The Federal Budget
THE FEDERAL BUDGET -- (House of Representatives - October 25, 2005)
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be with you tonight. You have done a great job of leading our conservative group to think about these issues, and to provide the facts and figures that we need. In fact, the little history lesson that you have just given about the cutback on welfare, I think, is a very timely lesson to have, because every time we talk about lowering the rate of increase, we are given all of these gloom and doom stories about what is going to happen. And yet we know very well that Government is not the answer to the problems that we have in this country, the individuals are, and as long as people look to the Government to solve their problems, the problems are going to mushroom instead of go away.
These past few weeks have really tested our Nation's emergency response system, our compassion, and Congress's ability to set spending priorities. I think we are doing very well with Operation Offset and other things that we are working on in the Congress. But it is clear, as we go about this process, that Republicans are the Members who make up the party of fiscal responsibility.
And that fiscal responsibility has helped grow the economy and bolster jobs. Some of these statistics I know have been given out by other speakers, but I think it bears repeating, that over the last 2 years, our Nation has created millions of jobs. The unemployment level has dropped dramatically, and the economy has grown.
If you listen to the mainstream media, you hear nothing but gloom and doom. All of the good news gets drowned out. But we are making tough decisions, and we are cutting back on spending, and that is what is going to be the other factor that is going to really help this economy grow.
Earlier this year Republicans passed a budget that cut $100 billion from the deficit. And what did the Democrats do? They refused to vote for the budget. As my colleagues have said, Republicans have recommended 98 programs be terminated for a total savings of more than $4.3 billion.
It is my understanding that later this week we will be voting on a bill to permanently deauthorize those programs. So many times a program is not funded, but the authorization is not taken away. We need to do that, too, and we are going to do that. The Republican leadership is going to put domestic discretionary spending on track to be below last year's levels.
Now, the gentleman earlier gave a little lesson about the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending. As my colleagues know, I do not even like to use that term, ``mandatory spending.'' And every time that it comes up, I mention that I cannot find that word anywhere in the Constitution. And I want to encourage people to keep reading the Constitution to see if you can find the word ``mandatory spending.''
But we are doing a lot with the Republican leadership to cut the growth of spending, and that is what we have to do. But what have the Democrats done? Over the last 3 years they have attempted to bust the discretionary budget in the appropriations process by more than $60 billion. And the way they would finance this is raising taxes on small businesses. So it is not surprising that at a time when we must be watchful of taxpayer dollars, the Democrats have turned to their old playbook and called up one of their favorites, the old tax and spend.
We think it is time for Democrats to come up with a new plan and join us in doing something important about spending. I am relived that they have not had their way with the Federal checkbook, or things would be much worse than they are. In fact, if they had their way with spending, a new report by the House Appropriations Committee shows they would have increased spending by more than $60 billion over the last 3 years.
Before our Nation faced the challenges of recent hurricanes, we were on track to produce more, and our government was spending less. Last year we held nonsecurity discretionary spending to a 1 percent growth rate, far blow inflation and the previous 5-year average of 6 percent growth. Last year we held nonsecurity discretionary spending to a 1.4 percent growth rate, less than inflation, and a major reduction from previous years.
Democrats, on the other hand, have no plan to reduce the deficit. While they stand here and complain about budget deficits, they propose billions more in new spending. It is really frustrating to hear the two sides of their plan, knowing that there is no way for it to work, and the only way that it would work would be for them to raise taxes. But you never hear them talking about that.
I am asking our Democratic colleagues to join us in the effort to restore fiscal sanity to this country. In 1997, the House passed a deficit reduction bill with 153 Democratic votes that saved billions of dollars. What we need now is Democrats to join us in a similar move. But in the meantime, we are looking to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), those of us on the Republican side, to continue to bring up these issues, and again present the facts and help educate the American public as to what the real facts are, not the shell game that we keep seeing played out on the other side every night, but the real numbers so that they can see what Republicans have accomplished and what more we can do with the effort that we have been putting into it with Operation Offset and really knuckling down to being fiscally responsible.
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