Floor Statements

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

Mr. Speaker, it's not my intention to consume the full amount of time, as we had discussed earlier.

At the beginning of this Congress, the Speaker of the House said the following: ``After years of deficit spending, this new Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending.''

Well, the majority did follow through on half of their promise. One of the first things they did when they took control of this place was put in a new pay-as-you-go rule.

But things haven't quite worked out as well on the deficit. This year's deficit is projected to double as spending is projected to rise by over $200 billion. But at least they did put in the rule. And one of the things that makes this rule interesting, that requires this rule, is that the House must use the most recent CBO baseline when determining whether a bill complies with PAYGO. Let me read this rule word for word to be clear:

``The effect of a measure on the deficit or surplus shall be determined on the basis of estimates by the Committee on Budget relative to the most recent baseline supplied by the Congressional Budget Office.''

It sounds pretty straightforward, Mr. Speaker. You've got to use the current baseline when you apply PAYGO, no questions asked.

But despite this, everyone I have talked to about this issue, everything I've heard, everything I've read in the newspapers had told me that the farm bill isn't going to use the updated 2008 baseline but instead is going to use the 2007 baseline, an outdated baseline from over a year ago. Now, I hope that this is not the case. I hope that this does not happen. But it sounds like that's the direction they are headed. And that is what this motion is all about.

This motion is very simple. All it would do is require that the House will follow its own rules and use the current CBO baseline when determining whether or not the farm bill complies with PAYGO.

Why should we care? Why does this seemingly technical issue make a difference?

First of all, economic conditions have changed in the past year. Agricultural profits are way up. Food prices are soaring. And it's simply not accurate to use an estimate that's over a year old.

Second, there's a strong possibility that using the old baseline could hide

billions and billions of dollars in new spending. We don't have all the details yet, and we don't know exactly how CBO is going to score it, but based on what we've heard, based on rising food prices and other factors, we think it's quite likely that this bill is going to appear to cost billions of dollars less under the old baseline than it really does under the current one.

Now, isn't that convenient? I'm sure that a lot of taxpayers would love to have this type of choice. I'm sure that when they were filling out their taxes a few weeks ago, a lot of people thought it would surely be nice to have the option of paying taxes on either last year's income or this year's income. They could just pick the year where they made less money and save a couple bucks.

But the taxpayers don't have that choice. They are required to play by the rules. They have got to pay taxes on their current income whether they like it or not. And if the majority follows the rules, it doesn't have this choice either. They must use the 2008 baseline, or they will be in clear violation of their PAYGO rules.

Now, the majority has dodged PAYGO before. The farm bill they passed last year had over $5 billion in timing shifts and other gimmicks in it, and I wouldn't be surprised if you saw some of those in the conference report again this year. But if they use an old baseline, this would take it to a whole new level, Mr. Speaker. This would be the first time the majority actually used baseline shopping to violate the PAYGO requirement.

You see things like this, and it's no wonder people think Washington is broken. These types of games are exactly what make people cynical about Congress. And I agree. This just isn't the way the House should operate. The American people deserve better than having the House play games with its own rules and then go home and claim they have entered a new era of fiscal discipline.

You know, some people might find it odd for me to be down here talking about PAYGO, and I will be the first to admit that I have been critical of this rule and don't think it's the best way to proceed with respect to fiscal discipline. But let's put those concerns aside for a minute. Budgetary rules are only as good as the integrity of the numbers that you use to enforce them. So let's enforce those rules with updated CBO estimates. Let's have a strong bipartisan vote for this motion and say that these games have got to end. Let's not manipulate the rules and pick and choose whichever baseline is more convenient.

With that I urge my colleagues to support this motion.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

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

If the gentleman is willing to yield back his time, I will just have a 1-minute speaker and then I will close--fast.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

I am curious, does the gentleman want time from me or time from them?

Four quick points. The war supplemental, been working on it for a year. That is going to be done under the new baseline. Number two, CBO can score this on time. They have already told us they are going to give us simultaneous scores under the 2008 baseline.

Number three, you have had plenty of time to do this. The CBO baseline has been out for 2 months. But number four, and lastly, this isn't an option, this isn't a choice. You don't have discretion. It's the rules. This is your PAYGO rules.

So the question is: Are you going to violate your rules or not?

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I hereby give notice of my intention to offer a motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 2419, pursuant to clause 7(c) of rule XXI.

The form of the motion is as follows:

Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin moves that the managers on the part

of the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on

the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2419 be instructed,

within the scope of the conference, to use the most recent

baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget

Office when evaluating the costs of the provisions of the

report.

Madam Speaker, I was absent for legislative business conducted on April 24, 2008, to attend the funeral of a fallen soldier who lost his life in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. As a result, I missed rollcall votes 220 through 223.

Had I been present, I would have voted:

``Aye'' on rollcall vote 220--the Poe Amendment to H.R. 2830;

``Aye'' on rollcall vote 221--the McNerny Amendment to H.R. 2830;

``Aye'' on rollcall vote 222--the Motion to Recommit H.R. 2830 with instructions; and

``Aye'' on rollcall vote 223--Passage of H.R. 2830.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 7(c) of rule XXII, I hereby give notice of my intention to offer a motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 2419, the Food and Energy Security Act.

The form of the motion is as follows:

Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin moves that the managers on the part

of the House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on

the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2419 be instructed,

within the scope of the conference, to use the most recent

baseline estimates supplied by the Congressional Budget

Office when evaluating the costs of the provisions of the

report.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. And I want to just thank you for all the leadership you've shown not only on this issue but that you've shown throughout your career. You fought the income tax in Tennessee. You're here fighting for lower taxes here in the U.S. Capital, and I want to thank you for all the leadership you have shown. And it's a pleasure for me to join you with this.

I thought, given the comments recently by our majority leader about this year's budget, it would be fitting to go through the budget that we're talking about.

The majority leader just said, in one of the publications printed here, that we don't need a budget conference report. Now, that's happened in the past. Under Republican leadership, when the Republicans ran the majority, there were a few times when the Republicans were unable to pass a budget. And you know what happens? No priorities are set. What happens when a budget is not passed, when a budget is not agreed to between the House and the Senate, is that only spending occurs or tax increases. And so there's no chance of fiscal discipline. There's no chance of putting us on a path to balancing the budget, to making sure we get rid of the deficit and pay down the debt. There's just spending. And 1 year into the majority, 1 year into the majority, they're now showing us that just 1 year in the majority they can't pass a budget.

They don't have a plan to get us to a balanced budget. They don't have a map for the fiscal future of our country. But they can come to the floor with spending bills. They can come to the floor to spend more money. And in fact, they do have a plan. And this budget is not necessary to raise taxes.

So I would like to talk about exactly what it is that they have been proposing, what it is our partners on the other side of the aisle have proposed. And if you take a look at what they proposed this year, it is the largest tax increase in American history. The biggest tax increase before this was back in 1993. That was a $241 billion tax increase.

This tax increase that they're proposing now is a $683 billion tax increase. Now that is a big number. People probably want to know what does that number mean? It sounds big. It is going to do a lot.

Well, here is exactly what they mean when they are talking about a $683 billion tax increase. They want ordinary income taxes to go up across the board. So for people who got an income tax rate cut, that is every income taxpayer in 2003, they are going to go up across the board. We are now going to make small businesses who file their taxes as ordinary income taxpayers at about a 40 percent tax rate.

What is interesting is the people in the top tax bracket. We hear a lot of people running for President saying, we want the rich people to pay taxes. Guess what? Seventy-five percent of those who file in the top tax bracket are small businesses. They are not Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. They are small businesses who pay their taxes as individuals because that's the way small business taxation occurs in America.

What's more to the point is the fact that 70 percent of our jobs in America come from small businesses. So they're saying, not only do we propose to raise income taxes across the board for all income taxpayers, also on the engine of economic growth and job creation in America is small businesses. They're also saying, we want to raise taxes on capital gains and dividends. Those are the taxes that affect the value of our 401(k) plans, our IRAs and our pensions.

They also want to bring the death tax back into full force so that you pay taxes not once, not twice, not three times while you are living, but after you die as well. They also want to bring the marriage penalty back. We actually repealed the marriage penalty in 2003. They are proposing that it comes back in so they can spend that money on more government spending programs here in Washington. That hits taxpayers an average of $1,400 per married couple.

They are also proposing to cut the child tax credit in half from $1,000 down to $500. That means a tax increase of $500 per child. And they are also proposing to get rid of the lower income tax bracket, which is a 10 percent bracket, to a 15 percent bracket.

That's right. And what the majority is basically proposing is they are going to deem this budget resolution. They are going to simply say that this is the resolution that we deem to be the case, and this is how we are going to manage the fiscal affairs of this Congress in this session. So we're planning on a big tax increase, and we're expecting it to happen because this is our plan, and now we're going to start spending the money.

And I want to be fair to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They did bring a budget to the floor that does balance the budget. It does reach a balanced budget by 2012. The way and the method that it reaches a balanced budget by 2012 is this $683 billion tax increase. They only increased spending by $280 billion. But they increased taxes by $683 billion. So by raising taxes even more than all their spending increases, they are actually hitting a balanced budget.

But take a look at who gets affected by this. I mentioned the actual tax policy that they're proposing with their big tax increase to fund some of their spending increases and to actually hit a balanced budget. But let me just say who is going to actually be affected in America by this. One hundred sixty million taxpayers will see an average increase of more than $1,800 per year, $3,000 per taxpayer in Wisconsin, more than 6 million low-income individuals and couples who currently pay no income taxes will no longer be exempt. A family of four earning $50,000 will see their taxes increase by $2,100. Approximately 48 million married couples will face this average tax increase of $3,000 per year. Low-income families with one or two children will no longer be eligible for the refundable tax credit. Roughly 12 million single women with children will see their taxes increase by $1,100 per year. About 18 million seniors will be subjected to tax increases of more than $2,100 per year. And the tax bill for an estimated 27 million small business owners will increase by more than $4,000 each. These are real people, real Americans, really hardworking people struggling to make ends meet.

And these are real tax increases at a time when people are having a hard time just to make ends meet right now because of all these high prices, you see the price of food going up, groceries, gasoline, health care premiums, across the board.

