Providing for Consideration of Conference Report on S. Con. Res. 13, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. CON. RES. 13, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 -- (House of Representatives - April 28, 2009)

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to stand here today in support of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution conference report.

I want to thank my friend, the Budget Committee Chairman, JOHN SPRATT, for his incredible work on this budget. He is smart, he is fair, and no one cares more about these issues.

I also want to thank Ranking Member PAUL RYAN. I believe he is a thoughtful and bright Member of this House, even though we usually disagree on most of the issues of the Budget Committee.

I also want to thank the staff of the Budget Committee, Democratic and Republican, for their tireless effort and their commitment to public service.

Madam Speaker, the budget conference report that we are considering today represents so much more than a clean break from the past. It is a blueprint for the future. It is a roadmap for economic recovery and for investing in national priorities that will provide the American people with shared prosperity in the years and decades to come.

The conference report lays the groundwork for health care reform, clean energy and quality education. It will create jobs, support working families, strengthen our national defense and renew America's global leadership.

By cutting taxes for the middle class, $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for over 95 percent of the American people, Madam Speaker, and investing in affordable health care, education and clean energy in a fiscally responsible way, we are taking the first critical steps to lifting our economy out of recession and creating good jobs for America's workers. For the last 8 years, President Bush flat out mismanaged the Federal budget. How? By enacting huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that led to skyrocketing deficits, by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without paying for them, and by refusing to invest in the American people.

This budget cuts the deficit by more than half by 2013. And in order to get us back on a fiscally sustainable path, the budget provides a realistic assessment of our fiscal outlook. Unlike the Bush administration, we actually budget for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of hiding them under the emergency spending categories. We budget for natural disasters that inevitably will occur.

This conference report cuts taxes for 95 percent of Americans. Let me repeat that, because we will hear a lot of rhetoric from the other side about taxes.

This budget cuts taxes for 95 percent of Americans. It provides immediate relief from the alternative minimum tax, it eliminates the estate tax on nearly all estates, and works to close corporate tax loopholes.

You see, all of us believe in altering the Tax Code. We believe that we should reduce the tax burden on the middle class and those trying to get into the middle. We believe that corporations shouldn't be allowed to shirk their responsibility by hiding their profits in offshore tax havens.

The other side believes we should reduce taxes for the very wealthiest. It's a simple difference in philosophy. Most importantly, this budget, the Democratic budget, actually invests in the American people. What a welcome change from the past 8 years.

We invest in health care reform, not just to improve health care quality and improve coverage, but to reduce the crushing burden of health care costs on American businesses. Everybody likes to talk about health care reform. This budget actually lays the groundwork to get it done.

We invest in clean energy in order to create jobs, improve the environment and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Everybody likes to talk about energy independence, but this budget actually lays the groundwork to get it done.

And we invest in education to reclaim our place as the best-educated workforce in the world. We work to expand early childhood education and to make college more affordable. Everybody likes to talk about improving education. This budget actually provides the basis to get it done.

And this is a budget that will allow Congress, if and when the time comes, to vote up or down on health care reform and education reform and avoid the infamous obstructionism so characteristic of the other body and the other side of the aisle. It certainly doesn't guarantee passage of such reforms, but it will allow for and require a straight up-or-down vote in each Chamber.

Now I know that change is hard. I know some of my colleagues want to cling desperately to the failed policies of the past. But the good news is that despite all the nasty press releases and television ads and talk radio attacks on the President, the American people still support President Obama's vision for America.

That's why this budget is so very important. This is a budget with a conscience. It is a budget that believes in the American spirit, and it's a budget that fulfills the promises that the President made to the American people.

Madam Speaker, we are at a crucial moment. Our country can meet its potential, our children can have a better future, our economy can once again create good-paying jobs. But in order to make that happen, we need change. We need to move in a bold, innovative new direction. We need to pass this budget.

I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this rule and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I just want to point out, Madam Speaker, that, notwithstanding the constant attacks on President Obama that have come from the other side of the aisle on this floor since he was elected, since he was sworn in as President of the United States, notwithstanding the constant attacks by the patron saint of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, and notwithstanding the attacks by former Speaker Gingrich on every TV show that will allow him on, a poll done by CBS recently showed that, by a 56-32 percent margin, the American people believe that President Obama's budget sets the right priorities.

I believe in the American people. I believe in their instincts. I think they know what they want better than my friends on the other side of the aisle.

I will also point out--and my friend admitted to this because, when it comes to reconciliation, they like to cherry-pick--that their budgets in 2001 and in 2003, which allowed for these massive Bush tax cuts and which nearly bankrupted us--the tax cuts that went to the wealthiest Americans--had reconciliation instructions. In 2005, with reconciliation instructions that allowed them to make deep cuts in Medicare, they increased the deficit by an aggregate of $1.8 trillion. That's what they did to the economy. That's what they did to the American people. So we don't want the same old, same old.

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Mr. McGOVERN. I just want the gentleman to know there are 40 million Americans without health insurance, and if we can get a health care reform package that covers them, I would be proud to cast a vote for that.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First of all, when people talk about partisanship, I recall my friends on the other side of the aisle giving us the prescription drug bill, which was probably one of the most partisan health care votes I can recall ever having here. Our hope is not to have a partisan health care bill. President Obama has already had a summit at the White House where he invited not just Democratic leaders but Republican leaders to come and to provide their input to try to figure out how we can do this together.

