Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow for morning hour debate as though after May 31, 2004, thereafter to resume its session at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to vacate the ordering of the yeas and nays on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 3917 to the end that the Chair put the question on the motion de novo.

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

Just to start off the debate, we are obviously very interested in hearing what the Congressional Black Caucus has to offer. While we may disagree on the specifics, the caucus has almost every year provided its full alternative budget. As the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, I respect the fact that they would do so. I am going to oppose it, I respectfully oppose it; but I certainly appreciate the fact that the caucus would come forth with a full budget proposal. We look forward to hearing the debate as a proponent.

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.

First and foremost, let me say that obviously we do not agree with some of the facts and figures laid out by my friends on the other side in their criticism of not only the Republican budget, which is the base bill here, but also the President's budget.

Mr. Chairman, be that as it may, in good comity with my colleagues, I ask unanimous consent to yield 10 minutes of my time to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to control that time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) for a statement.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), a member of the committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute just to respond.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, as I said in our opening, I respect the fact that we are putting our values on the table. I have enormous respect for that. But let me just at least respond to the gentleman with regard to what he just said about taxes.

Most provisions that they are talking about, that they talk about as being tax cuts for the rich or tax increases on the rich, we have to remember that the bracket they are talking about, 90 percent of small businesses, which are the job creators in my district, in Manchester, Iowa, and it is true for all small businesses; small businesses owned by women, small businesses owned by minorities, small businesses all together, are paying this top rate, and 80 percent of the increase on taxes on this top rate would be borne by small businesses. Two-thirds of the income tax filers in the top income tax bracket have small business income. If we want to create jobs, why would we tax the job creators? That is what we are talking about.

And I respect the fact my Democrat colleagues admit they are taxers and spenders, but do not tax the job creators.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I have no further speakers other than myself and I belive I have the right to close and so I am prepared to close when the gentleman is.

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

Mr. Chairman, first, as I did when I opened, I do very much respect the job that has been done by the Congressional Black Caucus in presenting a budget. It is very difficult to do that. I know that just because I have the responsibility of putting together the majority budget, and it is not an easy task. And so I appreciate the job that was done. We simply disagree, and we do so very respectfully.

The title of the budget is ``Investing in America,'' and we just happen to believe that the best investors in America are Americans, not the government. We believe that individuals and families make much better decisions about spending their money than the government can for them. And so the reason why we believe that increasing taxes would be wrong or increasing spending at this time and the dramatic way that you go about that in your budget would just not be the right recipe at this time or the right blueprint as we move forward.

A couple of things that I just want to point out to my colleagues who are coming over and getting ready to vote.

The first is that the substitute offered by the Congressional Black Caucus raises taxes. It raises $35 billion of

taxes in 2005 alone and $192 billion over 5 years. And the way that it raises taxes is on small business; and that is, in my estimation, the wrong recipe at the wrong time when our economy is just poised to begin job creation. Ninety percent of small businesses pay taxes at the rate that they want to increase. More than 80 percent of the increase in taxes on the top rate will be borne by small business. Two-thirds of the income tax filers in the top income tax rate have small business income.

Small businesses represent more than 99 percent of all the employers in this country. And at the exact moment when the economy is poised after 6 months of the largest growth in 20 years, we cannot allow a tax increase to occur on those small businesses because they are the risk- takers, the entrepreneurs, the innovators in America. It is not government.

The innovation is happening outside of Washington, D.C., not inside the Beltway. And we need to encourage that.

I also just want to mention that tax cuts are not to blame for everything. We have heard a lot of people come to the floor today claiming that tax cuts cause the deficit, that tax cuts are the bane of our existence. Let me remind you that tax cuts, as you can see here, represent this white area right above here. This white line. And tax cuts would not have gotten us into deficit. It is spending. It is spending. It is spending that gets us into deficit as well as a downturn in the economy.

So two things that we cannot do, kill the economy or continue increases in spending. Second thing is that I believe the substitute spends too much money. Let me tell you what I mean by that.

Even before you ask us to adopt your budget, look at the large increases of spending that we are talking about. So before anyone comes to the floor yet again today and says somehow that we are cutting this, we are cutting that, we are gouging this, we are gouging that, my goodness we are spending a lot of money out here. In fact, if you want to look at this a little different way, this is the bar chart way. In the last 3 years total growth has been 6 percent. That is enough. We have enough spending. We do not need new taxes.

Please reject, respectfully, the Congressional Black Caucus budget.

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

Mr. Chairman, it is interesting that the title of this budget is When You Are in a Hole, Stop Digging. Yes, they need to stop digging, stop digging in the pockets of families and small businesses and farmers and ranchers. They are digging and digging for more and more and more taxes. More taxes from farmers, more taxes from ranchers, more taxes from families, more taxes from married couples, more taxes that kill jobs and make it impossible for our economy to get back on its feet. When you are in a hole, stopping digging in the American people's pockets and start reducing spending around Washington which is wasteful.

This budget presented today raises taxes at a time when small businesses can least afford it. Ninety percent of small businesses pay at the individual rates. More than 80 percent in the increase in taxes for the top rate that they speak of will be borne by small businesses. Small businesses represent more than 99 percent of all employers, and they employ more than half of the private workforce.

When you are in a hole, stop digging in my pockets and pass the Republican plan that does not raise taxes.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute just to say there has been some discussion here on the floor about how honest this budget is. Let me just point out, we are having a chance to read this thing and it cuts Medicare. Maybe I am missing something, but we are actually going to ask people to vote to cut Medicare. Not only do you cut Medicare, a $156 billion cut to Medicare, but I have read your budget and there is no reconciliation instruction in here on how to cut Medicare or even if you are going to cut Medicare. No reconciliation, just a plugged number in here of $156 billion.

They are advertising that their budget somehow reduces the deficit more. It does not reduce the deficit more. They have got plugged numbers in this budget. Somebody has rushed this budget to the floor with plugged numbers. If you are in a hole, stop digging, huh? Well, you better have a real shovel and not just try and fill it in with fantasy. $156 billion of Medicare cuts. I want you to go home and explain to your seniors that issue.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute, just continuing to look at this interesting budget. The gentleman from Texas says that he is concerned about the numbers being more expensive for Medicare. How come, then, they adopted the CBO baseline? If they think the actuaries at OMB are so correct, why did they not have the integrity to put that into their baseline? Again, they accept CBO. We accept CBO, but they come to the floor, and they demagogue the issue and they say that OMB is wrong and that the actuary is somehow correct. Then have the guts to put it in here. Do not raise taxes on the American people. Cut Medicare which they do in this instance. And now we find that they also cut national defense, $2 billion this year alone. National defense is cut. Where are they going to come up with $2 billion in national defense this year? Where are they going to find that? There are troops in the field right now who need our support, and they are asking for $2 billion this year. We have got to find some more details before somebody can claim that this has the integrity and the honesty to come before us as a budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to just say, put your money where your mouth is. Your budget does not balance. You say balance the budget, but you do not balance the budget. So it is one thing to say balance the budget, and it is another thing to come to the floor without a balanced budget. So you say one thing, and unfortunately the budget says just another.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.

I have got the figures right here, and there is a cut in defense of $2 billion in this year. I would suggest you need to read your own budget because there is a cut in defense, and I say that as respectfully as I can. I believe we can find savings in defense, but please do not come here advertising there are no cuts in defense when you put in this first year alone cuts in defense.

So those are the facts, and I believe that again you have got to look at your advertisements meeting the reality of the budget itself.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do not need the time. I have got my own time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

First and foremost, let me say to the gentleman who is the ranking member of the Committee on Agriculture, the choice will be the Committee on Agriculture's choice on where to find those savings, and I doubt seriously that the gentleman from Texas is going to be promoting opening up the farm bill. At least I would hope that he does not. That is not what the gentleman from Virginia, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, is suggesting.

I would hope that the gentleman from Texas does not believe that we should open up the farm bill. There is certainly no one on this side of the aisle, or I should not say no one, but there is certainly no one who I am aware of who wants to open up the farm bill at this time. That is not where the savings would come from. So I hope the gentleman would allow his own committee to work its will and to work within that committee process.

He asks us to respect the committee process on the one hand, and yet he predisposes that on the other. And I have to tell the Members I do not believe the farm bill is where we ought to be looking.

Second of all, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot say on the one hand, we are going to raise taxes on the job creators, the small businesses, the farmers, the ranchers, we are going to raise taxes on those people, and accept the economic assumptions that the economy is going to continue to grow.

You are saying on the one hand, we are going to kill jobs, we are going to tax small business, we are going to tax farmers; and on the other hand, do not worry about the economy, it is going to continue to grow at the same baseline amount. So you accept our numbers on the economy, which are derived, in part, from the fact that the tax cuts are working and the economy, the last 6 months at least, has had the strongest growth in 20 years.

You are accepting all the good news. You are accepting all the cake. But you cannot at the same time say, oh, no, but we are going to raise taxes on those same people who are creating the jobs, who are providing all that economic development, who are helping to make sure that the economy is growing, who are spending their money, who are being productive; we are going to tax them, and we are going to accept the economic growth. You cannot have it on the one side and then take it back on the other.

So you need to change your economic factors if you are going to come to the floor with a budget that you are going to at least purport. That answers the question.

The very distinguished gentleman from Texas asked me a question. He said, Are our deficit numbers better or worse? The issue is, we do not know because you accept the good news of the economy that the tax cuts have given us, and yet on the other hand you take away the tax cuts.

So on the one hand you say, oh, yes, our deficits are going to get smaller because the economy is going to improve, because that is the same baseline that you have; and yet on the other hand, you take away the goose that is laying the golden egg, by taxing, by digging deeper into the pockets of the very people who are creating those jobs.

You cannot have it both ways.

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

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

Let us just get back to this now. We were talking about the economy and, if this is doing so well, how come we are broke? All right. There are a lot of things that contribute to that.

First and foremost, let me say to my friend from Arkansas, you have not heard me blame the Democrats. I blame Osama bin Laden. I blame a lot of the challenges that we had from the natural downturn in the economy. I blame the dot-com bubble bursting. I blame the corporate scandals. I blame a lot of things. You have not heard me blame the Democrats because, no, you are not in charge.

I am not suggesting you are. Yes, you have stopped a few things from going through the other body. Yes, you have stopped a few things from coming through this body. But, no, I am not suggesting you are in charge.

But now we are talking about a plan to move forward. You want to debate history? You can debate history. Let me show you what we are doing moving forward. As I said, the last 6 months of growth in our economy has been at the fastest pace in 20 years, the fastest pace in 20 years. So when you say, if your plan is so good, where are you going, we are going nowhere but up. In fact, the most recent data that came out today said the economy continued to grow at 4 percent. That is the first thing, the economy is growing.

What have the tax cuts meant to jobs? All right, unemployment would have been higher without the tax relief package. It was at this point in time right there that we reduced taxes, and, as a result of reducing taxes, look what happened to unemployment. Unemployment went down as a result of the tax relief package from the line that it was on. In fact, we are at a lower point in unemployment than we were when Bill Clinton had his economic challenges back in 1993. We are reducing unemployment. We are getting people back to work. It is in part because of tax relief.

Last, but not least, let me just mention this: 2 million more jobs would have been lost without the tax relief package. Again, looking here, without tax cuts, we were losing jobs at a record pace. 2.1 million jobs have been created as a result of these new tax relief packages that have been put into place. We are creating jobs. The economy is turning around.

Quit blaming tax cuts for all the problems in the world. My goodness, that is not the case. And when you are in a hole, stop digging in the pockets of the American people for more money, more money, more money. Tax and spend, tax and spend. More spending in Washington, more wasteful Washington spending. My goodness, that is not what we need.

People are telling us they spend their money better than we do here in Washington. Let us allow them to do it by keeping the money in their pockets. Let us keep creating jobs; let us keep the economic growth going strong. This is not the time to raise taxes, as the Blue Dog budget does.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, first and foremost, let me say to my friend from Texas and all of the members of the caucus that I respect the fact that they put together a plan. I should have opened with that. It maybe would have helped take away some of the sting of the opposition that I have, because, as the gentleman knows, it is not easy to put together a plan. The fact that people are willing to put their plan on paper and let everybody see it and let everybody pick it apart, as I am trying to do and others will probably do to me and have been doing, I respect that. But I strongly oppose what the gentleman is offering, and I also strongly oppose some of the advertisement that the gentleman is offering.

