Providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 112) establishing the budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2013 and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2014 through 2022, and providing for consideration of motions to suspend the rules.

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.)

I would just urge my friend Mr. Price to again look at the chart presented by the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, which makes it clear that we have different paths, different approaches, with respect to containing costs. Yet, at the end of the day, the trajectories are the same.

I'll say again that if Republicans think the notion of the premium support plan--the voucher plan, whatever you want to call it--which doesn't rise with health care costs, is such a good deal for seniors, why are they giving themselves a different deal in the health care plan for Members of Congress?

I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

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

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lee).

I yield 30 seconds to the gentlelady from California.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Education Committee, Mr. Miller.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to Mr. Welch of Vermont, a gentleman who has been focused on fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield myself the remaining time.

The debate we've had this afternoon is not whether we should reduce the deficit, whether we should reduce the debt, but how we do it, the choices that we make in reaching that goal.

We support what has been described as a balanced approach, the same approach taken by every bipartisan group that has looked at this challenge. That approach says, yes, we need to make cuts. But we should also cut special interest tax loopholes for the purpose of reducing the deficit. We should also ask folks at the very high end of the income ladder to go back to the same tax rates they were paying during the Clinton administration.

Our colleagues reject that balanced approach. I have not heard one of our Republican colleagues say that they're prepared to take one penny from closing a tax loophole, one penny from getting rid of an oil subsidy for the purpose of deficit reduction. When you do that, when you say we're not going to ask the wealthiest to share a greater responsibility, you have to take your budget cuts out on everyone and everything else. That's why they slashed the transportation funding next year by 46 percent, kicking the economy when it's down. That's why they end the Medicare guarantee for seniors. That's why they reopen the prescription-drug doughnut hole. That's why their budget cuts Medicaid by a third, by the year 2022, in the name of repairing the social safety net. That's not repairing the social safety net. That's blowing a hole in protections for the most vulnerable Americans.

That is not a choice the American people want to make. The American people would choose a balanced approach. They would not choose another round of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of seniors, at the expense of middle-income Americans, at the expense of important investments. They would reject that approach.

I urge my colleagues to reject that approach and adopt the balanced Democratic alternative.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 597 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my colleague from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

Mr. Speaker, it's budget day. It's budget day, and we get to begin that in the Rules Committee.

Now, I have the great pleasure in this body, as a freshman, of serving on both the Rules Committee and the Budget Committee, so you can imagine the sincerity with which I bring my enthusiasm to the floor today.

Coming here as a freshman who believes in an open process, who believes that we ought to have the opportunity to bring all ideas before the American people and let the 435 Members of the people's House express their opinion, I'm proud to tell you that the rule that is before us today allows for not one budget to be debated, not two budgets to be debated, not three, not four, not five, and not six, Mr. Speaker; but the rule that we bring today allows for seven different visions of the United States budget to be brought before this institution and debated. That is every single budget that was introduced, offered yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in front of the Rules Committee.

Candidly, had more Members submitted budgets, had we had 11, had we had 12, we would have made those in order, too, because this debate that we will have over these next 2 days, Mr. Speaker, is a debate about the vision that we have in this body for this country. I am so proud of the vision that was voted, reported out of the Budget Committee, and that will be made in order by this rule.

The options we'll have before us, Mr. Speaker, as made in order by this rule, include the President's budget. You may remember last year, Mr. Speaker, the President submitted his budget to Congress and not a single Member of the House offered that budget on the floor. It was offered in the Senate. It didn't get any votes. It was defeated 97 0, but it was offered there. This year, we're going to be able to look at the President's budget and debate that here on the floor of the House for the first time in my term.

We're going to have a budget offered by the Congressional Black Caucus today that lays out a vision for America, that talks about taxation, that talks about revenues and spending and where we should prioritize. We have a bipartisan budget that's been introduced, Mr. Speaker, that will come before the floor of this House, again, to be debated in its entirety. We have the Progressive Caucus budget that's coming. We have the Republican Study Committee budget that is coming. And, Mr. Speaker, we have the Democratic Caucus substitute that is coming, all to compete with, in this grand arena of ideas, the budget that we reported out of the Budget Committee.

I see my colleague from Wisconsin, with whom I have the great pleasure of serving on the Budget Committee. We went through amendment after amendment after amendment--some 30 amendments offered and considered, debated, some with bipartisan support, some with bipartisan opposition--to create this one budget that will be the foundation for the budget debate, Mr. Speaker, if this rule is enacted.

I don't know how we could have done it any better in the Rules Committee. I hope that's what we'll hear from my friend from New York.

Again, every single budget that was offered--and that was the invitation put out by the Speaker, just to be clear. The openness and the invitation was, Mr. Speaker: Come one, come all. If you have a competing vision, send it to the Rules Committee. We'll make it in order on the floor so that we can have the kind of open debate that's going to make America proud.

This is the beginning of that, right here, Mr. Speaker, right now.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that I think the gentlelady from New York is right on target. I mean, these budgets are moral documents. They talk about our priorities as a people.

I tell folks back home, Mr. Speaker, and we don't have any young people on the floor with us today, but for all those young folks who are entrepreneurs, Mr. Speaker, who want to go out, and they don't want to work for the Man, they want to go out and hang out their own shingle, run their own business; you know, if they lost, at their small business, beginning on the day Jesus Christ was born, $1 million a day, and they lost $1 million a day at that small business every single day from the day Jesus was born, 7 days a week, through today, Mr. Speaker, they would have to continue to lose $1 million a day every day, 7 days a week for another 700 years to lose their first trillion dollars. Their first trillion.

And the budgets that have been passed by this House and by the United States Senate and signed by Presidents of both parties have saddled our young people today in America with more than $15 trillion--not $1 trillion, Mr. Speaker--$15 trillion and climbing, soon to be 16.

So when we talk about the morality of our budgets, we've got to talk about the morality of continuing to run budgets that are unbalanced. We've got to talk about the morality of continuing to pay for our priorities today with IOUs from our children in the future. We've got to talk about the prosperity that we experience today that we're trading away the prosperity of the future to have.

Health care, Mr. Speaker. It's going on right across the street. The longest line in Washington, D.C., today is right out there at the Supreme Court, folks who want to get in and find out what's going to happen.