I just did a telephone townhall meeting the other night. So many constituents said, Congressman, my paycheck is not stretching as far. People's paychecks aren't going as far as they used to go. Inflation is before us. The consumer price index just reached a 4.3 percent increase. And so what we see happening right now is with all these price increases in gas, groceries and health care, people's paychecks are not going as far as they used to go. It is eroding the standard of living of people.

We are possibly going into a recession. And the last thing we ought to be doing right now is raising all these taxes on all these hardworking Americans. We shouldn't be raising taxes on seniors. We shouldn't be raising taxes on people who get married. We shouldn't be raising taxes on parents with children. We shouldn't be raising taxes on small businesses.

What we should be doing in Washington is controlling our spending appetite. And that's the problem. That's the problem with this budget that has passed the House. That's the problem with the budget that the other side of the aisle is planning. They don't want to control spending. They don't want to cut spending or even control it. They want to increase spending.

In order to hit their commitment of a balanced budget, they will increase taxes even more than that. My fear is that this will take this possible recession we are going into and make it even worse, because people are having a hard time making their paychecks stretch as it is today.

Take a look at what Republicans believe and at the budget we passed. This is just a simple graph. The red line is the line of revenues that the Democrats chose to pick on their way to a balanced budget. The green line is the path that we brought with our budget, the Republicans. What does that line do? It says that we are not going to raise taxes. We are not going to raise taxes on income, on families, on people with children, on seniors or on small businesses. And we're going to repeal this alternative minimum tax. And we're going to balance the budget faster and better by cutting and controlling spending. Because if you take a look at the real problem in our fiscal situation, it's really spending that drives our problems.

And if I could just mention this one thing before I yield back to the gentlelady because I think we ought to have a conversation here, take a look at where we are today. And this chart is fairly confusing, but if you take a look at it, the blue line is the line that we want to be on, which is not raising taxes. The red line is the line that the Democrats are trying to propose, which is all these tax increases, the $683 billion we just articulated. The green is the future trajectory of spending.

So even if you take all these Democrat tax increases, that will only give you a temporary balanced budget. Because if you don't address spending in Washington, if you don't address our entitlement programs, the spending path that we are on will swamp any level of taxes. We're going to go into permanent deficits and massive debt.

So this notion that we can have a lasting balanced budget by just raising taxes is wrong. This notion that we should just raise taxes and increase spending is dangerous. And the reason that notion is dangerous is because spending is already out of control. And it is on a path that is really dangerous.

If I could just briefly mention this, the budget resolution that the Democrats brought to the floor on just two programs increases the debt by $14 trillion on just two programs. By saying we are not interested in controlling spending, by saying we are not interested in controlling and reforming government or fixing our entitlement programs, just the debt to Social Security and Medicare goes up by $14 trillion under the Democrat's budget. That's just two programs.

Every year we don't do anything to fix, save and make solvent Social Security and Medicare, we go another $2 trillion in debt just in those two programs. Our friends on the other side of the aisle are saying, instead of taking care of this $39 trillion debt we have with these two programs, we're going to raise it to $53 trillion. And that's wrong.

We believe that the way to fix our fiscal problems is to let Americans keep more money in their paychecks. It's to protect their paychecks, stop the pork barrel spending, control spending, reform government and reform our entitlement programs. Because we owe it to the next generation to leave them better off than we were left off. That's what my mom and dad told me growing up, that the whole point of America, the legacy of this country, is that you leave the next generation safer and more prosperous with a better chance at a better standard of living.

But for the first time in the history of our country, we have a real serious chance of severing that legacy, of discontinuing that tradition. Because if we give our kids and our grandkids the kind of debt that they are right now slated to get, and if we say for the next 5 years, as our friends on the other side of the aisle are now saying, we're not going to do anything to help that, we're not going to do anything to fix that, we are, in fact, going to add to

the problem. We are going to raise taxes, increase spending and make it even worse for our children and grandchildren. We are going to sever that legacy. And our kids and our grandkids will not have a higher standard of living. They will not have a better government. They will not have more freedom in their lives. And they will not have more money in their paychecks.

And if you want to just bring this point finally home, this is the chart that the General Accountability Office has given us. This shows us that what is unique about our budget and our fiscal history is that for the last 40 years, our government has been remarkably same in size. The Federal Government has had to take 18.3 cents out of every dollar earned in America. That is 18.3 percent of gross domestic product. So 18.3 cents on the dollar earned in America for the last 40 years is what Washington had to tax to pay for the Federal Government, to pay for everything, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, national defense, the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce.

But what is happening is the baby boom generation is retiring. And the first baby boomer retired just a few months ago. She was a retired school teacher in Maryland who started collecting her Social Security benefits. And behind her are 77 million more retirees. And so the problem for our country is with what we call a pay-as-you-go system, where current workers pay their current taxes to support current beneficiaries, that works out fine if you have an equal number of beneficiaries, retirees and workers. But we are doubling our retirees. We are going from 40 million retirees to actually 78 million retirees. But we are only increasing our workers in this country by 17 percent. So there is about 100 percent increase in the retirees in this country in one generation, but only a 17 percent increase in taxpayers.

So what does that do for our children? Well, I can tell you what it does for my children. My son, Sam, is 3 years old. My son, Charlie is 4. And my daughter, Liza, is 6. And by the time my three kids are exactly my age, exactly my age, they will have to pay 40 cents on the dollar just to keep today's Federal Government going for them at that time.

That is exactly right. By the year 2040, today's Federal Government, which costs about 20 percent of GDP, 20 cents on the dollar, we are in deficit and raising about 18.8 percent, it is going to cost 40 percent. And that is if we do nothing.

That is what it is all about. If we do nothing and we let government go on as it is, add no new programs, take none away, our government will double in size within one generation. So my children, instead of sending, like we are, about 18.3 cents on the dollar to Washington to pay the bills, will have to send 40 cents on the dollar to Washington to pay the bills, the bills we are giving them, the debt we are giving them.

That is unsustainable. You can't win globalization. You can't compete with the likes of China and India. We are having a hard time doing that right now. You can't compete with the likes of China and India and Europe and Japan when you are taking 40 cents out of every dollar just for Washington, before you get to local government, State government, gas, groceries, healthcare. This is the future we are consigning our children and grandchildren to. And the budget that is before us today, the budget that the Democrats passed on the floor just this last moment, says, you know what? Here is our answer. Do more spending, more taxes. Make the problem worse. Increase the debt to two programs by just $14 trillion. It is irresponsible. It is wrong. It is going to sever this legacy to our children and grandchildren.

We need to leave them with a better country, a safer country, a more prosperous country, one where they can compete and thrive and survive. I don't want to just have my children survive globalization. I want America to win globalization, to shape globalization, to make sure that our kids can have careers that they like, that they love, that they enjoy, so they have a higher standard of living.

But in fact that is not what is going to happen if we don't get our fiscal house in order right now. If we sign on to these tax increases and these spending increases, what we will do in the short run is we will make the recession worse. We will take more money out of the paychecks of working Americans at a time when they are having a hard time staying afloat right now. We will put more debt on to the backs of our children by building up all the spending in the baseline around here.

We need to say no to spending sometimes around here. There is one little easy piece of spending that I think we could say no to, and that is earmarks. Earmarks are what we call pork-barrel spending. Our budget, the Republican budget, not only balanced the budget by controlling spending and kept taxes low, but our budget said for one year, let's just have Congress say no earmarks for a year. No more pork for one year. A pork-free diet in Congress for just one year.

Do you know what we can accomplish in our budget by saying no earmarks for one year and keep banking that money, carrying out those savings? We can make the per-child tax credit permanent, make it stay at $1,000. We can permanently repeal the marriage tax penalty and prevent that $1,400 average tax increase on married couples from happening, by just saying no pork for one year and saving that money. That is what our budget does.

So the question on just the earmarks is, is it pork for Members of Congress, or is it paychecks for working Americans? We chose paychecks. Our friends on the other side of the aisle are choosing pork. That is wrong. So when you take a look at the short run, more pork, less money for people's paychecks. Higher taxes, less economic growth, more job loss, higher taxes on small businesses, on seniors, on families, on married people, on children, on people with children.

What you are seeing is they are going to increase the debt. They are going to increase the already unsustainable path that we are on and this unsustainable debt we have today. This is why we take this seriously. This is why we come to the well of the House to say we need to get our fiscal house in order, and the other side is recklessly spending with abandon.

Now, I want to say this as a Republican: Our party did not do a good job on this either as well in many instances. There are ways in which we should have done better. And that is why it is important for those of us who see what is going wrong to fix it. That is why it is important for us to have proposals to fix these things.

So nobody is perfect in Washington. Republicans did too much spending, but Republicans look like fiscal scrooges compared to the Democrats today. They look like they are the austerity Congress compared to the Democrat Congress today, because the Democrat Congress today is putting no limits on anything. They are saying bring a budget to the floor and just bring up more spending, bring up the taxes, and let's just let our children and grandchildren pay the bill. That is wrong.

So I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for her courageous leadership on this. It is not easy to say no to all of the people that come looking for spending. Most people who come to visit their Congressmen and their Congresswomen say we need more money for this, we need more money for that. Every time you say yes to that, it is more money out of the paychecks of working men and women in America. This Congress chose less money for paychecks, more money for Washington.

I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for being strong and being a leader on this and for fighting those kinds of instincts, and being a voice in the wilderness for fiscal discipline. I appreciate that.

I have explained this to constituents at home in Wisconsin and they are just dumbfounded. They think that if you come to the floor and bring an amendment to eliminate wasteful spending, let's just say we did an amendment to get rid of the $50 million Rain Forest Museum that is being built in Iowa City, Iowa. You could come to the floor and say, you know what? We probably shouldn't be spending our taxpayer dollars on this $50 million Rain Forest Museum, this rainforest in a bubble in Iowa. Let's not do that. We could pass that amendment and that $50 million couldn't go to that Rain Forest Museum. But by the way the rulings of our Congress work today, that $50 million won't be saved. It will be spent somewhere else in the government.

Most people think, if you actually go and eliminate wasteful spending, you actually save the money, but that's not the system. It gets spent somewhere else by the rules, somewhere else in the Federal Government.

If the gentleman would yield, because we can pass amendments eliminating programs or cutting back wasteful spending. By the practice and the rules of this Congress, that money just gets spent somewhere else.

