Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a loving father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, a devoted husband, and a personal friend and mentor. George K. Steil, Sr. was a pillar of integrity and leadership in the Janesville community and the state of Wisconsin. George passed away less than a month ago at his home in Janesville, but not before leaving an indelible mark on the countless lives he touched--myself included. He will be sorely missed, but will never, ever, be forgotten.

George was born in Western Wisconsin in 1924, and served his nation with honor in World War II as a sergeant in the U.S. Army Amphibious Forces in both New Guinea and the Philippines. Shortly after his return from service, George married the beautiful Mavis Andrews in 1947 in Darlington, Wisconsin.

George is an institution at the University of Wisconsin--having received a Doctor of Law Degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1950, been named a lecturer at UW in 1974, and having received the law school's highest honor--the Alumni Distinguished Service Award in 1991. He was appointed by Governor Tommy Thompson to the UW Board of Regents, serving as the Board's President from 1992-1994, as well as Chairperson of the UW Medical Foundation and member of the UW Hospital Authority.

He had among the most illustrious legal careers of any in the State of Wisconsin, serving on numerous statewide--and international-- committees and associations. George was elected president of the State Bar in 1976, and later honored by the Wisconsin Bar Foundation as the 9th recipient of the Charles L. Goldberg Distinguished Service Award for his outstanding public service as a citizen, an attorney, and a humanitarian.

His leadership in the community was also unparalleled. He has served as President and Senior Partner of Brennan, Steil, and Basting in Janesville, having been with the firm from 1960 until his death. George had been President of Janesville's Chamber of Commerce; Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bank One in Janesville; and took countless other leading roles in both the public and private sector. He had also been recognized for his commitment to the Catholic Church and the Diocese of Madison. George's commitment to faith was evident in all he did, as his service to God was manifest in his tireless service to others.

His long list of achievements and honors fails to do justice in describing the type of man George Steil was. My father was George's law partner, and I had the privilege of getting to know the Steil family during the formative years of my life. Because I lost my father at a young age, George became a mentor of mine. He gave me the kind of fatherly guidance and encouragement that I so desperately needed as I grew up and faced life's many challenges. Unlike any other, I looked to George as a role model, and was blessed to be taken under his wing.

George Steil dedicated his life to the service of others: to his fellow countrymen in the U.S. Army; to his neighbors--especially those most vulnerable--in Janesville, Rock County, and Wisconsin; to his clients, his customers, and fellow parishioners; and--most passionately--to his friends and his family.

To George's four children: George, Jr. and wife Patricia; John of Janesville; Michelle and husband Patrick; and Marcelaine and husband John. Your father will forever be one of Janesville's finest.

To his two great-grandchildren and ten grandchildren, including my former and future staffers Bryan and Allison Steil: your grandfather's zest for life and selfless commitment to service provides a guiding light for you to follow for years to come.

To his wife Mavis: For your unconditional love and support over the years, I will forever be in debt to you and to your husband.

My prayers and my eternal gratitude remain with the Steil family.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I believe I will reserve the balance of my time and allow the gentleman from South Carolina to get started.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today to move the process along on going to conference on the budget resolutions.

I just spent the last week doing 25 listening sessions throughout the 1st Congressional District, which is the

district I am privileged to represent, talking to the people I represent about the fiscal future of America, how we just went through this process of the House passing a budget resolution, the other body passing their version of the budget resolution.

There is very little distinction between the President's budget, the House-passed budget resolution and the Senate budget resolution. Therefore, this move to go to conference should not be a very lengthy conference because the differences between the two are very few and far between, with the exception of the process called reconciliation.

We will talk about that a little bit more. But I think it's important to understand what this is. And I spent a lot of my time talking with constituents about that, because they think sort of when you pass a budget resolution, the budget is done and it's passed.

That is how it works in our State legislatures, which is, a budget is a budget and it's passed and it's executed. This is the beginning of the process, not the ending of the process.

The best way to think about the process we are engaging in and what we are doing right here with the budget resolution is the budget resolution is the fiscal architecture of the Federal Government. It's the blueprint of what our government should look like, how big it should get, what is the fiscal policy of it. So we are here debating these blueprints of the Federal Government. And the blueprints were approved by the House a couple of week ago, by the Senate, and now the idea here is to smooth out any differences, which are few and far between, and then move forward to implement the component parts of the budget. So once this process is done, then we have the architectural diagrams in place; then we go start building the government that's being proposed here. The new cap-and-trade legislation, new national health care legislation, all these new spending bills, the tax increases, that's where Congress goes from here, which is once the budget resolution is done, start implementing these pieces, the goal of which is by this fall all of this is in law and is done.

Let me reiterate what we are talking about here, just the huge magnitude of what's being proposed here. Just with respect to the cost of government to the future generations, our debt, this budget proposes more debt, more borrowing, under this Presidency than all prior Presidencies combined. This budget proposes that our publicly held debt, the amount of bonds we have to go out there and sell to the Chinese, to the Japanese, to other people to cash flow our government, our debt will double in 5\1/2\ years and triple in 10\1/2\ years.

What's more, what this budget says we ought to do is we should chase ever higher spending, an unprecedented level of new spending with ever higher taxes. It not only proposes the largest tax increase in American history, which is $1.5 trillion, taxes on energy, taxes on incomes, on small businesses, on the very investments that make up our savings portfolios, our 401(k)s, our pension plans, things that are probably going down by about 40 percent for the average American, not only are those tax increases huge, the spending increases are much larger.

So what these architectural designs do, what this blueprint for the Federal Government that the President has sent to Congress that Congress is now in the midst of rubber-stamping does is it says let's have this unprecedented gusher of new spending, let's chase it with higher taxes. Those taxes never quite catch up with the spending, and the result is an unprecedented increase in our national debt.

Mr. Speaker, this is how you end prosperity in America. Name me a great country that has been able to increase standards of living, increase jobs, increase prosperity where they increase the size of government, the taxes of government, the borrowing of government like this. This is an unprecedented spending, taxing, and borrowing spree which we simply do not stand for, which we simply can't go along with.

And I want to draw your attention to one other point: This unprecedented borrowing spree is done in the face of an already bleak fiscal future for this country. This is an ad that has been taken out in many newspapers across America by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan advocacy group that says America should get its fiscal house in order. It just shows this tip of the iceberg. Today's economic crisis is the tip of the iceberg. What this says is right now to pay the bills for the Federal Government, right now to make sure that the government programs that everybody has come to know, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, right now those three programs alone show us a $56 trillion unfunded liability. What that means is for everybody in America today, my mother's generation, my generation, my children's generation--and my children are 4, 5, and 7 years old--for us to pay the bills of all the government promises that are being made to these three generations, today we would have to set aside $56 trillion, invest it at Treasury rates in order to just make sure these programs are solvent. It is an enormous fiscal liability.

Rather than tackling this problem, rather than confronting America's fiscal wreck that's coming, rather than getting us under control, what does this budget resolution do? It makes it worse. It adds more debt on top of this debt. It is saying never mind the fact that all these programs are going insolvent, never mind the fact that we're not even prepared for the baby boomers, never mind the fact that today the per- household debt is $483,000 per household, for every household in America right now today they owe $483,000 just to pay the bills we have already racked up that are unpaid for the Federal Government, the majority wants to what? Not fix it but make it worse. Rather than getting spending under control, it goes out of control. I mean the Environmental Protection Agency this year alone gets a 124 percent increase in their budget. On and on and on the spending goes.

Rather than getting taxes under control so entrepreneurs can keep more of what they earn; so small businesses, the economic engine of America, have an incentive to go back to work to hire people, not to lay people off, taxes go out of control. And rather than tackling this challenge of debt, what are they doing? They are accelerating our increase of debt, accelerating the fact that $483,000 per family is owed today and makes it much, much worse.

At the end of the day, what it's really all about is freedom. The question really before the American people today is with the government's taking more and more money out of your pocket, with the government's growing and making more and more decisions here in Washington, with the government's making the decisions on how your health care is to be delivered rather than you and your doctor making the decision, with the government's taking over the energy sector, the health care sector, 25 percent of our economy, with the government's saying to future generations we are going to have to take more money out of your pocket in order to pay the bills, in order to borrow the money, you have less freedom. And this just shows you how the President and the majority here in Congress are proposing a dramatic and radical new increase in the size of government way beyond where we have historically been.

I asked the Congressional Budget Office before this budget came due, what will the tax rates on my three children have to be if we're going to have to finance all this growth of government through taxes, which ultimately must happen? If the government is to spend beyond its means by borrowing, somebody's going to have to pay that back through higher taxes, and that's the next generation. And the answers I got from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office keep me awake at night.

As I mentioned, I am in my late thirties. My kids are 4, 5, and 7 years old. And what they said was really scary. They said that by the time my three kids are my age, in order to pay these bills that they are racking up for them, the lowest tax bracket in America, today the 10 percent bracket, would have to go to 25 percent. The middle-income tax bracket for middle-income taxpayers would have to go to 66 percent income tax rate. And the top tax bracket, the ones that small businesses pay, will go to 88 percent.

That's the ending of America. That's the end of prosperity. That is severing

the legacy of this country. And the legacy of this country is that each generation takes its challenges seriously, fixes those problems so that they can bequeath onto the next generation a more prosperous, a more secure America. We are at risk for severing that legacy for the first time in the history of this country. If we consign to the next generation that burden of debt, that increase in tax rates, there is no way we will be able to provide a higher standard of living to the next generation of Americans.

But the matter is even more urgent than that. The matter is urgent to the fact that we are in the worst recession we have seen since the 1940s. It's a global recession. And the question we ought to be asking ourselves: Should we be raising all these taxes in the middle of a recession? Should we be raising the energy fees on consumers by anywhere from $1,600 to $3,500 a year in a recession? Should we be raising taxes on small businesses, which create most of our jobs, in a recession? Should we be raising taxes on the assets that make up our pension plans, our children's 401(k) plans, their college education plans, our IRAs in a recession? Of course not. Unfortunately, that's precisely what the President and this budget do.

