisions.

Mr. Chairman, it is important to remember that current policy is what has been utilized as a baseline for the administration, for the Simpson-Bowles Commission, for Domenici-Rivlin. All of those used current policy. This notion that we ought not be using current policy as a baseline is simply folly.

In 2011, only six bills met the 0.25 percent GDP threshold, which means that the CBO ought not be overworked by having this opportunity to provide greater information to Members of Congress.

Everybody knows that CBO scores in the past have been significantly inaccurate. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 is but one example. The CBO estimated that that would cost about $206 billion. In fact, it was $124 billion. Mr. Chairman, that is a huge difference.

Past CBO macroeconomic work has shown that Federal deficits and tax rates do, in fact, impact the economy. CBO itself has said:

``The reduction in Federal borrowing that would result from smaller deficits would induce greater national saving and investment and thereby increase output and income.''

Mr. Chairman, more information from CBO will highlight the need to act positively on fiscal policy here in Congress. And maybe as importantly, this bill will also encourage pro-growth policy ideas from all of our colleagues that will help get our economy back on track, create jobs, and protect hardworking taxpayers.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), our conference chairman.

It's curious to listen to my colleague talk about his concern about the debt when, in the last 4 years, the 4 years of this administration, we have the first 4 years in the history of this country where our debt has been greater than $1 trillion--over $5 trillion built up in debt by this administration.

I also want to point out to my friend from Maryland, who talks about the wonderful impact of the stimulus bill and how it has created all sorts of jobs and increased GDP, as you well know, Mr. Chairman, as our Members and colleagues know, the Congressional Budget Office periodically updates the information that they provide as it relates to the estimates about what has occurred in the economy from policy here in Washington. The most recent update shows an 8 percent increase in the real GDP growth from the stimulus bill--now, that's down from 1.7 percent growth, and that is down from their estimate before--and a .4 percent reduction in the unemployment rate, which is down from a .8 percent reduction in the unemployment rate.

So, Mr. Chairman, if we wait another quarter or two, we're going to see that, in fact, the real information is out, and that is that the stimulus bill had no effect or a detrimental effect on the economy.

With that, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Georgia, Dr. Broun.

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

I'm a bit amused, Mr. Chairman, by the tack that the other side is taking on this as they talk about gaming the system, if you will, with this piece of legislation. I would simply call my colleague's attention to the bill itself.

The definition of macroeconomic impact analysis in the bill simply states:

Estimate of changes of economic output, employment, capital stock, tax revenue, an estimate of revenue feedback expected as a result of the enactment of a proposal and the critical assumptions for how they got there.

There isn't any qualitative assessment assigned to this. It's simply, give us more information, as the gentleman from California said.

So it's a bit perplexing why, again, our colleagues on the other side don't want that additional information with which to make decisions, high-quality decisions here in Washington.

With that, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, it's kind of like ``Alice in Wonderland'' actually. I mean, if the gentleman truly wants to have the information that he is demanding, then he ought to be supporting the bill because what he's talking about is dynamism in the economy, and that's what we ought to be looking at, Mr. Chairman. As you know, we need the information to be able to provide us with the kind of data that will allow us to make the best decisions.

For example, this is a chart that shows the employment in this country, and the tax reductions of the last decade demonstrate that employment goes up and unemployment comes down. And then when the stimulus bill that the other side amazingly still wants to tout as the be all and the end all, when it's passed, what happens, Mr. Chairman? Employment plummets. Unemployment skyrockets.

So the gentleman can go back to the nineties, yes, but what we're living in right now is 2012, and the policies aren't working. So what we need to do is be able to provide, hopefully, Members of Congress with more information so they're able to make wiser decisions.

I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp).

Mr. Chairman, I think it's important to point out the CBO Director, indeed, did say the long-term effects of the stimulus are actually depressing, potentially depressing, on the economy. So that's why we need the big picture. That's why we need a dynamic scoring model, an opportunity to look at the macroeconomic impact of legislation that's considered in this Congress in a responsible way.

I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. Black).

What time remains, if I may ask?

Mr. Chairman, I would respond to the gentleman, as he well knows, that current law, section 402 of the Congressional Budget Act of '74, requires that CBO produce cost estimates of legislation reported out of every committee except the Committee on Appropriations. To believe that a 1-year appropriations bill could have a CBO assessment of the economic impact 40 years out, which is their appropriate and usual window, it is just nonsensical. So current law simply states that CBO looks at committee action and not appropriations and for good reason.

I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Woodall).

I appreciate the gentleman talking about other pieces of legislation.

But what we're talking about here is more information, more information for our colleagues, Mr. Chairman; and for the life of me, I can't figure out why our Democratic friends on the other side of the aisle simply, I guess, want to keep our colleagues in the dark here so that we can continue to make the kinds of decisions that we've been making. It's just astounding.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to my friend from Arizona, Dr. Gosar.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I'm a little perplexed by the arguments being used in opposition on the other side.

My friend from Vermont says that this assumes that there is a certain premise about tax cuts. Well, the bill doesn't even use the language ``tax cuts.'' It uses ``tax revenue.'' It could be a tax reduction. It could be a tax increase. Let's look. Let's find the information. Let's give our colleagues as much information as possible, which, again, is what my friend from Vermont says every family in this country does when they have a challenge. If they have a debt challenge, they get all of the information that they can. That's simply what we're asking here, which is to provide as much information as possible for Members of Congress to make wiser decisions.

