Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, under section 210 and 212(b) of S. Con. Res. 70, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for fiscal year 2009, I hereby submit for printing in the Congressional Record a revision to the budget allocations and aggregates for certain House committees for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 and the period of fiscal years 2009 through 2013. This revision represents an adjustment to certain House committee budget allocation and aggregates for the purposes of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, and in response to consideration of the bill H.R. 6331 (Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008). Corresponding tables are attached.

Under section 323 of S. Con. Res. 70, this adjustment to the budget allocations and aggregates applies while the measure is under consideration. The adjustments will take effect upon enactment of the measure. For purposes of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, a revised allocation made under section 323 of S. Con. Res. 70 is to be considered as an allocation included in the resolution.

Madam Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the current levels of on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 and for the 5-year period of fiscal years 2009 through 2013. This report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act and sections 301 and 302 of S. Con. Res. 70, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2009.

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 in the report compares the current levels of total budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set by S. Con. Res. 70. 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 second table compares the current levels of budget authority and outlays for each authorizing committee with the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under S. Con. Res. 70 for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 and fiscal years 2009 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.

The third table compares the current levels of discretionary appropriations for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 with the ``section 302(a)'' allocation of discretionary budget authority and outlays to the Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee shortly will be distributing this section 302(a) allocation among its subcommittees, creating 302(b) suballocations. At that time, a point of order under section 302(f) of the Budget Act will become applicable to measures that would breach the applicable section 302(b) suballocation.

The fourth table gives the current level for fiscal years 2010 and 2011 for accounts identified for advance appropriations under section 302 of S. Con. Res. 70. This list is needed to enforce section 302 of the budget resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills that contain advance appropriations that: (i) are 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, pursuant to House Resolution 1214, I call up the conference report on the Senate concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 70) setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2009 and including the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2008 and 2010 through 2013.

Mr. Speaker, every year the Budget Committee has one all- important task, and that's to outline a budget for Congress to follow. Today, we do just that as we pass the conference agreement on the budget for fiscal 2009. The Senate passed the conference agreement just yesterday.

Passing a budget is never an easy task. This, in fact, will be the first time in 8 years that Congress has passed a concurrent budget resolution in an election year. Our conference agreement charts a new course. It returns the budget to balance reaching a surplus of $22 billion in the year 2012 and staying in surplus through 2013. Our budget adheres to pay-as-you-go

because we believe in it. It embraces middle-income tax cuts and holds non-defense domestic discretionary spending to an increase of about 1 percent over inflation.

Our budget begins by undoing the damages done by the President's budget to services that people depend upon.

Take Medicare and Medicaid, for example, pillars of medical care for millions of Americans. The President would cut Medicare by $479 billion over the next 10 years and Medicaid by $94 billion. We reject those cuts. We restore Medicare and Medicaid to current services, and we accommodate adding up to $50 billion more for the Children's Health Insurance Program, fully offset, to reach the millions of children who are eligible but not yet enrolled in CHIP.

The President proposes $18 billion in cuts over 5 years in new fees on military retirees and veterans, actually increases in fees of $18 billion. We reject those fees and add $3.7 billion above current services to the veterans' health care system.

The President even digs into education, cutting Function 500, education, training, employment and social services, not only next year but over the next 5 years by $32.7 billion. We reject the President's cuts in education and, in particular, his elimination of 47 educational programs. Instead, we make significant increases for education every year over the next 5 years.

Our budget supports not just investments in education as such, but in research and development and science and innovation, through NIH and NSF and other entities, providing substantially more than the President requested.

Finally, since strong countries are made up of strong communities, we believe that law enforcement grants and community development grants and transportation grants are part of the Federal role. We, therefore, reverse the President's deep cuts in the community development and social services block grants and in LIHEAP and law enforcement, and our budget invests in the Nation's infrastructure.

Because this budget upholds all of these priorities, it has drawn support from dozens of nonpartisan groups, from the AARP to the American Legion to the American Hospital Association. All of them and many more have sent us letters of support, and I encourage my colleagues to support it as well.

We face in this country not just this budget deficit, not just a trade deficit, but an energy deficit that is on the minds of us all. Read the President's budget, however, and you will find little that's new about skyrocketing energy costs, renewable energy, clean fuel technology, conservation, and efficiency. What you will find are heavy hits on LIHEAP, the one program that helps families weather the high price of fuel oil, heat their homes in winter and cool them in summer. Our budget restores LIHEAP to a level that's $3 billion above the President's budget. And for funding development of alternative fuels, renewable energies, and other energy initiatives, our budget provides $7.7 billion.

As I mentioned, this conference agreement extends tax cuts to help middle-income families caught in the current slump. For example, we protect 20 million middle-income households from being hit by the alternative minimum tax, 20 million Americans for whom it was never intended. We accommodate the extension of the middle-income tax cuts, the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, and the 10 percent individual income tax bracket.

Our colleagues on the other side will claim, however, that this budget raises taxes. Let me say emphatically, this budget does not raise taxes. But don't take my word for it. Here's what outside experts say.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: ``The conference agreement does not raise taxes.''

The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution: ``The budget would not raise taxes.''

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: ``This year's budget does not include a tax increase.''

There is one other criticism our colleagues across the aisle may make but cannot sustain as to this conference agreement. In terms of national security, we provide the same dollars as the President's base budget requested, except that we call for better stewardship and better priorities, such as nonproliferation, supporting nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and materials, maybe the most menacing threat facing us.

If anything, our conference agreement protects the homeland and internal security more than the President's budget because we reverse his cuts in local law enforcement and firefighters and the Coast Guard and the first responders. Most important of all, we do everything that I have cited within the context of a balanced budget.

When President Bush took office in 2001 the budget was in surplus by $236 billion. His economists looked out over 10 years and saw nothing but surpluses, $5.6 trillion in all. President Bush told the country we could have it all, guns, butter and tax cuts, too, and never mind the deficit. Now, almost 8 years later, we see the disastrous consequences. Under the fiscal policies of this administration, the Bush administration, our national debt has mushroomed, increased from $5.7 trillion in 2001 to $10 trillion in 2009.

Since the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the White House during much of this time, they cannot escape responsibility for these abysmal fiscal results.

Faced with these grim facts, what does the President's budget propose for 2009? More of the same. He is still in effect saying that we can have the guns and the butter and the tax cuts, too, and that deficits don't really matter because foreign investors will keeping buying our Treasury bonds.

