Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to address section 2(J) of these rules providing for dynamic scoring of tax bills. I thought the Arthur Andersen accounting firm had been dissolved. Instead it is being moved wholesale into the Committee on Ways and Means and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

With dynamic scoring, every tax cut for the wealthy can be scored as making money for the Treasury. The first President George Bush described this as voodoo economics, while the advisors unfortunately of the current President seem nostalgic for supply-side trickle down economics.

The proof that dynamic scoring makes no sense is that dynamic scoring is provided in these rules for money spent to improve our economy. So if we were to spend $100 billion over 10 years improving vocational education, virtually every economist would agree that that will at least help our economy, maybe will help our economy to the point where the tax revenues outweigh the expenditures. And yet there is no recognition of the fact that spending money on education produces money eventually for our Treasury.

In contrast, if we were to spend $100 billion over 10 years by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, some economists would say the cost of the Treasury exceeds $100 billion because it will have an adverse impact on our economy, drive up interest rates, et cetera. And yet instead we will no doubt get a dynamic score that says tax cuts do not cost the Treasury any money but spending on education, oh, that costs.

That is why Alan Greenspan told us that unfortunately the analytical tools required to achieve dynamic scoring are deficient. Accordingly, we should be especially cautious about adopting technical scoring procedures that might be susceptible to overly optimistic assessments.

In summary, the currently relatively straightforward scoring has served us well. I think Mr. Greenspan is correct.