Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank our distinguished ranking member of the Financial Services Committee for all the work he has done this week. A lot of us have lost a lot of sleep, a lot of us who have looked at this situation.

When Secretary Paulson came to us about a week ago, he gave us a three-page bill that said give me a blank checkbook and put $700 billion in it. I was offended at that time.

So what happened since then? We added 107 pages of taxpayer protection to that bill. We understand the gravity of this situation, and we worked with our colleagues on the other side to make this bill a better bill.

We made sure that there is an upside for the taxpayer so that when this happens, when profits come to these companies, we get their stock warrants, so the first person in line to get those profits is the American taxpayers so they can get their money back. We made sure that there is an insurance program that makes sure that Wall Street shares in the cost of this recovery plan. And we also made sure that the executives of these companies that made these bad bets don't profit from this rescue recovery plan. We cut the initial cost in half of this bill. Congress will have to approve the second half of this next year.

Why did we do all of this? Because this Wall Street crisis is quickly becoming a Main Street crisis. It is quickly becoming a banking crisis.

What does that mean? Why does that matter to us? Why does that matter to Janesville, Wisconsin? If it goes the way it could go, that means credit shuts down; businesses can't get money to pay their payroll, to pay their employees; students can't get student loans for next semester; people can't get car loans; seniors may not have access to their savings. Are we standing at the edge of this abyss? Nobody knows. But maybe. It is very probable.

Madam Speaker, this bill offends my principles. But I am going to vote for this bill in order to preserve my principles, in order to preserve this free enterprise system.

This is a Herbert Hoover moment. He made some big mistakes after the Great Depression, and we lived those consequences for decades. Let's not make that mistake. There is a lot of fear and a lot of panic out there. A lot of what this is about is getting that fear and panic out of the market.

I think the White House bumbled this thing. They have brought this issue up to a crescendo, to a crisis, so that all eyes of the world markets are here on Congress. It is a heavy load to bear. We have to deal with this panic. We have to deal with this fear.

Colleagues, we are in the moment. This bill doesn't have everything I want in it. It has a lot of good things it. But we are here. We are in this moment. And if we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us. If we fail to pass this, I fear the worst is yet to come.

The problem we have here is we are one month away from an election. We are all worried about losing our jobs, and all of us, most of us, say this thing needs to pass, but I want you to vote for it, not me.

Unfortunately, a majority of us are going to have to vote for this, and we are going to have to do that because we have a chance of arresting that crash. Just maybe this will work.

And so for me and for my own conscience, so I can look at myself in the mirror tonight, so I can go to sleep with a clear conscience, I want to know that I did everything I could to stop it from getting worse, to stop this Wall Street problem from infecting Main Street.

I want to get on my airplane and go home and see my three kids and my wife that I haven't seen in a week, and look them in the eye and know that I did what I thought was right for them and their future. And I believe with all my heart, as bad as this is, it could get a whole lot worse, and that is why I think we have to pass this bill.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Paul Weyrich for his many contributions to the cause of freedom and liberty. Mr. Weyrich is the proud son of Racine, Wisconsin--a city that I have the privilege to represent in the U.S. House of Representatives. Wisconsin has a long tradition of challenging the prevailing political sentiments, and producing intellectually-curious, reform-minded leaders. Paul Weyrich is one such leader.

As a pioneer of the modern conservative movement, Mr. Weyrich has consistently served as a vocal defender of our economic and religious freedoms. On September 10, 2008, I had the unique opportunity to show my respect and admiration at the Paul Weyrich Legacy Dinner in Washington, D.C. On behalf of those I represent in Racine, Wisconsin, I extend my gratitude to this great American.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, my chairman of the Budget Committee just spoke, and, yes, he did read that the CBO said that the bill that passed on the doc fix, according to the CBO, does satisfy the trigger.

So if you are satisfying the trigger, then why are you turning it off? If you are actually accomplishing the objective set out with this law, then why are you getting rid of this trigger? Why do we have this trigger?

We have this trigger. It's a funding warning because Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicare is a $36 trillion unfunded liability. You know what it's going to be next year by this time? It's going to be $38.4 trillion. Do you know what will happen in 5 years if we do nothing to save Medicare as the Democratic budget proposes to do? $48 trillion unfunded liability.

The preceding paragraph in this CBO report goes on to specify that the judgment, the referee of the trigger, are the trustees. So why don't we take this bill off the floor, have the trustees verify what CBO says that maybe, in fact, this bill that you just passed, that we all passed, does satisfy the trigger, and don't turn off this funding warning. Turning off this funding warning is basically saying, ignore the fact that Medicare is going bankrupt. Make sure that Congress does nothing to fix this problem.

I might add that this CBO estimate relies on the fact that next year we are going to cut doctors by 21 percent in Medicare. The only reason this estimate holds up is if we guarantee a 21 percent payment cut to all doctors servicing Medicare. That's why we are in conformity with this trigger as CBO says.

