Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Lankford

Amendment No. 64: At the end of the bill, before the short

title, insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Lankford

Amendment No. 65: Page 71, lines 15 and 17, strike ``not

less than 30 percent'' and insert ``30 percent or less''.

Offered By: Mr. Lankford

Amendment No. 66: Page 98, line 11, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $2,661,000)''.

Page 158, line 25, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $2,661,000)''.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Similar to Mr. Quigley's amendment earlier--his amendment was to provide transparency at CFPB meetings--this amendment brings transparency to the regulatory process decisions, cost and staff structure.

Both parties want reliable information from the Inspectors General of every agency and of this bureau. Congress has a responsibility for oversight. That responsibility is not possible without good information. This will make the CFPB consistent with other agencies in oversight transparency.

Because this new Federal Bureau is within the Federal Reserve, we must provide, Congress, citizen watchdog groups and the general public with the tools for proper oversight.

The Lankford amendment will put in place a mechanism for bureau transparency. Specifically, this amendment would require the Inspectors General of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to post online and submit an annual report to Congress each February 1 illuminating four key elements in the bureau's operations during the previous fiscal year:

Number one, a list of all new rules, guidelines, regulations prescribed by the bureau within the previous fiscal year with corresponding descriptions of each.

Number two, a detailed list of all authority that the Federal Reserve Inspector General deems in conflict with other Federal departments and agencies.

Number three, administrative expenses of the bureau, including the amount spent on salaries, office supplies, and office space.

Number four, the current balance at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, their fund itself.

As lawmakers, we have to have quality information at our disposal to conduct our constitutionally required duty of oversight. The report required by this amendment would provide Congress and the public a broad look into the operations of the bureau.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield to the gentlelady from West Virginia.

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

We have two distinctly different views. And it's not just Republican or Democrat views. One group sees the impending crisis as whether we're going to vote to increase the debt ceiling and all the crisis is based around August 2. The other group sees the crisis as the debt itself.

How you see the crisis will affect your view of how you choose to solve it. If the problem is the uncertainty around just this vote, then we do whatever it takes to get past August 2 and the problem is solved.

If the problem is the debt, when we raise the ceiling, we will face a debt approaching $14 trillion with no strategy to pay off that debt. Our disaster is not averted. It has been accelerated.

As we know, just raising the debt limit does not solve the problem, as we've done that many times in the past. The economy that we have now is as a result of the actions that we've taken in the past to continually raise the debt ceiling over and over again with no plan to get out of it.

What if we raise the debt ceiling and agree to the President's oral plan that he has given of $14 trillion, whatever that plan may be?

From the best we understand, Timothy Geithner made the statement in June that the plan is $2 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years, $1 trillion in tax increases and $1 trillion in interest savings, whatever that means. If we accomplish that plan and do that and just raise the debt ceiling, we will then have a debt in 10 years of $24 trillion with still no plan to pay it off. That does not solve the debt crisis. That accelerates our debt crisis.

I have heard all day what a disaster it would be to balance our budget. Only in this room is it a disaster to balance the budget. I don't think Americans understand what we're talking about. I don't think they understand how out of touch we have really become that we would argue about balancing the budget. S&P and Moody's have both threatened to downgrade our debt, not because we're approaching August 2, but because we have no credible plan to ever pay this off.

Cut, Cap, and Balance gives us a credible framework from which, year after year, we will work to be able to resolve this debt, pay it down, and get back to balance.

Thank you.

I am honored to get a chance to talk about a great American resource, and that is our energy. Let me take you back a little bit. I'm 43 years old. I can remember in elementary school I was allowed to be able to work with the debate team in high school. It was my honor to be the littlest guy in the middle of this high school debate team. In the 1970s, the debate topic that year was ``Resolved, America Should Pursue Alternative Energy Options.''

Since the 1970s, we've been talking about hydroelectric and solar and wind. We've been trying to advance this technology, and I hope we will continue to crack the code on that to make those energy solutions work well for us. Since the 1970s, we've been talking about trying to get off fossil fuels and--guess what--it is still the dominant resource that we are using in our country, and it is still the most effective resource to be able to move our vehicles, to be able to heat our homes and to be able to produce these petrochemicals that are used in almost everything that we lay our hands on nowadays.

