Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Some things do not improve with age. We are here one day later, and this Republican budget is just as bad for the country today as it was yesterday.

Our Republican colleagues are going to have to choose: either you claim your budget balances or you fess up to the American people that you are keeping big parts of the Affordable Care Act, because you can't do both. As we talked yesterday, the House Republican budget only reaches their claim of balance in 10 years if they take the revenues from the Affordable Care Act and all the savings from the Affordable Care Act. And if they are going to claim that they are repealing that--as they voted 54-plus times to do on this floor--then their budget is automatically out of balance.

Now, all of these budgets significantly reduce the deficit as a share of our economy in the outyears. The fundamental question is what choices these budgets make in getting there. And the Democratic budget that has been proposed and the President's budget, all those budgets say we need to have shared responsibility and we need to work together to accomplish that goal.

The Republican budget rigs the rules in the favor of the most powerful and the most wealthy--right? So if you are a millionaire, under the Republican budget, you get your top tax rate cut by a full one-third, and everybody else in this budget gets walloped. So if you are a senior on Medicare, you will immediately see your prescription drug costs rise if you have high prescription drug costs--right?--because they reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole. That is a choice they make in the Republican budget for seniors today, even as they choose to protect special interest tax breaks for the very powerful.

They choose in this budget to say that students, while they are still in college, will be charged interest rates on their student loans--that saves them $40 billion--while they protect tax breaks for hedge fund owners. We don't think that is the right choice.

I am now pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. McDermott), a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee who has always focused on making the right choice for the American people.

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Mr. Chair, the gentleman referenced several times the Congressional Budget Office and the economy. I urge all our colleagues to read the Congressional Budget Office report. It indicates that this House Republican budget will actually slow down economic growth over the next couple of years and slow down job growth over the next couple years.

Yes, we need a simpler, fairer Tax Code, but this House Republican budget would provide a huge tax break to the very wealthy and increase the tax burden on the middle class. In fact, they cut the top rate from 39 percent to 25 percent. That is a full one-third tax cut. So millionaires get an average of $87,000 tax break. Middle-income taxpayers have to finance that cut for the folks at the top. That means an increased tax burden of $2,000 for a middle class family. That is not good, fair tax reform.

For somebody who knows a lot about the economy and doing it right, I am pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth), a member of the Budget Committee.

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Mr. Chair, I just want to respond to a couple of points the chairman made about tax reform. You know, Republican etiology in Washington has been that of trickle-down economics. The idea is you provide the wealthiest people in the country with a tax break and somehow it trickles down and lifts everybody up. The problem is that theory was proven bankrupt in the early 2000s. Under the Bush administration, we tried that--lower tax rates at the top. The economy did not do any better. In fact, what we got was huge deficits.

Now in this Republican budget, they are right back to the same old veiled theory. They called for reducing the top tax rate for millionaires from 39 percent down to 25 percent, and they claim that they are going to do this in a deficit-neutral way. When you do the math, what that means is you are going to have to increase the tax burden on middle class taxpayers to finance tax breaks for folks at the top.

Just to give our Republican colleagues an opportunity to say that that is not what they intended, in the Budget Committee, we offered an amendment calling it Protect the American Middle Class from Tax Increases, saying, okay, at least tell the Ways and Means Committee that one of your principles as you reduce tax breaks for millionaires is not to increase the tax burden on the middle class, and every Republican on the Budget Committee voted against that provision.

I am pleased that we have the author of that amendment with us on the floor right now. I yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

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Mr. Chairman, the gentlelady used the term ``draconian'' a couple of times, and the chairman keeps referring to comments that Democrats have made as ``overblown.'' I would just remind the body that it was just a few days ago that the senior Republican, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, called the budget we are debating on the floor of the House draconian. That is what he called it--not a Democrat. So I think Members should keep that in mind as we proceed.

I am now very pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Castor), a terrific member of the Budget Committee.

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It does not strengthen Medicare to reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole, which is exactly what this Republican congressional budget does.

If you are a senior with high prescription drug costs under this budget, it will cost you $1,200 more per year. The whole reason we closed the prescription drug doughnut hole was to prevent seniors in that position from having to undergo such economic hardship. But this Republican budget reopens that doughnut hole now.

With respect to tax reform and picking winners and losers, the reality is that this Republican budget does pick winners and losers. The big winners are people at the very top of the income scale because millionaires will see their top tax rate cut by a full one-third.

The result of that is that middle-income taxpayers are going to have to finance that in order to maintain what they call the deficit neutrality of it. That means that middle-income taxpayers with kids are going to pay an average of $2,000 more to finance the tax cuts for millionaires.

So millionaires are the winners, and middle class taxpayers are the losers. As I said just a moment ago, we gave our Republican colleagues an opportunity in the committee to say no, that is not their intention, but they voted against the amendment to protect American middle class taxpayers.

I am now pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan), one of our terrific members of the Budget Committee.

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I hope all Members of the House will check the facts with respect to the impact of the Affordable Care Act on Medicare. If you actually look at what has happened since the Affordable Care Act was enacted, the per capita rate of increase in health care costs in this country has actually gone down.

Talk to seniors on Medicare. Anybody who is paying attention right now, I ask them: What has their Part B premium done over the last couple of years? It has been steadier. In fact, this year, it went down in real terms. The value that seniors have gotten under Medicare has actually improved significantly, in part, due to the Affordable Care Act.

Now, unlike the Democratic budget, which used some of the savings from getting rid of overpayments to some of the big insurance companies in Medicare and using those savings to strengthen things like the prescription drug benefit, the Republican budget keeps every dime of the Medicare savings from the Affordable Care Act, but they don't use any of it to strengthen Medicare.