This is a huge moment for America. And Americans may not know this because they are greasing this thing through so fast: It's a moment where America may abandon its tireless principles, its timeless ideas that built this country, the idea that the goal of government is to protect our rights and to equalize opportunity for all so people can stake their claim and make the most of their lives and replace that with more of a Europeanized notion where we try to micromanage the results of people's lives, where people are less concerned about their liberty and more concerned about security.

We believe in having a safety net to help people who cannot help themselves. We believe in having a safety net to help people when they are down on their luck. But we reject the philosophy and the approach of this budget which says we need to have more than that, we need to have a society where more and more Americans become dependent on the government itself for their own well-being.

We want people to maximize their potential. We want people to make the most of their lives. We don't want to lull people in lives of complacency where they are becoming more and more dependent on the Federal Government. We have seen what those ideas do. We see them on display in foreign capitals all around the world. Higher unemployment, a lower standard of living, stagnant wages, decaying societies. That's not America. That is not what this country is. It's not the idea of America. We want the idea of America that we have known for the 20th century to be the idea of America in the 21st century. That's what this budget is about. That's what this blueprint or this architecture that we are debating here today is really all about.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the vice ranking member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Yes.

That's right.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) manage our time for a moment until I return.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry).

Will the gentleman yield for a clarifying question on that?

Is it not the case that the Republicans controlled Congress from 1995 to the year 2000, controlling the appropriations and the tax bills that came through Congress at that time?

At this time, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson).

Is the chairman reserving the right to close? Do I infer that he has no more additional speakers?

I have one additional speaker.

All right. I will yield the remainder of our time, 3\1/2\ minutes, I believe----

I will yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina, who doesn't want the 3 minutes.

Yes, I'll consume the remainder of our time. May I inquire, Mr. Speaker: We have 2 minutes left, I believe, or 1\1/ 2\ minutes?

I yield myself the rest of the time.

Mr. Speaker, I'll just simply close this portion of our debate by saying this: Let's all admit that both parties have made mistakes in the past. That happens. The question is: Are we going to make things worse or are we going to make things better?

It is so clear, so obvious to just about any observer out there that piling on a new mountain of debt, a new gusher of spending and the largest tax increase in American history is not going to make things better; it's going to make things worse.

Now, the one thing that the American people do get out of this is they get a choice. We disagree with this budget, and so rather than just simply criticizing, we proposed an alternative, an alternative that keeps taxes down and helps small businesses, an alternative that controls and cuts spending, an alternative that gets our debt under control and that puts us on a path to pay our debt off. It is a stark difference than this budget, which is making its way through Congress, being steamrolled through to give us the largest expansion in government we've seen in the history of this country, the third and final great wave, the building on the New Deal and the Great Society, which will give us a larger Federal Government unlike any we have seen in the history of this country in the past.

It is a budget that doubles the national debt in 5\1/2\ years and triples it in 10\1/2\ years. It is a budget that gives us a huge tax increase in the middle of a recession and that makes everybody pay more for energy, and it's a budget that basically is borne upon the philosophy that the government must grow for society to grow. We reject that idea. That's why we're not supporting this budget.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, Republicans offered the American people a budget that would not only fund our priorities but also support economic growth and job creation, get the Federal spending and debt under control and begin the critical reforms of our largest and least sustainable entitlement programs. And the Republicans budget did this all without the job-killing tax hikes that are required by the budget that we are here discussing today.

The budget we are here to discuss today, the Obama Democratic budget, exploits the current financial crisis to rush through a sweeping expansion of the Federal Government. This motion to instruct aims at ensuring this budget resolution doesn't trigger a fast-track process, otherwise known as budget reconciliation, to jam through a government takeover of health care and education or a cap-and-trade tax that will hurt families, kill jobs, and put America at a severe competitive disadvantage with China and other countries.

As a background, the House-passed resolution includes reconciliation instructions for three committees, two of which, Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, share jurisdiction over health care and cap-and- trade. These reconciliation instructions trigger fast-track procedures limiting debate and amendments on a subsequent reconciliation bill. In other words, it's a way for Congress to sweep this legislation through with very little debate, no amendments, get it into law without the public seeing what is happening.

In the House, reconciliation is much less important because the House has what we call the Rules Committee.

It is critical in the Senate, however, because there legislation can be jammed through with little debate or no amendments. The Senate does not want reconciliation. The Senate-passed budget resolution did not include reconciliation instructions. In fact, it included a number of protections against using reconciliation. This motion to instruct instructs the House conferees to recede to the Senate on four items.

Number one, drop reconciliation instructions from the resolution; number two, block legislation that eliminates Americans' ability to keep their health care plans or choose their own doctor; number three, adopt a Senate provision that keeps reconciliation from being used for cap-and-trade legislation; and, number four, adopt a Senate provision that would prevent taxes from being raised to even higher levels than those that are assumed in this budget resolution.

To reiterate, the Senate does not want reconciliation. This is what Senate Budget Committee chairman Senator Conrad said yesterday about reconciliation: ``Once you have unleashed reconciliation, you can't get it back in the barn. And it could be used for lots of different things that are completely unintended at this moment. People need to think about that very carefully.''

Chairman Conrad is not alone. Twenty-eight Senators wrote Chairman Conrad urging him not to use reconciliation for cap-and-trade legislation because reconciliation fast-track procedures ``would be inconsistent with the administration's stated goals of bipartisanship, cooperation, and openness.''

Senator Byrd, the best author we have among us of the budget process, the author of the reconciliation process

said this: ``Reconciliation is not designed to create a new climate and energy regime and certainly not to restructure our entire health care system. Woodrow Wilson once said that the informing function is the most important function of Congress. How do we inform? We publicly debate and amend legislation. We receive feedback which allows us to change and improve proposals. Matters that affect the lives and the livelihoods of our people must not be rushed through the Senate using a procedural fast track that the people never get a chance to comment upon or fully understand.''

But even more important, Madam Speaker, Americans are concerned about all of the spending that's going on here in Washington. And we should not underestimate how well the people understand. Like just about everybody else, last week I held 25 listening sessions throughout the First Congressional District in Wisconsin. My district falls right in the middle among the political spectrum so it's a good microcosm of the attitudes across the country.

They are worried about this new gusher of spending. They are worried about the government taking over health care. They are worried about the increased cost of energy, the effect that it's going to have on our manufacturing jobs. And, in fact, at one of my town hall meetings, a woman in her mid-sixties came up to me and said, Is Congress going to use reconciliation to push through all of this government and health care reform legislation? I was floored by that. I don't think I have ever heard anybody outside the Beltway talk to me about reconciliation.

The American people are watching this process. The American people know what is happening. The American people want a say in this.

Why are we here? We are here to deliberate. We are the people's representatives. Should we take this largest proposal to increase the size and reach and scope of our government, the largest--in the words of the administration--since the New Deal and just sweep it through with almost no debates, with no amendments, stifling the voices of the people's representatives or not?

At the end of the day, we could confiscate about 25 percent of our economy, energy and health care together, with less than a hundred hours of debate and no amendments. It's baffling, it's mind-boggling that this could actually happen. This is not America, this is not the deliberative process, and this is not a process the Senate itself even wants.

So the question is if we're going to have debate about nationalizing the health care system in America, if we're going to have a debate about having a brand-new energy tax, if we're going to have a debate about tax increases and spending increases doubling and tripling our national debt, let's have that debate. Let's not just sweep the thing through.

Unfortunately, the philosophy that is at play here, Madam Speaker, is this--and it's a philosophy that we need to talk about. It's a philosophy that we need to debate. The philosophy behind this budget, with all of its class warfare, with all of its class accusation is basically they are telling the American people in the budget that your station in life is static and we're going to have to grow government to help you cope with it.

We reject that. That is not what America is about. That is not the ideal of this country. People are not stuck with their current station in life.

The goal of this country, the goal of our government is to help people become upwardly mobile; it is to give the people the tools that they need so they can seize the opportunity to make a better life for themselves. We need to protect people's rights to achieve their dreams, to get the opportunities to make the most of their lives and to seek happiness as they define it for themselves so long as it doesn't infringe on another person's right to do the same. That is the philosophy that has taken this country so far, that has made it the most prosperous Nation in the world, the envy of the world, and that is the philosophy that is being debated right here with this budget as to whether it should continue or not.

I think we should have more than just about 100 hours of debate on whether or not we trash this philosophy that brought our country this far. We should have amendments as to whether or not we're going to do all of this government. Do we want Europe, or do we want America? It should be more than a hundred hours of debates. We might want to consider an amendment or two to this philosophy.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

At this time, Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland).

At this time, Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), the vice ranking member of the Budget Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

The gentleman from Florida, I agree with much of what he said. He and I are friends. We both love turkey hunting. We have a lot in common.

And the gentleman was right when he said that they are using honest numbers. They are being candid with their numbers, that's correct.

The Congressional Budget Office is showing that this budget resolution doubles our publicly held debt in 5\1/2\ years and triples it in 10\1/2\ years. This budget resolution raises taxes on the American people by $1.5 trillion, the largest tax increase in American history. This budget resolution brings the size of our government to levels we haven't seen since 1945 at the end of World War II.

And the gentleman is right where he says to get big things done we ought to do it with bipartisanship. All the more reason, Madam Speaker, why we should not have reconciliation.

What is reconciliation? It's a method by which the majority can fast track legislation through to law without any participation from the minority.

In order to have bipartisanship, you have to have collaboration. Both sides of the aisle sit down, hammer out compromises, work together to pass legislation.

That is not what reconciliation is being used for here. Reconciliation is saying one-party rule, one party can do it all.

In the Senate, no filibuster, 50 votes plus one can get it through, no amendments, 100 hours of debate, done. No involvement from the minority party. It is the prerogative of the majority party to do that.

