Pro-Growth Budgeting Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Peters amendment to H.R. 3582, the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act of 2012.

As we consider legislation that would mandate the Congressional Budget Office use dynamic scoring to evaluate the macroeconomic impact of large tax cuts, we literally cannot afford to ignore the lessons of the past decade.

My Republican colleagues want to enact a seemingly subtle change so that they can more easily advance their agenda of tax cuts for the rich while slashing critical programs that American families and workers rely on each and every day.

Dynamic scoring's supporters back this legislation in large part because it can mask the cost of tax cuts while ignoring the multiplier effects that investments in education, public health, and infrastructure can provide.

In order to evaluate these claims, we need only look at the claims made by those who supported the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and see how they stacked up next to reality. Despite pledges from the Bush administration that the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 would generate such significant economic activity that they would pay for themselves, we know that this is not the case.

This is why I have put forward an amendment that will simply add a factual findings section that details the impact of the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 without altering the functional aspects of the bill.

These findings include:

1. On January 8, 2003, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said that President Bush believed that the tax cut package enacted in 2001 and expanded in 2003 would ``create additional revenues for the Federal Government and pay for itself.''

Two, before the tax cuts of 2001 and '03 were enacted, the Congressional Budget Office projected gradually rising surpluses, from 2.7 percent of gross national product in 2001, to 5.3 of gross national product in 2011, with the Federal Government operating debt free by 2009.

We know this, of course, did not happen. Instead, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts of 2001 and '03 have added over $2 trillion to budget deficits from 2002 to '11. Despite signing tax cuts of 2001 and '03 into law, President Bush's administration had, according to The Wall Street Journal, ``the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records in 1939.''

From 2001 to 2009, gross domestic product grew at the slowest pace for any period since 1953; and median household income declined during the Bush administration for the first time since 1967 when this data was first tracked.

We have all lived through this past decade and have seen the damaging effects the Bush tax cuts have had on our Federal budget. I think it's safe to say that anyone who can possibly claim to belong to the ``reality caucus'' agrees that the Bush tax cuts not only contributed to taking our Nation from budget surpluses to massive deficits, but also contributed to unprecedented levels of income inequality.

If Congress cannot learn from past mistakes, we are destined to repeat them. I urge my colleagues to support my simple, factual amendment to show that Congress understands the true impacts of the Bush tax cuts and recognizes that, while tax cuts might stimulate additional economic activity, the tax cuts of 2001 and '03 certainly did not pay for themselves.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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