The gentleman says, you know, when you are in a hole, stop digging. He is right. When you are in a hole, you ought to stop digging. Digging to me is spending. That is what is digging our hole deeper.

Unfortunately, what the Blue Dog budget does, it does not throw away the shovels. It keeps spending. It keeps growing. It keeps wasting money in Washington.

The gentleman said that we would have to open up the farm bill. First and foremost, we are not going to open up the farm bill. The gentleman knows that. That is a signal to the farmers out there, I have a few in Iowa, he has a number in Texas, that maybe they ought to start worrying about that. Maybe it is a code word to let them know they ought to start calling in and worrying about the farm bill. We are not looking at the farm bill.

Let me tell you what we are looking at. The Agriculture Department testified before the gentleman's committee, the Committee on Agriculture, as well as my committee, that they were proud of the fact that the error rate in food

stamps has gotten down to a fabulous level of 9 percent, meaning 9 cents on the dollar, or almost one dime out of every dollar, is wasted, is abused, goes to the wrong people, is used in an underground market or used as an underground currency, as has been testified. Nine percent is wasted.

All we are asking for is we are saying would you please look around your jurisdiction for some of this waste? It is unconscionable that we have people in this country that are starving, that are going hungry, that are going without food in their belly at a time when we have economic challenges; and the Agriculture Department under President Clinton, and it continues today, was wasting money.

Now, guess what? Do you know why they are proud of the fact it is only 9 percent? Because the error rate is down from 18 percent. They are proud of the fact that we are only wasting now 9 cents on the dollar, instead of 18 cents on the dollar. They are proud of that.

Only in Washington would you be proud of the fact that you are wasting 9 cents on the dollar. That is the only place in the world. There is not a small business in Iowa or anywhere across the country that would be proud of 9 cents of waste on every dollar that they have to deal with in their business. In fact, there is not a small businessman or -woman in this country who would not lock the door at five o'clock and spend the rest of the night, if they had to to figure out where that 9 cents went and why it was being wasted. You could just picture them locking the door and looking through every single one of their books to find that 9 cents.

And yet when it is wasted in Washington, it is defended. They say, well, that is good. We are improving; isn't that nice? And what we are saying in our budget is that it is darn time to look for some of this waste in the budget, and the Blue Dog budget does not do that.

The second thing, I just want to talk about tax cuts real quick. Tax cuts did not cause the deficit. There would be deficits without tax cuts.

As you can see from this chart, the taxes are in this blue area right here. But what is driving the budget into deficit is an economy that has been rocked, that has been hit in its gut by a number of issues, everything from 9/11 to the dot-com bubble bursting to corporate scandal, and we have got to get that economy back on its feet. More importantly, we have to get families earning again and creating jobs, along with small businesses.

It would be the wrong time, at a moment in our history when jobs are about to be created, to gut-punch them again, all those small business people, and say, yes, we need a little bit more for Washington. Before you create those jobs, we are going to fund some more of that waste out in Washington, so we need that money, and to do it and not even accomplish a balanced budget. They raise the taxes, but they do not even get to a balanced budget.

The other thing that I just wanted to say, last, but not least, is on spending. I respect the conservative Democrats, the Blue Dogs. They are probably our last hope when it comes to Members on the other side who have any concern about controlling spending. But they fail to do so in their budget, and it is compounded by such a large history of growth in spending.

This is not a time to increase spending. This is not a time when we need to have growth in government. This is a time to look around the garden and start pulling some weeds, the way every family does across our country, the way every small business person does across our country. They look for ways to tighten their belt. Sometimes it hurts when they tighten their belt.

We are not asking for pain; we are just saying level funding. States across our country are cutting budgets. Families across the country are making ends meet with less. Only the Federal Government, for some reason, believes you can raise taxes for more spending in Washington, D.C. and call that a success story.

That is why we believe the Republican budget is the way to go. It holds the line on spending; it funds our important priorities of strength, growth for the economy, and opportunity for the future. It deserves a vote.

Please vote against the Blue Dog budget.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment in the nature of a substitute, and claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that half of the time I have claimed in opposition be yielded to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for purposes of control.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to observe, get old people? That is kind of interesting.

The one program that seniors in our country depend on is Medicare. Are there any cuts in the Republican budget for Medicare? No. In fact, we funded a new drug benefit last year, and that is included in our budget. But, boy, it is interesting here, as I look at the Democrat substitute, look on the Medicare line, a cut in Medicare, is it possible that you could come to the floor with a cute little sign that says Get Old People and then cut Medicare and yell about it?

I can yell, too, I suppose, but yelling does not make it different. My colleagues get old people with a Medicare cut. Why is it that they would come to the floor with a sign that says one thing and present a budget that does something completely different? At a time when we are trying to modernize Medicare, provide providers with better reimbursements and help provide the first-ever prescription drug benefit under Medicare is not the time to cut Medicare. My colleagues should not have that in their budget.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, we just heard an interesting speech about Medicaid cuts. So, on the one hand, it is okay when you put a Medicare cut into your budget, and then come to the floor and say, do not worry about the Medicare cut in the Democratic substitute, do not worry about that, look over here at the Republican budget where they are cutting Medicaid.

Let me tell Members what is happening to Medicaid.

Let us assume for a moment that was coming out of Medicaid, $2 billion was coming out of Medicaid. Sounds like a lot of money; it is a lot of money, particularly if you are a small business back home and people are trying to raise taxes.

Let me show what happens to Medicaid with and without the reform. Instead of spending $1.15 trillion over the next 5 years, we are saying there are States out there that the Department of Health and Human Services has discovered are wasting or transferring approximately $9 billion per year of what the Secretary of Health and Human Services said were suspicious transfers or suspicious spending. Not one penny of that, he is claiming, is going to nursing homes or seniors, not one penny. He is saying it is suspicious because the States are playing games with that money.

So what we say is, we want to look for that money and find out whether or not the States are doing that. We want to see if we can provide some of that savings, and we want to put it back into the program so it actually goes to nursing homes and actually goes to

people who are in poverty or people who do not have health care or kids in the SCHIP program.

So what we are saying within our budget is, when we find savings, because maybe some States are abusing this program or maybe others are abusing that program, let us take that waste and put it back into the budget so we have a better health care system for our people who are indigent.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to build on the comments by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) because he made them so well.

In Washington, a cut, the definition of a cut and listen to this, if you ask for one thing and it is an increase and you do not quite get the increase you want, then you are cut.

It is like my son, and I hope he is not listening. If my son came to me and he asked me for a $10-a-month allowance, and I only gave him an $8 allowance, would it be fair for him to scream that he was being cut $2? Of course not, because that is just not the way things work. It does not make sense.

In Washington, however, when you do not get the anticipated increase you ask for, you can scream bloody murder that you have been cut. Unfortunately, time and time again Members come to the well or the floor here and they say we have been cut, we are gouging or we are eliminating spending, when in fact all we are saying is let us not grow as fast.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my remaining time in opposition be allowed to be split, 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), and that they be allowed to control that time.

Mr. Chairman, I do.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from Connecticut says there is no change in direction. Let me beg to differ. There is a lot of change in direction, a lot of change in direction in our economy.

Our economy has, as many of us know and many people listening know who are out of work, who have had a difficult time with their jobs, small businesses that have not been able to make ends meet, they know that there has been a change in direction.

We were heading in a downward path with our economy, but the last 6 months have been the strongest 6 months of growth within our economy in over 20 years. And why? Because we adopted the best fiscal policy we could at the time, and that was to say let us give the ability to create jobs to small business.

What the Spratt substitute does, what the Democrats are rushing to the floor to claim today, is that right at the moment when we finally have seen a positive change in direction for our economy, let us give it a gut-punch. Let us kill the jobs. Let us kill small business with a tax increase, exactly at the wrong time.

When you propose the tax increases of this budget, what you do is you kill the jobs, because 90 percent of small businesses pay at that rate that they want to increase. They want this automatic tax increase to occur. More than 80 percent of the increase in taxes on this top rate will be borne by small businesses; and in Manchester, Iowa, in South Carolina, in California and across the country, those are the businesses that are creating jobs. We do not want, we do not need, and we will not support a tax increase right at the moment when the country is getting back on its feet.

Why do they propose a tax increase? Because they want more spending. So many of the Members over the last 2 days have come to the floor wringing their hands about the deficit. Oh, the deficit is so terrible; let's increase spending. Oh, the deficit is going to be passed on to our kids; but let us have more wasteful Washington spending.

Oh, the deficit is terrible because it is going to promote all sorts of terrible things happening within our economy, but let us continue the spending.

Spending and tax increases, spending and tax increases, on and on it goes. You would think over time they would come to the floor with a much more original budget than continuing tax increases and continuing big spending.

It is about time that we finally realize in this country that when you are in a hole, you not only stop digging by controlling spending, but you stop digging in the pockets of the American family, the American farmer, the American small businessperson, who does the spending, who does the working, who does the toiling, that needs to be occurring in order to make this country great and continue the freedom and opportunity for our kids into the future.

We have got to control spending. We do not want an automatic tax increase. Let us not support this substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Schrock), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the very distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) so that he may respond.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to myself.

Mr. Chairman, the interesting thing about my friends on the other side is that they know the words of deficit reduction and they know the words of fiscal responsibility, but they have not yet learned the music.

They know the words to the song, but they do not know the music because on the one hand they say that we are gouging, we are cutting, we are eliminating, we are making it more difficult on the spending side of the ledger. On the other hand, they say how our economy needs a shot in the arm; how it needs to be growing again; how we need to be creating jobs. And yet in their budget, they do nothing on the spending side because they increase spending or on the growth side because they kill job creation by raising taxes on small business.

So, yes, they know the words to the song. The words to the song are almost always easy to learn, but the music is a little more difficult to learn. So we would invite you to go back and learn the notes to the song before you come back next time. You have got to control spending in Washington. You have got to get the economy growing. That was the recipe of 1997.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to myself.

What an interesting concept. Let me review the concept the gentleman promoted from 1997.

You mean to tell me that the words to this song are cut taxes and control spending and the deficit goes down. My goodness, what a novel concept. We should write a budget that says that.

In fact, we have. We have written a budget which is the base bill today that reduces taxes, keeps them level; reduces spending, keeps it level; funds the priorities of national security; grows our economy; controls spending; and gives us deficit reduction. Exactly the words to the song, exactly the right music and the reason why you should support the Republican budget.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to myself.

If facts are stubborn things, then why is it that you would increase taxes on those families you have just lamented $1.2 trillion over the course of the Democratic substitute, $1.2 trillion of tax increases. Why would we go through there? I thought, wait a minute, I thought the gentleman knew the song. He was talking the right words. He was saying the right words, but I thought he learned the music too. The music to this is reduce taxes, keep them low, keep spending under control, look for waste. That is what the budget that we have presented does, not increase taxes as the Democrat substitute does.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to myself.

Mr. Chairman, there is not an economist in the country, not one economist who does not say that the economic recession that we had to face began under President Clinton. President George Bush inherited the recession from President Clinton. We worked to reduce it and get it back on a growth path, which we have done.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to myself.

The way that is computed, I would say to my friend, the way of course that is computes is we believe that by allowing a tax increase to occur automatically, that that is a tax increase. So we start with that and then above that is over the CBO baseline. So that is where we come up with $1.2 trillion over the 10 years of your budget.

Mr. Chairman, I would say to my friend, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), look, part of the reason why we are having this discussion is that there are so many people coming to the floor complaining about tax cuts for the rich. We know what you are up to.

I understand that rhetorically, not the gentleman necessarily, but we believe within the party what you are up to, that is, you want to, what you say, is reduce this tax for the highest income tax bracket. I understand that is not what your budget says, but I am saying that is what the votes say on the floor time and time again as they come to the well, and that is, that when that is targeted at that bracket, what you are targeting, we believe, are small businesses which are creating those jobs.

I understand that nobody wants to kill those jobs, but when people in small business are paying at that tax bracket, we believe that kills jobs. And that is why we do not allow those tax increases to expire. We believe that would be a tax increase.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to myself.

Mr. Chairman, let me start by letting the committee know and the House know that we have a letter from Secretary Principi on the subject that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) just spoke about.

