Floor Statements

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

No, I do not.

The gentleman is free to lead off.

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

Mr. Chairman, it would be great if we could all believe in magic.

The gentleman says that their budget closes all the tax loopholes. No tax loopholes. In fact, he says theirs is the only budget that terminates the Tax Code all together, gets rid of it.

That is interesting because, if you look at the revenue levels coming in under his budget, it is identical to the current Tax Code, every year, exactly as the Congressional Budget Office says, dollar for dollar.

In fact, I think he said he got rid of it in fiscal year 2017 or so. But, gee, the dollars keep rolling in just as they would be if you didn't get rid of the Tax Code.

And you know why?

Because they don't close any of the special interest tax breaks. It is the status quo in terms of the revenue coming in.

If we were, in fact, going to close some of those special interest tax breaks, so that we could reduce our deficits, then you wouldn't have those numbers that they have got in their budget resolution.

Now, look, we all agree that we need to impose fiscal discipline. The question all along has been, how do we do it?

Do we do it in a way where we share responsibility as Americans, or do we do it in a way where some people don't have to pay anything, which means everybody else has to get hit that much harder?

Under the Republican budget, and under this Republican study group budget even more, they protect the very wealthy. You are doing great. But at the expense of everybody else.

So the gentleman talks about more funds for the National Institutes of Health; they more than double the cuts to the National Institutes of Health from the earlier budget we saw, which, again, I would just remind our colleagues, it was the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee who said that the House Republican budget is draconian, that one. That is from Mr. Rogers. All right?

So now this one is doubling down on draconian. And the question for us, as a country is, what are the consequences?

What does that mean in people's lives?

Well, it means real things. It means less funds for Head Start and early Head Start. It means a big cut to K-12 education.

We have a bipartisan piece of legislation saying that Congress is already failing to meet our commitments to special ed. We asked local school jurisdictions to take on the responsibility, it was the right thing to do, to make sure every kid got a good education. That was the right thing to do.

But these guys would cut that program. So this is the wrong choice for America.

Mr. Chairman, I urge our colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment reflects the priorities and values of the country. This amendment focuses on growing jobs now, making sure that we have a strong economy and making sure we significantly reduce our deficit and debt as a share of our economy over the longer term and does it in a balanced way. It does it by, for example, closing some of the special interest tax breaks that actually perversely encourage American corporations to ship American jobs overseas. We believe we should be in the business of shipping American products overseas, and this budget does invest in jobs right here at home.

Unlike the House Republican budget, we don't allow the transportation trust fund to go insolvent later this summer. Unlike the House Republic budget, we do not make deep cuts in our kids' education. We think it is important to build that ladder of opportunity. Unlike the Republican budget, we don't reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole and require seniors to pay more if they have high prescription drug costs, and we don't shred the social safety net.

Mr. Chairman, I want to also bring to the attention of the body something else that is in here. We advance fund, 100 percent, the Veterans Administration, because what we saw during the unnecessary and unproductive government shutdown last fall was that the closure began to put at risk the benefits that were being paid to our veterans. Now, we already provide for the advance funding of those health care benefits, but what we don't fund in advance are the people who have to administer them to make sure that they are delivered to our veterans on time.

So we are very pleased to have a letter here from the DAV and other veterans' groups that strongly support this provision in our budget. It is something that they have been requesting. I just want to read one of the paragraphs:

We would like to commend you for presenting an alternate

budget proposal that contains a provision for advance

appropriations to all VA discretionary programs and services,

a critically needed reform that is universally supported by

veterans' organizations and is DAV's number one priority.

So whether it is veterans, whether it is our kids' education, or whether it is making our commitment to our seniors, we choose to make sure that we fund the priorities of the country and we don't keep off- limits tax preferences for the powerful and the privileged.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is right that we do close some special interest tax breaks, but we also have about $400 billion in revenue from pro-growth immigration reform which is in this budget, which at least some of our colleagues on the Republican side recognize as a good thing.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has told us that one thing we could do right now to get the economy moving faster would be to pass comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform. In fact, they say it will help reduce the deficit by close to $1 trillion over the next 20 years and generate some economic activity. So $400 billion in that revenue is from more economic activity, the kind of pro-growth activity we thought our Republican colleagues liked.

I am now very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lee), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, who has been focused on trying to make sure everybody in America gets a fair shake.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlelady.

Mr. Chairman, I find this newfound ideology of having to hit a particular target at a particular time interesting since 3 years ago the Republican budget balanced maybe around the year 2040. And this year, it doesn't balance if you also claim to be getting rid of the Affordable Care Act, because you have $2 trillion in revenue in savings in this Republican budget from the Affordable Care Act, the same Affordable Care Act you say you are getting rid of. You just can't have both things true at the same time.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), someone who knows a little bit about logic, a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, look, our Republican colleagues are going to have to choose and tell the American people, either they claim to have a budget that balances in 10 years or they are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But right now because they get rid of the entire Affordable Care Act, including the revenues and savings, they don't come close to balancing. I keep hearing balance, and the reality is that it has all that revenue from the Affordable Care Act.

The one thing we know is that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the Republican budget will slow down the economy in the next couple years. Ours won't, in part because we make investments in our infrastructure.

At this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), who is focused on making sure that this country has the modern infrastructure it needs, the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a distinguish member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, what we know is old and stale and doesn't work is trickle down economics. The idea you just give the folks at the very top a little bit bigger tax break and somehow it is going to benefit everybody else didn't work and made the deficit go up.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison), a member of the Finance Committee.

Mr. Chairman I am now pleased to yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), a terrific new member of the Budget Committee.

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

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

It has been a good debate on the floor of the House over the last couple of days.

The question boils down to, what are our country's priorities, what are our country's values? We believe we should be focused right now on growing opportunity and growing jobs. That is what our budget does.

The Congressional Budget Office tells us that the House Republican budget will actually slow down job growth and slow down economic activity over the next couple of years.

We invest in our infrastructure to keep America going. Their budget actually has the transportation trust fund go insolvent later this year.

We continue to build ladders of opportunity so more people can prosper in this country. The Republican budget protects tax breaks for folks at the very, very top; in fact, provides millionaires with a one- third cut in their tax rate--they do that--but they cut our investment in early education, in K through 12. We actually increase, we increase our early investment education. We think our kids' future is the most important thing for the future growth of this country.

We protect our commitments to seniors. We don't reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole, we do not end the Medicare guarantee, and yes, we significantly bring down the deficits and stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio in the out years. We don't do it by playing games. We don't say we are going to get rid of the Affordable Care Act and then rely on all the revenue and all the savings from the Affordable Care Act to pretend to hit balance in the out years.

As I said earlier, we make sure we learn from our mistakes. In the 16-day shutdown, which was totally unproductive and totally unnecessary and all part of an effort to get rid of the entire Affordable Care Act, a lot of Americans got hurt, including our veterans who are on the edge. So we do in this budget what every veteran organization asked this Congress to do: we made sure we advance-fund those appropriations so that next time, God forbid, someone in this House thinks it is a good idea to shut down the government, at least those who served our country are not put at risk in terms of getting the medical and other support they need.

So yes, we invest in our veterans, we invest in our kids' future, we maintain our commitments to seniors, and we do that by asking the most powerful and the most privileged special interests to contribute a little bit more as we grow our economy through commonsense bipartisan immigration reform.

If you want an America that is going to grow and prosper as one country, where we respect our individual freedoms and liberty and entrepreneurship but also recognize that there are some things that history has taught us we do better by working together, which is what has made us a world economic power, then support the Democratic budget. If you want to continue to support and protect the special interests at the very top on some trickle down theory, that that will help everybody else, then vote for the Republican budget, because that is what they do at the expense of the rest of the country and at the expense of economic growth and prosperity for every American.

Vote ``yes'' for jobs, opportunity, and security. Vote for the Democratic budget.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I want to start by joining the chairman of the committee and thanking both the Democratic and Republican staff of the Budget Committee for their hard work and submit, for the Record, their names.

Budget Committee Minority Staff List

Sarah Abernathy

Ellen Balis

Kathleen Capstick

Zachary Cuff (Intern)

Ken Cummings

Bridgett Frey

Jocelyn M. Griffin

Tom Kahn

Najy Kamal

Andrea Leung

Sheila McDowell

Diana Meredith

Erin Miller

Kimberly Overbeek

Karen Robb

Scott Russell

Beth Stephenson

Andy Van Wye (Intern)

Ted Zegers

I would also, Mr. Chairman, like to take this opportunity, it is Chairman Ryan's last year as head of the Budget Committee, and I do want to thank him for the professional way in which he has conducted the committee.

Lest he think I am getting carried away, this is an example where process did not lead to a better product, and that is why we are here today because, unfortunately, I have to report that this House Republican budget is the worst of the Republican budgets I have seen in the last 3 years for the United States of America.

Mr. Chairman, budgets reflect the choices we make for our country. They tell the American people what we care about and what we care less about. At every juncture in this House Republican budget, they choose to protect very powerful special interests and the most wealthy in our country at the expense of everyone else and at the expense of all the other priorities. For example, they have tax cuts that actually encourage companies to ship

American jobs, not products, overseas, while our budget invests right here in the United States of America.

Now, we heard the Republican leader say we want a better economy for everybody. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that this Republican budget will slow down economic growth right now for the next couple of years, that it will reduce job growth in the next couple of years, all while doing what? Providing another windfall tax break to millionaires.

Yes, look at their budget. They want to drop the top tax rate, 39 percent to 25 percent, full 30 percent. What does that mean? $200,000 average tax break for millionaires. Who finances it in their budget? Well, math tells you middle-income taxpayers pay more. They pay $2,000 more per, average, in order to finance trickle-down economics, even though we know from experience that that was a dead end for this country.