Well, the budget that makes up the foundation of this debate that we'll have assumes the President's health care bill is going to go away. It assumes the Supreme Court Justices will accurately conclude that this mandate is unconstitutional, that the whole house of cards unfolds beyond that, and we'll start again.

And you know what's interesting?

Again, I'm so proud to be a member of this Budget Committee that I do think is doing it better than we have done it in the past under both parties. You know, had the President's health care bill come to the floor of this House five pages at the time, 10 pages at the time, 20 pages at the time, I would wager that this House would have passed the majority of it. In fact, I would wager that the American people would have approved and been enthusiastic about the majority of it.

But what has happened in this House too often, Mr. Speaker, is that we take those policies that we can all agree on, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, we decide that it would be bad if we all agreed on good policy, and so we begin to stuff things in there that we know are going to create controversy.

We just manufacture an argument that we don't have to have, and that's what happened to the President's health care bill. There was this nugget of the individual mandate, that theft of freedom, a new definition about what it means to be an American. We knew that the body wouldn't support that so we began to add on sweetener after sweetener after sweetener. We could have just voted on those sweeteners.

This rule doesn't put up with that, Mr. Speaker. This rule says we're not going to try to buy anybody's vote on the floor, we're not going to try to hide the ball in these budgets. Every single Member of Congress who has a vision of America, who has a vision of the morality that my colleague from New York discussed, who has a vision of what we could be as a people if only we had the political will to implement it right here. Each and every Member of Congress was invited to put that vision forward.

There are at least two visions that we'll have today, Mr. Speaker, and tomorrow that I plan to support, visions that I think outline that correct vision of how we can retain America's economic prosperity, how we can continue to be a leader in the free world.

But I support bringing to the floor those budgets that I do not believe in because just because those folks in north metro Atlanta, Mr. Speaker, just because those folks in the Seventh District of Georgia that I represent don't approve of every budget doesn't mean that those budgets don't deserve a vote, and that is a fundamental difference between the leadership that this Speaker has brought to this Institution and the leadership that we have had from both parties in years past.

What we've said is every single idea is worthy of consideration--win or lose. Win or lose, bring those ideas to the floor for debate, and let's see where the votes fall.

Mr. Speaker, again, as a member of both the Budget Committee and the Rules Committee, I am strongly supportive of the underlying budget bill but particularly proud of this rule that makes every other budget option in order as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I appreciate the comments of my colleague from California, and I know her concern for America's seniors is heartfelt, and it's one that I share as well; and I hope that she will support this rule that allows for a series of votes on many different Medicare solutions. Some solutions are better than others; but even if she opposes the underlying budget, I do hope we'll have her support on the rule, because we do lay out the opportunity for folks to choose among seven different visions for solving the Medicare challenge.

I don't have the charts with me down here on the floor. I know my colleagues on the Budget Committee will bring them during the main debate; but I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, and I can picture the charts in my mind, if you charted Medicare spending going out from 2020 to 2050, that two-generation horizon heading out there, and you charted the President's commitment to spend dollars on Medicare, and you charted the Budget Committee's commitment to spend dollars on Medicare, you'd find that the dollar value commitment is about dollar-for-dollar going out over that 30-year window.

So the question then, Mr. Speaker, is not about how much money is this Congress committing, the question is to what priorities is this Congress committing that money.

Now, the President's budget, which we'll have an opportunity to debate and vote here on the floor of the House, turns those Medicare financing decisions, those decisions about how to save money in the system, over to what we've all come to know as IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, to make recommendations and suggestions about how to clamp down on costs.

Now, generally, that means clamping down on reimbursements to doctors.

What the Budget Committee budget does, Mr. Speaker, is give those dollars to individuals so the individuals can enter the marketplace-- not a free-for-all marketplace--but a regulated and guaranteed marketplace where policies are guaranteed to these seniors so that individuals can then control those dollars and make their own choices about health care decisions.

So just to be clear, we're not arguing about dollars and cents in Medicare. The President's vision and the Budget Committee's vision is virtually identical.

What we are talking about, though, is who controls those dollars. Are they controlled by a one-size-fits-all 1965 Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, soon to be revised by the IPAB board, or are they controlled by my mother and my father and your mother and your father and our neighbors, our aunts and uncles, individuals, Americans who will make those health care decisions for themselves.

Again, for me that choice is clear. Individual freedom will always be my choice over government control.

But getting back to the actual rule, Mr. Speaker, that's what's so wonderful about the way this Rules Committee has operated and this resolution that we have before us today. You're not restricted to just voting on my vision of solutions for this country. We're offering six other visions as well. In fact, we're offering every single vision that has come out of this U.S. House of Representatives so that we can have a free, open, and honest debate and let the American people know what their true choices for freedom are.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to say to my friend from Connecticut, because I can see her passion--again, I know it comes from the heart--your mother will be in no way affected by the budget that we're voting on today, and I would like to make that clear if anybody else is concerned about their mothers. For folks who are aged 55 or older, there is not one word in the Republican budget plan that changes the commitment that we've made to folks over the past three or four decades. That commitment since 1965 remains as solid today and tomorrow under the Budget Committee budget as it has ever been.

The alternative, Mr. Speaker, is to take our 98-year-old mothers and turn them over to IPAB. Now, again, there are choices here. The Republican budget, which has become the House Budget Committee budget, allows everyone in the current Medicare system and those 55 years of age or older to experience no changes whatsoever to that program guaranteed from 1965. Because the dollars still have to be regulated and because we still have to protect this program from bankruptcy, which is a program important to so many of us, the alternative is to turn it over to this government board and to let them cut costs where they can.

Let me tell you a story, Mr. Speaker, if I can just take a moment of personal privilege.

I was talking with a physician from back home in Gwinnett County, my hometown. He is a neurologist, Mr. Speaker. He has been practicing neurology for 17 years, and he is the youngest neurologist in the county. This is one of the largest counties in

the State of Georgia, which is one of the largest States in the Nation, and we haven't had one new neurologist coming into our area in 17 years. This doc says he's thinking about getting out. He has got an uncle who is a primary care physician in south Georgia, a primary care physician who is the only one to accept Medicaid, Mr. Speaker, in a five-county radius.

