To suspend temporarily the duty on mixtures of (9,10-Anthracenedione, 1,5-diamino-4,8-dihydroxy(4-hydroxyphenyl)-) and (9,10-Anthracenedione, 1,5-diamino-4,8-dihydroxy(4-methoxyphenyl)-).

I yield 3 minutes to the vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Mr. Chairman, the bipartisan fiscal commission--no fringe group--said that the Republican plan was unbalanced because it doesn't ask for shared sacrifice. It's a lopsided approach. This budget takes us farther off the deep end.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews.)

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

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

Mr. Chairman, the time bomb that's ticking is the time bomb on the Medicare guarantee.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

We can get our fiscal house in order and do this in a balanced way without ending the Medicare guarantee.

With that, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time remains on each side.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I would remind the body that the $500 million in Medicare reform savings, which we got from ending some of the big breaks to the insurance industry, are kept in the Republican budget. You keep those savings.

What you do not do is what we did: use some of those savings to close the prescription drug doughnut hole. So you took the savings, but you left the seniors with the doughnut hole.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, we do need to make tough choices. The question is what choices do we make? You choose to give another round of tax cuts to millionaires at the same time you're cutting investments in our kids' education. You choose not to get rid of the subsidies, taxpayer subsidies for oil companies while you end the Medicare guarantee, while you immediately eliminate the effort to close the doughnut hole, and while you cut funding for seniors in nursing homes by slashing Medicaid. Those are the choices you have made.

Announcement by the Acting Chair

Mr. Chairman, I move to put in order the Democratic substitute budget.

Mr. Chairman, our top priority in this Congress should be to support a robust economic recovery and put America back to work. That is what the Democratic plan does. It reduces the deficit in a steady, predictable way without slashing important investments in our kids' education and strategic national investments, without ending the Medicare guarantee, and without putting seniors, disabled individuals and kids at risk who rely on Medicare, and it reduces the deficit in a balanced way by $1.2 trillion more than the President's budget and achieves primary balance in the year 2018.

The Republican plan we've been discussing is a narrow vision of America--a place with no shared sacrifice, a place where those who have benefited the most from what our country has to offer give little in return.

The Democrats have a different vision for our country. We believe our strength springs not only from the undisputed benefits of a free people pursuing their ambitions and their dreams but also from sometimes harnessing those talents for important national purposes.

We believe America's greatness is rooted not only in a collection of individuals acting alone but from our capacity to work together for the common good. We believe that is a patriotic vision of America. We do not see the government as an enemy but as the imperfect instrument by which we can accomplish together as a people what no individual or single corporation can do alone.

Small business owners recognize that they must make certain investments to build a successful enterprise. Similarly, our Nation must make the strategic national investments necessary to keep our country strong in an increasingly global economic marketplace. Our plan does that.

We also believe we can do that while making cuts, and we make sensible, targeted cuts. But we do it in a smart way, not with a meat ax that threatens the fragile recovery.

We also agree with the fiscal commission that security spending should be part of this debate. Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stated, and I quote, that the most significant threat to our national security is our national debt. There is growing bipartisan consensus that those security agencies must themselves be part of our effort to reduce our debt and strengthen our country.

Our approach is a balanced one. We take cuts in the discretionary and bring down that part of the budget to the lowest point as a percentage of the economy since the Eisenhower administration. We take cuts in other areas. We take cuts in mandatory programs, including agriculture subsidies.

But we make different choices than the Republican budget. We end the subsidies to Big Oil rather than keeping those as we cut education for our kids. We ask the folks at the very top to pay the same tax rate they paid during the Clinton administration rather than end the Medicare guarantee and slash funding for seniors in nursing homes and others who rely on that support.

We make very different choices in this budget, but we accomplish the goal in a fiscally responsible way.

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

Mr. Chairman, the fiscal commission said of the Republican plan it was an unbalanced approach. Our approach is a balanced approach. Secretary Gates' comments were directed to the fiscal commission's recommendations. Our proposals are in line with what the President outlined just the other day. I would point out that Governor Haley Barbour said, ``If we Republicans don't propose some savings of money on defense, we will have no credibility on anything else.'' Of course the Pentagon has never passed a GAO budget, and I think everybody who does budgets recognizes there is some savings to be found there.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished assistant leader, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

Mr. Chairman, I urge Republican Members to read their own budget. It does not give seniors the same deal as Members of Congress. Members of Congress have a fair share formula. Seniors do not under their bill. Seniors get an immediate cut to the prescription drug benefit to the extent that we closed the doughnut hole, and they don't. Let's get our facts straight.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

Mr. Chairman, this is a time of choosing. Our budget chooses to make investments in our kids rather than choosing to provide even bigger tax breaks to the very wealthy, and we choose to get rid of subsidies for oil companies instead of cutting nursing homes funding through Medicare for seniors and disabled individuals.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman).

Mr. Chairman, I would remind my colleagues that the reason Medicare was created in the first place was because the private insurance industry wouldn't cover seniors' affordable care. That's what they want to go back to.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

May I inquire as to how much time remains?