I simply want to applaud the gentleman, I want to applaud him for coming up with a creative, innovative, idea to get these rules back to the world of common sense. Then we could actually go after wasteful spending, we actually save the money, and give it back to the taxpayer by lowering our deficit, than just finding other places to spend it, which is what happens today. I just want to thank him for taking on this very important fight.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Does the gentleman remember when we had a markup where the budget was written in the Budget Committee, and we had 36 amendments? Remember the different kinds of amendments we had, and the votes, we had votes on whether or not it's right to cut the child tax credit in half, whether it's right to bring back the marriage penalty, whether we should or should not raise income tax rates across the board for all income taxpayers. Vote after vote after vote, on all these taxes, and our friends on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats voted time over again to raise those taxes on individual tax rates.

They voted specifically to cut the child tax credit in half. They voted specifically to bring back the marriage tax penalty. They voted specifically to raise income tax rates across the board, to bring back death taxes, to raise capital gains and dividends taxes. They did this so they could pass a budget that increased spending.

I want to thank the gentleman from Florida, who has the most passion and who so well articulates the problems we have in America today. I want to thank you for your knowledge, your passion, and your understanding. I also want to just ask you if you recall all those votes and all those differences that we have seen here in just this Congress in this last short year.

Yes.

I hope the people of Tennessee realize a big reason they don't have an income tax imposed upon them is because of Marsha Blackburn. You led that antitax fight in Tennessee to prevent a new income tax from being imposed on the people of Tennessee. And now in Congress you have led the fight up here to see that they can have the same kind of deductibility of their sales taxes as those of us who come from States that have income taxes have that deductibility.

So I want to thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for being a champion of the Tennessee taxpayer. I am a Badger. I am a Wisconsin fan. I am a Packer fan. I am not a big Titan fan or a Volunteer fan, but I am a Marsha Blackburn fan because you fight for taxpayers. We need more people in Congress fighting for taxpayers, just like we have champions like the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Diaz-Balart, and Mr. Conaway from Texas. Texas has a lot of people who fight high taxes, but Mike Conaway is one of the guys leading here.

I am glad we got together to set the record straight on the budget and on the fiscal path that we are on in this country, and set the record straight for what future lies before our children and grandchildren if we don't take our responsibilities here seriously and change our course.

I want to thank the gentlelady for hosting this hour.

Madam Speaker, why are we here? We're here because it's Tax Day and the majority decided they had to have a tax bill to come to the floor to pass on Tax Day.

There are some good provisions in this bill. I want to talk about one provision that is not a good provision. That's what we call HSA substantiation. What that basically means is without a single hearing, the majority wants to bring these new red-taped complicated rules to health savings accounts so that every time somebody goes and makes a health care purchase that's under the deductible, they have to first get permission from their banker or from the government before they do it. That's essentially what substantiation does.

Now, we've heard from banks, from the credit unions, from the NFIB and the small businesses. They're all saying, we're not going to do it anymore. We're not going to offer HSAs to our clients.

Madam Speaker, the key with health savings accounts is that people can save tax free for their out-of-pocket health care savings. Why on earth would we want to bring a bill to the floor which we know will reduce the use of health savings accounts?

The goal of this Congress ought to be to make health care more accessible and more affordable. Unfortunately, this bill goes in the wrong direction. So we want to inflict all of this red tape that we don't inflict on individual retirement accounts or on home equity lines of credits on this, and this will make it harder for people to save tax free for health care. It will tie them up in red tape. It will say to the banks and credit unions that offer these things, don't offer them anymore, and more to the point, we're doing this clumsy legislating without having had one hearing in the Ways and Means Committee.

More to the point, Madam Speaker, is this. The market is already fulfilling the need to have better recordkeeping. The market is already showing us they can do this without this law. But if you impose this law, as this bill does, guess what's going to happen? People in rural America, people in some small towns, people in Janesville, Wisconsin, they won't be able to subscribe to this law. Their retailers don't have the technology that's being required here. So you're going to leave rural America, small town America out, and only urban areas can comply with this.

This is not good legislating. This has not been seen through. No foresight. No hearings. More to the point, it's going to make it harder for people in rural and small towns to save tax tree for health care. It's going to make it harder for anybody to save tax free for health care. This is going to raise health care costs, and it is going to make it harder for patients to really get control of their health care destiny.

And that is why this bill should be defeated. For this piece of policy alone, this bill should be defeated because it was not thought through. It was slammed in there at the last minute, and that is enough of a reason that on this day, on Tax Day, we should not be telling the American people, we're going to raise your taxes if you want to go buy health care. That's wrong, but that's what this bill does; and I think we should reject this bill for that reason alone.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

As the gentleman knows, this is their money, and if they choose to withdraw their money for non-health care reasons, they pay taxes.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by complimenting the chairman of the committee and the ranking member of the committee, along with all the other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee for working in a bipartisan way to put together this compromise.

We heard a very good fulfilling debate about the merits of PEPFAR. I, too, agree that the PEPFAR program is a very worthwhile program. So we agree that this is the right thing to do.

The question is, should we more than double the authorization of this program? Now, the President's budget called for doing just that. And I think you can make a very good and compelling case that this program is so successful that it ought to be doubled. That's not what the underlying bill does. This underlying bill more than triples this program.

I have three concerns about this tripling of this program. Number 1, the spending levels set out in this authorization bill are higher than the recipient countries can even accept. They can't absorb all of this money. We know this from the studies in the field. So even if we hit these authorization levels, we know that the recipient countries cannot even accept all of this money. They can't spend it that fast.

Point Number 2, the Congressional Budget Office has told us that we couldn't even spend this money this fast. So why are we having this kind of an authorization level when our own Congressional Budget Office is telling us that it would take at least 10 years to spend down a $50 billion authorization?

And that brings me to my third point, and that is the budget resolution that passed the floor just 2\1/2\ weeks ago. The Democratic budget resolution itself assumes the $30 billion level. The Democratic budget resolution assumes we're funding this at the President's request of $30 billion. In fact, the Democratic budget resolution has a lower level of funding for section 150, the Foreign Affairs program, than even the President's budget does. We don't know what cut they're talking about, but more to the point, why don't we defend the budget resolution that passed this very house 2\1/2\ weeks ago?

Mr. Speaker, we support this program. I support this program. It's a good program. It has proven to work. By any metric, by any definition, it's impossible to deny the success of PEPFAR.

The question is, should we be tripling a program when we know full well it breaks the budget resolution, it purports to spend money faster than we can even spend, and those who are receiving this money can't receive it nearly as fast as we're proposing.

This recommit is not intended to kill this bill. This is a forthwith recommit. This recommit is very simple. It says, rather than funding it at $50 billion, let's fund it at $30 billion. That's the level called for on the Democratic budget resolution. That's the level called for in the President's budget. That's the level that independent experts have said can be justified. So this says go from 50 to 30 forthwith, that's all.

I want to compliment the gentleman, the chairman of the committee, the ranking member of the committee, all of those who worked in a bipartisan basis for this very worthwhile program, but this is a time when we have fiscal problems in America. We have a deficit. We have a looming debt. We need to show discipline in Congress. We should not be tripling funding for programs that we know the recipients themselves cannot receive at this pace and we know from our own independent budget experts that we simply can't spend at this pace.

Let's bring it back down to earth. Let's double it and keep it within reason. That is why we should pass this motion to recommit.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, if there was ever an equivalent of what we call a no-brainer in Congress, it is the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. Congress needs to bring this to the floor and pass this agreement. Why? Colombia already has free access to the U.S. market, but we don't have access to their market. Let me say that again. They already have free access to United States markets. We ought to be able to get the same fair trade in their market.

Number two, Colombia is our ally in fighting the drug trade. It is a democracy that is in a tough neighborhood that is helping us defeat the narcoterrorists, helping us cut off the drugs.

I had the pleasure of going to Colombia 3 weeks ago to see the progress, to see the democracy, to see the things they are doing to help individuals, to demilitarize the narcoterrorists and the paramilitary organizations. Colombia is lifting up their people from poverty. They are helping us in a difficult neighborhood.

More important, for our Wisconsin soybean growers, corn growers, dairy producers and manufacturers, it will create more jobs in Wisconsin because we will be able to sell more of our products to Colombia if they treat us like we are treating them. That is why we should pass the free trade agreement with Colombia.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First off, Mr. Chairman, I would like to congratulate the gentlewoman from Michigan and the gentleman from Virginia. The gentleman from Virginia is a knowledgeable man who's very sincere, who understands the budget process, and I want to congratulate you for bringing a budget to the floor. It's not easy to write a budget resolution, and it's important to bring a budget to the floor that reflects your priorities. So first of all, to the CBC, I simply want to congratulate you and your staff for doing this because that's how a debate works here. It's not enough just to criticize; it's important to propose things.

Now for the criticizing part. I simply want to talk about the underlying Democratic Party budget. And there was a debate yesterday about this for a number of hours, whether there's a tax increase in the Democrats' budget or not.

Well, when we hear the Democrat chairman say that they are balancing the budget, that is what their budget does. It is certified by the Congressional Budget Office as actually achieving balance. So we need to accept the fact that their budget does balance.

There's only one reason, there's only one way that it balances. It does so by passing the largest tax increase in American history.

Now, here's what they do with their budget: this red line, which is what we call the Congressional Budget Office baseline, that is the line they use to show that they are achieving a balanced budget. The green line here says here's what the line would be if you don't raise taxes, if you keep the marriage penalty repealed, if you don't raise the child tax credit, and so on. This is the difference between the two budgets.

So when we hear our friends on the other side of the aisle say, We're balancing the budget and we're not raising taxes, they can't have it both ways. It's simply not correct. It's simply untrue. You can't, on the one hand, say you're balancing the budget, which by very definition requires by their math you raise taxes in order to achieve balance, and then not say you're raising taxes.

The question is this: What taxes are we talking about? Are these taxes that just hit wealthy people? No. Everybody who pays income tax rates will see a giant tax increase. All income tax rates will be increased under the Democratic budget. The per child tax credit will get cut in half, from $1,000 per child to $500 per child. That means every family in America will see a $500 per child tax increase. The marriage penalty will come back in full force. That hits people, on average, $1,400 for married couples. Capital gains and dividends tax, which is the tax on our pensions and our 401(k)s, that goes on. And the death tax comes back in full force.

