Mr. Speaker, as the Members can tell, we are having a rather spirited debate in this body over something called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. It is a little surprising that we would come here and not work in a bipartisan manner to try…
Mr. Speaker, as the Members can tell, we are having a rather spirited debate in this body over something called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. It is a little surprising that we would come here and not work in a bipartisan manner to try to actually reduce the deficit.
So we need to explore, Mr. Speaker, exactly why is it that we need to do this, why is it important that we on the Republican side of the aisle have put forth a plan to help reform the government, to help achieve savings for the beleaguered American family? I believe it is very important, Mr. Speaker, because I still believe that although we face a number of challenges, we still have enemies, terrible enemies, who want to seek to do our country woe; that we have challenges in filling up our cars and pickup trucks; that the cost of health care needs to come down. We have a number of challenges, Mr. Speaker, but ultimately we can address them.
America has faced even greater challenges than that before. If we will just preserve freedom, if we will preserve opportunity, if we will protect the family budget from the explosive growth of the Federal budget, I still believe there is no limit to what we, the people in America, can achieve.
But this is a very important debate. And the vote on this act, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, Mr. Speaker, is going to be one of the most important votes that we cast this year because as our Nation faces a number of fiscal challenges in trying to pay for a number of our programs like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and, on top of that, the devastating hurricanes that have hit our great Nation, as we seek ways to pay for those, Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day there are only three different ways we can do it.
Either, number one, we are going to raise taxes again on the American people, as the Democrats want to do, and they do not claim they want to do it, but I assure the Members, Mr. Speaker, they do. So number one, we are either going to raise taxes on the American people; or number two, we are going to pass debt on to our children yet again, as unconscionable as that is; or number three, Mr. Speaker, again we can go to our plan, our plan to reform government programs so that we can achieve savings for the American people. And that is what this debate is going to be about.
We can have a bright future. But if we do not do it, Mr. Speaker, if we do not start today on this plan to reform government programs to achieve savings for the American people, I fear that our future could be dark.
For example, Mr. Speaker, I have a chart here. It is a multicolored chart, and it talks about what we call in Washington ``entitlement spending,'' kind of mandatory spending that is on automatic pilot. Much of it is good, but it is growing beyond our ability to pay for it.
This is 2003, and on this side of our chart we have a percentage, and this talks about the percent of our economy that we are spending right now on government.
Right now, Mr. Speaker, all of this spending here, and this year is 2003, just a couple years ago, we were spending roughly 20 percent of our economy on the Federal Government. This line here is our tax revenues, which stays fairly consistent, just a little bit below 20 percent of our economy.
But, Mr. Speaker, as the years go by, if we do not reform these programs, we can look at the year 2015, the year 2030, and the year 2040. Mr. Speaker, if we do not start to reform today, we are on the verge of doubling the size of government in one generation.
What is that going to mean to our children? What is that going to mean to their standard of living? We are on the verge of being the first generation perhaps in the entirety of American history to leave our children a lower standard of living than we enjoyed. And, Mr. Speaker, I just believe that is absolutely unconscionable. We must begin this process of reforms.
Again, we are on the verge of doubling the size of government, and that is just leaving the programs alone. Doing what the Democrats want us to do, turning our back on future generations, is going to double the size of government, taking away that hope, taking away those jobs, taking away those opportunities. How are we going to afford then to put gas in our pickup trucks? How are we going to afford to send our children to college? How are we going to afford paying our heating bills when Uncle Sam says, No, we are going to have to take twice as much of the economy just to pay for the Federal Government. What does this translate into for families all across America?
Again, if anybody was listening to the earlier debate, we did not hear the Democrats say this, but this is their plan. We have a plan to reform government programs, to achieve savings for the American people. They have a program to double taxes on the American people in one generation. Look at what is going to happen to the average family as the years go by, and this is 2005.