Folks say that there is this guarantee of health care. Let me tell you, if you can't find a doctor who will take you, your insurance card isn't worth much.

What we have to do, Mr. Speaker, is to restore the promise of America's health care system. What is it about the American health care system that's driving our doctors into retirement? Is it that we're not clamping down enough and that if only we had the IPAB board clamp down even more that it's going to increase access to care? I tell you that it's not, Mr. Speaker.

There are lots of different ways to prepare budgets, and I didn't know what to expect when I got on the Budget Committee, Mr. Speaker. I'll be honest. It could easily degenerate into a political exercise. I've seen it happen. It could become all about the right talking points and about all the right focus group conversations and have nothing to do with how we should actually lead this country forward--but not so on the Chairman Paul Ryan Budget Committee. In meeting after meeting, in conversation after conversation, in argument after argument, this Budget Committee chairman said there is one way to do a budget, and that is to do a budget with honest numbers and honest priorities that lay out in plain vision, for all to see, our vision of America's future--and he did it. He did it. He did it with the help of a very competent Budget Committee.

Again, as I look to my friend from Wisconsin with whom I share the bottom dais there on the Budget Committee, he did it with lots of input and lots of conversation; but he did it in a way so that no one would say they're just gaming the numbers, so that no one would say this is all about politics, and so that everyone who comes to the floor of this House can vote for this House Budget Committee reported budget with the pride of knowing it was put together with integrity about a vision for a better future. Again, we are going to have six other competing visions, Mr. Speaker. I can only hope that those numbers, those charts, those graphs were put together with the same care and integrity that Chairman Ryan used in the Budget Committee.

For folks who are trying to make up their minds about where they're going to cast their votes today, again I urge the strong support of this open rule that allows for the complete debate over all of these alternatives; but I also encourage my colleagues to give a look at that work product that we created on the House Budget Committee, a work product that I believe, Mr. Speaker, is crafted in a way that can make every Member of this body proud.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my colleague from Wisconsin that her words are always among some of the most powerful that we have on the Budget Committee, and I don't believe I've ever heard her speak from a place that was not of conviction. I want to say I appreciate those words, and you have my support on the Rules Committee. If we can get that bill reported out of Judiciary, I would love to see that in the Rules Committee and would love to see us report that to the House floor for that same kind of free and open debate that we are having today on the Budget Committee, and I appreciate the words that you shared.

I must say, though, Mr. Speaker, I have a tough time connecting the Violence Against Women Act with these budgets. I will disagree with my colleague from Wisconsin and will encourage folks to support the previous question so that we can have this budget debate. Should we have the debate that my colleague is discussing? I believe we absolutely should. Again, I know the committees of jurisdiction are working on that, and my hope is that they will report that and send that to the Rules Committee.

But today, Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity. It's not an unprecedented opportunity, but it's one of the rarest of opportunities that we have here in the House, which is to have a debate on the floor that includes every single idea that any of our 435 Members have offered as a vision of how to govern this land, of how to set our fiscal priorities, of this morality that is deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars. We must seize that opportunity today. It's one that comes but once a year, Mr. Speaker; an opportunity but once a year to set these priorities. And again, the Rules Committee has provided time not just today but tomorrow as well to make sure we can thoroughly flesh out each and every one of these ideas and make sure that no one's voice on the floor of this House is silenced.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

I appreciate the comments of my friend from New York. We serve together on the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, and we grapple with tough issues on the Rules Committee every single time we meet. There's no easy day on the Rules Committee. Every bill is a challenge because of the different ideas that folks have to make it better. But what I've learned in that time, Mr. Speaker, is that I'm not the smartest guy in the room, I'm not the smartest guy in this Congress, and I'm not the smartest guy in my district.

There's a reason we have regular order here in the U.S. House of Representatives, so that even a good idea we can make better.

I have some folks come to me in my district and they say, Rob, why is it that you put that hospital funding that we need in the transportation bill? Those things don't have anything to do with one another. Why do you combine those two things? If it's a good idea to pass the transportation bill, let's pass the transportation bill; and if it's a good idea to pass the hospital bill, let's pass the hospital bill. But why do you put these disconnected things together? Why do you try to fund a new military procurement program in the environmental and National Park funding? Why do you stick those things together, Rob? They don't have anything to do with one another.

I actually campaigned on that issue, Mr. Speaker, because I think they're right. I think that the American people deserve an up-or-down vote on one issue at a time. I think my colleague from New York, my colleague from Connecticut, my colleague from the District of Columbia, and my colleague from Wisconsin make extremely compelling cases for why we should see the Violence Against Women Act come through regular order.

But my understanding is--and I would be happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken--my understanding is the bill was just introduced yesterday, that it hasn't had an opportunity to go through those committees where folks know so much more about these issues than we do in the Rules Committee or in the Budget Committee; that it has not had an opportunity to be amended and improved, to have the opportunity for those Members for whom this is a heartfelt and compelling issue to put in their two cents to make it even better.

I think it should have that opportunity, Mr. Speaker. I encourage folks to vote ``yes'' on the previous question so that we can move forward to debate these budgets today, and then I urge my colleagues-- let me say it, Mr. Speaker, because I know folks are watching this on the screens back in their rooms--the bill number of the Violence Against Women Act is H.R. 4271, Mr. Speaker. There's no question-- because this is a House where folks believe in regular order--that the more cosponsors a bill accumulates and the faster it accumulates them, the more likely it is to end up on this floor in haste, rapidly, immediately in order to have a hearing.

I would encourage my colleagues to go and look at that bill again just dropped yesterday, but certainly something that I know this House and the Judiciary Committee and others are going to want to consider.

The opportunity we have today, though, Mr. Speaker, with this rule, is to define our national vision. I don't mean our vision for just the Nation, our land, Mr. Speaker. I mean a vision for us as a people. Who are we as a people, Mr. Speaker?

I heard one of the Presidential candidates speak the other day and he said, This year we don't need politicians that we can believe in; we need politicians who believe in us.

I thought that was pretty profound. I don't need somebody I can believe in. I need somebody who believes in me. That's true, Mr. Speaker.