I hope one day I can run my car off a pinwheel that's on the top of it, but currently I run my car on gasoline. I hope I can heat my home one day with a solar panel on the roof, but currently the technology is not there to be able to do that. My home is heated with natural gas. There's electricity in all the different dynamics that come in. I look at it and I say, at 43 years old, I've been hearing my whole life that we need a national energy policy--drilling, pipelines, production, retailing--to be able to work out a plan that we can run as a country that is all of the above that is every bit of our energy, but that is not ignoring the energy that we have here.

I can tell you I am sick to death of hearing how we need to shut down fossil fuel production in the United States because of environmental reasons, knowing full well that we will just import more of those fossil fuels from all around the world. The United States produces the cleanest energy on the planet. If we want to have clean energy, whether that be fossil fuels or alternative fuels, we should be doing whatever it takes to make sure we drill here, that we produce here, and that we are the ones that are using the energy in the cleanest method possible. No one does it cleaner than us. I can assure you we don't go to Saudi Arabia and find out they produce energy cleaner there.

So if you're truly concerned about planetary issues with the environment, you would make sure all the production that's needed in the United States is produced in the United States to make sure that we continue to protect that.

Let me take you to my beautiful State. Come walk into Oklahoma sometime. Since 1949 in Oklahoma, we've been fracking for oil. What many people are calling some new technology of fracking, and everyone seems to be afraid of it, and say, Is it going to hurt the groundwater and is it going to hurt all these things, I smile and I say, Come to my beautiful State. Since 1949, we've been fracking. Over 100,000 times we have fracked in Oklahoma; 100,000 times plus. Come drink our water, come breathe our air, and come see our absolutely beautiful God-given State. We can do this in an environmentally friendly way.

We have in my district 5.7 percent unemployment because we have a lot of great energy companies that are doing a terrific job of both protecting our environment and providing jobs for the people in our area. We can do this. And to flippantly say, these are dirty oil companies and they're big oil companies, and we've got to do whatever it takes to punish Big Oil is flippant.

I was in a hearing not long ago with Timothy Geithner. He was discussing punishing Big Oil and getting more taxes on that. I was able to say to him, Mr. Secretary, are you aware that the majority of energy companies in the United States are independent producers and they're small companies? Ninety-five percent of the drilling and the oil and gas production that happens in the United States is done by independent producers, these 18,000 small companies that are out there.

These 18,000 small companies that are out there, they account for 67 percent of the total energy production in the United States. These small companies, on average, have 12 people on staff, 12 employees. These are not big, giant companies. And throwing around terms like ``Big Oil'' and attacking them makes me smile when I think about what is happening in Oklahoma with lots and lots of service companies and producers and drillers that are really doing great jobs.

I was talking to one of those companies recently. Guess who they are targeting to be able to hire? Their favorite people to be able to hire are returning vets because of their work ethic and because of the skills they are bringing back. They are companies specifically going after returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to be able to hire them.

It was interesting. We were talking about drilling. You go into a drilling platform, and they say their favorite people to be able to hire are actually tank drivers returning from the war zone because they are used to driving equipment and looking at a screen and dealing with multiple things all at once. These are folks who are employing our veterans and providing great jobs.

Recently, I was on a fracking site, being given a chance to watch it. When you go into a frack site, I don't know what your image is of what it looks like to actually see a well being fracked, but it is high-tech jobs, people on computers, as well as people and pumping. It is trucks and people providing food and people providing all the equipment. It is both people with big wrenches and people with small computers. And you see this multitude of jobs that are provided by oil and gas and by fossil fuels that we are producing right here in America.

We are at a moment that we can either say: We want all green jobs. We want to destroy the jobs that are in producing fossil fuels and try to create new jobs in green jobs; or we can say: Let's do both. Let's encourage the growth of green jobs, but let's not, in the process, also discourage one of the most productive industries that we have in the United States, and that is providing our own energy.

I would love for folks to come to Oklahoma and to be able to see the great companies that are doing some very innovative things.

If I may mention one more thing, just today, one of our companies, Chesapeake, announced a new initiative that is taking natural gas and injecting it into a heat-up service and using biomass and injecting air at a high temperature, and out comes gasoline that runs in our cars. They are not asking for any kind of Federal grant. They are doing it on their own and producing brand new clean energy that will run the current vehicles we have now. At the same time, they are, in the next 10 years, dropping $1 billion to upgrade an infrastructure for natural gas on the highway system so big trucks can run on natural gas and will have a place to be able to fill up.

