Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 30 minutes.

Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. First of all, let me commend the gentlelady from Michigan and the other colleagues for bringing forth an alternative budget. As a member of the Budget Committee for the past 6 years, I know how difficult it is to put together a budget of this magnitude. It takes a lot of work and a lot of dedication, so I commend my colleagues for doing this.

This is a true substitute budget, Mr. Chairman. It highlights the stark differences between the Democrats' priorities and the Republican priorities. And yes, it does increase taxes by actually more than $1.1 trillion. I think that bears repeating. It increases taxes by more than $1.1 trillion over the next 5 years. This includes actually $427 billion in increases on top of the $683 billion in the underlying Democratic budget.

The differences between the Republican budget priorities and those of my Democrat friends, frankly, are rather clear. They're crystal clear. The Democratic budget that came to the floor yesterday will raise taxes by $683 billion over the next 5 years. Apparently, however, some of my Democratic friends think that that increase is still not enough, so this substitute raises taxes by, as I said before, $1.1 trillion over the next 5 years. Now, however, Mr. Chairman, the Republican substitute that will be offered later today does not raise a single penny in taxes. It contains absolutely no tax increases.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to take some time to discuss frankly the underlying Democratic budget.

Last year, the Democratic budget promised to raise taxes by $217 billion, and a lot of us were shocked because that was such a huge tax increase. A lot of us thought that was a lot of money. But this year they offer a newer and, frankly, bolder, more dramatic budget and more dramatic tax increase than last year. The underlying Democratic budget raises taxes by over $683 billion over 5 years. It sets up years and years of even higher spending and higher taxes.

Mr. Chairman, at last week's committee markup, the Budget Committee that I am privileged to serve on, a number of my Republican colleagues and I offered several amendments to extend the widely popular middle class tax provisions. And we're going to hear that this budget and the underlying Democratic budget only raises taxes on the wealthy. Well, we had that debate also in the Budget Committee. So, we offered some amendments to see if, in fact, that maybe they had just made a mistake. And yet, not one of these commonsense tax relief amendments were adopted. Every single Democrat on the committee voted against these amendments.

And I want to talk about what those amendments are, because, again, we're going to hear time and time again, oh, that's tax cuts for the wealthy. Let's talk about the specifics of the amendments that were voted down, that did not receive one single Democratic vote in the committee.

They voted against extending the $1,000 child tax credit. You know, I don't know, maybe it's different in the rest of the country, but in Florida, not only the wealthy have children. And they voted against that, against extending the $1,000 child tax credit. And that's raising taxes on families with children by $51 billion.

They voted against extending the marginal tax rates for all Americans and, thus, increasing taxes by $326 billion. They voted against, Mr. Chairman, eliminating the death tax. Now, I thought we could at least all agree that there should be, as a friend of mine here once said on the floor, ``no taxation without respiration,'' but no, they voted against eliminating the death tax, increasing taxes again by 181 additional dollars.

They voted against extending tax relief for married couples, increasing taxes by $25 billion on married couples.

And, again, I don't know, maybe Florida is different; but at least in the State of Florida not only the wealthy get married. That is a tax increase on every married couple in the entire country.

They voted against extending the 10 percent tax bracket for the very-low-income taxpayers. That's correct: we will hear time and time again, no, we only want to raise taxes on the wealthy. Yes, but then why did they vote against extending the 10 percent tax bracket for the very-low-income taxpayers?

Again, extending the State and local sales deduction for States like Florida, Nevada, and Texas, where people should be able to deduct what they pay in sales taxes because we don't have an income tax, which is deductible in other States, this provision expires this year. But the Democratic budget rejected this deduction, increasing taxes on Floridians and others right away.

My friends on the other side of the aisle claim they support tax relief, and they'll say it time and time again; but, frankly, their actions just don't match their rhetoric.

Those amendments were defeated in committee just a few days ago. Those amendments which are not tax cuts for the wealthy, as we're going to hear, no. They were for middle-class American families in the United States, and they voted against every single one of those amendments. And, again, every single one of them our colleagues on the Democratic side voted against those tax cuts for middle America, for American families, for small businesses, et cetera. Again, not one single Democrat voted for these tax cuts for the middle class.

But these tax provisions affect real people, Mr. Chairman, real American families, workers, and small business owners. Let's take a look at what these tax increases mean. Again, these are real numbers. This is not theory. This is not rhetoric:

A family of four with $50,000 in annual income, not wealthy people but a family of four with $50,000 in annual income, would see its tax bill increase by $2,100. That's $2,100 in tax increases in 2011 as a result of the Democrats' budget. That's a 191 percent increase in their Federal taxes.

Forty-eight million married couples will see their tax bills rise by an average of $3,000; 12 million single women with dependents will face a tax increase of nearly $1,100; 18 million seniors, seniors, will see a tax increase of more than $2,100 in the year 2011; 27 million small business owners, Mr. Chairman, which are the backbone of our economy, which are the job creators in our economy, will see their tax bills increase by over $4,000. More than six million taxpayers who previously had no Federal income tax liability will become subject to the individual income tax in 2011. Again, these are low-income Americans, because, again, unfortunately, the 10 percent bracket has gone away, and also their child deduction will go away.