We lay out all of these different competing budget visions here, the summaries of which I hold in my hand. My question to my colleagues is: Which of these visions do you believe believes in you? Which of these visions lays out that future of America that is best for you and your family, that is best for your constituents and their families, that is best for your State, that is best for our Nation?

The visions are starkly different, Mr. Speaker. Again, the base bill is the bill that we reported out of the Budget Committee. That is the base text. These are substitutes for that.

For example, we have a bipartisan substitute--Republican and Democratic Members of the House--that raises taxes by $2 trillion more. To be perfectly accurate, it's $1.8 trillion more than the Republican budget that the committee passed. It spends $3.1 trillion more. It focuses on different priorities. The debt increases by about $1.4 trillion. That's the cost of those priorities. Again, some priorities may be worth that cost. We'll have that debate on the floor.

The ranking member on the Budget Committee, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maryland, his budget substitute also raises taxes by $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years more than the House Budget Committee budget does and spends $4.7 trillion more than the House Budget Committee budget does and thus adds $2.9 trillion more to the backs of our children.

As I said, Mr. Speaker, about $15.5 trillion today, soon to be $16 trillion, that we've borrowed and spent, that

we've impoverished our children with so that we can live today at the standard of living that we have, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman from Maryland's substitute increases that by $3 trillion more than does the House Budget Committee report.

Do the priorities that he spends on merit that kind of increase? Do the priorities that he focuses on merit that kind of debt increase? Perhaps they do. We're going to have that debate on the floor of the House, Mr. Speaker.

The Congressional Black Caucus substitute raises taxes by $6 trillion over 10 years, more than the House budget bill does, and it spends $5.3 trillion more, which means the Congressional Black Caucus substitute actually reduces the national debt more than the House Budget Committee does. Now, it does so by raising taxes $6 trillion, and it only reduces the debt by under $1 trillion, but that's one of those priorities that folks have had the courage to lay out here on the floor of the House that we're going to make in order.

My colleague from New York, the chairman from California, this Budget Committee of men and women, Mr. Speaker, has made every single option available.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, Mr. Speaker, their proposal is to raise taxes by $6.8 trillion more than the Republican Budget Committee budget, the budget that was passed out of the entire Budget Committee. It increases spending by about $6.6 trillion, one of the highest spending of the bunch, again, focusing on priorities that all 435 Members of this House deserve an opportunity to hear and an opportunity to consider.

We have an opportunity in this House, Mr. Speaker, to do great things. We have an opportunity in this House to stand up for the priorities that are the priorities of our constituents back home. And we don't have to vote on 100 different ideas in one bill, Mr. Speaker. In the 15 months I've been here, Mr. Speaker, all but about five of the bills have been short enough for me to read; I don't have to staff it out, and I don't have to have a team of speed readers out there working through it. All but about five have been short enough for me to read.

That's a source of great pride for me on the Rules Committee, because I've told folks back home and folks believe it back home that we ought to have time to carefully deliberate each and every thing. Folks are tired of 1,500-page bills. Folks are tired of 2,500-page bills. Folks are tired of the defense bill being merged with the transportation bill which is merged with the health care bill which is merged with the national parks bill which also funds the White House. That's crazy, and it doesn't have to be that way. There's not one rule of this House that requires that nonsense to go on. In fact, the opposite is true. The rules of the House were actually created to prevent that from going on, and we have to work really hard to pervert the process in a way that makes that possible.

This Speaker has made an effort unlike any I've ever seen to try to have one idea at a time down here on the floor of the House, one idea at a time so that the American people's voice can be heard. If we bring a bill to the floor, Mr. Speaker, that supports dogcatchers on the one hand and hospital funding on the other and somebody votes ``no,'' what are they voting ``no'' on? Are they voting ``no'' on the dogcatchers or are they voting ``no'' on the hospital? You can't tell. And that's what happens. Have you seen that?

Have you ever wondered why it is, Mr. Speaker, that in our appropriations process the food stamp language and the agricultural subsidy language is in the same appropriations bill? I always wondered. I started thinking about it as I watched the votes going on the board, and what I figured out is that we don't have enough farmers in this country for everybody to vote to increase farm spending, and we don't have enough folks with high food stamp populations in their district to support having high food stamp spending, but when you combine those two groups together, guess what? You get 51 percent of this House and you can make things happen.

Well, I guess I support the ingenuity of folks who find ways to cobble a multitude of ideas together and find 51 percent, but I ask my colleagues, is that really what our constituents sent us here to do? Is cobbling together multiple ideas and just trying to game the system enough to find your 51 percent, Mr. Speaker, is that really what our Framers intended? Or, alternatively, should we commit ourselves to not just having an open process, Mr. Speaker, but an open process on a single idea?

Do you know what I found on the Rules Committee? And it was a surprise to me--and if you haven't had a chance to serve on the Rules Committee, it might not be intuitive to you--but when you bring a small bill to the Rules Committee, when you focus on one single idea, when you find one priority that you want to make the law of the land and you send that to the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, then the amendment process is only open to amendments that are germane to that underlying idea. If you bring a bill about hospital funding to the Rules Committee, well, then, the only germane amendments that will be considered are amendments that have to do with hospital funding.

So the shorter we make these bills and the more single-minded we make these bills, the more open we can have the process here on the House floor. Mr. Speaker, this freshman class is full of a bunch of CEOs from the private sector, folks who ran for Congress because they're worried about the direction of this country, and they said, Dadgumit, I've got to step up; I've got to run, and I've got to be a part of the solution. And they get here thinking that they were going to be able to do it all overnight. It turns out there are 435 of us, and we all have the same voting card. It's harder. Nobody is king of the world in here. It's one man, one woman, one vote, and there are 435 of us. You've got to find that agreement.

Well, it turns out there really is a lot of agreement, not just agreement on the Republican side of the aisle, not just agreement on the Democratic side of the aisle, but agreement across this whole House when we open up the process and allow the House to work its will.

Mr. Speaker, that is what we have here today. We have a rule that opens up the process, that flings open the doors of democracy and lets every single idea be considered.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage an affirmative vote on the rule.

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

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 just have one more request for time, and then I will reserve the right to close. And I understand the gentleman has a number of other requests, so perhaps he would like to continue with his speakers?

Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

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

I am the last speaker. I reserve the right to close. So I will let the gentleman from Maryland use up all his time.