The question before us now, Mr. Chairman, is this: We are almost going

into a recession. We are clearly in an economic downturn. Is this the time for a tax increase? I think the answer is no.

The other question is this: We have high prices. It costs a lot to fill the gas tank today. It costs a lot to send kids to school. It costs a lot of money for health insurance. Where I come from in Wisconsin, it costs a lot to heat your home. So the real question for this Congress here and for the American people is, Can you afford the Democrats' tax hike? Can you afford the massive tax increases? We are paying higher prices for everything in America today. Our paychecks for working men and women in America aren't going as far as they used to go. So at this time can we afford this tax increase?

We think there's a better way. And in 2 hours we will be showing the American people the better way we think we ought to go, and that is let's balance the budget, but let's do it not by raising taxes but by controlling spending.

The big problem I also see with the Democratic budget in addition to that it has the largest tax increase in history is that it doesn't think there is any waste in Washington.

They believe we should keep earmarking this place. They believe there is no room to find waste, fraud, abuse and inefficiencies in government. We disagree. We think that there is waste in Washington. We think that there is fraud in the way our taxpayer dollars are being spent. And we think we ought to say this earmark system is coming unglued.

This earmarking system needs to be cleaned up. All this pork, 11,000 pieces of which left this Congress last year, to the tune of $14.9 billion. Let's say stop it for this year and let's clean it up. Let's have a bipartisan commission, clean up the way Congress porks this place up. Save that money. Reduce the deficit. Make sure we don't raise taxes and clean up the way Congress spends taxpayer dollars.

By simply saying no to pork this year and banking that savings in this budget, we can make sure that that per child tax credit stays. We can make sure that people don't pay higher taxes by virtue of simply being married.

Those are the choices we have before us today. We in the Republican budget say no more pork. Let's protect paychecks, and let's make sure we are not taxing people for having children or for getting married.

That's the values we have in our budget. And we think we can go farther and say, let's reform government. Let's reform spending. Let's clean it up. Let's not raise taxes.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I don't know what kind of statistical contortion must have gone through producing that last chart. We just finished 52 consecutive months of job growth, the largest expansion in our Nation's history.

But more to the point is this issue of whether we are raising taxes here or not, because we need to be honest with the American people. The underlying Democratic budget, don't take my word for it, it raises taxes. Take the Senate's word for it. Because just this morning on a 99-1 vote in the U.S. Senate, they rejected the logic of this budget. They said we want to preserve the middle-class tax cuts, which they define as the kid credit and the marriage penalty and 10 percent bracket and some others. But they changed the budget by $341 billion to prevent $341 billion of the $683 billion tax increase from taking place.

So don't take my word for it, but the Democrats and the Republicans in the Senate. All but one person said we should not raise taxes as much as the House Democrats are raising taxes; let's raise taxes half as much.

So the point is this: our friends on the other side of the aisle can come up with reserve funds and senses of Congress and preferences and hopes and dreams and aspirations. But what counts is what you put in the budget. And if you are coming to the floor and saying you are balancing the budget, by the way this budget is written, it only does so by giving us the largest tax increase in American history. No sense of Congress, no empty reserve fund can change that fact.

Don't listen to me. Listen to the fact that the Senate looked at this same budget and said, that is not what we want to do. We want to preserve some of these tax cuts, and they just voted 99-1 to do just that. They decided to raise taxes half as much as the Democrats here in the House are doing.

So what really matters are budgets, because that is the numbers. They don't lie. This budget that we are voting on, this underlying budget, gives us the largest tax increase in American history. Let me read a few of them:

Some 116 million taxpayers will see an average tax increase of more than $1,800 per year.

More than 6 million low-income individuals and couples who currently pay no taxes will be no longer exempt.

A family of four earning $50,000 will see their taxes increase by $2,100.

Approximately 48 million married couples will face an average tax increase of $3,000 per year.

Low-income families with one or two children will no longer be eligible for the refundable child tax credit.

Roughly 12 million single women with children will see their taxes increase by $1,100 a year.

About 18 million seniors will be subjected to tax increases of more than $2,100 a year.

Tax bills for an estimated 27 million small business owners will increase by more than $4,000 each.

That is what the underlying Democratic budget does. It was rejected in the Democratically controlled Senate. It ought to be rejected in this House here today.

Mr. Chairman, I wish my friend from Massachusetts would have stayed at the mike.

I simply want to ask if the Democratic budget balances the budget, if it achieves balance. Would the gentleman care to answer the question if the Democratic budget achieves balance in 2012?

My question was, Does the budget achieve balance in 2012?

Oh, well, that's different than what the Budget chairman says.

Reclaiming my time from the chairman of Financial Services, I'm not sure if he's on the same page as the chairman of the Budget Committee. The chairman of the Budget Committee is claiming that their budget balances the budget by 2012. I'll take him at his word, and actually it's correct. The Congressional Budget Office certifies that the Democratic budget does indeed balance in 2012. Here is how they certify it balances in 2012: by raising taxes.

They simply cannot say on the one hand they're balancing the budget, and then on the other hand not raising taxes. Because the only way their budget balances is only by raising taxes.

So, Mr. Chairman, don't listen to me. Listen to the 99 Senators who just voted this morning to validate everything I just said. Ninety-nine Senators, just a couple hours ago, voted for the Baucus amendment, the Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee's amendment, that said the tax increases in this budget are just a little too big; let's cut them in half. Let's reduce the tax increases by $341 billion. So it's only about a $300 billion tax increase. The Senate budget now has half the tax increase in it that this budget here does.

My friends, the Progressives, I want to compliment them because they're bringing a budget to the floor that reflects the principles that respect their values, and they are putting their rhetoric where their mouth is by bringing a budget to the floor, and I want to commend my Progressive friends for doing that. That's what we all should be doing.

You hear me criticizing the underlying budget. You hear me criticizing the Progressive budget. But we will be bringing our own budget to the floor in just a few minutes to show what we stand for; and what we stand for is controlling spending, is doing an earmark moratorium and saving that money. By just saying ``no'' to earmarks for a year, as our budget proposes to do, we can pay for making the child tax credit permanent, making the marriage penalty repeal permanent. Just those two things.

So at the end of the day, Mr. Chairman, it's about choices. It is about values. Do we want pork, or do we want more money in paychecks of Americans? Pork or paychecks? We are going to vote for paychecks. And the reason we're going to vote for putting more money in people's paychecks, for protecting their paychecks, is because people's paychecks aren't stretching as far as they used to.

You have high gas prices, high home health heating prices, high health care prices, high food prices. The last thing the American workers need today, the last thing American families need today is an average $3,000 tax increase. We shouldn't be taxing people because they're married. We shouldn't be raising taxes $500 per child. We shouldn't be making small businesses pay a higher tax rate than the largest corporations in America. Yet, that is exactly what the Democratic budget does.

It's what the Progressive budget does as well. It's what the Congressional Black Caucus budget does as well. It's a difference of opinion. It's a difference of values. We think Washington spends too much money. And my friend from California, she was right when she said it is about morals; it is about values. And we have different ideas.

We believe that the engine of economic growth, what makes America great, is its people, are the families, the workers, the small businesses, the entrepreneurs of America.

We also believe we have a moral imperative to make right by future generations. You know, my parents told me that the legacy of America is you leave the next generation better off. You make them safer, more prosperous, and will to them a higher standard of living.

We may sever that relationship because of the unsustainable past of our entitlement programs which each of these budgets makes worse. The Democratic budget, just in two programs, sends two programs, Medicare and Social Security, $14 trillion deeper in debt. That's wrong. That's giving our children and grandchildren a huge debt, a higher debt.

We think we need to go the other direction. We need to reform these programs so it can fulfill the mission of health and retirement security, but do so while still guaranteeing our children and grandchildren get a better future, a more prosperous future, a higher standard of living. That's why we should vote ``no'' on all of these budgets.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I thank the gentleman for all the work he has done on making us fiscally secure, being fiscally responsible, and bringing fiscal sanity to Congress. He's one of the leaders.

Mr. Chairman, the problem in Washington is not that we have too little tax money coming in. The problem in Washington is spending is too high.

Let me show you what this chart shows. It's a little complicated. The red line shows you the Democrats' line of higher taxes. The blue line shows you the revenue line that our budget will do, which is lower taxes. That's the difference of the marriage penalty, the child tax credit, income tax rates across the board, capital gains, dividends, the death taxes. The green line is the current spending trajectory that we are on. Let me describe what it looks like in just one program, as foreseen in the Democratic budget.

Under the Democratic budget, the Medicare program today has an unfunded liability of $34 trillion. What does that mean per household, per family? Three hundred thousand dollars. Right now, every family in America would have to put in $300,000 just to make Medicare secure, just to make Medicare viable and solvent. Under the Democratic budget, they increase that debt by $11 trillion in just 5 years. This 5-year budget says that in 5 years, by the time their budget expires, it will be about a $400,000 burden to every single household in America. You can buy a pretty darn nice house for $400,000.

Let me explain what this looks like across the board. And that's just one program where they're raising the debt by $11 trillion. This is the one that counts the most, Mr. Chairman.

For the last 40 years, the Federal Government has been pretty consistent in how much money it has had to tax to pay for the Federal Government. Washington had had to tax about 18.3 cents on the dollar for every dollar made in America. About 18.3 cents of the dollar made in America went to pay for Washington. Well, because of the baby boomers, because of their retirement, this isn't a Democrat thing or a Republican thing. It's just what's happening in America, because we are doubling the amount of retirees we have in this country, we're going from 40 million retirees to 78 million retirees. And these programs are what we call pay-as-you-go, where current workers pay a current tax to finance the benefits for current beneficiaries.

So I'm paying my payroll taxes and my income taxes for my mom, who's on Medicare and Social Security. That's the way the system works. And it works out well if you have an equal ratio of workers and beneficiaries, but we don't. The reason we don't is because our birth rates declined after the baby boomer generation. There's nothing wrong, nothing sinister about it. It's just that it is what it is.

And so we're increasing our tax-consuming generation. We're increasing the beneficiaries by 100 percent, but we're only increasing the taxpayers by 17 percent. That, in a nutshell, is why we have this fiscal train wreck. That, in a nutshell, is why we're staring at these enormous debts in our country's future.