In contrast, the budget before us is a step in the right direction. It may not be the grand or final solution, but this budget moves us in the right direction, enforcing fiscal responsibility, though not to the exclusion of other values that we hold dear.

I urge support for this conference agreement by all Members of the House.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 30 seconds before yielding to the gentleman from Texas.

Let me just make clear, this budget moves us to balance in 2012. And the fact of the matter is, the plain history of the matter is that when the Republicans took the White House in 2001, the budget the year before was $236 billion in surplus. By the year 2004, they had made that surplus advantage to where we had a deficit of $412 billion, a swing of $648 billion on their watch. They controlled the House, they controlled the Senate, they controlled the White House; and they've added $4 trillion to the national debt.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia, a member of the committee, Mr. Scott.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore), also a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's newfound concern for the budget deficit, but let me remind him from 2001 through 2007, his party controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House and accumulated a record debt and record deficits, and it takes a long time to turn this battleship around, but that's what we do in this budget.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished chairman of our caucus, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Speaker, to close the debate, I now yield the balance of our time to our distinguished Speaker, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Franks amendment. This amendment would increase fiscal year 2009 funding for the Missile Defense Agency, MDA, by $719 million, backing up the bill to the level of the budget request. The administration asked for $9.3 billion in fiscal year 2009. This represented an increase of $680 million above the 2008 level.

With prudent reductions and selected increases, this bill authorizes $8.6 billion, a substantial sum of money for the Missile Defense Agency, which is roughly equivalent to the level of current spending. We provide for increases in funding for systems that are geared to current threats, like the Aegis BMD and THAAD systems that the combatant commanders have told us they need and need now. At the same time, we make prudent reductions in longer-term, less-mature vehicles like the Multiple Kill Vehicle and the Airborne Laser.

We don't know, looking at this amendment, that the money can really be executed, spent wisely. Even if we do, we have to ask where is this money coming from? We find when we look that the $719 million is coming out of RDT&E, which is tantamount to saying that MDA, missile defense, is over and above more important than the UAVs, more important than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the FCS, the Army's Future Combat Systems, and the Navy's DDG-1000. A whole host of other systems that will depend on adequate funding will be denied that funding by the $719 million hit which this amendment would impose upon those particular systems.

This is a balanced bill. The cuts and adjustments have been made to it so we that could come up with a system that covers our comprehensive needs. Missile defense is just one of many. They have all been judiciously done, and we should not disrupt the pattern of this balanced bill by making the cuts that the gentleman would propose.

So I urge everyone to take a close look at this, but to stick with the committee chairman's very careful and very balanced view.

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment that would strike the provisions of section 1224 in the bill. It would replace those provisions with language requiring the Director of National Intelligence to submit to Congress regular updates of the National Intelligence Estimate with respect to Iran's nuclear capabilities, present and prospective.

As offered in committee, section 1224 imposed a multiplicity of reporting requirements, including all sorts of data from the Department of Defense. Mr. Reyes offered a perfecting amendment culling out many of those requirements and calling for a new commitment to readiness throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East.

Rather than proliferate reporting requirements, my amendment cuts to the heart of the matter, Iran's nuclear capabilities, and calls for regular, periodic reports. What it seeks is basic: a sober analysis of a gravely serious matter in a proven format, the National Intelligence Estimate. This report is gleaned from all 16 parts of our intelligence community, and the job of fusing that data, and drawing the right conclusions, is assigned to the National Intelligence Director, a position created by Congress by the unanimous recommendation of the 9/ 11 Commission.

We need an assessment, but we need an assessment that is rigorous and objective, pulling no punches, analyzing seriously all issues surrounding nuclear weapons and fissile materials in Iran. And, fortunately, we don't have to invent that vehicle. It exists already in the form of the National Intelligence Estimate, like the NIE of last November, 2007. It satisfies this requirement. And my amendment ensures that this requirement continues to fulfilled, not ad hoc, but at regular intervals, for the benefit of Congress.

My amendment simply places responsibility where it already rests by law and uses a reporting process that is

well established. Why reinvent the wheel? The appropriate vehicle for an ongoing objective of analysis is an updated NIE, not an independent, redundant, parallel effort, overseen by DOD.

There are many good reasons for having unity of command here, but one is simply this: By consolidating analysis in the NIE, we discourage the temptation to ``forum shop,'' look for agencies that will be favorably disposed.

My amendment allows for many of the points of inquiry in the bill's existing language, including input from our allies. But it focuses the NIE on near- and mid-term implications rather than on speculative far- term projections, and it does not rush to a military response as a presupposition.

My amendment leaves in place the bill's current requirement to provide Congress 15 days' written notice when major developments in the nuclear weapons program are detected. But the bill shifts that burden from the Secretary of Defense to the President.

This amendment, the amendment I offer, is truly, Madam Chairman, a perfecting amendment. It improves the language of the bill, and it helps section 1224 fulfill its stated purpose.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I appreciate the tenor of his question. What we have tried to do is get this effort down to its essence. The two versions, iterations that we had in the committee were, I thought, prolific with different ideas and requirements.

We have an existing system. It works well. We have reaffirmed it in the latest intelligence act we recently passed in creating the National Intelligence Director. Let's make him or her the supervisor of this process; and the vehicle, the NIE. That's the customary way of doing it, and should be the preferred way of doing it. That is why we put that emphasis in this bill.

Not subject it to what?

That is the reason we are offering it on the House floor as opposed to offering in it the committee, where it may have resulted in a sequential referral. So far as I know, nobody has raised a point of order about the appropriateness of hearing it in this context.

I don't think it will encounter that problem in conference. The rule waived points of order. So we are clearly in a proper status right here. I think this bill advances the whole idea that we are working with, and as you know, it will go through another iteration before it comes out of conference, I am sure.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the committee, Mr. Skelton.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio). Before he begins, could I inquire how much time remains on this side.

Let me say to the gentleman, I don't expect this to be the last iteration of this bill. It is the third already. If there are issues of clarity, issues of definition, we will revisit those issues and work them out in conference towards a common purpose here.

I do think this bill advances the process. I think it is better than the previous two bills, and we are building towards a conclusion we can all accept. You can count on my cooperation to that end.