CBO is not the referee of this. The trustees are, the trustees of Medicare.

Turning off this trigger is basically saying that we have no fiscal discipline, we have no intention of saving Medicare from bankruptcy, we have no intention of being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, we have no intention of controlling spending.

We have every intention of making matters worse, not only by doing nothing, but adding more spending. That is reckless. That is fiscal abandonment.

The trigger was a bipartisan idea. A Democrat in the Senate and a Republican in the House came up with this idea to make sure that Congress saw fair warning and actually addressed these issues before it got out of control.

And so, instead of addressing these warnings, instead of bringing Medicare toward solvency, instead of making sure we can guarantee this program for seniors in the next generation, what are we doing in this Congress? We are sticking our heads in the sand. That is wrong. This shouldn't pass. You know better.

More to the point, if you think you are satisfying it, then why are you turning it off? That makes no sense.

The only opportunity, the only explanation is you don't want to have this tool of fiscal discipline. You don't want the American people knowing that you are actually contributing to the insolvency of Medicare, that you are actually making matters worse. That is wrong, and I urge defeat of this.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Madam Speaker, if this were about politics, then the easy thing to do would be just to vote for it. That's the political thing to do.

I rise in opposition to this bill because it would increase the deficit, because it's coming to the floor with less than a day's notice and no opportunity for amendment.

Madam Speaker, I support the highway program. But that is not what this debate is about. I understand how critical highway funding is for our Nation's roads and our bridges. We had a really rough winter in Wisconsin. We need to get back to work to fix those roads. It's also not a debate about whether the highway trust fund shortfall should be fixed. It should be fixed. It's about how we should pay for it, or if we pay for it.

I support fixing it in a responsible way, which I don't believe this bill does. Because of my concerns, I introduced legislation earlier this year that would have fixed this program, this deficit, in a fiscally responsible way.

In 1998, Congress passed a law called TEA-21 that gave the highway trust fund special protections in the budget process. This is what Bud Shuster, the chairman of the committee at the time, said about the bill: ``This is an historic piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, because now the American people will know that the trust is being put back in the highway trust fund. When the average American drives up to the gas pump and pays his 18.3 cents Federal tax, that money is free to be spent. It is a guarantee. It is an ironclad guarantee. Should there be more revenue going into the trust fund, that money will be available to be spent. Should there be less revenue going into the trust fund, then we will have to reduce the expenditures. It is fair, it is equitable and it is keeping faith with the American people.''

Madam Speaker, this bill moves from funding highways with gas taxes to relying on borrowed money. If the highway trust fund is going to get access to the general fund, as it is in this bill, then it should compete for these resources with all other discretionary programs.

It should be budgeted for, but that is not what is happening here. My fear is that this transfer will be just the start, that we will be back here for a fix in 2010 with a bigger shortfall because as CBO says, the highway trust fund has not just hit a temporary rough patch, it is permanent red ink going into the future. The current shortfall is between $1.4 billion and $3.3 billion, and then it gets bigger year after year, well over a $300 billion shortfall over the next 10 years. Undoubtedly, when we get updated numbers from CBO and OMB, the shortfall will get even bigger.

If highways are to continue to enjoy special budgetary status as trust-funded programs, then this general fund transfer should be offset or repaid.

I want to work with supporters of this bill to find a way that avoids an increase in the deficit that this bill would cause. If Congress decides not to offset this transfer, then Congress should revisit the budgetary treatment for highways and reform it such that highways compete for funding in the annual budget process just as all other government programs do.

I urge my colleagues to think about this. Let's come up with a funding mechanism that guarantees we fix this shortfall, and let's do it in a fiscally responsible way where we actually honor the integrity of the budget process.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we do have a crisis. Action does need to take place. This isn't the solution. This does not address the root cause of why we are in this problem. These companies, which are for-profit companies, have abused their trust of the American taxpayer, and we are not adjusting this.

If we're going to do this, then let's make darn sure we're not putting taxpayers at risk in the future. This makes it worse. This bill says you can continue to go on and make your profits and we'll still bail you out down the road. This bill says you can continue having these big multimillion-dollar bonuses for your executives and go make all of this money, and if you fail, we'll get you.

What this bill says, what Congress is saying today, is if you're big enough, if you're politically corrected enough, then we will privatize your profits and we will socialize your risk. The taxpayer will bail you out.

Mr. Speaker, as a representative of taxpayers, not shareholders, we should reform these institutions so we do have a liquid mortgage market, so we do securitize the secondary mortgage market, so people can get affordable homes. But let's do it so we don't have costly taxpayer bailouts.

This whole issue is about to put more than a trillion dollars of debt on to our books. And yet we're going to let them continue to leverage themselves and kick this can down the road. We should be more responsible with taxpayer dollars. We should address this crisis, reform these institutions, so that we're not down this path 5 years from now.