While our Republican colleagues talk about fiscal responsibility, apparently they don't care enough about it to close one single special interest tax loophole to help reduce the deficit--not one, not a hedge fund owner, not a big oil company, not one.

And because they say hands off the most powerful and the most privileged, their budget has to come after everybody else, and it does. So it hits our kids' education, early education, K-12. College students are asked to pay more interest. In fact, they got $45 billion savings by charging college kids more interest while they are still in college and not working, again, while hands off the powerful special interests.

Seniors, seniors on Medicare see the prescription drug doughnut hole open, the safety net, again, shredded. And all for what purpose?

Now, they claim that they are going to somehow balance the budget at the end of the 10-year window. But you know what? They can't have it both ways. We have had over 50 votes here in the House of Representatives from our colleagues to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But guess what. They have got $2 trillion in this budget from revenues and savings from the Affordable Care Act.

We use some of those savings. We use those Medicare savings to strengthen Medicare.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield the final minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished Democratic leader who has been a fighter for America's priorities.

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

Some things do not improve with age. We are here one day later, and this Republican budget is just as bad for the country today as it was yesterday.

Our Republican colleagues are going to have to choose: either you claim your budget balances or you fess up to the American people that you are keeping big parts of the Affordable Care Act, because you can't do both. As we talked yesterday, the House Republican budget only reaches their claim of balance in 10 years if they take the revenues from the Affordable Care Act and all the savings from the Affordable Care Act. And if they are going to claim that they are repealing that-- as they voted 54-plus times to do on this floor--then their budget is automatically out of balance.

Now, all of these budgets significantly reduce the deficit as a share of our economy in the outyears. The fundamental question is what choices these budgets make in getting there. And the Democratic budget that has been proposed and the President's budget, all those budgets say we need to have shared responsibility and we need to work together to accomplish that goal.

The Republican budget rigs the rules in the favor of the most powerful and the most wealthy--right? So if you are a millionaire, under the Republican budget, you get your top tax rate cut by a full one-third, and everybody else in this budget gets walloped. So if you are a senior on Medicare, you will immediately see your prescription drug costs rise if you have high prescription drug costs--right?-- because they reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole. That is a choice they make in the Republican budget for seniors today, even as they choose to protect special interest tax breaks for the very powerful.

They choose in this budget to say that students, while they are still in college, will be charged interest rates on their student loans--that saves them $40 billion--while they protect tax breaks for hedge fund owners. We don't think that is the right choice.

I am now pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. McDermott), a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee who has always focused on making the right choice for the American people.

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

Mr. Chair, the gentleman referenced several times the Congressional Budget Office and the economy. I urge all our colleagues to read the Congressional Budget Office report. It indicates that this House Republican budget will actually slow down economic growth over the next couple of years and slow down job growth over the next couple years.

Yes, we need a simpler, fairer Tax Code, but this House Republican budget would provide a huge tax break to the very wealthy and increase the tax burden on the middle class. In fact, they cut the top rate from 39 percent to 25 percent. That is a full one-third tax cut. So millionaires get an average of $87,000 tax break. Middle-income taxpayers have to finance that cut for the folks at the top. That means an increased tax burden of $2,000 for a middle class family. That is not good, fair tax reform.

For somebody who knows a lot about the economy and doing it right, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chair, I just want to respond to a couple of points the chairman made about tax reform. You know, Republican etiology in Washington has been that of trickle-down economics. The idea is you provide the wealthiest people in the country with a tax break and somehow it trickles down and lifts everybody up. The problem is that theory was proven bankrupt in the early 2000s. Under the Bush administration, we tried that--lower tax rates at the top. The economy did not do any better. In fact, what we got was huge deficits.

Now in this Republican budget, they are right back to the same old veiled theory. They called for reducing the top tax rate for millionaires from 39 percent down to 25 percent, and they claim that they are going to do this in a deficit-neutral way. When you do the math, what that means is you are going to have to increase the tax burden on middle class taxpayers to finance tax breaks for folks at the top.

Just to give our Republican colleagues an opportunity to say that that is not what they intended, in the Budget Committee, we offered an amendment calling it Protect the American Middle Class from Tax Increases, saying, okay, at least tell the Ways and Means Committee that one of your principles as you reduce tax breaks for millionaires is not to increase the tax burden on the middle class, and every Republican on the Budget Committee voted against that provision.

I am pleased that we have the author of that amendment with us on the floor right now. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from the great State of New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

I yield the gentleman from New Jersey another 15 seconds.

If I could just inquire how much time remains.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from the great State of New York (Mr. Jeffries), a terrific member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, the gentlelady used the term ``draconian'' a couple of times, and the chairman keeps referring to comments that Democrats have made as ``overblown.'' I would just remind the body that it was just a few days ago that the senior Republican, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, called the budget we are debating on the floor of the House draconian. That is what he called it--not a Democrat. So I think Members should keep that in mind as we proceed.

I am now very pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Castor), a terrific member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), a distinguished member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

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

It does not strengthen Medicare to reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole, which is exactly what this Republican congressional budget does.

If you are a senior with high prescription drug costs under this budget, it will cost you $1,200 more per year. The whole reason we closed the prescription drug doughnut hole was to prevent seniors in that position from having to undergo such economic hardship. But this Republican budget reopens that doughnut hole now.

With respect to tax reform and picking winners and losers, the reality is that this Republican budget does pick winners and losers. The big winners are people at the very top of the income scale because millionaires will see their top tax rate cut by a full one-third.

The result of that is that middle-income taxpayers are going to have to finance that in order to maintain what they call the deficit neutrality of it. That means that middle-income taxpayers with kids are going to pay an average of $2,000 more to finance the tax cuts for millionaires.

So millionaires are the winners, and middle class taxpayers are the losers. As I said just a moment ago, we gave our Republican colleagues an opportunity in the committee to say no, that is not their intention, but they voted against the amendment to protect American middle class taxpayers.

I am now pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan), one of our terrific members of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), a member of the Budget Committee and of the Ways and Means Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

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

I hope all Members of the House will check the facts with respect to the impact of the Affordable Care Act on Medicare. If you actually look at what has happened since the Affordable Care Act was enacted, the per capita rate of increase in health care costs in this country has actually gone down.

Talk to seniors on Medicare. Anybody who is paying attention right now, I ask them: What has their Part B premium done over the last couple of years? It has been steadier. In fact, this year, it went down in real terms. The value that seniors have gotten under Medicare has actually improved significantly, in part, due to the Affordable Care Act.

Now, unlike the Democratic budget, which used some of the savings from getting rid of overpayments to some of the big insurance companies in Medicare and using those savings to strengthen things like the prescription drug benefit, the Republican budget keeps every dime of the Medicare savings from the Affordable Care Act, but they don't use any of it to strengthen Medicare.

In fact, they reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole. They start charging seniors now for preventative health services. Ultimately, they actually end the Medicare guarantee by turning Medicare into a voucher program, so that, if you actually wanted to stay in traditional Medicare, you would be paying a whopping high premium.

That is not the way we should go, and that is all in a budget that continues to provide tax breaks to the very wealthy in this country. Those are not the right priorities for America.

Now, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the ranking member of the Small Business Committee and a Member who has focused on the right priorities for America and who recognizes that small business is the engine of growth and opportunity.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished Democratic whip, who has focused on these important issues successfully for a long time.

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

Let me just pick up where Mr. Hoyer left off and ask the question: Why would the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee call this Republican budget draconian? After all, the chairman of the Budget Committee has said today: Don't worry. Actually, we're going to continue to grow the government just a little more slowly.

But what that ignores is the fact that the portion of the budget that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee has jurisdiction over is that portion of the budget that we have used historically in this country to make investments that help our economy grow. They are investments in our kids' education, from early education, to K-12, to college education.

That is the part of the budget that we have used to invest in research and development with discoveries at places like NASA that have had huge spinoff benefits for the rest of the country and the economy, investments that actually helped lead to the Internet, that have been hugely beneficial to our economy. That portion of the budget doesn't grow a little less slowly. They cut that portion of the budget. In fact, as a share of our economy, it is cut by 40 percent below the lowest level since the 1950s, since we have been keeping track.

And so that is why we are saying that our global economic competitors are going to be cheering this Republican budget. We are talking about we would like to see a Make It In America agenda. This is a ``make it everywhere except America'' agenda. This actually provides tax cuts for U.S. corporations that move jobs overseas, and yet it cuts investments in jobs and economic development right here at home. That is why it is so misguided. That is why the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee says it is draconian.

What is worse, it makes those cuts in our kids' education, basic R&D, and makes the cut in the senior prescription drug benefit while protecting these tax breaks for the most powerful and the very wealthy.

The chairman has referred a number of times to tax expenditures. In fact, he mentioned the other day that, on an annual basis, tax expenditures are over a trillion dollars, in fact, more per year than Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Some of those tax expenditures have worthy policy goals, but a lot of them are there because very powerful special interests have gotten an

exemption for themselves to the kind of Tax Code that everybody else has to pay for.

What we have said is we should get rid of some of those tax breaks for the purpose of helping to reduce our deficit so we don't have to hit our kids' education so hard, so we don't have to disinvest from basic R&D, so we don't have to make the kind of cuts that the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee calls draconian. But, no, Republicans don't want to do that. They say every time you close a tax loophole, you have got to use it to reduce the tax rate for wealthier Americans. We don't say, if you identify a spending program that no longer makes sense, you have to go spend it somewhere else. But when it comes to special interest tax expenditures, that is exactly the Republican position. You can only use it to bring down tax rates for multimillionaires.

As a result, while the winners in this Republican budget are those folks at the very top, they sock it to everybody else. They sock it to seniors on Medicare; they sock it to our kids' education; and they sock it to the fundamental economic power of this country when they disinvest in the things that have helped make us a global power, and that is the wrong decision for America.

