Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from South Dakota.

I am pleased to be here to discuss this very important issue, the matter of our budget, for this great Nation and to follow my distinguished colleague from Nebraska. I have had a tremendous opportunity to work with both of these Senators. Senator Thune and I have been friends for many years and have worked on many issues important to this country and the Dakotas. Likewise, I have had an opportunity to work with Senator Johanns when I was Governor of North Dakota; he was Governor of Nebraska.

I want to pick up on some of his comments, but I am going to start out in a broader sense; that is, we are here today to debate a budget for this country. It is something we need to do. It needs to be a budget that moves the country forward. It needs to be a budget that helps us meet the challenges the American people want us to address. It needs to be a budget that sets the right priorities. It needs to be a budget that will help us truly reduce our debt and our deficit, and that means it needs to balance. It needs to be a budget that balances in a timely way. It needs to balance without raising taxes.

We have millions of people in this country who want a job. They want to get back to work, and raising taxes will absolutely hurt our economic growth and hurt their ability to get a job and to get back to work. At the same time we are talking about reducing our deficit and our debt. That means we have to control our spending and find ways to cut and reduce spending in an intelligent way, but at the same time we need economic growth. We cannot have higher taxes to hurt that economic growth, which kills jobs, but also it is that very economic growth, not higher taxes, that produces the revenue--again, combined with the right kind of controlled spending reductions--that gets our debt and deficit under control.

The fact is this budget doesn't meet those very fundamental tests. It raises taxes by $1 trillion--more than $1 trillion. That would be the largest tax increase in the history of our country. That will hurt our economy. That will hurt our ability to get people back to work. That will hurt the economic growth we need to actually create revenue to address the debt and the deficit. So more than $1 trillion in higher taxes that will truly hurt our economy. Yet, even with a $1 trillion tax increase, the budget doesn't balance. Think about that: $1 trillion in tax increases and the budget doesn't balance. Does that make sense? I don't mean it doesn't balance this year; I don't mean it doesn't balance in 10 years; it doesn't balance.

So we can go through all the individual numbers and talk about all the different aspects of this budget in great detail, and we will. But for starters, on a fundamental basis, the Presiding Officer was a former Governor, as was my colleague from Nebraska, and there are others in this Chamber. We were required by the constitution of our respective States to submit budgets that balanced, and balanced every single year. This budget raises taxes by over $1 trillion on the American people, the largest tax increase in the history of our country, and it never balances. That is not setting the right priorities.

The Senator from Nebraska spoke a little bit about how he as a Governor approached presenting a budget, and it is something every Governor has to do. They have to present a budget to their respective legislatures that sets the right priorities.

When I did that budgeting process, the way I approached it was to say, OK, our budget first has to fund the right priorities. We have to set priorities. There is always more demand than there are resources available, so we have to determine what the right priorities are and fund those priorities in the best way we can. We can't fund everything, so we have to set the right priorities.

Second, in our State--and I know in many States--we said as well that we also needed to have a rainy day fund. We needed to be prepared for the future. We shouldn't be running big debt and deficits; we should be having reserves for a rainy day. We should have an adequate reserve fund for the future.

Third, we always looked to determine how we could reduce the tax burden on our hard-working citizens, the taxpayers of our respective States or the taxpayers of this country.

So fund priorities, build proper reserves, be fiscally sound and responsible, just as we do for our homes and businesses. We want to make sure we are in strong financial shape, we are fiscally solid and sound, have a reserve, and reduce the tax burden on our hard-working taxpayers. This budget does none of those fundamental things that go into building the right kind of budget. That is why I can't support this budget and we should not pass this budget.

As we look at our country today, we have to get people back to work. We have to get our economy growing. We have to reduce our deficit and our debt. We need to do it for our well-being today, for the well-being of our country today, and we need to do it for our children. This is about our kids. This is absolutely about our kids. So that means we have to have a budget that reduces our spending, that sets the right priorities, that controls and reduces spending. At the same time, we need progrowth tax reform and not higher taxes that hurt our economy. We need progrowth tax reform that gets our economy going, that gets people back to work. And with a growing economy, we get revenue from growth, not higher taxes. We need to reform our vital programs. We need, in a bipartisan way, to reform our programs such as Social Security and Medicare so we preserve and protect them for the long run. That is what the American people want. That is what the American people are asking us to do.

So as we set this direction with this budget--something that is incredibly important for our country--with all of these different aspects, we have to have the right priorities. This budget does not have the right priorities.

Members have to ask themselves as they vote on this budget: Does this budget set the right priorities? Does it properly control our spending? Will it put our fiscal house in order? Does it increase or reduce the tax burden on our hard-working taxpayers? We should ask ourselves those questions as we deliberate.

I know the American people will be asking those same questions. Those are the priorities that have to be fully evaluated and properly addressed in any budget, and this budget doesn't do that. For that reason I cannot support it, and I believe it should not be passed. I believe we should go back to work and create a budget that truly does those things: controls spending, sets the right priorities, doesn't raise taxes, and that truly does what the American people want and need us to do.

With that, I turn again to my distinguished colleague from South Dakota. I thank him for leading this colloquy, and I look forward to working with him on this very important issue.

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