What does that mean to the future of our country? What does that mean for our children and our grandchildren? I'll tell you what it means to my three children. My son Sam is 3, my son Charlie is 4, my daughter Liza is 6. By the time my three children are exactly my age, and I'm not the oldest guy around here, by the time they are my age, they will have to pay twice what we pay in taxes just to keep today's Federal Government going for them at that time.

Let me say it a different way. Instead of taking 18.3 cents out of every dollar made in America today, when my three kids are my age, they're going to have to spend 40 cents on every dollar made in America just to pay the bills to the Federal Government.

Mr. Chairman, we have real competition that we have staring us in the face. We have competition from India, from China. The age of the global economy is here with us whether we like it or not, it is here. You can't extend and give a prosperous Nation a higher standard of living to the next generation if we're doubling their taxes. If we say today it's 18 cents on the dollar and tomorrow it's 40 cents on the dollar, you can't give our children and grandchildren a chance at a great career at a higher standard of living in this new competitive era we're in. If we do go down this path, we're going to give more and more jobs to China, to India, to other countries.

So we say what we ought to do is do what our employers want us to do. The people that sent us here to Congress want us to fix this problem. They want us to fulfill the mission of healthy retirement security and do it without bankrupting future generations, and do it so we can stay competitive in a global economy so that we can pass a better future on to future generations. That's why this budget should be defeated.

Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman from Texas mentioned, we are not saying all earmarks are bad. Some of them are worthy. Some of them are vetted. Some of them fit within the proper role of the Federal Government. But a lot of them are bad. A lot of them are wasteful. A lot of them probably go outside of what most people think is the proper role of the Federal Government.

The point is we don't have all the answers on how to make it work right. That's why we think we ought to have a commission of an equal number of Democrats, an equal number of Republicans, the Kingston-Wolf Commission is what everybody calls it, to figure out how to make these things work right so that Congress can regain the trust and confidence of the American people. But in the meantime, let's say ``no'' to these earmarks for a year. Let's do a moratorium. That's what we do.

Do you know what we can accomplish by actually having a moratorium of earmarks for 1 year? By banking those savings, by saying ``no'' to earmarks for a year and carrying those savings in our budget, we can make sure that we're not going to cut the child tax credit in half; that we are not going to tax people for being married. We can make permanent the $1,000 per-child tax credit, the repeal of the marriage tax penalty.

Let me just read along this list of earmarks that we have: an ode to Tom Daschle, a nice guy, former Senate majority leader, a $1 million earmark to create a center for Tom Daschle in South Dakota. Or we could look at the Hippie Museum. This one's been pretty well known, $1 million to commemorate hippies at Woodstock. Or we can look at the sailing earmark, they call it, a 65-foot catamaran sailing around Monterey Bay. It sounds like a fun thing to do. Why should people in Wisconsin pay their Federal taxes to pay for that? Or we could take a look at all the lists and lists and lists that go on. One of my personal favorites is the ``ferry to nowhere.'' That came from our side of the aisle, $50 million for a Navy expeditionary marine craft, just a ferry to go to a peninsula that serves 40 people.

The point is, Mr. Chairman, we're not saying that Republicans are so much better than Democrats on all of this. We're saying Congress is broken in this area. Let's fix it. But in the meantime, let's save this money. Let's have a time out. Let's fix this problem so that we can regain the trust and take that money and do two really important things: let's not tax people for being married, and let's not raise taxes on American families by $500 per child. We can do those two things by simply saying ``no'' to earmarks this year. That's what our budget will do.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 1 minute to the esteemed minority leader, Mr. Boehner.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to our minority whip, Mr. Blunt.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield myself 6 minutes, and I'm going address the House in the well.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to start off by thanking my friends from New Jersey and South Carolina. They did put together a credible budget that adds up. We did, too.

Budgets are about priorities; they're about values; they're about what way you think the country should go on a fiscal ship. Let me walk through our budget and how it's different.

Number one, my friend from New Jersey and the chairman himself said that by calling our budget that makes today's tax policy a permanent tax cut, I want to thank them for saying that. By keeping tax rates where they are today, which is what we propose, a tax cut, then the opposite of that is a tax increase. They have proven my point. Their budget raises taxes.

Now, let me simply show you, Mr. Chairman. This red line is the baseline that the Democrats have chosen to adopt for their budget. This blue line is the baseline we've chosen on revenues to adopt for our budget. The blue line says, make the child tax credit permanent, repeal the marriage penalty forever, make the income tax rate not go up, keep the death tax repealed, keep the lowered tax rate on capital gains and dividends. What does the Democrat budget do? It raises taxes $683 billion on everybody, not just rich people.

What do we do on the alternative minimum tax? Here's what the Democratic budget proposes to do: It proposes to patch it for a year by swapping it out with another tax increase. Then, by 2009, about 30 million people are going to get hit by it; 2010, 31 million people. On and on and on. We propose to make sure no new people get hit by the alternative minimum tax, then we phase it out completely. That's point two of what our budget achieves.

Point three, and I think you're going to hear this a lot, we cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cutting here, cutting there. You hear this sort of legislative gobbledygook about function 920. Well, as we looked at the Democratic budget, we really couldn't find any savings, but we did, we found a sliver of savings in the budget. Where was that sliver of savings kept? Function 920.

What matters in a budget resolution are two numbers, the discretionary number, the 302(a) we call that, we do that, and the direction to the committees, we do that. We do it just like the Democrats did it. That's how we wrote our budget. But there's a difference. You may not be able to see this. For those who are watching on TV, you may have to zoom in. The CBO baseline is the red line. The Republican substitute is the blue line. Not a huge gap of difference in spending. We are simply saying let's not spend that money as fast, and by controlling the growth and the increase in spending, we can make sure we don't raise taxes on the American people. We can repeal the alternative minimum tax. That's the difference in values between the two of us.

Let me give it to you in a different way. What we Republicans are proposing to do is, instead of spending $15.82 trillion over the next 5 years, let's instead spend $15.32 trillion over the next 5 years. Don't spend 15.8, spend 15.3. What's the difference? We're not cutting the child tax credit in half. We're not bringing back the marriage tax penalty. We're not raising every single income tax payer's tax rates across the board. We're not raising the tax on pensions and 401(k)s by raising the tax on dividends and capital gains, and we're not going to keep taxing people when they die. At the end of the day, though, what are we doing for our children and our grandchildren? That's what we should be talking about in budgeting.

Budgets are moral documents. There is a moral imperative before this country, before this Congress, and that moral imperative is, what are we doing for future generations? In just one program, in just one program, the Medicare program, one of the most important programs in the history of the Federal Government, the Democrats' budget proposes to increase its debt by $11 trillion. The debt for Medicare right now stands at $34 trillion; that's the unfunded liability. What are the Democrats doing by doing nothing, by going 5 years with blinders on? $45 trillion. That breaks down to $395,000 per household, each household would owe to make Medicare whole.

What are we doing? We're reforming the program. We're making it work better. We're giving it changes that are needed so that we can make it sustainable, so we can save the program for the baby boomers.

We lower the Medicare debt and unfunded liability by $11 trillion to 23. The Democrats raise the debt to Medicare alone by $11 trillion; we reduced it by $11 trillion. At the end of the day, it's about priorities.

We also call for a 1-year moratorium on earmarks. We're simply saying, let's just take a time-out from pork for a year in Congress. What do we achieve with that? By not doing earmarks for 1 year and by saving that money in this budget, we can make sure we don't raise taxes on every household by $500 per child. We can make sure we don't return to the days of taxing people when they're married. Just those two things can be accomplished by saying ``no'' to earmarks for a year, having a time-out, saying let's have Democrats and Republicans from both parties from both the Senate and the House get together and figure out how to clean up this system and, in the meantime, save the money. So we don't tax people for having kids and we don't tax people for being married.

At the end of the day, you're going to hear all this rhetoric about cuts, about devastation, about how wrong it is and how immoral it is. We're simply saying, instead of spending $15.8 trillion, spend $15.3 trillion. We're still increasing spending, but let's not increase it as fast as Washington has been spending it so we can save that money, so we can make sure we don't raise taxes on Americans. That's what our budget does.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds just to simply say to my friend from Illinois, cutting military benefits? Where did that one come from? Not true, not even anywhere in our budget. You know what? Medicare goes up, spending goes up. Education? Spending increases. I don't know where these cuts are coming from that he's talking about, but that's not in our budget.

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia, our assistant minority whip, Mr. Cantor.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to make three points.

The gentleman's revenue chart makes our point. After the dot-com bubble, we went into recession and revenues went down. After the tax cuts, and his own chart makes the point clear, revenues went up.

Point number two, this budget, the Democratic budgets, has the single largest increase in the national debt in any given year in the history of the country.

Point number three, Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman just acknowledged more or less, their budget raises taxes. We don't believe we should be raising taxes at a time when people are paying a lot just to live in a time when we're about to go into recession.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina, the vice-ranking member of the Budget Committee (Mr. Barrett).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, a senior member of the Budget Committee, (Mr. Hensarling).

Will the gentleman yield for a friendly point on that?

The gentleman is right. Earmarks proliferated under Republican watch. You're right about that. Both parties are guilty. That is why we should have a moratorium and clean the system up.

Will the gentleman yield on that point? This budget is a 1-year, for-the-rest-of-the-Congress moratorium.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield myself 1 minute simply to praise the majority leader before he leaves because he has been a man who has sincerely discussed and talked about the need to reform entitlements most of his career. And we need to talk to each other more often. I want to praise him for his leadership on entitlements.

I also want to say that this budget proposes to borrow more in one year from foreign governments than any has in history. Also, Mr. Chairman, let's take a look at the 2003 taxes.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Reclaiming my time, my point is the Democrats' budget, the Spratt budget, has the single largest increase in national debt in any given year, which comes from largely foreign governments these days.

My other point was I understand why my friends on the other side of the aisle are so dismissive of these tax cuts in 2003. Only three Democrats who are here today voted for them. All but three of them voted against them. They voted against reducing the marriage tax penalty. They voted against expanding the child tax credit. They voted against lowering tax rates across the board. They voted against lowering dividends and capital gains and repealing the death tax.