These are just a few examples, not rhetoric, concrete specific examples of how this amendment and the underlying bill will affect hardworking American families, the American taxpayer.

With this budget, 116 million American taxpayers will see their tax increase by an average of $1,800 in the year 2011. That's actually the underlying bill. With this amendment it would be even higher than that.

I often hear my Democratic friends say that a budget sets priorities. And it's obvious that this budget and this amendment to the budget set priorities. And what are those? More runaway spending and much higher taxes. That's what this budget offers and what this amendment offers. More of the same, just more taxes, more spending, more taxes, more spending, and no reform.

Some people, I guess, believe in this budget, and this amendment shows that some people believe that the Federal Government just doesn't have enough money and that the people have too much money in their wallets; so the Federal Government needs to take it from them because we can do a better job here. The bureaucracy and those smart men and women in Congress, we know much better how to spend people's money than they do.

But, Mr. Chairman, wait. Like those TV commercials: but wait, there's even more. This budget does absolutely nothing to address the huge entitlements, the crisis that our Nation faces. As entitlement programs continue to grow, this underlying budget contains no instructions to reform them so that we will be able to keep them so that they can continue to serve the people that they are serving and they will not bankrupt those programs and also not bankrupt the country.

Again, the truth is, Mr. Chairman, that Medicare and Medicaid are both growing at more than 7 percent a year. Social Security is growing at 7 percent per year. These huge growth rates are, unfortunately, unsustainable for our economy, for those programs, for our fiscal future. We must tackle this crisis. We must reform them to save those programs and also to make sure that we save the fiscal situation in this country. And if we don't, if we put it off for another 5 years, as this amendment does and as the underlying budget does, it will just make the situation worse. We have to act on that now.

Mr. Chairman, this substitute budget and the underlying Democratic budgets are both deeply flawed. They both raise taxes on hardworking Americans to a level that we have never seen. We know what higher taxes will do. It will kill job creation. I mean, we all agreed to that. When we wanted to make sure that we avoided a recession, what did this Congress do on a bipartisan level? We cut taxes because we know that cutting taxes, on a bipartisan level we know, that helps economic growth. But yet this amendment and the underlying budget will increase taxes on the American people without precedent, at levels that, frankly, have no precedent. And this is just more of the same.

And for those reasons, Mr. Chairman, I would respectfully request that we vote down this amendment.

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

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Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I want everybody to kind of listen to this debate, to just listen to see where you hear one reduction in this amendment or in the underlying budget, one reduction in Federal spending, one reduction in waste, one cut in waste, one program that is eliminated, one thing in the Federal Government that should get a little bit less money. Please listen to that, and what you will hear is just the opposite. More spending. More spending. More spending, more Federal programs, and not one reduction.

Is the Federal Government so efficient there is nothing that can be reduced? I don't think so.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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As you have heard, yes, we have heard time and time again this amendment does, and the underlying budget does, increase spending. And how do they pay for the increased spending? Well, $1.1 trillion over the next 5 years in increased taxes. Let me repeat that: $1.1 trillion in increased taxes. Including who? Who would get taxed? Well, everybody would get a tax increase, including, for example, reducing the child tax credit in half; including raising taxes by not extending the 10 percent tax bracket for the very-low-income taxpayers of this country; including not extending the tax relief for married couples.

This $1.1 trillion in increased taxes would hit every American, every small business, every family, every taxpayer.

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Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I once again want to commend our colleagues from the CBC. They have done a lot of work to put this budget together. It is not an easy task to do. It takes a lot of work, not only from the members, from their staffs, so I want to commend them for putting together a work product that I know they spent a lot of time and a lot of effort on, and they must be commended for that.

Obviously, as you have heard today, we have some huge disagreements. This amendment would raise taxes by more than $1.1 trillion, that's trillion with a ``T,'' over the next 5 years.

It's $427 billion above and beyond the already $683 billion in tax increases in the underlying Democratic budget that, frankly, was pretty much just rejected in a very strong vote in the Senate, 99-1.

The reason there was a 99-1 vote was because the Senators on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, do not want to support eliminating all of these middle class tax cuts, the tax cuts on families, the tax cuts per child, et cetera, et cetera, which is why they rejected that and adopted an amendment to have half the size of the tax increase that the underlying budget has. Half that size of an increase in taxes is still way too high.

However, the underlying budget that the House is looking at, again, would raise taxes on the American people by $683 billion over the next 5 years, and this amendment goes even further than that by increasing taxes $1.1 trillion over the next 5 years.

For those reasons and many others, I respectfully would ask to vote against this amendment. But I do want to end one more time by commending the gentleman from Virginia and all his colleagues for doing a lot of work and putting together a work program that requires a lot of effort and a lot of work, even though, again, when it came out, obviously it's a $1.1 trillion tax increase, which is why, among other reasons, we cannot support it.

I would respectfully then ask my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the remainder of my time.

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