Providing For Consideration Of H.R. 5019, Home Star Energy Retrofit Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak against the rule for H.R. 5019. I offered an amendment in full committee markup which would have prevented enactment of H.R. 5019 if there was an impact on deficit neutrality. I withdrew that amendment in committee due to an exchange I had with the chairman, Mr. Waxman, where he told me we would continue to work on this amendment so we could pay for this bill before we brought it to the House floor. I do thank the chairman for meeting with me.

There has been no pay-for secured, unfortunately, and therefore I offered a similar amendment in the Rules Committee. The amendment was not accepted in the Rules Committee, and therefore we are not able to have open debate on the issue today on the House floor. It is frustrating that the majority has shut down the opportunity to have a debate on the cost of the legislation and the addition it would be to the Federal deficit.

Very simply, my amendment stated that the provision of this act, including the amendments made by the act, shall be suspended and shall not apply if there is a negative net effect on the national budget deficit of the United States. While this is an authorizing bill, I am concerned that the majority could not give any assurance that this bill will indeed be paid for. I'm very concerned about the $6.6 billion price tag of this legislation. At a time when there is a national deficit crisis, it is not appropriate to add $6.6 billion in spending to the deficit. As a Congress, we absolutely must stop this excessive spending.

President Obama submitted his administration's fiscal year 2010 budget proposal with a record-breaking cost of $3.8 trillion. This budget proposal includes a $2 trillion tax increase over the next 10 years and projected record deficits. This proposal will double our Nation's debt in 5 years and triple it in 10 years from the levels from fiscal year 2008. CBO has stated that under current spending levels, by 2020, American taxpayers will be paying $2 billion per day in interest on the national debt. It also estimates that the debt will be $20 trillion by that year. Our Nation's economic future requires that this Congress and the administration exercise serious fiscal restraint.

Also, we know there will be devastating effects on the economy due to the recently passed health care bill. The recent CMS analysis concluded that national health care expenditures will actually increase by $311 billion. This analysis also shows the recently passed health care bill increased health care costs to 21 percent of GDP by 2019. Finally, CBO released figures showing that the ``doc fix'' will cost $275.8 billion through 2020, and that is if rates are frozen at current levels. This is a 33 percent increase from the initial figure of $207 billion.

I'm against this rule and disappointed my amendment was not approved by the Rules Committee for consideration today on the floor.

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