Industries are doing this. They want to see this. This is a way that great American companies can produce great American energy. They are patriots, and I hope we will continue to encourage these folks.

Nineteen years ago, when my wife and I married, I was still in school, I was working as much as I could, and she was also working, but we were barely making it. But we made the decision we were not going to run up credit card debt and live beyond our means. We paid our school loans, we tithed to our church, we ate a lot of peanut butter, and we lived simply. As Dave Ramsey says, ``We determined to act our wage.''

It is a biblical principle for myself and my family. Proverbs 22:7 states: ``The borrower is slave to the lender.'' Proverbs 22 applies to families, and Proverbs 22 applies to nations. If we were living within our means as a Nation, almost all the debate in the last 6 months in this Chamber would have been different.

We've tried every method in the Fed's bag of tricks to protect our interest rate, because if the rate goes up at all, the house of cards falls. We work to manipulate banks, mortgage lending and manufacturing because we must keep revenue up. We carefully manage every relationship worldwide because we need the borrowing liquidity. We pour billions of dollars into the economy that we borrow from future generations because we're afraid this generation will have to make hard choices if we do not keep up the borrow pace. Our economy struggles, which leads Washington regulators to overmanage every sector, which causes even more economic uncertainty.

Our focus has shifted from families to corporate bailouts because we're living beyond our means, and we're trying everything we can to make it work. It's not sustainable. We have to get back in balance.

Capital investment in business and industry is slower because so much of the money that would go toward starting new businesses is actually financing our national debt obligation. There's only a limited amount of money in the world economy at any one moment to subsidize our debt and the debt of other nations around the world. When we consume that money for our debt payments, we remove it from the market.

America is the world leader. Unfortunately, we have led the world in debt and deficit spending, and now it's time we lead the world in how to solve a debt crisis.

You see, I believe we have a debt crisis, not a debt ceiling vote crisis. If we increase the debt ceiling without beginning to solve the debt problem, we did not avert the economic disaster; we accelerated the disaster. I understand we're painted into a corner, and we cannot balance our budget instantly without completely collapsing this fragile economy. I get it. But I also get that we were sent here to make adult choices.

This is a bipartisan problem. We all point fingers at each other, but we all know both parties made promises with no plan to pay for it. So since we know that, why don't we also agree to a bipartisan solution? I've heard a hundred times since I've been here, we need a balanced approach to solving this problem. Well, let me tell you I agree. We do need a balanced approach--a balanced budget amendment approach. That is the first big step to forcing us to get into balance permanently.

The Constitution is not a Republican or a Democrat document. A balanced budget amendment is not a Republican or a Democrat issue. You see, you can't make changes to the Constitution without both parties engaged. But if both parties actually worked together, we can solve this debt crisis for our children and grandchildren.

The last time this body dealt seriously with a balanced budget amendment was 1996. It passed this House with overwhelming bipartisan support, and it failed in the Senate by a single vote. Can you imagine for a moment what our financial condition would be like right now if we'd started balancing our budget during the good economic times of the 1990s and kept that discipline to this present day?

If you want to know the true consequences of that failed balanced budget amendment vote in 1996, point to the financial collapse of 2008, because I believe the financial collapse of 2008 would not have occurred if we had balanced the budget when we did. Even if we did, we would be in a position to

better respond to it. We can either learn from that lesson or repeat it. The balanced budget amendment passed the Senate in the 1980s and failed in the House. Then it passed in the nineties in the House and failed in the Senate. This is the moment we will either doom the next generation of Americans to more financial uncertainty or we will solve the problem.

A balanced budget amendment solves the S&P and Moody's rating question because it settles the issue forever that we will live within our means. While this body should be able to make tough choices, we all know full well this body will make the tough choices only when it has to. It has always been that way; it always will be that way. A balanced budget amendment gives future Congresses the gift of a moment each year when they must make tough choices. Let's bring up the amendment.

Let's send it to the States for a vote. It is the ultimate ``allow the people to speak'' moment. I think Americans get this more than Washington gets this. Forty-nine of our 50 States have a structure in place right now for a balanced budget every single year. They make it work every year. We can too. The only fear from Washington is the inability to spend more money at will and to control the States with our preferences and money.