Let me just read from the letter and I will be glad to make this available as it was just made available to me:

``I write to strongly endorse the House passage of H. Con. Res. 393,'' this budget. ``The President's budgets have provided historic funding levels for America's veterans today. The Veterans Administration provides nearly a million more veterans with better, faster health care than when the President took office.''

So just in the last 3 years, 1 million more veterans have been invited into the VA than under former President Clinton.

``The President pledged to reduce the average processing time to 100 days and reduce the inventory of pending claims to 250,000. The Department is on track to meet those goals.

``When the President entered office, VA was providing care to slightly under 4 million veterans. Now, at a time when the overall population of veterans is declining,'' and that is unfortunate, ``nearly 5 million patients are being treated. The President's budget reflects his strong commitment on preserving the core mission of the Department of Veterans Affairs.''

He salutes the Congress, he says, and he strongly urges Members to vote for this budget resolution.

A couple of other things I just wanted to mention with regard to veterans spending. The House level for veterans spending is the highest amount between the two bodies that we will have an opportunity to support. The House version is higher than the Senate version because the Senate, when it passed an amendment on the floor, included unspecified receipts, which is an interesting budget code word for copayments, fee increases, means testing. Those are ways that we get those unspecified receipts to be specified.

The result is that, together with Secretary Principi, the House budget we present today is $1.2 billion above the President's request to meet the request that Secretary Principi provided to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the Committee on the Budget. If my colleagues want to support a higher veterans spending amount, they need to support the amount that is provided in this bill.

Veterans organizations are getting snookered out there by being told that the Senate number is somehow higher than the House number. That could not be further from the truth. When you hide fees, when you hide means testing, when you hide copayments into an amendment and then pass it, that is not necessarily a higher amount because in our bill, in our budget, we do not accept any fee increases, any copayments, or any means testing to this program. It is a higher amount than the other body, and it needs our support.

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

Let me just give my colleagues this again on veterans health care. Overall spending for veterans medical care has grown significantly in recent years. The Congressional Research Service estimates that it has increased from $17.8 billion in 1999 to $28.3 billion in 2004. That is 9 percent a year of increases, and we will continue that as we move forward into the future.

Since 1999, spending on veterans medical care has increased from $16 billion to $28 billion a year, a 75 percent increase; and over the past 2 years, appropriation for veterans medical care increased rapidly, by 11 percent in last year alone.

To come to the floor and suggest today that we are not meeting our promises to veterans is based on the veterans service organizations and what they call their independent budget. Look, I will tell my colleagues the same thing I tell them and tell my veterans at home. They, of course, have earned the right to request any amount they believe they deserve. That is not the issue. Of course they have the right to make that request.

Our job, though, is to make sure that we fund and we make sure we are meeting the demands of veterans, and veterans under President Bush have gotten not only a promise fulfilled, but we are helping to ensure that the lines are shorter; that the care is better; and that it is delivered to as many veterans as possible under this bill. We continue that promise, and we do it at a faster rate than the other body.

The veterans service organizations have been alerting Members because they thought mistakenly that the Senate had a higher number than the House. That is the reason that they were agitating over this; but when they have read it, when we have read it and when others independently have read

it, they discovered that there are these unanticipated fees, unanticipated receipts, possibly means testing, possibly all sorts of things that are hidden in there in order to make that number look just a little bit bigger.

Well, we are not going to do that to our veterans. We have already rejected that proposal; and as a result, the highest number that my colleagues can support is for the House base bill presented by the Republicans.

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

Modification to Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute No. 4

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, but just for clarification I would yield to my friend from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) under my reservation and just ask the question, Is there any bottom line impact on a monetary basis to the budget?

I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

That is my understanding; and, therefore, I have no objection and believe that can be supported.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

The Washington Post has something to say about all of this discussion on veterans, and let me just read this to my colleagues because The Washington Post, I do not think anybody would accuse The Washington Post of being somehow shilling for the Republican Party.

It says here, in fact, in an article on March 24, just yesterday, ``Veterans Funding Dispute not a Simple Matter,'' is the headline. And it says, in fact, Bush has never cut the agency's budget: ``The President has proposed increasing its discretionary budget, funding for programs not required by law, in each of his annual budget proposals.''

In fact, it goes on to say: ``The bulk of that money would go to the agency's health care programs. Over the course of his administration, Bush, along with Congress, has increased that portion of the agency's budget by $7 billion.''

Now, again, there has been CBO discussion, there has been OMB discussion, there has been veterans discussion. This bill, that bill. Listen to The Washington Post. They even say our budget is not cutting funding for veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Okay, Members do not believe The Washington Post, we will go back to the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. The Washington Post may be understandably grumpy that Democrats are not standing with them, but we will get back to that in a minute.

I want to show Members what was going on during the time when President Clinton was in charge of the VA budget. Look at that flat line. Look at that flat line for veterans. Look what happened when President Bush took office, look how we have been increasing it.

It is one thing to come down here and claim what a terrible job Republicans are doing and what a terrible job that has meant for VA health care, but here are the facts: Under Republican control, under Republican Presidents, VA health care has gone up.

But it is not just the number for health care, look at the number of veterans that we are serving. During this period of time, the budget authority for veterans' medical care, look how we are serving more veterans.

Back during that Clinton period, which is the red period, we were not serving as many as we are now. That is why this is a good budget.

Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry. Does the gentleman ask unanimous consent to have this added on?

Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry. Is it appropriate to make a request to expand that last minute by unanimous consent?

Mr. Chairman, we have no further requests for time, so if the gentleman from South Carolina would go ahead and close debate on the Spratt amendment, I will close on it as well.

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

First of all, I would like to extend my congratulations to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), who is my friend and colleague on the Committee on the Budget, for coming up with an alternative, the Democratic leadership substitute. As the gentleman knows and as I know, it is not easy to come up with a budget blueprint.

As I said at the outset of the debate, it is like when that family or couple goes to visit the architect and they have to come to grips with exactly what they can afford and what they want as far as what the home looks like, what the layout looks like. And it is a hard job to set a blueprint, but without a blueprint, it is pretty tough when the carpenters show up to do their work. It is a mess if the budget is not set out ahead of time exactly where the budget needs to go and exactly how you are going to get there.

That is why I compliment all Members who came today with a full budget substitute to the floor.

I would also like to thank our staff which does an awesome job of preparing us for debate, and preparing the budget itself. Tom Kahn and Rich Meade from the minority and majority staffs, they keep us in line and give us good information. We appreciate the job that they do in getting us prepared for this, and they have more work to do getting us to a conference report between ourselves and the other body.

And there is a difference between the sides of this aisle that we talk about that runs up and down the middle of this body; there is a difference in philosophy. That philosophy is going to come to bear today between the competition of these two budgets. One budget believes that we can continue spending at the rate we are spending in Washington, and it does not have the effect that we think on this side that it does. Another side believes that increasing taxes at this time in our economic situation is okay, is an appropriate part of the blueprint. I disagree. And we disagree on our side of the aisle. Raising taxes, increasing spending is not the recipe, is not the blueprint at this time for our Federal budget or for our economy. And why is that?

Unfortunately, over the last 2 days, so many Members have come to the floor and have blamed tax cuts for everything. My goodness. I even heard, believe it or not, there were Members who came to the floor and said we were cutting volleyball teams because of tax cuts for the wealthy and all sorts of things like that. That is not only not in our budget, it is probably not in anyone's budget.

Tax cuts did not cause the deficit. As Members can see from this chart, the tax cuts only took us down a little bit. And why did we cut taxes? We did not just put this white wedge in there for no reason. There is a reason we reduced taxes. Because when President Bush inherited the recession from the previous administration, we had to act. We had to make a decision about what we were going to do with regard to the economy. We made a decision. It was philosophically opposed by the other side; but we can respect that, that people, families, farmers, businesspeople, workers, laborers, men, women, old, young, rich, poor, whatever it is, they spend their money more wisely than the government can for them. And if you let them keep that money and you let them spend that money and you let them work with that money and invest that money, they do a far better job of getting that economy going than anything the government has ever been able to do.

What are the results of reducing taxes that did not cause those deficits? Look what has happened to the economy. The last 6 months have been the fastest growing 6 months that our economy has seen in 20 years, 6 months of sustained, gigantic economic growth. People will say, where are the jobs? There is not an economist in the country that does not tell you that the very last thing that people do with their money is invest in job creation. Most of the other things that happen to start the economy going, it does not have so much to do with job creation. It is what is called a lagging indicator. It is about time for that lagging indicator to start heading in the right direction, and it is.

And just at that moment, just at that moment when the economy is ready to recover and jobs are just now starting to be created is not the time to come in with a gut punch to the economy and say, let us raise taxes on the very people who are increasing those jobs, who are putting on those extra people, who are taking the risk when they open that store in the morning and saying, I want to hire another person to work next to me. That is not the time to increase taxes, particularly because we do not need those taxes out here. We do not need it for extra spending.

Our budget says, Let's level-fund the government. Let's fund security, let's make sure we have got a strong America, let's make sure homeland security and national defense are funded, let's make sure we fund those priorities that keep us strong; but let's not increase spending for all of these wasteful things. It is just like any family, any business, any farmer sitting around their kitchen table right now trying to figure out how to make ends meet. They will say to themselves, Honey, what can we put off till next week, till next month, to next year, maybe even longer? Maybe we can take a vacation a little closer to home. Maybe we can do some things to trim some of the expenses. Maybe we can do some things that make more sense than continuing to add to that spending. That is all we are asking our colleagues to do. It is common sense. But for some reason in Washington that common sense is often missed.

We define compassion in Washington by how much you are willing to spend. I have even fallen into that trap today. I have to confess that I have even fallen into that trap today, trying to convince veterans that because we are spending more money we must care more. That is not the definition. Or because we are spending more money in education, that somehow we care more. That is not the definition. Or somehow if we spend more money on farmers or spend more money on seniors or spend more money here or spend more money there, somehow that defines compassion. It does not. Oftentimes that money is wasted and wasted in ways that just frustrate the very people we are trying to help.

So let us not kill the jobs at the very moment in time. Spending is out of control. Before we even talk about another year's budget, look where we have come. Every single year, more and more and more spending. Where does that money come from? It comes from the pocketbooks of every American in this country. And so when the Democrats come to the floor and they say, When you're in a hole, stop digging, I say to you, We are stopping the digging. We are holding the line on spending. What I want you to do is stop digging in the pockets of families, farmers, ranchers, small businesspeople, and Americans across the country who are tired of paying more and more for wasteful Washington spending.

They are saying enough is enough, do with what you can, with what we have sent you, do a better job with what you already have. Do not ask us for more. That is why our budget does not increase taxes; it holds the line on spending. It says, let's look through the garden of all the different programs of our country and let's start looking for those weeds, let's start pulling those weeds, let's look for the waste, let's look for ways to trim that spending, just like every family and business across the country. We have had way too much spending that we are building on from the past.

One last thing I want to talk about on spending quickly. Oftentimes Members will hear that we are cutting spending, but in Washington, it is a code word. It is a code word for decreasing an anticipated increase. It is

just like when my son comes to me and says, Dad, I want 10 bucks a week for allowance and I only give him 8. Is it fair for him to scream that that is a $2 cut? No, of course it is not. Only in Washington would a decrease in an anticipated increase or a desired increase or a wanted increase be called a cut. All of these accounts that we have been spending money on, many of which have been increasing at astronomical rates, we are building on a huge baseline as we move forward.

Last but not least, let me just say that I believe that this budget that we have put together does not do harm to our Nation's security. The most important issue, job one, is making sure our country's freedom is protected. If we are not free, there is not a word of this discussion that has made any difference at all, on my side or yours. If our country is not free, if we are not protected, if we are not strong, it does not matter what we do here today.

So vote for the underlying Republican budget, vote against the Spratt substitute, and let us make sure that we get to a balanced budget in the very near future.

My understanding, Mr. Chairman, is that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) is going to go first, then myself, then the minority leader and then the Speaker, is I think how we are going to wrap up the debate. So I will allow the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina to begin the closing debate.

If the gentleman would permit me, I would say the same about the majority staff and all of our staff, and the members of our floor staff that are here that have endured the discussion over the last number of days. I hope they got their ``millions'' and ``billions'' all in the right places. We appreciate their help as we moved through this debate

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, we need a budget blueprint in order to build for the future. We cannot have the carpenters show up without a blueprint. A mess would ensue, as one might imagine. We cannot have the subcontractors do their work. We cannot have any of the folks who need to construct the house show up for work without a blueprint, and that is what a budget provides. It provides the framework so that all of the rest of the fine-tuning and detail work can be accomplished.

