Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Van Hollen, for yielding.

The American public are rightfully very distressed with the Congress of the United States. They're distressed that at a time of great challenge and great risk, that we fiddle while the debt threatens to burn us, to place our country in the position of being adjudged uncreditworthy. That is not worthy of this Congress or any one of us that serves in this Congress.

We have 14 days, according to the Secretary Treasurer, until such time as America will be unable to pay its obligations, whether to foreigners or to people in this country. That is not a situation that will be looked at positively by the financial sector or by any one of our constituents whose ability to save, to have a 401(k) that is stable, to purchase an automobile or a refrigerator or send their kid to college will be put at risk because of increased interest rates. Not one of us will be held harmless if this Congress fails to do its duty.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have had a number of efforts to get us to where we needed to be to get back to fiscal responsibility. I'm amused when I hear our new Members talk about the fiscal irresponsibility, because I've served here long enough to know that the two Presidents under whom the debt was raised most were Ronald Reagan, a 186 percent increase from the $985 billion total debt when Ronald Reagan took office to over $2.8 trillion, and George Bush II, who increased the national debt 86 percent. Did he do it alone? Of course not. Did we all do it, Republicans and Democrats? Yes.

Democrats believe that the debt was raised because we bought things on the Republican watch that were not paid for. That's indisputable. You cannot argue that. Those are the facts. The fact is, did we do the same in the Obama administration? We did. Why? Because we had to respond to the deepest recession we have seen. We didn't create enough jobs. In fact, we lost jobs.

So we bring a bill to the floor some weeks ago to address the creditworthiness of the United States of America, and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee said, We offer this bill to fail. Not to solve the problem. To fail.

Now we bring a bill to the floor of the House of Representatives this day, 14 days before the debt limit is reached and America might default for the first time in history. This bill was written sometime late Friday or perhaps Saturday. How many of you said, Have you read the bill? How many hours have you taken to consider this bill?

I've read the bill, too, Paul. I guarantee you there is not an American who's not on the Budget Committee that reads this bill knows what impact it has, and the chairman of the Budget Committee is shaking his head and agreeing with me. The fact of the matter is you haven't had one second of hearing on this, there was no markup on this bill, and it has significant consequences.

Let me tell you, my friends on the other side of the aisle, I'm one of those who stands in this well who voted for the balanced budget amendment in 1995.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

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

Mr. HOYER. I voted because I believed we needed to get to fiscal responsibility, and in fact we did, and we balanced the budget 4 years in a row, and George Bush inherited a $5.6 trillion projected surplus. Not debt. Not deficit. And 22 million jobs having been created before he took office. Eight years later, we had increased the debt by $5 trillion.

I'm not going to vote for the balanced budget amendment, and I urge my colleagues to reject this bill, which has no chance of passage, and we need to stop fiddling. We need to do our work and make sure America can pay its debts, because if it can't, every one of our constituents will lose and our country will lose.

Our oath of office was to preserve and protect. Defeat this ill-advised, ill-timed, unconsidered piece of legislation and let us move to fiscal responsibility in a way that will bring us all together in a bipartisan way, as Bowles-Simpson tried to do, as Biden tried to do, and as, frankly, Mr. Boehner and the President tried to do. Let's get to that objective. The country deserves it.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I don't think that there is a Member here who doesn't believe that America is in poor fiscal health. But the question facing us is this: do we value fiscal responsibility enough to make hard choices, give up some of what we want, and come to the compromise that our form of government demands? Or do we see the possibility of a fiscal crisis as nothing more than a chance to advance our ideological ends? What matters more to us--restoring America's health, or gratifying our party's ideology? We cannot have both.

It's clear that the first, responsible approach is typified by President Obama, who has offered a compromise plan to reduce our long-term deficit by $4 trillion, even as it gives up spending that Democrats value highly. It's also clear that the reckless, ideological approach is typified by the Republicans who have thus far rejected that compromise because it does not conform to 100 percent of their demands.

It's also typified by this radical plan to cut, cap, and end Medicare. This bill, under the guise of responding to a fiscal emergency that they themselves helped create, would write Republicans' most extreme and unpopular priorities into law. It would impose cuts even more extreme than those in this spring's Republican budget, which would have ended Medicare. A vote for this bill would not only be another vote to end Medicare--it would be a vote to dramatically slash programs for the most vulnerable Americans, programs like Medicaid and Social Security. Republicans would break the Medicare guarantee--but they are adamantly opposed to asking the best-off among us to contribute their fair share. Nor would they ask for cuts in defense spending.

In fact, this bill would actually make a job-destroying default on our debt more likely. In order to pay our bills, Republicans would require us to pass a Constitutional amendment that would permanently enshrine their partisan budget priorities in law and make it virtually impossible to raise revenue. It is nothing more than a ransom demand--and the beneficiaries of than ransom demand are the most privileged Americans, who are asked to sacrifice nothing even as ordinary Americans are asked to sacrifice their futures, their security, and their health.

When even three-quarters of Republicans said in a poll last week that they want a balanced deficit solution, it is clear that this bill is targeted at the extreme fringe in American politics, a small minority of the far right. I urge my colleagues to affirm that this House represents all Americans--and to vote down this bill.

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