The majority party has the power and they can do it. And apparently they are not supportive of this motion to instruct to make sure that that reconciliation doesn't occur, to make sure that we agree with the Senate, with the majority party and the Senate that we don't do reconciliation.

Unfortunately, I think the truth of this matter is being revealed here today. And where we are seeing this majority in the House is basically saying no, we are not going to follow the Democrats in the Senate. We are not going to have a bipartisan procedure. We are going to ram this stuff through with reconciliation.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Reclaiming my time, and I believe the gentleman from Florida is very sincere on what he says in that, and I believe he is true to that.

I would like to insert into the Record a question and answer I had with the chief counsel of the Budget Committee and the majority staff during our markup where the majority counsel said that if, in fact, reconciliation instructions do go to the Commerce Committee--which they do in this budget reconciliation--nothing stops that from going toward cap-and-trade legislation.

Markup of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2010

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:40 a.m., in Room

210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John M. Spratt, Jr.

[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.

Present: Representatives Spratt, Schwartz, Kaptur, Becerra,

Doggett, Blumenauer, Berry, Boyd, McGovern, Tsongas,

Etheridge, McCollum, Melancon, Yarmuth, Andrews, DeLauro,

Edwards, Scott, Langevin, Larsen, Bishop, Moore, Connolly,

Schrader, Ryan, Hensarling, Garrett, Diaz-Balart, Simpson,

McHenry, Mack, Conaway, Campbell, Jordan, Nunes, Aderholt,

Lummis, Austria, Harper.

Chairman Spratt. For simplicity, just simply address your

question to the staffers at this time.

Mr. Ryan. Mr. Chairman, I will begin. I do not know if we

are going to take a lot of their time because we realize we

have a lot of amendments. It is going to be a long day and we

want to get to it. And we have had a good chance to pore

through this budget.

I do have a question, I guess for you, Ms. Millar (Gail

Millar, majority staff General Counsel), on reconciliation.

The Chairman's mark includes reconciliation instructions of

three Committees, to each produce one billion in deficit

reduction over the six-year period from 2009 through 2014, to

the Ways and Means, the Energy and Commerce, and the

Education and Labor Committees, under the subsection

including healthcare and investing in education.

Here is my basic question. Am I correct that the only

binding aspect of these instructions is that each of the

Committees are directed to produce $1 billion in deficit

reduction in their jurisdiction?

Ms. Millar. That is correct.

Mr. Ryan. And so while the Budget Committee can make

assumptions about policies, education, healthcare, energy, we

cannot bind these Committees to certain policies? It is up to

those Committees to determine what policies are within those

instructions and they simply have to meet that goal of

achieving one billion in deficit reduction; is that correct?

Ms. Millar. That is correct, sir.

Mr. Ryan. Okay. So serving on Ways and Means, that is how

we always interpreted it. I just want to make sure that the

reconciliation discussion we are having here is consistent

with what it has always been in the past which is these

Committees are free to do what they choose to do, they have

just got to meet that $1 billion number?

Ms. Millar. That is correct.

Mr. Ryan. All right. Thank you. That is really all I have.

So let's be very clear here. Reconciling to the Commerce Committee-- --

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

It means the Commerce Committee can choose to put in that reconciliation package anything within its jurisdiction, cap-and-trade, health care, whatever the case may be.

The point is this, reconciliation in the past has been used to reduce government, to reduce taxes, to reduce spending, to contain the growth of entitlement programs. That's not what it's being used here today.

Reconciliation is being used here today in a new and unique way to dramatically increase the size and cost of government, to dramatically increase the level of taxation, to dramatically increase the liabilities upon future generations.

That's not its intent. Don't listen to me, listen to Senator Byrd, one of the Democrat leaders who helped write the law in the first place. Listen to Senator Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee, who is saying this is not what reconciliation was ever intended to be used for.

Please, we are simply saying join us in agreeing with the Democrats in the Senate to not have reconciliation, so that we can have the people's representatives speak their mind so we can really truly have a collaborative process, have amendments, have open debate. That's why we are trying to do this.

At this time, Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

(Mr. BROUN of Georgia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Let me see if I can go at it in a different direction.

Under reconciliation, the total debate on the reconciliation bill here, 4 hours on a bill, 1 hour on a conference report. In the Senate, 20 hours on a bill, 10 hours on a conference report. That means total debate on reconciliation in Congress, 35 hours. Let's assume that they break up the bill into three reconciliation vehicles, as could be the case with this, 105 total hours, total hours, of debate between the House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

Wow, 105 total hours of debate in this Congress to determine the largest and the most sweeping transformation of our Federal Government we have not seen since the New Deal. These aren't my words. These are words from the

administration who claimed that that's the ambition of this budget.

We are being presented with a new budget with such awesome ambition, with such an enormous increase in spending, taxing, and borrowing, a virtual takeover of 25 percent of our economy in just the health care and energy sectors alone, the largest tax increase we have seen ever in the history of this country, the largest debt increase proposed under this Presidency than all prior Presidencies combined, all rushed through with a simple majority vote in as little as 35 hours and no more than 105 hours of debate. Is that democracy? No. Is that what reconciliation was meant to be? No.

Reconciliation, the spirit and the idea behind it, was to get our fiscal house in order, was to get spending and borrowing under control, not out of control.

Unfortunately, this rule is being twisted, contorted, distorted to achieve these ends as quickly as possible to ramrod it through Congress without giving many voices to it, without having any bipartisan collaboration, and just moving through the gauntlet.

This is the problem with this, Madam Speaker, which is when the American people voted for change, and I heard this at my 25 listening sessions, I don't think a lot of them thought this was the kind of change they were voting for. They didn't think they were voting for the kind of change to more mortgages on their children's future. They didn't think they were voting for a brand new national energy tax on their livelihoods, on their heating bills, on their gas bills, on their electricity bills. They didn't think they were voting for a new tax on the manufacturing jobs in America when our own competitors in China and India will not do this to themselves. They didn't think they were voting for the largest tax increase in history. They didn't think they were voting for the kind of change that gives us a sea of red ink, a mountain of debt, a government that is the biggest we have seen in a generation.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

The whole idea of ramming all of this government, this gusher of spending and taxing and borrowing through, in as little as 105 hours of debate is not democracy. It is not the way this House is supposed to work. Unfortunately, that is precisely what the majority aims to do. And that is why we agree with the Democrats in the Senate to stop that from happening.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to start off by, first of all, saying, and I comment on this a lot, I have tremendous respect for the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt. He is an admirable man who has a very difficult job.

I would like to hearken back to a day where bipartisanship on the budget worked, the year before I came into Congress, and Mr. Spratt was a key part of this. That was the 1997 budget agreement. That is when reconciliation was used for its intended purpose. In that 1997 budget agreement, where you had a Democratic President and a Republican House, they came together in bipartisan fashion to reduce spending and to reduce taxes, and it is that budget agreement that paved the way for the surpluses that then occurred and followed that helped us pay down debt.

The fact is, Madam Speaker, that both parties should claim credit for that job and that improvement in our fiscal situation, for bringing those surpluses, for balancing the budget and for having a substantial contribution to debt reduction. Both parties did that. Both parties should get credit for that.

But here we are today, taking this process that has been used to good effect in the past, fulfilling the spirit of the process, and we are just turning it upside down.

Let's review the contents of this. We very well might have, with as little as 35 hours of debate between the two Chambers and no more than 105 hours of debate because of this fast-track procedure, the greatest transformation of our Federal Government since the New Deal. Let's review the issues.

Taxes: What this budget proposes to do is to impose a new national energy tax on everybody who consumes energy: a tax on manufacturing, a tax on coal-burning States like my own, a tax that is bad for our economy. Higher taxes on small businesses. Higher taxes on investments. Higher taxes in a recession.

We proposed an alternative in our budget. We said, no, let's not raise taxes in a recession. Let's make our businesses more competitive in the global economy so we can create jobs in this recession. That was rejected. Now there they are steamrolling these tax increases through with very little debate and very few amendments.

Let's talk about cap-and-trade. The chairman gave an articulate defense for how cap-and-trade is not happening here. It is not in this budget. Well, then why on Earth is the Commerce Committee marking up cap-and-trade legislation next week? They are having hearings right now, and they are marking this bill up next week, and they are bringing it to the floor.

Here is the problem with cap-and-trade. We don't think it works. Even if you think you have a carbon problem, hitting our economy with this while our very competitors in China and India won't do it will not even reduce carbon in the atmosphere. It will actually increase carbon, but from China and India. For every one ton of greenhouse gases we reduce in America, China increases theirs by three or four tons. We lose our manufacturing jobs. They get the jobs. They emit carbon in the atmosphere. There is more carbon in the atmosphere and America has fewer jobs. How is that a good idea?

We proposed an alternative in our budget. We said let's drill for oil and gas in our own country, where we have a lot of it; and let's invest the proceeds of it in a clean energy trust fund so we innovate our way toward a clean energy system, so we innovate our way for nuclear, clean coal, renewables, biomass, wind, solar, all these things, fuel cells.

Americans are innovators. Let's not hit ourselves with a huge energy tax that costs jobs. Let's innovate our way out of this problem through a cleaner energy economy. That is our alternative. That was rejected. Now this cap-and-trade thing could get swept through with as little as 35 hours of debate.

Let's talk about health care. I just came from the Ways and Means Committee, another committee I serve on,

before coming to the floor here today, where they are discussing how in the budget reconciliation they are going to have a new health care plan that has a government-run plan option. The problem with the government- run plan option is it quickly becomes a government-run plan monopoly.

One of the leading health insurance actuaries in America, the Lewin Group, is telling us that as many as 120 million Americans would lose their private health insurance under this government-run plan option. This is government-run health care. It may not say it in name, it may not be what it says it is going to do tomorrow, but it is clearly what all the actuaries and the economists are telling us what it becomes.