Mr. Chairman, I'm so pleased to yield 3 minutes to my colleague from South Carolina and a member of the committee, Mr. Mulvaney.

Mr. Chairman, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's comments, and I appreciate his perspective.

However, it's clear that every single revised report on the stimulus comes up and states that it is costing more. It's costing the economy more and that the jobs that are created, ``created,'' decrease every time there is a new estimate. And so we're approaching zero jobs saved or created. In a short time I suspect we'll be at jobs lost from the stimulus.

In fact, the CBO Director yesterday, in committee, said, The extra government spending from the Recovery Act of 2009, unless there are offsetting changes made that pay off the extra debt that was incurred, the economy will be worse off. So it's interesting to see our colleagues on the other side continue to grab onto what they think is a lifeline of the stimulus bill that with time looks worse and worse. And maybe, Mr. Chairman, if we had only had this piece of legislation at the time of the adoption of the stimulus bill, so-called stimulus bill, maybe somebody would have thought differently. Maybe they would have recognized that, in fact, that it was going to have the real effect that it has, which is to decrease the vitality of the economy.

Mr. Chairman, it's pretty doggone simple. This bill is pretty simple. You want more information or you want less information.

This is remarkable common sense. I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it ought to be common ground upon which this House can stand. I urge my colleagues to adopt this piece of legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, it is a little amusing, I guess, that our colleagues on the other side love to talk about the past. I'm not sure whether it's a desire for fantasy or misery, but talking about the past is interesting. But this amendment has absolutely nothing-- nothing--to do with the legislation that's being considered. We don't need to rehash the economic record of the last 10 years; we need to look forward. And that's what this bill does. It's a forward-looking piece of legislation.

And looking forward, as the CBO reported on Tuesday, if tax relief is allowed to expire at the end of this year, which seems to be what my colleagues on the other side are advocating, we would then have the largest tax increase in the history of our country. CBO says economic growth would be as much as 3 percent lower than it would be if that tax relief were extended.

So what we need is dynamic appropriate scoring, more information, more data for our colleagues to be able to have that kind of information so when they make decisions, they'll make, again, hopefully, wiser decisions.

This amendment truly makes no improvement whatsoever to our process, our budget process. I urge its defeat, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is what professors of logic--now, I know that there's not a whole lot of logic around this town--but professors of logic would call a nullity. Adopting this amendment would not require CBO to prepare an analysis of bills reported from the Appropriations Committee, as my good friend from Virginia desires.

Section 407 of the Congressional Budget Act requires CBO to prepare a macroeconomic impact analysis of ``major bills or resolutions,'' which is the term that's defined in section 2 of the bill. Section 2 of the bill uses cost estimates prepared by the CBO under section 402 of the Congressional Budget Act. Section 402 does not apply to bills reported from the Appropriations Committee. So this amendment accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Even if the amendment were properly drafted, it would be meaningless to require a 40-year macroeconomic impact analysis for a 1-year appropriations bill. Even the largest appropriations bill, the Defense appropriations bill, is only about 3 percent of the gross domestic product in 1 year, or much less than 1 percent of the GDP over a 10- year period of time. So the macroeconomic impact of 1-year legislation oftentimes approaches zero and then can be changed with the next succeeding appropriations bills in years 2, 3, and 4.

So the amendment is drafted in such a way that it has no effect whatsoever. Even if it were properly drafted, it's a bad idea without providing any new meaningful information for Congress.

I urge defeat of the amendment and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition, though I'm not opposed.

Mr. Chair, I want to commend my colleague from Minnesota for recognizing the wisdom of the legislation and the importance of looking at the dynamism of the economy and effects that ought to be relayed to us from the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office's macroeconomic analysis oftentimes already includes interest rates if the effects are relevant; however, we believe that this amendment helps clarify that, and we have no objection to the adoption of this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition.

I thank the gentlelady from Texas for offering this amendment. But I would suggest that the macroeconomic impact analysis that's required already by the legislation will analyze the effect of job growth and capital formation and economic growth. To add an additional criteria in the analysis is unnecessary, and truly encourages focus on the interests in particular locations as opposed to the general welfare.

This is one of those areas that is rightly worked out in committee, the discussion of these issues in committee. So I would suggest to the gentlelady from Texas that this is not the appropriate opportunity to try to add items to the bill that actually continue to confound the information that would be provided to Members and focus on dividing things as opposed to general information.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, I just want to return to the bill itself and to discuss for just a moment the notion that there is some type of bias within the piece of legislation itself. We've heard our friends on the other side of the aisle talk about that it's biasing positive information as it relates to tax cuts or tax reductions.

Again, I would urge my colleagues who are listening to this and will be considering this piece of legislation in short order to read the legislation. The legislation says nothing about whether or not the dynamic scoring, the flexible scoring that ought to be available for Members, that kind of information is going to look at tax reductions or tax increases, whether it's going to look at how that affects the overall vitality of the economy. In fact, again, what this does is to provide much greater information for our colleagues here to be making decisions.

