Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - July 24, 2007)

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Ohio for his leadership on this bill, and I am happy to come and lend my comments to the discussion.

Last year the Democrats got elected partly on the basis of their promise to cut spending. They made a big to-do about the fact that we were increasing spending. Republicans had done that. This is not cutting spending; this is holding the line on spending.

The eight appropriations bills that have passed the House so far are $34 billion above last year's spending levels. That is not fulfilling the promises that they made to help hold the line and even cut spending. As my colleagues have said, this inevitably is going to lead to the largest tax increase in the history of this country.

Furthermore, in terms of this bill in particular, I have searched the Constitution and I see no role for the Federal Government in most of what is going to be funded in this bill. But the Democrats have never met a request for spending that they didn't like, and so they are going on willy-nilly increasing spending, putting the American taxpayer at risk, and increasing the deficit in this country; whereas, the tax cuts that were passed in 2001 and 2003 have led us to a very, very strong economy which we know is benefiting the American people right now.

Furthermore, none of the promises that they made about slowing the exploding growth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that would result in deficit reduction have been dealt with in this Congress.

We have simply got to come to grips with the fact that we cannot tax the American people to the level at which they are being taxed and the level to which the Democrats want them to be taxed. We have to hold the line on spending, and I support this amendment.

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Ms. FOXX. I want to thank my colleague from Georgia.

Mr. Chairman, this budget proposal isn't a real surprise; it's business as usual for the Democrats and proves that their promises to be fiscally responsible are just empty rhetoric. If this budget, along with the other budgets that we have been approving, are approved, it signals a return to the Democrats' beloved tax-and-spend model for government. They are very happy to try to run the lives of all Americans from the Federal level.

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts have produced a real decrease in the tax burden on North Carolina's married couples, single parents, and families. Almost every taxpayer, low-income, married, single or self-employed, will lose valuable tax cuts under the assumptions made in the Democrat budget proposal earlier this year, and that would cover the costs that are in this budget tonight.

The economy is booming. The stock market is doing great. People's 401(k) plans are increasing tremendously. But they want to stop that because they want to spend your money. They think they know better how to spend your money than you know how to spend your money.

The Federal Government doesn't have a revenue problem. Revenues increased by 14.5 percent in 2005, 11.6 percent in 2006, and they are projected to grow by an additional $167 billion, or 7 percent, this year, according to the latest OMB estimate.

Again, the economy is booming, things are going great, but the Democrats would put a halt on that with their profligate spending. To put it another way, the Federal Government is projected to collect $800 billion more in revenue in 2007 than was just the case 4 years ago, $2.6 trillion in 2007 compared to $1.8 trillion in 2003.

We need to slow down spending and allow the American people to keep more of their money. They know how to spend it better than Federal bureaucrats do.

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