Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Westmoreland amendment and in opposition of the underlying bill.

Let's just review the numbers for a moment. This Energy and Water appropriation bill not only exceeds the President's request; it also increases spending by twice the rate of inflation. Under the Democrat budget resolution, nonemergency spending will increase by $81.4 billion compared to 2007, growing more than 9 percent, or triple the rate of inflation. That is triple the rate of our constituents', the American taxpayers', ability to pay for these bills. This is on top of the $6 billion that was already spent in the current year omnibus, and the $17 billion in non-war emergency spending that was added to the Iraq war supplemental.

But with this particular bill, here are my concerns: number one, it further opens the spigot on new spending. This is $1.1 billion above the President's request and $1.3 billion above the 2007 enacted levels. Again, far in excess of the rate of inflation.

Number two, it adds a lot of green for uncertain returns. The President requested $1.2 billion for renewable and energy efficiency under the Advanced Energy Initiative and the Reducing U.S. Dependence on Imported Energy Sources. This bill increases spending by 50 percent, yet it is extremely unclear whether this enormous boost in spending will actually do anything to achieve energy independence.

This bill also exploits the Democrats' pre-funding maneuver. This was wrong when Republicans did it. It is wrong when Democrats do it. Both parties have been doing these pre-funding maneuvers. This is basically taking from next year's bill.

I think the fact that they have already pre-funded $1.6 billion for FY 2008 Corps of Engineers spending frees up room under the cap so they can spend more money. So you have about a $1.8 billion smoke-and- mirrors pre-funding mechanism that allows them to spend even more money. That brings the total on top of the $1.3 billion to almost $3 billion over last year's enacted levels.

Now, $3 billion in an almost $3 trillion budget, people ask why should it matter. Why should we talk about these things. Here is why, Mr. Chairman, this matters: it starts one step at a time.

If you want to be fiscally conservative, if you want to be fiscally disciplined and watch the way we spend taxpayer dollars, we have to do it at every stage in the process. We will have to watch how we spend our taxpayer dollars.

The big problem I have with this budget resolution that is guiding this process, the current budget resolution leads to the largest tax increase in American history. Why on Earth would we want to pass the largest tax increase in American history at a time when our economy needs more jobs?

The tax cuts that occurred in 2003 created an unprecedented 7.9 million new jobs. It gave us 3 years of double-digit revenue growth, which helped us cut the deficit by more than 50 percent. And the key to reducing the deficit further is not increasing taxes or increasing spending. It is controlling spending.

That is the different vision between our two parties. We believe we need to balance the budget. The Democrat budget, the Democratic Party budget, does that too. They propose a balanced budget as well. They propose a balanced budget at this level of taxing and spending, whereas we propose a balanced budget at this lower level of taxing and spending, because we fundamentally believe that people ought to be able to keep more of their own money in their own pocket.

We don't measure success of a nation by measuring how much more money we spend in Washington. We measure success of a nation by how free people are in their own lives and how they have an ability to prosper and grow and how jobs and opportunities are being created in America. That is what we believe measures success.

So if we pass budgets that simply call for all this new spending, if we pass budgets which call for 23 reserve funds to spend $190 billion, in addition to what this budget right here does, what we are simply doing is saying we are going to tax people more, and then we are going to tax them more again, and we are going to spend that money.

That takes freedom and liberty away from taxpayers, away from individuals. That starves prosperity in America; it doesn't preserve prosperity in America. And that is why at every stage in this appropriations process, at every stage in this budget process we have to be mindful on how much money we are spending.

We are spending more than twice the rate of inflation in this bill. We are spending three times the rate of inflation on all of these appropriations bills. And that is far too much, Mr. Chairman. That is why I urge passage of the Westmoreland amendment and defeat of the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I wish to speak in support of the Westmoreland amendment. I think it does a good job of bringing spending to more reasonable levels.

But I would like to speak about the broader issue. Not only does this particular appropriation bill increase spending by $1.1 billion above the President's request, which is in excess of last year by double the rate of inflation, it is part of a broader appropriations effort to spend $23 billion above the President's request and 9 percent increase from this year versus last year, triple the rate of inflation.

Here is the problem with all these bills that spend all this extra money: This puts the taxpayer on a collision course with higher taxes. Because the budget resolution which we are now operating under leads to the largest tax increase in American history, by passing these large appropriations bills, $23 billion above the President's request, it puts us on a course for higher taxes.

Why is this a bad thing, Mr. Chairman? The reason this is such a bad thing is because these tax cuts, the tax relief gave us the economic prosperity we are enjoying today. It gave us the higher economic revenues that give us the ability to lower the deficit.

When we saw this problem in the economy in 2001 and 2003, consider all those problems America was facing, the Enron scandals, the dot-com bubble had burst, 9/11 happened, and we went into a recession.

What did Congress do at that time? Congress moved aggressively and swiftly to cut taxes, to cut tax rates on entrepreneurs, on small businesses, on corporations investing back in their businesses, on families and on taxpayers and working families.

What happened after that? Well, we created 7.9 million new jobs. Think of the fact that the eight quarters before tax cuts occurred, we had eight quarters of negative business investment. After that, we have had unprecedented business investment.

Think of the fact that we have averaged a job loss of 219,000 jobs per month before those tax cuts and now we are averaging almost 165,000 new jobs per month since those tax cuts.

Think of the fact, Mr. Chairman, that when the Enron bubble came and the dot-com bubble burst, people lost a lot of their savings when the market went down. Well, now the market is at an all-time high, and it is because of these tax cuts.

And so when we bring bills to the floor that promise all of this new spending, when we bring bills to the floor that spend $23 billion above the President's request, when we pass a budget that proposes 23 new slush funds to spend 190 billion more dollars in spending on top of those tax increases, this is a recipe for higher taxes.

So, you see, Mr. Chairman, what is coming through here on the floor, bill after bill, appropriation bill after appropriation bill, is more spending, higher spending, which leads to higher taxes. The fact is in just the month of July, this majority is proposing to bring two reserve funds that will alone promise to spend $70 billion, $20 billion in the farm bill and $50 billion on the SCHIP reauthorization. Where are they going to get that money from? Higher taxes.

So it's important that amendments like the Westmoreland amendment pass so that we can bring restraint to our spending levels. It is important that we don't pass these bloated appropriation bills that spend two to three times the rate of inflation, because that's two to three times the rate of our taxpayers', our constituents', ability to pay for these bills. And when we go on this collision course with all this new spending, $110 billion of more

spending this year alone in just discretionary spending versus last year, $190 billion in new spending proposals, in mandatory spending on these reserve funds, that puts the taxpayer on a collision course with higher taxes and that brings true this promise of the largest tax increase in American history which was passed by this majority in their budget resolution.

That is why we should not be passing these overinflated appropriation bills, and that is why we should be voting ``aye'' in favor of this Westmoreland amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I want to talk about what my friend from California just mentioned. And I want to just simply say that I think that the gentleman from California is truly a gentleman, and I enjoy the time we've spent together. But there are just a few things I think need to be corrected.

Number one, the gentleman mentioned that over the last 6 years, the Republicans, when they were in charge, squandered the opportunity, lost the credibility. Well, guess what? It's only taken 6 months for this majority, maybe 6 years for the former majority; 6 months, and this majority has turned their back on earmark reforms. Six months into the new majority, and this majority has turned this thing upside down.

What do I mean when I say that, Mr. Chairman?

Let me just quote our current Speaker, on December 14, 2006, ``We will bring transparency and openness to the budget process and to the use of earmarks, and we will give the American people the leadership they deserve.''

What happened?

Well, a number of things happened. Under the Republican majority, earmarks got out of control. Under the Republican majority, waste occurred. Let me be the first one to say that.

So what happened?