So I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this Washington Republican budget, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, some things never change. As the gentleman from South Carolina said, he offered this political stunt 2 years ago, and it is no less of a political stunt today than it was 2 years ago.

Mr. Chairman, I am a strong supporter of the President's budget and of the President's policies. This is not a vote on the President's budget and his policies.

Do you know what I wish it were? I wish the Speaker of this House would bring up the President's proposal to shut down those tax incentives that actually encourage multinational corporations to ship American jobs overseas and instead use some of those savings to invest in jobs here at home. I wish the Speaker of this House would let us vote on that President's policy. I wish the Speaker of this House would bring up the bipartisan immigration bill. One has already passed the Senate. We have a version over here in the House. Mr. Chairman, let's vote on that President's policy. I wish the Speaker of the House would let us vote on the President's minimum wage proposal, to make sure that more people would be able to prosper in our economy. We haven't had a vote on that. Mr. Chairman, I wish that we could have a vote on the President's proposal to extend emergency unemployment compensation. The Senate has passed that. Let's have a vote over here.

This is a political stunt, just like it was before and, by the way, the White House sees it as a political stunt again this year, just as they were right to call it that the other year.

This is, in fact, the President's budget right here, right here. This is it, Mr. Chairman.

It is interesting to hear our Republican colleagues who claim to be in favor of transparency, accountability, saying that this is the President's budget and then allocating 10 minutes per side. I thought we didn't even want to take up thousand-plus page bills, we don't even want to take those up. Yet, now supposedly we are going to debate and vote on something that is over 2,000 pages, less time on the President's budget than on any of the other proposals before the House. Give me a break.

If this was serious, it would be a total abuse of process. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office hasn't even had a chance, Mr. Chairman, to evaluate and score the President's budget yet. So you have got the House Republican budget, and you have got the Democratic party, all those are written to CBO, but CBO hasn't had a chance to go through that this quickly. I am surprised to hear the gentleman thinks the House can go through this in 20 minutes. So let's not play games.

The White House has made clear if you want to support the President's priorities and the framework of the President's budget going forward, you should support the Democratic alternative, which I will offer tomorrow.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, the gentleman referred to the House Republican budget a couple times. Just to remind my colleagues that the House Republican budget claims to balance in 10 years. It also claims to get rid of all the Affordable Care Act, all of ObamaCare, but the reality is it has over $2 trillion in revenues and savings from the Affordable Care Act.

Here is what The Heritage Foundation had to say about the budget:

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this budget is that it

keeps the tax increases associated with ObamaCare.

So our Republican colleagues keep saying their budget balances in 10 years, then they keep saying they are repealing all of Affordable Care Act. Both things cannot be true.

Now, what is true about the House Republican budget is the priorities it reflects, and, once again, it protects and rigs special interests tax breaks for very powerful groups at the expense of the rest of the country.

Yes, as I indicated earlier, the President has proposed that we get rid of some of the tax breaks that actually have a perverse incentive for companies to ship jobs overseas, to close those tax breaks, use that revenue to invest in our infrastructure and help power our economy right here at home.

From a Republican colleague's perspective, oh, no, you can't cut one special interest tax break, not for hedge fund owners, not for Big Oil companies. No, no, you can't do that.

But you know what you can do? You can come after the senior prescription drug benefit by reopening the doughnut hole, costing seniors another $1,200 a month. You can come after our kid's education. You can charge college students higher interest to raise about $40 billion, higher interest while they are still in school, before they get a job.

You can do all that, but, hey, hands off the big special interests. So I am glad that the previous speaker reminded us exactly what this Republican budget does

I reserve the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

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

The gentleman just mentioned Social Security Administration funds for operations. Let me tell you, if you vote for the House Republican budget today, you are going to be decimating the funds available for those kind of ongoing operations because they cut that part of the budget that allows for the administration of the Social Security Administration and cut it big time.

So it is interesting to hear my colleague talk about the President's budget in that regard, but I would suggest he look at the impact from the House Republican budget.

Let me just say, Mr. Chair, I indicated earlier that we with like to vote on the President's policies. We have been waiting a very long time to vote on comprehensive immigration reform. In fact, we filed a discharge petition to do it.

We would like to vote on increasing the minimum wage. We filed a discharge petition to do it. We would like to vote on emergency unemployment insurance. We filed a discharge petition on that.

The Speaker of the House has refused to allow democracy to work. Now, we have what is clearly a stunt. As I said, I am a supporter of the President's budget; I support the President's policy. I think it is a stunt. The White House recognizes it as a stunt. We will have, tomorrow, the Democratic alternative that has the support of the White House.

I still find it incredulous that our colleagues are telling us that they really are giving 10 minutes per side of debate to what they claim is before us, which is 2,000 pages, right?

These are our colleagues that went around the country calling for transparency and accountability. They really want Members to vote on something that the Congressional Budget Office has not had a chance to score?

Apparently, they are going to do it next week because they are in the process of looking through the President's budget. So even if this were on the level, which it is not, you can't compare apples to apples without the Congressional Budget Office analysis.

So I am so glad our Republican colleagues were able to speed-read through this thing in 10 minutes and make judgments. The good news for them is that is not the President's budget either.

So let's not play games. Let's recognize that, as we debate these budgets, we are debating the country's priorities. We are debating very different priorities. Once again, the House Republican budget chooses to double down on rigging the rules for very powerful special interests.

If you are a millionaire, you are going to get a one-third cut in your tax rate under the House Republican budget. You know who is going to pay for it? Middle-income taxpayers will have to pay more to finance that tax break for the wealthy--in fact, $2,000 for a family with kids, on average.

You know who else is going to have to pay for that? Our kids' education, Early Head Start, Head Start, K-12, college kids.

You know what else is going to pay? Our competitiveness as a country because we are not going to make the investments that, historically, have helped power this country forward in the area of transportation and infrastructure.

Republican budget, you know when the trust fund goes insolvent? This summer. Nothing in there, nothing in the Republican budget to address that issue, just swoosh, down the tubes insolvent.

Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to actually vote on the President's proposal, as I said, to eliminate some of the special interests tax breaks that encourage companies to move jobs overseas, close those down, so we can invest in our transportation right here at home.

So let's not fall for this political stunt. I mean, I have to believe that if my colleagues seriously wanted a debate a 2,000-page document, that even they would agree that it merits more than 10 minutes, even they would agree that we should have the benefit of the Congressional Budget Office's analysis before we ask this body to take on that responsibility.

So let's not fall for sham. Let's reject the amendment by Mr. Mulvaney; and then, tomorrow, let's vote in support of the Democratic alternative.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1459, which would create arbitrary new rules to make it more difficult for presidents to protect our national heritage and resources through the Antiquities Act.

The Antiquities Act is a century-old tool that gives the president the ability to set aside already-public land for protection as a National Monument. Nearly every president since 1906, both Republican and Democratic, has used this authority to designate some of our nation's most iconic treasures, from the Grand Canyon to Acadia National Park. In my own Congressional district, President Eisenhower used the Antiquities Act to designate the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the first step in a process to preserve what is now a thriving national park with a scenic towpath that showcases the rich history and natural beauty of the site.

Antiquities Act designations are good for surrounding communities, preserving natural resources, providing outdoor recreation opportunities, and boosting tourism. Moreover, the Antiquities Act complements, rather than overrides, Congressional action, as Congress retains the ability to declare monuments and manage resources for presidentially-proclaimed monuments.

Today's bill places arbitrary limits on designations and needlessly complicates the process, making it far more difficult to achieve permanent designations of heritage spaces. In the last three years, Congress has failed to create even one new unit of the National Park System. We should not prohibit the president from taking action to conserve public land and protect public resources. I urge a no vote.

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

I appreciate my friend from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) for kicking off this debate.

As he indicated earlier, as we debate the budgets, there will be differences of opinion and differences of philosophy, but when it comes to math, there is not a Republican math, and there is not a Democratic math. When you run a math equation, you get the same result whether you are a Republican or a Democrat.

What this bill attempts to do is to legislate away inflation. Gee, that would be so nice if we could pass a law and inflation would go away. What is worse is this bill then says that we are going to put together budgets on the assumption that there is no inflation, on the assumption that the price of goods and services doesn't change over time, and if you do that, you will get very misleading results in your budget.

Now, the gentleman talked about Washington math. Madam Speaker, I would just like to show you the change in the cost of a hamburger from the last 10-year period. We do our budgets in 10-year windows. The price of a hamburger in 2004 was $2.71. The price of that same hamburger 10 years later, in 2014, is $4.62. That is not Washington math. That is reality-based math.

Here is what this Republican proposal would do.

It wants to take that fantasy land math and apply it to our budgets. Here is the chart. If you applied that idea in the budgets that we had from 2004 to today, you would assume that the price of that hamburger or of any goods and services that we bought as the Federal Government would remain the same--no inflation, no change--but that is not the reality. The reality is, between 2004 and 2014, we had inflation, and the costs of goods and services went up. The good news is that we did not have this proposal in effect from 2004 to 2014, so we didn't have this detachment from reality. Yet what our Republican colleagues want to do is say, from now on--from 2014 on--when the Congressional Budget Office puts together its estimations of future budgets, it has got to assume away inflation. Presto. As you can see, over time, that would become further and further detached from reality, not Washington reality but economic reality.

Here is what would happen if you budgeted that way.

For $2.71 today, you don't get as big a hamburger, right? So apply that idea to an aircraft carrier. We have 10-year budgets. The gentleman's proposal is to pretend that, over the next 10 years, there will be no increase in the price of the inputs to making that aircraft carrier. Just assume it away. Inflation. Do you know what? If you plan that way, at the end of the day, you are going to have half an aircraft carrier in your budget just like you would have a half a hamburger in your budget.

