Providing amounts for the expenses of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the One Hundred Twelfth Congress.

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

Let me start by thanking the chairman of the Budget Committee for the way he's conducted the proceedings in

the committee, and I look forward to a debate on the floor because as the chairman said, we have very deep differences. We do not have a difference on the question of whether or not we should reduce the deficits and the debt. Of course we do. We have a difference over how to do that.

In that regard, Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this Republican plan and in support of the Democratic alternative. The Republican budget on the floor of the House today is simply the sequel to last year's plan--more of the same. It abandons the economic recovery and ends the Medicare guarantee for individuals whose median income is under $21,000 while providing a whopping average tax break of almost $400,000 for people making over $1 million a year. These tax breaks for the very wealthy and the tax breaks for special interests come at the expense of middle-income taxpayers, at the expense of seniors, and at the expense of essential investments to keep America strong.

This Republican plan will weaken economic growth and, according to independent analysts, result in over 2 million jobs lost over the next 2 years. It rewards corporations that ship American jobs overseas while slashing investments in education, in scientific research and infrastructure that help America grow our economy right here at home. In short, it is a path to greater prosperity if you are already wealthy, while leaving seniors, working Americans, and future generations behind.

Mr. Chairman, we gather here at a very important time for our country. As a result of the extraordinary actions taken over the last 4 years and the tenacity of the American people and small businesses, America avoided a second Great Depression, and the economy is slowly recovering. Still, millions of Americans remain out of work through no fault of their own. We must push forward with the recovery, not fall back; and we certainly should not return to the failed economic policies that got America into this economic mess to begin with.

And yet that is exactly what this Republican budget does.

It is a recipe for national stagnation and decline. It retreats from our national goal of out-educating, out-building and out-competing the rest of the world. And it will weaken the economic recovery by slashing investments to important economic growth and expanding those tax breaks that reward corporations that ship American jobs overseas. Even when we have 17 percent unemployment in the construction industry, it cuts critical investments in our transportation systems, including a 46 percent cut in transportation starting next year.

As I mentioned earlier, nonpartisan analysts looked at this and concluded it would lose 2 million jobs over 2 years. So, rather than putting the economy into reverse, we need to move forward. We need to adopt the remainder of the President's jobs plan, a plan that's been sitting here in the House since September.

It's also clear that putting America back to work is the fastest and most effective way to reduce deficits in the short term. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that our weak economy and underemployment is the single major contributing factor to the deficit this year, accounting for over one-third of the projected 2012 deficit. So we need to come up with a credible plan.

The issue, as I said, is not whether but how. Every bipartisan group that has looked at ways to reduce the deficit in a credible way has recommended a balanced approach, meaning a combination of spending cuts and cuts to tax breaks for the wealthy, and the elimination of special interest corporate tax loopholes.

The Democratic alternative provides that balanced approach, while the Republican plan, unfortunately, fails that test. Instead, their plan would again rig the rules in favor of the very wealthy and special interests. That may not be a surprise, since virtually every House Republican has signed a pledge--a pledge--to Grover Norquist saying they will not close a single special interest tax loophole, not eliminate a single oil subsidy for the purpose of deficit reduction, not one penny.

I agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin that we face a real deficit and debt problem. Apparently, the problem is not big enough to ask folks at the very high end of the income scale to contribute one penny toward deficit reduction.

In addition to locking in those parts of the Bush tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the very wealthy, they now have a new round of tax cuts that will provide, on average, a $400,000 tax cut for people making over $1 million a year. That's according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

So, here's the key: because our Republican colleagues refuse to ask millionaires to contribute 1 cent to deficit reduction, they hit everyone and everything else.

Let's take a look at Medicare recipients. They immediately increase costs to seniors for Medicare preventive services and terminate a new service, the wellness programs, that were part of the Affordable Care Act. They immediately reduce support to seniors in the prescription drug plan by reopening the doughnut hole. That decision will cost seniors with high drug costs an average of $10,000 over the next 10 years.

Once again, this Republican budget does not reform Medicare; it deforms it. It proposes to end the Medicare guarantee, shifting rising costs onto seniors and disabled individuals. It gives you the equivalent of a voucher, but if your voucher amount is not sufficient to pay for the rising cost of health care, too bad. Too bad. It simply rations your health care and choice of doctor by income and leaves seniors to the whims of the insurance industry.

Despite claims that market competition is going to bring down those rising costs, the plan creates that artificial cap on the voucher support. Our Republican colleagues say they're using the part D prescription drug plan as a model, but that has no artificial cap. They say it's the same kind of plan offered to Members of Congress under the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, but that has no cap on support from their plans. So, unlike Members of Congress, seniors in Medicare will get vouchers with declining purchasing power relative to rising health care costs.

In fact, if you look at this chart, Mr. Chairman, you will see what the current Medicare plan would provide in terms of the amount of support provided by the plan to the individual on health care. That's the blue line. This is the green line, Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, the plan that Members of Congress are on. As you can see, the amount of the premium support keeps pace with rising health care costs. This red line is the Republican voucher plan that caps the amount an individual can receive and goes steadily downward, giving seniors on Medicare a worse deal than Members of Congress would give to themselves.

Now, Mr. Chairman, this budget also rips apart the safety net for seniors in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as well as low-income kids and individuals with disabilities who rely on Medicaid. Remember, two-thirds of Medicaid funding goes to seniors in nursing homes and disabled individuals, yet that is one of the biggest areas of the Republican budget cuts. It takes a hatchet to Medicaid, slashing over $800 billion and cutting Medicaid by one-third by the year 2022. This is done under the Orwellian title in their plan of ``repairing'' the social safety net. That's like throwing an anchor to a drowning person.

Mr. Chairman, to govern is to choose, and that's what this debate is all about. The choices in this Republican budget are simply wrong for America. It is not bold to provide tax breaks to millionaires while ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors and sticking them with the bill for rising health care costs. It's not courageous to protect tax giveaways to Big Oil companies and other special interests while slashing investments in our kids' education, scientific research, and critical infrastructure. It is not visionary to reward corporations that ship American jobs overseas while terminating affordable health care for tens of millions of Americans. It is certainly not brave to cut support for seniors in nursing homes, individuals with disabilities, and poor kids. And it is not fair to raise taxes on middle-income

Americans financed by another round of tax breaks for the very wealthy. Yet those are the choices made in this Republican budget.

Where is the shared responsibility?