In the last session, Republicans changed the rules. We said, if you're going to have an earmark, a pork-barrel project, Number one, we've got to see it. It's got to be in the bill. A Member has to have their name attached to it, so they have to defend it.

But most importantly, the American people need to see this, and it needs to be in the bill as it comes to the House floor, as it goes to the Senate Chamber, so that the American people have time to look at it, so that transparency and sunlight can bring accountability to the process, and so that we, as the people's Representatives, each and every one of us, representing 670,459 people, can have judgment, can vote on it. That's transparency. That's accountability. It happened late in our majority, but it happened.

What did the Democrats do as they took over the majority?

To their credit, Mr. Chairman, they extended, enhanced and improved upon these rules. So I would, at this moment, like to give some bipartisan credit to the fact that we negotiated these earmark reforms in the last session, and Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats, to their credit, carried them over and made them better.

Where are we 6 months later? Where are we 6 months into this new majority? We went three steps forward, and now we went six steps backwards.

Mr. Chairman, what are we doing?

No transparency, no earmarks in these bills, no opportunity for the American people, the public, to see what's in this legislation. All we have in these bills are big slush funds, a $5.9 billion slush fund in the bill that's coming up next, a $20 billion earmark slush fund in the bill coming after that.

What does that mean?

They're putting billions and billions of dollars of fiscal space of a general earmark in these bills, and they're simply saying, this money will be earmarked afterwards, when I, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee decide to put this money in to go toward pet projects, pet constituencies, at my choosing, at my scrutinizing, after Congress has the ability to consider these things on their own merits.

Is that transparency? Is that accountability? Absolutely not, Mr. Chairman.

They have gone backwards, back on their word, back from bringing transparency and accountability to Congress.

So let me just say for the record, both parties have messed this up. Both majorities have seen the light, and this majority is going backwards on this. That is what this is all about.

We recognize we've got to have more transparency and accountability in the way we spend taxpayer dollars. That's one of the problems we have. The other problem is this idea that we can just spend our way into prosperity, this idea that we can just spend more and more and more money, and all things wrong in America will be fixed. If only we take more money out of people's paychecks, bring them up here to Washington and spend their money, every problem can be solved.

This is the problem we have at a basic philosophical level. Here is where we are just 6 months into this new majority.

The President gave us a budget. His budget increased spending across all levels of government. His budget increased discretionary spending. Well, what happened since that budget came? Six billion new dollars in February in the omnibus appropriation. Then, just last month, $17 billion in new spending of unrelated, nonrequested spending in an emergency appropriation bill to go to funding the troops in Iraq, $17 billion that has nothing to do with Iraq.

And now, $21 billion in more spending. $43 billion out the window, out the door in new spending in just 6 months.

How do you balance the budget, Mr. Chairman? You balance it by controlling spending.

We believe you balance the budget by controlling spending, not raising taxes. And at the end of the day, this is what the differences are.

The majority brought to the floor a bill and passed the largest tax increase in American history. They modified it to possibly reduce that to the second largest tax increase in American history. So what can they do? Raise more spending and raise taxes to balance the budget.

We want to balance the budget at a much lower level of taxing and spending. We want more transparency in the process. We want to control Federal spending, and we want the American people to see exactly how their money is being spent so that their Representative can call these issues into question, not put the power in one man's hands here in Congress, which is the current proposal before us.

I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding.

I want to say to the person who just spoke, who referenced me, that my motivation here is just to come and get more pork for myself. I know the gentleman's new here, but he doesn't know me, if that's what he said.

He also mentioned that you want to make this system more democratic. We should be here fighting for good government and for democracy and fairness. Is giving one man in this body this power like Caesar, to decide whether or not earmarks go in and out of bills, democratic? Is that small D democratic?

Is giving all the power to one chairman on how all 32,000 earmark requests in his power, is that democratic? Or should we have the ability, as Democrats and Republicans, in a small D democracy, the ability to vote on these things?

Shouldn't the American people have the choice and the ability to see how their money is being spent? Or should we, in the name of good government, give the chairman of the Appropriations Committee sole discretion, sole

decision-making power, on how tens of billions of dollars are spent on tens of thousands of projects?

That's democracy? That's good government? That's fairness? I think not, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the idea that we should simply relegate our power, our voting cards, our ability to speak on behalf of our constituents, to one chairman of one committee to spend tens of billions of our taxpayers' hard-earned dollars on tens of thousands of projects, if we think that that is good government, that is fairness, that is what democracies do, that is not my opinion. That is not my value. That is not what I think democracy is all about.

I believe we are here to fight for fairness, transparency, accountability. And what we are here to do is to make sure that our taxpayers dollars are spent wisely, that they are spent in a transparent way, that there is accountability in this system.

Why on earth does each and every one of us want to delegate our lawmaking power and authority to one person to decide how our taxpayer dollars are spent is beyond me. But for those of you who say that our motivation is simply to get a bigger slice of the pie, to get more pork-barrel spending, that's just not the case. And I think that's insulting.

I appreciate that and I want to be fair and civil here.

But this is a big issue, Mr. Chairman. It is not about delaying some bill. It is about bringing accountability and transparency back to the process in how we spend taxpayer dollars, and it is about not going back on your word, and that is what this majority is doing.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

It is asked, you know, why are we doing what we are doing, and why are these amendments coming to the floor, and why are these Members saying what they are saying? There is a big picture involved here, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to speak to that.

Number one, this isn't just about increasing spending in one particular program or one pet project, this is about the now majority increasing spending everywhere, on virtually every program and virtually every pet project at almost every opportunity. Six months into the new majority, $6 billion on the omnibus appropriations, $17 billion in non-war-related emergency spending supplemental, $21 billion more on top of discretionary spending above the level at which we realize the veto threat is going to occur.

Each of these appropriation bills is representing an installment on a plan to increase nonemergency spending by more than $81 billion over last year. That is a spending increase of 9 percent, three times the rate of inflation.

Now, I will be the first to acknowledge that when our party was in the majority, we made similar mistakes. We made similar big spending increases. I recall my first term in 2000, coming at the end of the Clinton administration, an 11 percent increase in discretionary spending. That got built into the base, and what happened? Our budgets got thrown through the loop forever. We went into deficit. It was a big mistake at the time, that we should not have done that.

But there are four specific problems I have with this particular bill before us, Mr. Chairman, which the gentleman from Iowa's amendment does some things to help fix.

First, the President's budget called for an increase of 7.2 percent. This budget calls for an increase of 14 percent. So it raises the ante. So, instead of doubling the spending at the rate of inflation, we're going four times the rate of inflation on this bill.

Number two, this bill takes advantage of prefunding. They have already used the 2007 war supplemental to prefund over $1 billion in fiscal year 2008 Homeland Security appropriations. That lets us free up the cap for more spending. So, it's really more than a 14 percent increase from one year to the next.

Third, and this is my biggest concern, Mr. Chairman, earmark transparency. We have come a long ways on earmarks. The former majority party made mistakes on earmarks. Let me say this one more time. Republicans made mistakes on earmarks. And good thing Republicans, last session, began fixing those mistakes. Last session we brought to the floor and passed in the rules new earmark transparency rules, new earmark accountability rules, giving the public the ability to see the earmarks, see who the author is, and giving Members of Congress, there as the people's representatives, the ability to come to the floor and challenge those earmarks. To the Democratic Party credit, they extended those earmark reforms. And you know what, Mr. Chairman? They built upon them. They improved upon those earmark reforms. The Democrat majority improved upon the Republican earmark reforms when they came into power at the beginning of this year.

Where are we now? What has happened? We went three steps forward, and now we went six steps back, Mr. Chairman. Now, in instead of giving the public the ability to see these earmarks, instead of giving Members of Congress, the people's representatives, the ability to challenge them, to vote on them, to have scrutiny on them while we consider these appropriation bills, what are we doing? They are air-dropping them in the conference report.