I yield myself 45 seconds.

What we heard just doesn't fit the facts. In fact, our budget does make cuts to domestic programs, but we do not do it in a meat ax way. We make cuts to agriculture subsidies. We do tax reform as the commission recommended, getting rid of a lot of clutter in the Tax Code for special interests. That is what we do.

With respect to defense, our numbers track what the President was saying the other day, but we do get rid of a so-called overseas contingency fund which we think our Republican friends would like to join us on which gives the executive branch a blank check to undertake any military operations whatsoever for the next 10 years and doesn't have to ask Congress. That's what we do.

What we don't do? We don't end the Medicare guarantee. What we don't do is we don't keep giving subsidies to oil companies while we cut education for kids. That's what we don't do.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the very distinguished Democratic leader, Ms. Pelosi.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, we are turning back the clock. We're turning back the clock on progress and we're turning back the clock--

Announcement by the Acting Chair

Mr. Chairman, what the Republican budget does is turn back the clock on a fair deal for the American people.

Every person in this body today loves this great Nation of ours and believes it's a special place. We have to maintain the dynamism and exceptionalism of this country. We see different paths and make different choices to accomplish that goal.

Announcement by the Acting Chair

Mr. Chairman, if I----

Announcement by the Acting Chair

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time remains.

Mr. Chairman, we all agree we have to act now to put in place a plan to reduce our deficit.

Announcement by the Acting Chair

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to begin my remarks from the beginning and reset the clock.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleagues.

As I said, nobody doubts that every person in this Chamber loves this country and wants to do the right thing.

Announcement by the Acting Chair

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm tempted to reserve my time and yield it back to the other----

Announcement by the Acting Chair

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As I said, I was tempted to reserve my time and allow my colleague to proceed. But as I understand the Chamber is now quiet, let me begin where I left off and say that all of us agree, everybody in this Chamber agrees, we need to put in place a plan to reduce our deficit in a predictable, steady manner. The question throughout this debate has been not whether, but how we do that. And as the bipartisan fiscal commission has indicated, any responsible effort requires a balanced approach.

And the Republican plan simply fails on that score. And that's what the cochairs of the bipartisan fiscal commission said. They said it, ``falls short of the balanced, comprehensive approach needed for a responsible plan.'' And when you peel off the layers, what you find is the Republican plan is not bold. It's just the same old, tired formula we've seen before of providing big tax breaks to the very wealthy and powerful special interests at the expense of the rest of America-- except this time it's dressed up with a lot of sweet-sounding talk of reform. But at the end, it's the same old ideological agenda--except this time on steroids.

To govern is to choose. Each of us is sent here to make difficult choices, and the choices that are made in the Republican plan we believe are wrong for America.

We do not believe it's courageous to protect tax giveaways to big oil companies and other special interests when we're slashing investments in our kids' education, scientific research, and critical investments in the future.

We don't think it's bold to provide another tax break to millionaires while ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors and sticking seniors with the bill for ever-rising health care costs.

We do not believe it's visionary to award corporations that ship American jobs rather than American products overseas while we're terminating affordable health care for tens of millions of Americans right here at home.

And we don't think it's brave to give Governors a blank check of Federal taxpayer dollars and then a license to cut support for seniors in nursing homes, individuals with disabilities, and poor kids.

And we don't think it's fair to raise taxes on middle-income Americans to pay for additional tax breaks for the folks at the very top.

Yet those are the choices that are made in the Republican budget. Where is the shared sacrifice? We have American men and women putting their lives on the line in Iraq, in Afghanistan, while others hide their income in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland and refuse to pay their fair share to support our national efforts. And that is why the bipartisan commission, among other reasons, said that the Republican plan is just not balanced. It's not.

Let's say ``no'' to the Republican plan. Let's say ``yes'' to finding a balanced way to reduce our deficits in a way that protects the values and priorities of the American people and in a way that gets our economy moving and America back to work.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, it's hard to see how someone would define saving the social safety net by ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors, by slashing Medicaid by over $750 billion, a program that disproportionately helps seniors in nursing homes and disabled individuals. It's really hard to understand how that is preserving the social safety net. It reminds me of that strange statement we once heard that you have to destroy the village in order to save it.

Now, let's understand what happens under this budget to Medicare. This budget ends the Medicare guarantee for seniors. It doesn't reform Medicare; it deforms and dismantles it because it forces seniors off the Medicare program, into the private insurance market.

And it does nothing, as it dumps the seniors into the private insurance market, to control the rate of increase in health care costs. Instead, it transfers to the senior all those risks and all those costs. Seniors will pay a lot more, while the insurance companies will get all their Medicare payroll taxes. They'll get a bonanza out of this thing, but seniors will be left holding the bag.

If your voucher amount, call it whatever you want, is not sufficient to pay for the increased cost, you eat it. And we saw earlier the fact that by the year 2022 seniors will have to pay more than $6,000 above what they would have had to pay under the regular Medicare program. If your doctor's not on a private plan that you can afford, tough luck. This is rationing health care by income, nothing more.