Mr. Chairman, we can and we must do better. Let's reject this budget and adopt the Democratic alternative which provides a balanced approach to accomplishing the goal of reducing our deficits while at the same time strengthening our economy and doing it in a way that calls for shared responsibility.

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

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. Chairman, that was an interesting colloquy, especially given the fact that the Senate has passed a bipartisan transportation bill; again, a bill that has very broad support that, if we took it up today in the House, we could get it passed right now, and it would be good for the economy and good for the fact that we have

17 percent unemployment in the construction industry.

As I remarked earlier, the Republican budget that we're considering would actually cut transportation funding spending outlays by 46 percent next year. That is not good for the economy, and I hope this body will overturn that.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, a couple of points.

The bipartisan bill that came over from the Senate would provide funding fully paid for, offset for 18 months. So you could avoid the big 46 percent cut next year that's in the Republican budget and make sure folks out there who are looking for jobs in the construction industry could get to work.

Secondly, with respect to Medicare, you have two fundamentally different approaches. The approach we had in the Affordable Care Act was to say we need to modernize the Medicare system

by changing incentives. So we reward and incentivize the quality of care, the value of care, not the volume of care which drove up costs.

What we do not do is offload the risk of those rising health care costs onto seniors.

Now the board, the IPAB the gentleman referred to, is specifically prohibited, and I have the language right here, from including any recommendations to ration health care, raise revenue or Medicare beneficiary premiums, whereas the Republican plan expressly works by offloading those risks and those costs onto seniors. A very different approach.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. RYAN from Ohio. Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times: Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982; Highway Revenue Act of 1982; Social Security amendments of 1983; Railroad Retirement Revenue Act, tax increase of 1983; Deficit Reduction Act of 1984; Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985; Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985; Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986; continuing resolution in '87, and a continuing resolution in '88.

The responsible thing to do is to ask Warren Buffett and his friends to help us make sure that these cuts aren't that deep in Medicare and Medicaid and Pell Grants and the other investments that we need to make in this country.

The gentleman is absolutely right about the need to look out for future generations and the issue of the deficit. What I always find staggering is the refusal to close one single loophole-- just one penny--for the purposes of reducing the deficit so that we can address that issue of the deficits in future generations.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz), who has been a great member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, the difference between the President's plan and the Republican budget, the difference between the Democratic alternative and the Republican budget, is that we take a balanced approach. I think everybody understands that spending cuts have to be part of the solution. This Congress acted last summer, cut $1 trillion out of the budget. But the President and the Democratic alternative also understand what bipartisan groups all understand, which is that the only credible way to reduce our deficits is through a combination of spending cuts and cutting some of the tax breaks to special interests and asking millionaires to pay more.

I keep hearing our Republican colleagues come to the floor lamenting the large deficits and debt which we all agree we need to get under control and then refusing to cut one special interest loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit, asking a millionaire to contribute one more penny for the purpose of reducing the deficit.

Now with respect to the issue of Medicare, the reason it's not premium support is, it doesn't provide constant support to the senior on Medicare. Over time, seniors' purchasing power of this voucher will become less and less while the costs go up and up.

I would point out, again, that Members of Congress have for themselves a plan, this green line, where the purchasing power of their health plan stays constant, even as health prices increase. But this red line here is what they would do to seniors on Medicare.

Now I've heard it said a couple of times now that the President allows Medicare to go bankrupt. Mr. Chairman, here is a chart that the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, presented in the Budget Committee. The black line here is the trajectory that they claim for their plan in terms of cost containment. The blue line is what they acknowledge the President calls for.

As you can see, the tracks are very different. This red line is projected cost increase by the Congressional Budget Office. The difference between the approaches is that the Republican plan puts the risk of being wrong here on the senior, whereas the plan we put forward says we need to change the incentive structures, to change the incentives in a way so that providers provide more cost-efficient care rather than putting that risk on the senior. That is the fundamental difference. And AARP, the largest organization of seniors in the country, agrees with what I have just said. They say in their letter:

The premium support method described in the proposal,

unlike private plan options that currently exist in Medicare,

would likely ``price out'' traditional Medicare as a viable

option, thus rendering the choice of traditional Medicare as

a false promise.

They go on to say that the purchasing power of this voucher will not keep pace with health care costs. Let's not put that risk on seniors.

And with that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Castor) who has been just tenacious in making sure that we deal with these issues in a fair and balanced way.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell), who has been fighting for jobs as part of this budget.

I yield the gentleman another 10 seconds.

Madam Chair, somebody who has said let's fix this in an adult way, a balanced way, the way other bipartisan groups have done is Ms. McCollum from Minnesota.

I yield the gentlelady 2 minutes.

If the gentleman will yield, let the record show that in a moment of genuine bipartisanship, I gave the chairman's chart back to him for his own use.

Madam Chairman, the gentlelady who just spoke is correct that under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan that Members of Congress are on that there is a 72 percent for the premium. That's exactly what that steady green line is. And as health care costs go up, the gentlelady will continue through the congressional plan to get a steady amount of support under the Federal health plan that Members of Congress have. Under the Republican budget plan, in fact, that support drops steadily and deeply, which is why it is not premium support.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon, a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Blumenauer.

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I yield the gentleman 15 seconds.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), who has been fighting for education, among other things.

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Madam Chairman, I think we should engage in tax reform, but I don't think we need to wait for tax reform to get rid of some of the subsidies to the Big Oil companies or to get rid of the subsidies for corporate jets. We can do that now as part of a balanced approach.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the newest member of the Budget Committee--we're pleased to have her on the committee--the gentlelady from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).

I yield the gentlewoman another 15 seconds.

These programs will help prepare our future workers for their careers in the next-generation technologies.

There's a stark contrast between the Republicans' budget and what my Democratic colleagues and I are proposing. We're at a fork in the road, and I urge my colleagues to avoid the path to poverty by rejecting the Republican budget and coming together to support the balanced approach.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the distinguished ranking member of the Financial Services Committee.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Chairman, the President's budget and the Democratic alternative also get rid of the sequester, but we replace that with $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction through a balanced way because we think it's more important to protect that defense spending than it is to protect a lot of the special interest loopholes.

Here's the statement from General Martin Dempsey, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he says, with respect to what this budget will do:

It's a force that's prepared to secure global access and

respond to global contingencies. It's a military that can win

any conflict anywhere.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not talking about the Republican budget, talking about the President's budget.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the distinguished ranking member of the Small Business Committee.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), a former member of the Budget Committee.