I simply would say that, as this chart shows you, even after all of those tax cuts, look what happened. Receipts went up. Four straight years of income tax receipts increased. Do you know why? People went to work. They got jobs. They paid taxes. Economic growth, even at those lower tax rates.

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

I want to inquire of the time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to who has the right to close. There seems to be difficulties about that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

Mr. Chairman, I will just take 30 seconds for myself.

I would simply say our budget does not have the veterans fee increases. That is in the President's budget. That is not in our budget.

Also, our budget does not cut Medicare and Medicaid by a half a trillion dollars. Under our budget, Medicare and Medicaid increases every year, one year after the other. We simply think it should not increase as fast as it is because we want to make it more solvent.

Third point, they say this is a new vision budget that they are proposing. All they are really doing is bringing us a CBO baseline and slapping another $280 billion on top of it. That's what their budget is. The problem is that the CBO baseline requires the largest tax increase in history. That's what we don't support.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the new Member from Georgia, Dr. Broun.

Mr. Chairman, may I just ask the chairman of the Budget Committee, are you the last person? You are going to close next, no more speakers on your side; is that right?

All right. I will address the House from the well for the remainder of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask how much time I have left?

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

First of all, I would like to say thank you to a few people. I would like to take this moment to recognize the hard work of the minority staff of the Budget Committee.

I want to thank Austin Smythe, our new staff director; Chauncey Goss, Pat Knudson, Charlene Crawford, Tim Flynn, John Gray, Jim Herz, Charlotte Ivancic, Angela Kuck, Paul Restuccia, Jon Romito, Stephen Sepp and Clete Willems; and our interns, Sigurd Neubauer, Dustin Antonello, and Ryan Michaels.

I am very fortunate to have very bright, very talented, and very dedicated coworkers on the Budget Committee. I also want to thank the chairman for being a gentleman and for his staff for being professional as well.

I have a problem with the budget the chairman has brought to the floor. We have a different vision. It's good that we have these choices. We owe the American people a choice. We owe them two different visions to choose from in this country.

That's what's good about elections. Lately, the differences have been muddled. I'm glad we are making them more clear. What do we want to do with our budget?

We believe that we should do a few things. We should balance the budget, number one, and we shouldn't raise taxes. We think that it's really tough for people to afford just the cost of living today. You are filling up your gas pump at the highest prices you have ever paid before. You are paying health care costs the highest you have probably ever paid before. Food prices are up $70 a month for the average family these days.

The last thing the American taxpayer needs is a big tax increase, an average of $3,000 per family per year. That's what the Democrat budget has.

Now, the Democrats like to say they have this policy document in their budget. On page 48, it's the policy that we don't want these taxes to go up. Then they say, later on, but we are balancing the budget.

The first 27 pages are ones that matter in this budget, the numbers. They can't have it both ways. They can't look the American people in the eye and say we are balancing the budget and we are not raising taxes, because

the only way they balance the budget, you can bring out all these left- of-center experts that tell you otherwise, but according to the numbers, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the only way they balance the budget is by enacting the largest tax increase in American history.

So the question is, at this time of economic uncertainty, at this time of job loss, at this time where we possibly could go into a recession, at this time of high prices of living, can we afford the Democrats' tax hike? I would like to know. I would like to get e-mails and calls from people to know, can we afford this?

What is our vision? Our vision is to balance the budget without raising taxes. The key thing is we have got to save money. We are not even proposing to cut spending. We are saying instead of spending $15.832 trillion over the next 5 years, let's spend $15.32 trillion over the next 5 years. Instead of growing spending at 5.2 percent, let's grow it at 3.8 percent.

In that, we are saying let's put a down payment for reform on our children and grandchildren so we can make Medicare and Social Security more solvent, so we can say to the seniors of this country we want Social Security and Medicare to last for you and for our kids.

But we also say, this Congress is broken. Most people get that. We don't call earmarks congressional initiatives or investments; it's pork. If we just do away with the pork for 1 year, we can put a down payment on making sure we don't have our taxes increased. For 1 year, we can make sure we don't raise taxes on everybody who has children by $500 per child. We can make sure we are not going to tax people simply because they are married if Congress just says ``no'' for pork for a year.

So what's the question? Do we want pork or paychecks? More money in workers' paychecks or more pork up here in Washington?

I agree that earmarks are necessary and are a function of this branch of government. It's out of control. It's broken. It needs to be fixed.

Let's stop them for a year, fix this problem so that it has the integrity and the faith that the American people deserve. While we are doing that, let's balance the budget without raising taxes. That is what our budget does.

Yet you hear this same old thing in Washington every year. What they always say is, if you are doing anything other than spending as much as they want, you are cutting spending. If you are not throwing all this money at new programs, you are cutting spending, you are hurting the veterans, you are hurting children, you are hurting people, you are doing this, you are doing that. We are simply saying we need to control our spending in this town.

You see, Washington doesn't have a tax revenue problem. Plenty of money is coming in. Washington has a spending problem. We have got to get our handle on that spending.

By controlling that spending, by growing it at a slower pace, by putting a down payment on reform, by making Medicare more solvent, we can do those things while we balance the budget without raising taxes.

That's the choice. We can have their plan with the largest tax increase in history, more and more and more spending, more earmarks, more pork, less money in our paychecks, or we can have our plan: control spending, balance the budget, keep more money in your paychecks.

Because you know what? Paychecks aren't going as far as they used to. They don't cover as much groceries, as many gas tanks. They don't cover as much of health care bills as they used to. We believe it's the people's money; they believe it's Washington's money. That's the basic difference at the end of the day.

We believe people ought to keep more of their own money because it is their money. They believe it's Washington money, and they want more of it.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we are about to decide which path we want to take in America. We are about to decide what budget is right for Americans. Well, let's think about what Americans are facing today as we consider their budget for the next 5 years. What's happening in America today?

Well, joblessness is up. The economy is in a downturn. It may be going into a recession. Prices are up. People are having a hard time to afford the cost of living. Gas prices are at an all-time high. Health care costs are at an all-time high and growing very fast. Home heating costs are very high. And it's a lot more expensive just to pay for food today because food prices are up. So the question is, as we debate the values that are underneath this budget, can the American people afford this Democratic budget?

Now, my friends on the other side of the aisle are going to try to say all day today they're not raising taxes. We really aren't, believe us, trust us.

Well, my friends, numbers don't lie. And this budget is a series of numbers. And the numbers they're bringing before this House in their budget resolution requires, assumes, banks, plans on the largest tax increase in American history.

When we looked at the 1993 budget that passed last decade, even then Senator Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, a very, very wise man, a statesman, adored by both sides, said at that time that that was the largest tax increase in history. That tax increase was $241 billion. Under the same logic, under the same math, under the same process that we have here today, the tax increase in this budget is $683 billion.

But let's look at what kinds of taxes we're talking about. And this begs the question, can the American people afford this budget? This increases the marriage penalty in 2\1/2\ years. Can the American people afford that? It cuts the $1,000 child tax credit in half. It eliminates the marriage penalty tax relief and increases marginal tax rates. It eliminates capital gains and dividends relief, and it brings back the death tax.

Let's take a look at what the numbers are. Income tax rates go up across the board to the top rate of almost 40 percent. Capital gains and dividends, which are the taxes on our pensions and our savings and our 401(k)s, go up across the board as high as 40 percent. The death tax comes back in to 55 percent. The marriage penalty comes and hits an average of $1,400 per couple. The child tax credit goes from $1,000 down to $500. And the lowest tax bracket goes from 10 percent up to 15 percent.

Let me just give you some numbers of what this will mean to average Americans. Roughly 116 million taxpayers will see their taxes increase, on average, by $1,833. An estimated 84 million women would sustain, on average, a tax increase of $2,121. Approximately 48 million married couples would incur an average tax increase of over $3,000. Taxes would increase by an average of $2,323 for 43 million families with children. Some 12 million single women with children would see their taxes increase, on average, by $1,091. For 18 million elderly individuals, taxes would increase, on average, $2,181. And the tax bills for 27 million small business owners would rise, on average, by more than $4,000. More than 6 million taxpayers who previously owed no taxes at all would become subject to the individual income tax as a consequence of the tax increase in this budget.

These aren't rich people. These are ordinary Americans working paycheck to paycheck trying to get by. The problem we have today is our paychecks aren't going as far as they did before because we have rising gas prices, high home heating costs, high health care costs.

So the question is, can the American people afford this budget?

I ask people watching this to send us your e-mail. Give us a call. Call your Member of Congress and tell us, is that what you want us to do?

And the more important question is, should we balance the budget? Yes.

Both Republicans and Democrats say we ought to balance the budget. Here's the difference: We believe we ought to balance the budget by controlling spending, not by raising taxes. And, unfortunately, what the Democrats choose to do is increase spending and taxes.

So their budget will show, by the Congressional Budget Office in their numbers, they will achieve balance. The way they achieve balance is they spend an extra $280 billion over 5 years, but they increase taxes a whole lot more than that to get to a balanced budget.

What's more important about this budget for our children and grandchildren is not the economic damage that would be done by this budget with these huge tax increases for every income taxpayer, for married people, for people with children, for small businesses, for farmers, for investors. What really is troubling about this budget is not as much as what is in this budget, the largest tax increase in history. What's really almost the most troubling about this budget is doing nothing, doing nothing to save money, doing nothing to reform our entitlement programs. We just heard my friend from Texas. I'm on two committees with the gentleman. He said a $3 trillion increase in debt over the last 5 years. This budget proposes, in just two programs, to increase the debt by $14 trillion.

Let me go through that again. By doing nothing to rescue and save Social Security and Medicare, this budget proposes, by its own virtue, to increase the debt to those two programs by $14 trillion.

We have an obligation to the next generation to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We have an obligation to the next generation to leave them with a better fiscal state.

Our friends on the other side of the aisle have chosen to walk away from that responsibility. They have chosen to have more money to spend today, to raise taxes, and to make matters worse for the next generation.

We think that's the wrong way to go. We don't think the American people at this time of economic downturn, at this time of high prices, we can afford a tax increase of all times. We don't think there ever should be a time where we increase taxes, because you know what, Mr. Speaker? Washington doesn't have a tax revenue problem; Washington has a spending problem. And our friends on the other side of the aisle are making it worse by not only increasing spending but even increasing taxes.