Imagine a business that was planning ahead for the next 10 years, trying to do a profit and loss statement, and it had to calculate what it was going to cost it to buy inputs to its manufacturing process-- energy inputs, oil and gas, other inputs of material it has to purchase. Then let's say that, today, it miraculously assumed there was no increase in the costs of those inputs. Boy, that would be nice, but do you know what? That private business would go under, and that business would be sued for malpractice by its shareholders.

Why would we do something to the Federal Government that we would never allow to happen in the private sector that would result in a private sector business's going belly up?

I would just say, Madam Speaker, that the reason the Congressional Budget Office projects the budgets as they do today--the reason they include the estimated costs of inflation--is not that they do Washington math. It is that they can go out and go to McDonald's and find out that--do you know what?--the price of a Big Mac is not the same today as it was 10 years ago. It would be misleading to pretend, as we put together our next 10-year budgets, that the price of aircraft carriers and the price of education and the price of providing health care to our veterans will be the same. If you assume that, at the end of the day, you shortchange those veterans, you shortchange that defense policy, you shortchange our kids because, just like you can only buy a half a hamburger today for what you could have in 2004, you are not going to be able to buy the same education for kids and the same military 10 years from now.

We are not talking about Washington math. This is a case of basic math. As I said, it shouldn't be a Republican math or a Democratic math. We would all love to repeal inflation. That is not the real world. Let's stick with real-world budgeting. If we get away from that, we are going to be in a world of trouble here in the United States Congress.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the control of the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), a terrific new member of the Budget Committee.

Will the gentleman yield?

As you know, the value meal on that McDonald's menu 10 years ago cost more than the value meal today. This is just to get about math and budgeting in a transparent way.

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

We are looking forward to the debate on the budget over the next couple of days. Chairman Ryan mentioned that the critics of this budget call it draconian. I would just point out to the gentleman that the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee just referred to the budget that is before this House as draconian.

Now, the chairman and I do agree on one thing, which is that these budgets that we bring before this Congress reflect our different visions of America. They reflect the choices that we make. They show what we care about, and they show what we care less about. They are fundamentally different blueprints for the future of this country.

The President has presented a budget that will boost job growth, sharpen Americans' competitive edge, and expand opportunity in the United States of America. Now, we have before us the congressional Republican budget, and of all of the Republican budgets that we have seen on the floor of this House since 2010, this one is the worst for America.

Many will argue, Mr. Chairman, that we should not be taking this budget seriously because, after all, we have a short-term bipartisan agreement and that the Senate would never pass this budget, but I urge the country to take it seriously because what it tells America is what our Republican colleagues would do to the country if they had the power to do it.

If they could impose their will, this is the budget that they would impose, so we need to look hard at the consequences. What does it mean for America? What choices does the budget before us make for our country?

At its core, it rigs the rules of the game for very wealthy and very powerful special interests at the expense of everybody else in the country and at the expense of other priorities in the country.

For example, if you are a multimillionaire, under this budget, you will have your top tax rate cut by one-third, all the way from 39 percent, where it is today, down to 25 percent. That is an average tax break for millionaires of $200,000. That is great for people who are well off.

What does this budget do to the rest of this country? It guts vital investments in our children's future, it squeezes the middle class, and it violates important commitments to our seniors.

Now, let's step back because the chairman mentioned the economic benefits of this budget. The reality is that our economic competitors around the world will eat our lunch if we pass this Republican budget. It provides for perverse tax incentives that ship American jobs overseas while shortchanging investments in jobs right here at home.

As we will see over the next couple of days, it guts important investments that historically have helped power our economy, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells us that, in the next couple of years, this is going to slow down economic growth, that it is going to slow down job growth. One estimate puts the job loss at 3 million jobs.

At a time when we need to be modernizing our national infrastructure--the backbone of our economy--this budget slashes the transportation budget by $52 billion in this year alone, stopping new projects, throwing construction workers off the job.

It will condemn the United States to a potholed road of economic decline, and it refuses to include one thing that the Congressional Budget Office says will help boost our economy right now, which is to pass bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform.

Mr. Chairman, as this budget provides these windfall tax breaks for the folks at the very top, let's see what it does to others in our country.

We all depend on our kids getting a good education. It is good for families. It is good for the country. The saddest part about this budget is that it casts a dark shadow over the American Dream, and it violates the fundamental promise that every hardworking American should have a fair shot at success.

At a time when we should be investing more in education in the United States, all told, if you look at early education--K-12--and college education, this budget cuts it by $370 billion below current services. That has devastating impacts on everything from Head Start to Early Head Start to K-12 to college.

Let me just mention one of the things it does to college student loans. It starts charging college students' interest while they are still in college, before they have gotten out and gotten a job. That saves $40 billion in this budget--actually, a little more than that--in the same budget that provides huge tax breaks to the wealthiest in this country.

So much for wanting to address the lack of upward mobility in America; rung by rung, this budget knocks out the steps of that ladder of opportunity. If you are to the manor born, you are going to be just fine under this budget, but for everybody else, tough luck and worse.

Let's look at seniors as our next example. Those on Medicare will immediately pay more if they have high prescription drug costs, right? The chairman mentioned that the Democratic budget cut Medicare and turned it into something else.

The reality is that the savings that were achieved in Medicare by ending

some of the overpayments in the Democratic budget were recycled to strengthen key parts of Medicare, including to close what has been called the prescription drug doughnut hole.

The Republican budget here reopens the prescription drug doughnut hole. If you are a senior with high prescription drug costs, it is $1,200 more per year, on average, as a result of this budget.

Seniors who have been able to get preventative health services without having to put down copayments will no longer get those screenings, and now, they will be at risk of not getting the treatment and care when they need it.

On top of all of that, it ends the Medicare guarantee by creating a voucher program. For seniors who decide to stay in the traditional Medicare program, they will see their premiums hiked by 50 percent when that goes into effect. They can stay, but they will have to pay big time to stay. That is not the Medicare guarantee.

Middle class families--I mentioned that this budget cuts the top tax rate for millionaires from 39 percent to 25 percent. That is a 30 percent tax cut, but it says it is going to do that in a deficit- neutral manner, so it is simple math, Mr. Chairman.

If you are going to do that, you are going to squeeze middle class taxpayers. In fact, this budget pretends that Chairman Camp and the exercise he went through in the Ways and Means Committee--the fact- based exercise--never happened because what Chairman Camp found was that you couldn't bring that top rate down to 25 percent without squeezing middle-income taxpayers.

That is why he had a top rate of 35 percent in his plan, and yet this says let's go to a 25 percent top rate. That means $2,000 more in taxes for a family with kids to finance the tax breaks for the folks at the very top.

This budget reserves, perhaps, its cruelest blow for those who are seeking to climb out of poverty into the middle class, to have an opportunity to participate in the American Dream.

In the last election, the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, said he really didn't care about the 47 percent. This Republican budget sets out to prove that statement. If you look at this budget, it is an assault on Americans who are struggling to climb out of the middle class.

We had a big debate in this Congress about food nutrition programs. The Republican plan called for $40 billion in cuts. It ended up being $8 billion. In this budget, it is $137 billion.

Millions of more kids will go hungry as a result of cutting that safety net, and that is why faith-based groups that have looked at these Republican budgets over the last 3 years have said that they don't meet the tests of a society that cares for the least of these.

I want to close by asking a question because our Republican colleagues say the goal has to be 10 years to hit this political target. It is interesting because the Republican budget 3 years ago didn't balance until around 2040, but now, we have this sort of political target that they have to hit.

If it is so important to hit that, why do they ask everything of our kids and of our seniors and of struggling families and of nothing from very powerful special interests?

This budget does not close one special interest tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit, not one--not a special interest tax break for hedge fund owners, not a special tax break for big oil companies. We have a race to hit their political timetable here, but we are not going to ask those special interest groups to pay one dime to help reduce the deficit.

Here is the really strange thing: after all is said and done, this Republican budget does not balance in 10 years if, at the same time, the Republicans claim to be repealing the Affordable Care Act. It just doesn't add up. The math isn't there.

What this Republican budget does is this: it gets rid of all of the benefits in the Affordable Care Act. It gets rid of the tax credits that help Americans purchase affordable care. It gets rid of the provision that says you can stay on your parents' insurance policy until you are 26.

It gets rid of the provisions that say you cannot be denied coverage because you have a preexisting condition. It gets rid of all of the benefits.

Guess what it keeps? It keeps all of the tax revenue from the Affordable Care Act.

You don't have to take my word for it. This is The Heritage Foundation. This isn't some liberal group.

Here is what they say:

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this budget is that it

keeps the tax increases associated with ObamaCare.

It is what they said about last year's budget. This year is exactly the same. This budget also keeps all of the savings from Medicare. It doesn't recycle any of those savings to strengthen it as the Democratic budget does, but it keeps them.

If you actually look at this chart, you will see that, in 2024, when the Republican budget claims to balance, without the revenues and the savings from Medicare, it doesn't come close to balancing.

So our Republican colleagues have got to choose. Either you claim to have a balanced budget and you recognize that you support all of the revenues and savings in the Affordable Care Act or not, but you can't have it both ways. The sad thing is, after hitting everybody but the very wealthy in this budget, they still can't achieve what they claim is their goal.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline), a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee.

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

I would just point out that I think it is useful to look at this through the perspective of history, because the last time we had balanced budgets in this country was at the end of the Clinton administration, and shortly after that, when President Bush came into office, we saw back-to-back tax cuts.

The theory at that time was if you dropped the top tax rate on high- income individuals, it will trickle down to everybody else and power- charge the economy. The only problem is that didn't work. It did not work at all. The trickle-down theory of economics did not work. We didn't get that boost of economic growth. What we did get was huge, huge deficits as far as the eye could see.