And I want to say something just to clear the record one more time. We keep hearing that they're offering seniors exactly what Members of Congress get. It simply is not true. What Members of Congress get is what's called a fair share deal. I encourage my colleagues on all sides of the aisle just to look at the Federal Employees Benefit Plan. And you look in the Office of Personnel and it says: ``This formula is known as the fair share formula because it will maintain a consistent level of government contributions as a percentage of program costs regardless of what plan the enrollees elect.'' And it says that the government contribution equals the lesser of 72 percent of the amounts OPM determines are program-wide, or 75 percent.

The point is Members of Congress get a fair share formula. The Republican budget does not give a fair share formula to seniors on Medicare. It just doesn't. In fact, the way it saves money is to give them an unfair deal. It unconnects the support we give to seniors from rising health care costs. That's why seniors will end up paying so much more and more and more, because you make the savings--health care costs are going up like this, and the support, if you want to call it support, it's really not coming from the Medicare program or the Federal Government, is going like this. That's why the seniors are having to eat those additional costs. That is what the Republican budget does. At the same time they do provide additional tax breaks for the folks at the very top.

If you want to get rid of some of the junk in the Tax Code, you can support the Democratic plan, because we got rid of subsidies for the oil companies. We got rid of those perverse tax incentives to reward corporations that are shipping American jobs instead of American products overseas.

So if you want to start with tax reform, vote for the Democratic plan. Those are the choices we made, not ending the Medicare guarantee.

Mr. Chairman, I would point out that even if we adopt the Republican budget, we're going to have to lift the debt ceiling for years and years to come. So let's not play Russian roulette with the economy and the full faith and credit of the United States Government.

Now, on the question of jobs--the question of jobs--during the Clinton administration, we asked the very wealthiest for a little bit more sacrifice than they have today. And do you know what happened to jobs? Twenty million jobs were created during the Clinton administration. Under the current tax rates, after 8 years of George Bush, the private sector lost 630,000 jobs.

So you see the pattern here. During the Clinton administration, economic growth was booming, and 20 million jobs were created. During the 8 years of the Bush administration, there was a net loss of 653,000 jobs. We need to continue to invest in this country and make sure that the entrepreneurs of this country can continue to thrive. We need to do this in a balanced way.

I would point out that the folks who said that this Republican plan we are debating would increase jobs are the same people who predicted that the Bush tax cuts would create jobs. That's the blue line. That's the prediction of the Heritage Foundation about what

would happen. The red is the reality. If we want to create jobs and reduce the deficit, we need to do it in a balanced way. That's what the fiscal commission said. That's what the Democratic plan does.

We urge everyone, respectfully, to vote ``no'' on the Republican plan. It's the wrong choice for America.

With that, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished Democratic leader, Ms. Pelosi.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

As is very evident by the response to your remarks in praise of Father Coughlin, if there's one thing that Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives agree on, it is that God has truly blessed us with the service of Father Coughlin as our Chaplain for the past 11 years.

When we talk about him being our Chaplain, it's not that he's just the Chaplain of the Members, he's the Chaplain for the staff, for the carpenter that we see in the hall, for the service employees who are here. He ministers to the needs of all of us here, sometimes in a very macro way.

When 9/11 struck, or in Tucson most recently, or with the anthrax threat, those kinds of things had an impact on all of us. Father was there for us as a group, and he was there for us individually. We never know what joys or pain our colleagues or our workers here are undergoing or suffering. Father Dan knows more than most of us, and his discretion is something that we all value and respect.

Father Dan has ministered to the needs of the poor with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. He has meditated with the Trappist monks in the monastery, and I think he's going back to do some of that again. He has been a scholar-in-residence at the North American College in Rome, exchanging ideas there. He has ministered to the needs of his parishioners in LaGrange, Illinois, and that probably serves him best for ministering to the diverse needs of the flock that he shepherds here. We are very, very, very honored.

Last year, many of us in a bipartisan way stood up and sang the praises. It seems so recent, but it was a year ago. Then after that, Father was honored in Illinois for serving as a priest for 50 years. For some of us, it was really a special source of pride. Although we respect all of our Chaplains, it was a source of personal pride that he was the first Roman Catholic Chaplain in the House of Representatives, and he showed that he could minister to the needs of all of the Members of all faiths here.

So, yes, we are very blessed by his service in the Congress. We are going to miss him a great deal. We wish him well as he goes forth. The legacy that he left us is one that was not only of opening prayer each day to inspire us and lift us to a higher place in our deliberations, but he set an example of civility in the Congress of confidentiality of relationships. He was a great Chaplain. We will miss him greatly, and we are enormously grateful to him.

Thank you, Father Coughlin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I commend him and the members of the Budget Committee for their hard work to bring legislation to the floor to enable us to have this debate yesterday and today and I think for a long time to come.