That's the wrong recipe for this Congress. That's the wrong message to send our children and grandchildren. And that's the dead wrong thing to do at a time of high prices and economic downturn.

I think we should vote this budget down and do so on behalf of our children and our grandchildren and the American taxpayer so we can give a chance to our economy to actually grow. You're not going to grow an economy by giving us the largest tax increase in American history. That's for certain.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 12\1/2\ minutes.

Madam Chairman, in many ways I believe our two parties agree on many things. We both agree on the need to balance the budget. We agree on the need for solid, sustained economic growth that produces an abundance of good-paying American jobs. And we agree that the looming entitlement crisis is the greatest threat to our Nation's economic and budgetary future.

But as this budget makes clear, there is a glaring disagreement on how best to achieve these goals, or as in the case of entitlements, even to address this challenge.

Republicans believe that the best America is an America free from the burden of Big Government. We believe that the nucleus of our society, the engine of economic growth in this country, is the individual, the family, the entrepreneur, not the government. And we believe that the more the Federal Government expands demands and takes from these citizens, the less freedom they will have and the less opportunity to realize their own potential.

Clearly, the Democrats have a much different philosophy. They believe that bigger government is better government, and they believe that the best way, the only way to meet our Nation's myriad challenges is with an ever larger Federal Government fueled by even higher spending, financed by ever higher taxes. With this budget, the Democrats have proven their commitment to this philosophy. And as it did last year, the first thing this budget does is tout a whole lot of new spending for, as we heard in last week's speeches and press conferences and as we heard today, for everyone and everything.

But right next to this budget's much hyped new spending priorities and promises are somewhat less advertised big new tax hikes on American workers, families and small businesses, many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet.

In recent months, we've seen a whole host of legitimate concerns in the economy. Growth and job creation are slowing, and many Americans are seeing their home values falling. At the same time their food, energy and health care bills are going up. The worst thing we could do to these families or the struggling economy is raise taxes. But if we pass this budget, that's exactly what we will be doing. Passing this budget means imposing on the economy and on our constituents the largest tax increase in American history.

One of the most ironic things about the Democrats' tax increase is that it comes on the heels of this bipartisan economic stimulus plan. Just last month, Congress passed a stimulus package to give struggling families some of their tax dollars back and provide incentives for businesses to expand and create jobs. But before we could even get these checks out the door, the Democrats unveiled this budget that will take all that money back plus demand hundreds of billions more new higher taxes. Far from consistent tax policy, that's not even coherent tax policy. Is $600 really going to make a difference to somebody in Janesville, Wisconsin with a tax increase of nearly $3,000 per year looming on the horizon? Does a one-time check of $1,200 really make up for later raising taxes on that same family of four by $6,000 each and every year?

This budget will raise marginal tax rates on all income taxpayers, including low-income individuals who are benefiting from the 10 percent bracket. This budget will slash the $1,000 per child tax credit in half. It will reinstate the marriage tax penalty. It will make it that much harder for families to pay their mortgages, pay their grocery bills and send their kids to college.

Unlike the Democrats' rhetoric would have you believe, we are not just talking about hurting rich people. I know a whole lot of people back in Wisconsin who paid taxes, who are married and who have kids who do not consider themselves anything close to rich. But this budget's tax cuts will hit every single American taxpayer, whether or not they checked some imaginary ``rich'' box on their tax form.

Now, again, my friends on the other side of the aisle insist this isn't their plan, that they're really not going to raise your taxes. They've got all of these groups from the left saying that's not happening. But yet they keep writing those tax hikes in their budget. Why? Because their numbers would never work. Their budget would never show balance. And without those massive tax hikes, this budget requires, includes, assumes, mandates a $683 billion tax increase over just 5 years.

First, because it exhumes the complete expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. And because of their own PAYGO rule, just to continue those same laws which are already in place, they're required to offset those current provisions with an equal tax increase of $683 billion. So whatever way you cut it, you can't avoid it. It is a tax increase, a big one, the biggest we've ever seen.

And second, because they're already committed, every one of those tax dollars, to pay for their new spending. Beyond admitting the burden these tax hikes will put on our constituents and the economy, this Congress has got to understand that we will never rid our government of deficits and debt by simply raising taxes.

Our problem has never been that Americans aren't sending enough of their taxpayer dollars to Washington. Our problem has always been, and is clearly today, that Washington is spending too much money and far too quickly to be sustained.

But for all of the Democrats' purported concern about the deficit, all they've chosen to do since they came into the majority is spend more and more money. This year's budget would certainly continue that trend. The Democrats' budget proposes to increase entitlement spending by untold amounts of the use of numerous reserve funds. At the same time, they want to increase nonsecurity discretionary spending by more than $22 billion over the President's request.

But even while demanding billings and new spending, they fail to do anything to reduce the wasteful spending already included in these budgets. In fact, last year, the majority's appropriations bill included over 11,000 earmarks at a cost of nearly $15 billion to taxpayers.

This year, the majority has already rejected Republican calls for an earmark moratorium or even earmark reform to reduce the wasteful, self- serving spending. In this regard, we can expect more of the same: another year and another choice by the majority of pork over paychecks. But for all of the additional spending, the worst thing that is not in this budget is not what it does, but the many things it fails to do.

First, I think it's fair to note that if we apply the Democrats' own standards, this budget doesn't even achieve balance. That's because this budget suffers from the same shortcomings that the Democrats criticized the President's budget for doing just weeks ago.

This budget doesn't pay for the AMT fix and it doesn't pay for the war, as the chairman so eloquently criticized the Bush budget just a couple weeks ago. As a result, this chart shows that this budget doesn't really balance in 2012; instead, it remains in the red for as far as the eye can see.

Finally, for the second straight year, the majority budget fails to include even one meaningful reform to address our entitlement crisis. This means that even if this budget were to balance in 2012, it would be quickly driven right back into deficit by these programs' current path of growth. By ignoring this problem, this budget ignores every one of the witnesses we've called before the Budget Committee who have warned that our largest entitlement programs, particularly Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, simply cannot be sustained as currently structured.

These experts have told us unequivocally that if we fail to reform these programs, not only will they grow themselves right into extinction, they will impose a crushing burden on our debt, on our budget, and all but eliminate our Nation's ability to compete in the global marketplace.

Our Nation's chief accountant, GAO Comptroller General Walker, recently

testified that the long-term fiscal obligation of the U.S. Government is $53 trillion, or about $180,000 in unfunded liability for every man, woman, and child in the United States. It is $180,000 per person. You can buy really nice homes in Wisconsin for $180,000.

And we know that this problem, once dismissed as somewhere off in the future, is already upon us. On February 12 of this year, last month, the first baby boomer, a retired teacher from Maryland, received her first Social Security check. And right on her heels are over 80 million other baby boomers who will qualify for both Social Security and Medicare right after her. And just last month, the Medicare trigger was set off sending a clear warning shot to Congress that we must act immediately to get this program on a sustainable path.

In fact, by doing nothing, by ignoring this problem for another 5 years, the Democrats' budget will add another $14 trillion in unfunded liability for future generations. And this is just in the next 5 years. Over the long run, the problem will grow much worse than that.

As this chart shows, by the year 2040, our three largest entitlement programs alone will consume 20 percent of our economy, equivalent to the cost of the entire Federal Government today. By this time, the overall size of government will consume 40 percent of our Nation's GDP, more than double the historic average of 18.3 percent.

What that means in real life is my three children, who are 3, 4, and 6 years old, by the time they are exactly my age, they will have to pay twice the level of taxes we pay today just to keep today's Federal Government afloat for them at that time. Add no new programs and take none away, for my three kids, when they are my age, they will have to bear twice the burden we bear today just to pay the bills of the Federal Government before they can keep any money left in their own paychecks.

The only choice we would leave them would be to pay the crippling tax burden or simply accept the fact that their Nation can no longer afford health care, education, or even defense or national security. I can't imagine any one of us who finds that kind of future acceptable, but this is exactly what this budget confines them to do.

Everyone talks about this common entitlement as our greatest challenge, and rightfully so, but it is also our greatest opportunity. Today, with this budget, we have an opportunity to save our largest retirement and health safety net programs from financial ruin. We can make these programs better, stronger, more responsive, more resilient, more sustainable, and more in line with the way our economy works today.

And if we act now, we have the opportunity to make these reforms in a rational, well-thought-out way. We don't have to wait for the crisis to hit. But regrettably, that's exactly what the Democratic majority would have us do. With this budget, they are simply accepting that we are going to continue to pile up massive amounts of debt for our children and we are going to force them to pay double what we do in taxes to keep these programs afloat in the future.

In closing, let me say that I have come to know and respect many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. In particular, I think the gentleman from South Carolina is the definition of a true Southern gentlemen. He's a class-act man, and I don't have any doubt in my mind that every one of them on the other side of the aisle are just as well intentioned and just as concerned about our Nation's future as anyone is on this side of the aisle.

Every one of us wants our Nation to remain strong, safe, prosperous, and free today and well into the future. Every one of us wants to pass on to the next generation a world that is even better than the one our parents gave us. By giving us these jobs, by sending us to Congress, that's exactly what our constituents entrusted us to do.

With that great responsibility in mind, I will be opposing this budget that we are considering today. This budget misses an historic opportunity to put our Nation on a better path. Instead, they choose the path of Big Government, higher spending, higher taxes, higher debt. I can only hope that this Congress will choose to change its course before it's too late, because if we fail, we may be the first generation to sever that precious, fragile American legacy of leaving a better standard of living for future generations.

With that, Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds only to say that this budget that's before us raises the national debt by $646 billion this year, the largest annual increase ever. And that's $14 trillion of unfunded debt to just two programs, Medicare and Social Security.

With that, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina, the vice ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Barrett.

At this time, Madam Chairman, I will yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), a member of the Budget Committee.

At this time, Madam Chairman, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Hensarling.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California, the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee (Mr. Lewis).

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the newest member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren).

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California, a member of the Budget Committee (Mr. Campbell).

May I inquire how much time remains between the two sides.

I will reserve.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a senior member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry), a member of the budget committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to a senior Member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Johnson.

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

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes, 2 minutes to say, ``wow.'' We just heard from the sort of self-proclaimed fiscal conservative wing of the Democratic Party talking about, while it's wrong to increase debt, it's bad to send this to future generations, and then to have all of them come here and say how great it is that they're spending so much more money on all these new programs in their budget.