Even before the end of last year, we knew what priorities were going to have to be part of this budget; they were becoming very clear. Spending had to be kept under control, there was no question. When we talked to colleagues, when we talked to constituents, no matter where we went, controlling spending had to be a hallmark of whatever budget plan came together.

We heard, too, that growth of our economy was vital to getting our country back on its feet. So we came together with all of the extraordinary circumstances that our country has been dealt over the last number of years and we knew we had to go to work.

We had a growth deficit in our economy, and we dealt with it by reducing taxes and a progrowth policy which has given us 6 months. The last 6 months were the fastest growing 6 months in over 20 years, because tax relief is working, Americans are being put back into working positions. They are spending their money much more wisely than the government can for them, and America is growing again.

We also learned painfully about the defense deficit, about the homeland security deficit in our country, and we went about the work to make sure that America was protected, and we did it most often in a bipartisan way, but most often led by Republicans to ensure that America was strong once again.

We also had a Medicare deficit, because a program that was invented in the 1960s was not keeping up with the times. Americans were not receiving drug benefits or simple prevention systems under health care programs that were invented to help them. So we changed that Medicare program to provide them the first-ever prescription drug benefit, put in as part of our blueprint that we have here today. So that we filled in that gap, that Medicare deficit.

As a result of much of that work, yes, we have a Federal budget deficit that we also have to go to work on. But we have the ability to accomplish deficit control.

My friends on the other side have learned the words to the song of fiscal responsibility, but they do not know the music. The music is controlling spending. That is what we have to do. The only thing that we pay for in Washington is spending. What is paid for when we pay for taxes is paid for out of the pockets of Americans, out of their hard- earned money that they earn out of small businesses, out of farmers, out of ranchers.

When we talk about paying for tax cuts, the only people who pay for taxes in this country are Americans, and in order to get our budget deficit under control, the way we control it is by growing the economy and controlling spending.

Spending has been out of control, and we can see from this chart that recent spending every year in the last 3 years has grown by 6 percent. We are asking that we begin to hold the line. We are not saying cut. We are not saying eliminate. We are saying hold the line.

Yes, the decisions will be difficult, there is no question. We have carved out items that are important such as increases in veterans' spending, 1.2. We allow for an increase, even over what the President requested for veterans, of $1.2 billion.

We have increases in education. We have increases in here for homeland security and for national defense, and we ask that we hold the line in other accounts in order to get Federal spending under control.

Mr. Chairman, the three hallmarks of our budget are strength, growth, and opportunity. First, because if America is not strong, America is not free, and we have got to protect our country; otherwise, the rest of this discussion on the budget is just a bunch of numbers that do not make any difference.

Second, America has got to continue to grow, because to remain the most prosperous superpower Nation, America's economy has to be able to continue the growth that we have seen and the job creation that we have enjoyed.

But we also know that our greatness comes from the unlimited opportunities that America's freedom provides, which is why opportunity is the third hallmark of our budget.

This is all done within a framework which is fiscally responsible.

Mr. Chairman, we believe that we have a framework to move our country forward to provide strength, growth, and opportunity, and I ask my colleagues today to support it so we can get our country back on a fiscally responsible path.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Con. Res. 393.

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

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chance to come before the body to debate yet again the budget for this next fiscal year. Before I start with that debate, let me compliment my ranking member and friend, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), on the way that we have moved this budget through committee and moved it to the floor. The gentleman from South Carolina will be offering a substitute budget tomorrow as part of this debate.

While people who are watching this are going to see us argue today, we are going to argue about priorities, we are going to argue about deficits, we are going to argue about taxes, we are going to argue about just about everything, it seems, but one thing we do not argue about is the importance of this process.

Those who are watching may wonder why it is we are going to be spending 6 hours of general debate over the budget. Let me tell you why. If you have ever built a house with your wife or your husband and you had to go visit the architect, you will discover very quickly why it is important you have a blueprint that you can agree on before the carpenters show up or the plumber or the heating and air conditioning people or the roofer or anybody else, because if the blueprint does not work, if it does not fit, if there is not agreement on that basic foundation, the rest of the process is not going to work very well. The carpenters show up to do their work, they do not have a blueprint, and what you have on your hands is a mess.

The reason that we have gone through this process since 1974, every year, is because we believe in the fundamental decision that is made as part of this budget for spending, for taxes, making so many decisions that flow from this process.

We are going to have some good-natured debate today. Democrats will be arguing with Republicans and Republicans will be arguing back. But when it comes right down to it, we believe in our country, but we believe that we need a blueprint, we believe in this process and as I said to start with, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for his partnership in working through the process even though we have not come to a bipartisan agreement.

I would also like to thank our staff. When you are going from the beginning of the Federal budget and $2.4 trillion line items here and there, you have got to count on some good people. I want to thank them for the work they do in getting us to this point because, just like any good architect, they need the engineers behind them to make sure that the structure is sound. I want to thank our staff on both sides for the work that they do.

Even before the end of last year, we kind of had an idea of what the must-do list would be in writing this year's budget. It was already becoming very clear that this budget has got to get spending under control, and it had to begin the work of reducing our deficit. I heard that message from every Member, from our President and from just about every constituent that I visited with back home in Iowa.

It really did not matter where you went. People said, out in Washington, you're spending way too much money. Even worse than that, you're wasting a lot of money. It did not matter, almost regardless of the topic, regardless of the department, regardless of the program, people said you have to control spending.

Even the administration was clearly hearing the exact same thing. As far back as last July, the President of the United States was proposing that cutting the deficit in half within the next 5 years would be one of the most important cornerstones of the budget that he presented to Congress this year.

We all know and we take pause at a time like this to remember the extraordinary circumstances of the past few years. Our country has hardly ever seen the kind of difficulty that we have had to face during these past few years. We had a growth deficit in the economy that produced a slowdown, a recession, of 2000 and 2001. The economy was not growing. We had a growth deficit.

We learned painfully, as well, that we had extensive deficits in our defense and our homeland security. We knew that we were not protected as well as we could be or should be as a Nation, and we made immediate plans to improve that.

We also had a Medicare deficit. A 40-year program that our Nation's seniors had depended on had really failed to keep up with the times, and as a result, we had a deficit in the way that that program was providing help to seniors across the country, particularly with regard to prescription drugs.

All of these were large and important problems and challenges, and I doubt that anyone on either side would have recommended that we ignore them. In fact, no one did. We all decided the economy was important. We all decided Medicare was important. We all decided that security and homeland security and national defense were important. But in addressing them, we took large initiatives and the result was a budget deficit. We made deliberate decisions that drove us to borrow money in order to meet these short-term challenges.

Correcting that budget deficit and getting us back on a path to balance is our next major challenge, and it is one that this budget tackles. We had a growth deficit, a security deficit and a health care deficit that we have dealt with. Now we have to deal with the Federal budget deficit.

At the same time, however, this was not a green-eye-shade exercise. It is not just a matter of getting a bunch of numbers to add up. The budget also has to support an agenda that reflects our principles of governing, which is to advance our Nation's strength, growth and opportunity. I will briefly review each of these principles and then turn it over to colleagues from my committee who will discuss these even further.

First is strength. Our country has to be strong. America is free and will remain free as long as we are strong. We have got to be strong enough to defend that freedom. We have got to be strong enough to defend it here at home and we have got to be able to take that fight to the people who want to ruin that freedom wherever they may be. That is what we are doing around the world right now. America is free and will remain free as long as we are strong enough to defend freedom at home and around the world.

Second is growth. To remain the world's most prosperous superpower nation, America's economy must continue to grow and create jobs. If the budget that is being debated around the kitchen tables of America today, right now as we speak, families are trying to balance their checkbook, they are trying to figure out how to make ends meet, send their kids to college, pay their bills on time, pay a Visa bill that seems to get bigger and larger all the time. If their budgets do not add up, it really does not matter what the rest of the country looks like. We are the sum of our parts and our parts have got to be strong. That is why growth in the economy is so vital.

Finally, opportunity. Strength, growth and opportunity, the third one. America's continued greatness comes from what I believe are the unlimited opportunities that our American freedom provides all of us. We must continue to encourage opportunities for a better life for every citizen in our country. Those are the guiding principles of this budget. The fundamentals for furthering those principles with this year's budget include the following. Let me just outline a few of them.

First is on taxes, and let me be very clear because this is one delineation between the parties and between all of the budgets that you are going to see today. This budget does not raise taxes, period. Our country does not need a tax increase today or tomorrow to meet the needs of our budget.

Our tax relief policies are working, finally. We are starting to see some of these have their effect on the economy. The last 6 months of our economy were the fastest growing 6 months in 20 years. It has been 20 years since we have seen that kind of growth.

Have the jobs been there? Not yet. They are coming, though, because that is the last indicator in economic development. It is what they call a lagging indicator. Economists call it lagging because it is one of the last things you see develop within the economic development, are the jobs being created.

And at exactly the time when small businesses in Manchester, Iowa, or across Iowa or wherever you might be, at the very time when they are starting to think, you know, the economy's starting to turn around, it might be time to add on another product line or maybe to hire another waiter or waitress or two or maybe to figure out another sales clerk that could maybe fill in during some of the times so that somebody can be off a little bit more of the time. At the very moment when they are ready to think about adding jobs, we cannot have a snapback, automatic, come-from-behind, hit-them-in-the-back-of-the-head tax increase that says, oh, by the way, we need that money, you shouldn't be able to spend it back home. That to me does not make any sense.

The tax relief packages are working and we will not allow a snapback of the tax, the 10 percent tax rate, the marriage penalty relief. We do not want to penalize married people in this country.

And we also believe that the tax credit should remain at its current level. So that is taxes.

The next is spending. We cannot begin to address reducing the current budget deficit without getting ahold of our current rate of spending growth. I am going to show the Members a chart because I think this illustrates the spending issue probably better than any others. I want to show the Members what we have been spending the last number of years. Did most of this go to necessary demands? Absolutely. I am not suggesting that the amount of money we have been spending in Washington has gone for naught. Of course it has been for many necessary demands. Can we suspend that rate of growth? I do not think we can suspend it, but we should not sustain that rate of growth over a long period of time.

Let me just show the Members this chart because I think this is important. This is our recent spending history. In the last 3 years, total spending growth has averaged 6 percent. The growth in the economy has not been that strong. I mean, we have not seen that kind of inflation. Why is it that we ask families to only grow possibly at the rate of inflation if they are lucky to even get that kind of a pay increase, but we ask them for more money so that we can increase government spending? Some of this growth has been necessary, as I said. Homeland security, war on terrorism, education, veterans spending. A lot of good spending has been in here, but we need to start going through this with a fine tooth comb so that we can start holding the line on spending, not wasting it and respecting the taxpayers who, I believe, use it much more wisely oftentimes than we do.

I have said many times before that everything in this budget should be on the table for consideration when it comes to controlling spending, and we have looked for ways to control spending throughout the entire budget. And we thought it was fair to start right here at home, right here in this House, by freezing our own congressional budgets. Before we look outside this Chamber and say to anyone else they have got to tighten their belt, it is time we do it right here first. And that is not only an issue of credibility, but it does save us some money. It does give us, I think, the standing to go to Departments and say they can live with just a little bit less, they can live with the amount that they had last year.

We have also called for holding the line on all nondefense discretionary spending and called for a reduction of \1/2\ of 1 percent from the President's requested increase of 9.7 percent of homeland security. What we are basically saying is that the President deserves to be able to continue to manage homeland security in a positive way to keep us safe at home, but remember too that when we formed the new Homeland Security Department, it was advertised both by Congress as well as the Department of Homeland Security that eventually they could help us save money by coordinating those services, and we have pumped a lot of money into homeland security. But I cannot name one constituent who has come up to me and told me that they have had an experience in the airport where they thought all that money was being spent wisely.