Okay. What did that just mean for those people who don't know our lingo? This means we're not going to see the earmarks while we are considering this legislation as they go through the House and the other body, the Senate. They will be conveniently put in the bill at the end of the process so that no amendment can address the issue, so that the public will have very little time to see these earmarks, so that no Member of Congress can challenge the worthiness of a pet project. When we have come to the time where Congress is putting in thousands and thousands and thousands of these earmarks, raking up to tens of millions of dollars, one of the bills we are going to consider this week has something like $20 billion slated for earmarks in just one bill.

No vote, just $20 billion, empty money to be spoken for, later inserted in the conference report by a couple of people in the majority, namely the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the dean of my delegation. No transparency, no public accountability, no ability for the people, Representatives, to come to the floor and challenge these earmarks.

That is not earmark reform, Mr. Chairman.

We need real earmark reform. Let's not go backwards. And what is worse about all of this is, these bills are coming in far above where they ought to be from a funding level. We are going to have a veto at the end of the year and a train wreck.

Madam Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to the life of Randy Prideaux, a civic-minded business leader and longtime resident of Union Grove, Wisconsin whose energetic commitment to his community touched countless lives. Randy died unexpectedly last week, sending waves of shock and sorrow through Southeastern Wisconsin, where he was well-known through his business and civic leadership.

Randy worked his way up the ladder at Union Grove Lumber over nearly 40 years to become CEO of this local lumber and hardware business. He also served as a member of my Small Business Advisory Board, and I am grateful that he took the time to share his expertise with us. He knew the challenges that small business owners face day in and day out, and his insights on issues from health care to tax policies were very helpful. If there was one thing you could always count on, it was that Randy would tell you what he truly thought, whether he agreed or disagreed with you. His candor and his dedication to doing what is right for Union Grove will be sorely missed.

Besides working to strengthen the community as an employer and businessman, Randy gave back in many other ways. Altogether, he served 20 years on the Village Board. He was active in the Union Grove Lions Club and had served two terms as president. He also served two terms as president of the Chamber of Commerce.

In his personal life, Randy was a devoted family man, who recently became a grandfather. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, children, granddaughter, mother, and brother, and the many friends throughout Wisconsin who mourn his loss.

Madam Speaker, Southeastern Wisconsin lost a truly dedicated teacher last week--Tom Kossoris, who taught at Mukwonago High School over the past three decades. He passed away after a lengthy battle with illness brought on by a brain tumor. I would like to take a moment to honor his memory and reflect on the lessons he passed along to his students and others who knew him.

Tom taught history, political science and economics. He demanded a lot from his students--setting high standards that challenged them to excel. In an account that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, his fellow teacher, Bruce Lammers put it well, saying: ``Tom taught me to have students meet your expectations. Challenge the kids academically, and the kids rise to your standards.'' Tom combined this toughness with a dry sense of humor and an unfailing commitment to his students' education.

Every year, Tom brought students to Washington to enhance and expand on what they had learned--showing them their government in action, as well as the site of so many watersheds and debates over the course of our nation's history. I could count on hearing from Tom, who would ask for assistance with getting tours of the Capitol or other opportunities to make his students' trip memorable. He held himself to the same high standards he expected of others--working tirelessly to make sure students got the most out of their experience in Washington.

Over the years he retained a love of teaching, as well as an intellectual energy and enthusiasm that he passed on to others. On top of his other teaching duties, Tom became a driver's education instructor, giving lessons before school on weekdays and on Saturdays. His sharp mind, his wit, and his determination to bring out the best in students will be greatly missed by the whole community.

Mr. Speaker, today the Democrat majority is going to bring the House budget resolution to the floor. Last month when they passed the budget resolution, it was the largest tax increase in American history. Today they are bringing a budget resolution to the floor that is slightly an improvement: It is the second largest tax increase in American history. And the only thing that is separating this budget from being the largest tax increase in American history is what they call the ``tax trigger,'' and under their tax trigger, if they actually get to spend all of the money they are hoping to spend, then the surpluses will not materialize and no taxes will be spared and it will yet again become the largest tax increase in American history.

This budget is unprecedented in its scope of its ability to tax and spend. The highest levels of taxes we have ever seen in this country and the highest levels of spending. That is not a way to balance the budget and set our fiscal house in order. We should vote against this budget, which raises taxes and raises spending at unprecedented levels.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I'd like to get into this tax issue. I think we just heard this, there's no tax increase in this budget. You're going to hear that claim over and over and over.

The last speaker just mentioned that they are preserving some tax relief for some people, marriage penalty, for child tax credit, the 10 percent bracket. What they mean, they're saying, they're acknowledging, I'll give them credit on the face of it, they are going to preserve some tax relief and prevent those tax increases from coming.

What that means is they are going to let all these other tax cuts expire. More importantly, the fact is they are banking on the fact, they are requiring all those other tax cuts to expire and all those taxes to increase.

Numbers don't lie, Mr. Speaker, and what a budget is is basically a page full of numbers, and the numbers don't lie.

This chart shows you how it works. The lower line, the green line, is the line that our budget used, which assumes and requires the extension of all the tax cuts, the per child tax credit, the income tax rates, the abolishment of the death tax, cap gains, dividends, all tax cuts. The dotted red line is what the Democrats are using in their budget, and that line says they're going to raise all those taxes, marginal rates, across the board, except we hope not to raise the child tax credit tax or the marriage penalty tax or the 10 percent bracket. And we're putting a trigger in the law, and I call this the trigger tax, and that's the red line, the solid red line. And that is in the year 2010, if the Treasury Department says the surplus will be big enough in 2012 that we the government can afford tax cuts for some people, these three tax cuts, then they will have their tax cuts.

But here's the vicious cycle that we're going into and the vicious cycle is this. Their budget starts with a new $24 billion spending spree just next year in domestic spending. Then they have a $217 billion tax increase in their budget. Then they have 23 promises, 23 wish lists, 23 reserve funds that amount to a call to spend another $190 billion.

They are going to have to raise taxes to pay for all of that. That's going to have the fact that there is no entitlement reforms. What their budget says is, tax more, spend more; tax more, spend more. Then come 2010, when those surpluses don't materialize, because we have done all this spending, they won't even get those three tax cuts that they want to extend, and this budget will go from having the second largest tax increase in American history to having the largest tax increase in American history.

Let's look at what the true intention of this budget was when it passed the House just a month ago. The budget that passed the House a month ago had a $392.5 billion tax increase in it. All the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that got us out of recession, that created 7.6 million new jobs, that gave us 3 years of double digit revenue growth, they wanted to get rid of it.

Then in conference with the other body, with the Senate, they agreed to the Senate to say, okay, we won't raise every one of these taxes, we would like to preserve three of those tax cuts, but raise all the rest. So they have a $217 billion tax increase in this budget.

But that's not even enough, because their trigger tax will say, if they don't spend as much money now as they are saying now they want to spend, then maybe the taxpayer will get some of those tax benefits. But if they don't, then we are back to a $400 billion tax increase.

The point is this, this is a vicious cycle of tax taxing and spending. The biggest problem with this budget is not what it includes, it's what it doesn't include. It doesn't include any spending control at all. There is no control on spending anywhere in the government, at all, anywhere, no control, no reform of our entitlement programs, even though witness after witness after witness, Democrats and Republicans, the left and right came to Congress and told us, you guys in Congress better get a handle on entitlements. You better get a handle on the fact that next year the baby boomers start retiring, and we are not ready for them. They say for 5 years let's do nothing, but let's just spend more money.

The worst thing we could do is put this budget on a trajectory of more spending and more taxes. What they will do, they will compromise the economic growth we have had over the last 3 years. They will compromise the recipe for success that have given us 3 years of double- digit revenue growth, 7.6 million new jobs.

