Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2008
Floor Speech
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the chairman of the Budget Committee for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I speak on every one of these budgets; and because I have been here a long time, I know the history of these budgets going back a quarter of a century. I sometimes believe the talking points on the other side of the aisle are written by Lewis Carroll, the author, of course, of that famous book which had as its theme saying one thing and meaning another: ``black was white,'' ``up was down,'' et cetera, et cetera.
I have listened since 1981 to the economic observations of such people like Phil Gramm, such people like Dick Armey, an economist, the majority leader of your party, and I think to myself how confused the American public must be when the assertions are made, an article by Dave Stockman in today's paper, you may have seen. David Broder wrote an article about that. Mr. Stockman is in a little bit of trouble with assertions that things that he said were true were in fact not true. In fact, David Stockman admitted that in 1983 what he said was true was not true; what he said they thought, they did not think.
The American public needs to place it in that context.
I have heard a lot, I say to my friend from Missouri, over the last few hours about debates about we are going to make these tax cuts permanent, and we are not.
Now, I am sure the American public knows that the President for the last 6 years has been a Republican. I am sure they know that the leadership in the House for the past 6 years has been Republican, and I am sure they know that the leadership in the Senate has been Republican. And guess what? Never did you make those tax cuts permanent. Why not? Because you wanted to play fiscal games. That is why not.
You wanted to count your out-years as looking better than they did. Why are you having a $274 billion tax increase in this bill? How do I say that? Because you are not fixing the AMT. Why aren't you fixing it? Because it is STI, your ``stealth tax increase.'' You liked SDI. This is STI, a stealth tax increase, where you say one year we are going to fix it, but, guess what, for the next 4 years we will get that additional tax revenue. A stealth tax increase.
There are no tax increases in this bill. In fact, it provides for tax cuts for the middle class. But they have to be paid for.
George Bush I and Dick Gephardt, the leader of this House, came together and said, ladies and gentlemen, we have to have fiscal responsibility, and we are going to do it. And the way we are going to do it is we are going to have PAYGO. We are going to pay for what we buy. George Bush signed that. And guess what? The Republican side of the aisle excoriated the President of the United States, George Bush, for entering into an agreement that ultimately would bring us surpluses.
I have also listened to these debates and have seen some very earnest, very intelligent, very articulate young men. Mr. Ryan is the third in a series of those earnest, intelligent, energetic, articulate young men, who talk about their vision for America, talk about where they want to take America.
Mr. Ryan puts up the children. Now, unlike Mr. Ryan, who I think has children, I have children, I have got grandchildren, and, as some people know, I have a great-granddaughter. And I am very concerned about all of those children whose taxes you have raised almost every year you have been in charge that I have been here, starting in 1981. And you raised their taxes by not paying for what you buy.
You talk about cutting spending, I tell my friend.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to tell my friend that there are more ways to skin a cat than one.
I tell the Chair that I have heard the argument of these earnest young men who have all stood on this floor. David Stockman at the age of 34 telling the country as director of OMB how we were going to balance the budget, how Ronald Reagan said we are going to balance the budget. Ronald Reagan ran over $1 trillion in deficits over his 8 years. Over $1 trillion in deficits.
There is one person in America who can stop spending in its tracks, only one, and that is the President of the United States. Ronald Reagan ran $1 trillion in deficits, actually $1.4 trillion. George Bush I in just 4 years ran $1 trillion in deficits. And this President in the 6 years he has been President has run over $1.6 trillion in deficits. $4.1 trillion of deficits during the Reagan administration, the Bush I administration and the Bush II administration.
Now, I tell the Chairman that my friend does not seem to be paying attention to these dramatic figures. But ladies and gentlemen of this House, I hope you are, and I hope all of our constituents are listening as well, because the rhetoric on this floor is cheap, but the performance is not.
During those 18 years of Republican leadership of this country, we ran $4.2 trillion in deficits. During the 8 years that Bill Clinton was President, we had a $62.9 billion surplus. The only President in the lifetime, I tell the Chairman, of my young friend from Wisconsin that that has been accomplished, notwithstanding Mr. Stockman or Mr. Kasich or Mr. Nussle, who all said they wanted to balance the budget, and none, none, none of them did it. None of them did it.
Now, we adopted a program in 1993, and I heard the same rhetoric, I tell my friends on this side of the aisle, that I am hearing today, the same rhetoric. Dick Armey not only was the majority leader of the Republican House, it wasn't a Republican House then, but he was also an economist, and an economist still. And Mr. Armey told the President of the United States, if we adopt this program, we are going to have deep debt, high unemployment and annual deficits.
That was the representation I tell my friends on this floor. Those representations were all wrong. That's why when we listen to debate on this floor today we see a balanced budget, a responsible budget that invests in our future.
Mr. Chairman, if I were speaking directly to him, I would tell my young friend, I have heard about these cuts that you talk about, for a quarter of a century I have heard about these cuts. Why is it that you spent more money as a party with the President with control of the Senate, control of the House by a factor of two, twice as much spending rise under the Bush Administration than under the Clinton Administration. Why is that?
Why do you come here and crow about cutting spending when you doubled the rate of growth when you controlled everything? That's what the American public needs to judge.