Madam Chairman, there is no doubt that we have to reduce the deficit and debt for the good of all of our children and grandchildren. The debate today is about how we do it and whether we do it in a balanced way. I would point out the Congressional Budget Office has told us that $2 trillion of the debt over the last 10 years is attributed to the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

We keep hearing today about the need, which we all agree, to reduce the deficit, but we still have not heard a single one of our Republican colleagues say that we should reduce one tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit so we can deal with this in a balanced manner.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the distinguished ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, Mr. Markey.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Madam Chairman, I would point out again, just in response to my friend Mr. Flake, that this is the chart that was used by the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, showing the President's plan on Medicare and the Republican plan on Medicare, both of which have cost containment over the next coming decades. The difference is how you achieve that cost difference.

The difference is that the Republican plan offloads all the risks of what they project to be increasing health care costs on to seniors because, unlike the plan that Members of Congress have, which, as I explained, provides a constant 42 percent premium support share, the Republican plan has the contribution for Medicare rapidly declining relative to the costs of health care, which puts all that risk on seniors.

With that, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Democratic whip, my friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

I yield the gentleman from Maryland an additional 1 minute.

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

The debate we're having here is not whether to reduce the deficit and the debt. We have to do that. The issue is the choices we make in the process.

The President does have a budget; it does take a balanced approach. My colleagues say: Watch out. Well, watch out for the bipartisan Commissions, all of whom have recommended taking an approach that is balanced.

Yes, we have to deal with the spending part. We've cut a trillion dollars. There are additional cuts in these budgets, but we should also end the special-interest tax breaks, and we should ask folks at the very top to take a little bit more responsibility.

Here are the choices that are made in the Republican budget. Here is a very simple one. This is the continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent, $261 billion. Meanwhile, they cut $810 billion from Medicaid. Again, two-thirds of Medicaid spending goes to seniors and individuals with disabilities.

That wasn't enough. They apparently are doubling down on tax breaks that benefit the folks at the very top. This is the amount of tax break millionaires will get from continuing the Bush tax cuts. They've added over $260,000 in additional average tax breaks for people

making over a million dollars. They say they're going to make that up somehow. I'll tell you how they're going to make it up: by increasing the tax burden on middle-income Americans.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished assistant Democratic leader, who has been looking out for average working Americans his entire career, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).

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

I appreciate the comments of the member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Woodall from Georgia, but I don't think the choice the Republicans make

in this budget is the right thing to do. I don't think the American people are going to think it's the right thing to do. I don't think the choice to provide another round of tax cuts for people making more than $1 million a year while ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors who have median income under $23,000 a year is the right choice; and I don't think it's the courageous choice.

Now, I heard Mr. Woodall say that it doesn't change one thing, not one thing in Medicare. That's just not true. This immediately reopens the prescription drug doughnut hole. The Republican plan takes some of the savings we achieved under the Affordable Care Act for Medicare, but instead of using it like we did to help strengthen the prescription drug plan, it reopens it. It does it immediately. That is an additional $10,000 over 10 years for seniors who have high prescription drug costs.

Do you know what else it does immediately? It immediately ends the preventive care services we provided under Medicare. Because we want to encourage seniors to get that early care, so we eliminated the copays. Now they've got to pay that too, immediately.

Now, the gentleman said the President doesn't have a plan on Medicare. I keep having to remind my colleagues that this chart was presented by the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan. And the black line is the Republican plan, and the blue line is the President's plan. The red line is projected health care costs. And the difference between the two plans is that the Republican plan puts all the risk of those rising health care costs on the seniors. And you can see that when you look at this chart. This is current Medicare. It provides constant support for the health care services received by seniors. That's the blue line.

Here's the green line. This is what Members of Congress and Federal employees get. They get a real premium support. As health care prices go up, their premium support stays constant. This red line, that's what happens when you cap the support for seniors, as the Republican plan did. That red line going straight down is the same as that red line going straight up.

The difference between the approaches is we say, Let's modernize Medicare to put greater focus and incentives on the value of care, not so much on the volume of care, which drives up cost. The Republican plan puts all those risks of rising health care costs on seniors.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Democratic leader, someone who has been fighting for jobs, for fairness, and for protecting the Medicare guarantee, Ms. Pelosi.

Mr. Chairman, I would point out that the chairman of the Budget Committee has mentioned a number of times this PolitiFact. I want to read from what PolitiFact said with respect to this. He said that it's true that the term ``terminate'' Medicare, which some had used, was an overstatement. No doubt about it. Just like, apparently, a couple of years ago they've said--what I've heard from a lot of my colleagues that the Affordable Care Act was a ``government takeover of health care.'' I've heard that a lot from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. That was the big PolitiFact so-called ``lie of the year'' a couple of years ago. So let's just be clear.

But this is the important part. It says: If Democrats had just slightly tweaked their statements, they would be accurate. They go on to point out that, for example, when people said the plan last year would privatize Medicare, that was true. And that President Obama was also more precise with his words saying that the Medicare proposal ``would voucherize the program and you potentially have senior citizens paying 10,000 or more.'' They didn't say that was false.

What we have said, what I have said very carefully all along is that it ends the Medicare guarantee. And I firmly believe it ends the Medicare guarantee for this reason, for this reason right here: this is the current Medicare plan support for seniors in terms of the percent that they have to pay, that blue line, steady support. Green line demonstrates steady support that Members of Congress get from the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan. Red line is what happens when you put seniors into the private health care market but you don't allow their premium support to rise with the projected rise in health care costs. Red line, down. I think that does end the Medicare guarantee.

With that, 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 keep hearing my Republican colleagues say that their plan will provide seniors with affordable premiums for their health care services. I just keep asking myself why it is that their plan gives seniors on Medicare a much worse deal and a lot less support than the plan Members of Congress have under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. That is a real premium support plan. That is a plan where the premium support keeps pace with rising health care costs.

So if you're talking about how to deal with Medicare, it seems to me that you should take the approach that we have taken, that the President has taken, where you modernize the system, you change the incentives to put focus on the value of care, on the quality of care rather than the quantity of care.

We're already starting up accountable care organizations. We're already starting up different methods of delivering care and different payment systems. That's a very different approach than putting the burden on seniors and putting the risk on seniors.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady who represents the Nation's capital so well, Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland, put up a chart with the red showing the rising costs of Medicare and said the President has no plan. Well, I wish the gentleman had looked at the chart of the chairman of the Budget Committee. We've seen it a couple of times today. It shows the black line being the House Republican trajectory, the blue line being the President's plan to contain costs. The difference again being that the Republican proposal puts all the risks of rising health care costs onto seniors, whereas the President's plan talks about changing the delivery system in a way to encourage the value of care, focus on the value of care, rather than the volume of care.