So I thank you for your observations. We will be visiting this topic again.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, on March 13, we passed the budget resolution. It's a good resolution. It moves the budget to balance by the Year 2012 and, along the way, it accumulates less debt than the Bush budget. It limits spending to a reasonable level.

But I can truthfully say that this bill does more for education, more for the environment, more for energy, more for science and innovation than the President's budget or the Republicans' resolution. And also, critically important, it avoids the deep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid that are provided for, called for in the President's budget. And it protects the middle income tax cuts; provides AMT relief for middle income families for whom it was never intended.

Therefore, we have the outline of a good budget for the coming fiscal year, and we need to pass it, send it to conference, bring the conference report back. We have an excellent chance, I think, of passing the first conference report, back to back, since the year 2000.

What my friends on the other side of the aisle have introduced is, to my way of thinking, a distraction, a red herring. ANWR is never mentioned in our resolution. And to my recollection it was not mentioned in your resolution. So the topic here is wholly out of the scope of the resolution on either side, particularly ours, and wholly outside the jurisdiction of our committee. We don't assume ANWR revenues, we don't preclude ANWR revenues because we don't have the authority to prescribe that.

The most we can provide for in a budget resolution is a certain revenue floor, a certain amount of revenues be collected over the year to be applied against the expenditures that we broadly distribute in something called the 302(a) section of our bill and the 302(b), providing for 302(b) allocations.

So this budget resolution, this resolution to instruct, motion to instruct conferees, goes off on a tack that is totally different from what the resolution's all about, what the committee's jurisdiction is. If you want to debate this, there's another forum for debating it. There's another committee, the Resources Committee.

We don't have the authority to do what you would call upon us to do. We don't take a position for ANWR or against ANWR in the budget resolution because it's not the place for that kind of policy resolution. There are other places here for that to be established.

So we've got a good budget resolution. We do not need this resolution, this motion to instruct conferees, to do anything towards balancing the budget. You've got a very nominal sum of money in here when it comes to a 5-year period of time.

And one question I would leave with you, is you call for an increase in negative budget authority and outlays. If I didn't know what that meant, I wouldn't know what it meant when I first saw it on the printed page here. But I would take it that not only does oil revenues fall under this rubric, but so would forest products, national parks and things of that nature.

So it's not clear exactly what you're calling for here. I can only say it's a distraction. It's a red herring, it's not needed, and it does not really belong in the budget resolution process.

I retain the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the chairman of the Resources Committee.

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. Speaker, let me say again, but say more emphatically, what I said at the outset, and that is that ANWR is never mentioned, never mentioned in the budget resolution, never mentioned in the report that accompanies the resolution. So it's wholly out of scope; it has nothing to do with the budget resolution before us, And it's also outside the jurisdiction of our Budget Committee. The jurisdiction over this drilling in Alaska, or wherever in the continental United States, belongs to the Resources Committee, not to the Budget Committee. So if you want to do what they're proposing to do here, you're in the wrong place before the wrong committee with the wrong proposal.

Revenues from ANWR are not provided for in this budget resolution, they're not precluded in this resolution. The Budget Committee does not have the jurisdiction, as my good friend, Mr. Ryan, knows to tell the Ways and Means Committee or any other committee that has the power to produce revenues exactly how to do it. We simply tell them how much, not by what policy. We don't make policy prescriptions as to revenues in our committee. We simply tell the Budget Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, or the other committees that have the capacity to raise revenues or offsetting receipts, or what we have here called negative budget authority.

In addition, if you read the cryptic language of this resolution, you will find it doesn't mention oil, or ANWR either, anywhere in it. You have to make some mighty extrapolations to get to the conclusion that this is talking about ANWR drilling and ANWR oil. It simply says we should issue instructions to increase negative budget authority, which could apply, in my estimation, to selling parkland, selling other assets of the United States which would be negative budget authority just like the revenues coming from a lease for drilling in ANWR.

In any event, this is a red herring when it comes to the resolution before us. It has nothing to do with our budget resolution. Our budget resolution should be looked upon on its own four legs, and let it stand or fall on those merits. I think we've got a budget resolution.

As I also said at the outset, we come to balance by the year 2012. And along the way we accumulate less debt than the President's budget. We limit spending in a reasonable fashion, but we provide more for education, more for the environment, more for energy, more for science and innovation than the President's budget. We protect the income tax cuts for middle-income Americans, we provide tax relief from the AMT for middle-income Americans, for whom it was never intended.

This is a good budget outline for our country and will move us over time, if we adhere to it--and we do adhere to the PAYGO rule throughout the resolution--if we further adhere to it, it will move us to a balanced budget within the foreseeable future.

Therefore, we do not have to vote for this motion to instruct conferees. It's not necessary. We need to go to conference and come back next week with a conference report that we can put to work so the House can get on with its business.

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

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, more than a year ago, in meetings with Chairman Peterson and the Ag Committee staff, the Budget Committee made it clear that the new farm bill had to stay within the CBO baseline for the current farm bill. Policies could be added or altered, but the aggregate cost could not exceed CBO's current baseline. We based that position on the so- called ``pay-as-you-go'' rule. Pay-as-you-go requires that any new legislation, in the form of mandatory spending, be fully offset, that it not exceed the current baseline.

In this instance, with the new farm bill, which about to come from conference, it appears that the farm bill will be complied with the fiscal year 2007 baseline but perhaps not fully complied with the fiscal year 2008 baseline. I have not seen the numbers yet.

CBO produces many baselines, and for a time the House PAYGO rule was ambiguous about the proper time for switching to a newer, updated baseline. Over time the House Budget Committee, in consultation with the Parliamentarian, came to an agreement to use longstanding scoring principles. These principles or guidelines allowed the Budget Committee discretion so that we could choose the appropriate baseline. This principle evolved over many years as a rule of practicality. It was founded on the rationale that we should not change the rules in the middle of the game or the middle of the legislative process or, in this case, in the middle of a complex conference. This rule was applied in 1996 to the farm bill passed then and again in 2002 to the farm bill which was passed then. Once again, the underlying idea is to avoid changing the rules in the middle of a contested process that is complex and protracted enough already.

The House PAYGO rule, the rule which we adopted in January of 2007, does set a limit to it. It does say that the latest baseline can and should be used until such time as the Budget Committee reports a budget resolution. The Senate has a different rule. The Senate PAYGO rule also sets a limit. It proposes that the last baseline be used until a conference report on the budget is adopted.