We have said it over and over again: A Federal budget should be a statement of our national values. It should reflect what is important to us as we allocate the resources of investments for the future. Much has been said about this deficit, and I want to join the distinguished ranking member before I go any further in correcting the record.

I listened with great interest as Members on the other side are taking credit for the Clinton administration balanced, or budgets in surplus. And I remind them or tell them, because many of them may not know, that those budgets were a result of the 1993 budget vote that we took on this floor of the House without one Republican vote which was the source of that fiscal discipline and job creation, again, as other speakers have said, over 20 million jobs created.

So when I hear the Republicans say it was the Clinton Presidency and the Republican Congress, no, it was the Democratic Congress, because we know that deficit reduction is essential. We had to stop the budget deficits that President Clinton inherited, and now

we have to stop the budget deficits that President Obama inherited.

Budget deficits, I've heard our colleagues say, are immoral. I quite agree. We have a responsibility and an obligation to our children and our grandchildren not to send them any bills, personal or official. And we do not intend to do so. But they were immoral during the Bush years, too, when they were giving tax cuts to the rich, two unpaid-for wars and a prescription drug benefit that gave away the store to the private sector and sent the bill to the taxpayer.

So here we are with a choice on the floor. Some of it was spoken; a vision of it was shared with the Nation by President Obama the other day. He talked about an America of greatness that cared about its people. He talked about the essential need for us to reduce the deficit. He talked about growth, investments, and job creation.

He talked about being fair to our seniors and keeping our promise to them. In the budgets that we have before us today, one presented by Mr. Van Hollen, one presented by the Republicans, we see a sharp contrast, one that supports the vision that the President puts forth, and one that definitely does not.

Mr. Chairman, we are talking about the budget deficit; but we also in doing so, if we are going to do right by the American people, have to recognize that there are other deficits. We have a deficit in education. We have a deficit in innovation because innovation begins in the classroom. We have a deficit in investments in our infrastructure. All of these investments have a payoff back to us. They create growth. They bring revenue to the Treasury, and they help reduce the deficit.

It is a false economy to think that we can write a budget that cuts serious investments in education, infrastructure, innovation and the rest and think that we are going to end the deficit. You cannot cut your way out of it. You cut, you grow, and you increase revenue. That's a subject I will hold for when we talk about the Republican budget more specifically.

What is important to note, if you had one thing to know about the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in terms of these budgets, if you had just one thing, it would be on the subject of Medicare. The Republican budget breaks the promise that this country has made to seniors that after a lifetime of work, they will be able to depend on Medicare to protect them in retirement. But the plan here ends Medicare as we know it and dramatically reduces benefits for seniors. It forces seniors to buy their insurance from the health insurance companies where the average senior would be forced to pay twice as much for half the benefit--as much for some as $20,000 a year.

I want to call the attention of my colleagues to this chart, ``Senior Citizens Health Cost Skyrockets Under Republican Budget.'' Blue is the government share, red is the beneficiary share. Health care spending for a typical 65-year-old in 2022 dollars, the Republican budget would have $8,000 from the Federal Government, $12,500 from the individual, which is more than twice what the Medicare cost should be to a senior, $6,150; twice as much for less in benefit.

Now, this chart is not our chart. This information was conveyed to the Republican chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, by the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in a letter to him describing what the cost would be to seniors under his plan. I just don't think that is fair to our seniors. This plan has the wrong priorities. It is focused on helping corporate special interests and Wall Street, not reducing the deficit or helping the country.

It raises taxes for the middle class while cutting them for the wealthiest in our country. It repeals Wall Street reforms for the big banks. It abolishes Medicare as we know it, cuts funding for education, health care, alternative energy and job training programs, and uses the money not for reducing the deficit but to help the most privileged, help the most privileged and negate what we did in our health care bill, which was to start to close the doughnut hole.

If you are a senior and you see that your prescription drug costs will come down under the health care bill and the doughnut hole will close, this budget reverses that.

There are so many reasons for seniors and people with disabilities and people who care about Medicare to be concerned. Medicare is a bedrock of stability for our seniors, for their health, for their economic security, and for those with disabilities who depend on it. We must make sure that it is solvent, but we must not charge seniors more while giving bigger tax cuts to the wealthy.

Just remember these three points. First of all, it abolishes Medicare as we know it, increasing costs to seniors, while it gives tax breaks of tens of billions of dollars to Big Oil.

Changes in Medicaid will send seniors out of nursing homes while we give tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas. This Ryan budget, the Republican budget, will hurt education, cut the education of our children, increase the cost of higher education for young adults, 10 million young adults, while we give tax cuts to the wealthiest. That's just not the American way.

The President said in his remarks that we are about shared responsibility and shared sacrifice. We are about a sense of community in our country. And so as we want to reduce the deficit, the fiscal deficit, and we must, and we have proven, Democrats have proven that we can, this proposal does not.

But what Mr. Van Hollen is proposing in the positive sense is recognizing that we need to reduce the deficit, growth is a part of that and so we have investments in education and the innovation that springs from that, and other initiatives that grow our economy, that strengthen the middle class, that creates jobs as it reduces the deficit.