To tie it all up, they came into the majority 5 months ago declaring new fiscal rules, more fiscal security, PAYGO, pay-as-you-go principle. So what are they doing in this budget? They are getting rid of PAYGO. In this budget, they are turning their PAYGO rules upside down.

This budget actually revises and turns upside down their entire PAYGO principle. The idea that they came in the majority just 5 months ago saying well, we will pay as we go, well, they are violating with this budget, into itself.

The last final point, which I think is really a shame, because 2 weeks ago we had a vote here in the House, 364 Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans said, let's stop the raid of the Social Security trust fund once and for all. Let's stop that. That's what we said. We agreed that this budget should not raid Social Security. Both parties are responsible for this.

I am not saying it's the Democrats' fault, it's the Republicans' also. But what does this budget do? It raises the Social Security trust fund. Every year that this budget has a proposal, they are raiding the Social Security trust fund every year, even though 2 weeks ago 364 out of 435 of us said let's stop doing that. They turned around and said, and they are brining us a budget that continues to raid the Social Security trust fund. That's wrong. Both parties have been responsible for it. Both parties should fix it.

This budget should be defeated.

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

I would like to start off by congratulating Chairman Spratt and the majority staff on the Budget Committee for reaching this point in the budget process. This is not easy. And they are to be commended for getting the budget up to this point.

I have long believed that the budget resolution is an important statement of congressional policy and a critical act of governing. So in a sense, I am glad to see this conference report here today. And the gentleman from South Carolina deserves credit for that.

That said, the choices in this budget, or some would argue, the complete lack thereof, represents an enormous missed opportunity, an enormous missed bipartisan opportunity.

The Democrats' fiscal year 2008 budget sets off a vicious cycle, Mr. Speaker. Higher taxes fuel higher spending and greater spending demand. In order to meet this appetite for greater spending, we are going to have to raise taxes again and again and again. Let's take a look at how this will work.

First, the linchpin of this budget, and numbers do not lie, check with the Congressional Budget Office, its only one binding fiscal policy is the same one that Democrats have been bringing to the floor time and again, ``raise taxes.'' This budget will raise taxes on the American economy and American workers by at least $217 billion. That is the second largest tax increase in American history. And to be clear, their $217 billion tax increase is just an opening bid. It will last only until the majority can raise the ante.

As you may recall, Mr. Speaker, the House Democrats wanted and included in their budget a $400 billion tax increase. That would have been the largest in history. But the Senate made it clear by a vote of 97-1 that they would not accept the House's number. So from this conference report, it would initially appear that the House Democrats receded to the Senate's smaller tax number, the smaller tax increase, that's according to the CBO, that is, until you take a closer look at some of the procedures and gimmicks included in this report.

First let's look at the trigger. There is this so-called tax trigger. In short, this trigger will provide the majority with an immense loophole allowing them to renege on their promise to protect certain high-profile tax benefits, and they can do it without leaving any fingerprints because it would all be automatic. All the Democrats have to do, believe it or not, is spend too much money, and that will set off the trigger and raise those taxes.

Mr. Speaker, they are saying in this budget they want to extend marriage penalty relief, the child tax credit and the 10 percent bracket. But if they spend too much money, guess what happens automatically? Those tax cuts go away.

Then there is the $190 billion worth of unfunded spending increases promised in this budget's 23 reserve funds. If they actually deliver on these promised 23 wish list reserve funds, that's another tax hike.

Mr. Speaker, even their version of PAYGO, which they touted as proof of their commitment to fiscal discipline, is just a means to make it easier to raise taxes. What happens if they raise mandatory spending, Mr. Speaker? You guessed it. They have to raise taxes to pay for it.

So again, this $217 billion tax hike is just the starting bid. You can expect them to draw from that well again and again and again. Why is this a problem? Why do we have this huge difference of opinion, difference in philosophy of ideology of economic doctrines? Because the enormous tax increases will threaten the economic and fiscal progress our Nation has made these past several years.

As I have said many times before, the tax decreases, the tax cuts we passed in 2001 and 2003 have turned this economy around, it brought us out of recession. It improved job growth, GDP growth. It lowered the unemployment rate. Business investment and the entire market rebounded. And all that growth has led to surging revenues coming into the Federal Treasury. Three years of double digit revenue growth at these lower tax rates. The tax hikes contained in this budget threaten to reverse all of this.

And think of the impact this tax hike will have on the small businesses that it hits. Our small businesses, who are already paying the second highest tax burden in the industrialized world, will be told that they are just not paying enough. In this increasingly global economy, where these companies are struggling to compete with China and India, imposing an even larger tax burden will be crushing. It will severely threaten our ability to compete, and let alone lead, in the global economy.

So what will taxpayers get in return for sending Congress ever higher cuts of their paychecks? Better working, more efficient, less wasteful spending? No. The majority doesn't even pretend they are going to control spending.

There is no control on the existing trajectory of spending we have in this budget. We are only 5 months into this Congress, and at every opportunity the new majority has chosen the path of higher spending. They increased discretionary spending by $6 billion in the omnibus, another $20 billion or so of extraneous spending in the supplemental, and now they're increasing nondefense discretionary appropriations next year by another $23 billion.

For all we've heard about how the Democrats had to clean up the mess the Republicans gave them, their only response to this seems to be spend more and tax more. This formula has never worked for getting control of the budget in the past, and it won't work now. It's also the reverse of what's going on in the rest of the world. Across Europe, governments are moving away from their welfare state, big government tax policies and toward more market-oriented policies. For instance, the latest, most clear example. But here in the States, where we should be leading the tide toward free markets, Democrats are taking us in the other direction.

Finally, I think the biggest failure of this budget is not what it does do, it's what it doesn't do. This budget does nothing to reform entitlement programs, to extend their solvency. We had a parade of witnesses from the left and from the right, Democrat witnesses, Republican witnesses, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the OMB Director, the CBO Director, all come to us and say, you've got to get a handle on entitlements. You have to reform the entitlement programs to make them more solvent, to stop this enormous unfunded liability that is hitting American taxpayers.

Even with the Democrats' $400 billion tax increase, they had in the House-passed version, that would quickly outpace revenues, entitlements would swamp us.

So Mr. Speaker, even if we hit a temporary balanced budget, as this might achieve, it will be temporary because you can't raise taxes enough again and again to outpace the trajectory of entitlement spending growth. We will go back into deficits because this budget does nothing to control spending.

So why have the Democrats failed to even address this dire situation? Because as Senate Budget Chairman Senator Conrad told 60 Minutes, ``It's always easier not to. It's always easier to defer, to kick the can down the road, to avoid making choices.'' ``You know, you get into trouble in politics when you make choices.'' I appreciate that sentiment, but we all know that is not what budgeting is about. Budgeting is about making choices even when they're tough, even when they are not politically popular because that is what we came here to do.

In closing, I believe this budget fails to make any real choices, let alone the right ones. It will impose on American families and businesses at least the second largest tax increase in American history, if not the largest, add immense new government spending, and put off critical entitlement reforms for at least another 5 years. Our House Republican budget proved we can balance the budget without raising taxes and stop the rate on Social Security.

It is my genuine hope that the House will vote today to change this dangerous course and send the Democrat budget back to the drawing board.

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, just a point of clarification. I think the gentleman said that our budget did not extend the tax cuts. It did. In fact, it extended all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. I just wanted to state that for the record. That is all.

Well, I can go back into that, but I think we have belabored the point.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds simply to ask a rhetorical question, if the Democrats chose to extend some of the tax cuts in this budget and therefore not all of the others, how is this not a tax increase?

If the Senate said that the Democrat House budget raised taxes and they didn't want to raise them as much and they forced the conference to negotiate to keep some of the tax cuts at bay, how is this not a tax increase? If they are saying they are preserving some of the tax cuts, then by definition they are raising the other taxes.