The advocates in the Ways and Means Committee are already telling us, why have private health insurance in the first place? Let's just have the government run it all. So clearly the intention is being made known, and this confiscation of 17 percent of our economy will run through Congress with as little as 35 hours of debate.

This is what we are talking about. Should we have a government takeover of health care in America? Let's have a debate about that. Let's not have 35 hours of debate.

Should we impose the largest energy tax in the history of this country on our manufacturers, on seniors, on the upper Midwest where we have cold winters, or should we just ram this thing through with 35 hours of debate?

Should we hit our economy in the middle of a recession with the largest tax increase in history, ram it through with no amendments with as little as 35 hours of debate?

Should we transform the Federal Government, the largest transformation we have seen since the New Deal, with as little as 35 hours of debate?

We think no. And we agree with the Democrats in the Senate who agree with us that the answer should be no.

Let's concur with the Senate Democrats. Let's pass this motion to instruct and let's give America democracy and debate.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I will yield myself 5 minutes at this time.

Madam Chair, I just heard one of my colleagues say the cap-and-trade proposal is not in this budget. Let me show you the stalking horse that's in this budget. Page 30 on the chairman's mark, it says in their reserve fund on increasing energy independence, we can have legislation that provides for and limits reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Now, we just heard Mr. Blumenauer out on the floor a little while ago saying, ``Cap-and-trade. That's what cap-and-trade is. Our proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is cap-and-trade.''

Now, it might not say cap-and-trade here, but you're saying we're going to achieve what cap-and-trade is.

One more point. You reconcile the Energy and Commerce Committee. What does that mean for people who don't know what reconciliation means? It means they're telling the Energy and Commerce Committee you can do whatever you want within your jurisdiction, $1 billion of savings. So you can have a $1.3 trillion cap-and-trade tax increase, and then have a $1.2999 trillion spending program out of it, and you satisfy your reconciliation instructions.

I heard somebody say, you know, the debt goes up under all these budgets. That is true. I've got news for everybody. The national debt is going to increase. It's going to go up under anybody's budget, under any conceivable scenario. You know why? The baby

boomers are retiring. We've got 40 million people who are going from paying taxes into the programs who are going to retire and collect money from these benefits. So the debt's going up, no two ways about that.

The question is, what are we doing about it? Do we have a really bad fiscal situation right now? Have we inherited a mess? Yes. The question is, what are we doing to clean up this mess? Are we making it better or are we making it worse?

I would suggest that the budget that is here before the floor makes it so much worse. We have a plan that we will talk about later that gets our debt and our borrowing under control. This is a budget that sends our budget deficit and debt out of control, doubling it in 5\1/2\ years, tripling it in a little over 10. More money going out the door in borrowing, raising the national debt under this Presidency than under all prior presidencies combined.

So let's see if we're really being fiscally conservative here. Let's review the budget of our Federal agencies.

The annual average increases in government agencies over the last 8 years, under a Republican President, Democrat and Republican Congress: legislative branch got an annual increase of 6.1 percent; the judiciary, an annual increase of 5.9 percent; education, an annual increase of 10.2 percent; Health and Human Services, annual increase of 7.7 percent; Justice, annual increase of 7.0 percent; Labor, annual increase of 9.1 percent; State Department, an annual increase of 11.9 percent; Transportation Department, annual increase of 6.5 percent. Let's go to the executive office of the President. We had some problems there with Katrina, 87.3 percent annual increase. Total outlays of our government, from our government agencies over the last 8 years: an annual increase of 6.4 percent.

So what's Congress doing this session? Are we being fiscally conservative? Are we being frugal? Are we watching taxpayer dollars? Look at the family budget. Do you think the family budget is going up an average of 6.4 percent a year? Inflation's not even 1 percent. Do you think State and local governments are going up that fast?

Let's look at what we just passed a month ago. An increase in this year's budget from the stimulus, the Education Department, get this, an increase of 196 percent, and this budget says let's throw on top of that a 13 percent increase.

HUD, an increase of 34 percent this year. What's going on top of that in this budget? Another 18 percent increase in their budget.

Labor Department, an increase this year, 38 percent in their budget. What does this do? Another 5 percent on top.

State Department, $600 million increase in stimulus. What are they saying in this budget? Let's increase the State Department by 41 percent.

The Environmental Protection Agency, good agency, they do smart, important things. In the stimulus bill this year, they got a 92 percent increase in their budget. What does this budget bill propose? Let's give them another 35 percent increase this year in their budget.

Madam Chair, this is reckless. This is reckless spending. Name me a family in Janesville, Wisconsin, that's going to get a 92 percent increase in their family budget. Name me a local government in your communities that's going to get a 196 percent increase in their budget this year.

We are spending like drunken sailors--wait, I apologize to the drunken sailors of America for that comment. This is reckless. This is why this budget doubles our national debt in five-and-a-half years and triples it in 10 years.

Madam Chair, at this moment, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

At this time, Madam Chair, I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter).

At this moment, Madam Chair, I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), the House Republican Conference chairman.

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

Madam Chair, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

I can't speak for her. Let me ask the gentleman this. It's my understanding that that MIT study comes up with these calculations based on the fact that people are getting rebates to offset the higher energy costs. I think that's right.

I can't answer the question because the gentlelady said it. But here's the interesting point. Since you just acknowledged that that study rests upon the fact of having rebates go back to taxpayers, then why is it that this budget you're bringing to the floor repeals the rebates? This budget says the Making Work Pay tax credit goes away.

I will simply say: Let's put the MIT study aside for a moment and look at the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office is saying it's going to hit families an average of $1,600 a year. That's still a lot. It's more than the Making Work Pay tax credit.

But I think it's also fairly revealing that since the chairman's mark takes away the Making Work Pay tax credit, the only way to get it back is impose a cap-and-trade regime to get those revenues. Even the Congressional Budget Office says the tax increase on families buying energy will far exceed the amount of the Make Work Pay tax credit.

No matter how you slice it, no matter how you dice it, people are going to get an energy tax increase if you pass that bill.

Might I ask for a unanimous consent agreement

then, just to make sure we're sure about this--to play it doubly safe-- I would like to ask unanimous consent to remove the Commerce Committee reconciliation instructions out of this bill to make sure that that doesn't occur.

Madam Chair, I will yield myself 2 minutes. The only thing that's on the ascent in this budget is the national debt, the budgets of our government agencies, the tax burden on the American people, the deficits. Because after you lower the deficit a little bit, it goes right back up.

You know what is ascending in this budget is the fact that the national debt goes to double of what it is today in 5\1/2\, triples in 10\1/2\ years. That's what's on the ascent.

Madam Chair, I appreciate the gentleman who just spoke. We're good friends. And he is an honorable man. We just have honorable disagreements. The chairman and I have a lot of respect for one another. We're friends. We have honest disagreements. I wish we would have more debate about this because we are really, truly debating the fiscal future of this Nation right here.

I asked for this unanimous consent to have what we call ``reconciliation'' taken out of the bill. What that means is they are setting up a procedural device so that they can bring through nationalizing our health care system, a brand new energy tax on top of all our energy, the largest tax increase in American history, the biggest debt increase ever.

They can bring this thing through here in just a few hours of debate in the people's House, no more than 20 hours of debate in the other Chamber, with no amendments. They can get this agenda passed so fast with this procedural stunt that the American people won't know what hit them.

I just have to ask a question. You know, should we be giving any government agency a 200 percent increase in their budget this year? The Education Department is great. It's education. Six cents on the dollar on education spending which, by the way, comes from the Federal Government. All the rest is State and local government.

Name me a family in America that just got a 196 percent increase in their family budget. We just gave that to the Department of Education. This budget says: Let's give them another 13 percent increase.

In February, we passed a bill giving the Environmental Protection Agency a 92 percent increase in their budget this year. This bill says that wasn't enough.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

This bill says that wasn't enough. Let's give them another 35 percent. The problem is this: We're chasing ever-higher spending with ever-higher taxes, and the taxes never catch up with the spending. So the debt we're increasing is the highest we've ever seen. It is just so reckless, so irresponsible.

Madam Chair, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins).

At this time, I yield 3 minutes to the vice ranking member of the House Budget Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

I give the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

At this time, Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Nunes.

At this time, Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

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

I assume the gentleman from South Carolina has the right to close. Is that correct, Madam Chair?

Does the gentleman from South Carolina have any other speakers?

I take it the chairman has no other speakers?

I take it the gentleman is waiting for the Speaker to come.

Madam Chair, there is a virtual conga line forming around the Capitol right now to come and get money. We are spending so much money these days. We have got to get this spending under control. It is out of control. And because the spending is out of control, the debt is going out of control.

But I want to talk about something else in the closing minutes of the general debate here, and that is about the biggest problem in America today: Jobs. We don't have enough of them. In my hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, they closed down the General Motors plant. It is about three-quarters of a mile from my house. Two of my neighbors had their jobs there. Gone. High unemployment everywhere.

So the real question is, what are we doing to get jobs back in this economy, to get out of this deep recession, this the longest recession since 1945?

I would say that it is important to focus on one fact. Small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this economy. Seventy percent of our jobs come from small businesses. That is who got us our prosperity, that is who is going to get us our prosperity back.

And so what does this budget do for small businesses? Do you know what it says to small businesses? We are going to raise your taxes.

You have got to remember, Madam Chair, that the people who pay those rates that are being increased, those tax rates that are being increased in this budget are small businesses. They file their income taxes as individuals.

So we hear speaker after speaker after speaker saying, we are not doing these irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent, the rich.

Look, Madam Chair, preying on people's emotions of fear and envy may be

a good political slogan, but it doesn't create jobs. Tapping into the legitimate anger and anxiety in America today is not leadership. Because what this does with these tax increases on small businesses is it demonizes those successful small businesses that are getting us our jobs, and it demoralizes those small business men and women in America who are trying to become successful. It tells them, you know what? If you work hard, if you achieve, if you take a risk, if you innovate, if you become an entrepreneur in this country, we are going to tax you, we are going to demonize you. You are one of the evil people.