So there is a significant disagreement in the position between the two rules in the two bodies. As part of the resolution of all the differences in the conference, this too has to be resolved.

Much of the farm bill about to come before us was hammered out in 2007. The bill passed the House and passed the Senate and the conferees on all sides believed that the final package would emerge certainly no later than March of this year. The Budget Committee determined and informed the conferees that any farm bill would have to be scored against the FY07 baseline up until the Budget Committee reported a budget resolution for fiscal year 2009.

The budget resolution was passed on March 7. Our committee staff informed the conferees that the baseline for measuring compliance with PAYGO would now be the fiscal year 08 baseline. In rendering that advice, we didn't resolve or really consider the pertinent problem. As I said earlier, the rules require that the conferees use the March 07 baseline until the Senate adopts the conference report on the budget for fiscal year 2009. This makes sense because then you will have something done definitively by concurrent budget resolution passed in both Houses. And the purpose of a conference is to resolve disagreements between the two Houses.

Here, we have such a disagreement, as I said earlier. Either we use the FY07 baseline or we use the FY08 baseline. We can't use base because there is a significant difference between the two. It seems fair and reasonable to me to use the FY07 baseline since so much of this conference agreement was written with the FY07 baseline as the yardstick, and to revert to FY08 would require more protracted negotiations and maybe no conference report at all.

I have to say to you I could argue you this either way. But I believe on balance that this is a good application, a proper allocation of the baseline rule, and certainly the rule of practicality in this instance.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I think it bears remembering that 8 short years ago the budget of this government was $236 billion in surplus. Since 2001, we have experienced, on the watch of this administration, the largest deficits, nominal deficits, in American history, and an accumulation of debt that's enough to blow the mind. The debt of this country was $5.7 trillion when Mr. Bush came to office. When he leaves office, it will be $10 trillion. So that explains why we are skeptical, if you will, and even more skeptical and dubious when we look at the substitute resolution that has been brought to the floor, about which the leader barely spoke until he got to the very end of his presentation a few minutes ago.

To find the real numbers in this resolution, the leader said that this is addressed to deal with a spending problem, not a revenue problem. So as we look through the spending side of the resolution, we have to go all the way to an obscure account called function 920 Allowances to find where the real action is.

Now, this function is typically an allowance function where we have things we haven't decided how to assign yet and put into allowances because we know it is a catch-all account until some decision is made as to how to treat it.

Typically, therefore, you find smaller amounts in this account; but in this particular case, in this particular resolution, $817 billion in additional cuts are called for.

If you look at the Republican resolution, initially it seems to be providing current services for just about every function. But then you get to function 920 and you see that what has been provided is taken back. And when you ask where these cuts are distributed, who bears the brunt of $817 billion in cuts over a 5-year period of time, there is no real answer because they're unallocated. We've heard them say they've added a billion dollars to veterans health care; but once they begin allocating the $817 billion, that billion dollars is likely to be wiped out.

The same can happen to defense and nondefense programs. We can't say, because $817 billion is left unresolved tucked away in this account called function 920. This is the first black hole in this budget.

This budget then goes on. You can do a little arithmetic and figure out that $405 billion is assigned to cuts in domestic discretionary spending, $417 billion is assigned to mandatory cuts. Mandatory cuts are entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; and if you look at the accounts here, you will find that basically it appears that the Ways and Means Committee is being directed to save $253 billion, is presumably out of Medicare; the Energy and Commerce Committee is being asked, told, directed to save that $116 billion out of Medicaid. These are not just small cuts, minor adjustments that you would normally find in function 920. These are emasculating cuts for programs that are critically important.

Then when we come to the reconciliation provisions, we find that the Republicans' substitute anticipates at least another $1.1 trillion in tax reduction. How that's allocated, we can't tell for sure; but the tax cuts have to be reconciled against the mandatory spending cuts. When you do that, what we find is the tax cuts equal $1.1 trillion; the mandatory spending cuts equal $412 as a $739 billion addition to the deficit. It worsens the deficit rather than improving the deficit. That's the second black hole in this particular budget.

Reconciliation actually works as a problem instead of improves it. We know that the other side intends to repeal the alternative minimum tax after 3 years. We know also that they intend to extend the tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003. The total of these would come to $2.5 trillion easily over a period of 5 to 10 years; and if that's the case, the third hole, the third hole that this resolution leaves is a big hole in the bottom of the budget.

So what we've got here is work that is not really a completed product. It is not a finished product because function 920 leaves $817 billion still to be distributed, still to be determined. By whom? Apparently by the appropriators or someone like this, but not today on the floor. When you vote for this today, it has tremendous consequences.

Let me just offer one illustration of what the consequence might be.

After the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, which are truly sizable, they are starkly large, there is a cut called for of $115 billion in savings by the Education and Labor Committee. Now, where would the Education and Labor Committee go to get such cuts? They would go to student loans.

We have just done something phenomenal. In last year's budget, we were able to make some rearrangements and reduce the interest rate over time and subsidize student loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. A phenomenal accomplishment. This indicates that the reduction in interest would be abolished, reversed, as one way of achieving that direction to save $115 billion.

We just passed a College Cost Reduction and Access Act. One of the things it did would take Pell Grants up to $5,400 over time. That, too, would have to be repealed in order to meet $115 billion.

So watch out for the black holes. Watch out for the things that won't easily appear as you read the language here. If anyone votes for this, we are voting, in effect, in my opinion, to go back to where we were over the last 7 years in a period of endless deficits and mountainous debts. This is not the way to go. This is not good work. This is not a finished product, and we should not support this as an amendment to the base bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the majority leader of the House, Mr. Hoyer, the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.

We have heard throughout this debate the charge repeatedly that we are raising taxes by as much as any tax increase since the history of time. The charge won't really bear itself out. But let me just turn to third parties. Don't take it from me, let me turn to third parties who have a tremendous interest in the Federal budget and in the deficit in particular. None is more respected or more truly nonpartisan than the Concord Coalition, and here is what the Concord Coalition says:

``Allowing some of the tax cuts to expire would not be the result of Congress' raising taxes. It would be the result of sunsets that were included when those tax cuts were originally enacted to avoid the level of fiscal scrutiny that PAYGO is designed to ensure.''