You can't have it both ways.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a young, earnest, conscientious Republican leader, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Barrett).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds simply to say that's correct, the majority did make choices. They chose to raise taxes, they chose to raise spending, and they chose to violate their own PAYGO rules.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, given the stated concerns about borrowing by the majority, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, it's my understanding that pursuant to rule XXVII of the rules of the House, upon adoption of the conference report by both the House and the Senate, the Clerk of the House will be instructed to prepare a joint resolution adjusting the public debt limit; is that correct?

Further inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Am I further correct, that by operation of rule XXVII, upon adoption of this conference report by both the House and the Senate, this joint resolution adjusting the debt limit will be considered as passed by the House and transmitted to the Senate?

Further inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Will there be a separate vote in the House on passing this joint resolution adjusting upwards the debt limit?

Further inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, by operation of this rule, will the vote by which the conference report is passed by the House be considered the vote on passage of the joint resolution adjusting the debt limit?

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

Mr. Speaker, what we have just learned is that if a Member votes for this conference report, and it is adopted by the Senate, then they will be recorded as having voted for the joint resolution raising the public debt limit to $9.815 trillion, an increase in the public debt of borrowing of $850 billion. If a Member votes against this conference report, and it is adopted by the Senate, then they will not be recorded as having voted to increase the debt limit or borrowing by $850 billion.

So it's very clear that the passage of this budget increases borrowing by $850 billion and that is, in fact, the effect of this.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to our distinguished minority whip, Mr. Blunt.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the chairman, the gentleman from South Carolina, is he the last speaker on their side? You are reserving the right to close?

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on both sides?

At this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chief minority whip from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, let's just be really clear. You are hearing this debate about taxes. Nowhere is the difference between the two parties ever clear than it is right now. We brought a budget to the floor that not only did not raise taxes, it kept taxes low, and it reduced spending, and it balanced the budget, and it finally stopped the raid of the Social Security Trust Fund.

That's what we proposed. We are not in the majority. Our view did not prevail. The Democrat budget did prevail. What did that budget do? It passed the largest tax increase in American history. That's not what we say, that's what the Congressional Budget Office says, our scorekeepers.

So what did they do in conference? They decided to accede to the Senate and have a slightly smaller tax increase. They started off with the red line, largest tax increase in American history as measured by the Congressional Budget Office. No matter what you say, the numbers in the budget just don't lie.

Then they said, let's have a trigger. If we don't spend too much money, and if the surplus is big enough in 2010, then maybe some taxpayers could get some tax relief, and we won't raise all of their taxes. We will extend the marriage penalty and the child tax credit, 10 percent bracket, but will all the other tax increases occur? So we will have the second highest tax increase in American history.

That's what their proposal does. They simply cannot have it both ways. They cannot say there is no tax increase in this budget and then say we are preserving some of the tax cuts and not others. You can't have it both ways.

Here is what this budget does. It puts us on a vicious cycle of taxing and spending. They start off by spending $24 billion, next year, brand new spending.

Then they have a $217 billion tax increase. Then they have 23 reserve funds, 23 wish lists, which equal $190 billion in new spending. Then they have no entitlement reforms, which means our entitlement programs are going to grow and grow and grow at unsustainable rates. Guess what, $190 billion in wish lists, 23 new wish lists of spending. What do they get? If they get the spending, they get another $190 billion tax increase to pay for it, a vicious cycle of new spending.

The trigger tax says we would like to give some people some tax relief, but if we continue to whet our appetite, taxpayers won't get it. All this trigger says is it puts the taxpayer at the back of the line and the government and spending at the front of line. We have a different core set of values.

We believe the money that people make is their money, not the government's money. If you are making money, working hard and paying taxes, that's your money, not ours. We have a different set of beliefs. They believe the opposite. They believe that more and more and more money ought to come out of workers' paychecks. They believe that they can spend your money better than you can.

That is not what we believe. The reason that we don't believe it is because if you have more money in your paycheck, you have more for yourself and more freedom for your family, we know, by golly, the American economy grows. We succeed. We improve in the global economy.

We created 7 million new jobs since this last run of tax cuts. We increased revenues to the Federal Government from these lower tax raises, 3 years in a row, double digit revenue growth. Let's not turn that recipe upside down. Let's not ruin a good thing.

Defeat this budget.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of our time to the distinguished minority leader, Mr. Boehner.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, typically I would talk about all the spending problems in this bill. I want to talk about that for a moment.

This bill includes $16 billion in non-war, non-emergency spending. It blows through the $6.45 billion reserve fund that the incumbent budget resolution has for emergencies. It completely puts aside the rules that govern whether or not and how we fund emergency spending.

We put in these rules last year, which to the majority's credit continued this year, that said you can't just tuck anything in an emergency spending bill. It actually has to really be an emergency. Well, they have put those rules aside. We have got $16 billion of this stuff in here.

But the real problem I have with this bill, Mr. Speaker, the real concern I have is the signals it sends. We are telling our troops, we are telling our men and women in uniform in harm's way in Iraq, you have got 2 months, 2 months of funding, but we are letting any Member of Congress open up the bidding war and put $16 billion of stuff in here to fund them for a lot longer than 2 months. We are giving NASA more money than they need. We are putting LIHEAP money in here even after the winter has passed. We are putting money for the Architect of the Capitol for tunnel maintenance. We are putting the minimum wage in here. We

are saying yes to every other constituency, yes to every other spending request, whether it has anything to do with Iraq or not, whether it is a true emergency or not.

Some of these things may have merit, but why are they in this bill? And, more importantly, why are we telling our troops 2 months and you're up?

Mr. Speaker, our troops need better than that. They need to know we are going to be there for them. The Iraqi people need to know we are going to be there for them.

I was there just a couple months ago. Millions of Iraqis are sitting on the fence, trying to determine whether they join us or join the insurgency. If we tell them we are leaving in 2 months, we are cutting off the funding in 2 months, guess what. Those millions of Iraqis aren't going to join us. They aren't going to democracy. They are going to be pressured for fear to join the insurgency.

This sends the wrong message to the Iraqis. It sends the wrong message to our enemies. And it sure sends the wrong message to our troops.

I urge defeat of this bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the motion we are offering today reflects a very simple up or down choice: One, rejecting the largest tax increase in our Nation's history, which is contained in the House budget; two, insisting on the lowest possible level of taxes available in the budget conference; and three, stopping the raid on Social Security's cash surpluses.

Both the House and the Senate Democrat budgets call for historic tax increases, and we in the minority can't do anything to prevent that. But we hope that, with this vote, we can at least minimize the damage that these tax hikes will bring.

Let me take a moment to describe the options that we have to work with as a minority. The House-passed budget would impose a tax hike of $392 billion from such things as reimposing

the tax penalty on married couples, cutting in half the child tax credit, and raising marginal income tax rates on low- and middle-income working families.

This would increase the average family's tax bill by roughly $2,900 a year and likely reverse the economic progress we have achieved over the past few years. So, right along with their higher tax bill, Americans would see fewer jobs and slower wage growth.

This massive tax increase was the only way the House Democrats could accomplish their massive increase in spending. Their budget makes no effort, none, to moderate the growth of spending. It simply requires taxpayers to send more of their money to make the Democrats' budget numbers add up.

In our debate a few weeks ago, the Democrats tried gamely to assert that their budget doesn't increase taxes after all. And as proof, they pointed to the novel policy language that claims that they will extend some of the tax relief provisions enacted in 2001 and 2003. They have these reserve funds that say they don't really want to raise taxes. But if you read the fine print, this would only happen later and only if they hike some other taxes by the same amount. So even with the flowery reserve fund language, the goal, the preference of not raising taxes can only be met if they raise taxes.

But the numbers in this budget tell a very different story. By the numbers, which is what a budget is all about, the House budget raises taxes nearly $400 billion, and numbers do not lie.