I would only point out that we keep hearing about the IPAB. The reality is that anything they would propose, number one, by law cannot ration care. But number two is subject to review and a vote by Members of Congress, the people in this body.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 112.

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

I look forward to working with my friend, the gentleman from Maryland, the ranking member, on what's going to be a long day and a great debate. Let me start this debate, first off, by saying this is what our constituents sent us here to do: to lead, to make decisions, to budget.

I want to start off by saying to the gentleman from Maryland how much I appreciate the adherence to the longstanding protocol in the Budget Committee on how, while we clearly disagree on a lot of the big fundamental

issues, we've been able to conduct this debate in a civil manner. And I'm pleased that that tradition from the Budget Committee is continuing to this day, and I want to simply say how grateful I am for that.

Last year, Mr. Chairman, we passed the boldest budget in recent history, a comprehensive plan to lift the debt and free the Nation from the constraints of an ever-expanding Federal Government. We changed the debate in Washington. Suddenly we're having a debate about how much spending we should cut instead of how much more to spend, how to create jobs the right way, by getting the Federal Government off our backs, by eliminating the debt, and by reforming the Tax Code so that American families and small businesses can create a true economic recovery.

This week, we're prepared to be right here on the floor to take it one step further. We're bringing a 2013 budget, which we call the Path to Prosperity, which does this: it cuts $5.3 trillion in spending from the President's budget. It clears the roadblock of the partisan health care law that is now being debated in the Supreme Court because we believe that this partisan health care law is a roadblock to bipartisan reform. It puts our budget on the path to balance and a path to completely pay off our debt.

By contrast, look at what other leaders are doing today. The President sent us a budget last month, the fourth budget in a row, which proposes to do nothing to pay off the debt, let alone ever get the budget in balance. The President gave us a budget with the fourth trillion-dollar deficit in a row, ignoring the drivers of our debt, doing what his budget says, ``advancing the deterioration of our fiscal situation.''

The President's Treasury Secretary came to the Budget Committee and said:

We are not saying we have a solution to the long-term

problem. We're just saying that we don't like yours.

Well, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Mr. Chairman, by offering empty promises instead of real solutions, the President and his party leaders have made their choice clear. They're choosing the next election over the next generation. Our government, in both political parties, have made decades of empty promises to Americans, and soon those empty promises are going to become broken promises unless we reform government. We're borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. It can't keep continuing.

We're offering Americans a better choice. We're offering Americans solutions. And let me just quickly walk you through just the kind of situation America faces today. This is what the Congressional Budget Office tells us we're looking at--a crushing burden of debt that is not only going to affect our children's generation by denying them a better standard of living, a prosperous future, but it's going to put our own economy into a tailspin. All the experts came to the Budget Committee and told us we don't have much time left to avert this tidal wave of debt.

Now, what's the rush? Why do we need to move so quickly? Because, Mr. Chairman, every year we don't do something to fix this debt crisis, we go that much deeper into the hole. That many more trillions of dollars of empty promises are being made to the American people.

Back in 2009, we asked the General Accountability Office how many empty promises is our government making to today's Americans? In 2009 they said, $62.9 trillion. Then we said in 2010, how many empty promises now? Now it's $76.4 trillion. Today, just 1 year later, they're now saying last year's stack of empty promises to Americans was $99.6 trillion. It's impossible to get your mind around these numbers.

What does that mean? That means if we want our government to keep all of the promises it is now making to current Americans--my mom's generation, my generation, and my children's generation--we have to, all of a sudden, invent, create and come up with about $100 trillion today and invest it at Treasury rates just so we could have the money to keep these promises government is making. That's impossible. It can't be done. We know that.

So it's time to stop lying to the American people. It's time to be honest about the situation we're in and then start fixing the problem because every year we go over $10 trillion deeper in the hole. Every year we go that much closer toward a debt crisis where government reneges on its promise to Americans. The people who need government the most--the poor, the sick and the elderly--they're the ones who get hurt first and the worst in a debt crisis.

What is the primary driver of this crisis? Spending. What the Congressional Budget Office tells us is spending is on course to double by the time my kids are my age and then double again over the course of this century. Revenues are going back to where they historically have been, but spending is on an unsustainable trajectory. And when you have to borrow that much money, when you have to borrow 40 cents on the dollar, just look at where it's coming from. This is not the 1970s where our debt was relatively pretty small and we borrowed about 5 cents on the dollar from foreign countries; and it's not the 1990s where our debt was getting big, and we borrowed at 19 cents from foreign governments.

Today, in 2012, 46 percent of our borrowing in this country-- borrowing that's bigger than our economy now--comes from other nations, China being number one. We can't keep relying on other governments to cash flow our government. We are ceding our sovereignty and our ability to control our own destiny as a country when we have to hope that other countries will lend us money. We've got to get this under control.

Lastly, Mr. Chairman, here's what this budget does in a nutshell. It says, Let's get ahead of this problem. Let's preempt a debt crisis, and let's do it in a way so we can do it in a gradual way. Let's do it in a way so that we can preempt and prevent a debt crisis on our own terms as Americans. Let's not wait until we have a crisis. Let's not wait until interest rates go up and we're in sort of a European meltdown mode. Let's do it right, and do it now, because then we can keep the promises that government has made to people who need it the most-- people who are already retired, people who are about to retire, the people who rely on government. You have to reform government to do that.

Instead of this mountain of debt, the Path to Prosperity budget puts our deficit and our debt on a downward slope and pays off the debt entirely over time. That takes time, that takes will, and it begins now. In short, Mr. Chairman, if we don't tackle these fiscal problems soon, they're going to tackle us as a country.

The best way to do it is put the kinds of ideas and reforms in place that grow the economy, create jobs, and get us back on a path to prosperity. We believe in the Founders' vision of the American idea. Your rights come from God and nature, not from government; and we believe in the freedom to pursue happiness. That means we want prosperity, we want upward mobility, and we want freedom and opportunity. Freedom and opportunity are gone if we have a debt crisis.

So what we're saying is let's do everything we can to get this economy growing, to get people back to work and back on their feet, and let's get our spending under control. Let's get our borrowing under control, and let's reform those government programs that are the primary drivers of our debt so that we can fulfill that great legacy that all of our parents told us about when we were growing up in this country, and that is this: each generation in America makes the next generation better off.