We've also heard another claim, that there are no tax increases in this budget. Well, I've got the budget right here. The budget is a series of numbers, and the numbers are crystal clear. The numbers raise taxes.

We heard from two gentlemen from Florida, two gentlemen from Tennessee and the gentlelady from South Dakota. The average annual tax increase on the average taxpayer in Arkansas is $2,462 per year. The average tax increase for the taxpayer under this budget in Florida is $3,040. The average annual tax increase for the average taxpayer in South Dakota is $2,596. And the average tax increase for the average taxpayer in Tennessee is $2,611.

Now there is this thing at the end of this budget resolution in section 5, and it's a policy title. And it says, basically, we don't want to raise these taxes, we hope not to do it, but this resolution, Madam Chairman, is worth no more than the paper it's printed on. It's simply a sense of the Congress resolution. It's the legislative equivalent of passing a bill and saying, ``Have a nice day.''

This budget unequivocally, extremely clearly, relies on, depends on the largest tax increase in American history. Repealing the marriage tax penalty relief, raising income tax rates across the board, cutting in half the marriage tax penalty, bringing back the death tax in full force, raising the dividends in the capital gains tax. Real taxpayers paying really high taxes, about $3,000 on average: $2,400 in Arkansas, $3,000 in Florida, $2,600 in South Dakota, $2,600 in Tennessee. That's real money.

With that, Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. McCrery.

Madam Chairman, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).

Madam Chairman, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, Mr. Camp from Michigan.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann).

I thank the gentlewoman for her comments.

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Agriculture Committee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Isn't it the case that the Republicans controlled Congress from 1995 on?

If the gentleman would yield, I simply wanted to chime in and compliment the gentlelady as well, my friend from Wisconsin. She and I coauthored an amendment to this budget resolution on this issue.

It makes no sense for child support payments not to go to the children. That is unfortunately what is happening today. And I would very much like to work with the gentlelady and anybody who is interested in coming up with the offsets in the Ways and Means Committee, from which this jurisdiction derives, to find a way to fix this problem. I think this is an area that has wide bipartisan support. And this is one of those areas where I surely would like to think we can come up with the savings to fix this injustice.

I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time remains between the two sides.

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), a senior member of the Budget Committee.

If the gentleman would yield, it is also interesting that after that tax increase, from that tax bracket, the Federal Government actually brought in less money under those higher tax rates.

Mr. Chairman, at this time I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter), the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

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

Mr. Chairman, let me inquire as to how much time is remaining for each side.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), a senior member of the Budget Committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I first want to start off by congratulating the chairman of the Budget Committee, a good man, a man I have a lot of respect for who has a hardworking staff and a diligent staff. I want to compliment them. These budget resolutions are not easy to write.

He has a tough job because he has to defend this budget. This is a budget I wouldn't want to come to the floor to defend. I just have to bring one point to bear, and I do so respectfully. You cannot say that you are balancing the budget and not raising taxes. It is illogical and axiomatically impossible. Let me explain why.

This red line is the baseline that the Democrats are using for their budget. It is what we also refer to as the CBO baseline. This green line is the baseline minus the tax increases. They are using the red line, not the green line. This means in order for them to achieve a balanced budget, what must happen, what is required to happen, what has to happen, all of these taxes have to be raised, specifically by $683 billion over the next 5 years.

Now, my friend from New Jersey, another very conscientious, skillful Member, said that was a tax vote he regretted not taking. And the Senator from New York at that time, Senator Moynihan, said that was the largest tax increase in American history. That was $240 billion. This one is $683 billion. This is the largest tax increase in American history.

The point is this: You cannot claim you are balancing the budget and not raising taxes because you are relying on these very tax increases to balance the budget. That is what this budget does. Now, no amount of reserve funds, no amount of senses of Congress, no amounts of ``we have delayed the decision on the tax cuts for now'' gets them out of this bind. They can't. It is impossible. You have to have it one way or the other. Either you are not balancing the budget or you are not raising these taxes because, Mr. Chairman, they are not saving any money. There is no savings in this budget.

The piece of paper I have in my hand is more valuable than the amount of savings they have in this budget. This paper, may it cost 1, 2 pennies. That is more money than they are saving in this budget over the next 5 years. In fact, they are expanding spending. They are increasing discretionary spending by $280 billion. What is worse is they are going to add, in just two programs, an unfunded liability of $14 trillion, to just two programs, Medicare and Social Security.

Let's look at the Medicare program. Today, the Medicare unfunded liability, according to David Walker, our GAO Comptroller General, is at $34 trillion. That is an average per household bill of $300,050. Every household in America right now, if we want to make Medicare whole for my children when they need it, 300 grand.

Under this budget, because they do nothing, they are adding $11 trillion to that liability. That is $395,650, almost $400,000 for one household to cover Medicare so my children can maybe get it. That's for our kids. That is wrong.

We have got to address these issues.

Now, Mr. Chairman, surely, there's waste in government. Surely, there's efficiencies we can get. But this budget concludes that there is not. This budget is basically saying, Washington's not wasting any money. All of these earmarks, the 11,000 we passed last year, are perfect, they're justified; we should do 11,000 more. And there's no waste, fraud or abuse anywhere in the Federal Government. In fact, they're doing such a good job in Washington spending our tax dollars, let's give them $280 billion more to spend. And on top of it, given the fact that our entitlements are going bankrupt, given the fact that we have an unsustainable course, let's just add more to the debt; and we're going to raise taxes while we do it. But we won't tell people. We'll pass this kind of cute reserve fund, sense of the Congress that says we really don't want to raise those taxes, but we're balancing the budget. That means you're raising taxes if you're going to balance the budget.

But let's look at the brass tacks. And this is what I want to ask the American people. Can you afford this budget?

People are struggling right now. People are losing jobs. We just finished 52 consecutive months of positive job growth, very impressive growth. Finished, I said. The last couple of months they've been bad months.

Also, prices; the cost of living is going up to America, the cost of health insurance, the cost of food, the cost of filling your gas tank when you take your kids to school, the cost of sending your kids to college. The cost of living is higher and higher, and people's pay checks are not getting as far along as they used to.

And so what does this budget do? It raises their taxes. It says you're going to have to send, on average, three more grand per person to Washington because we don't think Washington has enough of your money. We think Washington's great. There's no waste, there's no inefficiency, no fraud. We, in fact, need more of your taxpayer dollars, you, American men and women of America.

So I'd like to know, is that what America wants? Tell us. Call us, e- mail us. Call your Congressman. Because here's what this bill will do specifically. 116 million taxpayers will see their taxes on average go up $1,800; 84 million women will sustain, on average, a tax increase of $2,121; 48 million married couples will incur an average tax increase of over $3,000. Taxes will increase by an average of $2,323 for 43 million families with children. Some 12 million single women with children will see their taxes increase on average by $1,091. For 18 million elderly individuals taxes will increase by an average of $2,181. Tax bills for 27 million small business owners will rise on average by more than $4,000. And more than 6 million taxpayers who previously owed no taxes at all will become subject to the individual income tax as consequence of these tax increases.

Mr. Chairman, we had an opportunity here. We had an opportunity to do something that I felt would be good and bipartisan. I've heard my colleagues on the other side talk about the need to do this.

We had all these witnesses come to the Budget Committee, saying we've got to get our fiscal house in order, that we owe the next generation a debt-free Nation, that we owe them the mission of health and retirement being fulfilled, which means reforming our entitlement programs.

This budget says for the next 5 years, let's not do any of it. Let's make sure that we're on the glide path so that our kids will pay literally twice what we pay today in taxes, just for our Federal Government today to be there for them when they're our age.

This is a lost opportunity. Under this budget, the unfunded obligation that are Medicare and Social Security themselves go up 37 percent, $14 trillion. I'm upset at the debt that was racked up lately, but it pales in comparison to the debt that this budget proposes to rack up.

So what we really ought to be doing, Mr. Chairman, is we ought to be fixing this budget process, having real budget discipline, real spending caps. We ought to be making reform decisions. And the last thing we ought to be doing in this time of high prices, a tough standard of living to maintain, in this time of economic downturn which quite possibly could come into recession, the last thing we ought to be doing is raising taxes. That is what this budget does.

We will propose a different alternative tomorrow. We will propose a budget that balances the budget without raising taxes by controlling spending. And even in doing that, spending will still go up one year after the other. Instead of spending $15.8 trillion over the next 5 years, we're going to propose to spend $15.3 trillion. And by simply doing that, by simply exerting a little bit of discipline, we're going to make sure that we're not raising these taxes, and we're going to repeal the alternative minimum tax.

One more thing, Mr. Chairman. This earmark problem is getting out of control. Earmarks are an abuse. Some are worthy, some are right, but a lot of them aren't. We've got to control this. We are proposing a real earmark moratorium.

More importantly, we are saying let's take a timeout from earmarks and let's save that money. Our proposal tomorrow will not only have an earmark moratorium, it will save the money from an earmark moratorium. And if Congress just says no to earmarks for 1 year, you know what we can do? We can make permanent the child tax credit and the repeal of the marriage tax penalty. We can say, pass up your earmarks for a year in Congress and don't tax people for getting married. Pass up your earmarks for a year in Congress and don't cut the child tax credit in half.

These are the choices we are being confronted with. These are the choices that we must make. These are the values that we believe. We believe we owe our children a growing economy, a future of a higher prosperity, of a higher standard of living, and one in which the promise of health and retirement security is actually sustainable, is actually made good upon.

That's not what this budget does. There's no way you can split these hairs with the reserve funds, senses of Congress, flowery Washington rhetoric. This budget contains the largest tax increase in American history, not just on wealthy people, on all people. That's wrong. It's not right. We shouldn't do it because Washington doesn't have a tax revenue problem, Washington has a spending problem. Unfortunately, the Democrat budget makes it worse by spending even more money.

There is waste in Washington. There is waste in earmarks. There are entitlements that are out of control. We should confront those, instead of just throwing more money at Washington, because you know where that money comes from? It comes from the hard working men and women of America. It comes from families, it comes from entrepreneurs, it comes from small businesses, it comes from the individual of this country. That's wrong. They should be able to keep more of their own money and we should be able to clean up government.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this budget.

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