And, as so many of my friends on our side of the aisle have testified to during this discussion on this piece of legislation, what's needed around here is more information. We now have an administration that has been marching to the Treasury to spend more and more and more and more and more money, plunging us into incredible debt--$1 trillion deficits for each of the 4 years of this current administration--$1 trillion, Mr. Chairman. We've never been there before. And it's clearly having an incredible dragging effect on the economy.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to have Members offer pieces of legislation and have the Congressional Budget Office be able to tell us, say look, if you're going to insist on continuing down this road of debt and doubt and despair, this is the consequence in the real economy; the consequence is that it will continue to have a drag on the economy, jobs will not be truly created? In spite of the guise from the administration that they talk about jobs being created or saved, jobs won't be created. There's a better way. There is a better way. And the American people know there's a better way.

And they know there's a better way that we can be informed. They know that more information for their Member of Congress will allow their Member of Congress to make wiser decisions. So all this bill is about, the Pro-Growth Budget Act, all it is about is an attempt to give you, to give me, to provide for every single Member of this body not biased information, not information that's gaming the system, information that allows for us to make wiser decisions.

Wouldn't it have been wonderful, Mr. Chairman, if during some of the major legislation of the past couple of years, wouldn't it have been wonderful to have had an outside entity, hopefully objective entity, be able to weigh in and say, goodness gracious, if you spend $1 trillion of money that we don't have, this is going to be the consequence in the economy; this is going to be one of the outcomes of it, which is you're going to increase the debt in this country; you're going to decrease the sense that businesses out there have any certainty in the economy; and, therefore, they're not going to be able to create the kind of jobs that all of us desire and all of us want?

That's the kind of information that we would have liked to have had. That's what we were saying at the time, and now it's beginning to play out, but it's playing out with incredible destruction in our communities across our great land, playing out in ways that makes it so that individuals are hurting and are harmed by the actions that were taken by the previous Congress and this administration.

Wouldn't it have been wonderful to have that information so that people could weigh the options?

I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment and adopt the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Am I to understand that the gentleman has withdrawn the amendment?

Has the gentleman yielded back?

And the gentleman is able to withdraw the amendment after he has yielded back?

Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman from Illinois for his amendment. But as we have had our staffs discuss, the amendment would truly mark a significant departure from CBO's historical mission of providing information to policymakers on fiscal and economic implications of a legislation.

It would impose a significant new requirement on CBO to calculate the taxpayer benefit or the cost of major legislation, something that, candidly, Mr. Chairman, the CBO lacks both the expertise and experience to be able to provide. So though it's commendable, I don't think it has a thing to do with the underlying bill.

I do believe there are some private sector solutions out there and look forward to working with the gentleman from Illinois, given that he has agreed to withdraw his amendment in the future, as we move forward to, again, do something that I believe to be commendable, and that is to provide much more information for hardworking taxpayers as well.

And given that he has agreed to withdraw the amendment, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.

I want to thank the gentleman for his amendment. I want to commend him for his wonderful work throughout his congressional career on the fiscal responsibility appropriations process, having a more transparent and fiscally responsible governance and a more open budgeting process and more responsible budgeting process.

We both recognize the imperative of a greater dynamic analysis to the legislation that we have coming before us. What the appropriate threshold is, I think we're probably in the ballpark, but I'm happy to work with the gentleman as we move forward with this legislation to determine what that appropriate threshold is for legislation to be considered in a macroeconomic fashion from CBO.

And I appreciate the gentleman's amendment and also appreciate him working with me in the future.

The gentleman from Rhode Island says that this is a simple proposition, and in that, he's correct. It's simply terrible.

What he does with this amendment is to take away the entire underlying bill, and then he has the audacity to say that the bill, itself, does not provide any constructive information for Members.

So I guess what the Member is saying is that an estimate of changes to economic output for legislation that we bring forward that is significant and has a huge effect on the gross domestic product, I guess that's not consequential. I guess that's not in order to be considered. I guess that means that the gentleman doesn't think that that affects unemployment.

Oh, yes, Mr. Chairman, employment, on page 4, line 24 of the legislation. I guess the gentleman thinks that that's not important, that the dynamic consequences of legislation that's brought forward here that has significant effect on GDP ought not be considered.

I guess the gentleman believes it is tax revenue, not tax cuts, as I have stated from this position all afternoon. Our friends on the other side seem to believe--in fact, the gentleman said--the bill would ``assume the inclusion of tax cuts.''

Mr. Chairman, there is nothing in this bill that assumes any inclusion of tax cuts or of tax reductions or tax increases. All that this says is, with legislation that has a significant effect on our gross domestic product of .25 percent, which is about $40 billion, as has been talked about, that the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office-- our arm of the Congress that is providing us with information and is able to give us the most information so that we can make the wisest decisions--ought to look at these things in a dynamic way and look at economic output, look at employment, look at tax revenues. Is it going to be positive or negative? Is it going to affect the economy positively or negatively? Would that we would

have done that over the past number of years, Mr. Chairman, maybe we would have made some better decisions.

So it is important for Members to appreciate that this amendment strikes the entire bill and inserts in its place something that I believe to be, for the bill, redundant but incredibly and remarkably burdensome to the Congressional Budget Office. The macroeconomic analysis required by the base bill already requires an analysis of the effect of major legislation on employment and on labor supply.

The entire point of the bill is that Congress ought to consider and have better information on the economic impact of major legislation that's being considered. The extension of this jobs analysis to every bill reported out of a House committee will generate an incredible amount of work and burden.

