Expressing Sense of House Regarding Federal Budget

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DOGGETT. I thank the gentleman.

As a long-time member of the Budget Committee, I certainly think that having a budget resolution is a good idea. I think it is a matter of national importance. I don't see how anyone can really disagree with the resolution, although it seems to have been offered primarily to establish a setting for the Republican response to the State of the Union Address that we all look forward to hearing tonight.

It is important to understand what the budget resolution is and what it is not, and what difference it really makes if one hasn't been passed for 1,000 days, 3 or 4 years, or 3 or 4 weeks. The budget resolution is not the appropriations act. It is a statement of our values and of our priorities, and I think that it is important to try to get one passed every year.

But the most important practical consequence of passing a budget resolution is to establish the level of discretionary spending, that is, to establish the level of expenditures that can be made by the various Appropriations committees and by this Congress. It provides us a good opportunity to look at what the consequences of that spending are, to try to match it up to revenues, and not to engage in endless deficit spending.

But the practical effect of the resolution itself is to say to the Appropriations Committee here in the House and in the Senate how much discretionary spending will the Congress approve this year. So what happens when there is not a budget resolution? The Congress finds other ways to do the very same thing.

So, in fact, the Congress did not pass a budget resolution for fiscal year 2003, for fiscal year 2005, for fiscal year 2007; but that did not stop President Bush from signing appropriation bills that added billions of dollars to our national debt--along with his tax cuts for those at the top that also added immensely to our national debt. He signed those appropriation bills.

I don't know whether we went a thousand days or a year or two then without a budget resolution. It would have been better if we could have adopted one, but the budget resolution tends to be confused by some people with the appropriations that keep the Federal Government going. This is not the act that Republicans from time to time have threatened to shut down the government.

You can't threaten to shut down the government over the passage of a budget resolution. That has happened with some of our appropriation bills. It almost happened with the ceiling on debt for the Federal Government. It is also inaccurate, not only confusing, to mix the two; and it is inaccurate to say that this Congress has not acted to establish some discretionary spending limits, even though a budget resolution, as good as it would be to have one, has not been formally adopted.

We did, in fact, adopt last year the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act proposes to set discretionary expenditure limits, what this Congress will spend, not just for this year but for a 10-year period in an effort to try to get spending under control and bring us closer to getting our fiscal house in order, which is something we very much need to do.

I see today's resolution as restating the obvious, that a budget resolution is a good idea, but not adding really much to our attempt to achieve some balance in our budget. Indeed, the last debate here on the floor about instructing conferees and trying to move forward on the issues of unemployment, the job creation, and the payroll tax extension are much more on target than a resolution of this nature.

We do have some serious challenges and deadlines. We still have almost 5 million Americans that would lose their unemployment benefits this year if we don't have an extension. I'd focus on those and working with the President, rather than a resolution that accomplishes little.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source