When I first came to Congress 10 years ago, I criticized these organizations. And everybody told me, you're wrong, they pose no risk. Well, here we are today. I just wonder where are we going to be in 4 years, in 5 years, with the passage of this bill? We're saying, let them continue doing what they're doing. We're going to give them explicit lines of credit from the Treasury. We're going to even buy their stock, and maybe hopefully, maybe just sort of, we'll have a regulator that will contain these institutions.

That is not responsible. We should reform these institutions now, either privatize them or publicize them, bring them into the government and make them government agencies, because, after all, the taxpayer is going to be left holding the books on this bailout. Mark my words.

We've got to fix this. This is irresponsible. This is not the right way to do it. What we ought to do is go back to the drawing board and make sure that this costly bailout isn't magnified down the road.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Chairman Obey, Leader Boehner, and Mr. Lewis for bringing a bill to the floor that provides funding for our troops without restrictions on our commanders.

My hometown is under water, and I am glad this bill provides funding to address flooding and to help the victims whose lives have been turned upside down by this flood.

Likewise I am glad that this bill provides assistance to those facing unemployment since one of the largest employers in my district--GM-- recently announced it is closing a production facility.

However, this bill is part of a very disturbing trend in how we budget and legislate--Omnibus appropriation bills. We are now resorting to two omnibus appropriations bills a year. We need to find a way to budget for emergencies, but my problem with this bill is not with the unemployment extension funding or the flood funding. These are temporary costs that have been included in emergency supplementals in the past.

My concern is with the permanent expansion in an entitlement program that we are adding to an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Mandatory spending doesn't belong on an appropriations bill because mandatory spending is forever.

An expansion in GI benefits is a good idea. However, we have an increasingly bad habit of just adding spending on top of the $3 trillion we are currently spending annually. I congratulate the Blue Dogs for initially objecting to the fact that the GI benefits in this bill were not offset. I don't support their remedy--which is to raise taxes--but if we are going to expand entitlements, we need to find offsets. In fact, we cannot afford the entitlements we have, much less an expansion in them.

We are going to spend over $30 trillion in the next ten years; surely we could have found $63 billion in offsets. But we didn't even try. In fact, the cost of the GI benefits has grown in this final bill.

We just kick the can down the road. The problem is that our children and grandchildren will live at the end of the road and all we are doing is leaving them with a mountain of debt.

PAYGO does not exist. It is waived every time we have to make a choice. We are sent here to make decisions--to make choices--to govern. Like the floods, this bill takes the path of least resistance; it passes the buck--and the debt to future generations.

We shouldn't budget or legislate this way, but I'm going to vote for this bill because it funds the troops and provides one-time emergency funding for unemployment assistance and floods.

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

First off, I want to start by congratulating Chairman Spratt. I mentioned this last time, but I think it is worth repeating. It is never easy to bring a budget conference report to bear, particularly in an election year, and Congress has had a pretty splotchy, spotty track record on this lately, and the chairman deserves accolades for keeping this process going, keeping this process alive.

We've had problems with the farm bill, and this bill being on the floor today is real proof of the skill and determination by the Budget chairman, and so I want to give him the compliment he deserves for bringing this to the floor.

It's important that we have a budget process. It's important that we recognize the need to budget in this institution, and doing this today recognizes that. But at the same time, Congress actually should budget, and I would argue, Mr. Speaker, that this budget is really nothing more than the congressional baseline with about a quarter of a trillion dollars slopped on top of it for the Appropriations Committee.

And so what is the opportunity we have here today if we were actually really budgeting? I think there's three things that we ought to be doing in this budget in this Congress.

One, let's have solid growth in our economy, and let's make sure we put ourselves in the position to lead in the international marketplace by having an economic policy that puts America ahead, in the lead and in a position to win in this era of global competition.

Number two, we need to reform our health and retirement security programs so we can fulfill the mission of our health and retirement security programs in this country. The government is making promises to people right now in health and retirement security that it knows it can't keep. We all know this here. We know, Republicans, Democrats, that our government is making promises to a generation of Americans and another generation of Americans that we know are unsustainable. So we need to come up with a plan to make good on that promise, which right now is not being fulfilled.

And number three, while we do that, we have got to lift this burden of debt

on the next generation. We, with this budget, are going faster down the pathway of sending a crushing burden of debt and taxes on the next generation. Both parties are to blame for this. So I'm not simply saying that all of the sudden now the Democrats are running Congress it's all bad. Both parties have been responsible for not addressing these problems. But now that my friends on the other side of the aisle are in the majority, this is their opportunity. This is their chance and opportunity to actually address this problem and take it head-on. And what are they doing? Nothing about it.

Here's the problem, Mr. Speaker. Not only does this budget propose to do nothing to address these issues, it makes them worse. Because by doing nothing, we're going deeper into debt.

Under this budget, what this budget proposes we do for 5 years, by doing nothing to address the two biggest problems we have, the two biggest programs we have, the two biggest unfulfilled promises we have, namely, Medicare and Social Security, this budget proposes to go $14 trillion deeper in debt to just those two programs alone; by doing nothing for 1 year according to the trustees of Medicare and Social Security, $2 trillion deeper into debt. This budget, $14 trillion increase.