We know without a shred of doubt, it's irrefutable, that we're in the midst of giving the next generation a worse-off country, a lower standard of living and a diminished future. We have a moral and a legal obligation to stop that from happening, to pass a budget, to prevent that, to get us back on prosperity and get our debt paid off; and that's precisely what this budget does.

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

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Mr. Mica, for the purposes of a colloquy.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

The gentleman from Florida is correct in his observations that H.R. 7, as considered by the House, is in compliance with the fiscal year 2013 budget resolution before us today. And we look forward to the final, long-term reauthorization bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes just to respond to a few of the things that have been said.

First off, it's not the budget that lowers the highway funding next year by 46 percent. It's the current law that governs the highway trust fund that does that anyway.

Let's remember, Mr. Chairman, the highway trust fund is going insolvent. That's under current law. So our budget simply reflects that current law. But we say, let's go get new sources of revenue from oil and gas exploration to go to the highway trust fund, and let's have a reserve fund so that we can go out and find savings to fix this highway trust fund.

But since those bipartisan negotiations are just beginning to take place, since that conference is beginning to take place, we can't include it in this budget. Therefore, we had the reserve fund to be held in order to accommodate that compromise once it arrives.

Medicare. The growth rate of Medicare under this budget is the same one the President proposes in his budget. So for the chart my friend from Maryland used saying this is what the Republican budget does to growing Medicare out in the future, it's the same one President Obama proposes.

Here's the difference: President Obama, in his law, the one being debated over at the Supreme Court, says 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats will be in charge of putting price controls and cuts to Medicare to accommodate that growth rate versus our plan to put 50 million seniors in charge of choosing what health care plan is best for them. More for the poor, more for the sick, less for the wealthy; and it makes Medicare solvent.

Here's the catch: we don't change the benefit for current seniors. This system applies to younger people. Unlike the current law that the President passed, that my friend voted for, 15 bureaucrats are in charge of putting price controls on current seniors' medical care which leads to denied care for them.

So if we're talking about who's saving and strengthening Medicare, it is this budget as opposed to the status quo which raids it, rations it, and still allows the program to go bankrupt.

With that, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire, a member of this Budget Committee, Mr. Guinta.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to simply say that I keep hearing this word, ``voucher.'' I'm told it polls well if your goal is to try and scare senior citizens. What we're talking about in here is to build upon the bipartisan reforms that have been advocated in the nineties, in the early part of this decade, and most recently on how best to save and strengthen the Medicare guarantee.

First, no changes for anybody in or near retirement in Medicare.

Second, when people 54 or below become Medicare eligible, they'll get a list of guaranteed coverage options from Medicare from which to choose, just like we do as Members of Congress, including, in this case, the traditional Medicare program. Medicare will subsidize their premiums from the plans they choose. If you're low-income or sick, you'll get much more. You'll get total coverage--no out of pocket--for a low-income person; and we say, if you're a wealthy person, you can probably afford more out of pocket, so you're not going to get as much of a subsidy.

That premium grows. We competitively bid. The plans must offer the basic benefit so it protects against health inflation; and as a backstop, it grows no faster than what the President proposes in his.

In yielding myself 30 additional seconds, Mr. Chairman, here is the difference:

The President's is different. He allows Medicare to go bankrupt. Yet, even with that, he takes a half a trillion dollars from Medicare to spend on his new health care program for other people, and he puts a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of denying care by denying prices. It says you can go and cut reimbursement rates to providers and that you can do a values-based benefit design, which is what they propose--whatever that means--to affect current seniors.

We reject the idea that Medicare should be run by 15 unelected bureaucrats. Instead, we want to preserve it for the current generation.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the House Republican Conference, a former member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

I yield the gentleman from Texas an additional 3 minutes.

I yield the gentleman from Texas an additional 1 minute.

To catch up on time, does the gentleman from Maryland want to yield to another Member?

Madam Chair, the hyperbole knows no bounds these days.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Lankford.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 1 minute to make a statement. I'm pleased my friend from Maryland brought our chart down to the floor with his yellow background.

That's right. I thank the gentleman.

The cap on Medicare that is in law under the President's budget applies to current seniors. That doesn't occur for current seniors in our budget. We don't put this cap because we don't want the 15 bureaucrats putting price controls on care to current seniors. For future seniors 54 and below, Medicare grows at the same rate that the President's budget proposes it grows at. The difference is we don't want the bureaucrats rationing care.

On the purposes of taxes, I love this issue about tax fairness. The President is proposing higher tax rates and more loopholes. Here's the point I'm trying to make.

Yielding myself an additional 30 seconds, I'll say this. If you look at the current code, the top 1 percent of taxpayers get almost all the tax shelters, all the loopholes.

So here's the novel idea that we have come up with, and it's a bipartisan one. Get rid of the tax shelters so you can lower everybody's tax rates. And so a person who is parking their money through an average of about $300,000 in tax shelters, for every dollar in that tax shelter that's taxed at zero, we're

saying get rid of the tax shelter and subject all of their money to taxation so we can lower everybody's tax rates.

I yield myself an extra 30 seconds to simply say when eight out of 10 businesses in America file their taxes as individuals, raising these tax rates hits job creators. Sixty-five percent of net new jobs come from small businesses. Half of Americans work in these kinds of small businesses, and my friends on the other side of the aisle are saying it's not enough that they pay more taxes than their foreign competitors; we need to make them pay a 45 percent tax rate in January.

Well, I've got news for you. Countries around the world are lowering their taxes on their job creators, and the President is proposing to raise it. That is a job-killer.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from the First Congressional District of Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ribble).

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

I yield the gentleman 30 seconds.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), a member of the Budget Committee.

Madam Chair, in 2011 PolitiFact labeled the line ``this ends Medicare as we know it'' as the lie of the year in 2011.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma, a member of the Budget Committee and also, I think, a member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Cole.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Olson).

By that, I am very amused, Madam Chairman.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Palazzo).

Madam Chair, what the gentleman refers to as simple facts was rated the lie of the year by PolitiFact in 2011.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

I yield myself 2 minutes to first say, the gentleman doesn't look a day over a great-great-grandfather.

First off, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the sincerity of the minority whip's sentiment, and he is a man who means that. I know that.

I would say, though, that this process of fixing our country's fiscal path would have been made much better had the President proposed a solution. The President just gave us his fourth budget, and for the fourth time, it doesn't do anything to get this debt under control.

I apologize. I won't because I am under tight time constraints.

