Republican Study Committee Budget

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding and for his kind words, too, especially. He has been a great friend and a great leader on this front. I want to commend him for taking on the task of putting together a budget, Madam Speaker, that confronts some of the challenges that our country is facing in a way that not only protects those promises that were made, for example, to seniors.

Seniors were promised the safety net of Medicare, and yet, if we do nothing--and there are some suggesting that we leave Medicare where it is today--it actually goes bankrupt, Madam Speaker, in the next 8 years. It would be irresponsible for us, as Members of Congress, to sit back and say we are afraid to confront these important issues, because failing to confront them literally would lead to a bankrupt program for seniors today and a broken promise by the Federal Government to those seniors.

So we save Medicare from bankruptcy and, in fact, we do it in a way that nothing changes for current seniors. In fact, the only thing that would change is if we didn't do this, it would go bankrupt. So the program is actually solvent again, not only for current seniors, but for younger people, too, who don't think it will be there. In fact, it won't be there for them the way it is for current seniors if we don't make these bold reforms.

Madam Speaker, we also save the Social Security program, another important promise made to people who work through their years and then want to retire and have a safety net. And, today, maybe they have got a lot of other means of savings, too. They might have 401(k)s, or they might have a pension plan from their company. But they also paid into that Social Security trust fund. And, again, if we do nothing, that program goes bankrupt, as well. So we save that program, again, not only for current seniors, but then for younger people. It will also be there for them, too, generationally saving it.

Just like when Ronald Reagan worked with Tip O'Neill to save Social Security from bankruptcy, they did it in a way that actually strengthened the program. So for those people who want to hold their head in the sand and say, don't do anything, not doing anything means those two vital programs--Medicare and Social Security--would go bust for seniors today. We can't let that happen.

Madam Speaker, I thank our leader, Mr. Banks, for doing that.

And then, again, we strengthen defense. We continue to build on the reforms we have made to our economy so that we are able to create more jobs, so that we repeal the death tax. We continue lowering taxes, which has gotten such a great revolution in job creation and higher wages for workers. The things that we are doing that are working, we build upon those things and make this country even stronger and greater for generations.

So while putting a budget together is tough--and I know the other side hasn't even passed a budget out of committee, Madam Speaker--we, with this RSC budget, have shown what bold conservative reforms can do to strengthen programs like Medicare, like Social Security, encourage innovation in failing programs, block granting Medicaid to States so States can innovate, strengthening defense, and, again, building on the great successes we are seeing in our economy so that wages can be higher, and we protect people with preexisting conditions.

These are the kinds of things that people call on us to do. We come here to Congress to do the big things, to tackle the tough problems in a way where we protect people who count on us and actually strengthen this country for future generations, so we can build on this great American Dream.

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