But here's also what this budget does propose. What it does propose is the largest tax increase in American history, $683 billion over the next 5 years. That equals about $2,000 in per year tax increase on the average American family, and there's no effort to cut wasteful spending in government whatsoever.

We've heard about the Bridge to Nowhere. We've heard about the $50 million rain forest museum. We heard about the bill passed 2 weeks ago to give $250 million for one earmark from a Senator from the other side of the Rotunda for one company. We're earmarking ourselves to oblivion in this Congress, and this bill does nothing to curtail that. This bill basically assumes that there's no waste in the Federal Government, that every taxpayer dollar is being spent well and wisely and with full accounting and full transparency, and because of that, this ought to give the government even more money to spend on top of the baseline.

This bill will push the appropriations above the $1 trillion mark in the next coming year. That's an increase of $80 billion, an increase of 9 percent over last year. This bill, as a consequence of giving this 9 percent increase in discretionary spending, will lead to the largest annual increase in the debt in our Nation's history.

And so for all the talk of fiscal conservatism, for all the talk of fiscal responsibility we're going to hear in the next hour, this bill right here we're debating, right here, largest increase in debt in our Nation's history, exceeding the $1 trillion mark in government agency spending.

And this bill does absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, to address the upcoming entitlement crisis. As I mentioned, this bill adds to the entitlement crisis. It increases the entitlement liability in this country by 37 percent, $14 trillion increase in unfulfilled promises and contingent liability, a 37 percent increase.

Now, given the fact that this bill does nothing to address the long- run problems in this country, what about the short-run? What about the problems in the short-run? This bill does nothing to propose any new energy policy whatsoever.

We have $4 gasoline, and this is where it really hits close to home. This is where I really have a personal problem with the fact that we're doing this bill. You know, just 2 days ago in my hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, General Motors just announced they're shutting down the factory there, the factory that has produced the Yukon, the Tahoe and the Suburban. And the reason they're shutting down the factory at the end of this model year is because of $4 gas. It costs a hundred bucks to fill up a Suburban, and people aren't buying them. Thirty percent decline in sales just this year alone, and people are scratching their heads and wondering how did this happen, how did this come to be, why do we have $4 gas.

Well, here's the problem, Mr. Speaker, we're 60 percent dependent on foreign oil, and you know what's so galling about that is the fact that we have about seven times the amount of oil under our ground in this country than Saudi Arabia has under theirs. Yet it's all off-limits.

We have got 16 billion barrels of oil up in ANWR that are off-limits by Congress. We've got 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf off-limits by Congress. We have 2 trillion barrels of oil in the Intermountain Region in this country, all off-limits by Congress.

We know how to drill in a very safe and environmentally sound way. And what's more galling from that is the Congressional Research Service is now telling us, just passing the ANWR legislation, the smallest of these three fields I just mentioned, would get us about $191 billion in revenue to the Federal Government over the next 10 years.

Imagine what we could do with that. Imagine the deficit reduction that could occur as a consequence of that. Imagine the hydrogen, the fuel cells, the research that we could do to actually invest in a Manhattan Project to get us off of oil itself. But unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle are not doing anything.

So while I'm happy we have a budget resolution on the floor, I'm very dispirited and very disappointed in its content. Largest tax increase in American history. Absolutely nothing to confront the entitlement crisis in this country, a 37 percent increase in this liability. Largest increase in national debt in the American history. And nothing to address the long-term and nothing to address the short-term by making us less dependent on foreign oil.

I find it interesting that our friends on the other side of the aisle are so critical of our foreign policy as being too unilateral; yet what we're simply saying to other countries is we're going to drill for oil in your country and buy that from you and not explore it in our own country. A little bit of a hypocritical stance, I would argue.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me inquire as to how much time remains for each side.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I will yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Conaway.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the vice ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Barrett from South Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) be allowed to manage time for our side for a moment of time.

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

Mr. Speaker, what this is all about is priorities, that

is what budgets are, and when you take a look the priorities in this budget, it is a huge missed opportunity.

I started the beginning of this debate by complimenting the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina for bringing a budget to conclusion, and I really sincerely mean that. I am from Wisconsin. I didn't really know what the definition of a ``distinguished southern gentleman'' is. I do now know by serving with John Spratt, and he deserves credit for bringing a budget resolution to the floor in an election year, which is something that is not often done around here. So I sincerely want to compliment the gentleman for that.

But what about the budget we have here being brought to the floor? I see some young people in the audience here, some young people in the well here. I have some young people in my family. I have a daughter who is 6, a son who is 5, and a son who is 3 years old, and by the time my three kids are exactly my age, this Federal Government will be doubling their taxes.

