Providing for Consideration of Motions To Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle claim to be about fiscal prudence; that they are here to get our fiscal house in order; that a balanced budget amendment is the only way to do so. Once again, Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle are wrong. The right way to balance the Nation's budget is by making good, solid, smart policy, something the Republicans have proven to be incapable of over the past decade.

President Bush was handed a gift by President Bill Clinton. He was given a budget surplus. And instead of crafting a smart, long-term fiscal plan, he blew it in a couple of big spending sprees in the first few months of his term, with a lot of help from congressional Republicans. Let me be as clear as I can be. You don't squander a surplus on tax cuts for the rich, and you don't put two wars on your credit card. You certainly don't do those two things at the same time. But that's exactly what the Republicans did, and they drove this economy into a ditch with unpaid tax cuts and unpaid wars. And now they want to amend the Constitution with a balanced budget amendment. You've got to be kidding.

What's worse, the Republican leadership has decided to break their transparency pledge. Not only are they thumbing their nose at their own rules, they are actually bringing a bill to the floor that has never been read, amended, or voted on in a committee. That's right, Mr. Speaker. Despite all of their rhetoric, this balanced budget amendment was never marked up in committee. And, even worse, it was changed without a vote before it came to the Rules Committee. Even though there has been no official consideration of this specific bill by the Judiciary Committee, something this new Republican Congress promised to do, the sponsor of this bill had the audacity to say that this bill and the changes made in the dark of night were supported by the committee.

And if this process weren't bad enough, these changes actually allow war funds to be exempt from the balanced budget amendment. These wars have gone on too long, and they should be paid for. They should have been paid for from day one. That's a mistake we should learn from instead of repeating. We have already spent $1.3 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's $1.3 trillion that's unpaid for, $1.3 trillion on our grandchildren's credit cards.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose these wars. I want them to end now. But if you support them, the least you can do is pay for them. And yet the Republicans are repeating their same mistakes. And I shouldn't be surprised. This is the party that decries government spending, but turns to FEMA with outstretched hands in times of need. This is the party that says the Recovery Act doesn't work, but shows up at ribbon cuttings for projects paid for by the Recovery Act. And now this is the party that says we should balance the budget, but we shouldn't pay for the wars that increase our debt.

Mr. Speaker, the fiscal hypocrisy takes my breath away. This is a bad bill being brought up under a bad process. Vote ``no'' on the rule and vote ``no'' on the bill.

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