In fact, I get more letters and more conversations of people saying, You know what? I could tell you how the government could save some money. There is a lot of waste in the way that we manage this whole transportation security. Those are the things they see. There are many things that we do not see that we should constantly be looking at, and I know people will come down here saying we must not care about homeland security if we even want to look for any waste or any savings, and that is not fair. That is not fair because we should respect every dollar that is used in every Department for the intended purpose, but we should not waste one penny, and where we can even find a penny or a dollar or a hundred or even into the billions in some instances, we should work to do that.

We also called for a program of savings and elimination based on rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in what we call our mandatory programs or entitlements. The reason we do that is because we have a lot of spending here in Congress and throughout the Federal Government that is automatic, that happens regardless of what we decide here today, unless we start to work to improve those programs and start rooting out waste within many of those programs. And there are so many examples. I mean, we work hard, and so does the bureaucracy of our government work hard to make sure that when we provide a benefit to somebody who needs help from the government, and so many of us believe that that is what government is for, to help people who cannot help themselves in many instances, every penny of that should make sure it gets to the people whom we intend to help, no one else. No one else should be taking advantage of those programs.

States should not be allowed to just maneuver those moneys around like a

shell game in order to make their budgets look good and then blame the Federal Government for not sending back the money. We have got to make sure that every penny is getting to the people it is intended to get to. Over all the confusion over what Chairman Allen Greenspan said last month to my committee concerning Social Security, there was a much bigger point that got lost, and that was the problem that he talked about in mandatory spending. Most entitlement spending is on auto pilot, and in other words, it just keeps growing year after year in most cases without ever undergoing oversight.

And what we do in this budget is we ask people, we ask our committees of jurisdiction, to begin going into the garden and pulling out the weeds, the places where we can find savings and make sure it is plowed back in to helping people who cannot help themselves. Truly, just about the only time we look at these programs is like last year with Medicare when we wanted to expand it, and we did find savings within that program. We need to do this every year.

This is a problem, and it is getting worse every year. In 1974, the year the Budget Act was adopted, mandatory spending accounted for only 41 percent of the total budget. This year, 30 years later, already over half of our spending is automatic that we cannot affect unless we change the law.

So let me be clear. I am not saying that mandatory programs in and of themselves are bad. No one is saying that. Many of them provide critical services, but I am saying that we had better get ahold of the growing wave of entitlement spending that we have created over the years before it crashes down around all of us, all of us here in Congress as well as all the families across our Nation that we ask to pay for these programs. To continue with our games of political rhetoric with regard to these programs, I believe, is foolish.

This is where I have got to give the little asterisks in attention for those who might be watching. This is where many people will run to the Chamber and say, oh, they are going to hurt the poor; oh, they are going to throw seniors out into the street; oh, they are going to kick a dog, or something like that.

I mean, my goodness, that is not what we are talking about. We had a hearing here where, believe it or not, the Department of Agriculture was proud of the fact that they had a 9 percent error rate in the food stamp program. There is not a business in our country that could survive with an error rate of 9 percent. In fact, CEOs and small businessmen and -women across our country would scour their books for days to find 1 percent if they thought that was in their budgets. We allow 9 percent to go on and say, well, gosh, that is an improvement because the year before it was 18 percent. That is ridiculous. So we are not saying that we should go in and be indiscriminate.

We want food stamps to go to people who are hungry. We do not want it to go in waste, fraud, and abuse to fund an underground economy where food stamps have been used as a currency. And that is wrong. We have got to get our arms around it. We are not suggesting it has to be done immediately today, but let us start the work. Let us not waste one penny that should go to people who are hungry around our country.

We proved last year that there are huge amounts of indefensible waste, fraud, and abuse within our mandatory programs. So in this budget we have begun the process of actually reducing or eliminating some of those most outrageous examples of waste.

Let me turn to spending control. We are calling for a few other spending controls or restraints, whatever the Members would like to call them, for Members of Congress. They are including, for instance, holding the line on our budget. We are calling for no increase in the legislative branch appropriations for Congress. We do not want any new entitlement spending until we go through the process of looking at our current entitlements and no nonwar emergency supplementals without spending offsets. From 1995 until about, I believe it was, 1998, we started a practice here that we should get back to and that is saying if we have an emergency come into our country, let us look to offset the costs of those emergencies by reducing or eliminating other lower priority items that can be put on the back burner for a period of time while we deal with that emergency. Obviously, that cannot happen in a war. That is obvious. I mean, when we are in a war, we are going to do what it takes. The President said that from right here at this podium, and just about every Member agrees with that as well; but we are talking about that with regard to nonwar.

We are also asking that we stop the practice of waiving the Budget Act or waiving the rules for the budget. A lot of people will come down here beating their chest about the budget or how we ought to change the budget process, and then they will vote for or encourage the adoption of waivers for the budget throughout the rest of the year. That has to stop if we want to continue to enforce the budget.

We should also freeze spending on programs that are unauthorized; and for the people who might be listening to this who are not familiar with this process, what Congress does is through some of our committees we determine that a program is needed and then we turn it over to the other side of the building where the appropriators sit, and we ask them to find the money to fund it. But oftentimes the appropriators are asked to fund programs that have never gone through the regular process. And so what we are saying here is if they have not gone through the regular order, if they not had their program authorized, they should be eligible to have their funding frozen for a period of time until we can make sure that their program is eligible, working correctly, not wasting any money, and continues to be a priority. There are too many things that have continued to receive funding throughout the years that have not been authorized.

One of my favorite examples is that we actually only recently ended the practice of funding the National Helium Reserve. That was an unauthorized program from the time of the dirigibles during World War I when we actually came up with this program. It made sense then. I mean, they have got to make sure the blimps are flying. That was national security back in World War I. But because that program had never been authorized and the appropriators continued to fund it, it was only recently that we were able to dig through the books and find out it was still being funded, and we were able to eliminate that funding.

Finally, with regard to war costs, the budget takes into account the funding for the ongoing war in Iraq. We know without question that there will be costs for the war while this budget that we are voting on today is in effect. Do we know the exact dollar amount? No. But we know it is not zero. And that was well said by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We support our troops. We want to make sure they know that money is going to be on the way. We want our partners to know that we are making this a priority, and we also want to know that it is included in the bottom line as part of getting to a balanced budget, respecting the need to identify all of our costs. So we had a choice. We could either sit here and wait for an emergency supplemental for the war, or we could do what I believe is the responsible thing, factor in those costs as we know them without question because we know that they are coming. So we have included $50 billion for funding the war in Iraq. It is a tough choice, certainly one that we would rather not face, I suppose; but one that we felt was the right thing to do and a budgeting priority.

Finally, with regard to fiscal responsibility, we get results with this budget, and it is results that matter. Now, this is clearly not the budget that I would write ideally if it were left to my own choices. But we have to come up with a compromise. And what we have tried to do is we have tried to meld all of the different needs of all of the different Members of Congress as part of this. Taking the initiative to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, doing a little more with a little less, actually restraining spending is a whole lot tougher than just signing off on some huge spending increase. We all know that families, businesses, States, local governments have had to actually go into their budget and cut it. We are not even doing that. We are not saying we have to cut the budget. There may be some who claim that that is what it

does, but we are not cutting the budget. We are just holding the line. There are some people who have actually had to make tougher choices than that. Do we have a list of wants that may go unfulfilled for a while? Sure. We are just asking them to go on the back burner.

We have to follow suit if we are going to get back on the right track.

So we are just asking to hold the line. If we can do that, if we adhere to those principles, this is what we expect to gain:

First, not to increase the deficit in the current year, which I believe is a reasonable goal;

Second, to cut the deficit in half as early as 4 years by both the factor of our economy as well as actual dollars;

Third, we get the ball rolling toward an effort of reigniting our oversight responsibilities to root out massive amounts of wasteful spending here in Washington;

Finally, we win the war, we balance the budget, and we can double the economy if we follow this kind of blueprint. I think that is a huge payoff for just a little bit of fiscal responsibility and restraint in this year. I think it is the least we can do.

This is a good budget. It is a good blueprint. It has come together over a lot of difficult conversations, because if you went to visit your architect to build a home, that would be a difficult conversation, too. They always are when you are making choices. But these choices are necessary at this crucial time in our history to get us on the right track.

I would urge Members to come speak about the budget, learn more about the budget, and vote for the budget when we have the chance.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), our majority leader.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the very distinguished vice-chair of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Chairman, as I said before, strength, growth, and opportunity are the hallmarks of our budget. To speak about the strength portion of our budget, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), to talk about the second important pillar of our budget. Strength. The second is growth.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes to engage my colleague from California, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, in a colloquy.

The gentleman from California is certainly one of Congress' most steadfast supporters of American's servicemen and -women. I understand he has a concern related to military housing and the privatization program.

I yield to the gentleman from California to engage in that colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would just say I appreciate my colleague's concerns. I strongly support the objectives of the DOD's military housing privatization initiatives. As we all know, the program, in existence since 1995, has leveraged the entrepreneurship of the private sector to build housing for our men and women in uniform much more efficiently than the government could do it itself.

As Members will recall, last year the Committee on the Budget, as well as the Committee on Armed Services, achieved consensus on this matter and raised the statutory cap on housing projects in the House legislation. As it happened, the potential cap increase did not occur. The other body opted not to move this program. I repeat, both the House Committee on the Budget and the House Committee on Armed Services were already engaged in housing privatization. It was the other body that chose not to engage.

We are all confronted again this year with the potential cap increase; and regrettably, DOD did not make a formal request on privatization when it submitted its budget in February. The Office of Management and Budget only cleared the privatization request for submission to Congress less than 2 weeks ago. DOD now believes that the cap limit will be reached by November of 2004.

As we move forward, the Committee on Armed Services will be examining the request, and drafting its own legislative provisions I am sure; and when the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services moves his bill, I commit to work through the Committee on the Budget aggressively with OMB and CBO to come to a consensus to appropriately score this privatization initiative. The committee will also engage the Committee on the Budget, as well in the other body as we move into conference, so that the program can move forward; and, again, I want to stress my support for the program and my commitment to seeing this important quality-of-life initiative for our men and women in uniform move forward.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), from the Committee on Armed Services, in order to talk briefly about our budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 12 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), a member of the committee, to speak to our third most important pillar, growth, strength, and, now, opportunity.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to respond briefly and say that, using the exact same standard that the gentleman just used, he voted at 7:03 p.m. last Thursday against a $1.2 billion increase in veterans' spending. A $1.2 billion increase in veterans' spending the gentleman voted against in committee last week.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Ryun), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 20 seconds to respond briefly and say that the gentleman from Maryland may want to read his substitute. It is interesting what you find out when you read the substitute. He said that it would be immoral to use one penny of the Social Security trust fund over the next 5 years. Well, guess what? Your substitute spends it all.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bonner), a distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and just wonder, why all the yelling?

I would like to understand. We are cutting homeland security? The other side has had more than enough time to yell. I would like to have a little time just to set the record straight.

My goodness, all the yelling about cutting homeland security. Let me just tell you, folks, think about this. If you are listening to this debate, I want you to understand what a cut in Washington is. Here is a cut.

Here we go. Since September 11 of 2001, homeland security spending has more than doubled. Let us start with that. During the same period, nearly 61,000 staff people have been added to the Federal Government to protect the country. See, I can yell too. Sixty-one thousand people have been added, doubling the budget. But we are cutting?

Let us go on. The budget increases the 2005 discretionary spending 14 percent above the 2004 levels. A 14 percent increase, but we are cutting?

Let us go on. Significant one-time costs involving starting the Department of Health and Human Services were met during fiscal year 2003 and we funded those start-up costs. But we are cutting?

A $474 million increase, or an increase of 76 percent, for intelligence and warning; a $17 billion increase for transportation security; a 13 percent increase for domestic counterterrorism; a $14 billion increase for protection of critical infrastructure; a $3.4 billion increase for defense against catastrophic threats; and a 24 percent increase for emergency preparedness and response.

On top of all that, the President has asked us for a 9.6 percent increase, and we are funding it. And you say to us we are cutting it?

Now, just let me tell you something. I am a fireman. You can yell and scream about your firemen. I am a fireman. I was a volunteer fireman in my hometown. I know about local response, I know about EMS, I know about first responders, because I did it. I did not just come to the floor and yell about it.

And I have got to tell you something, they are prepared. They are going to be even more prepared. We are sending them the money. In fact, we are sending it so fast and it is stuck in the pipeline so well that they are not even getting the funds because the States cannot spend it fast enough. That is what we are saying.