The pathway that we are on right now with the unsustainable fiscal crisis in this country is one in which, instead of taxing 18.3 cents out of every dollar to pay for the Federal Government, which is what we have been doing for the last 40 years, the next generation, my children's generation, when they are raising their kids will be paying 40 cents out of every dollar just to pay for this Federal Government.

We know for a fact that we are shackling the next generation with a mountain of debt and taxes that is unsustainable. We are bequeathing this to the next generation, unless we fix this, unless we step up as every preceding generation has done in this country and make things better.

What does this budget do? Not only in a time of economic recession, not only in a time of $4 gas prices, not only in a time where the grocery bill is twice as high as it was last year, we are raising taxes across-the-board the most we have ever raised them before, taxes on marriage, taxes on having children, taxes on making money, taxes on starting small businesses, taxes on pensions, taxes on retirement. This budget does that. But what is even worse than that is that this budget proposes to increase this debt, this legacy of debt to our children and our grandchildren, by $14 trillion for just two programs alone. It is unconscionable.

Both parties lay blame, but should claim responsibility for getting us to where we are. I am not simply saying here that Republicans have always been pristine and Democrats have always been bad. We got into this together. We are going to have to get out of this together. The problem is, this is no way to go. We shouldn't be doing this to our grandchildren, to our children, to the ``X Generation.''

That is what this budget does, the largest tax increase in American history, which is going to hurt our economy even further and cost jobs. When you raise taxes, you lower jobs. When you raise taxes, you take money out of paychecks. You hurt families. You don't give them the ability to get going, to succeed. Their paychecks don't get stretched farther, they get stretched shorter.

And when you consign the next generation by simply walking away from the problem and saying to our kids and our grandkids, instead of giving you a $40 trillion debt for Medicare and Social Security, we are going to give you a $54 trillion debt for Medicare and Social Security, each household today, if we want just these two programs to work, would have to set aside $353,000. What this budget says is each household will have to set aside $474,000.

We are abdicating leadership in this budget. It is wrong. What we need to do is come together, both sides, recognize this problem, and realize that the way to prosperity in this country is not to tax our way out of this problem; it is to address this spending problem in this House, address the culture of earmarks, address the spending that we have here and get it under control so that the next generation can be better off.

That is what my folks told me the legacy of this country is all about. Each generation rises to the challenges in this country and leaves the next generation better off. Well, what we are doing with this budget is we are severing that legacy. We know for a fact, it is guaranteed, it is statistically a truism by all sides of the aisle, we are going to sever that legacy and we are going to give the next generation an inferior standard of living, unless we defeat this budget.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a roadmap for America's future, legislation to transform our Federal Government, to reform the Nation's health care entitlements, Social Security, and the Federal Tax Code. My legislation does three things: It fulfills the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans by making Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid permanently solvent. Second, it lifts the massive debt burden off of future generations. Third, it promotes solid, sustained economic growth and job creation, and puts the U.S. in a position to lead, not merely to survive in the global marketplace.

This is a real plan, with real proposals, with real numbers to back them up, and real legislation to implement it. I recognize that this is an ambitious proposal. Not everyone's going to agree with every part of it. That is fine. These problems are not Democratic problems and they are not Republican problems, and neither are the solutions.

We need to build bipartisan support for action in Congress. If nothing else, it is my sincere hope that this will spur Congress to move beyond simply rehashing the problem, to debating and implementing actual solutions for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I hate to have to come to the floor today to talk about how bad this bill is, but it's impossible not to do that.

This bill gives millions of dollars, billions of dollars in farm subsidies to millionaires. This bill takes all budget discipline in this Chamber and throws it out the window. It sweeps PAYGO under the rug.

Ninety-seven percent of the world's consumers don't live in this country. They're overseas. And the way we help farmers is to open up markets to their products overseas. This bill shuts that down. This bill makes it next to impossible for us to be able to open up markets for our farmers.

A farm bill ought to help the family farmer in tough times. This doesn't do that. This is corporate welfare. This is subsidies for multi-millionaires. In fact, you can still live on Wall Street, make half a million dollars and get farm subsidies under this bill.

This bill is not going to help agriculture. This bill is going to help corporate agriculture, not family farmers.

I believe that we should sustain the President's veto. And this is not always good to say it's bipartisan. And I hope, on a bipartisan basis, we support this veto and pass a farm bill that actually helps the family farmer and takes away these exorbitant subsidies to multi- millionaire corporate farming operations.

We ought to protect conservation. We ought to help the Third World raise themselves out of poverty, and we ought to open up markets for our farmers so they have more people to sell their products to. That's what a farm bill ought to look like. That's not what this farm bill does.

I urge a sustain of the veto.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today in strong opposition to this emergency supplemental spending bill that not only would bust the budget with billions in nonemergency spending, but it would also raise taxes on small business. I can't think of a worse time to implement a tax increase, with a weak economy that is struggling to create and grow jobs.

Republicans will not support this bill. The President will veto this bill. Yet the Democratic leadership brings it to the floor and continues to play politics with funding for our troops.