And so the problem with this budget is that it is a U-turn back to that philosophy--the idea that we are going to provide these tax cuts and it will create a big boost of economic activity. But reality has shown that it doesn't work that way. We should be building our economy from the middle out and from the bottom up. The top-down approach doesn't work.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson), a distinguished member of the Armed Services Committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I think, for the people who may be watching this, and for our colleagues, the question is, how do we achieve the priorities that we hope we all want to achieve, which is jobs growing faster, the economy growing faster, and deal with the long term deficit and debt in a responsible manner?

The glaring problem with the congressional Republican budget is that they don't call for any shared responsibility. They don't ask the most powerful special interests to contribute one dime by closing a single tax break, not one. And because they shelter the most powerful and the most wealthy, everybody else has to take a hit in their budget.

As a result, the entire country takes a hit because those are investments in our kids' education, in basic science and research that are important to help power our entire economy.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), a terrific new member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

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

I would just point out that we hear a lot about the global aggregate numbers, but the distribution of those cuts is important.

If you look at the portion of the budget that we have, historically, used to invest in education, to invest in innovation, to invest in places like the National Institutes of Health, that portion of the budget is cut by 24 percent relative to the bipartisan Ryan-Murray agreement. And it is cut from there.

So the part of the budget that does a lot of damage that we are focused on in terms of future investments, really does mean that we are going to be less competitive as a country. It will dull our competitive edge. And I will tell you, our economic competitors will be cheering.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am glad the chairman of the committee recognized that there are about $1 trillion worth of tax expenditures. What does that mean?

That means tax preferences in the Tax Code. $1 trillion a year, he said. That is right.

And yet, the Republican budget doesn't close one penny of those tax expenditures to help reduce our deficit, not one. It says we have to reserve all those tax loophole closures to cut the top rate for millionaires by one-third, from 39 percent to 25 percent. That is what they want to do with all the tax expenditures.

Because they refuse to get rid of one of those tax expenditures for the purposes of deficit reduction, their budget does hit all these students.

What is honest is to tell students who are going to college right now that this budget is going to charge them over $40 billion more in interest because now they are going to have to pay interest while they are still in college, even though it doesn't close one of those tax expenditures for very wealthy people to help meet the targets and reduce the deficit, not one.

So, as we look at the priorities in this budget, we have to ask ourselves, why is it that this Republican budget doesn't call for any shared responsibility?

Why is it that it does provide tax breaks to folks at the very top at the expense of the rest of the country?

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, let me just point out to the gentleman that the President's budget has two things in it. First of all, it actually calls for a fund to increase defense spending for readiness in fiscal year 2015, which is not included in the Republican budget.

Number two, in the outyears, the President also grows our defense spending; and as the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense have testified, those investments will make sure that the United States is second to none.

In fact, the next 10 countries after that, together, spend much less on defense than the United States, and we will continue to have that additional robust defense spending to make sure that we are strong, but we also need to make sure that our economy is strong to support that kind of budget, and if you have got the important investments that have helped make the economy grow over time, you will not get that.

Now, I will just respond to the gentleman's comments on revenue. Anytime the economy is growing, if you have a certain tax rate, you are going to get more absolute dollars of revenue in, but I mentioned that the last time we had actually had a balanced budget in this country was in the year 1998 through 2001.

If you look at the amount of revenue that was coming in during that period as a percent of the economy, you will find that revenue was 19.2 percent in 1998, 19.2 percent in 1999, 19.9 percent in 2000, and so on, way ahead of the amount of revenue as a percentage of the economy that this Republican budget calls for in year 10, even though, between now and then, we will have millions more Americans on Medicare and Social Security.

So, again, they just can't bring themselves to close one of these special interest tax breaks, not one for the purpose of reducing the deficit and contributing to our economic well-being.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just note that it is this Republican budget here in the House of Representatives that divides America. And when we point out that this is a budget that protects tax breaks for the very wealthy at the expense of everybody else, our colleagues say, oh, no, no, that is dividing America. But what we are explaining is the Republican budget, and that is, unfortunately, what it does.

The chairman originally said that only in Washington is an increase really a cut. I would just point out that in the President's defense budget, it goes from $521 billion in fiscal year 2015 to $646 billion 10 years from now--hardly a cut, in fact, quite an expansion going forward.

I am now pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro), a distinguished member of the Armed Services Committee who has focused a lot on defense.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I now am very pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a terrific member of the Budget Committee who is focused on lots of important issues including the challenge of poverty in America.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 10 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman referred to tough decisions. Well, it is true that the House Republican budget is really tough on our kids' education. It cuts deeply into early education, Early Head Start, and Head Start. It cuts very deeply into K-12. That includes Title I and special education for kids with disabilities. As we have talked about, it charges college students higher interest rates.

And it is true that the Republican budget is tough on seniors on Medicare, because if they have high prescription drug costs, the Republican budget reopens the doughnut hole so they will face $1,200 more per year on prescription drugs.

So it is tough on kids' education, and it is tough on seniors.

I will tell you who it is not tough on. It is not tough on powerful special interests, people who are spending millions of dollars right now on TV advertising trying to influence people's votes. It is not tough on them at all. As I said, this budget calls for cutting the top tax rate by, fully, 30 percent.

Now, during the Budget Committee debate, the Democrats said, okay, the only way you can do this mathematically, if you are cutting the top rate by 30 percent, from 39 percent to 25 percent, is if you do it in a deficit neutral way, then you are going to be increasing taxes on middle class taxpayers and families to finance those tax cuts. And so we said to our Republican colleagues, if that is not what you intend to do, let's at least pass an amendment telling the Ways and Means Committee that one of our principles is at least maintaining the current progressivity of the Tax Code so we don't increase taxes on middle class families or lower-income families to finance the tax breaks for the folks at the top, called the Protect the American Middle Class from a Tax Increase amendment.

Republicans said no to that.

They have got all sorts of other instructions to the Ways and Means Committee in their budget, like reducing the top rate by a third for millionaires; but when it came to instructing the Ways and Means Committee not to increase the tax burden on middle class Americans, they said no to that.

So, yes, this Republican budget is tough on the middle class. It is tough on seniors, and it is tough on our kid's education; but for folks at the very top, they just don't ask for any shared sacrifice. We are just pointing that out. It is a fact in their budget.

The chairman talked about all those tax expenditures, $1 trillion a year worth. Not one of those tax expenditures are closed for the purpose of reducing the deficit.

Now, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), a Member of Congress who has worked hard throughout his entire career to try and make sure that our country grows and that every American has opportunity, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Chairman, it is now my privilege to yield 2 minutes the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), a fighter for working Americans and a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, it is now my privilege to yield 4 minutes to a fellow Marylander, Mr. Hoyer, the Democratic whip, who has spent a lot of time focused on budgets to empower our economy and to make sure we do so in a fiscally responsible manner.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time is remaining on each side.

Does the chairman have any further speakers?

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

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

We all believe in a growing economy, and we all believe in greater prosperity. The issue is how do we make sure we have that prosperity as a country.

We have two very important strains in the American character. One strain is the entrepreneurial strain, the self-reliance strain, and that has helped generate great prosperity in this country.

It has helped unleash huge amounts of potential; yet we have also learned as a country that there are some things we can do better by working together than if we are just hundreds of millions of people who are separately operating on their own, with things like investing in our national infrastructure, with things like investing in a world- class college system, with things like working and investing in medical research, so that we are the world's leader in those areas.

Those are what have made us a world economic power and that have allowed us to support our military.

The problem with the Republican budget is that it ignores that part of the American character. We keep hearing from our colleagues about all of those tax expenditures that are out there, but I just have to go back, Mr. Chairman, to point out that they don't close one of those tax loopholes for the purpose of helping to reduce the deficit.

Because they make that decision--because they decide to say: we are not going to touch those very powerful special interests and the very wealthy--their budget mathematically has to come after other people in the country, after the middle class, after seniors, after our kids' education, after our infrastructure. That is what this is all about.

Our budget and the President's budget dramatically reduce the deficit. They reduce the debt as a function of a share of the economy in the outyears going down. The Republican budget didn't balance until 2040 just a few years ago.

So the issue is whether you are going to be driven by the ideological target or whether your fundamental focus will be jobs and opportunity. That is what ours does.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) control the balance of the time.

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

Let me say at the outset that we welcome any proposals to improve the budget process, but it is a mistake to suggest that simply tinkering with the budget process will somehow solve our problems.

The bigger issue in the Congress has been an unwillingness of many people to compromise, and at the end of the day, in order to make budgets work, you have to have give-and-take. So, for example, the reason we saw our government shut down last October had nothing to do with the budget process. It had to do with the fact that our Republican colleagues said they were going to shut down the government as a means to try and shut down the Affordable Care Act, to shut down ObamaCare.

It was clear that that was not going to work. We are not about to strip millions of Americans from the new insurance protections they have. Despite that, our colleagues pursued that strategy, and we saw 16 days of unnecessary and unproductive government shutdown. That was not a problem of process; it was a problem of politics.

Now, with respect to this bill, I would say to the gentleman from New Jersey that, if your bill were limited to bringing Fannie and Freddie on budget, we would join you. We would welcome you in that. But, as you know, this bill does much more than that. In fact, it fundamentally changes the way we account for credit programs, Federal credit programs, including things like the student loan programs.

Now, the gentleman from New Jersey mentioned the impact on the FHA. A couple years ago--I think it was 3 years ago--on the Budget Committee we actually had a hearing on this subject. This bill was then on the floor in 2012. At that time, many of us said that, before we consider the other changes that this bill proposes, at least we should have a hearing in the Budget Committee to determine what the impact will be on student loan programs, Small Business Administration programs, veterans loan programs, at least we should have that information. Yet 3 years have gone by. We are now back with the same bill on the floor with no hearings to try and judge what impact it would have on student loan programs.