At the end of this labor, if we birth a balanced budget amendment, all the pain of this process will have been worth it. Let's show the Nation we can work together. Let's solve the debt problem. Let's take up and pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and then let's get to work in solving our debt crisis.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise after spending the week of July 4th in the heartland of America, central Oklahoma, where I had the opportunity to hear the thoughts of the families in my district regarding our economy and the debt.

No one approached me during the last week to tell me they wanted more government spending to create jobs. No one asked me to create more instability in our economy by raising taxes. In fact, no one told me they wanted to celebrate Independence Day by seeing more government dependence.

But over and over again, people asked me to work on solving the problem of the debt, not just voting for another blank check debt ceiling. We need real spending limits to offset our serious budget shortfall. We can't pretend that we can borrow forever with no consequences.

There is a limit to how much debt this Nation can carry and our worldwide markets can sustain. Our current real debt equals our GDP. And I would hope that many others in this House would see that as a problem as well.

Second, we need to address our entitlements. These programs are critical safety nets for the neediest Americans, but they will be worthless for everyone if we allow them to go insolvent.

And, finally, we need a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution, with real teeth to hold Washington accountable. There is simply no other way to bring future stewardship of taxpayer money. Fifteen years ago, the Balanced Budget Amendment failed to pass the Senate by one vote after it passed this House with overwhelming bipartisan support. Our fiscal reality would be very different.

Mr. Speaker, we are at a crossroads in our nation's history. We do not have a debt ceiling vote crisis, we have a debt crisis. We need to stop focusing on a single vote and instead focus on the future consequences of our actions. It is time to put America back on track to debt reduction and job growth.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of my constituent, Mo Anderson, for her commitment to volunteer community service which has inspired true acts of kindness all across communities in North America.

Mo was an elementary school music teacher for 14 years, after which she developed her first and very successful real estate office in Edmond, Oklahoma in 1975. In her current role as vice chairman of Keller Williams Realty, Mo spends much of her time traveling across the United States teaching at real estate training events. She has received numerous awards for her hard work and dedication.

Mo is the beloved leader of her real estate firm, significantly influencing her colleagues, and it is her story that has inspired the Keller Williams annual national Renew, Energize and Donate Day. Each year, on the second Thursday in May, thousands of associates from across the United States and Canada participate in projects and devote their time to renewing and energizing aspects of the neighborhoods in which they serve.

As an Oklahoman, I am proud of Mo for setting a wonderful example. She has inspired others to see needs in communities and to be sure those needs are met. Oklahoma is very grateful to Mo Anderson and to her building a legacy of caring.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in America. One side sees the child in the womb as nothing but tissue, like a skin mole, and no one should tell a women when and if she can have an unnecessary and inconvenient tissue removed from her body. The other side looks at that ``tissue'' in the womb and sees it sucking its thumb, reacting to her mother singing, and possessing unique DNA, and asks the question: How can that not be a child?

The debate about life will not be resolved today, though for the sake of millions of children who will die in the womb in abortion clinics, I wish it could have been resolved yesterday. H.R. 3, which we will be discussing all day today asks the question: Should the Federal Government ever use taxpayer dollars to pay for or supplement abortions?

When the Nation is so divided over this issue, isn't it common sense not to force a person who is passionately opposed to the death of the unborn to assist in paying for the procedure?

H.R. 3 also protects the conscience of health care providers to not be forced to perform a procedure that they believe violates their most basic oath: Do no harm.

Each year, this Congress votes to prohibit abortion funding through our appropriations process. It's time that we settled this issue permanently and clearly. No taxpayer funding, support, or tax incentives of abortion in any way for this year, in any future year.

In a day of skyrocketing debt, how can we justify supplementing abortion and saying that it's a necessary and essential element of government? I think we cannot.

This is time to resolve this issue. I strongly encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 3 today in that vote.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1423) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 115 4th Avenue Southwest in

Ardmore, Oklahoma, as the ``Specialist Micheal E. Phillips Post Office''.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1423, introduced by the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), would designate the facility of the United States Post Office located at 115 4th Avenue Southwest in Ardmore, Oklahoma, as the Specialist Micheal E. Phillips Post Office. This bill is cosponsored by the entire Oklahoma State delegation and was favorably reported without amendment by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on April 13.

