Spending Reduction Act of 2012
Floor Speech
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
At the outset, I just want to say to my friend, the chairman of the Budget Committee, I have great respect for him. And I hope he won't take it the wrong way, but I'm glad to have you back, and look forward to actually working with you next year. I actually hoped that we'd be able to work in a bipartisan way, starting right now. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case, and we are engaged here in the House on this floor today in what has become a ridiculous political stunt which will actually take us much closer as a country to going over the fiscal cliff. We're wasting valuable time. The Speaker should be engaged with the President of the United States in negotiations rather than having walked away from those negotiations with the President. That walking away is becoming a bad habit.
The President put on the table a balanced budget plan that calls for shared responsibility. It calls for $1.2 trillion in additional revenues from high-income earners over the next 10 years, and $1.2 trillion in additional cuts, if you include the interest savings over the next 10 years. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, that $1.2 trillion in cuts comes on top of the over $1 trillion in cuts that have already been agreed to this year.
And to our colleague, the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, when he says that the President hasn't lifted a finger to remove the sequester on defense, that's just not true. It's just not true. In fact, the President's proposal to cut the $1.2 trillion would also remove the sequester for at least 1 year--and maybe for 10. And it's more cuts total than what we're talking about on the floor here today.
So what we really have, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that too many of our Republican colleagues still think that compromise is a dirty word. And that's what brings us to the floor today in this political exercise.
As has, unfortunately, been the case throughout the year, the Republican package that we're dealing with today has two objectives. One objective is to minimize the impact of the budget challenge on high-income earners and to shift that burden on the middle-income earners and working people.
The numbers tell the story, Mr. Speaker. Because if we go over the fiscal cliff, people earning over $1 million will face a significant income tax hike. But under the Republican Plan B, compared to the Senate plan that is before this House right now, the House Republican plan would give those millionaires a $50,000 tax break on average.
But do you know who would pay more under a Republican Plan B? A whole lot of middle class families. Eleven million families will see an average of $1,100 tax increase because the Republican Plan B takes away the tuition tax credit. Twelve million families will lose the enhanced child tax credit; they will face $800 more burden. EITC, 6 million families will pay more. The typical U.S. Army private--including those men and women serving us in Afghanistan today--married with a newborn infant will see a $453 increase in taxes as a result of Republican Plan B. On average, 25 million families will pay an average of $1,000 more so that 402,000 families who make over $1 million can get an average tax break of $50,000. That's the tax part of Republican Plan B.
We're here today right now talking about the cutting part of Republican Plan B. I think all of us recall during the election the Republican Presidential candidate said:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the President no matter what.
And then he went on to say:
And so my job is not to worry about those people.
Well, you know what? The Republican sequester-cutting plan today is making their nominee's promise come true. It sends a signal that our Republican colleagues just don't care about the 47 percent. Because you know who gets hit? Here's what it would do. This is according to the Congressional Budget Office.
By the way, Mr. Speaker, this is a recycled version. We had virtually the same bill on the floor last spring; we're just doing it again. That bill did not get one single Democratic vote, and now it's brought here under the premise of some kind of bipartisan approach. The reason it didn't get Democratic support is, while they're providing these tax breaks to people making over $1 million compared to what it would be if we went over the fiscal cliff, 22 million children will face reduced or eliminated food benefits. That's according to the Congressional Budget Office. 1.8 million Americans will permanently lose their food assistance, and of those, nearly 300,000 children will lose their school free or reduced lunch program.
So what this sequester-avoidance plan does is make good on the promise that Republicans don't care about the 47 percent. That's why it didn't get any emocratic votes last spring. That's why, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against it today.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I wish the outgoing chairman of Financial Services would check his facts.
Ms. Pelosi, the Democratic leader, did not make a tax proposal that would give people over $1 million a year a $50,000 tax break, which is exactly what the Republican plan would do, number one.
Number two, the proposal that the President has put on the table has $1.2 trillion cuts if you include interest savings, which is more than the cuts here, and will also deal with the sequester.
Number three, the Republican proposal out of Financial Services will increase the likelihood that taxpayers have to bail out the financial industry again, not reduce it.
And number four, they strip away the independence of the Consumer Finance Protection Board so that lobbyists can meddle in exactly how they do their work so that they're looking out for lobbyists' interests rather than the interests of the American people.
So this whole approach that we're seeing right here is another example of trying to help the folks at the very top at the expense of the rest of the country.