Now, I have a chart here which is a replica of our famous eye chart to test your visual acuity. I am not sure whether you can see it, but the bottom line is instructive. We will reach surplus, starting from a CBO baseline, our budget will take us to surplus by the year 2012. That surplus will continue throughout time, 2012, 2013. And if you total that surplus up between 2012 and 2018, the total amount you get is $1.4 trillion.

Out of that $1.4 trillion in surpluses, a lot of money can be derived if we so choose to offset tax cuts. And toward that end, we have pledged ourselves as specifically and explicitly as we possibly can in the budget resolution before you in commitment to the middle-income tax relief. And anyone who has any doubt of this should come and read this paragraph in our budget resolution itself, not in the report, it is in the budget resolution itself, which says the following:

``It is the policy of this resolution to minimize the fiscal burdens on middle-income families and children and grandchildren, to provide immediate relief for tens of millions of middle-income families who would otherwise be subject to the AMT, the alternative minimum tax,'' and, by the way, we provide a 1-year patch. Talk about tax cuts, we have got a tax cut, and it is offset in our bill.

To extend the child tax credit we commit ourselves; to extend the marriage penalty relief, we commit ourselves; to eliminate estate taxes on all but a small fraction of estates, we are committed to that; to extend the research and experimentation tax credit, we are committed to that; to extend the deduction for State and local sales taxes; to extend the deduction for small business expenses; to enact a tax credit for schools.

This resolution assumes that the cost of enacting these policies is offset by reforms within the Internal Revenue Code that promote a fairer distribution of taxes across families and generations and economic efficiency and higher rates of tax compliance. And we

put money in the bill for program integrity, for the IRS to bear down and try to close the tax gap.

When you take what we can reap from doing that, it may not be as great as it would seem since the tax gap is estimated to be $500 billion, when you add to that the $1.4 trillion in surpluses per our projection of our budget, you have a lot to work with, not just for tax relief, but for other things as well. Debt retirement, the retirement of the baby boomers, all of these things will be demanding.

That is why we put this decision off until a later time. It is not pressing now. It doesn't have to be committed to now. The tax cuts don't expire until December 31, 2010. In the interim, nobody's taxes are going up because of what is done here on the House floor today, and nobody's taxes are going down, because it doesn't work that way.

Over time, we think that we have got a partial solution here. If we can simply adhere to the budget that we are proposing in House Concurrent Resolution 312, we believe that we can produce surpluses along this bottom line, a substantial portion of which can be used to offset tax cuts.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

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

I reserve the right to close. I have no further speakers.

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

Mr. Chairman, like Mr. Ryan, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the staff on both sides: Tom Kahn, Sarah Abernathy, Ellen Balis, Arthur Burris, Linda Bywaters, Barbara Chow, Marsha Douglass, Stephen Elmore, Chuck Fant, Jason Freihage, Jose Guillen, Jennifer Hanson- Kilbride, Dick Magee, Sheila McDowell, Diana Meredith, Gail Millar, Morna Miller, Namrata Mujumdar, Kimberly Overbeek, Kitty Richards, Diane Rogers, Scott Russell, Marcus Stephens, Naomi Stern, Lisa Venus, Greg Waring, Andrea Weathers, and interns Les Braswell and Tina Shah.

We have had a fast track on which to bring this resolution out of committee onto the floor to passage. Without their assistance, long nights, weekends, you name it, we certainly could not have done it. We certainly could not have done it without the presentation we put on the last 2 days. To them, I am deeply indebted for all of their help, both sides of the aisle, my staff in particular, which I think is one of the best committee staffs of any committee on the Hill in either House.

If I had a chart of my choice, I would have a counterpart to Mr. Ryan's chart, which said, can we afford the Democrats' tax? It would say, can our children afford the Republicans' debt tax? Because the legacy of this administration, 8 years, is nearly $5 trillion in additional debt, a phenomenal increase in debt that will have to be borne by our children.

When I say that our first objective in taking on this budget was to move it to balance, that's not some economic goal. That's not some green eyeshade objective. That's because I think we are morally wrong in leaving this mountain of debt to our children and our grandchildren.

If I had a chart, it would say just that, because I would assign the blame, the primary blame, to our Republican colleagues for the last 7 years.

We have brought to this floor a budget resolution, the base bill on which we will vote. After we vote on the Ryan amendment, we will vote on the base bill. I would ask for a vote against the Ryan amendment and for the base bill, H. Con. Res. 312, which is the Democratic-reported budget resolution.

We set as our first objective balancing the budget within a reasonably foreseeable period of time. The day we chose was 2012, and we hit that day. In fact, by our calculations, using CBO numbers, we will have a surplus that year under certain assumptions of $178 billion. That surplus will grow as time moves on; and by the year 2018, we will have accumulated $1.4 billion in surpluses. Now, I know they will be dissipated and used for other purposes, but I am suggesting here and have been suggesting that is one of the ways that we will pay for the tax cuts, particularly the middle-income tax cuts to which we have explicitly committed ourselves. That is one way we will make certain that they are cared for and extended.

Secondly, even though we are committed to balancing the budget, we are also morally committed to doing other things that shouldn't be held up or put aside while we try to bring our books in order, one of which is the education of our children. The President's budget basically flat funds education for the next 5 years.

I am proud to say that our budget provides $7.3 billion, $7.1 billion more than the President requested in his budget for the education of our children.

And watch out for education when they begin to, if you adopt the Ryan resolution, when they begin to distribute these undistributed, unallocated cuts, because education is right there in the bore sights.

Secondly, veterans health care. Of all of the promises government makes, the promises we make to our veterans ought to be upheld. And right now we have an increasing caseload. Therefore, we are proposing $3.6 billion over and above current services in order to pay for the additional case loads.

CHIP, children's health insurance. I am proud to claim a little paternity there. I was involved in 1997 when we created the program in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Now we are saying that we can balance our budget and still balance our priorities by seeing that our children, all of our children who don't have health insurance, can get health insurance. We provide for that. We provide for that in this budget resolution.

Finally, we provide for innovation, competitiveness, energy, research, things that will keep our economy on a competitive edge. For all of these reasons, we think we have brought to the

floor a good budget resolution which is worthy of the support of not just the Democrats on this side, but Republicans as well. It moves us toward balance, and it has balanced priorities. It is good for America and good for our economy.