That is not America. That is not what this country is all about. We believe we ought to help people become successful. We want to reward work. We want that entrepreneurial, innovative spirit in America to come alive again.

The problem with this budget at the end of the day is it shuts off the wealth machine, the job creation machine of America. It makes it harder for those small business men and women to survive. The big reason why I voted against that stimulus package is because only 1 percent of it was actually dedicated toward encouraging small businesses to keep and create jobs. The rest of it was spending or tax rebates. There is a big difference here, a huge difference.

The American people finally have a very clear choice. Do you want bloated government? Do you want spending where every government agency gets double and triple-digit increases in their budget? Do you want record deficits, record tax increases and record debt increases? Or do you want to get this stuff under control? Do you want to get spending under control? Do you want to get borrowing under control? Do you want to get our deficits under control? Do you want to get taxes low so we can create more jobs?

At the end of the day, it is all about freedom. The budget they are bringing to the floor gives us less of it. The budget we are going to bring gives us more of it. That is what America is all about. America is the land of opportunity. We help people when they are down on their luck. We help people who cannot help themselves. But we create an entrepreneur activity. We create a country that rewards freedom, risk taking, advancement and success. Those are good things. This budget squelches that. This budget extinguishes those great aspects of America, the American ideal we have come to know and love. I say we keep it and reject this budget.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, at this time, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished minority leader, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Madam Chair, this has been a long day, a long couple of days. We're talking about the fiscal future of America.

Here is the budget we propose. There is something that's important, that's worth saying. Obviously we don't like the majority's budget, the President's budget, and I believe it's incumbent upon us to offer an alternative. So that's what we're doing here today.

I want to walk you through our alternative.

A couple of things off the bat.

It has lower deficits, lower spending, lower taxes, lower debt, and a lot more jobs. Specifically on spending, our budget spends $4.8 trillion less than the majority's budget.

Deficits. Our budget has lower deficits than the Obama-Spratt budget throughout the entire period, and half of it at the end of the period.

Jobs. We asked some economists to take a look at, well, which approach creates the most jobs, and they told us just in the fifth year alone you'd have more than two million more jobs under the Republican alternative than you would under the Democratic proposal, the Obama proposal. Why? Because they raise taxes on small businesses. They raise taxes on pensions, on the assets that make up our savings. They raise taxes on energy. They raise debt borrowing, which will lead to higher interest rates.

But let me tell you something else. This is a long-run chart. My friends on the other side have sort of ridiculed bringing these long- run charts to the floor.

Let me read from a document published by the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation. Signed by experts, economists, from the Concord Coalition, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the New America Foundation, the Progressive Policy Institute and the Urban Institutes. Not exactly your bastion of right-wing think tanks.

They say on page 6, among their top recommendations, ``Congress and the President should enact explicit long-term budgets for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that are sustainable, that set limits on automatic spending growth that require review every 5 years.'' More importantly, they say the long-run cost of these programs should be visible in the budget at all times and considered when decisions are made.

What are they saying? Let's think about the future when we're voting on these budgets. Let's think about what we're doing to the next generation.

The President himself said this is the most transformative budget we've seen in a generation. We haven't seen the kinds of change that this budget proposes, the likes of which we haven't seen since the New Deal.

So let's consider the ramifications of that. Let's think about what we're doing and the fiscal consequences of it.

And so here's what the picture tells you.

Spending. This budget puts us on a path of ever-higher spending to the point where my three children, who are 4, 5 and 7 years old, will see a government that is double the size of the one we have today, double the size of one we've ever had in this country.

The Republican budget gets us back on track to keep the size of our government where it has always been so we can maximize freedom.

What about debt?

This is the tidal wave of red ink that all of the experts are telling us about. The General Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, left and right economists from all around. The point is we shouldn't be looking down the road 5 years, 10 years.

You know what? I have a mom. She is 75 years old. I have got my kids. I just told you how old they were. I'm in the X generation. What we do here affects all of those people. And so when we pass these bills, they have consequences for everybody in America. And when you see that this budget--which, by the way, is being generous to the Obama-Spratt mark-- this budget underestimates the fiscal damage their budget will do. It is an island of red ink. It is a future of a banana republic of borrowing. And we say let's not do that.

And you know what? If you start now, these reforms are compassionate. The reforms we're seeing over the next 10 years are, instead of growing mandatory spending at 5.3 percent, let's grow it at 3.9 percent. It's more than double the rate of inflation right now. We're saying for discretionary spending we gave all of these government agencies giant increases in just the last couple of years. They are fat. Let's put them on a diet for a little while. Let's freeze spending, prioritize spending and then have modest increases after that so we can save our country, save our fiscal future.

That's what we're saying. Let's not get in this vicious spiral, as the Obama budget does, of chasing ever-higher spending with ever-higher taxes that never quite catch that spending and gives us ever-higher debt.

It's wrong. It's unconscionable. It's going to hurt our economy. It's going to bankrupt our country. It's going to give our children a lower standard of living.

At the end of the day, it comes down to this. I asked the Congressional Budget Office, well, what about the standard of living of future Americans? What will the standard of living look like on the current pathway we are on in America? Not the Obama budget but just the current pathway before you would pass this big government budget. And they said this: Inferior standards of living. That's the red line.

We are basically consigning the next generation quantifiably, irrefutably to a lower standard of living. That severs the tie between our generations. That breaks the bond in this country, the legacy, that says each generation takes on its responsibilities, fixes its problems so that the next generation is better off.

You know, my dad told me a number of things when I was a young guy, and he passed away when I was a kid. But I remember a couple of things he always told me. Number one, don't just be part of the problem, be part of the solution. So we're offering a solution. Number two, the great thing about this country is each generation makes it better off for the next, and you better do that when you're my age.

Our budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office, says that the standard of living of Americans in the future currently and consistently goes upwards. We are putting, in this budget, people on the path for prosperity so that we can leave the next generation better off.

And we are offering an economic plan for right now to get jobs back in this economy. We're offering an economic plan that shows we're going to create more jobs.

The answers all don't flow out of Washington. The answers come from individual Americans. That's the power of this country. That's the idea of this country. The nucleus of our country, of our society, of our economy, the genius of it are the American people themselves, not Washington bureaucrats,

not the idea that we have to take more money and more power away from the people and spend it on their behalf and exercise it on their behalf.

Unfortunately, that is the arrogant, paternalistic notion that is being brought to the floor here by the budget that the American people are being asked to swallow. I think it's wrong. I think it's dead wrong, and we're following the advice of all the fiscal experts from the left and from the right who are saying think about the consequences, think about the future, think about what your actions are doing.

That's what we are doing, and that is why I argue for our budget, a sensible budget, a commonsense budget, a budget that says to senior citizens, we can protect your benefits right now if we act to save them for the future. Here's the problem. These programs themselves grow themselves right into extinction. If we don't reform these programs, we can't protect those who are in and near retirement from those cuts. If you act now, we can protect people who are in and near retirement. If we don't act now, we can't.

That's what's wrong about the politics of demagoguery of taking on these challenges, and that is why we need to be grownups and adults and tackle these fiscal challenges before they tackle us.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Would the gentleman care to yield on that point?

Would you yield for a correction?

There's no privatization of Social Security in this bill. Can you show me where that is in this bill, please?

I yield myself 10 seconds to say, show me where Social Security is privatized. Show me where there is deregulation. There's not even the word ``deregulation'' in this bill, and all we're saying on Medicare for younger people, so we can save the program, why don't we let them have a program like the one we have in Congress. We have a good health care program. I think it's worthy of theirs.

With that, Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), the chairman of the House Republican Conference.

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

Madam Chair, may I inquire about the time.

I will wait to let them get caught up.

Madam Chair, at this time I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

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

Madam Chair, the gentleman is correct. We don't have the President's request to increase the State Department's budget by 51 percent. We are guilty as charged.

With that I would like to yield 2 minutes to the minority whip, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

We have no more speakers. So if the chairman would finish his round of speakers, then that would be great with us. I understand the gentleman reserves the right to close, and I would just like to know when his last speaker is up.

The next speaker was quoted a couple years ago as saying about our Republican budget when we had a deficit of $248 billion, ``This constitutes nothing less than fiscal child abuse, because they will morally force our children and grandchildren to pay our bills.''

I couldn't have said it better myself, Madam Chair. That is exactly what is happening. But the budget deficit is not $248 billion, it is $1.8 trillion. We don't even get close to $248 billion under these budgets.

Yes, we have a tough fiscal situation. We have inherited it. I guess you could say so. The question is, what are we doing about it? Are we make it better, or are we making it worse?

The President's budget, which is here on the floor, makes it so much worse. It doubles the debt in 5\1/2\ years and triples it in 10. Massive tax increases in the middle of a recession, on everyone, and chases ever-higher spending with ever-higher taxes forever.

We have different ideas. We have differences. Nowhere else is it more clear about the differences between our two parties than it is today.

The gentleman has spent the last 20 minutes criticizing us for cutting spending. Guilty as charged. Yes, we need to cut spending. Wow. I said it. Holy cow. In Washington. A novel idea.

You know what? We spend too much money in this government. We have got to prioritize spending.

The American people, guess what, this is their money. We don't just make it up. Well, actually, they are printing a lot of it down at the Federal Reserve now, more than they should. This comes from the American people. It is their money. If you keep taking it away from them, do you know what happens at the end of the day, Madam Chair? They don't have as much freedom. They don't have the ability to put groceries on the table. They don't have the ability to pay their mortgage, which might be underwater.

The engine of the economy of this country is not its government, it is its people, and we believe that we need to get serious about our fiscal situation. Don't raise taxes in a recession. Don't borrow and spend your way to prosperity. It never worked in any other country. Why would it work here?