And, Mr. Bachus, it wasn't me making the 40 percent comment talking about dividing America. That was the comment made by the Republican candidate for President.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
What is unbalanced is the Republican package that we see on the floor today. We already talked about the numbers of the Republican Plan B tax proposal which compared to going over the fiscal cliff and the Senate alternative would actually provide millionaires with a $50,000 tax cut on average while 25 million American families will actually see a tax increase of $1,000 on average, including, Mr. Speaker, some of our soldiers on the front line in Afghanistan today.
The majority leader talked about doing the math. Then do the math on the tax plan, because that's exactly what it shows. What the President has called for is a balanced plan that asks for the wealthiest to share the burden of our deficit challenge and make sure that we get our economy in full gear.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, a couple of points here.
First, the chairman of the Budget Committee said that the President hadn't put any specific spending cuts on the table. That's just not true. His proposal has been available to the public for well over a year now. As to just one specific proposal, the President has said we should get rid of excessive agriculture subsidies. He has called for $30 billion on that item alone.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. In reclaiming my time, that also is not true, and on that, we will have a longer discussion.
The reality is ag subsidies are one very concrete example. Interestingly, this bill that our Republican colleagues have brought to the floor, again, while cutting deeply into the food and nutrition programs, doesn't take one penny from ag subsidies for agrabusinesses.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it's also important to correct another statement that has been made by both the chairman of the Budget Committee and the chairman of the Ag Committee with respect to the food program. I think the chairman knows that the SNAP statute provides in statute two routes for people to be eligible for food and nutrition assistance--one is the specific income and asset test, or they can become eligible under the SNAP statute based on participation in other programs in which they have to show income-based need.
Nobody wants fraud. We should find every dollar of wasted money and get rid of it, but don't pretend that people who qualify under the statute are engaged in fraud. What you're proposing to do in this Republican bill is to deny millions of those people on nutrition programs their legal support, and we do not think we should be doing that. At the same time, we are giving millionaires a $50,000 average tax cut.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I will just say a few words again about the priorities reflected in this Republican package.
If you look at Plan B, the tax part, you're giving people who earn over $1 million a year on average a $50,000 tax cut compared to what it would be under the Senate proposal. At the same time, under this proposal that we're talking about here on the floor of the House, you're talking about eliminating important support in food and nutrition programs for millions of Americans, including for 300,000 kids who would no longer be on school lunch programs.
What this boils down to once again, Mr. Speaker, is a question of priorities. We've got to reduce our deficit, and we've got to get the economy moving again. But we have to deal with the deficit in a balanced way, not in a way that provides additional tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the rest of the country.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let's talk a little bit about what this Republican package will and will not do with respect to health issues.
First of all, while their bill would replace much of the sequester, they leave in place the 2 percent across-the-board Medicare cut. Let me say that again. Despite all the talk we're hearing today on the floor about their efforts to replace these across-the-board cuts, they leave them in place for Medicare, which will hit providers and have an impact on the Medicare system.
Second, with respect to children's health, they cut about $20 billion from Medicaid and the Children's Health program over the next 10 years, even though those programs are protected from the sequester. So if we were to go over the fiscal cliff--which apparently is the way our Republican colleagues want to take us right now because we're not down talking with the President but we're here on the floor. If we go over the fiscal cliff, those children's health care is protected. But if we adopt the Republican proposal, those children will actually see less health security. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2015, there will be 300,000 children who no longer have coverage under the Children's Health Insurance Program. That's what they're proposing here, even as their tax Plan B provides millionaires with an average tax break of $50,000 compared to the Senate plan, and even though their tax plan, while providing millionaires that average rate compared to the Senate plan, is going to increase the tax burden on 25 million families. So an average tax cut for millionaires of $50,000 compared to the Senate plan, and at the same time a sequester proposal that would result in 300,000 kids in the year 2015 losing their Children's Health Insurance coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
There you have, Mr. Speaker, the priorities in the Republican plan. That's not balance.
Look, the reason we're here is because our Republican colleagues refuse to compromise. They bring this bill to the floor in the name of a productive contribution to compromise when this virtually identical bill did not get a single Democratic vote last spring--not one. And that's compromise?
The Senate has already said it's not going to take up this bill. That old bill has been sitting over there, and the President has said he would veto it. We are wasting the people's time, Mr. Speaker. It's time for the Speaker of this House to negotiate with the President.