I, therefore, request a vote in favor of the Spratt resolution, H. Con. Res. 312, which is the base bill and against the Ryan resolution which, if it were adopted, and I don't think it will be, but were it to be adopted, it would displace our bill. Vote for the base bill, H. Con. Res. 312, and vote to do these things that are so important to our economy, our country, our families, and our children. This is a good bill and I commend it to you for your support today.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, before we resolve into the Committee of the Whole, I ask unanimous consent that Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks, and submit matters relevant to consideration of H. Con. Res. 312, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2009.

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 14 minutes.

Madam Chairman, today we take up the budget resolution. Passing it, like many things in this House, is never easy, and sometimes contentious. But it is crucially important if we care about fiscal soundness and the future of our country.

Our country faces right now a host of different challenges: the specter of recession, a crunch in the credit markets, rising unemployment, declining family income, constant inflation in the cost of health care, aging infrastructure, and a porous safety net. And that is not to mention the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, costing us close to $200 billion this year, and even more dearly in human lives and wounded.

The President's budget for 2009 does little to turn this tide. In fact, the policies of the last 7 years have created some of these problems and compounded others. Eight short years ago, in 2000, our budget was in surplus, big-time surplus. In that year, we had a surplus of $236 billion. Having worked for years to bring the budget to this status, we warned the President and our colleagues across the aisle not to bet it all on a blue-sky forecast; but it was to no avail.

The President's economists looked out 10 years and saw nothing but surpluses, $5.6 trillion in all. We worried that if these rosy projections didn't pan out, we would be right back where we had been, deep in deficit.

Well, the President told the country, in effect, that we could have it all, guns, butter and tax cuts, too, and never mind the deficits.

I'll have to admit it looked as though we were sitting on an island of surpluses, but, in truth, we were surrounded by a sea of debt, of long-term unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare, coming due just over the horizon.

Seven years later, under this administration's policies, those surpluses are history. They're gone, vanished, replaced with record deficits and mounting debt.

This one chart here which shows in tabular form the increase in the debt over the last 8 years, says it as simply as we can on one piece of paper. When the President came to office, the debt of this country was $5.7 trillion. When he leaves in a few months, it will probably be close to $10 trillion, more than $4 trillion in debt accumulation on the watch of the Bush administration.

The budget we take up today is no grand solution, I'll grant you that, but it moves us in the right direction. It restores fiscal responsibility, but not to the exclusion of other values that

we hold dear such as our children's education and their good health care. And that's why, right off the bat, we part company with the President's budget and with Mr. Ryan's substitute.

We think Medicare is one of our country's crowning achievements, so we reject his cuts that would emasculate Medicare, in the President's budget, $556 billion over 10 years, and we reject his cuts in Medicaid, $118 billion over 10 years.

The Ryan substitute over 5 years would cut Medicare by $253 billion by our calculation, and Medicaid by $116 billion. We can't vote for that.

We would not wipe out the Social Services Block Grant or cripple the Community Services Block Grants as the President proposes, because we have seen in our own communities the roles they play. They hold up the safety net in an economy where it's sorely needed. And with fuel prices at record highs, the last thing we would slash is LIHEAP and low-income home weatherization. These are minimum benefits for Americans with maximum needs.

Ten years ago when we first ran a surplus, we resolved in both Houses to use some of that surplus each year to double the resources of the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, over a period of 5 years. We reached that goal in a bipartisan way, only to backslide year by year in this administration. In our budget this year we stop the backsliding at NIH, and we restore the President's cuts at the equally important Centers For Disease Control.

Our budget targets other resources to strengthen our economy and our society. We invest more in innovation, more in energy, more in infrastructure, and we provide $7.1 billion more than the President for education.

To move our country one step closer to health care for all, we facilitate up to $50 billion to expand SCHIP, the children's health insurance program, consistent with PAYGO, requiring that the costs be fully offset. We also accommodate fiscally responsible relief from the alternative minimum tax in order to shelter those middle-income taxpayers for whom it was never intended.

To make America safe, we fully fund defense, and we keep our promises to those who have fought for our defense, providing $3.6 billion above current services for veterans health care.

Now Mr. Ryan puts another billion on top of that in his budget, but he also puts in function 920, this is budget esoterica, but he puts in function 920 a call for $400 billion in undistributed cuts. One of those cuts would likely be that apparent increase in veterans health care.

Although we fix the AMT for another year, providing a tax cut of $70 billion to middle-income Americans, our Republican colleagues will accuse us of raising taxes. You've already heard it. The fact is, our budget doesn't raise taxes by one penny. But don't take my word for it. Stop by the manager's table right here on the House floor and read the letters that we've received from groups like the Concord Coalition, or look at the posters that we just posted here.

Here's what the Concord Coalition says: ``Allowing some or all of the tax cuts to expire would not be the result of Congress raising taxes; it would be the result of sunsets that were included when these tax cuts were originally enacted to avoid the level of fiscal scrutiny that PAYGO is designed to ensure.'' That's what the Concord Coalition has to say about our resolution.

If you want to see more, turn to section 501 in our budget resolution, title 5, section 501, and we enumerate, from item A through H, child tax credit, marital penalty relief, the 10 percent bracket, estate taxes, extension of research experimentation tax credit, extension of the State and local sales tax deduction, extension of the deduction for small business expenses and it goes on. These are the tax cuts that we embrace and commit ourselves to seeing renewed when they do eventually expire.

We believe that tax relief can come in a deficit-neutral tax bill in some cases, and we offer the AMT as an example. On more than one occasion, high-ranking officials in the Bush administration have testified before our committee, and when they're asked about the AMT and its impact on middle-income taxpayers, they've insisted that they could fix the AMT with changes in the Tax Code so that there would be no net loss of revenues.

For example, in February 2006 Josh Bolten was the director of OMB. He told our committee that the AMT could be corrected in the context of overall deficit-neutral tax reform, his words.

In February 2007, his successor, Rob Portman, told the Budget Committee, ``Our budget assumes it will have a revenue-neutral correction to the AMT.''

The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel, has taken the same stance, but Mr. Rangel has delivered. He's put a revenue- neutral bill on the table to kindle the debate. The Bush administration asserts it too has a plan, but has failed to follow through by disclosing any plan of its own.