Let's get our fiscal house in order. Let's get our deficit down. Let's get our borrowing down. Let's get our taxes down. Let's get more jobs and more freedom in this economy. That is exactly what our budget does. It is responsible, it is serious, and it gives me the ability to go home on the airplane tomorrow and look my three kids in the eyes when I hug them and kiss them and tell them, ``I just made right by you because I just went to work to make your future better.'' I am going to go home with a clear conscience. I hope you can say the same.

He was talking about the text of the resolution.

Will my friend yield for a moment on that?

The deficit went down after that comment, down to $162 billion, which was the last year when we had control. $162 billion. So it actually went down because jobs went up.

No. The deficit was higher in 2003 and it went down in 2006 to $162 billion because of higher economic growth. And that is what we were trying to advocate for, getting the deficit down, keeping taxes low, getting people into work.

And you know what--we should have done a better job on spending, and on that you are right.

Madam Chair, may I just ask unanimous consent for the purpose of thanking some staff?

Madam Chair, we, on both sides of the aisle, have very hardworking budget staffers. And I just wanted to take a moment to thank them for all of their late nights and all of their hard work, starting with Austin Smythe staff director, Chauncey Goss, Tim Flynn, John Gray, Jim Herz, Matt Hoffmann, Charlotte Ivancic, Patrick L. Knudsen, Angela Kuck, Ted McCann, Stephen McMillin, Courtney Reinhard, Paul Restuccia, Jonathon Romito, Stephen Sepp, Conor Sweeney, Sarah Ulrich and Dana Wade; as well as our interns, who gave us the greatest free labor we ever get around here. And I want them to know that they should double whatever we are paying them. Jacquie Adams, Krysta Carlson, Michael Koutnik, Nicole Marquart, David Rabe, Kyle Roskam and Abigail Weinshel. Thank you, staff, for your hard work.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, let me inquire about the time allotments. I realize we have 2 hours equally divided. It is my understanding the gentleman is going to do 10-minute blocks. Is that what the chairman is going to be doing? Okay. Let me ask, Madam Chair, how much time is remaining on their side.

I yield 10 minutes to myself to control that block of time. Madam Chairman, this is a big debate. This is a very, very significant debate. This is a debate about the budget of our country, the fiscal future of our country. It is a debate that is probably the biggest fiscal debate we have had in this country in decades.

It is 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night. This is a debate that is going to go on for 3 hours, into the late part of the night. I wonder why the majority decided: Let's have this debate when everybody is watching CSI. Let's have this debate when no one is watching C-SPAN.

If we are so excited about this budget, why aren't we having this debate in the broad daylight? If we really think this is the way forward for America, why don't we talk about it when America is watching? It is almost like a pay raise debate.

Now, let's talk about this budget. We need more than just 3 hours, I would say, to debate this budget. Let's look at just what this budget does.

Now, you are going to hear three phrases: Spends too much, borrows too much, taxes too much. That underscores what this budget really does.

Madam Chairman, the debt held by the public under this budget doubles in 5\1/2\ years, triples in a little over 10 years. Let's put it in a different way.

The kind of red ink this budget proposes for our children and our grandchildren, for our country, is more under this presidency than the presidencies of George Washington to George W. Bush combined.

We used to see these charts out in front of the offices of the Members who call themselves Blue Dogs, until the charts were banned out in front of offices, that said: Here is what the national debt is. Here is your share. It is shameful. It is terrible. We have got to get our debt. And yet, we are told that the Blue Dogs are marching in lockstep for this budget that doubles the national debt in 5\1/2\ years and triples it in 10\1/2\ years.

And one thing would be interesting, one thing would be a decent argument if all the tax increases in this budget, $1.5 trillion in tax increases, the biggest tax increase we last had was $345 billion. So $1.5 trillion in tax increases, small businesses, the assets that make up our pension funds, our 401(k) funds, our college savings plans, energy. One estimate from MIT says the cap-and-trade scheme could raise taxes on households by as much as $4,500 a year. The Congressional Budget Office says, no, it is more like $1,600 a year. The point is, a lot of taxes.

Are these tax increases being used to reduce the deficit? Are these tax increases being used to pay down debt like President Clinton proposed in 1993, the last time we had a really large tax increase? No. They are to fuel higher spending.

But what is worse than all of that from a fiscal recklessness standpoint is all these new taxes, $1.5 trillion, is to finance even more spending. So we are putting our country on this vicious cycle of chasing ever higher spending with ever higher taxes that never quite catch up with that spending to give us a record amount of debt. The problem is, one day maybe people won't buy our debt. What happens when that happens?

So we are going to hear from our colleagues over the next 1 hour, 45 minutes about all the great investments in education, the great investments in this and the investments on that, and spending money on this and spending money on that, and just how great and compassionate that is. I want to tell you one thing. I want to show you what the Congressional Budget Office just told us, and here is what they told us.

My three children, who are 4, 5, and 7 years old, when they are my age, here is the tax bill that will be due them--this is the Congressional Budget Office--if we don't get this under control. These are the tax rates that will be necessary to tax the next generation. When my kids are my age raising their kids in Janesville, Wisconsin, just like I am doing with my wife and myself, the bottom tax bracket for that generation if we pass this budget and pass this bill on to them, the 10 percent bracket goes up to 26 percent. Middle-income taxpayers who now pay a 25 percent income tax bracket pay 66 percent.

The upper bracket, which is the one that the small businesses pay, instead of paying 38 percent, or it is about to be 40, will pay 92 percent.

This is not some mythical pie-in-the-sky estimate. This is the Congressional Budget Office saying if you are going to raise taxes to pay for all this borrowing, here's what the next generation is going to get. We are passing on to the next generation the most reckless budget, the most reckless deficit and borrowing spree, in generations.

Here is my biggest concern, and I want to yield to some of my colleagues here. My concern is that at the beginning of this budget debate what we really ought to be talking about here is do we want the America we know and love, or do we want to take that system, put it aside and adopt another form of government, adopt a European-style system? Because that is, after all, what we are talking about here. Do we want to have our tax levels, our debt levels, the size of our government levels at these huge levels that we know very well from history's stories show us high unemployment, stagnant wages and lower standards of living?

I just find it so interesting and so ironic that European capitals are lecturing us today on fiscal discipline. It is kind of embarrassing actually. I find it amazing that the Chinese are lecturing us about getting our borrowing under control because they are worried about the value of our currency in our bonds. It is embarrassing. And yet, in the middle of the night, we bring this budget up that proposes this enormous gusher of more spending, more borrowing and more taxing. And we think this is the road to prosperity? This is the road to serfdom.

We will offer an alternative tomorrow. Yes, our friends on the left will disagree with that alternative. We want America back. We want the country we grew up in. We want the country that says we are going to have a safety net to help those people who cannot help themselves, help them when they are down on their luck. We don't want everybody laying in a hammock where they are dependent on the government. We want a country that rewards achievement, production, activity, working hard, improving your life, making life better for you and making sure in your generation you take on your responsibilities and fix the problems so your kids are better off. That is the America we grew up in. That is the America we want, and that is the America you are kissing away with this budget.

We are going to talk numbers. We are going to talk statistics. But at the end of the day, we are passing an unconscionable amount of debt on to the next generation. And it is going to kill our current economy. I'm not one who is typically that passionate. I am not one who typically comes down here and says things like this. But I have never seen a budget like this in my life. I have never seen the numbers quite this awesome in how big they are. This is a budget that should be rejected.

We want bipartisanship. But for the majority to have it, you have to collaborate with us. And we are asking the Blue Dogs, I know you're out there. I know you're thinking about this vote. I know you're listening. Help us. Do you want your fingerprints on this mountain of borrowing? Do you want to go home to your constituents whom you told you were going to be conservatives and say you signed up for this stuff? You have the votes to stop this. The people who call themselves Blue Dog Democrats can stop this bill. They have the votes to do that. Do it, and join us, and let's work together to fix this.

I want to close my comments the way I opened them in the markup. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) is a true gentleman. He brings real definition to this northerner as to what it means to be a southern gentleman. I would love nothing more than to sit across the table from that

man and strike a real budget bargain that actually reduces our debt, that actually puts our fiscal house in order. Because that is the kind of man that could do that kind of a budget. He did it in 1997. I think he can do it again.

Unfortunately, this administration, this House leadership, is leading us off the leftward cliff. They are leading us off a leftward cliff. And it is in the power of those Democrats who call themselves Blue Dogs to stop it from happening. And I am begging you, please, stop this crime on the next generation.

Announcement by the Chair

Madam Chair, how much time do I have left in my allotment?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I will yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Austria.

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman.

At this time, Madam Chair, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California, a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Nunes.

Madam Chair, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Let me ask the Chair how much time is remaining on each side.

Madam Chair, I will yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, the vice ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Hensarling.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

At this time, I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Jordan.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Barrett).

Madam Chairman, at this time, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, a senior member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Garrett.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).

At this time, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), our House Republican Conference Chair.

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

Madam Chair, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Broun.

announcement by the chair

I'd be happy to step in for the gentleman if the chairman wants to yield me the 30 seconds from his time to explain how you're not cutting taxes by $2 trillion. I'd be happy to explain that.

If the gentleman will yield, that means if you don't think putting the alternative minimum tax on $26 million households isn't a tax increase, then maybe you're right. If you don't think raising the dividends tax by 100 percent, the capital gains tax by 33 percent, and income tax rates across the board is not a tax increase, then by your definition that might be a tax cut.

What you're doing is you're playing baseline mumbo jumbo. You're saying we're going to assume all these massive tax increases in America. Oh, and ours are going to be a little lower than that, but they're still going to be up, and it's a tax cut. That's baseline mumbo jumbo. The point is this--the budget you're bringing to the floor raises taxes.

Thank you for the 30 seconds.

May I ask the gentleman a question?

May I inquire, Madam Chair, as to how much time is remaining, because it's my understanding that we're in possession of a 10-minute block at this moment.