And more to the point, Mr. Chairman, the United States Senate, controlled by the gentleman's own party, they didn't pass a budget in 2010; they didn't pass a budget in 2011; and now they've announced courageously that they're not going to pass a budget in 2012 either.

How do you preempt and prevent the most predictable economic crisis in the history of our country, a debt crisis, if the President doesn't propose to do anything about it and the Senate won't even pass a budget?

We're leading; we're passing; we're proposing a solution. We understand the other side would love to just wait for us to offer our solutions to then attack. We don't care about that. We're going to offer solutions. And when we hear the word ``balance,'' watch your checkbook; hold your wallet. It means tax increases. Mr. Chairman, it's math. You literally cannot tax your way out of this problem. The problem we have here is a spending problem. That is why we propose to cut spending.

And with that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 5 minutes to a member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall).

I yield the gentleman from Georgia an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to simply say, yesterday they said we're cutting taxes on millionaires by $150,000, today it's $300,000--it's probably going to be $1 million tomorrow.

What I would simply say is, this line that says we're ending the Medicare guarantee, let me remind you, Chairman, that this was rated the ``lie of the year'' of 2011 by the nonpartisan PolitiFact.

We don't want a rationing board running Medicare. We want seniors in charge of Medicare. We don't want to take more from successful small businesses that create our jobs and make them uncompetitive in the global economy. We want to take special interest loopholes out of the Tax Code to lower everybody's tax rates, but especially those of small businesses that create our jobs. And more importantly, we want to balance the budget, pay off the debt. Ours is the only budget that does that. The so-called ``balanced'' approach by our friends on the other side of the aisle doesn't even pretend to get the debt paid off, let alone under control.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.

Mr. Chairman, let me yield myself 2 minutes to say, you know what ends the Medicare guarantee? The Medicare status quo.

We had the chief actuary of Medicare in the other day. He said it is $37 trillion in the hole. That's the unfunded liability for Medicare.

Look at the driver of our debt. Medicare is growing at such a rate that it goes into bankruptcy, the part A trust fund goes bankrupt in 2021, according to CBO.

Now, what does the President's law, the current law in law, do?

It says we need to slow the growth of Medicare spending by putting a cap over Medicare. That's in law today. And then it says, in order to enforce this cap, we're going to have 15 political appointees that the President will appoint for 6-year terms. They make the decisions. They decide what health care providers can do or cannot do and what they get paid.

The Medicare chief actuary came and told us the other day, they'll start off by paying Medicare providers 80 cents on the dollar to provide Medicare benefits and then go down to 30 cents on the dollar.

You think your doctor's going to do what you need if he gets paid 30 cents on the dollar?

He said that 40 percent of Medicare providers are either going to go out of business or just stop taking Medicare patients altogether. That's the current law. That ends the guarantee.

Here's what we say:

Get rid of the rationing board. Stop the bureaucrats from getting between the doctor and her patients. And don't change Medicare for people 55 and above so that you can keep the promise the government's made to them. But for those younger generations, because the program is going bankrupt, you must reform it in order to keep the promise to current seniors.

I yield myself an additional 1 minute to say this:

And the way we keep the Medicare guarantee is to save this. You get a list of guaranteed coverage options from Medicare, and among those choices are comprehensive private plans and the traditional Medicare option, and Medicare will subsidize your premiums.

Those subsidies go up every year. If you're low-income, all of your out-of-pocket costs are covered. As you get sick, more and more coverage to prevent you from having sticker shock. And if you're wealthy, yes, more will be paid out of pocket because we think you can afford it.

That saves Medicare. That makes it solvent. And the competitive bidding that is done to make those providers compete against each other for our business, using choice and competition, is what the Medicare actuary tells us is the best way to preserve and save the Medicare guarantee.

You see, premium support with competitive bidding ensures guaranteed affordability. This is an idea that has had bipartisan support going back to the nineties. Yet our friends on the other side of the aisle would rather have politics than to really work to save the Medicare guarantee.

I yield 3 minutes to the doctor from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Harris.

At this time, I yield 5 minutes to a senior member of the Budget Committee and also a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Price.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Before I start my formal presentation, let me say the gentleman from Arizona is correct. We do need to take responsibility on both sides of the aisle. Very frankly, I will tell my friend we had an opportunity to take responsibility when the Bowles-Simpson Commission voted. There was a vote in the Senate. It was divided somewhat, but mostly they voted for it in the Senate. We had one of our people from the House vote for it, a Democrat. None of your representatives voted for Bowles-Simpson, I guess, because it wasn't perfect. That was a missed opportunity--it was a doggone shame--because that would have made 14 votes, and we would have had that on the floor in the Senate and in the House. I think this is a missed opportunity because I don't think this is a real document.

Now, frankly, I also think that we had a deal. We had a deal as to what the discretionary number was going to be, or as we call it in the jargon of the House, the 302(a) allocation, which the gentleman as a member of the Appropriations Committee knows about. We had a higher number and you had a lower number, and we made a deal in between. We haven't kept that deal. We haven't kept that deal because you couldn't get the votes in your committee, in the Budget Committee, for that deal.

So here we are, Madam Speaker. The chairman of the Budget Committee has spoken of a choice between two futures. He is correct in framing it this way. The budget he proposes would end Medicare's guarantee, cut taxes for the wealthiest, and place our economic recovery at risk.

Robert Greenstein, head of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, described the Republican budget this way, and I quote:

It would likely produce the largest redistribution of

income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history and

likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other

budget in recent times.

Now, that is not a budget on which we proceed where you have a Senate that is chaired by the Democratic Party, majority leader, and a Democratic President. You're not going to get consensus on that kind of a budget.

So this is essentially a statement of purpose and vision by one party, not a document that anybody thinks is going to pass. However, that is a future we simply cannot afford.

In fact, the Republican proposal is not a realistic budget at all, I would suggest to you. Nobody believes in its premises that we, as a Nation, are suddenly going to decide to savage our domestic programs and leave the most vulnerable out in the cold. That's not America. That's not the values that we share as a country.

This disastrous budget ends the Medicare guarantee, increasing costs for seniors. It cuts Medicaid by a third. That's the most vulnerable in America, the poor in America.

My faith doesn't teach me that's the kind of policy I am going to support. I don't think anybody's faith teaches that. We want to take care of those who need the most help.

It will jeopardize access to affordable health and nursing home care for seniors, the disabled, and low-income families who depend upon it.

Furthermore, it repeals the critical patient protection and cost containment policies of the Affordable Care Act. That will cost us dollars.