If the Democrats have their way, they will increase taxes on American families almost immediately by $4,000 a family. Well, there just went a down payment, a huge down payment on a car to get, perhaps, a parent to work. There just went, in some places, a semester or two of college. There just went no telling how many months of child care with the Democrat plan to immediately increase taxes on the American people. And as time goes by to 2009 and 2017 and 2027, increasingly, taxes go up and up and up.
So, again, Mr. Speaker, it really comes down to the question: Do we have a spending problem in Washington or do we have a taxing problem in Washington? And I think as we carry on with this debate, the American people will agree that what we really have here is a spending problem, that spending is out of control in Washington, DC. But I believe, Mr. Speaker, as do so many of my colleagues, that with a good plan of reform to achieve these savings, that we can actually deliver better health care, better retirement security for our seniors at, frankly, a lower cost.
And it is just so sad, Mr. Speaker, that we cannot seemingly get any Democrat from this side of the aisle to come join with us. And it is my fear, Mr. Speaker, that they are more concerned about the next election than they are the next generation.
I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, since the gentleman serves on the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the food stamp program, we just heard folks on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats, talk about massive cuts in the food stamp budget. But is it not true that even after we reform these programs, we will spend more on food stamps next year than we did last year?
Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield again, it reminds me that in this great body everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts. The fact is that these budgets are still increasing, even after our reforms.
But another question for the gentleman: is not one of the suggested reforms that we are offering here simply to extend for noncitizens, people who are not citizens of the United States of America, supposedly people who came here who wanted to roll up their sleeves and seek freedom and opportunity, a waiting period of 7 years instead of 5 before they receive food stamps, for noncitizens? Is that correct?
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments to help illustrate the point again that almost every single budget for these programs will increase next year over last year. That is just a simple fact.
It is hard for me to believe that there are people in America who are going to find it highly controversial that those who supposedly signed a contract not to be wards of the State, those who came here for jobs and for freedom and for opportunity, that somehow it is a draconian cut to ask them to wait for 7 years instead of 5 years to be on food stamps.
Dollars have alternative uses. So the millions you save by this simple reform are millions of dollars that instead now can go to help relieve human suffering along the gulf coast. It could go to increase the number of mammograms for indigent women in the Medicaid program. It is dollars that could be used to help fund more college scholarships. But instead, our friends on the other side of the aisle said, no, we cannot have any reforms, we cannot have any reforms. It is all about massive cuts.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes another great point, and that is that only the government, only the government would be so foolish as to pay two and three times the market rate for a loan to send somebody to college. Yet, in the twisted logic of our friends on that side of the aisle, they say, well, you are cutting student loans by not giving all of these great surpluses to the lenders. I mean, it is complete nonsense. Again, there are so many other reforms we can make that I believe will help improve retirement security and health care at a lower cost.
I am very happy that another gentleman from Georgia has joined us this afternoon who is a doctor, and this body could use more doctors; somebody who has extensive experience in dealing with Medicare and Medicaid. We are hearing all the scare tactics on the other side of the aisle. Frankly, we have heard them for 50 years, but we continue to hear it.
What we do know is this: Medicare is growing at 9 percent a year. Medicaid is growing at 7.8 percent a year. Now, these are important programs but; Mr. Speaker, they were designed back about the time I was born. They have not kept pace with the pace of medicine. They are not helping the people today as they once were, and there are so many reforms we can make to save them, because if we do not save them today, if we do not take the steps to reform, Medicare and Medicaid will simply not be around for my children.
With that, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) to tell us a little bit about his insights into those programs.
Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for just one point, and I think I heard the gentleman correctly that the government paid over $1,000 for a prescription that should have cost approximately how much?
Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield again, does that not mean, though, as we listen to the rhetoric by our Democratic friends on this side of the aisle, though, that by rooting out just this one waste, we would say somehow that we have cut health care for the poor by $5,000 because we found this waste, we found this fraud? It is again just one story out of countless stories about how you can reform government and still save money for American families.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the gentleman for his leadership on health care issues in this body and his leadership in trying to protect the family budget for the Federal budget. The gentleman did such a great job tonight in helping illustrate, Mr. Speaker, that again, there are so many ways that we can help reform these programs to achieve savings for the American people. If we do not do it, again, we are looking at a future of having to double taxes on the American people just to balance the budget, an unconscionable future.