I will yield myself 1 minute to explain.

On January 1, 2011, income tax rates go up. That's a tax increase. On January 1, 2011, the capital gains tax goes

up. That's a tax increase. On January 1, 2011, dividend taxes go up. That's a tax increase.

On January 1, 2010, the alternative minimum tax hits 26 million taxpayers who weren't hit by it before in their budget. That's a tax increase.

You can't hide it. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

At this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart).

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).

At this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

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

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen).

At this time, Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole).

At this time, Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to a gentleman from the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Madam Chair, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).

Madam Chair, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, the vice ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Hensarling.

Madam Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

I yield myself 4 minutes.

Madam Chair, let me read you a story about a project that is deemed shovel-ready that is getting funded in

the stimulus package in Wisconsin. The town of Arena, it is a beautiful small town in Iowa County, the town of Arena will get $426,000 to replace the River Road bridge. It averages about 10 cars a day. A quote from the town chairman, ``I was surprised as anyone when I got a call that the bridge was going to be fixed. I can tell you that the bridge is a very low priority for us.'' Stimulus package, shovel-ready project. If you think this is the kind of way we ought to be spending our taxpayer dollars, then vote for this budget, because they are going to do a lot more of this stuff. If you think that is the key to prosperity, borrow that money, build the bridge that gets 10 cars a day that the people from this town say is a low priority, then we are going to do more of that. Vote for this budget.

I want to speak not in numerical terms, not in statistics, but in history and morality. We are the greatest nation on Earth. We are an exceptional nation. And I want it to stay that way. History is replete with episode after episode of great civilizations and great nations not being defeated militarily, but being defeated by themselves, doing themselves in through atrophy and stagnation.

That is what could happen here if we don't watch it. The kinds of borrowing that is being proposed in this is staggering.

I want to ask you, how much money do you think I have in my wallet? I have $50,000,000,010 in my wallet. I've got 10 U.S. dollars and 50 billion Zimbabwe dollars. Ten U.S. dollars right now are more valuable than the Zimbabwe dollar. This is what happens when a country tries to inflate its way out of its debt. It's worthless.

I'm not saying we're going to become Zimbabwe. Far from it. But I'm saying our greenback is under duress. People are wondering if this is going to retain its value.

The question is, are we going to be able to keep finding people to buy all our bonds if we borrow and borrow and borrow? If, under this Presidency, as this budget proposes, we borrow more money than all prior presidencies combined, are we going to get all these people to give us that money?

And then guess what? Guess who pays for it? The next generation. Our children. Our children already are on a glide path to pay twice the level of taxes we pay today; that's if you don't pass this budget. It gets much worse if you do pass this budget.

We're going to debase our currency if we keep going down this path. Do you know what that means? I know that's wonky stuff. That means people lose their savings. That means senior citizens living on fixed incomes lose their savings. Their standard of living goes down. That means the middle class that's saving for retirement, saving for college, that gets wiped out.

It is getting to that kind of a serious moment in this country where, if we keep thinking we can just borrow and borrow and borrow, tax and tax and tax, spend and spend and spend, we're going to do it in to our own country. I don't want that to happen.

This is the greatest country on the planet. This is the land of opportunity. This is the country that has shown the world that we can reach unprecedented amounts of prosperity, where everybody can climb up that economic ladder.

We want a society where we equalize opportunity for all people. We don't want to pass this budget that says we're going to equalize the results of everybody's lives. We are going to micromanage their affairs.

We want America to succeed and to prosper, and that's why we want to defeat this budget.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, the President said, ``We don't want any tired old ideas.'' I agree. One-time rebate checks, special interest pork and runaway spending, those tired old ideas didn't work in the past administration. They won't work now. This is just more of the same. Both parties have messed this thing up. So the question is, are we going to come together and fix this?

The crown jewel of the American economy is the risk-taker, the entrepreneur, the small businessmen and women, the person who put it all on the line and created jobs. That is the way out. That is not what this bill does. This bill says, let's take money out of the economy and away from the private sector through higher borrowing and higher taxes, ultimately so that government bureaucrats can spend money and try and re-micromanage the economy back to prosperity.

This bill, which will lead to higher costs and higher taxes, will be not a road to prosperity, but a road to stagnation. The priorities are just all wrong. There is more money in this legislation for the National Endowment for the Arts, for the National Endowment for the Arts, than there is to helping small businesses keep and create jobs. We can do better than this.

Mr. Speaker, please, if you want bipartisanship, that means collaboration,

working with us. You have all the rights. The majority can do whatever they want. But when you look at the minority's alternative, a plan to create jobs, to help families and small businesses keep and create jobs using the administration's own methodology, you will see that our plan creates twice the jobs for half the cost. This bill sends us on a worldwide borrowing binge. We're going to go out and borrow four times as much money this year than we ever have in the history of this country in a single year. This is not just a road to stagnation, it is a road to stagflation.

Mr. Speaker, as a native of Wisconsin, it may be strange that I am here to honor Miami University. However, this proud Wisconsinite is also a proud graduate of Miami University. I graduated from Miami University in 1992.

One of the reasons why I am here, standing and talking in the well of the House of Representatives, is because of the lessons that I learned at Miami University. I studied both economics and political science at Miami, and the excellent professors I had there--including Dr. Richard Hart--created an environment where intellectual curiosity was rewarded. It also was where I first became involved with politics. In fact, one of my early involvements in politics was working as a college Republican, working door-to-door for a new person running for Congress by the name of John Boehner, our now esteemed minority leader, for whom I knocked on doors in Trenton, Ohio.

But, more to the point, Mr. Speaker, this is the bicentennial of Miami University. Two-hundred years of proud history. Founded in 1809, it is a school with such a rich history and proud tradition of top academic and athletic achievement. It is known as the ``Cradle of Coaches'' due to the high caliber of coaches it has produced, which includes such notables as Ara Parseghian, Paul Brown, and Woody Hayes.

Miami has also gained national recognition as one of the best Universities in the country. Referred to as one of the ``Public Ivies,'' due to its outstanding academic reputation, Miami ranks as a top school for all academic programs, including its business program, its arts and sciences programs and its architecture program. Importantly, in a time of increasing globalization, it consistently ranks as one of the top schools for study abroad programs, including the outstanding Transatlantic Seminar program.

One of the great things about Miami is its beauty, its aesthetics. It's one of the most beautiful campuses in America. The poet Robert Frost called Miami ``the prettiest campus that ever was.''

Miami University has such a rich tradition. It has produced so many great, faithful servants here in the Capitol, in public, in private institutions. It's a real honor and privilege for me to be able to be here to be a part of this resolution, to be a cosponsor of it, and to honor this tradition, I know that Miami's best days are yet ahead.

I appreciate the gentleman for yielding, and you're wondering why a guy from Wisconsin is here to talk about Miami of Ohio--because this guy from Wisconsin is a graduate of Miami of Ohio. I graduated from Miami of Ohio in 1992.

I'd say one of the reasons why I am here, standing and talking in the well of the House of Representatives, is because of the lessons that I learned at Miami of Ohio. The things that shaped me there, the economics degree, the political science degree. In fact, one of my early involvements in politics was working as a college Republican, working door-to-door for a new person running for Congress by the name of John Boehner. I have learned how to since pronounce that name Boehner. Back then, we didn't know how to pronounce it. But I did doors in Trenton, Ohio, on behalf of our now esteemed minority leader.

But, more to the point, Mr. Speaker, this is the bicentennial of Miami of Ohio. Two-hundred years of history. Founded in 1809. It's a school with such a rich history and proud tradition of top academic and athletic achievement. The ``Cradle of Coaches.''

It's consistently ranked as one of the best schools in the country. It's a public university, referred to as one of the ``public Ivys,'' ranking in the tops in business schools, arts and sciences, and architecture, and all other rounds of academic nature.

One of the great things about Miami is its beauty, its aesthetics. It's one of the most beautiful campuses in America. I think the poet Robert Frost called Miami of Ohio the most pleasant-looking campus there is.

Miami of Ohio has such a rich tradition. It has produced so many great, faithful servants here in the Capitol, in public, in private institutions. It's a real honor and privilege for me to be able to be here to be a part of this resolution, to be a cosponsor of it, and to honor this fantastic tradition. And I know that Miami's best days are yet ahead.

Mr. Chair, I will keep my remarks within 2 minutes.

Mr. Chair, we can do better than that. We need to do better than that. Our country is losing tens of thousands of jobs every single week. We thought we were going to have bipartisanship here. That is what we were promised. None of that has occurred here.

Mr. Chair, the most favorable measurement, the most favorable way to look at this package, 12 percent of this package is aimed at keeping jobs, at creating jobs. Twelve percent of this package goes toward creating or keeping jobs. All the rest of it is spending. Just plain, old spending. Spending, most of which occurs 2, 3, 4, 5 years from now, not during this recession.

It's not enough for us to come here and criticize. So we have come here with our own ideas. We have come here to propose an alternative. And when you look at the way our bill works, the measuring stick used by President Obama's own economic advisor says that our bill that we have here creates twice as many jobs--6.2 million--for half the costs.

So we have not only said this is a bad bill that we are considering, but here's a better way. Twice as many jobs, half the cost for taxpayers, 6.2 million jobs. This is a bill that should pass--the Republican substitute.

Unfortunately, since there was no bipartisanship, no inclusion, we could have made a better bill that would pass into law, but it's not. So here we are with our alternatives. Using the President's own measuring stick on how you create, this creates more at less price, less cost to the taxpayers.

But, unfortunately, because one party rules government and because one party is ruling it completely on their own, we will have missed this opportunity to create more jobs, save taxpayers' money, and not waste all of this spending.

Would the gentleman care to yield?

MR. NEAL of Massachusetts. With that, I'd like to recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) for 2 minutes.