For example, Mr. Chairman, we oftentimes get criticized for naming post offices. We're going to assign somebody at the Congressional Budget Office to determine the jobs impact of renaming a post office. That's right. You talk about a redundant and worthless activity of the Federal Government. This would be decreasing the efficiency of an already remarkably inefficient process at a time when we're appropriately decreasing spending at the Federal level, which--yes, Mr. Chairman--also includes the Congressional Budget Office. They're above where they were in the midportion of the last decade, but we're beginning to get that spending under control. This bill would indiscriminately add to the workload, and it would provide, really, no new information to Members of Congress.

My friend from Rhode Island is correct. This is a simple amendment. It is simply a terrible amendment, and it would completely end the underlying piece of legislation.

So I urge the defeat of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman uses the appropriate buzzwords: trickle-down, voodoo, partisanship, and all that. The fact of the matter is that none of that is in this bill. What is in this bill is an objective, commonsense, common ground attempt to provide greater information to Members of Congress, and his amendment strikes the entire underlying piece of legislation.

Again, at page 4, line 24, it calls on the CBO to address the issues of dynamism as it relates to macroeconomic factors when bills are coming to the floor--unemployment, unemployment, Mr. Chairman.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment and to adopt the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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.

I have an amendment at the desk.

I, too, want to express my appreciation to the Rules Committee for allowing my amendment to come in. And I acknowledge the ranking member of our Budget Committee for his excellent service, Mr. Van Hollen. I thank Dr. Price for his presence here today and engaging in this discussion.

In a few days, I will be meeting with a number of my clergy, along with my small business community, coming from all walks of life, and all of us have found in our hearts and our minds to recognize that small business is in fact the backbone of this country. So I would ask that, as we look at the issue of macroeconomic analysis of this legislation, that we include a well-defined concept to understand what the impact will be on HUBZone areas as defined by the Small Business Act.

H.R. 3582 would require the Congressional Budget Office to provide a macroeconomic impact analysis for bills that are estimated to have a large budgetary effect, and under this bill, there would be analysis that would come about on a number of issues that would, in fact, involve the gross domestic product.

The Small Business Administration administers several programs to support small businesses, including Historically Underused Business Zone empowerment contracting, better known as the HUBZone. The HUBZone program is an effective program. It's a small business Federal contracting assistance program that crosses the land. Wherever you live, you have the opportunity to participate in a HUB program, whose primary objective is job creation and increasing capital investment in distressed communities, irrespective of your location and your background. It provides participating small businesses located in areas with low-income, high poverty rates, or high unemployment rates with contracting opportunities in the form of set-aside, sole-source awards and price evaluation preferences.

Mr. Chairman, this could happen to any community. One moment you could be thriving, and a tornado could come to you in the next moment and you fall in the category of a HUBZone to revitalize small businesses. So I ask my colleagues to support an amendment that spreads across America, and to make the determination that the vitality of small businesses is important to all of us and an assessment should be made using the HUBZone and the impact such legislation would have.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for extending his analysis, but I am saddened by the fact that issues dealing with income inequality, where we're simply trying to acknowledge and overtake comments by Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney: I'm not concerned about the poor-- my point about the poor is that you're rich today and poor tomorrow. Catastrophic illness, devastation through a natural disaster, man-made disaster, a terrorist act will put many of us in conditions that we would have never imagined.

What Dr. Price has failed to acknowledge, and our Republican friends, is that the dynamic scoring is rooted in anti-tax. It is clear that the bill's language and approach is designed to make it easy to enact deficit-increasing tax cuts.

Keeping the Bush tax cuts are not going to improve the economy. Small businesses will. And ensuring that we don't have revenue will definitely send this Nation down a periled road of no return.

Their own friend, former chairman of the Budget Committee, Jim Nussle, testified it may not be that the budget process is broken. It may not be, in other words, the tools are broken, but it may be that we're not using it. He, too, acknowledged the faultiness of dynamic scoring.

What I'm doing here today is to ask for this amendment to take into consideration hardworking small business owners, assess whether or not they will be impacted negatively.

We already know that agencies are going to have a difficult time in scoring this. We already know that this scoring will have no impact on improving the economy. But the increase in taxes that our colleagues want to do, with no balancing increase in revenues to be able to bring down the deficit, is the peril that they're sending us to.

They have had hearings, and there have been those who've acknowledged that dynamic scoring does little; but it may impact negatively those hardworking businesses that need to have the resources that would be provided to them by the Small Business Administration in their time of need or in their time of growth.

I ask my colleagues to add one more element of information that will give us guidance as to what dynamic scoring will ultimately mean. There is no doubt that an overwhelming number of Americans agree that we must do revenue, and certainly we must respond to the needs of the American people.

None of us are reckless with taxes or increasing taxes, Mr. Chairman. We want to be balanced in what we do. I believe my amendment is a balanced amendment. I ask my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment #5 to H.R. 3582, ``The Pro-Growth Budget Act of 2011.'' My amendment requires the Congressional Budget Office to include as part of their macroeconomic analysis estimates of the potential impact, if any, on HUB ZONE areas as defined by the Small Business Act.

H.R. 3582, would require the Congressional Budget Office to provide a macroeconomic impact analysis for bills that are estimated to have a large budgetary effect. Under this bill the CBO would be required to provide an analysis of the impact on the economy of any bill that would have an estimated budgetary effect of greater than 0.25 percent of gross domestic product, GDP, in any fiscal year.

