Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, there are two parts to the Tax Code. There is the corporate Tax Code. We need to clean up the corporate Tax Code. We agree with the fiscal commission. You've got to get out a lot of clutter, a lot of the tax breaks. In fact, we don't think you need a study to decide to get rid of the tax breaks that reward corporations for shipping American jobs overseas. We don't think you need to study the question about whether we get rid of big taxpayer subsidies for the oil companies.

So, yes, we should take a look at the corporate Tax Code. But in the other part of the Tax Code, the individual Tax Code, what the Republican plan does is actually give the folks at the very top another 30 percent break. We have been talking about going back to the Clinton rates. The Republican plan gives you another 30 percent break. You know what? They say we are going to do this in a revenue-neutral way. Well, the result is middle income taxpayers are going to pay more to give the folks at the top another big break.

With that, I yield 2 1/2 minutes to somebody who knows a lot about this subject, the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I would remind my friend Mr. Gingrey that, when Mr. Bush became President, he inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus. By the end of the 8 years, it was gone.

Now, with respect to tax rates and jobs, what this chart shows is that, when the highest income earners in the country were paying the lower rates during the Bush administration, you actually lost jobs versus during the Clinton administration when, at the higher rates, 20 million jobs were created.

The point is not that higher tax rates increase jobs. The point is that small differences in the top tax rates are not the main drivers of our economy. They are not the main engines of job growth. The figures tell the story. Trying to tell another story is just anti-historical. The reality is that the numbers show, during the Clinton administration, we had very strong growth. During the Bush years, we ended up losing over 600,000 jobs. So let's at least get our history straight.

With that, I yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps).

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The gentleman is absolutely right. We need to come up with a plan that puts the country on a predictable, steady course of deficit reduction, and we need to do it in a balanced way.

The chart the chairman showed about revenues presumed we wouldn't have certain changes in the revenue. For example, that we wouldn't say to the wealthiest, we want you to pay the same rates you were paying during the Clinton administration when the economy was roaring and jobs were being created.

There is a reason the bipartisan fiscal commission called the Republican plan unbalanced. And this is what it is. Under the commission plan, they have a balance of spending cuts and revenue increases. For example, they say the folks at the top, they should be paying a little more. In fact, $2.5 trillion more over the next 10 years than the Republican plan. Because they don't do what the commission recommended, they have to cut into Medicaid, which will hurt seniors in nursing homes, disabled individuals, poor kids, everybody who depends on that already stretched program. They have to terminate Medicare. So those are choices they are making. They have made a one-sided, lopsided choice.

I yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I have to show us this chart again because I just need to remind the body that during the Clinton administration, when we had the folks at the very top paying a little bit higher rate, 20 million jobs were created. When that rate was dropped for the high-income earners at the beginning of the Bush administration, not only did it contribute to deficits going up, but at the end of that period over 653,000 jobs were lost.

Now the point isn't, again, that by changing the tax rate that was the driver. The point is that small differences in tax rates are not the main engines of economic opportunity. And we need to make choices here. Again, they choose to provide tax breaks to the folks at the very top and end the Medicare guarantee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), who has been a champion of Medicare, Medicaid, and a whole number of other issues important to our seniors and Americans.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I, too, remember the Voyager spacecraft and also the Apollo program and Moon launch. Great examples of things that individuals and corporations can't do by themselves, things that we have to do by coming together as a people behind a purpose.

The Republican budget, if you look at the long-term forecast provided by CBO, essentially says when you project out here, given the assumptions they were given, you eliminate all of the Federal Government except defense--and even defense is at a smaller share of GDP when you get out there than it is today. That is the kind of result that you get.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Reclaiming my time, look, the issue here is what is the appropriate role and size of government. There is no doubt that we have to take what we think should be a balanced approach that involves both cuts and, as the fiscal commission, the bipartisan fiscal commission says, you've got to deal with the revenue piece if you're going to do deal with this problem in a realistic way.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, we ask every American to read this budget, this Republican budget, and see whether or not it reflects their values and the choices that they would make. We believe when they do that they will reach the same conclusion that the bipartisan fiscal commission did, which is that it's simply unbalanced, it's simply unfair. It puts all the burden of the sacrifice on working men and women. And it does provide those folks at the very top once again--we've seen it before--with a big tax break.