Now, we know what the problem is. There's this book, Mr. Speaker, which is very aptly titled, ``It's Even Worse Than It Looks.'' This book was written by two scholars of the Congress, one person in a Democratic-leaning think tank and the other in a Republican-leaning think tank. Here's what they say, and they say it with great regret. They say:
The problem is that in the House today, we have a Republican Party that's become an insurgent outlier, ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime, and scornful of compromise.
That's from two independent, nonpartisan scholars. And, Mr. Speaker, that's exactly the problem we've got here today.
It's time for the Speaker to actually follow the good counsel of many members of his caucus. Either take up the Senate bill and pass it, or let's get serious and negotiate with the President, who's put forward a balanced plan, a plan, as many of my colleagues have said, that a lot of Democrats don't like.
In fact, there are going to be Democrats who don't vote for even the proposals the President's put forward already. Many are still reserving judgment.
That's the test of compromise, not a bill that comes to the floor that's never had a single Democratic vote. That's not compromise.
The American people want us to work together. Let's stop playing these political games, Mr. Speaker. Let's not bring to the floor of the House bills that have never gotten a Democratic vote before, and which the President has already indicated he will veto because they fail the important test of balance.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, it's true that our Republican colleagues are not going to have a partner for a totally lopsided, unbalanced approach, that, once again, minimizes the responsibility of the wealthiest of the country at the expense of everybody else.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The chairman of the Budget Committee began his closing remarks by saying, ``Let's take a step back.'' Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that's exactly what this package of bills does for the country; it takes us many steps back. And the reason it takes us back is because the Speaker of this House has backed out of negotiations with the President for a balanced approach to dealing with our deficit and making sure that we accelerate economic growth and job creation in this country.
The issue has never been whether or not to reduce our long-term deficit. The question has always been: How? And how you do it reflects your priorities. The President has made clear his priority is not to give higher income individuals another tax break relative to what would happen if we went over the fiscal cliff, and yet that's exactly what this package of proposals would do.
I've used this chart a couple of times, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to use it again, and with good reason, because no one has or can dispute the facts in this chart.
The reality is, while folks who earn more than $1 million a year, about 402 families in this country--and God bless them, we want people to keep making more money; the issue here is shared responsibility for reducing our deficit--under the Republican plan relative to the Senate bill, they're going to get a $50,000 average tax break, while over 25 million Americans will see an increase in their tax obligation compared with where we are today. We don't think that's balanced. That's not even balanced within their tax plan.
At the same time, they bring to the floor today a bill, a sequestration bill that, by the way, leaves in place the cuts to Medicare and then cuts support for kids on food stamps and children under the health insurance bill, groups that, frankly, would be protected if we went over the fiscal cliff under current law.
So, Mr. Speaker, this is a question of priorities. So what this motion to recommit does is say, you know what, we think it's time that we end the taxpayer giveaways and subsidies to the Big Oil companies. My goodness, why should all of us be providing them one more round of tax breaks? Gas prices are high, their profits are going through the roof, taxpayers should not be subsidizing that. And we certainly shouldn't be subsidizing that when we have before us a bill that removes about 300,000 kids from the school lunch program and removes about 300,000 kids from the Children's Health Insurance Program in the year 2015, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
So, again, this is about priorities. What this very simple motion to recommit does, in addition to asking that oil companies no longer keep getting taxpayer subsidies, is just to disclose to the public what the impact of these cuts will be on citizens throughout this country. It says, tell us what the impact of the Medicare and Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program cuts will be on kids and others in our congressional districts.
At the very least, we should know what we're doing. The Congressional Budget Office had told us, but anybody who thinks that that independent, nonpartisan group has its projections wrong, we'll get a real world check. So this is simple accountability. This is understanding what the impact of your vote will be. So I would hope that our colleagues would recognize that at this time, when oil companies are doing just great, they don't need welfare from the U.S. Government.
We should also understand very clearly what the impact of these cuts will be because the projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are that it's going to have a very serious negative impact on kids' health, as well as in terms of the support under the preventive health fund for women around the country. So, for example, with the $10 billion cut to the prevention fund, 326,000 women would not get breast cancer screenings; 284,000 women would not get cervical cancer screenings they are slated to receive in 2013.
These cuts have real impact. So the question is not whether to make cuts--we have to make cuts. The President has put $1.2 trillion in additional cuts forward on top of the $1 trillion. We're just asking for balance. We're asking for common sense in our priorities. I urge people to support the motion to recommit.
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