But the deal is we are going to get health care reform this year. My friends on the other side of the aisle, they have had 8 years. If it's such a priority, why haven't they done it in 8 years? The number of people that have fallen into the ranks of the uninsured has increased dramatically while they were in control of the Congress and the White House. So no one's talking about trying to create a partisan vote.

What we're trying to do is get what the American people want accomplished. And, quite frankly, I think the onus is on the other side of the aisle to demonstrate that they are, in fact, sincere about working in a bipartisan way. I think this President has done everything humanly possible to reach out the hand of friendship and bipartisanship to try to work with the other side of the aisle.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me say to the gentleman from Indiana, whom I respect, I agree with half of what he said. I agree that his party did mess up and leave us with a terrible economy at this particular juncture. But I think here's where we may disagree philosophically. The question is, how do you dig yourself out of this ditch? Is it more cuts? Is it throwing more people off the health care rolls? Is it creating more joblessness? Is it cutting back on educational programs? Is it cutting back on infrastructure programs? I mean, is that how we get out of this? Or, as I think we are suggesting, is it that maybe in the short term there needs to be some investment upfront to try to stimulate and resuscitate this economy, to create more jobs, to create more revenue, to try to get this economy back on the right track?

We are in deep trouble. We have inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression. Now, the gentleman and others have spoken as if we are not concerned about the deficit or the debt. First of all, we have joined with the gentleman from Indiana over the last 8 years complaining about the size of the debt. And we were told repeatedly by some of my friends on the other side of the aisle that the deficits don't matter, the debt doesn't matter; well, now all of a sudden it does.

The fact of the matter is, in the budget that we are proposing, we cut the deficit by nearly two-thirds in 4 years. That is our promise. That is our pledge in this budget.

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Mr. McGOVERN. I reclaim my time. First of all, there is not a single tax increase in the budget. The budget that we propose cuts taxes for middle-income families by more than $1.7 trillion over 10 years. And again, our budget cuts the deficit by nearly two-thirds in 4 years.

I am proud to defend our budget. I have talked about how it is going to create jobs. I have talked about how it is going to cut taxes. I have talked about how it is cutting nondefense discretionary spending. I have talked about how it is going to invest in affordable health care and college affordability and clean energy. I am out here very proudly defending this budget that we have.

So all I am simply saying is that what the other side has proposed, quite frankly, in our opinion, is unacceptable. It will hurt more middle-income families. It will cause more people to fall into the ranks of poverty, more people without health care. It will cut back on education, on investments in our infrastructure. Those were the proposals that were presented. I think that is the wrong way to go.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you have had your chance. We did it your way for 8 years, and we have the worst economy since the Great Depression. We have more people in poverty, we have the worst job creation since the Great Depression, we have more people who are hungry in America, we have more people without health insurance. I mean, give me a break.

The bottom line is we have tried it your way for 8 years, and you have failed. And the American people sent my friends a message loud and clear on Election Day that enough is enough.

Mr. KINGSTON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McGOVERN. I will yield to the gentleman.

Mr. KINGSTON. Who took over the Congress in 2006?

Mr. McGOVERN. Reclaiming my time. Yes, the Democrats did, but unfortunately with a President who vetoed every decent piece of legislation that we tried to pass, vetoing children's health care, and a whole bunch of other things that would have helped the economy.

Right now we have a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, and we are going to pass a budget that reflects what the American people want, the values of the American people. We are going to get this economy back on the right track. Enough. Eight years of failed policies is enough. The same old, same old doesn't work anymore.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, President Kennedy also said if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. And that's been the problem over the last 8 years is that the emphasis has been on the rich. The tax cuts, the extravagant tax cuts, for the wealthiest individuals that have contributed to our deficit; spending on the war that they wouldn't even pay for that was covered up under emergency spending procedures so it would mask the size of our growing debt. Yes, they made cuts in programs that helped kids and veterans and our elderly and investments in job creation and things that would help stimulate this economy. I don't think that's a record to be proud of.

So we're turning the page. We're actually going to a new chapter here. We have a budget before us that I am proud to defend. This is a budget that creates jobs with targeted investments in affordable health care, clean energy, education. It cuts taxes for middle-income families by more than $1.7 trillion over 10 years. It cuts the deficit by nearly two-thirds in 4 years, and it paves the way for an affordable health care plan.

Forty million of our fellow citizens are without health care. That's a national scandal. And you know what? That reality is one of the reasons why health care costs are soaring. We need to get that under control. We need to deal with the issue of college affordability so we have the best trained, best educated workforce in the entire world. We need to invest in clean energy so we can actually make this transition to clean, renewable sources of energy so we're not dependent on foreign oil, we're not dependent on the same old, same old kind of energy that we have here, that we have relied on for so many years in this country.

So we can either do what my friends on the other side of the aisle have done for 8 years or we can go in a very different direction. And I urge my colleagues that it's time to move in a different direction.

Madam Speaker, I will be offering an amendment to the rule. The amendment provides for timeout authority in this rule which will allow the debate on this conference report to take place over 2 days, giving Members adequate time to read this important report before voting. I hope Members will vote ``yes'' on the amendment and on the previous question and on the rule.

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