I urge our colleagues to vote ``yes'' on Mr. Van Hollen's budget and ``no'' on the Ryan budget to strengthen the middle class.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for bringing a budget proposal to the floor today that is a statement of our national values and about what we care about: investing in our children, honoring our seniors, creating jobs, growing the economy and strengthening the middle class. Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen, for your great leadership in that regard.

Mr. Chairman, today we will be taking a vote that is very, very important for the health and security of American seniors. A great deal is at stake. I'm just going to focus on one part of this Republican budget. I want to say to my Republican colleagues, Do you realize that your leadership is asking you to cast a vote today to abolish Medicare as we know it? Because that is the vote that we have. This is not about an issue; this is about a value. This is about an ethic. Medicare is a core value of our social compact with the American people. Yet this budget shreds that contract which is part of the strength of our country. The Republican proposal breaks the promise that our country has made to our seniors that after a lifetime of work, they will be able to depend on Medicare to protect them in retirement.

This plan, the Republican plan, ends Medicare as we know it and dramatically reduces benefits for seniors. It forces them to pay more to buy their insurance from health insurance companies, where the average senior will be forced to pay twice as much for half the benefit. I want to repeat that: the Republican plan forces seniors to buy their insurance from health insurance companies where the average senior will be forced to pay twice as much for half the benefits, as much as $20,000 per year more for some seniors.

This plan has the wrong priority for our seniors and for all Americans. Just remember these three things about the Republican budget: It ends Medicare as we know it as it gives big tax breaks and subsidies--tens of billions of dollars--to Big Oil. This budget reduces Medicaid for our seniors in nursing homes, sending them away from nursing homes, while it gives tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas. This budget hurts our children's education. In fact, it increases the cost of higher education for nearly 10 million of our young adults, while it gives tax breaks to America's wealthiest families. That's just not fair. It is just not the American way.

Here we are. Yesterday, we observed the 100th day of the Republican majority in Congress. In those 100 days, not one job has been created. Not one job agenda is in the works. And what are we doing? We are here to abolish Medicare instead.

I have heard our colleagues say that the budget deficit is immoral. It's been immoral for the 8 years of the Bush administration, and I didn't hear anybody say ``boo'' while we were giving tax cuts to the rich, having two wars unpaid for, and giving prescription drug bills to the private sector.

Democrats are committed to reducing the deficit. We have demonstrated that we can during the Clinton administration, and we will. We are committed to strengthening the middle class, to growing our economy as we reduce the deficit, and to creating jobs. The Republican budget fails to do that, and the Republican budget will not have Democratic support.

We are here, and as one of the previous speakers said, now is the time. Now is the time to preserve Medicare. And Democrats will. I urge a ``no'' vote on the Republican plan.

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

First of all, I want to start off by commending Mr. Van Hollen. It's not always that the minority offers an alternative budget. In fact, I know there are a lot of pressures not to do that. So I think Mr. Van Hollen is to be commended, and his very capable staff, for actually proposing an alternative. That's important. It's important that we bring ideas to the table so we can have a real debate about ideas. I want to start with saying that.

Number two, we just have a different definition of ``fiscal responsibility,'' I suppose. This budget, relative to the mark, to the base budget we're talking about, increases spending by $4.5 trillion, raises taxes by $2 trillion, and it adds $2.4 trillion to the deficit compared to the base bill we're talking about here.

It does exceed the President's budget in debt reduction, in deficit reduction, and so the gentleman is to be commended for that, but I personally think the President's budget is a pretty low water mark. It exceeds it by raising taxes another $210 billion and also cutting defense by $614 billion above the cuts that are in the base, our budget, and in the President's budget.

Secretary Gates has warned us that such cuts would leave the military unable to meet its current missions. And using his words: ``Setting indiscriminate targets to scrimp on defense is math, not strategy.''

I think it's very important that we recognize our priorities. Number one, national defense is the primary responsibility of the Federal Government. When our war fighters tell us this doesn't allow them to have the tools to keep them safe, the equipment they

need to prosecute their jobs, I think that's not responsible.

When our economy is struggling to get out of a very deep recession, over $2 trillion in tax increases I just don't think is responsible.

On the alternative, I think what we are offering is responsible. Our budget does four basic things. It gets the economy growing. It keeps taxes where they are and prevents massive tax increases. It saves our Medicare and Medicaid programs. It fulfills the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans by guaranteeing that people who have retired and are about to retire keep what they have, what they have organized their lives around, and then reforms these programs so that they're solvent and sustainable for the next generation. Number three, it repairs our social safety net so that it works. And it, number four, pays off our debt. That's what we do.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Griffin).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to our distinguished chief deputy whip, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam).

I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, let's talk about Medicare for a moment. It's not as if we don't have a problem. We know Medicare is going broke in 9 years. We want to make sure that the people who have retired and who are 10 years away from retiring can bank on the promises that have been made for them.