I want to mention the student loan programs in particular.

The gentleman said that the President had ``nationalized'' the student loan program. Let me just translate what that means. It had been that the big banks were essentially a conduit for all of our student loan programs. They were taking very little risk, but they were pocketing big profits just as a middle man, a middle man without risks but taking the profits. So Democrats proposed that we go to a direct loan program to try and make sure the taxpayer dollar actually did what we hoped it would do, which was provide more students with loans to help more of them afford college. So, yes, we got rid of the middle man and we used the savings to try to increase--and in fact, did increase-- the amount of funds available so more students could afford to go to college.

Now, this bill comes along, and it would actually change the way we account for student loans, to artificially make those student loans look more expensive on the budget than they would otherwise be from a budget perspective.

Now, maybe this isn't surprising. After all, just last week in the House Budget Committee, we debated the House Republican budget. In fact, that Republican budget is going to be here and debated on the floor of the House tomorrow. We will start debate on that budget. That budget significantly cuts the student loan program. So one of the things it does is it charges students interest on their loans while they are still in college.

That is about $41 billion of additional interest costs they put onto students. At the same time, in their budget, they protect special interest tax breaks for hedge fund owners, big oil companies and the like. So that is what their budget does.

Now, this piece of legislation would address that from a different direction. It actually would artificially increase the cost on the budget books of student loans going forward.

Let me just read from a letter from a Dr. Reischauer, who was the former head of the Congressional Budget Office. He writes:

The accounting convention used since enactment of the

Credit Reform Act of 1990 already reflects the risks that

borrowers will default on their loans or loan guarantees.

Under Credit Reform, costs are already based on the expected

actual cash flow from the direct loans and guarantees. This

bill proposes to place an additional budgetary cost on top of

the actual cash flows.

Then he goes on to point out that that may be something that Members want to consider during debate, but to actually put that artificial inflation in the budget actually is potentially misleading to people who are looking at the budget.

So, like so many bills around here that are misnamed, this one, named the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, actually reduces budget transparency by putting in the budget a cost for student loans that is actually artificially increased.

I would suggest to my colleagues that we reject this particular proposal.

Again, if the gentleman had brought to the floor a bill that simply put Freddie and Fannie on budget that would be fine. But this bill actually is a vehicle to inflate the actual costs of things like student loans, at the same time where we have a Republican budget coming to the floor that actually cuts those student loans.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the balance of my time be controlled by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Garrett, what I said was I support the part of your amendment that puts them on budget.

So, to the extent that that is your question on the budget, I am happy to join with you on that. I wish you would join with us now in reconsidering your proposals to change the student loan calculations, but we may be asking too much at this point.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2824, which would roll back a Reagan-era rule to protect Appalachian

streams and communities from mining waste contamination.

In 1983, in order to protect ground and surface water, the Reagan Administration implemented a rule that said mountaintop mining operations could not dump their waste too close to streams. Today's bill would require states to replace those existing protections with a 2008 rewrite of the rule that would weaken standards and fail to safeguard water resources from the impacts of mining waste. States would not be permitted to enact stronger standards to shield their drinking water from contamination. I offered an amendment with my colleagues Representatives Cartwright and Lowenthal to ensure States have the right to take additional action if they find it necessary, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

This legislation is particularly egregious because just last month, the DC Circuit Court vacated the 2008 rule because the Bush Administration failed to consider the impact of waste dumping on threatened and endangered species. Not only would this bill write that illegally-drafted rule into statute, it would set a five-year moratorium on any new rules to protect streams from coal mining waste.

The Interior Department is currently in the process of developing new rules to reflect advances in mining practices and mitigate environmental and health impacts from mining operations. Rather than forcing implementation of a rule so flawed that it's been tossed out by the courts, we should allow this process to go forward to safeguard Appalachian communities. I urge a no vote on the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation.

I was interested to hear my colleague from Georgia end his comments by saying we should have more information rather than less. As I look at this legislation, on page 3, they say they want more information on the dynamic effects of different policies but specifically exclude, for example, the Committee on Appropriations; investments that we might make in our kids' education; or investments that we might make in other areas to power our economy--research and development, for example.

It is particularly interesting because the Republican budget that was just released and voted on the other night in the Budget Committee, according to CBO, in the next couple of years will create a drag on the economy, will actually hurt jobs in the next couple of years. Why is that? That is, in part, due to the fact that they make deep cuts in parts of the budget for investment in research and development and other areas that help power our economy. So it is kind of interesting, Mr. Chairman, that they specifically excluded the CBO from doing an analysis on that.

Now, a couple of my colleagues will have amendments to the bill, and if our Republican colleagues don't somehow mean to ignore those important investments, hopefully they will join us in supporting those amendments.

If you were the CEO of a company and you were projecting your growth and you were projecting your income, you would want to look at how much you are going to make from certain investments you make in your workforce and those kinds of investments. According to this bill, you don't want that. What this bill is after is simply to do an analysis primarily on a tax policy. It is motivated primarily by this idea that, if you provide big tax breaks to people at the very high end of the income ladder, it will trickle down and lift up all the boats, everybody else, trickle-down theory.

We saw how well that worked in the 2000s. We had big tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. A few years later, for a variety of reasons, the economy tanked. You heard the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve who predicted that those tax cuts would generate growth come back and say, you know, he was wrong.

So, I am all for additional information. On that point, I want to say to my colleagues that, on the most recent tax reform proposal that came out of the Ways and Means Committee, you actually do have a number of scores from the Joint Tax Committee, from our nonpartisan scores.

They have eight. They have eight scenarios. One projects .1 percent growth; one projects 1.6 percent growth. That is, of course, the one that Chairman Camp ran with in all the information he put out. But what he failed to mention is they came up with eight scenarios. The reason they came up with eight scenarios is because they couldn't boil it down to say this will be the dynamic impact of that particular legislation because there are too many unknown variables. That is why they had eight.

Now you want them to somehow come up with one when they have repeatedly informed this Congress that it depends so much on the different assumptions that you make, that you can't make one prediction on that kind of legislation.

I have trouble with this legislation for a variety of reasons; one being, when it comes to tax policy, we have been informed by the experts that it is hard to pinpoint one number and boil it down to a growth figure. Then, as I mentioned, my colleagues have left out the benefits of investing in things like infrastructure, things like our kids' education, things like scientific research, so they are certainly not asking for more information when it comes to those important investments.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, look, the gentleman who just spoke mentioned some important examples. If you are a CEO, you want to know when you buy a piece of equipment or capital what the economic dividend is going to be on that. But I go back to the fact, on page 3, our Republican colleagues are asking for information on economic growth impacts of all sorts of things, but they specifically exclude anything that comes out of the Appropriations Committee.

It is not a surprise, because the Congressional Budget Office, in its analysis of the Republican budget, says that during the next couple of years it will actually slow down economic growth. In fact, if you look at their proposal, it calls for deep cuts in important investments. CBO says that will have a negative economic impact over the next couple of years. So it is not surprising that they don't want that information provided as part of this analysis.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster), a member of the Financial Services Committee.

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

Just to respond to the last point of the chairman of the Budget Committee with respect to the appropriations process, as I indicated earlier, this bill specifically exempts those pieces of legislation even if they meet the threshold with respect to the other legislation in here.

Again, it is, perhaps, not surprising. I think the American public knows that we have a short-term budget agreement, the Murray-Ryan agreement, but if you look at the budget that Republicans in Congress are proposing, it calls for a 24 percent cut to the current services in the recent bipartisan legislation over a 10-year period.

Let's just take one category of investments--in our kids. That means about an $18 billion cut in early education. It means about an $80 billion cut in K-12 education. It means about a $205 billion cut in current policy higher education. It calls for charging college students higher interest rates for the period of time when they are in college. That raises about $40 billion at a time when that same budget doesn't ask for anything from the highest-income individuals and doesn't raise one penny to reduce the deficit from closing special interest tax breaks.

So it is no surprise to me that they would want to exclude the economic impacts of those investments that they are dramatically cutting. As I said earlier, the CBO, in its most recent analysis of the House Republican budget, says it will slow down economic growth in the next couple of years. It is very interesting that they don't want that quantified with respect to the appropriations bills. At the same time our Republican colleagues are saying they want more information, they specifically limit the information to certain areas.

The other thing I want to mention, Mr. Chairman, is immigration reform. We want the CBO to give us an analysis, when they have a specific bill, so they can determine the economic benefit and the impact of it. That is a good thing, and the CBO has done that for immigration reform. In fact, of all of the pieces of legislation that are before this House right now, one of the things that could have the most immediate economic growth benefit is the bipartisan immigration bill before this House.

The Congressional Budget Office has looked at that. They say that will generate a lot more economic activity. In fact, they say, over year 10, it will actually boost economic growth by 5 percent compared to what it would otherwise be. They say it will reduce the deficit in this 10-year window by almost $200 billion and, in the 20-year window, by almost $1 trillion. That is an analysis that we all should benefit from.

Interestingly, while that would provide great economic growth, based on CBO reports, and when Democrats the other night proposed an amendment in the House Budget Committee to adopt that bipartisan immigration reform bill which would generate economic growth, all of our Republican colleagues voted ``no.'' We want more information--the more the better--but it needs to be information that the economists say they can usefully provide us.