The other option is the Senate budget, which raises taxes by about $216 billion, the second largest tax increase in American history. This will include higher taxes on middle-income earners because the Senate budget still raises marginal income tax rates across the board. But at least it attempts to protect the marriage penalty relief, child tax credit and estate tax relief.

Unfortunately, the other Chamber, like their Democrat counterparts in the House, also call for large spending increases. And as a consequence, their budget will continue to raid the Social Security trust funds in fiscal year 2012, something the House-passed budget and the Republican substitute did not do.

So while the Democrat budget in the Senate didn't raise as many taxes, it did raid the Social Security trust fund, and the House Republican and the House Democrat budget resolution did not.

So, what we are simply trying to do is get the best of both products such that it can be had. Accordingly, our motion would simply direct the conferees to do two things: First, reject the House's $392 billion tax increase, again, the largest tax increase in American history, and keep their tax hike to the lowest possible level permitted under the rules. Second, insist on the lowest possible level of taxes between the House-passed and Senate-passed Democrat budgets. This language is included because the motion is required to stay within the scope of the two budgets. We wish we could do more, but this is the scope we have been dealt. Third, it would direct the conferees to stop raiding Social Security for the government's operating budget. They should do this by running a unified surplus, including Social Security, of $96 billion in fiscal year 2012, which is equal to the Social Security cash surplus for that year.

We know that this is possible because we proved it could be done in our own budget. Our Republican budget not only balanced the budget without raising anyone's taxes, we ran a surplus that ensured the Social Security trust funds would not be raided.

So, again, today we are simply asking our Democratic colleagues to do the following: one, reject the largest tax increase in American history; and two, stop the raid of the Social Security cash surplus.

This is a simple choice. A ``yes'' vote supports these objectives. A ``no'' vote rejects them.

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

This assumes a $96 billion unified budget surplus after those tax cuts are extended.

A $96 billion cash surplus unified budget after the extension of those taxes.

I don't know off the top of my head.

The gentleman's budget resolution that passed the House had, I think, about a $150 billion cash surplus and raised all those taxes; so he had a sizable surplus.

If the gentleman will yield, not only did the Republican budget substitute accommodate for that, it accommodated for an extension of all of the tax cuts that expire in 2010 in addition to having a surplus equal to or greater than the unified Social Security cash surplus. So the Republican budget substitute accommodated all of these tax cuts and stopped the raid on Social Security.

Yes.

Yes.

I can't speak to that number. I don't know that number off the top of my head.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield myself 30 seconds.

I say to my articulate friend from New Jersey, I think what he mentioned was a real good highlight on the philosophical differences between our two parties. The question is, who is first in line, the taxpayer or the government? We believe that the taxpayer ought to be first in line by keeping more of their hard-earned money, not the government. The State of New Jersey, which is a high tax-paying State, on average under these tax increases will pay an average of $3,780 more under Democrat-passed budget per taxpayer in the State of New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Hensarling from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on either side.

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

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the $96 billion unified surplus reflects the cash surplus, meaning the amount of overpayments on FICA taxes, payroll taxes for Social Security, that gets spent on other government programs that ought to go to Social Security. The interest on top of that is the number that the gentleman from South Carolina is talking about. That reflects past borrowing, past raiding of the Social Security surplus. We would like to fix that, too.

We think that is a good start. Let's say from now on if you pay FICA taxes to Social Security, let's not spend it on all these other government programs. So the cash surplus that occurs in 2012, that is what we are talking about with that $96 billion, not the interest on top that reflects all of the past borrowing and raiding of the Social Security trust fund.

That is the cash surplus, plus interest. We are talking about the cash surplus.

Mr. Speaker, that is not all in the year 2012, I believe. There is a problem with the numbers here.

We seem to have a difference of opinion. But let me make one point: We showed you how to do it.

We showed you with our budget substitute, we do not raise taxes on the American economy and family, and we can also stop raiding the cash surplus of Social Security. And the reason I can tell you we showed you is that is exactly what the Republican budget resolution substitute did, as scored by CBO.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes to make a couple of comments before I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I think I made the point on the Social Security cash surplus. We are talking about how much overpayments people pay in their payroll taxes in any given year. We don't want to keep spending that on other government programs. That is point number one.

Point number two: The very fact that the gentleman from South Carolina is suggesting that they are going to accept this motion to instruct, that they are going to accept this, means they agree there are tax increases in this budget.

They are saying right now, I just heard him say it, we don't want to raise taxes on the middle-class. We don't want to get rid of the child tax credit. We don't want to bring back the marriage penalty. We don't want to do away with the 10 percent bracket. So we will accept this motion to instruct. I.e., the other tax increases in this budget are just that, tax increases. Death tax, the marginal income tax rates across-the-board, capital gains, dividends.

Let me just make the point more clearly, by not quoting a think tank that may be left of center, right of center, whatever of center. Let me quote the Washington Post, clearly no paragon of right-wing thinking.

The Washington Post, right after the Democrat budget came out: ``And while House Democrats say they want to preserve key parts of Bush's signature tax cuts, they project a surplus in 2012 only by assuming that all of these tax cuts expire on schedule in 2010.''

They further go on to say about the Democratic budget plan, ``The budget plan expresses support for certain cuts, including the extended child tax credit, elimination of the marriage penalty, and the 10 percent bracket, that would require another reserve fund to be filled with hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases to cover the cost.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished member of the House Budget Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

One additional point I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker, is the point about PAYGO that the gentleman from South Carolina mentioned. As it is well known, we have a problem with their version of PAYGO. When PAYGO is designed to raise taxes, we don't like it. When PAYGO is designed to control spending, we like it. That is why we are for PAYGO on spending, not on raising taxes.

But if this amendment is accepted, if this motion to instruct is accepted, let's just be very clear, it does violate their PAYGO. Because the Baucus amendment, which is what we are referring to, which is the amendment that passed in the Senate, uses their surpluses, quote-unquote, to pay for these tax cuts. PAYGO says if you are going to reduce taxes, you have to offset them with either a tax increase or a spending cut, not with surpluses.

So this amendment, we believe if you are going to have a surplus, it should either go back to the Social Security trust fund and pay down debt, or reduce taxes. That is what we are proposing.

But just so we are very clear with ourselves here, this Baucus amendment, this acceptance of this policy of not raising all of these taxes, just some of them, which is the best choice we have between the two options as the minority, does violate their own PAYGO rule by dedicating their surpluses towards this tax relief, rather than having offsets, either coming from spending cuts or tax increases.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

If you are going to reduce taxes, you have to pay for it by either raising taxes or cutting spending. That is what your PAYGO is, correct?

Well, you are violating it if you accept this amendment then.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I wish we were talking about all of the tax cuts. Unfortunately, what we have in the Baucus amendment, that is only $132 billion in 2012 because the Baucus amendment only extends some of the tax cuts.

The point we are making is, if we want to stop raising taxes and raiding Social Security, we are going to have to control spending. That is what we propose to do; and sadly, that is not what the majority budget does.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell), a member of the House Budget Committee.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, let me concur that the resolution does say what the chairman says it does. The reason it points to the words in the House budget resolution, which say that the policy of the House is to keep these tax cuts, but we refer to the deeds of the Senate is because the House didn't pay for those tax cuts, didn't extend those tax cuts. The Senate extended those tax cuts.

The House used the words that said, we hope, we wish, we would like to extend these tax cuts, but they didn't do that. They raised the taxes. It is the Senate.

The mere fact that the Senate passed the Baucus amendment in the first place is a repudiation of the claim by the House that they are actually not raising taxes.

The Senate looked at the House budget resolution and said, you know what, this thing is the largest tax increase in American history. We don't want to raise taxes on middle-income earners, child tax credit, marriage penalty, 10 percent bracket; and therefore, they passed the Baucus amendment.