One of the first steps that we took in the 110th Congress was to restore the pay-as-you-go rules that had helped us in the 1990s turn record deficits into record surpluses. This resolution fully complies with the PAYGO rule.

Partly because we've held mandatory spending in check with PAYGO and, at the same time, kept domestic discretionary spending close to the rate of inflation, this budget returns to surplus in 2012. Our bottom line beats the President's budget going away. Between 2009 and 2013, our net deficits are $262 billion. Over the same period the President's net deficits are $674 billion. And using CBO's latest forecast, our budget should be in surplus by 2012 in the amount of $178 billion. And from 2012 through 2018 our cumulative surplus should reach $1.4 trillion, all told.

Now we could have used the lion's share of those surpluses to offset the revenues lost to renewal of expiring tax cuts, and surpluses of $1.4 trillion would indeed offset a huge amount of revenues forgone. We chose instead to leave those decisions to a time closer to December 31, 2010, when the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire. But when the time is right, if those surpluses materialize, they can be used to offset the renewal of numerous expiring tax cuts, disproving our opponents' claim that we don't intend to renew and extend any of the expiring cuts.

In our resolution we also provide $940 million for program integrity, much of it going to the Internal Revenue Service for audits and compliance. The Commissioner told us not so many months ago that there's a huge tax gap, maybe $500 billion, between taxes owed and taxes paid, the so-called tax gap. If we can close that gap just a bit, we can raise tax revenues without raising tax rates. These funds can likewise be used as offsets.

So there are many ways to look at tax cuts in the code. And what we are saying here is that we should use the next several years, before the tax cuts expire, to do all of the above so that we will have the revenues to renew many of these tax cuts and restructure the AMT in keeping with PAYGO principles. That's simply what we are proposing.

Our budget parallels the President's budget with respect to national defense. It funds the basic defense budget at the levels the President requested for 5 years, but does not include supplemental funds beyond the $700 billion sought by the President. The President's budget for 2009 does include a $70 billion item which the Pentagon calls a placeholder. To compare our budget to the President's budget, apples to apples, our resolution includes a $70 billion placeholder equal to the President's request for overseas deployments and activities in theaters that include Afghanistan and Iraq. This budget resolution is not an authorization bill. It's not an appropriations bill, and therefore, it cannot prescribe how much should be spent for these activities or specify where the funds should be spent. Those decisions are left to the authorization and appropriation process, in committee and on this floor. These funds, however, can be used for whatever purpose the Congress eventually chooses in authorizing and appropriating legislation.

When we set out to do this budget, our overriding objective, Madam Chairman, was a balanced budget, because we're appalled at the amount of debt being left our children, and at our stature in the world as the greatest debtor nation. But we want more than arithmetic balance; we want our priorities balanced; we want a budget that does more for our children's education and their health care as well, a budget that

makes our workers more competitive and our scientists more innovative.

We want to revive America, restore our fiscal soundness, reclaim our future. This budget is just one step, but it's one step in the right direction.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield 14 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 12\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

If the gentleman wants to yield, I will gladly respond to his question. The gentleman keeps throwing these rhetorical questions.

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

Madam Speaker, I send to the desk a privileged concurrent resolution and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Chairman, I yield 17 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 17 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

I can assure the gentlelady that the programs that are of concern to her from the Community Development Block Grant, the Social Services Block Grant and the Community Services Block Grant are all accommodated in this budget resolution, and we definitely oppose certainly the repeal of the Social Services Block Grant.

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

Could the Chair please inform us of the time allotted to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), how much remains available.

I yield to the gentleman the balance of his time.

That was one amendment that was agreed to in the markup, and I think it would behoove us all, the gentlelady particularly, if we get together and see if we couldn't move the legislation. That would be great.

Does the gentlewoman require further time?

I yield to the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, I have sat here all afternoon, and last week through the markup, listening to this mantra about tax increases, all of which is a fabricated argument, and could not and cannot avoid the conclusion that to some extent this is a red herring.

It's a way of distracting attention from the real problems at hand, a way of avoiding discussion of a $236-billion surplus, which is where our economy and our budget stood in the year 2000, the year before Mr. Bush came to office, the $4 trillion in debt added by the Bush administration over the last 7 years, over median family income which has fallen under the Bush administration, avoiding discussion about a debt-burdened economy, which is losing steam near a recession and a dollar, a mighty dollar, which is plummeting, avoiding all of that so that we can talk about something that is not going to happen.

First of all, we made it as clear as we possibly could that we have endorsed, embraced and pledged to see continued the middle-income tax cuts which are included in the 2001-2003 tax cuts. They add up for the renewal over a 5-year period of time to $230 billion. If we follow our budget resolutions we have laid out, we will have a surplus in 2012 of $178 billion.

By 2018 the cumulative surfaces will be at $1.4 trillion. If we choose then, and we are not making the decision now, but if we choose then that will offset the extension of most of the taxes, most of the tax cuts that were adopted in 2001 and 2003.

We have put that in black and white, title V policy, policy on middle income tax relief, and we have laid out from item A through item H the different tax cuts that we support and are pledged or seeing renewed and extended. We can't make it any clearer than this.

Let me say something else for anybody listening wondering whether or not his taxes are about to shoot up and whether he should go cash in some stocks and bonds and get ready for this huge tax increase, it's not coming. Even if we adopted something that called for it to happen, it would have to go through Ways and Means. It would have to go through Senate Finance. It's a long way from ever being passed.

We simply say in our budget resolution, as we get ready for 2010, let's see if we can't have a conservative budget that will move us toward surplus so that some of that surplus, at least, can be used to offset some of these tax cuts. Let's see if we can't put some money into program integrity with the Internal Revenue Service and shrink the tax gap so we can use some of the money there, raise tax revenues without raising tax rates, use some of the money thus gained to offset some of these tax cuts when they come up for renewal.

Go through the code as we did in 1986, give it a good closet cleaning. It needs a scrub down as an accretion of the deductions and credits and exemptions and preferences, all of these things. If we muster our efforts, if we marshal our efforts, we can do and lay the basis for the renewal of many of these tax cuts in 2010.

But we primarily delayed the decision about those tax cuts in 2010 on the basis that we need to know more. What will be the state of the economy? Will we still be in two different theaters, Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting a war that is costing $12 billion a month? Will we still have an enormous deficit or will we be in surplus?