I get back to the fact that, when it comes to the tax reform proposal, for example, that Chairman Camp put in, they said that they couldn't narrow it down to one answer. They gave eight different models based on different assumptions. Our Republican colleagues are trying to say to professional economists, We really don't care what you say; you come up with a particular answer. Whereas, we think we should be asking for information in every case where it can be plausibly provided. Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues don't want it everywhere it can be plausibly provided because they specifically exclude the economic benefit of important investments in our economy and jobs.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I keep hearing our Republican colleagues say they want the ``complete picture'' and ``more information is better than less.'' We agree. This is why it is so interesting, that they specifically exclude information based on bills that come out of the Appropriations Committee that call for investments in our economy and in areas that can help promote job growth.

They say they want more information, but their bill says they want it only in one area and not in another.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I guess I am not surprised, given the fact that the budget that the Republicans just voted out of the Budget Committee and expect to be on the floor next week makes dramatic, historic cuts to important investments that this country has made in the past. In fact, it is 40 percent below the lowest investments as a share of the economy we have made since the 1950s.

This country has been able to compete and has been an economic powerhouse, in part, because of the great investments we have made as a Nation in important areas like science, research, infrastructure, and education; and yet Republicans want to exclude that in this bill.

Again, it is not surprising because the Congressional Budget Office, the very entity that they say they want to provide us this analysis, has said, over the next couple of years, their budget is going to slow down the economy and economic growth, in part, because of the deep cuts they make in this one area of budget that they don't want this information about. Surprise, surprise.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from the State of Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I just ask one more time, if our Republican colleagues want information to make informed decisions, why did they specifically exclude one whole category of information based on legislation coming out of the Appropriations Committee to make some important investments that can help our economy grow? They say they want all this additional information, but apparently, they didn't.

Again, I say it is not surprising because some of the changes that the Republican budget makes in that area do, according to the Congressional Budget Office, create a drag on the economy in the coming few years.

So, again, you are going to have an amendment later on offered by Mr. Connolly--and he will talk about that point--to find out if our Republican colleagues really do want full information, but at least in the current form of this bill, they don't.

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

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

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

The CBO provides lots of information right now. I hope all Members of Congress will take advantage of the information they provide.

We have now heard, for the second time today, that the Affordable Care Act has cost the economy jobs. Well, the CBO looked at that. They studied it. They gave the Congress information just like our colleagues are asking for. They didn't say that it had any negative job impact at all right now. Now, they said, in the outyears, that now that people are able to go into exchanges to afford health care, that people may decide to not go to a job where the job had been the only way to get taxpayer-benefited health care.

Under our current system, if you want a tax benefit for your health care, if you want preferential tax treatment on your health care, where do you go? You go to a job. That is where the tax benefit comes from. As a result of the Affordable Care Act, people now can get a tax credit and go into the exchange. So they can decide to launch a business from their home and get health insurance without having been locked into another job which had been the only place where they got tax-benefited health care.

So I encourage my colleagues to read the CBO reports that have already been issued on the Affordable Care Act. I also urge them to read the CBO reports that have already been issued on the recovery bill because the Congressional Budget Office has indicated that, as a result of the recovery bill, the economy actually saved millions of jobs, that that helped the economy from falling farther and farther.

Remember, when President Obama was sworn in, we were losing 800,000 jobs every month, and the recovery bill helped stop that free fall and turned that around. That is what the Congressional Budget Office said, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

So it is great our colleagues are asking the Congressional Budget Office for more information, and we welcome that. It would be great if they read the information the Congressional Budget Office has already issued.

I just want to make one final point, Mr. Chairman. I have made it before, but it is important because we keep saying we want more information, more complete information, and if you read this legislation, it says that. Then it says: except. We want information except. We don't want any information on the job impact of those parts of our budget that invest in jobs and our economy, like R&D at places like NIH, National Institutes of Health, like our kids' education. We want all the information, but don't tell us about the benefits of those investments.

And I wonder why. It is because the Republican budget slashes our investments in those areas. So don't tell us about the impact of that, Congressional Budget Office.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), who will be offering an amendment a little bit later.

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

I was glad the last speaker mentioned the CBO report on immigration reform. I just wish that, if they really wanted to have a pro-growth policy, they would adopt the bipartisan immigration legislation that the CBO wrote about, because what the CBO report said was that would be a great boost to economic growth in our country. It would create more jobs. It would create more economic activity. As I said, because it would generate more economic activity and more pro-growth revenue, it would actually reduce the deficit over the next 10 years by $190 billion, and almost a trillion over 20. So, great.

I haven't really heard a response to this, Mr. Chairman, but we want more information. CBO does reports all the time. But they have this big except. We want more information, except we don't want information about this part of our budget that deals with important investment in our future.

As Mr. Connolly said, a lot of our economic competitors have been copying successful models from the United States. For example, the Chinese are trying to hire more scientists in the areas of biomedical research, yet the Republican budget, if you apply it across the board, cut 24 percent--cut--over the next 10 years from the amount for research at NIH that was in the Ryan-Murray document. Again, not surprising they don't want the Congressional Budget Office to look in detail at that.

When the Congressional Budget Office looked at the budget that just came out of the Budget Committee the other night, which will be on the floor next week, they said, over the next couple of years, these fiscal policies would reduce output and employment below the levels projected in CBO's baseline--translation: it would reduce economic activity and reduce job growth over the next couple of years.

So, again, not surprising that in the legislation before us, pro- growth budgeting, our Republican colleagues don't want the CBO to tell us about the pro-growth benefits of those important investments.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I know I sound like a broken record. Our colleagues keep saying they want more information, but the bill specifically excludes a major portion of information.

I now yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), a terrific new member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague Ms. Jackson Lee. We have heard from our colleagues all morning that they want more information, a more complete picture of the impact of legislation on our economy.

Well, the legislation before us, as we have pointed out repeatedly today, exempts the part of the budget that deals with investments in discretionary spending. From the start, it does that.

Then they said no to amendments on the impact on jobs. They have said no to getting more information on the impact on State and local governments and local taxpayers, and now, they are saying no to getting more information on vital portions of our economy.

This doesn't say the CBO can't look at other things. It just says that it is important that they look at this part of the economy. There are HUBZones in every part of the country, and they are an important part of our strategy that a lot of us are working towards to try to make sure that everyone in this country has an opportunity to move forward and succeed.

So it is discouraging to hear our colleagues reject a request for more information on jobs, local taxpayers, and now in this particular area.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, last night in the House Budget Committee, we had a big debate, and at the end of the debate, we voted on the House Republican budget.

During that debate, there was a lot of talk about how we can reduce our long-term deficits. Our Republican colleagues in their budget said they didn't want to close one special interest tax break to help reduce our long-term deficit. They would rather cut the budget that helps provide for our kids' education. They wanted to reopen, in their budget, the doughnut hole so seniors with high prescription drug costs will pay $1,200 more per year.

So they were willing to do all that, but they wouldn't close a single tax loophole. But they said they cared about reducing the deficit. Now, lo and behold, we have a bill on the floor of the House that, in one fell swoop, if it is voted on, will increase the deficit by $74 billion.

Republicans have a rule that they put into the rules of the House that says you can't do that. You shouldn't be increasing the deficit. There should be some offset. You should cut somewhere else. We think you should also be able to cut some tax expenditures for very special interests. But the idea is that we shouldn't be doing things that increase the deficit. But those rules were waived for this, a little special wand in the Rules Committee: we are not going to abide by the rules, and so $79 billion increase to the deficit.

Now, here is the really interesting thing. We had a debate last night in the Budget Committee about the Affordable Care Act. We made the point that the Republican claim that their budget is balanced in year 10 is totally inconsistent with the claim that they want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and here is why:

In the Republican budget--and we all hope it will come to the floor next Thursday. In the Republican budget, they get rid of all the benefits for people in the Affordable Care Act. Right? They get rid of the tax credits that help more Americans purchase insurance. They get rid of the provision that says you can keep your child on your insurance policy until age 26. They get rid of that. But you keep very important parts of the Affordable Care Act. You keep all the revenues, $1 trillion in revenues. And you know what else you keep? You keep all the Medicare savings. In fact, you have $2 trillion embedded in the Affordable Care Act in your budget from the Affordable Care Act.

Today is the smoking gun, because if you pass this bill, the budget that was claimed to be balanced yesterday in the Budget Committee is no longer in balance. You know why? You claimed that in year 10, under your budget, in year 10, that you would have a surplus of $5 billion. But that's not true, because you can't at the same time claim with a straight face that you are getting rid of the Affordable Care Act because the Affordable Care Act provides, as I said, $2 trillion in your own budget.

In that year 10, when you pass this, $9 billion disappears from the Treasury in year 10. So today, by your own accounting, the budget that Republicans claimed to be balanced last night in the Budget Committee today will already be unbalanced, and that is just getting rid of a little piece of the Affordable Care Act. If you get rid of all of it, then you get rid of all the revenues that are in your budget, and you get rid of the savings in your budget, and your budget will not possibly balance.

So, Madam Speaker, it is a fraud to claim that the Republican budget balances and, at the same time, for Republicans to say they are in favor of getting rid of all of the Affordable Care Act. Both things cannot be true at the same time.

So either Republicans level with the American people that their budget is not in balance--and starting today, it won't be, by their own terms--or they acknowledge to the American people that they have gotten rid of all the good stuff in the Affordable Care Act, the stuff that helps people afford health care, but they kept all the savings.

So the moment of truth is today. The smoking gun is today. We had this big debate. I hope the Budget Committee members on the Republican side will come down here and fess up.

Will the gentleman yield, because that is not what I said was the fraud.

Madam Speaker, I ask for a point of order.

Madam Speaker, what recourse, if any, do I have when the gentleman misstated my point totally?

Well, if the gentleman would yield, we could clarify it, but apparently he won't.

Mr. Speaker, using Medicare as a political pawn in their 51st attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act is a new low, even for House Republicans.

