Conference Report on S. Con. Res. 13, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2010
Floor Speech
CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. CON. RES. 13, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 -- (House of Representatives - April 29, 2009)
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the chairman for yielding. I thank the ranking member for his views.
There is a disagreement, Madam Speaker. We have had a substantive disagreement for a long time. In fact, when I was elected to the Congress in 1981, we had a very substantive disagreement on what the economic policies would produce in terms of the supply-side economic theory. My view, which differs from Mr. Ryan's, is that it produced large deficits, and it produced large deficits in every year that it was practiced in the 29 years that I have been here. Only in the 8 years where President Clinton had the veto pen and said no, we're not going to go down that road, did we produce surpluses. Now, they were produced in large part because of an economy that rose more rapidly than any of us expected because of the chip, the information technology explosion, all of which was to the best interest of our country. We had a $5.6 trillion surplus projected in 2001 by President Bush as a result. Unfortunately, we pursued a policy with which I disagreed and which I said would produce high deficits and would not help our economy. In fact, we produced high deficits, and our economy was in the worst shape that any President has inherited an economy since Franklin Roosevelt. President Obama was confronted with an economy that was in substantial decline.
Today the House has the rare opportunity to set America on a responsible course for the future. I congratulate Mr. Spratt, I congratulate Mr. Boyd and Ms. DeLauro, members of the conference, for the courage and leadership they have displayed. Mr. Spratt has been, as always, extraordinarily informed and extraordinarily involved with all of our Members in trying to get to this point. The course that we set ourselves on, in my view, is one of lasting prosperity, and I urge my colleagues to seize this opportunity.
Along with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, this budget is a key part of our response to this recession. We have the power to emerge from this recession a stronger Nation, one with a future of clean energy and energy independence and a workforce ready to compete with the best in the world and a reformed system of health care. This budget provides for those objectives. We also have a chance to vote for the principles of fiscal responsibility and put ourselves on a truly sustainable course.
There is a real difference in this House, in the Senate, and in this country about what fiscal responsibility means. I believe it means we pay for what we buy rather than simply cutting our revenues, increasing our purchases, and hoping somehow something magical will happen to balance the budget. It has never happened in the 20 years that I have served with Republican Presidents pursuing that philosophy.
On energy, the budget funds incentives for cutting-edge research and clean energy jobs, as well as an energy-efficient, money-saving, critically necessary smart grid.
On education this budget builds upon the recovery plan with additional support for early childhood education, elementary and secondary school students, and efforts to help more Americans obtain a college degree. It expands access to education in the make-or-break years of early childhood--I think critical if we are going to be competitive in world markets. It increases Pell grants to help more students afford higher education and promotes job training and significant education reform.
On health care this budget responds to the skyrocketing costs that are straining families and businesses across this Nation. Family premiums have more than doubled since the year 2000, and over the past 5 years, our total health care spending has increased at more than twice the rate of inflation, consuming more and more of our economy and our budget each year. This budget fights that trend by making a significant down-payment on the reform, taking steps to lower health care costs, improve quality, and expand access. That is what America voted in 2008. That is the responsibility that we are carrying out.
The budget also allows us to use reconciliation to provide for an up-or-down vote on reforming health care, not as an option or first resort but as a fallback if partisanship blocks progress.
Essentially we're saying the majority will make policy. It didn't take 60 percent to elect the President. It didn't take 60 percent to elect any of us to this body. The premise of our Founding Fathers was if a majority of Americans believe we ought to move in a direction, that's the direction we ought to move. That has proved a very successful policy for over two centuries. It is a policy that we are providing for here. It is a policy that was provided for by the Republicans when they were in charge time after time after time.
As the bipartisan Concord Coalition points out: ``The budget reconciliation process was used in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2005 to reduce taxes,'' as opposed to deficit reduction, which, of course, reconciliation is designed to address.
Moreover, a case can be made that health care reform that includes spending restraints and squeezes inefficiencies out of the system is integral to reining in the rapid growth of health care costs, which is a major, a major driver of deficits.
I want to stress that last point. It is essential that health care reform includes difficult choices to cut costs, which will eventually result in lower deficits. Why? Because of the $2.4 trillion that we spend on health care, half of that comes from the government, either Federal or State.
All of these investments are vital to our future economic health and competitiveness. As President Obama recently pointed out: ``A cash-strapped family may cut back on all kinds of luxuries but will insist on spending money to get their children through college.''
Our country is in the same position. These tough times are no excuse to cut back on investments that will pay off many times over down the road.
Finally, this budget puts America back on the path of fiscal responsibility. It's no secret that past budgets have made easy choices and kicked the difficult ones down the road.
Let me say, as I have said so many times before, it takes no courage whatsoever to cut taxes. None. Zero. What takes courage, political courage, if we want to buy things, is to pay for them. That's what takes courage. You can make one of two decisions: Don't buy and keep revenue stable, or buy and pay for so that your children aren't paying for it. Those are the decisions that I am prepared to make and, very frankly, have made over the last 40 years that I have been in office.
This House needs to make those choices. That's why Allen Boyd, John Spratt and others have pursued so vigorously statutory PAYGO requirements. That's why I am in such support of them.
In 1990, statutory PAYGO led to that surplus that I referred to. Jettisoning that in the early part of this decade led to the deficits that we have experienced.
And why did you jettison PAYGO? Because you were unprepared to pay for the revenue losses that you voted for.
But by passing this budget we will be leaving a different legacy, one that makes clear that our government must pay for what it buys. This budget cuts the deficit from 10.5 percent of GDP in 2009 to 3 percent of GDP in 2013--in other words, by nearly two-thirds. Those savings come from spending restraint and oversight that save taxpayer money. We must do that. We cannot pursue the policies that we have been pursuing. They are not sustainable.
Most importantly, the House is strongly committed to statutory PAYGO. President Obama asked Congress, and again I quote, to develop a PAYGO law that would help return the Nation to a path of fiscal responsibility, and that is what we intend to do.
That is what this budget does. The House will not consider any bills on middle-income tax cuts, the estate tax, AMT relief, or the sustainable growth rate in the Medicare program unless they include statutory PAYGO, they are fully offset, or statutory PAYGO has already been enacted. Everybody wants to deal with those four issues. Let us see if everybody is prepared in this generation to pay for them and not pass those costs on to the next generation.
I urge my colleagues to approve this conference report, pass this budget and show our constituents that the priorities they voted for in 2008 are ours as well.
I again congratulate the chairman, the members of the conference committee and the members of the Budget Committee for their leadership and for their courage.
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