CBO macroeconomic analysis would include the estimated effect on revenues and outlays of a change in GDP resulting from the legislation being evaluated. Those estimates would have to assume that certain tax policies not currently in CBO's baseline are extended. Furthermore, CBO would be required to publicly provide the assumptions and models underlying those analyses.

In all actuality, Mr. Chair, this bill could very well be entitled the, Revenge of Dynamic Scoring Champions Act, because that is in essence what is going on here.

Dynamic scoring is an attempt to measure the macroeconomic effects of policy changes before they happen, and continues to pop up everywhere; in fact, even in negotiations of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the super committee.

Dynamic scoring finds its roots in the anti-tax movement. Dynamic scoring is problematic for the agencies that score and estimate the cost of legislation, and has been soundly rejected.

It is clear from the bill's language and approach that it is designed to make it easier to enact deficit-increasing tax cuts. The bill requires CBO to produce supplementary estimates of the economic impact of major bills using dynamic scoring, an approach that involves more uncertainty and subjectivity than current scoring rules.

None other than Former Republican Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle opposed moving to dynamic scoring, noting that CBO ``generally have done a better job than some of the dynamic score-keeping. That has been part of the challenge of moving to something called dynamic scoring is that we have not found anything that was any more accurate than the current way.''

Believers in dynamic scoring argue that tax cuts pay for themselves, generally by spurring so much economic growth, to the extent that revenues will actually increase. If I didn't know any better Mr. Chair, I'd think they were talking to us about trickle-down economics.

Mr. Chair, where have we heard that before? I recall that the Bush administration attempted to impose the use of dynamic scoring to estimate the cost of its tax cuts, asserting that tax cuts would increase revenue enough to pay for themselves, sort of a trickle-down form of budgeting.

Unfortunately Mr. Chair, the Bush tax cuts did no such thing, but instead caused our national debt to explode. My amendment only seeks to look at the affect, should this measure pass, on HUB Zones, as defined in the Small Business Act.

The Small Business Administration, SBA, administers several programs to support small

businesses, including the Historically Underutilized Business Zone Empowerment Contracting, better known as the HUB Zone program. The HUB Zone program is a small business federal contracting assistance program ``whose primary objective is job creation and increasing capital investment in distressed communities.'' It provides participating small businesses located in areas with low income, high poverty rates, or high unemployment rates with contracting opportunities in the form of ``set-asides,'' sole-source awards, and price-evaluation preferences.

According to the Congressional Research Service, In FY2010, the federal government awarded contracts valued at $12.7 billion to HUBZone certified businesses, with about $3.6 billion of that amount awarded through the HUBZone program.

Mr. Chair, that's the gist of my amendment--job creation--because that's what we should be talking about on the House Floor today.

The Budget Committee has held two hearings on the general topic of budget process reform and the recommendations crossed party lines. Former Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, a Republican witness, testified that ``It may not be that the budget process is broken. It may not be, in other words, that tools are broken, but it may be the fact that the tools are not even being used.''

Similarly, Dr. Philip Joyce, former Congressional Budget Office, CBO, staff member and a Democratic witness, testified that ``My main message is that most of the tools that you need to solve the budget problems faced by the country are already in your toolbox. If the goal is to deal with the larger fiscal imbalance that faces us, the most important thing to do is to make use of them, not search for more tools.''

And Mr. Chair, dynamic scoring is the wrong tool at the wrong time-- though--In the interest of fairness to the small businesses in distressed communities, I ask my colleagues to support my amendment, even though I have serious reservations about dynamic scoring.

[From Center for American Progress, Nov. 23, 2011]

Five Problems With Dynamic Scoring

(By Sarah Ayres)

Dynamic scoring--an attempt to measure the macroeconomic

effects of policy changes before they happen--continues to

pop up everywhere, even in negotiations by the erstwhile

Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, better known as

the super committee. Long a favorite tool of antitax zealots,

dynamic scoring poses a number of problems that make it a

poor tool for estimating the cost of proposed legislation,

and the agencies tasked with making these estimates have

rightly rejected it for years.

Among those who advocate this method, it is confined to

revenue estimates, but it could be applied to spending as

well. Fans of dynamic scoring argue that tax cuts pay for

themselves, generally by spurring so much economic growth

that revenues will actually increase on net. In particular,

the Bush administration lobbied for the use of dynamic

scoring to estimate the cost of its tax cuts, asserting that

tax cuts would increase revenue enough to pay for themselves.

Of course the Bush tax cuts did no such thing, instead

causing our national debt to explode.

Dynamic scoring was a bad idea then and it is still a bad

idea today. Here are five reasons why we shouldn't use

dynamic scoring.

Conventional revenue estimates already include behavioral

responses

While some proponents of dynamic scoring explain it as an

alternative to ``static'' standard scoring estimates, the

conventional cost estimates prepared by the Congressional

Budget Office, or CBO, and the Joint Committee on Taxation,

or JCT, are not actually static. In estimating the budgetary

effects of proposed legislation, CBO and JCT both

incorporate the microeconomic behavioral effects of policy

changes into their estimates. For example, when they score

a gas-tax increase, they account for the reduction in gas

purchases that would result.

What they don't do is attempt to measure the macroeconomic

effects--the effects a policy will have on the overall growth

of the economy. As JCT explains, ``estimates always take into

account many likely behavioral responses by taxpayers to

proposed changes in tax law . . . [including] shifts in the

timing of transactions and income recognition, shifts between

business sectors and entity form, shifts in portfolio

holdings, shifts in consumption, and tax planning and

avoidance.'' The official JCT scores do assume that GDP will

not change from the projected CBO baseline.