What we are saying is we wish we could extend all of the tax cuts. Since the scope is limited, we are saying, let's stick with the Senate and actually put numbers where the words are in the House by actually lowering the revenue number.

Now, the chairman is right. He is saying it is a reach to reach these surpluses. It is too tough to do it to reach these surpluses if you accept his premise. And the premise of the chairman's budget is do nothing to control spending.

Mr. Speaker, we don't have a revenue problem in Washington. Just the last 7 months alone we had 11 percent revenue growth. That is 3 straight years of double-digit revenue growth at these lower tax rates. We have plenty of money coming in from taxpayers. The problem is we are spending it too fast. That is the problem in Washington, not a revenue problem, a spending problem.

If you accept the premise of the chairman, the esteemed gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), that there is no spending problem in Washington, which I don't accept, then he is correct, you can't balance the budget. You can't stopped the raid on Social Security and you can't extend tax relief.

We disagree. How tough is it to do it? Let me tell you what our budget accomplished, the Republican substitute. We simply said in order to stop the raid of the Social Security surplus and make all these tax cuts permanent, spend $14.977 trillion over the next 7 years instead of the current projection, $15.286 trillion. That is what we are saying. We are saying instead of spending over the next 5 years $15.286 trillion, spend $14.977 trillion. Instead of growing mandatory spending by 5.2 percent, grow it at 4.3 percent.

Is this Draconian, is this crazy, is this hard core? No. It's what families do around a kitchen table every day.

We are simply saying put taxpayers first. Don't make people wait for 3 years to see if they're going to have their per-child tax credit, if they're going to have the marriage penalty, if the estate taxes are going to be higher, lower or somewhere in between. Tell them now. Let's tell taxpayers, first you get to keep your money; then we're going to tighten our belt here in Washington by controlling spending.

Mr. Speaker, the taxpayers deserve this respect. They don't deserve to be jerked around. We should control spending, and by golly, we need to prepare for the retirement of these baby boomers. We need to reform these entitlement programs so we can extend their solvency, extend their reliability, and that is the biggest shame of all.

Not only does this budget have the largest tax increase in American history; it proposes that we do nothing for the next 5 years to control and reform entitlements to do anything to control spending. That's a shame. That's why we should pass this motion to instruct.

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

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

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to echo the point he made.

Our chairman, the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina, came to the floor and accurately said both budgets, the Senate budget resolution and the House-passed budget resolution, balance the budget. That is correct. They do. It is certified by the Congressional Budget Office. There is only one reason and way and method how they balance the budget, though, Mr. Speaker: by raising taxes.

The House-passed budget resolution relies upon, requires, in fact, makes sure that it passes the largest tax increase in American history in order to balance the budget. The Senate-passed budget resolution relies upon, requires and ensures that the second largest tax increase in American history be enacted on the American people, on the American taxpayers, in order to achieve balance.

I have two major concerns with this budget resolution, Mr. Speaker. Number one, it is very bad economic policy. And number two, it is an enormous missed opportunity.

Why is this budget resolution bad economic policy? Inflicting the largest tax increase in American history on the American family, business, entrepreneur, on American taxpayers, is bad economic policy. And here is why: Back in 2001, where we realized we had 9/11, and in 2003, where we realized we had a recession, with the dot-com bubble burst, with Enron scandals, we had job losses to the tune where we were losing about 124,000 jobs a month. We had to act quickly to get people back to work, so we cut taxes across the board. We cut taxes on entrepreneurs, on families, on workers, on businesses, on capital. What happened: 7.6 million new jobs were created since then. We have been creating on average over 200,000 jobs a month since then. The stock market turned around. The savings portfolios of senior citizens which were eviscerated in the market crash came back. The Dow hit 13,000 last week, an all-time high. We saw business investment, from negative decline after negative decline for 11 consecutive quarters, turn around and hit all-time highs. More jobs were created. And what happened at these lower tax rates? Revenues came into the Federal Government at a much, much faster pace, at about a 25-year high. So we saw more revenues coming into the Federal Government, which actually brought the deficit down at these lower tax rates.

What this budget resolution does is it puts that economic recovery plan in jeopardy. By raising taxes on people and businesses and entrepreneurs, you are reducing job growth in America. You are raising the cost of capital.

We have a problem, Mr. Speaker, and that is we live in the era of

globalization. The oceans no longer separate our economy from the rest of the world. Ninety-five percent of the world's consumers don't live in this country. They are overseas.

So, Mr. Speaker, we have got to wake up. Wake up to the fact that we have real competitive pressures. Countries like China and India, let alone Japan and Europe, are giving us real competitive pressures, real competitive challenges. And when we go back to the old adage of taxing, taxing and taxing, what we are going to do is tax more and more jobs overseas to these other countries. By taxing our economy and our businesses and our workers more and more than our competitors tax theirs, you know what happens? They get our jobs. That is a mistake. That is wrong.

America taxes capital more than any other industrialized country in the world except for one, Japan, and they just finished two decades of recession. So it is really bad economic policy to have all these tax increases.

You just heard the gentleman from Massachusetts talk about the reserve funds they have in this budget. They really want to make sure that they don't raise these taxes. So they put a reserve fund in the budget. And the reserve fund basically says, we don't want to raise these taxes; we would like to come up and pay for them, but our money is not there.

A budget is basically a page full of numbers, and numbers don't lie. The numbers in this budget require these taxes to go up, require these taxes to sunset; otherwise, they don't balance the budget.

You can't have it both ways. You can't balance the budget on the left hand and then say we are not raising taxes on the right hand. It is one or the other. So regardless of how many empty promise reserve funds you have in a budget resolution, the numbers don't lie, and the numbers say these taxes are being raised.

Now, as to the point that the sunset was put in by the Republicans, not by the Democrats, and we are simply letting this Republican policy manifest itself, and we are budgeting for it, that is not quite true, Mr. Speaker. And I remember being a member of the Ways and Means Committee and working on the conference committee at this time. When these tax cuts went through the Ways and Means Committee in the House, when these tax cuts passed the House floor, they were permanent. They never had a sunset in them. What happened? This arcane rule in the Senate called the Byrd rule was put in place. And the Byrd rule said for these tax cuts to be permanent, it needs 60 votes in the Senate. What happened? We had 52 Republicans voting to make them permanent; no Democrats would vote to make these tax cuts permanent. So the Democrats filibustered making these tax cuts permanent, and because of the Democrat filibuster in the Senate, these tax cuts were made temporary. The only way to get this tax relief to the American economy, to the American people, to get out of the job loss, to get out of the recession, was this temporary tax policy because of the Democrat-led filibuster by then Senator Daschle at the time in the Senate. That's why there's a sunset in this law.

We always kind of wondered at the time, why would they stand in the way of the taxpayer and make these tax cuts temporary? Why would they insist upon these sunsets? Well, now we know why. Because it is how they balance the budget because they plan on, bank for, certify, require, rely on these tax cuts going away.

The second reason I think this is a bad policy is it is an enormous missed opportunity, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman from South Carolina, who really is a gentleman from South Carolina, and I mean that sincerely, had a lot of good hearings in the Budget Committee. We have had a few in Ways and Means as well. We had all these experts coming to us from the left and from the right, from think tanks on the left side of the aisle and think tanks on the right side of the aisle, we had the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve Chairman, the Treasury Department coming to us, all saying the same thing: Entitlements are growing out of control. The entitlement program problem is enormous. We are doubling the amount of retirees in this country within one generation; yet we are only increasing the amount of workers coming in behind them by 17 percent.

We have an enormous unfunded liability, about $49 trillion. It's a mind-boggling number. But when you take three entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, those three entitlements right there, Mr. Speaker, will consume 100 percent of the Federal budget by the time my children are my age.