Now, I had some prepared comments here, and I apologize to my good friend who spent so much time doing this. But, ladies and gentlemen, Lewis Carroll is not writing this budget. Alice is not going to have to live under this budget. My children, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren and, more importantly, my country, are going to have to live under this budget.
We didn't adopt a budget last year. We didn't adopt appropriation bills last year. We didn't do any of the fiscal business that we should have done last year. Why? Because your party could not agree with one another. So you had no fiscal program. Your fiscal program was spending more money.
I hope that this House, for the first time in 6 years, adopts a responsible budget that will move us towards balance. It won't get there overnight. And when I say that, it is not empty rhetoric, because when we, in 1993, passed that program, we took this country for 4 straight years out of deficit.
Now, I know you will say, ``Well, we Republicans took over in 1995.'' And my response to that, of course, is, you didn't have the presidency. When you had it all, why couldn't you do it? When you had the presidency, when you had the Senate, when you had the House, tell me why you couldn't do it.
I will tell you why. Because it was the President of the United States who said this is the way we are going to do it or I am going to veto it. This President can veto it, and we won't be able to override his veto. I understand that. He is in charge. That's why we have these deficits, because he has not vetoed one spending bill. He vetoed one bill, embryonic stem cell research. Not one spending bill. Every nickel that has been spent in this country has been spent under the signature of George Bush, the President of the United States, every nickel.
So I ask my friends, vote for a responsible budget. Move us, as we did during the 1990s, 4 years out of debt, 4 years into surplus, the first time that had happened, and left you folks that took over with a $5.6 trillion surplus that you have squandered into a $3 trillion deficit. And, yes, 9/11 had an impact on that. And your tax cut, we had a very shallow recovery. You know that. Every economist says that. And a relatively shallow downturn in the economy.
This budget offered by Mr. Spratt is a responsible budget that provides for tax cuts for the middle class, provides for investment in education and competitiveness of our country, provides for investment in our veterans, provides for investment in defense, using the same number that the President gave us so that we can keep America strong.
Mr. Spratt, I thank you. I thank the members of your committee for having the courage and the wisdom and the fiscal soundness to come forth with this budget. It is worthy of support of every Member of this Congress.
I urge this House to adopt this budget this day.
Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to our republican colleagues, let me say that to hear them talk about fiscal responsibility is nothing less than surreal.
In this debate on the fiscal 2008 budget, many numbers have been used.
But only two are really relevant on the issue of fiscal responsibility, and the Republican Party's lack thereof--$5.6 trillion and more than $3 trillion.
When President Bush took office, he and the then-Republican majorities in Congress inherited a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion.
The President proclaimed: ``we can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget deficits, even if the economy softens.''
He promised that he would pay down the national debt, and some in the administration even worried publicly about paying down the debt too fast.
Well, as we have learned, the President's projections were unequivocally wrong and worries about paying down the debt were completely misplaced.
Over the last 6 years, the President and Republicans in Congress--after enacting the most reckless fiscal policies in American history--have turned a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion into record budget deficits and additional debt of more than $3 trillion.
In fact, the amount of foreign-held debt has more than doubled under the Bush administration--from about $1 trillion in 2001 to $2.1 trillion today.
And, interest payments on the national debt have increased from $206 billion in 2001 to a projected $256 billion under the President's budget for fiscal 2008--consuming more than 20 percent of all individual income taxes.
Let me say, too, that until the American people spoke last November and elected Democratic majorities in Congress, the President never--not once--budgeted the costs of the on-going war in Iraq, which today stand at more than $400 billion, with another $100 billion being considered.
Thus today, Mr. Chairman, with this budget written and offered by Chairman Spratt, House Democrats will take our Nation in a new direction and begin to clean up the fiscal train wreck left by Republicans.
Our budget is a statement of our values and priorities, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to defend our Nation, grow our economy, protect our children and strengthen families, preserve our plant, and ensure that the Federal Government is accountable and efficient.
First, this fiscally responsible Democratic budget will bring the Federal budget back to balance by 2012. Over the next 5 years, the cumulative deficit in our budget is $234 billion lower than the President's budget.
Our budget strictly adheres to the pay-as-you-go budget rules that were reinstated in January by the new majority, and which Republicans allowed to expire in 2002. The Concord Coalition even says this budget is ``a successful first test of how seriously they [House Democrats] plan to abide by [the PAYGO] rule.''
Furthermore, this Democratic budget invests in our priorities without increasing the deficit. It provides for a robust defense, boosting Homeland Security funding and providing $3.5 billion more for veterans' services than the President's request for 2008.
It also makes critical investments in education, children's health care, transportation infrastructure, and alternative energy research and development--while rejecting the President's request to cut Head Start, LIHEAP, COPS and First-Responder programs, and community development block grants.
And, our budget accommodates immediate relief for the tens of millions of middle-income households which would otherwise be subject to the alternative minimum tax--while calling for the extension of middle-class tax cuts that are not due to expire until December 31, 2010.
This is a budget that we can be proud of. And, it stands in stark contrast to the extraordinarily irresponsible policies of the last six years.
I urge all of my colleagues: vote for fiscal responsibility and a bright future for our children. Vote for the budget that reflects our values and meets the needs of the American people. Vote for this Democratic budget.
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