Americans are waiting for Congress to stop wasting time and start passing constructive solutions to the real challenges this country faces. The broken Medicare physician payment system is one such challenge. And there is a bipartisan, bicameral plan to reform Medicare physician payments to promote quality and efficiency.

Unfortunately, today's vote isn't about that plan at all. We know this because the bill includes a poison pill that guarantees it will never become law. This is nothing more than one more tired exercise in Republicans indulging their obsessive hatred of the Affordable Care Act. Rather than working with Democrats to reach agreement on how to advance Medicare payment reform in a fiscally responsible way, Republicans instead attached a five-year delay of the Affordable Care Act's requirement that everyone take responsibility for having health insurance. The White House has indicated the President would veto this bill if it were to reach his desk.

Private health insurers object to today's anti-Obamacare exercise. America's Health Insurance Plans and Blue Cross BlueShield Association wrote:

``we have deep concerns about packaging the Medicare

physician payment bill with legislation that would sever the

link between the ACA's individual mandate and its market

reforms. The experience of states that attempted this in the

1990s demonstrates that removing this important linkage will

result in more uninsured Americans, higher costs, and reduced

choices for individuals and families. To avoid these

outcomes, we are asking Congress to reject efforts to repeal

or delay the individual mandate in the debate on Medicare

physician payment reform.''

The American Academy of Family Physicians had this to say:

``It is disturbing that work designed to expand access to

quality health care would be advanced alongside a policy that

deliberately removes access to quality health care coverage.

Providing access to health care coverage for millions of

Medicare beneficiaries while eliminating access to health

care coverage for millions more is simply poor public policy

and we urge that such approach be abandoned.''

This vote today is further evidence--as if any more were needed--that Republicans in Congress simply are not serious about addressing our real challenges. We need to fix Medicare physician payments. We need to improve opportunity in this country. We need to raise the minimum wage. We need to renew extended unemployment benefits. Currently over two million Americans out of work through no fault of their own have been left in the lurch by Republicans' refusal to renew these benefits. We were elected to this body to solve problems, not to posture endlessly.

If Congressional Republicans were serious about fixing Medicare physician payments, they would not pull stunts like this. If they cared more about solving problems than they do about fulfilling their anti- Obamacare fetish, they would not pull stunts like this. Americans deserve better. Medicare beneficiaries deserve better, as do the doctors who treat them. To the majority, I say, stop wasting everyone's time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3189, a contradictory piece of legislation that would confuse the issue of water rights across the country.

As initially written, this bill, which attempts to solve a dispute between Colorado ski resorts and the U.S. Forest Service, was so broad that it would have impacted the permitting process for the Conowingo dam in Maryland and our local efforts to restore threatened species in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. While I appreciate that the Manager's amendment narrowly addresses the issue of dam permitting, I remain concerned that contradictory sections in this bill will create confusion and litigation that will prevent agencies from ensuring proper stewardship of federal lands.

When private entities request permits to operate on public lands, federal agencies have a responsibility to taxpayers to ensure that their operations would not harm the resources on those lands. If agencies cannot guarantee protections, they may simply deny permits and prohibit private use. This bill, by attempting to rewrite years of water rights law in a few short pages, introduces so much uncertainty into the process that those denials are likely to become a common occurrence.

Congressman Polis has offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute that would restore the narrow focus on the disputed ski resort water rights. I urge my colleagues to support his effort and oppose the bill as currently written.

Mr. Speaker, on the afternoon of March 13, 2014, I was attending a meeting at the White House to discuss a sensitive constituent issue and was absent for rollcall vote 126. Had I been present for rollcall vote 126, on passage of H. Res. 515, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the outstanding achievements and remarkable life story of Fred A. Kahn. In addition to his 30 years of distinguished service as a federal employee, Mr. Kahn is credited for his role as an original architect of the modern American Presidential debate and for his work to promote tolerance and understanding through Holocaust education.

Mr. Kahn was born to Jewish parents in Wiesbaden, Germany on December 19, 1932. In January 1933, when Hitler rose to power as Chancellor of Germany, Mr. Kahn's parents fled to Belgium, leaving their infant son behind in Germany in the care of his Uncle Siegfried and Aunt Rosa. On October 1, 1938, six weeks before the terror of Kristallnacht, Siegfried and Rosa arranged for six-year-old Fred's dramatic escape and successful reunification with his parents on the German-Belgian border. Following the occupation of Belgium by the Germans in May 1940, the family went into hiding until Belgium's liberation in September 1944. Sadly, Siegfried and Rosa were both murdered by the Nazis.

Mr. Kahn immigrated to the United States when he was 19, settled in Baltimore, Maryland, and was inducted into the U.S. Army on March 17, 1953. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen on November 24, 1953 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina while serving with the 82nd Airborne Division. After basic training, he was assigned to the 525th Military Intelligence Service where he worked as an intelligence analyst. In March 1954, he returned to Germany, this time as an American soldier.

After his honorable discharge from the Army in 1955, Mr. Kahn enrolled in the University of Maryland. Mr. Kahn devised an idea that would later become a revered tradition in American politics. In 1956, Mr. Kahn approached the University administration with a novel idea--a proposal for an on-campus Presidential debate. The Maryland Board of Regents rejected the proposal. However, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt endorsed the idea. When Mr. Kahn attended the 1958 Brussels World's Fair as an employee of the U.S. Department of State, he met with Gov. Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic Party's Presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956. Governor Stevenson endorsed the idea as well. In 1960 the League of Women Voters organized the first Presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

After graduating from the University of Maryland, Mr. Kahn was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He spent the next 30 years as a political economist for the U.S. government and was instrumental in the creation of the Job Corps for the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity. He later finished his career as an economist for the U.S. Department of Labor. Mr. Kahn served on the Board of the National Council of the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA), the Board of Editors of the Public Administration Review, and the Board of Directors of the Society of Government Economists. He was awarded a Distinguished Career Service Award by the U.S. Secretary of Labor.

After his 1992 retirement from federal service, Mr. Kahn continued to serve his community as a teacher of Holocaust history, promoting tolerance and understanding. In 2005 Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich appointed Mr. Kahn to his Task Force to Implement Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance Education. Today, he moderates an online Holocaust remembrance group of over 300 members worldwide and is an active member of the Maryland-Washington, D.C.

chapter of the World Federation of Child Survivors of the Holocaust.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize the extraordinary life and achievements of Fred A. Kahn. Throughout his life, Mr. Kahn has worked tirelessly to make our world more tolerant and compassionate. He has made outstanding contributions to our government, our country, and our community, and I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our appreciation for his service.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2641, which would limit public input in the federal decision-making process and short-circuit responsible review of taxpayer-funded projects.

This legislation would create a new, convoluted review process for certain projects, setting rigid, arbitrary deadlines for even the most complex and hazardous plans and deeming them approved if the deadlines are not met. It allows for clear conflict of interest by giving project sponsors the authority to do their own environmental review. Finally, it confuses the process and risks litigation by blurring lines between state and federal law, and agency and private sector authority.

Complicating our public input process will not jumpstart construction projects. The only way to do that is by replenishing the Highway Trust Fund to repair our crumbling roads and bridges, and investing in the backlog of already-approved water resources projects that are on hold due to lack of funds. I urge my colleagues to support infrastructure investment and vote no on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2804, the so-called ``All Economic Regulations are Transparent (ALERT) Act and H.R. 899, the so-called ``Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act.''

This week, the House took up a series of rehashed bills--under the guise of the ``Stop Government Abuse Week''--that would limit the ability of federal agencies to enforce commonsense rules and regulations. While supporters of H.R. 2804 and H.R. 899 claim they are needed to curb overregulation, in reality, they would prevent federal agencies from doing their jobs and working to ensure there are safeguards in place to protect consumer health and safety.

My Republican colleagues contend that the two bills before us are a response to the ``tsunami'' of regulations under the Obama Administration. However, this is simply not true. In fact, federal agencies under President Obama have issued significantly less rules during his first four years in office when compared to President Bush's first term. Moreover, the ALERT Act would actually create more red tape by imposing unnecessary new procedures on agencies and adding over 60 new barriers in the federal rulemaking process.

Much like the ALERT Act, H.R. 899 would also introduce uncertainty into agency decision-making and undermine the ability of agencies to provide critical public health and safety protections. It would also weaken our democracy by giving powerful special interests and private industry an unfair advantage in the rulemaking process. Specifically, it would require agencies to consult with private industry--but not most other stakeholders, such as public health or food safety experts-- before proposing rules.

I was disappointed that amendments offered by Representative Cummings and Representative Connolly were not adopted. Rep. Cummings' amendment would have overturned a provision in the bill that directly compromises the autonomy of independent regulatory agencies--including the CFPB, SEC, and CPSC--by requiring that they report proposed rules to the OMB. Rep. Connolly's amendment would have simply evened the playing field and ensured that public interest organizations and other stakeholders are provided the same opportunity for consultation afforded to special interest groups and private industry under this bill.

Over the last four years, President Obama has implemented significant reforms to the rulemaking process. In January 2010, the President signed an Executive Order that required agencies to determine if the benefits of proposed rules are justified considering their cost to society. He required an interagency review of overlapping rules and regulation between agencies that may prevent innovation in the private sector and instituted a policy to allow agencies to consider input from affected public and private stakeholders and experts when developing rules and regulations.

There is also a mechanism in place that already requires agencies to adhere to specific requirements of Federal law before issuing a rule or regulation. The Administrative Procedure Act, the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA), the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), and the Congressional Review Act all serve the purpose of making sure that agencies are not overstepping their bounds when issuing rules and enforcing existing regulations.

At a time when Congress should be doing everything it can to create jobs and improve the economy, these bills are nothing but a distraction. They are unnecessary and potentially harmful to the public health and safety. I urge my colleagues to oppose each of them.