But to keep that promise, we have to reform it and save it for the next generation. So that's why we have a plan that says for people 54 and below, you too will have a plan of guaranteed Medicare coverage from guaranteed Medicare plans that you get to choose from. Choice and competition works.

A prescription drug benefit, a bunch of plans that compete against each other for the seniors' business, came in 41 percent below cost projections. Why? Because it's not a government-run program. It's not a bunch of bureaucrats.

What is the President proposing? What are the Democrats proposing? Here's what they have proposed for current seniors. The President just gave us a glimpse of it 2 days ago. He wants to take this board of 15 people he appoints on this rationing board, and they make the decisions. They price-control Medicare. They ration Medicare, $480 billion, almost $10,000 per senior on current seniors.

We are saying, don't do this to seniors, get rid of the rationing board and don't delegate Medicare decision-making to 15 people appointed by the President with no congressional oversight. Let the 40 million seniors in Medicare be in charge of their Medicare program. More importantly, we save Medicare, prevent its bankruptcy.

What does the other side do? They sit by and watch the program go bankrupt.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the Budget Committee, the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Mulvaney.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Garrett of New Jersey.

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

First, let me start off by saying that the only way the word ``oil'' is mentioned in this budget--it is not in the Tax Code--it is that we want to drill for more of it in this country so we can lower gas prices and get ourselves off foreign oil.

Let me address Medicare briefly. I have here the Federal Employee Benefit Handbook that everybody in Congress, every Federal employee has. Nowhere in this book does it say voucher. Look at all of these plans we get to choose from: Kaiser, Aetna, Humana, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Coventry, pages and pages of choices and options. This is what we're talking about for people 54 and below.

Guess what, the biggest threat to Medicare is the status quo. Medicare goes bankrupt in 9 years. And so, is this exactly like the Federal employee health plan? No, it is not. It is the same kind of plan because what we say is in the future, people who are wealthy don't need as much of a subsidy. People who are sick need more, people who are low-income need more, and they get complete out-of-pocket coverage. More for the sick, more for the poor, less for the wealthy, and a solvent Medicare system.

But more importantly, the people choose. Medicare beneficiaries choose. What's the President's plan? What's the Democrats' plan? Appoint 15 people to do the choosing. It is a different philosophy. Should we have 15 unelected bureaucrats run Medicare, ration Medicare, or should we allow 40 million to 50 million seniors make the decision?

Let's talk about taxes. Look at all of these budgets we've been looking at today. By the way, our budget doesn't even cut taxes. I wish I could say it does. Revenues still rise, about $12 trillion under this budget. We just don't want to go up and up and up.

The budget we have here is a $2 trillion tax increase; the plan we had before, the Progressive plan, a $16 trillion tax increase; the Congressional Black Caucus budget, a $6 trillion tax increase.

This budget cuts defense $619 billion; the Progressive budget, $1.2 trillion; the CBC budget cuts defense $469 billion.

The CBC budget increases spending on domestic spending $4.1 trillion. The Progressive Caucus increases domestic

spending $11.4 trillion. The Democratic budget increases, relative to the mark, $4.6 trillion.

So we've got it. We know where they are. More spending. More spending on everything, but cut and gut defense, and raise taxes a lot.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the distinguished majority whip.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the House Republican Conference, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

I yield myself the remainder of my time.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our staffs, the Democratic staff and the Republican staff, for all of their hard work in getting us to this moment.

I want to ask my colleagues a question. I want to ask the American people a question. I remember one of the worst moments I had in Congress was the financial crisis of 2008. It seems like it was yesterday. We had the Treasury Secretary and we had the Federal Reserve chairman coming here talking about crisis and talking about bank collapses. And what came out of that was really ugly legislation that we passed on a bipartisan basis but no one enjoyed. That crisis caught us by surprise. It was unpredictable. We didn't see it coming.

Let me ask you this. What if your President and your Member of Congress saw it coming? What if they knew why it was happening, when it was going to happen, and more importantly, they knew what to do to stop it and they had time to stop it, but they didn't? Because of politics? What would you think of that person?

Mr. Chairman, that is where we are right now.

This is the most predictable economic crisis we've ever had in the history of this country. Yet we have a President who is unwilling to lead. We have too many politicians worried about the next election and not worried about the next generation. Every politician in this town knows we have a debt crisis. They know that we are in danger.

We cannot avoid this choice. To govern is to choose. We are making a choice even if we don't act. And that's the wrong choice. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. Will we be remembered as the Congress that did nothing as the Nation sped toward a preventable debt crisis and irreversible decline? Or will we instead be remembered as a Congress that did the hard work of preventing that crisis, the one that chose this Path to Prosperity? This Path to Prosperity charts a different course. It gets us off this wrong track.

It achieves four objectives:

Number one, grow the economy and get people back to work.

Number two, fulfill the mission of health and retirement security. We don't want to ration Medicare. We don't want to see Medicare go bankrupt. We want to save Medicare.