Mr. Speaker, it's altogether fitting and proper that we name this post office in Ardmore for Army Specialist Phillips to honor a true American hero and his service to country. At this moment in our war on terrorism, with the recent death of Osama Bin Laden, this is a moment to remember those who have been fighting the war on terror for years.

Micheal E. Phillips hailed from Ardmore, Oklahoma, and graduated from Ardmore High School in 2006. At Ardmore High, Specialist Phillips excelled in both academics and athletics, playing football, track, and cross country. He loved history as well as drawing, and was so talented he was offered admission to the San Francisco Art Institute. Instead, however, Specialist Phillips felt a calling to serve his country.

His mother recalled that, ``He came home one day and said he wanted to join the Army, and we got in the car and went down to the recruiting station.''

With this motivation and inspiration to serve and protect the country he loved, Specialist Phillips enlisted in the Army in 2006 and was assigned to the Army's 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Air Division, based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Tragically, on February 24, 2008, Specialist Phillips was killed when the vehicle he was riding in was hit by an improvised explosive device in Baghdad. He was 19 years old, and he left behind his parents, Angela and Steve, as well as two younger brothers and a younger sister.

As a Representative from Oklahoma, it is an honor to stand before this body and pay tribute to a fellow Oklahoman who made the ultimate sacrifice courageously defending our freedom.

I am truly grateful for the service of Specialist Phillips and for all of those who serve and protect us each and every day. I urge all Members to join me in strong support of this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from the great State of Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), a distinguished colleague and friend and the sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, this weekend I spoke with Specialist Micheal Phillips' mom. She reminded me that Micheal was the first student in 10 years to sign up for the Army from Ardmore High School. He was recognized as the Distinguished Member of the Regiment because of his capacity to keep up morale among his peers.

I would like to leave the House with two quotes from Specialist Phillips. The first comes from a letter that Specialist Phillips sent to the assistant principal at Ardmore High School. Phillips wrote, ``I am doing this for my family, for you, for everyone, for America, to protect it from the bad guys.''

The second, as recalled by his mother: ``He said terrorism was like a virus. It had to be stopped. It had to be contained.''

Mr. Speaker, in light of yesterday's events in Pakistan with the death of Osama bin Laden, these words, both spoken and written by Specialist Phillips, couldn't be more timing or fitting. This young man's passion was to protect this country from the bad guys, the terrorists who then and now want to do us harm.

Specialist Phillips ended up making the ultimate sacrifice, combating terrorism, protecting the country that he loved. For that, Mr. Speaker, I am eternally grateful and so is his Nation.

The soldiers who carried out the operation yesterday, as well as the members of our intelligence community who have spent nearly 10 years hunting down the mastermind behind 9/11, are much like Specialist Phillips, brave and courageous individuals who sacrifice so much and risk it all, keeping us safe and preventing the bad guys from harming more innocent people.

I have the utmost respect for each and every person in our Armed Forces and intelligence community, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude for what they do and have done. They truly make me proud to be an American.

Again, I urge Members to join me in support of H.R. 1423.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I am honored to get a chance to comment. I am very grateful we have an honest dialogue back and forth on different options.

This is a unique moment for us as a Nation to be able to look at the direction of our country and at the way we are going to do budgeting, and I have great respect for those that will come and say let's look at other ideas, and I think that's how we should come to the table. Both the President, the Senate, and the House should be coming and saying, here are the options, here are the voices, because there are different voices in America that have different perspectives, and I think that's a good, healthy debate.

Now, there are several areas that we will disagree on with this budget. We do agree that we should be working on deficit reduction. We do agree that debt is a serious problem in our Nation and we need to be able to work it down. It's how to do that.

The budget that's being presented here, the amendment in the nature of a substitute, does tax heavily those that are wealthy, but it also has a burden that's on those most vulnerable as well. And let me give you an example of that: It increases the transportation tax, that gas tax.

It not only adds an excise tax on gas companies, energy companies, so that the tax goes up, but it also adds 25 cents per gallon to the actual gas tax, and then at this time removes any other tax subsidies that are being piled on to any energy company. All those together are going to add a significant amount per gallon at the pump, beginning with just the basic option that's there of adding 25 cents. In addition, their recommendation is 43.4 cents for the gas tax itself.