So you can come and yell, we can yell, increases, decreases, cutting, gouging, all sorts of things. You want a political insurance policy, that is what you are buying, a political insurance policy for homeland security. We are governing. We are making sure it is getting to the people who need it, and we are going to pass a budget that accomplishes that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes calmly to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite) to talk about education, and get away from all of this bombastic discussion about cutting homeland security when we are increasing.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Schrock), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood)

Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I do not intend to object, but I hope that if speeches are going to be made during the time of a unanimous consent request, that that time be taken out of the opposition's time.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself half a minute just to say I certainly have enormous respect for people's opinions, but I have to say I do not see a volleyball team anywhere in the budget that was mentioned, that we cut a volleyball team; and I am looking through here, and I just do not see it.

I am amazed by the conversation we are hearing here today. My guess is that there is not a volleyball team funded in any of the other alternative budgets either, and if there is, I hope to God that it does not pass.

We need to make sure that we control spending, and I do not think volleyball spending should be part of the Federal budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Brown), a very distinguished member of the committee.

(Mr. BROWN of South Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would even provide the gentlewoman with some time if she can find that in the budget. I have got the budget here. If she can find volleyball or the Women's Athletic Act or anything in this budget, I would be glad to yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman if she can find that for me in my budget.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

If the gentlewoman can either find it in my budget or someone else's budget, the word ``volleyball'' does not appear and that act does not appear in this budget or in the gentlewoman's alternative budget.

So I guess I would just suggest that this is where the rhetoric starts getting a little bit, we have got to be a little careful here when we start running to the floor, on the one hand, while concerning ourselves with deficit spending and, on the other hand, coming to the floor, which I would suggest is somewhat shrill, suggesting that we are cutting volleyball teams in a budget like this.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I am trying understand here, when we talk about the other side where it is just talking about the fact that we are not living up to our commitments. Just so everybody knows, there are some other charts here that we want you to see.

Total education: Annual growth over the last 5 years in the education accounts averaged 11 percent per year in those 5 years. So when we hear this lament that we are not spending enough on education, here are the facts. Eleven percent. There is no other part of government that has been growing at that kind of rate. In fact, it is growing faster than national defense.

Let me show you another one. Special education, over the last 5 years, the average growth was 19 percent. While they are complaining about special education, we have not seen the final total, but I will bet they do not fully fund special education in their budget. I bet they do not reach that, do they? They just complain about it.

Yes, they say they give a little bit more, but we have been providing 19 percent per year. Spending has more than doubled over the last 5 years for special education.

Last but not least is No Child Left Behind. The No Child Left Behind program funding has grown 40 percent under this President. Annual growth over the last 4 years, my colleagues can see before them right here. In fact, it has happened so fast, there are States, Iowa is one of them, where Iowa actually had to turn back money that we are looking to investigate, we want to find out exactly why it is that money that went to Iowa and to other States under No Child Left Behind has now been sent back. That is unconscionable at a time when our classrooms and our teachers are talking to us, telling us that they need more money.

We are increasing. We are meeting the totals. If the States had grown at the level we have been growing at the Federal level, we would not be in the predicament we are in. We are meeting our obligations. The States are not. We are growing our budget. We will continue that commitment.

So as the lament continues, just remember, the increases are in here and the increases are coming.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds again just to point out that the Democratic alternative, while they come to the floor and lament that we do not fully fund No Child Left Behind, guess what? The alternative budget presented by the Democrats does not fully fund No Child Left Behind. Is that not interesting? In fact, the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce has called it somewhat hypocritical that you would complain on one side and not propose a budget that funds it on the other.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds just to say, yes, but you did not, either. You had the choice to put an alternative budget on the floor to fully fund the promises that you are complaining about here today and you chose not to. So be careful what you promise on the campaign trail.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), a member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 8 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite), a member of our committee.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, has the gentlewoman heard, and I have been hearing some confusion over our numbers, the Senate numbers, the Principi numbers, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and I commend the gentlewoman for her work in offering that amendment to increase my committee mark so that we go to a level that the Secretary had requested. But has the gentlewoman heard the same confusion over the numbers that the Senate finally passed off the floor in their budget?

Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman would yield further, this would make their number, a net number, actually lower than what we are considering here today by about $550 million. They put in this plug that says unspecified fees or unspecified receipts or offsets, which, as the gentlewoman said, could be from fees, it could be from copayments, it could be from means testing.

So our net number in this budget, in the House of Representatives, is higher

than the Senate budget by about $550 million. I think we not only should be proud of that, but I think we should work with the Senate in order to make sure that as we work through this process, that we work together with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to come to a common number.

I would hope they would consider the number, because it is so much higher in the House, to be this $1.2 billion over what the President requested, that we work to get to the higher number rather than the lower Senate number.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman will yield further, I commend the gentlewoman for her work on this issue and appreciate her work and service on our committee.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.

Brown), a distinguished member of our committee).

(Mr. BROWN of South Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, first, let me speak to Medicaid since the subject has come up a couple of different times.

Since 1995, let us be very clear about this, since 1995 Medicaid spending has grown 95 percent, a 95 percent increase. The average increase was 7.7 percent per year. Federal Medicaid outlays increased from $108 billion in 1999, as an example, to $173 billion this year, an average of 10 percent a year just since 1999 alone.

Federal SCHIP, that is the program for kids that has been mentioned here, spending grew from $1.4 billion in 1999 to an estimated $4.8 billion this year, an average annual increase, listen to this now because we are hearing from the other side that Medicaid is being cut, and I want you to listen to this number for kids, an average annual increase of 27 percent, 27 percent.

It is mind-boggling to me how we can be talking about cuts at a time when we are increasing at 27 percent for SCHIP and 95 percent over the last 10 years for Medicaid.

Let me also bring up another subject that we just had a colloquy on on the floor with regard to veterans spending, and I want to be clear because I know that there are many colleagues out there that are listening to this debate, particularly with regards to veterans' health care.

In our committee, we increased veterans spending to meet the request that Secretary Principi put forth in our committee in a hearing that he said, when he made his request to the Office of Management and Budget, his request was $1.2 billion higher than the President finally acquiesced and gave his department. Included in that were fees and were copayments, things such as that.

We decided to do something in our committee in order to achieve not only a $1.2 billion increase, but to do so without any offsetting receipts. The Senate did something similar on their floor. They increased veterans spending as well, but when they did it, they offset some of that spending, so that while the gross number does look higher, they have offsetting receipts there that could be accomplished either through mandating copayments or mandating a means test of some sort.

So when you look at the House versus the Senate budget on veterans spending, the House is higher in the net effect of spending for veterans than the Senate. We will work out the differences in conference, and we will arrive at a number, I believe, that will be $1.2 billion over the President's budget, the budget that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs requested in the first place, and that is an agreement I believe we can achieve.

But just so we are clear for those Members that have been listening, that have been hearing from some veterans that the Senate number is higher, it is wrong. Be careful. They have hidden costs, hidden fees, the possibilities of means testing in their budget. We do not have that. Our number is higher and we ought to stick with that number.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

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

First, I would like to thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for the tone of the debate. I think it has been a good debate, a healthy debate, and a discussion, as I said to begin with, about the blueprint for fiscal responsibility as we move into the future and exactly what the priorities would be. I suggested that it is probably very similar to the conversation that a couple might have with their architect as they go in and try and design a new home.

Certainly there are going to be things that they agree on, and there are going to be a few arguments as they come up with that final design. But the long and short of it is we need a blueprint in order to move forward, and I commend the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for putting together a budget. We disagree with the plan that he has put forth; we have our own plan that we hope passes. It is one that builds on the principles of strength, growth, opportunity, and fiscal responsibility; and we believe it is the right blueprint at this time to manage the needs as well as manage the economic concerns of our country at this important juncture.

We have heard a lot tonight about the fact that tax cuts caused every problem in the world, that somehow everything would be better without tax cuts, and we wring our hands all day long about the fact that we have such a big deficit, and what we forget is at this exact same moment there are people sitting around kitchen tables across America with their checkbooks and bills in front of them, probably as well as their tax return they just got back from their accountant or their tax preparer, or maybe they actually tried to scratch one out on their own, and it is becoming more and more complicated every year to do that; and it is becoming more and more difficult to pay bills and make ends meet, particularly with the kind of economic challenges that people face.

So at this particular point in time, we believe it is not in order to raise taxes on those people who are having that discussion around their table. What they would say to us if they had the opportunity is the exact same thing they would say to each other, and that is, Can we do with just a little bit less, honey? Can we figure a way to turn the lights off maybe a little more often? Can we buy maybe a cheaper pair of gym shoes than the expensive pair of sneakers Johnnie wants. We still love Johnnie, of course, but maybe we can make ends meet by asking him to do with maybe a little less than the big powerful set of gym shoes that they sell at some stores.

They look at all of their bills and say, Can we do a little bit less? It is not because they do not love each other or they do not care enough about their own situation; but they know, as we know, that at all times we should look for ways to save money and tighten our belt, particularly when times are tough.

But one thing they do not say is let us do with a little bit less when it comes to income. That is one thing we are mindful of in this budget. We want to respect the income of Americans, we want them to be able to spend it, we believe they spend it more wisely; and that is the reason we continue the tax relief within this budget which has been a hallmark of our economic development plans.

Let me be even more specific. When we talk about tax cuts, tax cuts did not cause the deficit. There has been a lot of discussion here tonight that somehow tax cuts are causing all of the problems in our country. Let me show Members the chart, because what we have done is we made that same chart which has been discussed here tonight, and we put it all in there.

The white area here are the tax cuts. The green area here is that new discretionary spending that was just referred to by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt). The red area is what we call new mandatory. Most of that is the Medicare bill. But the blue area that Members see here is the economic gut-punch that we have gotten as a result of a number of things, the dot-com bubble bursting, corporate scandals, 9/11, and the ongoing challenges as a result of a number of issues within our economy, some natural, some not, within that business cycle.

If we look at this, the tax cuts do not dive us into a deficit; the spending, the economy is what has driven us into deficits. In case Members believe we are just putting the tax cuts on top because it does not work, let us put them on the bottom and see how that works. Let us put the economy on top. The economy alone drives us to a deficit. The economic changes that our economy has had since September 11, in particular, have driven us down into a small deficit; but the new spending for the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq, the war with Afghanistan, homeland security, protecting our country and a lot of other additional spending for education, for veterans, has driven us even further.

So before we blame the tax cuts, be careful how this is looked at. If you put the tax cuts on top, they do not get us to a deficit. If we put the tax cuts on the bottom, they do not even take us out of the deficit. In fact, the proposals that are put here today are just wishful thinking if you believe you can take away tax relief from Americans, tax relief away from small businesses and assume they are going to continue to be able to drive the economy and make sure we have the kind of economic changes that create jobs far into the future.

One other point with regard to this which is important, the tax relief package is working. It is working. All Members have to do is look at the real gross domestic product over the last number of years and you can see exactly what happened. Here is the recession. That was that recession that President Bush inherited. That is the reason why back in this particular time here we said let us reduce taxes slightly in order to get that economy back on its feet. Then 9/11 hit, and we decided to boost the economy even more; and we not only had a bipartisan tax relief package, we decided to make those tax cuts permanent. What has happened?

As Members can see, the last 2 years now we have seen staggering economic growing. The last 6 months alone have been the fastest growing period for our economy in 20 years. As every single economist will tell you on both sides of the political spectrum, the lagging indicator that always is the last to develop is jobs, and that is because people are tight with their money. They are not going to make an investment decision until they know the coast is clear. And the coast is clear. We are going to continue to make sure that these tax relief packages within this budget are not only extended but are made permanent. We do not want there to be an automatic tax increase, and that is the reason our budget adopts that.

Last but not least, let me talk about spending. We have heard today all sorts of things with regard to spending. We have heard that Republicans have been spending too much, and we have heard that Republicans are not spending enough. In fact, we have even heard that we are not spending enough on volleyball teams. That was even part of the debate here today.

Regardless of that debate, here are the facts. This is the total budget for the last 10 years. This is a chart that many of my Republican colleagues do not want me to show, and I can understand why because it shows that during our period of time we have increased spending; but, there are two parts to this ledger that I want Members to understand. First and foremost, I think it rebuts very clearly the arguments that have been made that somehow we are being Draconian in our cuts, that we are cutting too far, cutting too deep, that it is going to throw people out on the street and seniors are not going to get the resources they need, and veterans are not going to get the resources they need. That is simply not the case.