Their budget slashes funding for programs that help the vulnerable, enable our children to afford college, and provide health coverage to those with long-term disabilities; and it puts millions of jobs and our economic recovery at risk as a result of drastic spending cuts.

At the same time, the budget extends the Bush tax cuts, including $1 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, and cuts an additional $4.6 trillion in taxes on top of that. In fact, you can get tax cuts up to $10 trillion with the Bush extension and the reduction from 35 to 25.

And, oh, yes, we're going to eliminate preference items. We won't tell you what those preference items are. We don't know when we'll eliminate them, but we're going to eliminate them.

I happen to agree we need to look at preference items. I agree with Mr. Ryan on that proposition. I'm just not very confident that, given what happened in Bowles-Simpson, that anybody has the courage to do so.

It does all that without saying how it will be paid for; but presumably, as I said, by eliminating the deductions that middle class families rely on to send their kids to college and afford their homes.

Let me say this: I have said in the past and I will say it again today, we must have a big, bold, balanced deal. That will affect entitlements, it will affect revenues, and it will affect expenditures.

I will tell my friend of my deep disappointment, because I think the chairman of the Budget Committee certainly is one of the individuals in America who could be a part of the solution but is not being part of the solution, is proposing something that is clearly unacceptable to this side of the aisle, to the President. We need to come together and come to an agreement.

Democrats have proposed a different future: one where we invest in a strong

economy and ask everyone to contribute their fair share; a future where the Medicare guarantee is preserved and seniors' health security is protected; a future where students who work hard, take responsibility for themselves, and get accepted to college won't have to worry about whether they can afford to go; a future where we help businesses create millions of jobs here at home that won't be shipped overseas; a future, ladies and gentlemen, where the deficit is reduced in a balanced way-- that's the key, we all know it's the key--with everyone pitching in.

Any of the Democratic alternatives, in my opinion, will be better than this Republican budget. And I don't agree with everything in each one of those budgets, clearly.

We have a choice today, tonight, tomorrow of two futures, and that choice couldn't be clearer.

Ladies and gentlemen of this House, I urge you to stand together in defeating this budget and passing one that will bring our middle class and working families not a grim future but a bright future.

And in conclusion, let me say this:

Whatever happens to this budget, any of these budgets on the floor, is not going to be the final word. It perhaps will not even be the beginning word. We need to solve this issue, and we need to do it not by pointing fingers at one another, not by pretending that it's going to be simple, not by pretending that we're going to be able to make happy all of our supporters. We won't be. The hole we've dug is way too deep. The decisions we will make are way too tough. And the only way we will make them is to join hands and look the American public in the eye and say, We have to have a balanced deal. We have to do all that is necessary to put this Nation on a fiscally sustainable path for the chairman's children, for the ranking member's children, for my children, my grandchildren, and, yes, my two great-grandchildren.

I thank the gentleman.

Will my friend yield?

I thank the chairman for yielding, and I especially thank him for his national leadership on this pressing issue of the national debt.

Mr. Chairman, last week, Secretary Geithner came up to Capitol Hill to warn of the threat to the American economy of the European debt crisis. Now, Mr. Chairman, the American people know that the greater threat to the American economy is the American debt crisis. We face the absolute worst debt crisis in America's history, and yet it has been almost 3 years since both House and Senate Democrats have submitted a budget--almost 3 full years.

Now, to his credit, the President has submitted a budget. To his shame, it adds $11 trillion to our national debt on top of the $5 trillion that he has already imposed of additional national debt. Mr. Chairman, everyone knows that the spending trajectory of the Federal Government is unsustainable. And what does our President do in his budget? He takes an unsustainable spending trajectory and doubles down. He makes it more unsustainable, which makes it unconscionable. Perhaps worst of all, Mr. Chairman, even though he knows what the drivers of our national insolvency are, he refuses to deal with them.

But don't take my word for it. Listen to the editorial pages of major U.S. newspapers, many of which are pretty liberal in their orientations.

The Boston Herald writes:

President Barack Obama has apparently decided that he is

not going to be part of the solution to the Nation's enormous

deficit, which would make him, yes, part of the problem.

The LA Times:

It's past time for the administration to lay out a credible

plan for bringing the deficit and debt under control. Sadly,

Obama's budget proposal shows that he would rather wait until

after the election to have that reckoning.

USA Today:

The best test of a budget proposal these days is whether it

reins in the national debt. The election year budget

President Obama sent to Congress on Monday fails that test.

It's pretty clear the President's policies have failed and are hampering our economic recovery. Because they have failed, regrettably, our President has resorted to the politics of division and envy, which is fairly evident in his budget. He has not appealed to the better angels of our disposition and not to the noblest aspirations of our fellow citizens. Instead, he appeals to their basic instincts.

The Nation is truly, truly at a crossroads between two very, very different paths. The President's path is one of crushing, unsustainable debt; a massive tax increase on struggling families and small business; and, most troubling, a diminished future for our children and grandchildren. In short, it is the road to becoming a European-style social democracy of the 21st century.

Mr. Chairman, it is past time to quit spending money we don't have. It is past time to quit borrowing almost 40 cents on the dollar, much of it from the Chinese, so we can just turn around and send the bill to our children and our grandchildren.

Where the President and other Democrats have failed to lead, House Republicans, under the leadership of our Budget chairman, Paul Ryan, have acted. We have a vastly different path for America's future. It is a path of opportunity. It is a path for economic growth. It is the path to prosperity, and it is the path of fiscal sustainability that, over time, not just reduces the national debt but will pay it off.

Number one, let's look at the differences. Our budget would absolutely prevent the President's single largest tax increase in American history, $1.9 trillion of new taxes to be imposed upon our job creators and other hardworking Americans. And you know what's ironic, Mr. Chairman? Even if you gave the President every single job-hampering tax increase he's asked for, it's about 16, maybe 17 percent of the $11 trillion he wants to add to the national debt. You can't tax your way out of this problem, Mr. Chairman.

So we know it's the middle-income who will end up paying this.

Second point: we repealed the President's failed health care program, the one that we now understand is going to cost almost $2 trillion, the one that now the Congressional Budget Office tells us will cost almost 2 million jobs, and the one that creates the Independent Payment Advisory Board, as the chairman has said, that includes 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who will begin making health care decisions for our seniors, like my 79-year-old mother, my 83-year-old father. You know, if one of them needs a hip replacement, if one of them needs a heart bypass, I want that decision to be made between them and their doctor, not the 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who have one, and only one, purpose, and that is to impose price controls and ration the quality and access to health care for our seniors.