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

When we confronted the 2008 economic crisis, which launched us into the worst recession since the Great Depression, which threw millions of people out of work, which lost trillions of dollars in wealth in retirement savings for millions of Americans, that crisis caught us by surprise. We didn't see it coming. Out of that came very ugly legislation that lots of us supported.

Mr. Chair, this one is the most predictable economic crises we've ever had, and we have a Senate that has chosen for 3 years in a row to just do nothing. We have a President who, for the fourth budget in a row, proposes to do nothing to fix it. In fact, he makes it worse.

Here is what we're trying to do. We're trying to go to the country and offer them a solution. We don't think the country is headed in the right direction right now because a debt crisis is coming. So we feel morally bound and actually legally bound because the Budget Act requires that we pass a budget to offer a solution and an alternative: fundamental tax reform to get job creators creating jobs; take away the special interest loopholes and tax shelters and treat everybody fairly; stop raising the tax rate on successful small businesses to 45 percent, like is going to happen in January, and instead keep their tax rates low so they can create jobs; control spending; reform our welfare system.

We believe the American idea is essentially an opportunity to decide if the safety net--and we believe in a safety net that is there to help people who cannot help themselves, and to be there to help people who are down on their luck get back on their feet. But we do not want to convert this safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency which drains them of their will and their intentions to make the most of their lives.

We believe in a system of upward mobility and opportunity. We believe when we see Medicare and Medicaid going bankrupt that we should fix that. Let's let the States innovate, create, and have good solutions that meet the needs of their populations by giving them more control over Medicaid. They run it already right now. They just have all these government rules and regulations from Washington.

Stop the rationing board from denying care to current seniors. Get rid of that, and replace it with a guarantee that current seniors get the promise made to them and future seniors actually have a program that's solvent. So instead of having 15 bureaucratic elites price- control their program, allow 50 million seniors in the future to choose which one they want the best. One-quarter of seniors already today pick among the private plans that meet their needs. We want to keep giving them the choices.

At the end of the day, it's about a choice of two futures: Do we want this path of debt, doubt, and decline where we have a debt crisis, where the people that get hurt first and the worst are those who need government the most--the poor, the people in the safety net, and the elderly who depend on Medicare--or are we going to get this debt under control and pay it off and give our children a better future?

At the end of the day, it's a philosophy. What the other side is doing and what the President is proposing is that elites in the bureaucracy who are unelected, they make the decisions. In my judgment, Mr. Chairman, that is paternalistic, it's arrogant, and it's condescending.

So the question really is: Who do you want to be in charge of your life, you or these cronies in government?

Do we want to keep taking money from job creators and from families and sending it to Washington so they can distribute it to their cronies, so they can distribute it to whoever has the clout, and so they can make all these decisions in our lives on health care, financial services, education, the environment, and energy? If we keep surrendering our liberties and our freedom and our dollars, we won't have the right to pursue happiness as we see happiness in our own lives.

The idea of this country is that our rights come from nature and God to us automatically before government. Our rights don't come from government. But the idea that's being perpetrated, the path the President is putting us on, is one where he and his elites in Washington know better. They define our rights for us. They regulate, ration, and redistribute them for us. Whatever you call that, Mr. Chairman, that is not the American idea.

We have a profound responsibility to look our children in the eye, like our parents did to us, and fix this country's problems so they can have a more prosperous future. We know, without a shadow of a doubt-- it's irrefutable--the next generation is going to be worse off. We know that if we allow this debt crisis to continue, if we allow it to kick in--and the experts tell us it could be as little as 2 years away-- everybody is going to get hurt and the economy is going to go down.

We have a moral obligation to do something about that. What we're saying is do it now, do it on our own terms, do it in a way where people can see the reforms that are necessary so they are gradual, and do it in a way so that we can keep the promises the government has made to people who have already retired who count on government the most.

At the end of the day, Mr. Chairman, this is about choices. And we are going to give the country a choice of two futures so they can decide whether or not we want to maintain the American idea in this country.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for his kindness yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee did fine. It was open, and it allowed all the budgets, as he said, to be brought to the floor. It's what we have to work with that is concerning to me because the budget's a reflection of our values and, through that prism, the Ryan budget that we're considering today is morally bankrupt.

The budget that the majority proposes today puts corporations and the wealthiest Americans above the needs of working and middle class families. It increases military spending while slashing the safety net for the middle class and protects tax loopholes for corporations that ship jobs overseas.

In short, this extreme, partisan proposal takes a hatchet to the notion of shared responsibility and places the financial burdens of a generation upon the shoulders of seniors, the poor, and the middle class.

Under this budget, the millionaires will receive multiple tax cuts totaling at least $300,000, and not a single corporate tax loophole will be closed.

Under this budget, we would see the end of Medicare as we know it. In its place, seniors would be offered the option of a fixed price voucher with which they may go into the market to find their own insurance, with no guarantee that the voucher you receive will come even close to covering the cost of the health care.

Meanwhile, the landmark Affordable Care Act, which is the first law to start addressing the soaring cost of health care, would be repealed. Repeal of the law would mean that children under 26 could no longer be insured by their parents, and millions of Americans suffering from chronic diseases could once again be denied care.

I don't think many Americans--certainly, I didn't know it-- understand--I learned this during the Clinton health care debate--that most policies have a yearly and a lifetime limit. As a matter of fact, at that time, when we were debating the Clinton health care plan, that limit was about $1 million, which means that an emergency like head trauma from a car accident, a bike accident, or just a workplace error on a construction site, could lead you to reaching your limit, and you would no longer be eligible for health insurance.

Let me say that in another way. Once you reach that limit with your preexisting condition, you would be uninsurable in the United States for the rest of your life. The health care bill that everybody's talking about now does away with that, both yearly limits and lifetime limits.

Right now, most individuals still face this danger, but thanks to the Affordable Care Act, lifetime and yearly limits will be phased out in 2014. That's a very important part of this bill.

People who want to repeal health care have said absolutely nothing about what they expect to replace it with. We would assume that people with preexisting conditions could no longer get coverage.

Under the Republican budget, those protections would be taken away, and the vulnerable Americans would be left to figure out how to survive on their own.

