Motion to Instruct Conferees on S. Con. Res. 95, Concureent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2005

MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON S. CON. RES. 95, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005 -- (House of Representatives - May 05, 2004)

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The Clerk will report the motion.

The Clerk read as follows:

Mr. MOORE of Kansas moves that the managers on the part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the House amendment to the concurrent resolution S. Con. Res. 95 be instructed to agree to the pay-as-you-go enforcement provisions within the scope of the conference regarding direct spending increases and tax cuts in the House and Senate. In complying with this instruction, such managers shall be instructed to recede to the Senate on the provisions contained in section 408 of the Senate concurrent resolution (relating to the pay-as-you-go point of order regarding all legislation increasing the deficit as a result of direct spending increases and tax cuts).

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I have a prepared statement. I am not going to give it.

Perhaps the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) and perhaps the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) believe if you say something enough, somebody will believe it.

I refer the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) to page 22 of the administration's budget document on receipts. For 8 years under Clinton, receipts went up. After we passed the 1993 bill, the economy went up and deficits went down. However, for the 12 years of Reagan and Bush, deficits went up, and under this administration, deficits have soared. And I would say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), check out page 22. Receipts have gone down, my friend. Down.

[Time: 15:00]

Starting with 2000, $2.25 trillion; 2001, $1.9 trillion. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), he is not listening to these figures. I know he wants to know the truth. I know he wants to know the facts. I am trying to give them to him so he will not misstate again. I want him to hear these facts, and then he can respond. This is the administration's book, not mine.

I will give them to the gentleman again. In 2000, $2.25 trillion; 2001 $1.9 trillion; 2002, 1.8 trillion; 2003, 1.7 trillion.

So to not tell us and the American public that resources are going up, they are not. This graph reflects what the Republican budget book says.

Now, with respect to spending, I say to my friend, we are spending less on discretionary spending than we spent in 1962 of GDP. But you all talk about that. Why? Because it is easy to talk about that. It is 17 percent of the budget; you do not talk about the other 83 percent.

What the gentleman from Kansas is saying, I say to my colleagues, is do not pass these tax cuts for which there is no money to give anybody. You are taking it from Social Security. You are taking it from Medicare. And, more importantly, I will tell my colleagues who is going to pay for these tax cuts: my children, my grandchildren, and the generations yet to come. That is not only intellectually wrong, it is an immoral fiscal policy.

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Mr. Speaker, if the vote on this motion to instruct budget conferees is anything like the first one on March 30, then someone should summon the house physician because there may be some very sore arms on the Republican side of the aisle.

Certainly, we remember that five-minute vote? The Republican leadership held it open for 28 minutes so that it could (quote/unquote) persuade eight Republicans to change their votes from yes to no, and defeat the motion on a tie vote.

As David Broder, the syndicated columnist, pointed out (and I quote):

Clearly, on a free vote of conscience, narrow majorities in both the House and Senate would be prepared to impose this degree of self-discipline [meaning pay-as-you-go budget rules].

The simple fact is, Mr. Speaker, the Office of Management and Budget projects that our Nation will run a record budget deficit of $521 billion this year. That figure does not include the costs of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an estimated $50 billion to $75 billion.

The 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion that George W. Bush inherited when he took office has been turned into a projected deficit of more than $4 trillion in just 3 short years.

And now, our Republican friends want to drive us even deeper into debt with tax cuts that are not paid for.

Perhaps Mr. Nussle, the chairman of the Budget Committee, summed up the Republican philosophy best. In March, he said (and I quote):

We don't believe that you should have to pay for tax cuts.

Well, my Republican friends, you don't. But our children and grandchildren surely will.

That's why the list of those supporting pay-as-you-go rules includes, among others, House Democrats, a bipartisan majority of the Senate, Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan, the Concord Coalition, the Committee for Economic Development, and the Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget.

Republicans have not always believed that tax cuts are sacrosanct.

In fact, the majority leader himself even said in 1997 of Jack Kemp, a former member of this body (and I quote):

Jack Kemp worships at the altar of tax cuts. Jack has always said that deficits don't matter. We think that deficits do matter.

Mr. Speaker, PAYGO rules will not preclude tax cuts.

They simply recognize that, with a fiscal crisis looming, it is irresponsible-indeed immoral-to force the next generation to pay our bills.

I urge my colleagues to support this motion.

[End Insert]

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I got up to my office, and I heard the comments of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) and the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) both said not the perspective you thought revenues were going to increase, but that they had increased. That was not accurate. That was my point, and I think your review of the book indicates that I was accurate.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TOOMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I understand his analysis of the last 6 months; we have had a good growth in the last 6 months. Not as good, contrary to what the gentleman says, as we had in terms of the Clinton years, because where we grew 23 million new jobs, we have still lost jobs. The gentleman pointed out we raised 300,000 jobs. As he knows, 100,000 of those were returning workers from the strikes around the country.

But the point I would make is that in 1993 when we adopted the Clinton economic program, Mr. Armey and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), I cannot say the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), but Mr. Kasich was then the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, they said that program was going to destroy America's economy, we would lose jobs, have high deficits and high unemployment and high interest rates. In fact, exactly the opposite happened, and we had the best economy we have had in the history of the country.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is a shame we cannot have a longer, more substantive debate on this. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) got up and criticized the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore) for his inconsistency. He is for middle-class tax cuts, as I am; but he wants to pay for them. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) in 1997 voted for the Balanced Budget Amendment, as I did, which had exactly the same PAYGO as is included in the Moore motion to instruct.

Hear me, I say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey). The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) voted for exactly the same PAYGO as did 193 Republicans. Stick with your original convictions.

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