Number three, repair the social safety net. Get it ready for the 21st century. We don't want a welfare system that encourages people to stay on welfare. We want them to get back on their feet and into flourishing, self-sufficient lives. So let's reform welfare for people who need it, and let's end corporate welfare for people who don't need it.

Number four, let's do the work of lifting this crushing burden of debt from our children.

This is what we achieve. We have a choice of two futures, but we have to make the right choice. We must not leave this Nation in decline. We must not be the first generation of this country to leave the next generation worse off. Decline is antithetical to the American idea. America is a Nation conceived in liberty, dedicated to equality and defined by limitless opportunity. Equal opportunity, upward mobility, prosperity; this is what America is all about.

In all the chapters of human history, there has never been anything quite like America. This budget keeps America exceptional. It preserves its promise for the next generation. Colleagues, this is our defining moment. We must choose this Path to Prosperity.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Republican Study Committee's substitute that is now on the floor. This substitute amends and builds upon the great work of Chairman Ryan and the entire House Budget Committee.

And while I do come to the floor and support Chairman Ryan's proposal, the RSC wanted to put forth a proposal on the floor today that went even a step further. We named our budget today the Honest Solutions budget because we know that what we are proposing will not be easy. Why? Because real solutions are not necessarily easy solutions. But given the dangerous conditions of our Nation's fiscal situation, we must recognize that tough choices must be made and must be made now.

The RSC believes that we can do better than any of the budgets on the floor today. So we have a budget that will, first of all, ensure that our Nation spends responsibly by freezing total discretionary spending at 2008 levels. The RSC budget further ensures that our Nation's security will be met by meeting Defense Secretary Gates's defense request. The RSC budget puts nondefense discretionary spending on a sustainable path.

In addition, the RSC budget strengthens Medicare's long-term finances. And most importantly, our budget, unlike any other budget on the floor today, will balance within our lifetime.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney), who recognizes the fact that we must live within our means now and, unlike the gentleman from New Jersey, does not want to put additional burdens on future generations.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), who has no amnesia but recognizes the fact that we do no favor for this generation by putting the burden for future constraints on our children and our grandchildren.

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Graves), who, just like the gentleman from California, understands that we must not sink the ship of state, as the other side of the aisle would do, by excessive tax burdens and debt.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp).

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), who realizes that the young people would do best if we not put additional tax burdens of over $40,000 or $50,000 on their birth coming into this country by the actions of not living responsibly.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan), who does not believe it's a social experiment to do what all families have to do: live within our means.

May I ask the Chair how much time remains.

At this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), who recognizes the fact that the solutions to all the problems in the world, as the other side may think, is not raising taxes on anyone and certainly not raising the taxes on those who produce the jobs in this country.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Southerland), who recognizes we must keep our promises, especially to the youth of tomorrow.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Brooks), who actually read this amendment and understands that it makes absolutely no changes whatsoever for seniors 60 years of age and over and actually strengthens health care for seniors in generations to come.

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

So we stand before you, as I said before, with clear distinctions on the course that this country will lead in the future. Shall we continue to make the same bad policy that we have made in the past which sets us on a fiscal crisis, which not only this side of the aisle but the President of the United States recently stated as well?

Or should we change the direction of the ship of State? Should we direct ourselves on a path towards fiscal sanity? Should we go in the direction that every single family in this country has to go in, that is to say, that we will live within our means, that we will not put an additional burden on our children and our grandchildren?

Shall we go in a direction that we can say to the seniors 60 years of age or older that we will not change your entitlements, we will not change your health care but, rather, that we will put in place today's programs that will make sure that they are here for you and for your children and future generations as well?

Shall we go on a path that says to our children of today and of tomorrow that we will not put additional burdens onto you today or in the future by putting in programs that we cannot afford?

The Republican Study Committee chooses the latter. The Republican Study Committee decides that we should live within our means. The Republican Study Committee ensures that our Nation spend responsibly by freezing the total discretionary spending at 2008 levels, ensures our national security by meeting Defense Secretary Gates' defense request. Our budget puts non-defense discretionary spending on a sustainable path for the future.

We reduce unnecessary mandatory spending other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as opposed to what my friends on the other side of the aisle say. We strengthen Medicare's long-term finances. This budget would slowly phase in increases to Medicare eligibility and make it stronger for the future.

And most of all, unlike any other budget that will come to the floor today, this budget will actually balance, we will actually come with a balanced budget within the lifetimes of all the Members here sitting today.

Mr. Chairman, we believe that the solutions outlined in our budget proposal will put our Nation on a greater, surer footing, address the fiscal crisis and set the course for dynamic innovation, job creation, and economic growth for the future.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Democrat substitute amendment. Let me just quickly here sum up. The Democrats' prescription, if you will, for our Nation's fiscal troubles basically includes what? More spending, more debt and more taxes, more taxes on hardworking families and small businesses. And so while the Democrat budget has lower deficits than, well, the President's budget, you really need to take a closer look at how they achieve this and how they achieve the deficit reduction compared to the White House's budget.