We talk about the mandate to buy insurance. Right now, under the present law, we are all paying for people who are uninsured. Those people who choose not to buy insurance, who have to go to the hospital for emergencies, or any other reason, are paid for, they are treated, by the law, but we pay the cost. It is estimated in some areas that we spend $1,000 a year more, those of us who are insured, simply to cover the uninsured.

Now, you can continue doing that and paying everybody else's health care costs, or we can keep this health care bill which is so important to us.

The Republican budget not only takes from the poor and gives to the rich, it even fails to fulfill the promise of a balanced budget.

Just this morning, Politico published an article entitled, ``Ryan plan puts GOP in long-term budget bind.'' In the article, the author writes:

It is a bold, even bellicose election-year challenge. But

the strict revenue limits could postpone for a generation the

conserve promise of a balanced budget.

Even the majority themselves admit this plan will add $3.11 trillion to our deficit between 2013 and 2022.

Under the majority's plan, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that all government spending, except for Social Security and paying down the debt, will have to be cut by one-third in order to balance the budget by 2040.

This draconian approach means that seniors and the poor will receive worse health care, our children will continue to learn in crumbling schools, and we will all travel, as usual, on a failing transportation network with bridges that are substandard and roads that are cracking, that is inefficient and totally out of date.

This vision does not reflect the ideals of a better America nor the hopes for a brighter future. It is neither a reflection of the values that I hold dear nor the values of the people that whom I represent.

I join many of my colleagues in supporting the Democrat alternative being offered by Mr. Van Hollen. The Democrat alternative budget supports the creation of jobs in the high-tech and construction fields. It invests in our future by prioritizing education, as we must, also prioritizing health and the economy, and reduces the deficit through responsible spending cuts, with revenue raised by having everyone pay their fair share and by closing corporate tax loopholes.

The Democrat alternative is a thoughtful, balanced approach, one that does not place the entire burden of sacrifice on the backs of seniors, the poor, and the middle class.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the misguided and dangerous proposal before us and, instead, consider one of the numerous alternatives that protect the middle class while reducing our deficit in a responsible way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

[From POLITICO.com, Mar. 27, 2012]

Ryan Plan Puts GOP in Long-Term Bind

(By David Rogers)

Call it the 19 percent solution.

As House debate begins Wednesday, that's the bottom line of

the new Republican budget blueprint, which breaks with the

August debt accords and substitutes a vision of capping

revenue at 19 percent of gross domestic product and scaling

back government to fit into that suit.

It's a bold, even bellicose election-year challenge. But

the strict revenue limits could postpone for a generation the

conservative promise of a balanced budget. At the same time,

deep cuts to health care and education most likely will make

it harder for GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney to appeal to

independents and women voters in the presidential campaign.

Indeed, it's a tight box that Republicans have put

themselves in and one that literally requires a

transformation of government to escape.

Just an upward adjustment of revenue to 20.25 percent of

GDP would bring Washington into balance by 2023 under the

same House plan. But the party's anti-tax stance precludes

that, and it is not until 17 years later that an extended

forecast by the Congressional Budget Office shows a modest

surplus in 2040.

By that date, all government spending--except Social

Security and payments on the debt--would have had to have

been cut by more than a third to reach this goal. Even in the

wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget tilts

heavily toward defense spending at the expense of domestic

appropriations.

In a show of unity, Romney endorsed the House plan last

week, but his campaign ducked questions from POLITICO this

week. If elected president, he would face almost immediate

pressure to cut nondefense appropriations by 20 percent in

his first budget, rolling back spending to a level that

predates George W. Bush's administration.

``It's not the budget I would have written,'' Rep. Mike

Simpson told POLITICO. And the Idaho Republican--and former

speaker of his state Legislature--represents an increasingly

restless element in the party going forward.

It was Simpson's vote that allowed Budget Committee

Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to get the resolution out of his

committee last week--and Simpson will stand again with the

leadership on the floor. But there's no hiding the fact that

he and many Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee

are furious with the course taken in

this budget and more willing to lend support to those who

feel revenue must also be part of the equation.

``This is going to be the most partisan debate of the year

and it will set up the election for the year,'' Simpson said.

``But I don't think it's the balanced plan to get us out of

the hole we are in. Ultimately, the only thing that is going

to solve this problem is not a Republican plan, not a

Democratic plan, but a bipartisan plan that has buy-in from

both sides. That's when we stop going out and shooting one

another.''

An early test in this week's floor debate could be the fate

of a new entry sponsored by Reps. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and

Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), also a member of the

Appropriations panel.

Their proposal would present an updated version of the 2010

presidential debt commission's recommendations, a combination

of entitlement savings and $1.2 trillion in revenue over 10

years. And having shied away in the past, Cooper told

POLITICO that he was now encouraged enough by the reception

to proceed--the first real time the ideas have been put to a

floor vote.

``My view is this is where they are going to wind up at the

end of the year anyway, so we might as well start talking

about it,'' LaTourette said. ``Anybody who thinks you are not

going to have to have a pot of revenue and pot of cuts is

thinking funny.''

Matched against this fragile center will be more

traditional warring alternatives on the right and left.

The Republican Study Committee Tuesday announced its menu

of still deeper appropriations cuts and Medicaid savings--all

in the hopes of reaching balance in five years. At the same

time, the Congressional Black Caucus weighed in with a

deficit-reduction package that also exceeds Ryan's plan but

is heavily dependent on what appears to be $3.9 trillion in

additional revenue--including a novel financial speculation

tax--not in the White House's own budget.

Republicans hope to embarrass President Barack Obama by

having one of their own call up the White House's February

budget submission--for certain defeat. And the House Rules

Committee late Tuesday made in order such a proposal to be

offered by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who already is

backing both Ryan and the more severe RSC alternative.

Democrats will have their own alternative claiming greater

war savings than Obama's--it would end all overseas

contingency operations funding after 2014, for example. But

the 10-year deficits are still almost double those in the

Ryan plan, and Republicans jumped on the fact that the

resolution cancels the $1.2 trillion sequester mechanism

under the Budget Control Act--without spelling out a clear

substitute.

By contrast, the Ryan resolution would also tamper with the

first round of automatic cuts due in January but seeks to

offset most of these reductions, about half of which would

come from defense appropriations.