When it comes to Medicare, it's a fact seniors are no longer going to be able to choose to stay in Medicare. They're going to be forced into the private insurance market with ever-increasing costs and ever-declining support. That is rationing care. That's what insurance companies do. If you don't have enough money to buy the benefits that they are offering, you don't get them. If your doctor's not on that plan, tough luck.

So those are the choices that we're making this evening. And I hope as we go forward the American people will look very closely at this proposal. I'm confident they'll reach the same conclusion the bipartisan fiscal commission did, which is it's just not balanced, and it doesn't reflect American values and priorities.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I have to say that to say this plan saves Medicare is in my view Orwellian. It does remind me of the phrase from many years ago that you have to destroy the village in order to save it. I have to say that if you look at what we're doing here, you're saying to seniors you've got to go into the private insurance market.

Now, the chairman mentioned a couple other examples of the private market. But in this case we've already experimented, through Medicare Advantage, with that kind of private plan within Medicare. And you know what we discovered? That you had to subsidize them at 114 percent of the fee-for-service program. It cost us more for Medicare Advantage. In fact, one of the reforms that we made as part of the Affordable Care Act was to say we're not going to ask the taxpayers and folks who are on Medicare fee-for-service to subsidize those private plans that are running over cost. And you know what? In this budget our Republican colleagues kept that reform. If it was so great to have the Medicare Advantage plan, how come they took part of the savings from that plan? They did not.

So it is a big mistake to say to seniors we're going to throw you into the private insurance market with an ever-declining voucher premium. The reason this isn't premium support, it doesn't support the premium. What Federal employees and Members of Congress have is a premium support system through a fair share formula. This is not a fair share for seniors.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. We've had a spirited debate this evening about fundamental choices that we need to make as a country. We all agree that we have to reduce our deficits in a predictable, steady way. The question is how do you do it, and we believe, as did the cochairs of the bipartisan fiscal commission, that the Republican plan is unbalanced; and it's unbalanced because it asks very little of the folks at the very top and reduces dramatically our investments in our kids' education and it does end the Medicare guarantee.

Seniors will no longer be able to stay in the Medicare program. They will be forced into the insurance program. It immediately does end the prescription drug benefit, something we worked hard to close, the doughnut hole.

It ends the effort that was put in place under the Affordable Care Act to end the doughnut hole. So I would say to the gentleman from Georgia who spoke earlier, those seniors who are calling his office, they will lose that benefit in closing the doughnut hole right away if this Republican budget passes.

For other seniors and people who have been paying in the Medicare system through their payroll taxes, we want to make sure they have the benefit of the Medicare guarantee. Throwing them into the private insurance market and giving them a deal that Members of Congress do not give ourselves is wrong. It is absolutely wrong.

We have a fair share deal, and we are asking seniors to take a raw deal. We have a true premium support system for Members of Congress where the Federal Government shares the risk of increasing costs. Under the Republican plan, they are asking seniors to do what they don't want Members of Congress to do: take all the risk of the rising costs.

Those are not choices that reflect American values and priorities. We should not be giving tax breaks to the folks at the top and ending the Medicare guarantee.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Washington law firms.

I want to point out, these firms are doing good work. There is nothing wrong with what these firms are doing. But don't tell the American people that these are small businesses. Over $50 million a year. They can help do their share to get our deficit under control.

Go back to the Clinton administration rates. Let's have a balanced approach. Yes, we need to do cuts. We understand that. But as the bipartisan fiscal commission said, you've got to do revenues, too, and if you don't, here's what happened:

President Bush inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus from the Clinton administration, and where did it go? When President Obama was sworn in, the day he put his hand on the Bible, he faced a deficit in that year of over $1.3 trillion and a 10-year deficit of over $10 trillion.

Let's have a balanced approach. Let's have shared sacrifice. Let's be serious about getting our deficits under control.

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