Now, Mr. Speaker, again, this whole Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 is designed to help reform government programs to bring about savings. More so than any other event that precipitated this was the terrible hurricanes that ravaged our Nation recently; and Congress, rightfully so, joined together, Republicans and Democrats, came together to help relieve this human suffering, and it was important that we do that. A great tragedy had occurred in our Nation. But many of us were convinced that we could not let a great natural tragedy of this generation turn into a great fiscal tragedy for the next.
So I think one Member, above all other Members, came to the floor of this House of Representatives and said, we need to offset this spending. He launched something called Operation Offset, as chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Congress's largest caucus, made up of those who care about faith and family and free enterprise and freedom and, due to his actions, we were able to come to this point today. Because we know there are only three ways, Mr. Speaker, that we can offset this spending.
More taxes on our children, more debt on our children, or finding a plan to reform government to achieve these savings. And with that, I would love to yield to the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, my dear friend, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).
If the gentleman will yield, I will be glad to read this.
It is such an instructive chart, Mr. Speaker, to show the American people that, contrary to the rhetoric of the Democrats who speak of their massive cuts, look how much money we have spent on what we call mandatory spending in 2005, roughly $1.5 trillion; and in our 5-year budget, if we are successful and achieve these savings, these mandatory programs will grow at 6.3 percent a year instead of 6.4, a most modest, modest step of reforms, yet necessary and important.
And I will yield back to the gentleman from Indiana.
Well, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his clarity in debate, for his leadership on this floor, for helping be one of the very clear voices in trying to protect the family budget from the Federal budget and bring about reforms.
Mr. Speaker, I am now very happy to be joined by one of my dear friends in this body, someone who I believe exhibits more principle and more courage than just about anybody else in this body, one of the strongest leaders we have for limited government in the United States House. And with that, I would be happy to yield to my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for joining us this evening. I thank him for his leadership. I thank him for reminding us that ultimately this is a debate about the role of government in a free society, because too often it seems that our friends on the other side of the aisle believe nothing good has ever happened in America that was not the result of a Federal program: Without the Federal Government there would be no motherhood. Without the Federal Government, there would never be a meal placed on the table, there would be no Boy Scouts, there would be no baseball.
The truth is that it is freedom, it is individual freedom that counts in the lives of individuals and helps lift people out of poverty.
Mr. Speaker, I am now very happy that we have been joined by one of the true leaders and one of the more articulate and dynamic voices in this body on government reform, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments tonight, and especially reminding us that once again in this great body people are entitled to their own opinions. They are just simply not entitled to their own facts. The facts are that even after our exceedingly modest reform proposals are enacted, all this spending, all this Federal spending on automatic pilot will grow at 3.6 per year instead of 6.4, notwithstanding the threat to future generations, the incredible burdens on their futures and their hope and their opportunity.
Under this reform plan, Medicare will grow, Medicaid will grow, food stamps will grow; but we make commonsense reforms so that we manage to hopefully save the next generation from a fiscal tragedy.
Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to see that we have been joined by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola), another member of the Republican Study Committee, one who cosponsored the Family Budget Protection Act to try to reform this process and again save the family budget from the Federal budget.
I thank the gentleman from Indiana for joining us this evening in this very, very important debate.
Mr. Speaker, I think when you hear about all the different commonsense reforms we can make and how modest they are and how this juggernaut of government spending is going to continue on, unfortunately, for years and years and years to come, again it cries out for us to take a stand and be courageous and begin the program of reform. We need to remind ourselves why we need to do this.