Six House committees would be ordered to come up with

prescribed savings by the end of next month for floor action

in May. Armed Services is exempted, frustrating the design of

the Budget Control Act, and there is the risk of splitting

even traditionally bipartisan panels, like the House

Agriculture Committee.

Ryan's budget demands savings of more than $8 billion in

2013 from Agriculture--an effort to target food stamps. And

the challenge for Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) is to

navigate these waters without jeopardizing the partnership he

wants with the minority in writing a farm bill later this

year.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide that, immediately after the House adopts the rule, it will bring up H.R. 4271, a bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA.

This is a vital law that I coauthored with Pat Schroeder in 1994 and of which I have been an original cosponsor each time it has been reauthorized. Since VAWA's enactment in 1994, the cases of domestic violence have fallen, and over 1 million women have used the justice system to obtain protective orders against their batterers.

To discuss this proposal, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the sponsor of the bill, the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Let me take about 30 seconds just to say that I appreciate what my colleague from Georgia is saying. However, we are not giving a choice whether we are going to do the budget or violence against women, but we're going to have an attempt to do both on the rule.

What we can do in the vote for the budget--when we vote for the rule, we would like to have the previous question be defeated so that we can add VAWA to it. That's all we are trying to do here today.

The bill is about to expire. It would be a dreadful thing to think that women and children and the other spouse would be growing up with violence because we have failed to provide the resources to stop that, after it has been so successful since 1994.

Now I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

I was expecting one additional speaker, but I believe she is not here. So I am prepared to close.

Let me say, Mr. Woodall is a generous and kind man, and I know he understands what we are talking about here today.

My speaker is here, so let me yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, Ms. DeLauro has just reminded me that when we began the debate on health care, that eight States in the United States and the District of Columbia considered violence against women to be a preexisting condition, and a woman who had been beaten to a pulp could not be insured because she would be apt to have that happen to her again. And we changed that in that bill.

I think all of us, too, are familiar with the phrase ``rule of thumb,'' but I'm not sure a lot of us understand what it means. The rule of thumb was the size of a man's thumb and the stick with which he could legally beat his wife. So every time you use that, I want you to remember what that means.

Since VAWA's enactment, we've all seen that domestic violence has fallen over half. Policemen have been trained and the courts have been trained to understand it better.

There was a time in the United States when it was simply considered a private manner and police would not always take away the offending partner, leaving a person again to be beaten one more time.

I don't think anybody in the House of Representatives wants this to expire. I'm sure they don't. Everybody has mothers, sisters, daughters, and nieces that they want to protect.

This is such a simple thing. It doesn't hurt the budget at all. We have tried our best to get this bill brought up in the House; and we're terrified, frankly, those of us who have spent a good bit of our time in Congress trying to deal with this act, that it will expire. As I've pointed out many times, I've been at this since 1994.

It's such a serious thing, that shelters for battered women are never revealed as to their location because of fear that the offending spouse will find them and make them come home or other things.

This past 5 or 6 years, we've seen a number of spouses being killed; and we always look at what goes on in those houses, and nobody ever realized before what was happening there. More women obviously need to know that there is someplace that they can go and someplace that they can get help.

Let me give you a figure because we're pretty much concerned here about the deficit, the budget, and costs.

In studies recently released, they have shown that just a 2-minute screening of domestic violence victims in a yearly checkup can save nearly $6 billion in chronic health care costs every year. The screenings are provided for in the Violence Against Women Act, which trains health care professionals to recognize and address the signs of domestic violence, because obviously most women who are trying to cover it up simply attempt to live with it and are not going to bring it up themselves.

Approximately 2 million women are physically or sexually assaulted or stalked by an intimate partner every single year; one out of every six women has experienced an attempted or completed rape at some point in her lifetime; one in four women in the U.S. will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. This is terrible.

The Congress has a responsibility to ensure that rape prevention programs are fully funded, that law enforcement has the resources, that battered women's shelters are open, and that victim advocates have the training to stop the violence against women.

With all this authorization expiring before this year's end, we're in danger of letting these responsibilities go unfulfilled.

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

I urge my colleagues to please vote ``no'' on the previous question for all of those women who live in fear and for all those children who witness that violence. Violence against women changes people's lives forever, mentally and physically. They will never, ever be the same. For heaven's sake, let's reauthorize this bill. It does so much for them.

I urge everyone in the House to please vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so we continue to provide support to the millions of women who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

I am afraid that our colleagues have made a slight mistake in naming their plan. This budget should be called the ``Road to Austerity'' because it is a plan that is most noteworthy for the rather harsh austerity it demands of the many and the lavish benefits it extends to the few.

It clearly envisions a rising tide of selective tax cuts that would lift all

yachts, but leave most dinghies. Our Republican friends like to talk about making the hard choices. What they propose here would indeed make things much harder for millions of Americans, but it will also make things much easier for a fortunate few--millionaires and billionaires. That's their plan.

But before we get to the specifics of the plan tonight, it's important to examine where we are before we decide where we want to go.

Because of President Obama's economic policies, there are continuing signs of economic progress and recovery. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2011 and through the beginning of this year, there is fresh new data showing that the recovery is gaining strength. The economy has added more than 200,000 jobs for 3 straight months. As you can see from this chart, private sector employment has increased for 24 consecutive months; And during these past 24 months, the economy has added almost 4 million private sector jobs.

On this chart, the red bars are the Bush administration. It shows that in the closing days, the closing months, this country was losing over 700,000 jobs per month. The blue bars are the Obama administration. And you can see the steady, slow gains and the 24 months of gains of jobs in the private sector.

This chart is similar to one that was presented by Chairman Bernanke in his testimony before the Financial Services Committee in the Humphrey-Hawkins hearings. This is from his report. It shows the low, deep area we were in when President Obama took office, losing so many jobs, and because of his policies, the steady gain and the continuing gain we hope to see.

Actions taken by the President and Congress, including passage of the Recovery Act and recent legislation to continue Federal Unemployment Insurance and extend the payroll tax cut through 2012, have played an important role in driving this economic recovery and private job gain.

Few would disagree, however, that to reach this point has taken longer than we would have liked. It has required fiscal interventions to sustain and strengthen the economy and to support those harmed by the Great Recession. And it has required a variety of creative and effective approaches from the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy and boost growth.