The President's request, submitted 15 months ago, was for $108 billion. The Democrats, once again, can't help themselves. And they have added an additional $6.6 billion of this. And to add insult to injury to the American taxpayer and our troops in harm's way, this amount actually reduces the President's request by $3.5 billion.

I guess that's what you get when a bill is written unilaterally and in secret.

If the majority brought us a clean supplemental with just funding for the troops, it would undoubtedly have been passed with a big bipartisan vote and sent to the President before Memorial Day so there is no disruption in funding. That should be what we're doing, and not playing politics with funding for our troops.

That is what a majority would do if they were serious about passing a bill and not playing politics.

But that is not what the Democrat majority has done here. Instead, 15 months after the President asked for the troop funding, the majority has brought a bloated bill to the floor that will cost the American taxpayer $250 billion over the next decade.

This is a bill they wrote in secret, without allowing committee markups, while only allowing Members 18 hours to review a bill that would provide an amount equivalent to 26 percent of the spending in last year's regular appropriation bills, and without allowing the full House to work its will in an open and Democratic process.

It violates the budget passed by the majority by adding $6.6 billion to the amounts assumed for the war supplemental for the House-passed budget resolution. And the Democratic leadership has decided to lard this bill up with $66 billion in mandatory spending.

While they raise taxes to pay for the GI benefits, this bill adds billions in funding that has nothing to do with the war and is not fully offset.

So they say they are meeting the PAYGO rules. But they don't meet it for all the other spending in this bill. Mandatory spending does not belong in war emergency supplementals. The mandatory provisions in question deserve serious debate as stand-alone bills.

Why are they hiding this in a war supplemental? They should be proud of these provisions and let them withstand the full light of day through the regular committee process. And if increasing spending by over $66 billion wasn't enough, they are proposing to raise taxes on Americans as well, to tax and spend rather than paying for this increase with reductions in other spending.

The last thing we ought to be doing today is raise taxes. They will say this is a tax on millionaires. But this tax is going to hit small businesses. These are the job creators in America. This is the worst thing we can do as this economy is struggling.

Yesterday the House waived the PAYGO rule to give farm subsidies to millionaires.

Yesterday, the House waived the PAYGO rules to give farm subsidies to millionaires.

Today, the House wants to enforce PAYGO to raise taxes on small businesses. I fear for this institution. The majority is taking us down a slippery slope. And I don't think they are going to be able to put this genie back in the bottle. The committees have been ignored. The budget has been ignored. The rules have been ignored. What is next?

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order against consideration of the measure.

Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order that the measure causes an increase in the deficit over a 6- and 11-year period and therefore violates clause 10 of House rule XXI, the PAYGO point of order.

Mr. Speaker, there is undeniably net direct spending included in this bill. Hence it increases the deficit. Simply by putting new entitlement spending on an appropriation bill in order to evade PAYGO would constitute a blatant loophole in the PAYGO point of order. If PAYGO is designed to prevent increases in the deficit, this measure should not be considered here today.

I therefore urge that my point of order be sustained.

One quick parliamentary inquiry for the purposes of clarification, Mr. Speaker.

Condensing all of that, is it my understanding, then, that this is not sustained because PAYGO does not apply to direct spending so long as it's in an appropriations bill? Is that correct?

Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Clause 10 of rule XXI, the so-called pay-as- you-go point of order says that it is not in order to consider a bill if it increases the deficit if applied today over a period of fiscal years 2008 through 2013 and the period of fiscal years 2008 through 2018. The effect on the deficit is determined by the Budget Committee relative to the most recent baseline supplied by the Congressional Budget Office ``used in considering a concurrent resolution on the budget.''

Mr. Speaker, according to the Congressional Budget Office relative to its March 2008 baseline, the Farm Bill will increase the deficit by $2.9 billion over the period of fiscal years 2008 through 2018. But if using last year's outdated 2007 baseline, CBO states that it would decrease the deficit by about $100 million over that same period, 2008 through 2017.

Mr. Speaker, under clause 10 of rule XXI, which baseline provided by CBO is the most recent and should therefore be used by the Budget Committee in order to determine pay-as-you-go compliance, the March 2007 baseline or the March 2008 baseline?

Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.

Does the rule not state that it is the most recent CBO baseline?

Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, according to clause 10(a) of rule XXI, in advising the Chair, the Budget Committee must use ``the most recent baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget Office . . . used in considering a concurrent resolution on the budget.''

Mr. Speaker, has Congress considered the concurrent resolution on the budget this year?

Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Isn't it true that the concurrent budget resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2009 considered by the Budget Committee and considered and passed by the House uses the most recent baseline which is the March 2008 baseline?

Further parliamentary inquiry.

The rule providing for the consideration of the conference report to accompany the Food Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 includes a waiver of all points of order against consideration.