That is clearly a tax that's going to hit very hard on those that are most vulnerable in our society, the people that are driving to work, that are moms commuting back and forth. I think that's the wrong direction to go. That's such a large tax on a group of people that are vulnerable.

So we do want to deal with the nature of our great deficits and of our great debt, but I don't think we need to be able to add that additional tax burden on the people that are very vulnerable.

I do appreciate the conversation about the balanced budgets in the past.

Yes, Bill Clinton was the President there. He did sign that budget. But as this House knows, above any other place, this House is very aware that budgets originate in the House of Representatives. So Republicans were leading the House of Representatives pulling that budget together.

We are proposing a similar thing again, that a Republican House can propose a budget, send it to a Democrat President, and we work together to start balancing the budget again.

So that formula that we just discussed, I believe, is a very good formula. We should initiate that again and say, once again, a Republican House, do a great budget, send it over to a Democrat President, and be able to work their way through it.

I would disagree with the cuts in defense. I think it is a very common statement that we can look and say there are issues with defense systems. There are issues with our acquisition process in defense.

Where I would disagree is we should then take our defense and where we find savings, then move it over to deficit reductions. I represent an area around Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City. It is a great base that is strategic to us. Those planes that fly out of there are 50-plus years old. There are some airmen that are flying with the same tail number that their grandfather flew 50 years ago. This is a

moment when we should not be robbing from defense and saying we are going to use that for deficit reduction that we need to be reinvesting.

Robert Gates, our Secretary of Defense, has said there's $178 billion that he can find, and $78 billion of that savings is applied to deficit reduction in the Republican plan, and $100 billion of it is reinvested back into the Defense Department. There are good ways to do this that leave America safe and that make strategic sense. We think we should do those things.

I sit and listen to the conversation and the debate, and it is as if we are reading two entirely different documents. I feel like the Republicans are being portrayed as if they are going to have a horn grow out of their heads and immediately rush into homes and jerk out the poor and those that are on Social Security and the needy.

If you read the document, we are dealing with two central issues. The first of those issues is $14 trillion in debt. Now, we can ignore that fact or we can begin to take it on and make serious decisions and have serious adult conversations.

The second issue that we take on is this one simple principle: Do we have a spending problem, or do we have a tax problem in America? In other words, do we need to tax a lot more, or do we need to spend less?

I think if you look at the rate of how we have been spending in America versus how we are taxing in America, you would say we have a spending issue. In our current time there are all these statements that are being made that Republicans want to protect the corporations, Republicans want to be able to give all these benefits to the wealthy.

Here's what we want to do with the tax rate: Leave it where it is now. That's not a 30 percent cut. That's not anything else. Where it is right now, that's the rate that we need to keep.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to also continue on this same conversation. The central question that we have to answer is do we have a debt and deficit problem in America or do we have a spending problem in America? Words like balanced approach, investment in America's future, and the often quoted ``shared sacrifice'' confuse the real issue. The focus of the House of Representatives is not about just reducing the deficit; it is about reducing spending so we can pay off the debt that we have.

Raising taxes on Americans now would be like the man who ran up a huge credit card bill and then went to his boss to tell him that he needed a raise to pay off his bills. His boss would most likely respond, You don't need a raise. You need to get your family on a budget and cut your spending to what is essential.

For the past 50 years, the Federal Government has taxed Americans at around 18.5 percent of GDP, no matter what the rate is. The current proposal from the President suggests a tax requirement closer to 22 percent of GDP. To close the deficit gap, all income taxes will have to double or corporate taxes will have to increase five fold. A tax increase on the wealthy may make some people feel better that they're sticking it to the man; but, historically, tax increases only lead to more government spending. And, ultimately, it will not solve the debt crisis.

Washington likes handing out other people's money for noble causes. Here is a novel idea: How about dealing with our existential problem? We spend too much. In 2009, 140,000 new Federal employees were hired. During the previous 10 years there was no change in employment in the Federal Government. The number of Federal contractors has increased 25 percent since 2006. In 4 years, discretionary spending has increased 25 percent. In that same 4 years, Medicare and Medicaid spending has increased by 50 percent. None of that includes the special TARP or stimulus funding, which would make the cost to the taxpayers even higher.

We cannot spend our way to prosperity. We have to get back to getting a handle on our debt and deficit and our basic spending. The reason the House budget has gained so much traction is that it does what Americans know in their gut must be done. It cuts spending.