I would also like to show the chart on unemployment. It shows that the unemployment rate has fallen significantly, from 9.1 percent last August to 8.3 percent in February, which is well below the peak of 10 percent reached in October 2009. So, again, these are positive signs under the Obama administration.

Still, there are far too many Americans hurting. The reality is that we have a long way to go to regain the ground that we lost during the Great Recession: 12.8 million Americans remain unemployed, and more than four out of 10 unemployed have been jobless for more than 6 months. The share of those unemployed and out of work for more than 6 months has been greater than 40 percent since December of 2009, a period of time that has been unprecedented.

Clearly, cutting further into the unemployment rate and bringing down the rate of long-term unemployed must be continuing priorities of this Congress. I can say that Democrats will not be satisfied until every American who wants a job can get a job. So while we have made some economic progress, there are many challenges ahead.

While GDP has grown for 10 straight quarters, GDP growth in the first quarter of 2012 is projected to slow to an annual rate of just 1.9 percent. This is far from robust economic growth. The European community's economic weakness may present new headwinds in the months ahead. And the recent spike in U.S. oil and gas prices leaves consumers with fewer dollars in their wallets for other purchases, putting new pressure on the recovery.

Clearly, we need Congress to stay vigilant on the fiscal side. Part of this fiscal vigilance is rejecting austerity plans and short-sighted budget cuts that will jeopardize the recovery while harming the most vulnerable among us, including low-income Americans and senior citizens.

The reality is that the majority's Ryan budget harms those who need help and doles out tax breaks and benefits to those who don't. Let me be as clear as I possibly can. The Ryan budget, if it were passed by this House, would risk our recovery.

The majority's budget resolution for 2013, the Ryan budget, abandons the economic recovery, contains policies that ship American jobs overseas, and harms our Nation's economic competitiveness. And by slashing programs that low-income and elderly Americans count on, while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthiest individuals, the Ryan budget provides the latest, clearest example of Republican economic priorities.

Just like last year, the Ryan budget ends the Medicare guarantee, shifts the burden of rising health care costs onto seniors, and shreds our Nation's social safety net. These are bad choices for America.

The Ryan budget extends the Bush tax cuts and lowers the current top tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, giving millionaires and billionaires a 10 percentage-point tax cut.

Instead of asking the wealthiest Americans to do what they can to help restore fiscal responsibility and preserve vital services, Republicans would choose to slash support for tuition assistance and other services in order to pay for tax cuts that provide a huge benefit to millionaires and hurt America's working middle class.

The Ryan budget includes the latest attempt to end Medicare as we know it. Instead of strengthening Medicare, Ryan's plan would replace Medicare's guaranteed benefits with a voucher for Medicare or private insurance, creating higher costs for seniors and unraveling the traditional Medicare program.

Initial analysis shows that the plan would cut future spending by $5,900 per senior, shifting costs to seniors and diminishing their access to quality care. Republicans continue to propose ideas to end Medicare, even though 70 percent of Americans support keeping the program as it is.

The Ryan budget would strip away health care benefits for millions of American families. By repealing the Affordable Care Act, Chairman Ryan's plan would eliminate benefits that are providing stable and secure care for millions of Americans and go back to the days when insurance companies would deny coverage or jack-up prices, or just refuse coverage because of preexisting conditions whenever, and however, they pleased.

The Republican budget would get rid of benefits Americans are already receiving, such as the following:

Free preventive health services for 32 million seniors; $3.2 billion in prescription drug savings for 5.1 million seniors by reopening the doughnut hole; reducing drug coverage; preventive services like mammograms, cervical cancer screening, and contraception for over 20 million women; coverage for 2.5 million young Americans who have already gained coverage on their parents' insurance plans; protections from insurance companies canceling coverage when people get sick; and denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions.

And the Ryan budget also eliminates benefits slated to help Americans in the coming 2 years, such as access to stable and secure care for 32 million Americans; protections against being discriminated against due to gender or preexisting conditions; or facing limits on coverage for over 105 million Americans.

Chairman Ryan's budget does something else. It breaks the agreement made last year to reduce the deficit, backing out of the bipartisan deal Republicans and Democrats made on government spending. Many will recall last year, in order to avert an unprecedented national default, Democrats and Republicans passed the Budget Control Act.

The Ryan budget breaks that agreement, that bipartisan agreement, by slashing government services by $19 billion more than was agreed to in the Budget Control Act. Republicans would break their word on spending and reduce services and investments, all while slashing tax rates for millionaires and billionaires.

The Ryan budget block-grants Medicaid, slashing $810 billion from the program, jeopardizing nursing home care for seniors, and shifting costs to States.

Chairman Ryan's plan reaffirms the Republican call to end Medicaid as a

safety net, jeopardizing vital services that seniors depend on, like nursing home care and home health care aides, and shifts the burden of rising health care costs to cash-strapped States.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, these dramatic reductions in spending ``might involve reduced eligibility coverage of fewer services, lower payments to providers, or increased cost-sharing by beneficiaries, all of which would reduce access to care.''

The Ryan budget increases the burden on low-income Americans. The Republican budget block-grants and slashes funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by almost $123 billion over 10 years, jeopardizing economic security for millions of Americans.

The Ryan budget would also just pull the plug on America's clean- energy industries. Instead of moving toward a clean economy and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, Chairman Ryan's plan pulls the plug on support for clean-energy technology and simply calls for opening more land to drilling, even though American oil production is at its highest level since 2003, and the oil and gas industry is using less than one-third of the 75 million acres of land offered for development. And it continues the subsidies to the oil industry.

This plan would pull Americans out of the race to create well-paying new jobs and dominate the growing global market for clean-energy technology.

The alternative, of course, is the Democratic plan, which takes a totally different approach, a balanced approach of shared sacrifice that meets the Nation's need to invest in the future, keeps our country strong, and preserves Medicare and our social safety net, while continuing tax relief for working families.

For me, the choice is easy, not hard. I urge you to join me in supporting the Democratic plan, supporting Medicare, supporting working families, supporting the middle class, and supporting the firm belief that the American Dream is alive and well.

I reserve the balance of my time.