Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act Of 2009

Statement

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Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina, and I thank my colleagues on the other side.

You know, Mr. Speaker, sometimes the American people don't pay attention to an awful lot of what we say here. And frequently, when they don't, they're right. If this debate is really about accusations and counteraccusations about who's responsible, we're not going to get anywhere.

The American people know we have to pay our bills. We have to, as a government, just like they have to do individually. And we have some honest debates about what should be our priorities.

I've been an admirer of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) in his persistence in talking about fiscal responsibility. I disagree with the gentleman from Wisconsin that the way to fiscal prosperity is by radical reduction of taxes for very wealthy people. That's a fair and honest debate.

On our side, there are some folks who think that the worthiness of the goal of health care for all Americans is its own justification and a way to pay for it. I disagree with that. If it is a worthy goal, we have to turn aspiration into affordable reality by paying for it.

And on the health care bill, which is a major priority for President Obama and for Members of Congress, we are going to bring to the floor a health care bill that is paid for and does not add to the budget deficit.

One of the major reasons that we should do this legislation is so that there is discipline on those of us who are advocating, either for tax cuts, because they believe that will be good for the economy, or for reform in health care, so that before we spend an extra dollar of our taxpayer money, we kick the tires of the system that we're affecting, like health care.

And we have come to the conclusion, on our side, that to achieve one of our greatest goals, and that is health care for every single American, that we've got to kick the tires of the health care system and kick them hard to squeeze out savings that we can.

This legislation, where we're accepting the burden of responsibility to pay for those programs we think are absolutely essential to the welfare of the American people, that we have the obligation of paying for it. And before we even look at taxes, we want to look at how we're wasting money. A dollar saved by cutting down waste is a dollar avoided in taxes.

So this legislation, whatever it is characterized, as a machine for spending, which, frankly, is absurd, is a machine for responsibility. And whether or not our colleagues want to characterize this politically or not, there is a reason, on our side, that we believe fiscal responsibility is a burden we should accept, and we will, with this legislation.

I thank the Budget Committee for its leadership on this.

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