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

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, we can do better than this. We're losing tens of thousands of jobs a week in this economy. This is the worst recession we've seen in generations. And what are we about to vote on? We are about to vote on a trillion dollar spending package--yes, a trillion dollars, because the Congressional Budget Office just told us today just to pay for the interest on this bill is another $350 billion. We're going to vote on a trillion dollar spending package that amounts to basically a spending wish list for all the special interest groups out there. In fact, for those who are into all of this spending, half of the spending doesn't even occur for 2 more years. But the spending that occurs quickly are things like $15 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $6 billion for arts and culture, $600 million to buy new cars for Federal employees. Is this the way toward prosperity? Toward jobs?

I want you to take a look at the tax policy in this bill. The big idea is let's give everybody a rebate that's 10 bucks a week per individual or a whopping $20 a week for couples. Do you really think that's going to turn this economy around?

2.7 percent of this bill is aimed at encouraging businesses to retain and create jobs; 2.7 percent of this entire $1 trillion bill to help businesses create jobs. I think we need a little more than that. We need to help the small businesses, the self-employed, the entrepreneurs get out there and create jobs. We had a major manufacturer in the Midwest just announce 20,000 layoffs yesterday. There is hardly anything in this bill that will do anything to help those manufacturers get those jobs back.

What's worse is that after we go on this spending binge, this will lead to higher taxes. The Congressional Budget Office is saying we're going to have the highest unemployment we've seen in 25 years for the next 4 years. And what this bill will do is it will lead us to higher taxes; higher taxes on small businesses, higher taxes on capital, higher taxes on investment, on our savings portfolios, on our retirement, on our college savings plans. That's what is in store right around the corner at the end of next year.

My fear is this: we need to come together with an economic rescue package that actually helps the economy. This bill is not worthy of our new President's signature. We can do better than this. This is not something that should come to the floor. I understand the majority can do as they please. They can shut the minority out--and that's fine, they did that, and that is their choice and their prerogative--but what really matters is whether this creates jobs, and it doesn't.

Mr. Chair, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, passed last October, not only granted the Treasury the authority to use $350 billion in public funds to prevent a collapse of the financial system, but it also greatly expanded the Federal Reserve's policy toolkit in addressing the crisis through a somewhat obscure, but important, provision of the legislation. The bill authorized the Fed to begin paying interest on the reserves that commercial banks hold with the central bank. This ability has essentially allowed the Fed to establish a ``floor'' for the federal funds rate, the main lever of its economy-wide monetary policy stance, even while it greatly expands the provision of liquidity to various segments of the financial markets to address the crisis. To this end, the Fed has been increasing the asset side of its balance sheet through a variety of lending facilities and asset purchases. The scope of its lending has also been amplified by frequently invoking emergency powers under the Federal Reserve Act's ``unusual and exigent circumstances'' clause, which it has used to justify lending to important, non- depository financial institutions.

The Fed has made it clear that it will continue to expand its balance sheet to make sure that credit is available to consumers and small businesses and the integrity of the overall financial system is preserved. In recent months, for instance, the Fed has established new and innovative lending facilities intended to boost the flow of funding to the commercial paper market and key asset-backed security markets, it has committed itself to purchasing billions of mortgage-backed securities in order to keep mortgage rates low for the health of the housing market, and it has continued to play a key role in providing assistance to systemically important financial institutions. These actions on the part of the central bank have, in fact, come very close to replicating the original intent of the TARP program. And these actions, along with the deployment of the initial $350 billion of TARP funding, have shown signs of being effective--the economy is still in a precarious state, but a systemic, and catastrophic, collapse of our financial and credit markets has been avoided.

My fear is that the second $350 billion in TARP funding will go far beyond the original mission of preserving overall financial market stability, and instead will be used to fund a heavy-handed, neo- industrial policy. Various industries have already marshaled their lobbyists for a claim on these public dollars. And

with our Federal budget expected to reach historic levels this year, we cannot risk more public funds to be squandered.

In light of the Fed's vastly expanded policy options for addressing key sources of market turmoil going forward and their relative effectiveness--combined with the very real risk that more TARP funding will be used for an industrial policy--I am voting against the release of the second half of TARP funds. Although I am concerned about the Fed moving into new and expanded policy territory, that concern is temperer by the fact that the Fed is relatively insulated from politics and lobbyists and is more singularly focused on the stability and health of the financial system, which was my foremost reason for approving the original TARP funding last October.

Madam Speaker, today is the beginning of a new Congress. Our new President hasn't even taken the oath of office and we are throwing fiscal discipline out the door. This whole idea of PAYGO is gone. It doesn't exist. It is a charade.

Let's take a look at what this bill actually does. This bill proposes to add all these new kids on the SCHIP program, and then in the out- years it shoves them off a cliff, taking 7 million children off of the SCHIP program. They do this only to carve and jam this bill into compliance with PAYGO.

I received a letter from the CBO just this morning that if this bill was actually carried through, if you didn't kick all of these children off of this program, it would cost $42 billion more. This bill has a $42 billion deficit hole in it. The spending increase in SCHIP in this bill increases on average 23 percent a year. Madam Speaker, Medicare is going bankrupt according to the trustees, and that increases at 6.5 percent a year.

We are being deprived of a bipartisan opportunity to extend the current SCHIP program, which would have an enormous vote here if you brought a bipartisan bill to the table. That is not what is happening. Budget gimmicks, fiscal irresponsibility, a $42 billion deficit, and the creation of a brand new entitlement program. And what is worse, we are committing our taxpayer dollars, which are so precious in this difficult economic time, to pay for insurance that people already have. 2.4 million people who already have private health insurance are going to get kicked off of their private health insurance and the taxpayers are going to pick up the tab. That is not fiscal responsibility.

Let's solve the uninsured problem. Let's come together and fix the health care problems in America. Let's not bankrupt the country. Let's not play budget gimmicks. Let's not throw PAYGO out the window. And let's not take away the health insurance that people already have and make them have government-sponsored health insurance. We should reject this bill.

U.S. Congress,

Congressional Budget Office,

Washington, DC, January 14, 2009.

Hon. Paul Ryan,

Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Congressman: As you requested, the Congressional

Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the budgetary effects of

modifying H.R. 2, the Children's Health Insurance Program

Reauthorization Act of 2009, to extend the program's

authorization through 2019 in a manner that would provide

sufficient funding to allow states to meet demand for

increasing enrollment within the program's parameters. If

H.R. 2 were changed to authorize the Children's Health

Insurance Program (CHIP) through 2019 and to provide

sufficient funding for such increasing enrollment throughout

that period, CBO estimates that enacting that alternative

version of the bill would increase deficits by $41.6 billion

over the 2009-2019 period. In contrast, CBO estimates that

the version of H.R. 2 introduced in the House of

Representatives on January 13, 2009, would result in a net

reduction in deficits of $0.4 billion over that 11-year

period.

The introduced version of H.R. 2 would authorize CHIP

through 2013 and would provide significant funding increases

over the next few years, leading up to a total funding level

of $17.4 billion in 2013. The program's funding for the

second half of fiscal year 2013 would be $3 billion. Under

baseline rules, that amount annualized--$6 billion--would be

projected for each subsequent year. The estimated cost of the

bill assumes that funding level for CHIP for fiscal years

2014 through 2019. On that basis, CBO estimates that the

introduced version of H.R. 2 would increase federal direct

spending by $73.3 billion through 2019, including the costs

of other provisions in the bill. (That spending would be

offset by increases in federal tax revenues totaling $73.6

billion over the same period, primarily from increases in the

excise taxes levied on tobacco products.)

As an alternative to the introduced version of H.R. 2, you

requested that CBO assume the CHIP rules and structure as

currently delineated in H.R. 2 would remain unchanged through

2019 and that sufficient funding would be made available

after 2013 to accommodate projected enrollment growth. The

projected enrollment growth is based on expected growth in

the total population, as well as changes in the health

insurance market and the economy as a whole. Under those

assumptions, CBO estimates that average monthly enrollment in

CHIP would rise from about 9 million in 2013 to about 12

million in 2019.

Based on the assumptions you specified, CBO estimates total

changes in direct spending of $115.2 billion, as compared

with the $73.3 billion increase we estimate for the

introduced version of H.R. 2. (Revenue increases would remain

unchanged.) Thus, the net budget impact of a modified version

of H.R. 2, as you specified, would be an increase in deficits

totaling $41.6 billion over the 2009-2019 period.

If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be

pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contacts are Robert

Stewart and Sean Dunbar.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Sunshine,

Acting Director.

Madam Speaker, over the last few days we have heard about LIBOR, commercial papers, spreads, swaps, about the credit markets. This chart shows you just how bad things are in the credit markets. But what does any of this stuff mean? What is credit? Credit is confidence, it is credibility, trustworthiness in someone's ability to pay.

Right now, our system is plagued with fear. There is no confidence. There is no trust. Lenders don't trust borrowers; sellers don't trust buyers.

This bill, as flawed as it is, goes right to this issue. If it works, it stops that fear from spreading into outright panic.

Will this bill prevent a recession? No, I don't think it will. But it will help us make sure that a recession is short and shallow, and not deep and long.

I know one thing for sure. Doing nothing is the worst thing we could do. This is one of those once-in-a-century kind of crises, and we need to act to prevent it from becoming a once-in-a-century kind of a recession. In Wisconsin, we are already beginning to see the beginning of this. We are already starting to see the job losses.

For me, this is a conscience vote. We of all people understand public opinion. We know it is not popular. But we see that gathering storm, we see it out there on the horizon. Our constituents may be outside mowing their lawns and looking up and seeing a sunny sky, but we see those storm clouds developing. And I want to know for sure that when the choice was made, I had made the decision to prevent that storm from gathering, to prevent those jobs from being lost, to protect our constituents from losing their retirement funds, from not getting that home loan, that car loan.

I want to make sure that what we do here today snaps that fear out of the market and preserves those jobs, and makes sure that the bumpy road we are going to have is not nearly as bumpy

as it would otherwise be if this bill fails.