We cannot accurately measure the macroeconomic effects of tax

changes

One problem with attempting to measure macroeconomic

feedback is that estimates depend on a lot of assumptions.

Broad economywide responses to tax policy changes are complex

and often contradictory. This reflects the wide range of

effects a tax change can have on different actors.

As an example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,

or CBPP, notes that reducing marginal tax rates can lead to

two different behavioral responses. Increasing the after-tax

compensation that a worker receives for an additional hour of

work could incentivize the worker to take on additional work

because the awards are greater. At the same time, increasing

a worker's take-home pay for the same hours of work could

also incentivize the worker to work a fewer number of hours

for the same amount of money. Which of these two effects will

be larger, and by how much? The empirical record simply does

not offer us a clear-cut answer to that question. The same is

true of myriad other questions that dynamic scoring

implicitly or explicitly raises. There is no set of accepted

rules that can be applied universally to all tax-policy

changes occurring in a variety of economic environments.

Even if we had clear-cut answers, there are practical

limits to the level of sophistication that the estimating

agencies could bring to dynamic scoring. Former CBO director

Rudolph Penner describes the problem: ``Consistent dynamic

scoring is logistically impossible given current technology.

Scoring is a hectic process. The CBO and JCT produce hundreds

of scores each year. Congress always wants scores

instantaneously, and analysts often work through the night to

keep them happy. Dynamic scoring would force analysts to make

many more judgment calls than they do today. Quality control

would be difficult, and that implies a high risk that

ideological biases will pollute the analysis.''

Estimates require making assumptions about future policies

Will a tax cut be paid for by spending cuts now or by

taking on future debt? Macroeconomic responses may differ

greatly depending on how policymakers choose to pay for the

policy. Requiring budget analysts to guess how the policy

will be paid for in order to score it opens up the

possibility that their assumptions will influence the

projected macroeconomic changes as much or even more than the

policy itself. In testimony before the House Committee on

Rules in 2002, CBO director Dan Crippen expressed concern

that his office would be stepping into a political minefield

by making these guesses: ``CBO could make an assumption about

what the next five Congresses and at least two presidents

will do, but doing so would subject us and the results to a

chorus of controversy.''

Even if dynamic scoring worked as advertised, there is

evidence the effects are quite small

In 2006 a CBPP analysis of cost estimates for President

Bush's proposal to make the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent

found that the dynamic estimates did not differ greatly from

conventional estimates. Two dynamic estimates prepared by the

CBO differed by less than 4 percent from the conventional

estimate. Even the Bush administration's own estimate found

that macroeconomic feedback would offset less than 10 percent

of the conventionally estimated cost. There is no evidence

that we are missing out on large macroeconomic effects using

conventional scoring methods.

Lawmakers can pass policies regardless of their score

If Congress and the president believe a policy will have

positive macroeconomic effects, nothing about conventional

scoring prevents them from passing it into law. The Bush tax

cuts were enacted despite their score because policymakers

believed they would be good for the economy. With

conventional scoring, everyone generally knows what's

included in the estimate and can make their own judgments

based on that knowledge. Dynamic scoring would only introduce

more obscurity to the process.

For these five reasons, CBO and JCT have rightly chosen not

to include dynamic scoring in their official cost estimates.

Switching to dynamic scoring would greatly reduce

transparency in the revenue-estimating process. Macroeconomic

forecasting is an imperfect science and the underlying

evidence can be interpreted in many different ways. Using

dynamic scoring would greatly pressure estimating agencies to

make assumptions--assumptions that would be hard to pick out,

difficult to evaluate, and likely very important at their

extremes. CBO and JCT already incorporate behavioral

responses into their cost estimates, and attempts to measure

macroeconomic effects of the proposed policies will be

fraught with inaccuracies and perceived as politically

biased.

We may be able to resolve some of these problems in the

future but for now there are many reasons why it doesn't make

sense to use dynamic scoring.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Let me start by saying to the chairman of the Budget Committee and all of the members of the Budget Committee that we appreciated the dialogue that we've had on the budget reform bills. There is one bill that I understand we'll take up next week where at least the chairman of the committee and myself were able to find some bipartisan consensus. That's the expedited procedure, legislative line item veto bill where you've got some Democrats and Republicans in favor of it, and some Democrats and Republicans against it.

But with respect to the two bills before us today, Mr. Chairman, I'm afraid they fall far short. In fact, I think they would take us in the wrong direction.

First of all, just to be clear, because we'll probably hear a lot of talk today

about the importance of moving the economy forward and jobs: Neither of these bills will do one thing, not one thing to help get our economy moving again. They won't do one thing to create and help create jobs in this country.

Now, with respect to this particular piece of legislation that we're dealing with now, which actually is a step toward requiring some kind of dynamic scoring by CBO and the Joint Tax Committee, it's very misleading. Here's the concern. If you look at the current House rules, current House rules already require that we have an economic analysis for major tax legislation.