You know, I hear the buzz line, but it seems to me that ends Medicare as we know it. Looting $500 billion out of Medicare to pay for the President's health care, that seems to end Medicare as we know it. Putting a global price cap, that seems to end Medicare as we know it. And most of all--since we've heard from the trustees of the Medicare and Social Security trust fund that it's going broke--allowing it to go broke, which our friends on the other side of the aisle do, seems to me to be ending Medicare as we know it.

Our budget will end the road to bankruptcy by controlling spending. Under the President's budget, spending has gone from its traditional 20 percent of our economy to 24 percent, and it's on its way to 40 percent over the course of the next generation. Our budget will control spending and limit government so we can have unlimited opportunity.

What is this debate truly about, Mr. Chairman? Here's what I think it's about. And I have shared this correspondence with my colleagues before. I heard from the Calhoun family in Winnsboro, Texas, about this debt. And he wrote me:

Congressman, I have never felt so embarrassed and ashamed

about anything I have done in my life as I do about leaving

this mess in the laps of Tyler and Caitlynn, my precious

grandkids. I have written both of them a heartfelt apology

for them to read when they get old enough to understand what

I allowed our country's governing authority to do to them.

Mr. Chairman, we have no greater moral responsibility than to preserve the blessings of liberty and opportunity for this gentleman's grandchildren and the next generation. It's what we do. We are Americans. We're not just operating on borrowed money. We're operating on borrowed time.

Two paths. Two choices. One duty. I hope history records that we acted worthy of ourselves, that we acted worthy of our forefathers, that we acted worthy of this great Republic for which so many have sacrificed over the years.

No more borrowed time. No more borrowed money. Let's seize the moment in history. Let's adopt the Republican Path to Prosperity budget.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee for yielding to tell him how proud he makes us all for his important work in constructing a Democratic alternative to the Republican budget, that is, Mr. Van Hollen's budget proposal that is a statement of our national values that says to the American people what is important to you about the education, health and well-being of our children, the economic security of their families, and the health security of our seniors, those are important values to us; and those values are reflected in the Democratic alternative.

The Republican Ryan bill, on the other hand, I do not believe is a statement of our national values as to what is important to the American people as reflected in their budget priorities. But you be the judge. Would it be a statement of your values if you had a budget that said to seniors we're going to end the Medicare guarantee and you're going to pay $6,000 or more while you get less in terms of benefits, while at the same time, we're going to give an over $300 billion tax break to the wealthiest people in our country? Would that be a statement of your values, this $6,000 more for seniors with fewer benefits, $300,000 or more to the richest people in our country?

Would it be a statement of your values for you, my colleagues and the American people you represent, if you had a budget that said to Big Oil, we're going to continue to subsidize you to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, but at the same time, we're going to freeze Pell Grants, we're going to eliminate them for 400,000 young people and make them less available to over 9 million young people? Lower the benefits for some, eliminate it for others, and use the money to give tax subsidies to Big Oil, Big Oil which is making tens of billions of dollars in record profits each year?

Would it be a statement of your values if you said in your budget that all of those young people who are now children who have a preexisting medical condition--asthma, diabetes, birth defect--any of those preexisting medical conditions, under present law, under the Affordable Care Act, they may not be discriminated against in obtaining health insurance? But the Republican budget says they should be because we're going to eliminate that.

To the 2.5 million young people who are now on their parents' policies until they're 26 years old, this budget says ``no'' to you too. We're eliminating that. We're too busy giving tax breaks to the richest people in America. And while we're at it, with young people just graduating from college, some of them may have student loans, and in the House budget--thank you, Mr. Van Hollen--in the House budget, we have a provision that says that come July 1, the interest on those loans will not double. We have taken care of that. Under the circumstances, the path we're on, the interest rates would go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. The House Democratic budget says ``no'' to that doubling of interest. The Republican budget keeps it the same.

That's just to name a few things that I think may not be a statement of the values of the American people, whether it's interest paid on student loans, availability of Pell Grants to young people, ending the Medicare guarantee, and as the distinguished ranking member said, right now today, overturning the resources that were put in the Affordable Care Act to reduce, to narrow the doughnut hole. Maybe 5 million seniors have benefited to the tune of $3.2 billion already in the bill. Also, there are preventative services; there are annual wellness visits without a copay.

So we're talking about kitchen table items for people where people are trying to make ends meet, where people wonder about if their children will be able to go to college, and if they do, will they be able to have health insurance so that when they look for a job, they can reach their aspirations without having their choices only narrowed by whether they have health insurance or not until the bill comes into full effect.

So there are just a couple of things that I would want people to know about this bill. They are: ends the Medicare guarantee; ends the Medicare guarantee; ends the Medicare guarantee while making seniors pay more for less, while giving over $300 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country. And by the way, did I mention it? It's a job loser.

So I urge my colleagues to enthusiastically support the House Democratic proposal, which is a statement of our values and which our distinguished colleague will present--I don't know if it's tonight or tomorrow morning. I understand that it keeps changing.

The House Democratic alternative invests in America's priorities, creates jobs, protects our seniors and our students, strengthens the middle class. Democrats protect Medicare; Republicans dismantle Medicare. The Democratic plan asks the wealthiest to pay their fair share and put our fiscal house in order; the Republican plan gives them more than the tax break they've had, they almost double their tax break.

Our Democratic plan reflects the most enduring theme in America, the American Dream. Democrats want to reignite the American Dream, to build ladders of opportunity for all who want to work hard, play by the rules, and take responsibility. It does this by investing in small businesses and entrepreneurialism in our country, by strengthening the middle class. In that regard, we believe that our budget is a statement of our values.

We call upon our Republican colleagues to work with us on a budget that reflects our values. We must work together to protect and strengthen Medicare. We must put people back to work and build a broadly shaped prosperity for all Americans. We must make it in America to stop the erosion

of our manufacturing base. We must rebuild America, putting people back to work. We must do this with community involvement. And all of these things strengthen the middle class, which is exactly what our Democratic alternative achieves.

For the sake of our seniors, for our families, for our children, for our workers, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Republican plan, which ends the Medicare guarantee and makes seniors pay $6,000 or more for fewer benefits while it gives $300,000 in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the United States. And it costs us jobs to do so and doesn't reduce the deficit until nearly 2040. It's not a good deal for the American people. The Democratic budget is.

I urge a ``yes'' on the Van Hollen budget, a ``no'' on the Ryan Republican budget.