Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I think at the beginning of this debate we need to put it in context. I know that I must bore my friends on the majority side of the aisle, but during my 30 years in this body, there have been essentially three economic programs adopted: One was in 1981 when we adopted what is referred to as Reaganomics. The second was in 1993 when we adopted the Clinton economic program. The third, of course, was in 2001 and 2003 when we adopted what was the Bush economic program.

During the first economic program, we ran up $2.4 trillion of deficits. During the second, the Clinton economic program, which lasted for 8 years, we had $62.9 billion of surplus over 96 months. $2.4 trillion during the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush administrations, $62.9 billion surplus during the Clinton administration, and then another $2.8 trillion of deficits during the Bush economic program.

The reason I raise that as we begin is because I want to tell my friends, and I know we will tell our constituents, that the message that we hear today from my good friend, Mr. Ryan--for whom I have a great deal of respect. We have a disagreement, but I do not believe that he speaks with a forked tongue, if you will. He speaks what he believes--he first of all says, correctly, that we have a deficit problem that must be dealt with by us all, those of us who serve here and with those whom we represent. We must with courage, with honesty, and, yes, with discipline address this deficit. In order to do so, we must address all items of expenditures and revenues. Revenues, of course, are what we use to pay for things we buy.

Why did we run up deficits during the Reagan administration when one person could have stopped spending in its tracks, Ronald Reagan; or the George Bush, I, administration where one person could have stopped spending in its tracks? Because we bought more than we paid for--$2.4 trillion worth.

During the Clinton administration, what happened? Well, we had divided government, we constrained spending, and we constrained cutting revenues so that we were able to pay for what we bought.

During the second Bush administration, we spent some $2.4 trillion more than we paid for. Every American knows that if you do that, you're going to run deficits. That's how we got to that $4.8 trillion of deficit because, as the gentleman today will argue, if we only adopt this program, we will bring down deficits, we will grow employment.

Well, that's the argument used in 2001 and 2003. You didn't do either. In fact, employment disappeared--the worst employment record of any administration since Herbert Hoover--so that the arguments that you made in 2001 and 2003 that this would magnify employment did not prove to be the case.

You also made the argument when you inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus, according to George Bush himself, you said that we could cut revenues, increase spending, and, by golly, we would have growing employment and a surplus. We had neither. We had lost employment, the worst economy of any administration since Herbert Hoover, an almost depression-like response that was called upon by President Bush in his last year, and an exploding deficit.

So now we will debate between two perspectives. We will have a number on our side; you will have a number on your side. Now, I think at least two on your side. But basically, we adopt the premise on our side first of all you've got to protect the most vulnerable. You've got to make sure that we apply the resources that we have to make sure that every American is in a place where we want them to be in the richest country on the face of the Earth. We want to grow the economy and we want to bring the deficit down.

The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. HOYER. That will be the proposition on our side. Very frankly, I tell my friend from Wisconsin the premise on your side, in my view, has been consistently for the 30 years that I have been here, if you simply reduce revenues somehow magically the economy will recover.

When we adopted the Clinton program in 1993, not a single Republican voted for it, unanimous in your conviction that it would have an adverse effect because we raised revenues, as you will recall, on the upper 1 percent. In fact, of course, what happened is exactly the opposite of what you argued in 1993.

So in that context, as we have this budget debate, I hope the American public understands that if you repeat the same mistakes of the past you will be condemned to live in the same problems that were created then by those mistakes.

I urge my colleagues to listen to this debate very carefully. Listen to the debate of the consequences of the actions that are proposed on both sides of the aisle, and remember what happened when that rhetoric was carried to fruition.

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