What this particular piece of legislation does is say, yeah, we're going to ask for an economic analysis, but it tilts the playing field in favor of one kind of fiscal action. So, for example, it says we're going to consider whether or not tax policy affects the economy. But when it comes to major investments, for example, infrastructure, transportation, investments that we all know have historically helped this country grow, whether it was the highway system, whether it's been investments in other major infrastructure around this country, they've all had major economic growth benefits, but those are specifically excluded to the extent that they're involved in the appropriations process. So we're looking at only one-half of the equation, revenues, not important investments, at least to the extent that they go through the appropriations process.

Now, a word on the revenue piece. What's very curious is the way this bill is drafted. We would not get an economic analysis on one of the most consequential tax changes this body could take in the remaining year. We all know that we face the question of what to do with the expiring tax cuts, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, both on middle-income Americans, but also the tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the folks at the very top, the top 2 percent.

Now, under current House rules, we get an analysis of any legislation that was designed to extend those tax cuts going forward. But the way this is designed, the statute, we're going to get an answer that says well, we're already assuming the tax cuts for the folks at the very top are going to go on forever. Now, the reason that's very curious is that the Congressional Budget Office has in fact already done analyses in the past of what might happen if we were to extend the tax cuts for the folks at the very top.

And if you look at their analyses, and they did one in September of 2010, you'll find at the end of the 10-year period, they find that those tax cuts will slow down economic growth. Why would that be? Because those tax cuts add to the deficit. That deficit crowds out private investment. That creates a drag on the economy. We had a similar conclusion from testimony that was given by the Joint Tax Committee in September of 2011, just last September. The same conclusion. At the end of the 10-year period, you'd actually have a slowdown in economic growth.

So it's a little perplexing to find out why we're drafting something that would not require a study of one of the most consequential decisions that this Congress might make.

And so for those reasons, Mr. Chairman--one, that we're not even counting the investment side of the equation with respect to the consequences for economic growth, and number two, the fact that this isn't even going to trigger an analysis of one of the biggest revenue decisions this body will make--we have to oppose the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

At the outset of his remarks, Mr. Price referenced the economy and the President's plan. I think it is important to remember that when the President came before this body for the first

State of the Union address, the economy was in absolute free fall. In fact, we now know it was even worse than people realized at the time. We were losing GDP at a rate of more than 7 percent.

We were losing over 800,000 jobs in this country every month. And as a result of the passage of the recovery bill, the Congressional Budget Office, the same nonpartisan, independent office that this bill is asking for a report from, has told Congress that because of the recovery bill, we saved or created up to 3 million jobs in 2010. Those are the facts reported by the Congressional Budget Office, that we helped reduce unemployment in this country in 2011 by over 1.4 percent.

When you're headed down fast, you've got to stop the slide, pick yourself up and begin to climb back up. And that's what the President and the earlier Congress did together.

Now, are we where we want to be? Of course not. That's why it's important that we begin to move forward on the jobs plan the President asked this Congress to take up last September, major new investment in infrastructure, stuff that will really help move the economy. We haven't voted on that. I hope we'll move forward on the payroll tax cut extension for 160 million Americans. We should do that quickly.

So let's remember that this economy was in tatters. It has at least gotten a little bit back up on its feet, but we have a whole, long way to go still. Unfortunately, this bill today won't do one thing--not a thing--to help it.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

I yield the gentlelady 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I hope if our Republican colleagues are going to keep asking CBO for these reports that they'll read those reports, because if you read the CBO's analysis of the impact of the Recovery Act, they've been very clear that in the year 2010, it helped save or create up to 3 million jobs. That's what CBO says. It also says in the year 2011, it helped reduce unemployment by over 1.4 percent. That's what the Congressional Budget Office says.

Now we're asking the Congressional Budget Office for a study here. I think we should take into account in some of our comments their findings that they've already delivered to us. With respect to the situation the President inherited, again, the economy was in total free fall.

Yes, it's kind of like when you're trying to run up an escalator that's going down really fast. When you first get on, you're going to go down until you stop it, until you stop it, and then you take action to try to run. You're trying to run in place through the actions you're taking. First you don't feel like you're moving up, but we're finally moving up.

The President inherited an economy like an escalator going down very fast. And we passed a recovery bill. It stopped the free fall and stabilized the economy. We need to take more steps; and I wish our colleagues, Republican colleagues, would bring to the floor some of the bills that will help it. But let's just remember that for the last 22 months, we've actually created up to 3 million jobs, in fact, over 3 million jobs in the economy. Are we where we want to be? No. But let's not go back. Let's not go back to the same policies that got us into this same mess to begin with.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) who has been very focused on budget issues for a long time.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with Mr. McClintock that more information is helpful. We just don't want to ask for the information in a way that we only get one side of the story.

I hope our colleagues are going to vote for the amendment a little later on the floor that says we should also try and figure out what the economic impact of major investments in infrastructure is through the appropriations process. They've removed that analysis from this bill.

In addition to the fact, it's very curious that when it comes to tax policy, they've written this in a way that when CBO does an analysis of, again, the major decision that would be made by this body in the next few years, whether or not to extend some or all of the 2001/2003 tax cuts, that will show no impact on economic growth because of the way they've written this legislation, when, in fact, we know, at least from earlier CBO reports, that in the out-years, 10 years out, it will actually be a drag on economic growth because it will increase the deficit when you allow the tax cuts for the folks at the top to go on and on and on.