Our increase in spending growth has averaged 5 percent each year since our first budget. Now, some of those changes have not been all that positive. Unfortunately, within all this spending there is some waste. There is more waste than we care to admit, and that is the reason within our instructions this year the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) was suggesting that we only are looking at a very small portion of the budget. We are looking at that portion of the budget, but we have expended the view of the budget. We believe there are weeds within the entire garden of the Federal budget, and we need to look in every corner of that garden to pull weeds.

That is the reason we are going to continue the effort to look for wasteful Washington spending, not only on the discretionary side of the ledger, but also on the mandatory spending.

We know that the Democrats have not been in control during that period of time, and it would be easy to blame the Republicans for some of the spending that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) talked about with regard to homeland security and the war in Iraq; and it is true that with regard to that area I was showing Members on the chart where increases in discretionary spending have been large, Democrats voted for it, too. Yes, we were in charge, but most of it was done in a bipartisan way, and I think Democrats are proud of that. I think Democrats are proud of the fact they voted to increase spending for homeland security, I think Democrats are proud of the fact they voted to increase spending for defense, I think they are proud they voted for increases for special education and for a number of those programs that you have come to the floor here today and suggested that you want even more increases. Most of those increases in discretionary spending, in particular, have been bipartisan.

Last, let me say with regard to other spending, yes, there were many amendments in our committee to increase spending far beyond what our budget calls for, but there have been examples of this throughout our history. For example, the Medicare account, there has been a lot of complaints within the media that for some reason we are not taking into consideration the full amount of the costs of Medicare.

First and foremost, the Democratic substitute last year would have spent about $1 trillion, more than double the amount we had for Medicare. Secondly, if you notice the alternative presented by the Democrats, they adopt the CBO baseline for Medicare spending, meaning they do not believe the actuaries from OMB or from HHS any more than

we do. Nobody is quite clear exactly where Medicare spending is going to go. It is our job here in Congress to control it. Right now the Congressional Budget Office is controlling with regard to that spending, and we both put it into our baseline as the Medicare line item. If they would adopt their rhetoric as part of their budget, they would not balance anytime in the near future.

Let me say in closing that when we come up with a budget like this, or a blueprint like this, there are going to be a lot of people who have to give. There are many people within our conference who wanted to increase spending in some areas; they wanted to go further with decreases in spending in others. What we have tried to come up with is a common-sense solution to a problem that is going to take a number of years to resolve. All of the budgets that Members will see on the floor today, none of those budgets balance it this year or even next year or even within the next 5 years. All of them recognize that we need a path to get back to responsible budgets and balanced budgets.

And so which path are Members going to choose? Are Members going to choose one that respects the family budget and does not increase taxes? Are Members going to choose one that holds the line where we can hold the line on spending? Are you going to choose one that allows us to begin to weed the garden of mandatory spending where we can find waste, fraud and abuse; and are you going to choose one that does what I believe is so important, and that is to make sure that our country is protected first and foremost so our freedom is protected?

I believe that budget provides that strength for our country, that growth for our economy, and that opportunity for our constituents' future; and it does it in a fiscally responsible way. I believe our budget is the kind of budget that can help get us back on the track that we need in order to get back towards fiscal responsibility, and I ask for Members' support and vote on the budget resolution for 2005.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay special tribute to a beloved member of the Dubuque, Iowa community. Phil Roos was truly a special teacher and coach and he was tragically taken from us at the age of 57. Phil leaves not only the lives of his family, but of those many students and athletes whose lives he touched for over 30 years. Mr. Speaker, I wish to recognize Phil and ask that the attached article from the Dubuque Telegraph Herald be placed along with my comments in the Record.

Roos Made Everyone Feel Special

(By Bill Speltz)

Phil Roos had a special gift.

Oh sure, he was an excellent math teacher and tennis coach

and one of the founding fathers of a strong intramural

program at Hempstead. He was also a darn good athlete in his

day, especially with a racket in his hand (legend has it he'd

play his students in a game of badminton to 50, spot them 49

points and still win).

But there are a lot of good teachers, coaches and athletes

out there. The fact Roos was all three is impressive, but it

all seems small compared to his finest quality as a human

being.

Phil was special because he made you feel good about

yourself. He made you feel like you were an extraordinary

person, and it motivated you to prove him right.

How do you replace someone like that? How do you make sense

of Roos dying of brain cancer Sunday at the age of 57?

You don't.

``He had such a wonderful way of bonding with kids,'' said

Natalie Nemmers, Roos' assistant coach for the boys tennis

team the past three seasons. ``We kind of built this family,

and he would've done anything for the boys, because he was so

proud of them.

``He used to get so nervous before meets. But he would

never show it. He just wanted so much for the boys, and they

knew he loved them.''

Roos' Hempstead family stretched far beyond tennis players

in his 33 years at the school. Between his teaching and an

intramural program that has about 500 participants annually,

countless young adults were touched by this upbeat, kind-

hearted man.

``What a tremendous loss,'' Hempstead athletic director

Harry Robbins said. ``His students and his athletes just

loved him, and the reason they loved him is because he was

able to connect with them.

``The best way I can describe Phil Roos is he stood for all

the right things in life. Great father, husband, role model

for young people. Students would seek him out because he

always had time to talk about whatever they wanted to talk

about, just trying to help.''

For all his tennis coaching success, Roos' most admirable

moment may have come three years ago, when he ended a 15-year

coaching retirement to help revive the Mustangs' struggling

boys program. Not many would make the same move, mainly

because tennis takes a ton of time and weather conditions in

the spring are often cold and windy.

Concerned about all the time he would spend away from his

family, Roos made Hempstead tennis a family affair. His son,

seventh-grader Andrew, joined the team for practice every

day. His ``other'' sons drank in every bit of advice Phil

offered, and the result is a program that's back on the

upswing.

``A lot of times, on school (athletic) trips, guys will be

fighting for the back seat of the bus because they never want

to sit by the coach of the team,'' Hempstead senior Jason

Burkle said. ``For me, it was just the opposite with Coach

Roos. I wanted to sit up front.

``What I liked most is the way he controlled the team, yet

he still knew how to have a lot of fun.''

For those who knew him, Roos' kindness was infectious and

his calm demeanor admirable. Just ask Craig Olson, Hempstead

girls tennis coach and Roos' former rival as leader of the

Dubuque Senior boys tennis program in the 1980s.

``With him, there was no screaming or yelling, and he was

the same way with his teaching,'' Olson said. ``He'd inspire

you.

``I was just tickled he came back to coach again these last

few years. I remember when I first started out coaching, I

was more of an enthusiastic, `rah-rah' type of guy. Watching

him, I learned patience.''

Phil's spirit lives on in all his students, past and

present, and all those who knew him. It lives on in his wife,

Julie, and his best friend, son Andrew, who is truly a chip

off the old block.

By the time Andrew is old enough to play his first high

school tennis match, Phil's players are hoping to have the

Hempstead courts named in the coach's honor. In the meantime,

Phil's extended family will try to make some sense of his

death at today's funeral.

That's going to be about as easy as trying to beat Phil in

badminton.

``He made people,'' said Ryan Denman, Hempstead senior

tennis player. ``He taught us how to live our lives and

taught us that it wasn't about winning or losing, but that we

always gave 100 percent.

``It's going to be very rough playing tennis this season,

from the first day to the last. We'll play the season for

him.''

Mr. Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the current levels on on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal year 2004 and for the five-year period of fiscal years 2004 through 2008. This report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act and section 501 of the conference report on the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004 (H. Con. Res. 95). This status report is current through February 6, 2004.

The term ``current level'' refers to the amounts of spending and revenues estimated for each fiscal year based on laws enacted or awaiting the President's signature.

The first table compares the current levels of total budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set forth by H. Con. Res. 95. This comparison is needed to enforce section 311(a) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the budget resolution's aggregate levels. The table does not show budget authority and outlays for fiscal years 2004 through 2008, because appropriations for those years have not yet been considered.

The second table compares the current levels of budget authority and outlays for discretionary action by each authorizing committee with the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under H. Con. Res. 95 for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal years 2004 through 2008. ``Discretionary action'' refers to legislation enacted after the adoption of the budget resolution. A separate allocation for the Medicare program, as established under section 401(a)(3) of the budget resolution, is shown for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal years 2004 through 2013. This comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the section 302(a) discretionary action allocation of new budget authority for the committee that reported the measure. It is also needed to implement section 311(b), which exempts committees that comply with their allocations from the point of order under section 311(a).

The third table compares the current levels of discretionary appropriations for fiscal year 2004 with the ``section 302(b)'' suballocations of discretionary budget authority and outlays among Appropriations subcommittees. This table also compares the current level of total discretionary appropriations with the section 302(a) allocation for the Appropriations Committee. These comparisons are needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act because the point of order under that section equally applies to measures that would branch either the section 302(a) allocation or the applicable section 302(b) suballocation.

The last table gives the current level for 2005 of accounts identified for advance appropriations under section 501 of H. Con. Res. 95. This list is needed to enforce section 501 of the budget resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills that contain advance appropriations that are: (i) not identified in the statement of managers or (ii) would cause the aggregate amount of such appropriations to exceed the level specified in the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time and for her leadership on this issue, as well as the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, America has got a big decision tonight and seniors have been waiting a long time. The previous gentleman said that seniors when they wake up tomorrow, if this passes, will find out they still have to pay a little bit of money. Some will not have to pay at all, but seniors will really be mad if they wake up tomorrow morning and find out that we failed yet again.

Four budgets in a row we have had the pleasure of putting into our budget plan a prescription drug benefit. This year is the first time we have been able to get it to this point, a conference report; and that is because the President of the United States has provided the leadership to get us to this point.

In Iowa we have been waiting for 20 years for fairness when it comes to reimbursement. We have been waiting for 20 years when it comes to the difficulty of recruiting physicians and other health care providers. We have been waiting 20 years to stop the cost shifting to the private side of health care that drives up the cost for small business people and farmers. We have been waiting for 20 years for seniors to have prevention and drug benefits and basic services.

Tonight we have the opportunity to solve so many of these problems. It is not perfect, as many people have said; but it is on the road toward making Medicare a fiscally responsible, sound and a very beneficial program for seniors. And it is fiscally responsible. I know there are Members who are suggesting that somehow this may not be perfectly fiscally responsible. Let me ask you the question, If we do nothing tonight, is Medicare going bankrupt? Wake up if you want to talk about fiscal responsibility. We are seeing a program go bankrupt before our very eyes. Doing nothing is not an option.

It is fiscally responsible to fix a program that we know is going bankrupt, to fix a program that would have a prescription drug benefit if it were created today, to fix a program that is not paying the bills in rural America and keeping doctors and health care professionals located there to provide quality health care.

Vote for this bill because it is fiscally responsible. We have been waiting long enough. Seniors deserve our answer tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support a long overdue, welcome victory for Iowa's seniors and health care providers.

Medicare's policies have penalized health care providers in Iowa and other rural areas since the 1960s. While Medicare's primary purpose is to provide health care for seniors, its policies affect both our health care system and our economy. The flawed policies have had an impact not only on seniors, but on all Iowans.

As many of my House colleagues know, I have worked long and hard to address the problems affecting health care providers in rural states such as Iowa. In fact, I wrote this year's budget to reserve significant resources for rural health care as part of a $400 billion Medicare Reserve Fund. Later, in the Ways and Means Committee, I successfully amended the Medicare legislation to ensure that sufficient rural health care funds were included in the bill that was reported from committee. And I continued fighting on the House floor to ensure that these funds--the most generous rural package ever considered by the House--remained in the Medicare legislation as it worked its way through the House.

Today, we are considering a conference report that carries this rural health care package to the end of the process. The benefits for Iowa will be multiplied for years to come. This conference report contains an unprecedented $25 billion rural package including benefits of over $400 million for Iowa alone. I am proud to have worked toward this day with the distinguished chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and with the senior Senator from my home state of Iowa.

With these significant strides to improve Medicare's reimbursement policies on Iowa's behalf, we help our health care providers to pay the bills and to continue recruiting and retaining top-notch professionals. With a more secure health care system in place, we can further job creation and economic growth for our state.