Well, Mr. Speaker, let me give you a couple of quotes, one from Chairman Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He says, Mr. Speaker, ``As a Nation, we may have already made promises to coming generations of retirees that we will be unable to fulfill.'' He said that about Social Security, he said that about Medicare, important programs, important programs for seniors; but they are on automatic pilot, automatic pilot to eventually go bankrupt if we do not start the process of reforms.
Mr. Speaker, the Brookings Institute, not exactly a bastion of conservative thought in this Nation, said in a recent report, ``Expected growth in these programs, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with projected increases and interest on the debt and defense, will absorb all of the government's currently projected revenue within 8 years, leaving nothing for any other program.''
The General Accountability Office has said that right now we are on automatic pilot: ``We are heading to a future where we will have to double Federal taxes or cut the Federal spending by 50 percent.''
That is the future this Nation is facing, Mr. Speaker, unless we begin and enact this plan, to begin these modest reforms, so that we can begin to achieve savings for the American people.
Again, if we do not do it, this is what the Democrats have planned for us. These are the tax increases, a sea of red ink, a tsunami of red ink, a hurricane of red ink. It is all tax increases,
or it is all going to be debt, passed on to our children, because our friends on the other side of the aisle will not join us in these modest reforms.
In fact, they tell us every single day that somehow tax relief to the American people is part of the problem.
What they do not tell you is the massive tax increases that are going to be necessary just to pay for the government we have, not even the government that they are trying to add on top of the government programs that we already have.
Under their program, they will be bringing back the marriage penalty. They will be bringing back the death tax. The new child tax credit, say good-bye to it, accelerated depreciation and the list goes on and on.
Mr. Speaker, that is not a future that the American people want, and so we are going to debate this spending.
To me, Mr. Speaker, when we see that this spending is out of control, there was a time very recently until this last Congress when Medicare paid five times as much for a wheelchair as the Veterans Administration did, five times as much, because one would competitively bid and the other would not. Well, according to our friends on that side of the aisle, somehow we cut health care for the elderly when we began to pay market prices for wheelchairs. It is absurd, Mr. Speaker.
Now we are offering reforms saying that, you know what, if you are not a citizen of the United States of America and you signed a contract not to become a ward of the State, maybe you ought to wait 7 years instead of 5 before you qualify for food stamps so that maybe we can send that money to help relieve human suffering along the gulf coast. But somehow, again in this body, notwithstanding the fact that food stamps will grow next year over this year, it is somehow called some kind of massive cut.
It is just not true, Mr. Speaker. You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
Mr. Speaker, what is important is that we do not let the Democrats put double taxes on our children. It is important we not allow them to increase taxes today, because the tax relief we have passed has been great for this economy. It is what is helping people. Right now, we have passed tax relief, and guess what, Mr. Speaker, we have more tax revenue.
Mr. Speaker, right now, on this chart you can see that after we passed tax relief for the American people, allowing small businesses and families to keep more of what they earn, in 2003 we have almost $1.8 trillion in revenue, in 2004 almost $1.9 trillion in revenue, and now in 2005, $2.1 trillion in revenue. Tax relief has proven to be part of the deficit solution, not part of the deficit problem.
Mr. Speaker, that may be counterintuitive to some people, but let me tell you just one story about one small business in my district back in Texas.
It is an outfit called Jacksonville Industries, employs 20 people, an aluminum and zinc die cast business. Before we passed our economic growth program that had tax relief, they were getting ready to have to lay off two of the individuals due to competitive pressures, but because of tax relief, Mr. Speaker, they were able to go out and invest in new machinery that made them more efficient. Instead of having to lay off two people, Mr. Speaker, they hired three new people.
That is five people that could have been on welfare, five people that could have been on food stamps. That is five people who could have been on unemployment, but instead, Mr. Speaker, it was five people who had good jobs with a future, who had their own housing program, their own nutritional program, their own education program called a job.
So, to listen to our friends on the other side of the aisle, they would say somehow that is a cut. It is not, Mr. Speaker. It is about freedom and opportunity, and that is what helps the poor.