Does that waiver include a waiver of clause 10 of rule XXI, the pay- as-you-go point of order, and in addition, to all points of order under the Congressional Budget Act? And does this mean that a Member of Congress may not raise a point of order against consideration of the bill even if it is in violation of the PAYGO rule, Budget Act points of order, or the concurrent resolution on the budget?

Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.

Does this waiver of these points of order mean that the PAYGO rule and the Budget Act points of order are also waived and therefore, a Member may not raise a point of order against consideration of the bill on those grounds?

Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry.

The Rules Committee report accompanying the rule provided for consideration of the conference report contains an explanation of waivers and states: ``While there is a technical violation of clause 10 of rule XXI, the PAYGO rule, the conference report complies with the rule.''

Mr. Speaker, my inquiry is this: Is it possible to be in violation of the PAYGO rule yet comply with the rule at the same time?

We plan on doing that, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I say this regretfully, but this bill is an absence of leadership. This bill shows that we're not leading, that America is not leading, that the new majority is not leading.

Why do I say that? The new majority brought this bill to the floor and they waived PAYGO. They swept PAYGO under the rug and they're violating PAYGO in two places in this bill alone. They'll say, we're trying to conform with the Senate PAYGO rules. Well, that does so at the very expense of the House PAYGO rules. What I find interesting is, right after this bill is passed they're bringing up the new budget resolution, which if that passed before this bill passed would violate the Senate PAYGO rules. How convenient.

The point is this: We're sweeping money under the rug; this bill is hiding $23 billion in extra costs, it's not even measuring the amount of payment increases and price increases that are in here. But where this is really a loss in leadership is, I don't think the American taxpayer, who is having a hard time making ends meet today, who is stretching their paycheck really far with high gas and food prices, likes the idea that we're going to give couples earning $2.5 million subsidies for growing agriculture. Why are we giving agriculture subsidies to multimillionaires? This does not reflect the values that the taxpayers sent us here to achieve.

More to the point, Mr. Speaker, this will hurt the family farmers. That's what a farm bill ought to be about, helping family farmers, not corporate farmers. But by doing it this way, we're making it harder to open up markets for our family farmers so they can sell their corn, their beans, their dairy, and all their other products in foreign markets. Ninety-seven percent of the world's consumers don't live in this country, they're in other countries. We should open those markets for their products.

This bill, with its huge subsidies, closes those markets, it hurts the Third World from being able to lift their life out of poverty, and it wastes taxpayer dollars. And all you have to do is look at the rule that passed that says, ``Waive PAYGO one more time. The rules don't apply. Let's hide all this extra spending.''

This, among many other reasons, is why people should vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the event conducted by the bipartisan Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, last year the Democrats won the Congressional Shootout, the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus trophy, between sporting clays, trap and skeet, and the Democrats thought that there was a realignment occurring in Congress, in America. They thought they were on a good run for a long time.

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to say this year that the Republicans reclaimed the trophy and won the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus Shootout this year. The realignment was very short-lived.

In particular, Mr. Speaker, I would like to, on behalf of my co- chairman Mr. Kind from Wisconsin; the vice chairmen, Mr. Pearce from New Mexico and Mr. Boren from Oklahoma, I would like to give particular note to the people who really shot straight yesterday.

Top gun: Congressman Hayes only dropped a few clays all day.

Top Republican: Congressman John Kline, Minnesota.

Top Democrat: Congressman Bennie Thompson.

Top Sporting Clays: Congressman Mike Ross.

Top Trap: Congressman Don Young.

And Top Skeet: Mike Thompson.

All together, a good bipartisan effort, but more to the point, the Republicans reclaimed the trophy and reversed the realignment.

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

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

First off, Mr. Speaker, I would like to celebrate the fact that we are here in this well talking about this motion to go to conference, and I want to compliment our chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt, the gentleman from South Carolina. And I mean this in a very sincere way.

The budget process doesn't work if you don't have a budget, and I want to compliment the gentleman from South Carolina for making it 2 years in a row for actually bringing forward and getting through a budget resolution. It looked like it wasn't going to happen. We won't be supporting it, but the fact that the budget chairman is keeping the budget process intact speaks very good to this institution, good to the process, and I want to compliment the gentleman from South Carolina for doing that.

Now, on to the motion to instruct. Everyone agrees, Mr. Speaker, that we need to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. But frankly, if we really want to move forward with greater energy independence, we should increase our petroleum supply by increasing our domestic production of oil. The motion accomplishes just that.

The Republican motion calls on the conferees to increase the receipt levels in the final budget resolution by expanding leasing in Federal areas in the West, in the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in an environmentally sound manner.

Yesterday, the House voted overwhelmingly to suspend the purchase of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a means to increase oil supply and reduce gasoline prices. It's unclear whether this will have any impact on oil prices, much less gas prices.

This motion would accomplish that result. It would, No. 1, increase domestic oil production and put downward pressure on oil prices and gasoline prices; No. 2, it would reduce our reliance on foreign oil; and, No. 3, it would reduce the deficit.