So, yes, we want more information. Let's just not ask CBO for information that is designed to only extract one side of the story. And, unfortunately, that's what the bill does in its current form.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Again, I go back to the fact that you're asking CBO to only give one side of the story, and I would just refer Mr. Price, my friend, colleague, to page 3 of the bill, lines 12 through 16, where you say, the Congressional Budget Office shall, to the extent practicable, prepare for each major bill or resolution reported by any committee of the House of Representatives or Senate, in parentheses, except the Committee on Appropriations of each House.

I go back to the fact that every American knows that when we invest in our infrastructure, when the companies invest in their plants and equipment, when we invest in our roads and our bridges and our highways, that can have a positive economic impact. In fact, if this House of Representatives were to take up the President's jobs bill, which he asked us to pass in September, that would invest more in our infrastructure, that would help the economy.

Of course, you wouldn't want to know, apparently, about the positive impact on the economy of the President's jobs bill because that involves investment through the transportation process. So, it does tilt the field in a significant way when it comes to decisions we make here with resources.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), my colleague on the Budget Committee.

I yield the gentleman another minute.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I'm glad the gentleman raised the question of the long term, and it begs the question about why this bill is written in a way such that we would not be requiring an economic analysis of the major change of law that we may be making with respect to tax policy, which would be to extend the 2001, 2003 tax cuts, all or some of them.

Let's talk about the long term because, in fact, the Joint Committee on Taxation which, of course, is the entity that does the tax analysis for the Congressional Budget Office, has said that at the end of that 10-year period, extending those tax cuts actually slows down the economy--page 6 of the testimony of the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation before the House Committee on Ways and Means, September 21, 2011.

What they point out is that at the end of the 10-year period, you're losing GDP growth. Again, why? Because if you have big tax cuts that are financed by borrowing, as the Republican rules of the House were changed to allow, Hey, we can provide tax cuts for folks at the very top, put it on the credit card, no more pay-as-you-go, that increases the deficit. You increase the deficit, as the economy begins to recover, that's when it really begins to crowd out private investment.

So those tax cuts begin to slow down the economy in the end of the 10-year period, and they're not an efficient use--especially the tax breaks for the folks at the top 2 percent--it's not an efficient means to getting the economy moving again.

We saw in the 1990s under President Clinton we had a higher top marginal tax rate: 20 million jobs were created, booming economic times.

So I'm glad the previous gentlemen raised the issue of the long term. Again, we're all a little perplexed about why this bill is written in a way that the major change in law that we could make either this year or next year with respect to the full or partial extension of the tax cuts wouldn't even trigger this economic analysis. That is astounding.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I just have to emphasize again, I already read from the portion of the bill that says we want economic analyses of major pieces of legislation except from the Committee on Appropriations. Again, transportation and infrastructure investments over the history of our country have provided important economic growth.

The President asked this Congress to take up his infrastructure investment jobs bill last September. Congress hasn't taken it up, and now apparently we don't want to include in the study the positive economic impact that something like that would have.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's mistaken. I mean, we do get analyses now with respect to the economic impact. There's a provision in the House rules that I referenced earlier that asked for that, and in fact, Joint Tax has done exactly that. The figures I was reading with respect to the negative impact on growth in the out-years were from a dynamic analysis the Joint Tax Committee has done pursuant to House rules.

I will not on my time.

Mr. Chairman, I refer the gentleman to the bill, the piece of the document I've referenced several times already. This kind of work is done.

What you're asking for here is to, again, leave off part of the equation, for example, the recovery bill. The recovery bill was primarily an appropriations bill. Leave off part of the equation, but also when it comes to the revenue piece, skew the request.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire about how much time remains on both sides?

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. Chairman, I would inquire of Mr. Price if he has any further speakers?

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

Look, I think everybody in this body understands that the more good information we get the better. That's why it's troubling that in this particular bill we're asking the question of CBO in a way that will only give us partial information. I already mentioned that we left out the impact, the economic impact from what we think should be included.

We think the appropriations investments in transportation should be included in any economic analysis. Clearly, important investments we make in science and research and innovation and our infrastructure have an economic impact, but this doesn't ask for any of that information. There'll be some amendments that say we should. Hopefully our colleagues will vote for them.

But what is very bizarre is the way this is structured so that it doesn't require a macroeconomic, dynamic analysis of the major change in law that we will make with respect to whether or not to extend all or some of the tax cuts, because the way it's written, it will assume those tax cuts are already in place.

Now, we've already had an analysis that was done by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a macroeconomic dynamic analysis. It does say at the end of that period it would actually have a drag on the economy because it increases the deficit.

So let's make sure that we get full information, and that's where I do want to end, by just pointing out that the most recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, in terms of the impact of the recovery bill, was in a document dated November of 2011, and there's a chart in there that shows a range. Obviously since the recovery bill is no longer in full effect in this current year, you don't continue to say the positive impacts.

But Dr. Elmendorf has testified numerous times before the Budget Committee and indicated that had it not been for the passage of the recovery bill, had it not been for actions of the Federal Reserve, economic growth today would be much slower. That would mean more people out of work.

We need to do better. We need to get things moving faster. That's why we should take up the President's jobs bill that has been sitting in this House since September. That's why I hope the conference committee on the payroll tax cut extension for 160 million people

will get our job done quickly so that we can provide those opportunities to help the economy grow when it's in this very fragile state.

So, Mr. Chairman, I just close by saying we all want information. Let's just not ask for information in a selective way designed to get a preconceived answer.

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.