Better that we determine it than guess at it now. We are simply saying we would lay the basis. First of all, we would lay down the principle that we would protect these middle income tax cuts. Second, we will put the budget in place to begin generating surpluses so that they can afford the renewal of some of these tax cuts.

That can be done in this budget resolution. We are not pushing the biggest tax increase in American history. I don't know even where the numbers arrived from in the first place. I don't think it's supportable, but it is totally fantastic. It's an argument that is a complete red herring and a complete deviation from what we are all about today.

We should be talking about the savings rate in this country, about what deficits are doing to our economy, our country, and our standing in the world. There is plenty to talk about that is relevant. This subject is not because it's not about something that is about to happen.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington, Dr. McDermott.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

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

Mr. Chairman, I can return all the compliments that Mr. Ryan paid to me. He's a pleasure to work with, and I have great respect for him.

But there's one thing he didn't mention at all in his presentation all afternoon and that is his budget substitute. And I think one of the reasons he didn't do it is that it won't bear scrutiny.

If you look at the Ryan substitute, the Republican minority substitute, you'll find, if you look very closely and know where to look, something called function 920. Now, function 920 is the catch- all. When you can't assign some expenditure or revenue raiser somewhere else, you put it in function 920. It means really we haven't yet completed the job.

When you look at 920 in this case, the minority has assigned $817 billion in undefined savings or at least $405 billion in discretionary spending cuts which are undistributed. They haven't been assigned to the Veterans Administration or to the Defense Department or to the Transportation Department. They are undistributed cuts, $405 billion. I've never seen in all my years in the Budget Committee, anything that has a function 920, this catch-all in cuts of $405 billion.

But in addition to that, it calls for $412 billion in mandatory savings. Now, we don't know for sure where mandatory savings are coming from, which

programs are in jeopardy. But when Ways and Means is directed to reconcile $253 billion over 5 years, the Energy and Commerce Committee is directed to reconcile $116 billion over 5 years, we know the resolution has Medicare and Medicaid in its bore sights and the likely cuts are substantial. $368 billion. We've never done anything that approaches that magnitude at Medicaid and Medicare cost reduction. Indeed, during the Gingrich era, Republicans were pushing something of that size. It never got off the ground, and it wouldn't here either, let me tell you. So that's unrealistic. And the 405 is unrealistic because the work hasn't been done.

And then finally Mr. Ryan calls for, in his resolution, $1.2 trillion in tax cuts over the next 5 years. If you extend these tax cuts out, and you consider what he's doing, he wants to extend all the expiring tax cuts and, on top of that, also repeal the alternative minimum tax, just repeal it. The likely impact on revenues is about $2.5 trillion over 10 years, which blows a big hole in the bottom of the budget. And I don't think that's realistic either. It certainly isn't realistic if we're in earnest about seeking a budget that will balance. And so here, buried in the budget resolution, which he's not mentioned all afternoon, are three major problems with his budget resolution. He hasn't done his work. He hasn't distributed the cuts. And I'll tell you what that does. When you have $405 billion in function 920 undistributed, you can say to the veterans who come to you, we've got $1 billion covered for you. You can say to others, with plausible deniability, oh, you won't be cut, you won't be cut. But in truth, $405 billion is 20 percent of nondefense discretionary spending. That's where the cuts are going to fall every year at 20 percent. I don't believe it's going to happen. I don't think therefore that what he's presented is a valid, reasonable, defensible alternative to the budget resolution, and it strikes me as passing strange that we haven't discussed it all afternoon.

Now one final shot across the bow, one final statement about the mantra we've heard all afternoon. We do not propose to implement, in this budget resolution, any tax cuts whatsoever. We're laying down the policy as clearly as we know how in title V on middle-income tax relief, and specifying very clearly and pledging ourselves very, very committedly to the enactment, preservation and extension of these tax cuts. That's the policy of this budget resolution. Everyone should bear it in mind.

Madam Speaker, under section 314(d) of S. Con. Res. 21, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for fiscal year 2008, I hereby submit for printing in the Congressional Record a revision to the budget allocations and aggregates for certain House committees for fiscal year 2008 and the period of 2008 through 2012. This revision represents an adjustment to certain House committee budget allocation and aggregates for the purposes of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, and in response to consideration of H.R. 1424 (Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act). Corresponding tables are attached.

Under section 211 of S. Con. Res. 21, this adjustment to the budget allocations and aggregates applies while the measure is under consideration. The adjustments will take effect upon enactment of the measure. For purposes of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, a revised allocation made under section 211 of S. Con. Res. 21 is to be considered as an allocation included in the resolution.

DIRECT SPENDING LEGISLATION--AUTHORIZING COMMITTEE 302(a) ALLOCATIONS FOR RESOLUTION CHANGES

[Fiscal years, in millions of dollars] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2007 2008 2008-2012 total

Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Mayor Charles E. Powers, the former mayor of Fort Mill, SC, a town I have the honor of representing. I call his service to the attention of the House because his long years in office are a model for local government.

Charles Powers served as mayor of Fort Mill for 24 years, and before that, as a member of the city council. During all these years, he worked and raised a family, but the City claimed his devotion. As mayor, he was totally committed. Fort Mill came first.

While serving as mayor, Charles Powers oversaw his small town as it grew and grew in the backwash of Charlotte, NC. He made sure that Fort Mill got its share of the growth, yet never lost its hometown quality, its hospitality and friendship. He helped Fort Mill remain a special place, and not become a bedroom suburb of Charlotte. He had the vision to see the need for a new city hall, for a local library, for a visitors' center on Main Street, and for numerous other projects. Under his leadership, things got done. Fort Mill flourished as an all- American town.

In his latest race for re-election, Charles Powers did not have the good fortune of winning, but he took defeat with the grace and goodwill that always marked his years in office.

Just a few days ago, Charles Powers, in his well worn role as ambassador of good will, opened the door of a local convenience store, and spoke kindly to the stranger going out. Before he realized that the man had just robbed the store, the stranger turned his pistol on Charles Powers and shot him. Fortunately, Charles Powers survived the assault, and is out and about Fort Mill again.

Local elected officials like Charles Powers deal with problems that nettle people most, from potholes to public schools. Leaders like him solve those problems and make our democracy work and our communities livable. When they step down after years of service, they deserve our recognition and respect.