So all these experts came to us and said, Do something. You're the Budget Committee, you've got to do something to control the growth of entitlements. It's going to bankrupt America. And if we don't do anything, if we keep the government we have today and do nothing to reform entitlements, by the time my children are my age, they will literally have to pay double the amount of taxes for that Federal Government at that time.

Let me say it one other way, Mr. Speaker. Since about 1960, Washington has funded the Federal Government by taxing the U.S. economy by about 18 percent of the economy. About 18 percent of the gross domestic product has been required to pay for the Federal Government. It's been remarkably consistent. Now, if you take today's government, add no new programs, take none away, and transfer that out to about 2040 when my kids are my age, just to keep today's government afloat at that time you will have to tax 40 percent of GDP, 40 percent of the national economy just to pay for that government because of three entitlement programs.

You can't compete with China and India by taxing our economy at 40 percent, let alone Germany and Japan. You can't prepare for globalization. You can't help people get careers for tomorrow and enjoy higher standards of living if we don't address our entitlements right now.

That is the biggest travesty of this bill, Mr. Speaker. This bill says we will do absolutely nothing, nada, zilch, nothing at all either in the Senate budget resolution or the House budget resolution to attack and reform entitlement programs, to attack this problem for 5 years. This budget says let's do nothing to fix our entitlement programs for 5 years. That means we accelerate and exacerbate the bankruptcy of Social Security, of Medicare, of Medicaid. How is that helping senior citizens if we push these programs faster toward bankruptcy? I think that's wrong. I think we need to fix these programs so seniors can better rely on these programs.

And you know what, Mr. Speaker? In Wisconsin we say this a lot, and I think people say it around the country, and prior generations always told this to me, my parents and my grandparents, they said, the thing about America, what's beautiful about America is that one generation works hard and leaves to the next generation a country that's better off. The dream of parents is to leave your children with a country that's better off so you can enjoy a higher standard of living. That is the beautiful legacy of America.

Mr. Speaker, we are at risk of severing that legacy. If we don't address these entitlements, if we simply go the old easy Washington route of simply raising taxes and raising spending and doing nothing to address this entitlement problem, we will really run the risk of severing that legacy and giving our children a lower standard of living than that which we enjoy today.

We have new competitive pressures from other countries unlike any we have seen before. Raising taxes on families and workers will not bring more prosperity to America. It will give jobs to other countries. Doing nothing to attack the entitlement problem in this country will only ensure that an unprecedented mountain of debt is befallen onto our children and our grandchildren, and they are going to have to pay far higher taxes than any American has ever paid in the past.

This, Mr. Speaker, is why I say vote against this rule and vote against this budget resolution, which includes and relies on the largest tax increase in American history and the biggest missed opportunity by doing nothing to reform entitlements over the next 5 years.

This could have been a bipartisan opportunity to fix these problems. Sadly, it's not.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

No. It increased Medicare spending. It just didn't increase it as fast as it is projected to grow at this time.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

The President's numbers on the 10-year? I think they are probably correct; I have no reason to dispute them. But remember, Medicare spending goes up every year and thereon after under either of these budgets.

The question I have for the chairman is, if we're not going to fix these entitlements in the budget, then where are we going to fix them? If we don't put it in the Federal budget, then how do you get it done? If you don't have reconciliation protection to do entitlement reform, then when are you ever going to do it?

The 1997 bill that President Clinton passed through on a bipartisan basis was reconciliation.

Will the chairman yield for an additional question?

Why doesn't the gentleman's PAYGO apply to discretionary spending? Why doesn't the gentleman's PAYGO apply to current Federal spending?

May I make an entreaty to the chairman?

I would love to work on a bipartisan basis to put discretionary caps in place. I would be delighted to work with the chairman of the Budget Committee to put discretionary spending caps in place. Is that something that you would be willing to work with us on?

Mr. Speaker, when the new majority came into power, they talked about being fiscally conservative. They talked about bringing fiscal responsibility back to the people's House. Well, that's not what we see here today, and that's not what we have seen for the last 4 months.

Last session, Mr. Speaker, we brought a bill that said if we are going to do emergency spending bills, let's clean these up. Let's not put pork barrel, unnecessary spending in emergency spending. We actually defined what an emergency is.

And then we set aside a reserve fund, $6.4 billion, to say we are setting this aside for emergency spending, and if we go over this amount, we have to scrutinize every dollar to make sure that it is truly an emergency.

What did the new majority do? To their credit, they carried these rules over into this session of Congress. Thankfully, they said, you know what? Let's not pork up emergency spending bills. Let's make sure that if it's really an emergency, it will get funded as an emergency. If it's not, it won't.

What happened the first time the pressure hit? They waived the rules. They waived the rules completely. And now the new budget resolution the majority is proposing gets rid of these proposals altogether. No more checks on emergency spending. All it takes is to waive the rules, stamp it as an emergency, and we can spend as much as we want. It's outside the budget caps. It gets added onto the deficit. And that's what is happening right here tonight.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, this bill right here violates the majority's own PAYGO rules by $5.8 billion. That's right. They are violating their own PAYGO that they put into place just a few months ago by $5.8 billion. They are adding $21 billion of nonemergency spending that were unrequested, that have nothing to do with the war on terror. And they have added $11 billion of congressional add-ons that have nothing to do with the war on terror, that were not requested.

The majority came out with their first spending bill, adding $6 billion on top of the deficit. Now they are adding $21 billion on top of the deficit with this unrequested, nonemergency spending. And in their budget resolution they are bringing to the floor, another $25 billion next year.

Fiscal responsibility is the last thing you could say to describe this bill. I urge rejection of this motion.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I simply want to rise to say that the bill that just passed, which I actually supported because I think it was the right thing to do constitutionally, and just good government, it violated PAYGO for 2 hours. So what we have here is a too-cute-by-half PAYGO fix. And it is my hope that when the majority brings new bills to the floor that the bills themselves will be fixed with respect to PAYGO.

This rule tactic that is being deployed, I think, denied the minority rights to have the kinds of motions to recommit that the minority traditionally has been given.

But more importantly, this really is a violation of PAYGO. It is fixed now because it was broken just a minute ago. It is a half-hearted attempt for the majority to submit to their own rules. The PAYGO principle of pay-as-you-go ought to apply every minute, every second, every hour. If you believe in it, don't make it just apply for 2 hours and then bring it back an hour later just because you want to deny the minority an ability to have an effective motion to recommit.

I would be happy to yield to the leader.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I think the gentleman mentioned something about sunsetting taxes. If my memory serves me, having served on the Ways and Means at the time that bill was written, all tax bills which originate in the Ways and Means Committee in the House were permanent. It was the Democrat Party in the Senate that made it temporary, that put in, because of a cloture vote, put the temporary nature of the tax cuts in. The tax cuts sunset in 2012 because of the Byrd rule and because we did not have sufficient numbers of the Democrat Party at the time vote for cloture so that we could make these tax cuts permanent.

Mr. Speaker, the battle of ideas is alive and well here in the House of Representatives where we have two different parties with two different philosophies; and nowhere is that more clear than in the budget debate that is occurring today.

In the budget that passed the House before the Easter recess, the majority passed the largest tax increase in American history. I just held 34 town hall meetings in my First Congressional District of Wisconsin, and my constituents are telling me they don't want to see the per-child tax credit get cut in half. They don't want to see the marriage penalty come back. They don't want to see income tax rates raised across the board. They don't want to see the death tax come back in full force.

The tax cuts that passed in 2001 and 2003 created 7.6 million new jobs. We don't need tax increases; but, unfortunately, the budget that the majority passed here does just that. It gets rid of all of that tax relief that created all of these jobs, and it gives the American people the largest tax increase in American history. I think it is wrong.

We on this side of the aisle, the minority, we believe in a different path: Balance the budget by controlling spending and keep taxes low. That's the way to go, Mr. Speaker.