Finally, someone is saying what many have felt. We cannot solve the budget problems quickly without significant spending changes.

This is a little surreal to walk in the Chamber and be able to hear that somehow Republicans are interested in throwing old people off the bridge and that somehow old people--that we're focused on all of these things: that we hate those in poverty, and we hate our own parents, and we hate all of these other things.

In reality, as a newcomer walking into this body, I walk into a Chamber saying, We came to get things done. And the driving factor that I walked in this Chamber with is the reality that we have $14 trillion in debt. Now, that's hard to be able to wrap your head around, $14 trillion in debt. So the way I try to wrap my head around it is with an old illustration from me personally.

I remember being 9 years old watching the Voyager spacecraft take off and thinking it will take forever for the Voyager spacecraft to get all the way up to Saturn and to Jupiter. It would take all of 10 years to get out there. But I remember when those pictures were done, and they were sent back, and how significant they were.

Now, just imagine this: in 1977 when the Voyager 1 spacecraft took off, if it started dropping a dollar a mile from the time it took off, how long would it take it to drop $14 trillion? Now, remember, the Voyager spacecraft has been out 34 years. It is still operating. It has left the solar system now. It is past Pluto, headed out of the solar system. If it dropped a dollar a mile since the time it took off, it will drop $14 trillion 41,801 years from now. A spacecraft that's already flown out of our

solar system will have to continue flying at the same speed another 41,801 years from now.

It is surreal for us to stand here and to be able to not take seriously the amount of spending that we do and how out of control we really are. This is not just a tax problem. This is a long-term issue that's not Republican and Democrat. We have both spent too much money. It is time for us to pull our own budget back and to take this seriously.

Madam Chair, the House budget that we're proposing tonight from Republicans is a budget that will take discretionary spending back to the pre-2008 level and begin to deal with our spending issue that we have as a Nation. We have increased our discretionary spending 25 percent over the last 2 years. We're trying to move it back to where we were a few years ago and then allow that to be able to grow with inflation.

We're focusing on freezing in the Federal workforce. It's a recommendation done by the President's own debt commission. And taking that issue on that the President and the debt commission gave to say, how do we need to handle our Federal workforce? It has increased by 140,000 just in a single year. And it begins to walk through the process of what do we do with our social safety net to make sure that the social safety net is still there in the years to come.

We believe there needs to be a social safety net, but as our chairman has said multiple times, that social safety net should be a safety net and not a hammock. And it should allow people to be able to go through that process to find a safe place and a safe harbor for a period of time until they're able to get back on their feet. That's a good thing for us to be able to do as Americans, and we need to find ways to be able to protect that in the days to come.

But part of the struggle that we have with that is finding ways that that doesn't become a place where people are trapped indefinitely. So we would like to be able to implement some of the reforms of the Clinton-era time when temporary assistance for needy families was transitioned in, and it has become such a great success on helping families be able to transition into work. The best way we can take care of families that are in the poverty area is not through a program from the government; it is with a great job so they have great self-esteem and they can be engaged and be a part of our ongoing economy.

The President's own debt commission made the comment that the Nation is broke, and what we need to do is focus on reducing spending and dealing with how we handle what we do as a Nation and what we're trying to accomplish.

As far as the issues about Medicare, we've been very clear through this process. We're dealing with Medicare changes for those that are 54 years old and younger. And for those that are in poverty and facing disability, those individuals would have full coverage, and as they're more wealthy, yes, we would means test that. We have an expectation that wealthier senior adults would be able to help cover more of their own Medicare; but for those that are in poverty or near the poverty range, they would be supplemented more to make sure that we're taking care of them, and it would be a guaranteed coverage like they have now so that they don't have to worry about not being able to get Medicare. They would be able to have it, and that would be secured for them.

We have one more major thing that we've all discussed. We all want taxes to be more simple in the process. Tomorrow is April 15, all of our favorite day in America, dealing with the taxes and dealing with the process. And it's not a matter of being a great citizen. It's just a matter of going through the tax forms. We need to simplify this process and make it more flat, more level and more fair for people across the board. So that's a major part of it. We're not talking about raising taxes $6 trillion. We're talking about keeping tax rates where they are and finding a way to be able to honor people and honor families.