Let's take a look at it. First, well, they raise taxes again. How much? By $208 billion more than the President's budget on all Americans. Then what do they do next? They cut the defense budget. By how much? By $614 billion again relative to the President's budget over the 10-year window. Now, at the same time, you already had Secretary Gates who has said that we need to cut the Defense budget by $78 billion. They want to cut Defense by $614 billion on top of that.

What about in addition to that? Well, in their budget, if you go into it and look, there's about $400 billion in unspecified savings. Unspecified? Here at the 12th hour they still can't decide how they want to try to rein in spending? Of course not, because they really honestly don't want to do so.

I believe that budgets must be credible, and the Democrats' budget doesn't pass that test at all. The only specific savings in the budget come from how? Raising taxes again on Americans and cutting the defense budget. The Democrat budget does not tackle even the drivers behind our deficits. What are they? It does not address the pending bankruptcy-- yes, bankruptcy--of Medicare and Medicaid. The Democrat budget is nothing more than punting, which is exactly what the administration and the White House have been doing as well.

Now, look, the American people want Congress to do the right thing. The American people want us to get spending, want us to get deficits, and they want us to get our debt here in Washington under control, just as American families have to get their spending, deficit and debt under control, just as small businesses across this country have to get it under control. The Democrats' budget is frankly an embarrassment and shows that the other side is not serious about taking our fiscal challenges seriously.

I rise in opposition to this amendment.

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

Yesterday we debated the Republican budget plan. Today, we have a plan that's more of the same, except on steroids.

As we debated yesterday, the question is not whether we should reduce the deficit or whether we should reduce the debt. Of course we should. The question is how we do it. And we should do it in a way that doesn't damage the ongoing economic recovery, which this proposal does. We should do it in a way that is balanced, meaning we have shared responsibility. The Democratic alternative that we'll debate shortly has that balance.

We make difficult spending cuts but we also cut a lot of the loopholes and special breaks in the Tax Code because if you don't do any of that to reduce the deficit, it means you've got to reduce the deficit at the expense of everyone and everything else. And that, unfortunately, is what this budget does as well.

It ends the Medicare guarantee for seniors. It slashes Medicaid very deeply, cutting the program by more than a third by the year 2022, where two-thirds of the funding for that program goes to seniors in nursing homes and disabled individuals. It cuts deeply into education funding, both for prekindergarten/preschool as well as college. It cuts deeply into those important investments, including transportation, which we were debating earlier today. In fact, their transportation proposal would cut transportation spending next year by 46 percent, even though we have 17 percent unemployment in the construction industry.

So this budget, like the one yesterday, makes the wrong choices for America. We can reduce our deficits and debt. Let's just do it in a balanced way with shared responsibility.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, the reason the Republican budget and this budget do things like end the Medicare guarantee, do things like cut deeply into education for our kids' future, do things like cut Medicaid by over $800 billion over 10 years, is because they're not asking the very wealthy to share more responsibility in reducing the deficit. In fact, they double down on tax cuts.

If you see from this chart from the Nonpartisan Tax Policy Institute, simply by locking in the portion of the Bush tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, millionaires, on average--people making over a million dollars a years--will get $129,000. Then you heard talk about how they're going to drop the top rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. That would give people earning a million dollars over $265,000.

On top of that, they say they're going to do that in a deficit- neutral manner. Well, to do that, you've got to make up $4.6 trillion in revenue loss. They're going to do it by getting rid of all those deductions. One of the biggest ones is the mortgage interest deduction that helps middle-income people.

So the net result of what they're saying is more tax cuts for the folks at the very top financed by increasing the tax burden on middle- income Americans and financed by cutting important investments that help grow our economy.

With that, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I yield the gentleman from Virginia an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Blumenauer.

Madam Chairman, we'll talk more later about the Democratic alternative and how we address the deficit in a serious and credible way without doing it in a manner that provides a windfall tax break to folks at the top at the expense of everybody else.

For now, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Pascrell.

I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, one thing I hope we can all agree on is that we need to protect our children and grandchildren and future generations. The question is not whether we need to do that. Of course we do. The issue is how. I keep hearing my colleagues come forward and passionately talk about that, but they're absolutely unwilling to take the balanced approach that has been recommended by bipartisan groups. Everyone that's looked at this challenge says we've got to take a combination of tough spending cuts, but we also need some revenue from closing tax loopholes and asking folks at the very top to go back to what they were paying during the

Clinton administration--by the way, the last time that we had a balanced budget.

And yet, despite all that talk, they don't want us to close one loophole. In fact, almost every Republican in this House has signed this pledge to Grover Norquist saying they won't cut one tax loophole for the purpose of deficit reduction; that they won't ask folks making $1 million to contribute any more to deficit reduction. In fact, they propose to give them another windfall tax cut.

That's the choice they make, and because of that choice, they cut our investment in education for our kids. They cut investments that will strengthen our economy, help build our infrastructure so we can outcompete and outbuild and outeducate the rest of the world. That's what we need to do for the future of our children.

I urge everybody to vote against this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.