Providing For Consideration Of Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
Providing For Consideration Of Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act Of 2009
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I want to say thank you to our colleagues across the aisle for bringing forward a PAYGO statute.
I will tell you, it is of concern to me, though, that the statute, the way this is written, the way they're approaching PAYGO could lead to tax increases because what we are not seeing from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is a willingness to reduce spending. And we know if you're going to have an effective PAYGO policy, that you have to be able to reduce what you're spending. That is a requirement.
On every appropriations bill that we have, I file a 5 percent, across-the-board reduction amendment for a spending cut. The reason I do that is because what we have learned from our States, what I learned as being a State Senator is that across-the-board spending reductions work. They work. They reduce what you are going to lay out, the amount of money that you are going to spend.
So, let's do this in a bipartisan way. Let's agree that we are actually going to reduce spending. Let's agree that we're going to have PAYGO enforcement, that we're not going to cry ``emergency'' every time we have a Katrina, every time we have a tsunami, every time we have a need for extra spending, that we don't go call for a special appropriation that allows us to circumvent the PAYGO rules. And let's be certain that we put all that spending on the table, that we put it all on the table, and that we agree we're going to reduce what we are going to spend.
What we have seen is the PAYGO rule, the way it is written, the way they've put it in place, has led to a deficit that has gone from $162 billion to over $1 trillion. That's over a 1,000 percent increase. And I think that this body would be well-served to make that 5 percent haircut; set a nickel aside out of every dollar that is going to be spent for our children and our grandchildren, their future and opportunity.
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