Baseline Reform Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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

I, unfortunately, have not been able to listen to all of the debate, but I've listened to enough of it. This week we're playing let's pretend. We're playing the game of let's pretend that if we solve the process, we'll solve the problem.

There's an excellent article that I think everybody ought to read. Stan Collender, who is a real expert on the budget process and who has been involved in this budget process for a long, long period of time, quotes in an article that he wrote--that I hope most of you read--in Roll Call. He quotes Rudy Penner. Rudy Penner was the Director of CBO--not a partisan individual, in my view--that I've had the opportunity of dealing with for some period of time. And his quote is: A process, no matter how well designed, cannot make difficult problems easy.

I think my friend, Paul Ryan, would agree with that. It's not the process that's the problem. The problem is we don't have the courage to make decisions which are clearly necessary for us to make, and no amount of jiggering around the edges is going to change that.

Now, as all of you know, I'm a strong supporter of a Bowles-Simpson approach to bringing our country to a fiscally sustainable path. Unlike many of you, I believe that revenues have to be part of that process and cuts have to be part of that process and restraints of entitlements have to be part of that process. I've been saying that for 2 1/2 years now. It's somewhat controversial, but I have three children, three grandchildren, two great-grandchildren. If we don't do that, they're going to be hurting.

But, frankly, we ought not to pretend that the process is the problem. The problem is the problem, as Rudy Penner's said. The problem is the problem, and we ought to address it. And we ought to have the courage to tell the American people that it's not a question of process, not a question that we don't have the right process in place in Washington. The problem is we don't have the votes in Washington.

This Congress is dysfunctional. That doesn't mean we don't pass things. We do. But this week, frankly, what we're dealing with will not affect any of the significant problems that we have, whether it be jobs or fiscal responsibility.

So I'm opposed to this bill. Why? Because I think it's a let's pretend. It's a let's pretend that if you have $100 to spend on defense this year, that you can get that same defense for $100 next year. You can't.

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. HOYER. You can't, and the American public knows that.

We talk about, well, we ought to operate like a family. Family understands that. They know their electricity bill goes up, and they know they can't get the same kind of heat this year or next year that they got last year because they know their electric bill has gone up, and they need to know what that is.

So what we said, the Congress said, we want a baseline budget. What does it cost to get that $100 of value next year? And so we get that.

The previous speaker I heard speaking--I don't know who it was; I apologize for that--said, you know, we ought to have an honest budget. Well, you can argue it's honest both ways. Either it's honest that that's what we spent last year, 100 bucks, or it's honest that, in order to do next year what we did last year, you need $101.50. Both of those are honest answers. Nobody ought to think that that's a dishonest answer.

The answer is: Do you want to know what you spent last year? Look at the budgets. Do you want to know what it would cost you to do the same thing? Then you get the baseline. So either one is honest. It's just a judgment.

But you're pretending that you're saving money by having that kind of budget. Baloney. Baloney. The only way you're going to save money is to have the courage to vote to do so.

My friend, Paul Ryan, is shaking his head. He and I have some significant disagreements, but very great respect, I hope, for one another. I know I have great respect for him.

I think we are advantageous as a country having Mr. Van Hollen and Mr. Ryan, who are both very bright, able, committed people dealing with this. The trick is coming to agreement irrespective of process. It's substance that matters. The American public will be affected by the substantive judgments we make, not about whether we do it with a baseline budget or a static budget or dynamic scoring.

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

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. HOYER. I don't believe in dynamic scoring. I think dynamic scoring is a liberal, radical idea. Why? Because it pretends something you don't know.

George Bush said we had $5.6 trillion we could rely on and therefore have very deep tax cuts. Didn't work out. I would much prefer to not use dynamic scoring and have more money than I thought I was going to have that I could apply either to reduction of the deficit or some other priority that I thought was important, rather than find out, oops, I was wrong on dynamic scoring, I have less money and I'm deeper in the hole. Now, you can differ on that, but that's my view.

I'd rather be conservative and say, Gee, I hope investing in infrastructure, cutting taxes, doing whatever you think is going to get better education is going to get you better results; I hope it does get better results. That's the purpose of investing in it. If it does, you're benefited if you didn't count on it because you have more than you thought you would. That's the place to be, not having less than you thought you would.

So I urge my colleagues to reject this bill, to adopt reality. It cost us to do this yesterday, and now it cost us to do it today. I think that's a responsible, smart way to budget.

I thank the gentleman for yielding this time. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your light touch.

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Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.

Frankly, this issue is of such importance, it is a shame we don't have a lot of time to discuss it because I think in many respects we do agree.

Where we disagree, however, is when you say that body that is dysfunctional--the gentleman just referred to that. I kidded about it. Both parties are dysfunctional to the extent that we are not making determinations to spend just the money we have. We haven't done that for some period of time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. You're talking about deficit spending?

Mr. HOYER. Yes. Not spending money we don't have.

From my perspective, we did that when we cut taxes. We didn't pay for that. It wasn't like we had a real surplus. We had a projected surplus. We banked on that; and as I said earlier, we lost on that proposition.

I suggest that whether or not, as I said, you use what you think is the bias towards not spending as opposed to a bias for spending, as someone who served on the Appropriations Committee for 23 years, we all know what will happen. The agency will come in and say this is what we are doing for 100 bucks, and this year we need 150 if you want us to continue to do that.

My point is the Congress has the authority to say, no, we want you to do less. It is the Congress' role to make priorities. I suggest to the gentleman it won't be easier for us to do it under either scenario because it is hard to do. I agree with the gentleman that we ought to do it.

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

Mr. WOODALL. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. HOYER. I simply don't think this bill or any other bill will get us to that end if we do not have the courage and, your word, ``discipline,'' to effect that end.

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