More than a year ago, the Democratic majority pledged to bring gasoline prices down. On January 4, 2007, the day the Democratic majority took control of the House, the price of gas was an average of $2.33 a gallon. Today Americans are paying an average of $3.76 per gallon to put fuel in their cars. Just 2 days ago in Kenosha, Wisconsin it was $3.95. It's $4 in some areas. This is an increase of at least $1.43 a gallon.

Republicans are seeking to tap into America's great natural resources in an environmentally sound and effective way to provide the consumers the relief at the pump that they deserve, while reducing our reliance on foreign oil.

This Republican motion is a step in the right direction to enhance our energy security and put in place a long-term plan to provide relief at the pump. These are the steps we need to take to assist families, communities, small businesses, those that are suffering with soaring prices of oil and gasoline.

With that, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).

(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time remains on each side?

I will yield myself 30 seconds simply to say, using the chairman's argument, then there's no money in this budget for veterans, no money in this budget for science, no money in this budget for education if you use that line of argument. There's only money for discretionary spending in here.

A budget resolution is a series of numbers, and we're saying, let's adjust the numbers to accommodate the policy we're talking about here, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Outer Continental Shelf, the Intermountain West.

At this time I'd like to yield 4 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Mr. Speaker, let me inquire as to how much time remains on each side.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve my time.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I'd like to yield 4 minutes to a senior member of the Commerce Committee, Mr. Upton from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time.

I'll begin by stating what I said in the beginning, which is, as a person who believes in having a strong and intact budget process, I want to compliment the chairman for getting us to a Budget Resolution, for doing it 2 years in a row. It's not an easy accomplishment. So on behalf of the institution, it's important that we pass these budget resolutions.

The problem is we're not going to pass a good budget resolution. The reason the gentleman's budget resolution achieves a balanced budget is because it contains the largest tax increase in American history. It cuts the child tax credit in half. It repeals the relief for the marriage penalty, raises income taxes across the board, raises capital gains and dividends taxes, brings the death tax back in, and puts us on a path for the largest tax increase in American history by replacing the alternative minimum tax. So, yes, the gentleman's budget does balance because it only increases spending by $280 billion while it increases taxes by $683 billion. That's how the gentleman balances the budget.

But more to the point here, today the House voted to waive PAYGO to give farm subsidies to millionaires. Tomorrow the House is going to support PAYGO. They're going to enforce PAYGO to raise taxes on small businesses.

So this is what we're doing here in this Congress. Whenever it's time to keep PAYGO in place to control spending, it's out the door. It's waived. It's swept under the rug. It's baseline shopping, number cooking, gimmicking, cliffs. But whenever the time comes to raise taxes, that's when we enforce PAYGO.

Mr. Speaker, PAYGO doesn't exist. PAYGO is not in place. It is not being enforced. It is a sham. The only thing that PAYGO does today is give the majority an excuse to raise taxes. It doesn't cut spending. It doesn't reduce the deficit. It just raises taxes to fuel more spending.

Watch what happens tomorrow. Today millionaires get agriculture subsidies because we waived PAYGO; tomorrow, taxing small businesses to create a new entitlement program.

But to the point of this motion to instruct, what we are trying to achieve with this motion to instruct is to try to make this budget a little bit better, a little bit better by talking about the issue of the day, which is people are not being able to spread their paychecks as far as they were before. They can't get as much out of their paychecks because of $4 gasoline.

Why do we have $4 gasoline? Because we don't have an energy policy in this country. And what we are simply saying is one of the reasons is we have so much supply we're not getting: 16 billion barrels at ANWR; 2 trillion barrels in oil shale in Wyoming and Montana; 86 billion barrels in the Outer Continental Shelf.

Let me say that one more time: 16 billion barrels in Alaska, 2 trillion barrels in shale in the Intermountain West, and 86 billion barrels in the Outer Continental Shelf. All off-limits.

If we just did ANWR, according to the CRS, the Federal Government would see a surge in revenues, no new taxes, not even cutting spending, $191 billion; $191 billion, according to the CRS, from just doing ANWR. That's the smallest of all of our reserves. Think what we could do with $191 billion. We could reduce the deficit. We could create a Manhattan Project for research and development for renewable energies to put fossil fuels out of business.

But, no, we're doing none of this. So this is the economic equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot, of cutting off your nose to spite your face. This is not an energy policy.

This is a bad budget resolution that raises taxes on the American workers

and families and businesses. The worst time we should be raising taxes is when we are possibly in an economic recession, and the last thing we ought to be doing is raising taxes on people. Furthermore, with high food prices, high gas prices, we shouldn't be raising people's taxes. That's what this budget does.

So to try to make it a little bit better, let's get some of our own oil and gas from our own country instead of being so reliant on foreigners for it. We're giving the wrong people our money, people who are not our friends overseas.

So pass this motion to instruct. Make this budget a little bit better, and open up production so we can actually truly do something to lower the price of oil and make us less dependent on foreign oil.

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