In addition to taking several steps to strengthen the overall program, we are, of course, finally giving seniors what they have sought since Medicare's inception in 1965--a prescription drug benefit that is affordable, accessible and completely voluntary. All seniors will save on their current prescription drug costs.

Another important feature in the bill is the provision to establish Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). These accounts will allow pre-retirees to accumulate tax-free savings over their lifetime and these savings will remain with the individual once they reach Medicare eligibility. Even with reforms such as these, I want to remind my colleagues that Medicare will still face long-term demographic pressures and Congress will likely have to take additional steps to address the program's sustainability.

Finally, as Chairman of the Budget Committee, I am pleased that the Medicare conference report--with a total cost of around $395 billion-- is generally consistent with the $400 billion Medicare Reserve Fund that was laid out in this year's budget resolution. In a year of intense demands for limited government resources, this Medicare Reserve Fund was the largest policy initiative in the budget resolution and was arguably its centerpiece. Because the budget resolution struck a responsible balance between seniors' needs on the one hand and affordability on the other, we were able to generally stay within our own guidelines. I commend the conferees for staying within the $400 billion threshold.

Mr. Speaker, I have been spreading the word and twisting arms for a long time on behalf of legislation that would meet Iowa's health care needs. I am gratified that our message has been received and our persistence has paid off.

Mr. Speaker, as I communicate with Iowans, they often share their concern about our country's economic vulnerability in regard to its energy supply. Spikes in oil and gas prices, high utility costs and the dangers of a heavy reliance on foreign suppliers have a very real impact on our rural economy and Iowans' family budgets.

I rise today to express my support for the long-awaited, comprehensive energy policy legislation.

America's long-term national energy policies must include a focus on developing the renewable sources of energy that can be produced in this country. This energy bill makes farmers in Iowa and other states part of the solution by moving the nation toward a common-sense future that is less dependent on fossil-based sources of energy. With the establishment of an overall Renewable Fuels Standard for motor fuels, significant portions of all U.S. gasoline will be required to contain renewable fuel content, including ethanol and biodiesel. This provision alone will create more than 200,000 jobs over the next decade.

The bill goes well beyond previous efforts to promote value-added agriculture by streamlining and making new incentives for ethanol production as well as creating a new tax credit for biodiesel production. This legislation simplifies a very complicated tax system for Iowa's ethanol producers and taxpayers while ensuring these payments are properly credited toward vital transportation priorities. These tax reforms are significant developments for Iowa's future because they promote the development of small ethanol cooperatives, create value-added business opportunities, and ensure the long-term future of Iowa's transportation needs.

The bill also supports enhanced energy efficiency and conservation, environmental protection measures and domestic production. Consumers will be encouraged to purchase more fuel-efficient automobiles and make sensible home improvements. New, advanced environmental friendly technologies will be promoted. In addition, electricity generation and transmission will be strengthened to help rural electric cooperatives and public and private utilities provide affordable electricity to their customers.

My support for the bill is somewhat tempered by the recognition that it exceeds the spending limits established by the FY 2004 budget resolution. I believe that many of the key objectives of this bill could have been realized within the confines of the budget resolution. By contrast, the tax provisions, while significant in cost are fully consistent with the revenue levels established by this year's budget.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Energy Policy Act represents impressive progress toward a balanced, long-term energy policy to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, stabilize prices for consumers and stimulate our economy. I am particularly proud of the renewable energy provision in this bill and urge my colleagues to join me in approving this significant legislation.

Mr. Speaker, as I communicate with Iowans, they often share their concern about our country's economic vulnerability in regard to its energy supply. Spikes in oil and gas prices, high utility costs and the dangers of a heavy reliance on foreign suppliers have a very real impact on our rural economy and Iowans' family budgets.

I rise today to express my support for the long-awaited, comprehensive energy policy legislation.

America's long-term national energy policies must include a focus on developing the renewable sources of energy that can be produced in this country. This energy bill makes farmers in Iowa and other States part of the solution by moving the Nation toward a common-sense future that is less dependent on fossil-based sources of energy. With the establishment of an overall Renewable Fuels Standard for motor fuels, significant portions of all U.S. gasoline will be required to contain renewable fuel content, including ethanol and biodiesel. This provision alone will create more than 200,000 jobs over the next decade.

The bill goes well beyond previous efforts to promote value-added agriculture by streamlining and making new incentives for ethanol production as well as creating a new tax credit for biodiesel production. This legislation simplifies a very complicated tax system for Iowa's ethanol producers and taxpayers while ensuring these payments are properly credited toward vital transportation priorities. These tax reforms are significant developments for Iowa's future because they promote the development of small ethanol cooperatives, create value-added business opportunities, and ensure the long-term future of Iowa's transportation needs.

The bill also supports enhanced energy efficiency and conservation, environmental protection measures and domestic production. Consumers will be encouraged to purchase more fuel-efficient automobiles and make sensible home improvements. New, advanced environmentally friendly technologies will be promoted. In addition, electricity generation and transmission will be strengthened to help rural electric cooperatives and public and private utilities provide affordable electricity to their customers.

My support for the bill is somewhat tempered by the recognition that it exceeds the spending limits established by the fiscal year 2004 budget resolution. I believe that many of the key objectives of this bill could have been realized within the confines of the budget resolution. By contrast, the tax provisions, while significant in cost, are fully consistent with the revenue levels established by this year's budget.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Energy Policy Act represents impressive progress toward a balanced, long-term energy policy to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, stabilize prices for consumers and stimulate our economy. I am particularly proud of the renewable energy provisions in this bill and urge my colleagues to join me in approving this significant legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the current levels of on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal year 2004 and for the 5-year period of fiscal years 2004 through 2008. This report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act and section 501 of the conference report on the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004 (H. Con. Res. 95). This status report is current through November 14, 2003.

The term ``current level'' refers to the amounts of spending and revenues estimated for each fiscal year based on laws enacted or awaiting the President's signature.

The first table compares the current levels of total budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set forth by H. Con. Res. 95. This comparison is needed to enforce section 311(a) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the budget resolution's aggregate levels. The table does not show budget authority and outlays for fiscal years 2004 through 2008, because appropriations for those years have not yet been considered.

The second table compares the current levels of budget authority and outlays for discretionary action by each authorizing committee with the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under H. Con. Res. 95 for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal years 2004 through 2008. ``Discretionary action'' refers to legislation enacted after the adoption of the budget resolution. A separate allocation for the Medicare program, as established under section 401(a)(3) of the budget resolution, is shown for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal years 2004 through 2013. This comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the section 302(a) discretionary action allocation of new budget authority for the committee that reported the measure. It is also needed to implement section 311(b), which exempts committees that comply with their allocations from the point of order under section 311(a).

The third table compares the current levels of discretionary appropriations for fiscal year 2004 with the ``section 302(b)'' suballocations of discretionary budget authority and outlays among Appropriations subcommittees. This table also compares the current level of total discretionary appropriations with the section 302(a) allocation for the Appropriations Committee. These comparisons are needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act because the point of order under that section equally applies to measures that would breach either the section 302(a) allocation or the applicable section 302(b) suballocation.

The last table gives the current level for 2005 of accounts identified for advance appropriations under section 501 of H. Con. Res. 95. This list is needed to enforce section 501 of the budget resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills that contain advance appropriations that are: (i) not identified in the statement of managers or (ii) would cause the aggregate amount of such appropriations to exceed the level specified in the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the current levels of on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal year 2004 and for the five-year period of fiscal years 2004 through 2008. This report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act and section 501 of the conference report on the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004 (H. Con. Res. 95). This status report is current through October 15, 2003.

The term ``current level'' refers to the amounts of spending and revenues estimated for each fiscal year based on laws enacted or awaiting the President's signature.

The first table compares the current levels of total budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set forth by H. Con. Res. 95. This comparison is needed to enforce section 311(a) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the budget resolution's aggregate levels. The table does not show budget authority and outlays for fiscal years 2004 through 2008, because appropriations for those years have not yet been considered.

The second table compares the current levels of budget authority and outlays for discretionary action by each authorizing committee with the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under H. Con. Res. 95 for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal years 2004 through 2008. ``Discretionary action'' refers to legislation enacted after the adoption of the budget resolution. A separate allocation for the Medicare program, as established under section 401(a)(3) of the budget resolution, is shown for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal years 2004 through 2013. This comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the section 302(a) discretionary action allocation of new budget authority for the Committee that reported the measure. It is also needed to implement section 311(b), which exempts committees that comply with their allocations from the point of order under section 311(a).

The third table compares the current levels of discretionary appropriations for fiscal year 2004 with the ``section 302(b)'' allocations of discretionary budget authority and outlays among Appropriations subcommittees. This table also compares the current level of total discretionary appropriations with the section 302(a) allocation for the Appropriations Committee. These comparisons are needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act because the point of order under that section equally applies to measures that would breach either the section 302(a) allocation or the applicable section 302(b) suballocation.

The last table gives the current level for 2005 of accounts identified for advance appropriations under section 501 of H. Con. Res. 95. This list is needed to enforce section 501 of the budget resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills that contain advance appropriations that are: (i) not identified in the statement of managers or (ii) would cause the aggregate amount of such appropriations to exceed the level specified in the resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 2765, the District of Columbia Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2004. And I commend Chairman Young for bringing this, the 13th appropriations bill, to the floor.

Under authority granted in Article I of the United States Constitution (section 8, clause 17), this bill appropriates Federal payments to the District to fund certain activities, and also approves the District of Columbia's entire budget, including the expenditure of local funds ($7.4 billion in local funds for fiscal year 2004). Although the vast majority of the funds discussed in this bill are local funds originating from the District of Columbia, I speak today only about the $466 million in Federal funds appropriated in this bill.

H.R. 2765 as reported to the House, provides $466 million in new budget authority. This bill is equal to the 302(b) suballocation for the District of Columbia subcommittee as adopted by the Appropriations Committee on July 22nd. I can report that this bill is consistent with the levels established in H. Con. Res. 95, the House concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004, which Congress adopted as its fiscal blueprint on April 10. The bill therefore complies with section 302(f) of the Budget Act, which prohibits consideration of bills in excess of an appropriations subcommittee's 302(b) allocation of budget authority.

H.R. 2765 contains no emergency-designated new budget authority, no advanced appropriations, nor does it include rescissions of previously enacted appropriations.

The bill is $45 million above the President's request, these increases include $20 million for the water and sewer authority, and an additional $10 million for the District of Columbia scholarship program, $8 million for a unified communications center, and an additional $7 million for public school facilities and the family literacy programs.

In summary, this, the final appropriations bill, comes to the floor in a form that is consistent with the Budget Resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the current levels of on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal year 2004 and for the 5-year period of fiscal years 2004 through 2008. This report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act and section 501 of the conference report on the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2004 (H. Con. Res. 95). This status report is current through September 3, 2003.

The term ``current level'' refers to the amounts of spending and revenues estimated for each fiscal year based on laws enacted or awaiting the President's signature.

The first table compares the current levels of total budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set forth by H. Con. Res. 95. This comparison is needed to enforce section 311(a) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the budget resolution's aggregate levels. The table does not show budget authority and outlays for fiscal years 2004 through 2008, because appropriations for those years have not yet been considered.

The second table compares the current levels of budget authority and outlays for discretionary action by each authorizing committee with the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under H. Con. Res. 95 for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal years 2004 through 2008. ``Discretionary action'' refers to legislation enacted after the adoption of the budget resolution. A separate allocation for the Medicare program, as established under section 401(a)(3) of the budget resolution, is shown for fiscal year 2004 and fiscal years 2004 through 2013. This comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the section 302(a) discretionary action allocation of new budget authority for the committee that reported the measure. It is also needed to implement section 311(b), which exempts committees that comply with their allocations from the point of order under section 311(a).

The third table compares the current levels of discretionary appropriations for fiscal year 2004 with the ``section 302(b)'' suballocations of discretionary budget authority and outlays among Appropriations subcommittees. The comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act because the point of order under that section equally applies to measures that would breach the applicable section 302(b) suballocation.

The last table gives the current level for 2005 of accounts identified for advance appropriations under section 501 of H. Con. Res. 95. This list is needed to enforce section 501 of the budget resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills that contain advance appropriations that are: (i) not identified in the statement of managers or (ii) would cause the aggregate amount of such appropriations to exceed the level specified in the resolution.