In fact, they reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole. They start charging seniors now for preventative health services. Ultimately, they actually end the Medicare guarantee by turning Medicare into a voucher program, so that, if you actually wanted to stay in traditional Medicare, you would be paying a whopping high premium.

That is not the way we should go, and that is all in a budget that continues to provide tax breaks to the very wealthy in this country. Those are not the right priorities for America.

Now, I would like to yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Velázquez), the ranking member of the Small Business Committee and a Member who has focused on the right priorities for America and who recognizes that small business is the engine of growth and opportunity.

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Let me just pick up where Mr. Hoyer left off and ask the question: Why would the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee call this Republican budget draconian? After all, the chairman of the Budget Committee has said today: Don't worry. Actually, we're going to continue to grow the government just a little more slowly.

But what that ignores is the fact that the portion of the budget that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee has jurisdiction over is that portion of the budget that we have used historically in this country to make investments that help our economy grow. They are investments in our kids' education, from early education, to K-12, to college education.

That is the part of the budget that we have used to invest in research and development with discoveries at places like NASA that have had huge spinoff benefits for the rest of the country and the economy, investments that actually helped lead to the Internet, that have been hugely beneficial to our economy. That portion of the budget doesn't grow a little less slowly. They cut that portion of the budget. In fact, as a share of our economy, it is cut by 40 percent below the lowest level since the 1950s, since we have been keeping track.

And so that is why we are saying that our global economic competitors are going to be cheering this Republican budget. We are talking about we would like to see a Make It In America agenda. This is a ``make it everywhere except America'' agenda. This actually provides tax cuts for U.S. corporations that move jobs overseas, and yet it cuts investments in jobs and economic development right here at home. That is why it is so misguided. That is why the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee says it is draconian.

What is worse, it makes those cuts in our kids' education, basic R&D, and makes the cut in the senior prescription drug benefit while protecting these tax breaks for the most powerful and the very wealthy.

The chairman has referred a number of times to tax expenditures. In fact, he mentioned the other day that, on an annual basis, tax expenditures are over a trillion dollars, in fact, more per year than Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Some of those tax expenditures have worthy policy goals, but a lot of them are there because very powerful special interests have gotten an exemption for themselves to the kind of Tax Code that everybody else has to pay for.

What we have said is we should get rid of some of those tax breaks for the purpose of helping to reduce our deficit so we don't have to hit our kids' education so hard, so we don't have to disinvest from basic R&D, so we don't have to make the kind of cuts that the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee calls draconian. But, no, Republicans don't want to do that. They say every time you close a tax loophole, you have got to use it to reduce the tax rate for wealthier Americans. We don't say, if you identify a spending program that no longer makes sense, you have to go spend it somewhere else. But when it comes to special interest tax expenditures, that is exactly the Republican position. You can only use it to bring down tax rates for multimillionaires.

As a result, while the winners in this Republican budget are those folks at the very top, they sock it to everybody else. They sock it to seniors on Medicare; they sock it to our kids' education; and they sock it to the fundamental economic power of this country when they disinvest in the things that have helped make us a global power, and that is the wrong decision for America.

So I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this Washington Republican budget, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, some things never change. As the gentleman from South Carolina said, he offered this political stunt 2 years ago, and it is no less of a political stunt today than it was 2 years ago.

Mr. Chairman, I am a strong supporter of the President's budget and of the President's policies. This is not a vote on the President's budget and his policies.

Do you know what I wish it were? I wish the Speaker of this House would bring up the President's proposal to shut down those tax incentives that actually encourage multinational corporations to ship American jobs overseas and instead use some of those savings to invest in jobs here at home. I wish the Speaker of this House would let us vote on that President's policy. I wish the Speaker of this House would bring up the bipartisan immigration bill. One has already passed the Senate. We have a version over here in the House. Mr. Chairman, let's vote on that President's policy. I wish the Speaker of the House would let us vote on the President's minimum wage proposal, to make sure that more people would be able to prosper in our economy. We haven't had a vote on that. Mr. Chairman, I wish that we could have a vote on the President's proposal to extend emergency unemployment compensation. The Senate has passed that. Let's have a vote over here.

This is a political stunt, just like it was before and, by the way, the White House sees it as a political stunt again this year, just as they were right to call it that the other year.

This is, in fact, the President's budget right here, right here. This is it, Mr. Chairman.

It is interesting to hear our Republican colleagues who claim to be in favor of transparency, accountability, saying that this is the President's budget and then allocating 10 minutes per side. I thought we didn't even want to take up thousand-plus page bills, we don't even want to take those up. Yet, now supposedly we are going to debate and vote on something that is over 2,000 pages, less time on the President's budget than on any of the other proposals before the House. Give me a break.

If this was serious, it would be a total abuse of process. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office hasn't even had a chance, Mr. Chairman, to evaluate and score the President's budget yet. So you have got the House Republican budget, and you have got the Democratic party, all those are written to CBO, but CBO hasn't had a chance to go through that this quickly. I am surprised to hear the gentleman thinks the House can go through this in 20 minutes. So let's not play games.

The White House has made clear if you want to support the President's priorities and the framework of the President's budget going forward, you should support the Democratic alternative, which I will offer tomorrow.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chair, the gentleman referred to the House Republican budget a couple times. Just to remind my colleagues that the House Republican budget claims to balance in 10 years. It also claims to get rid of all the Affordable Care Act, all of ObamaCare, but the reality is it has over $2 trillion in revenues and savings from the Affordable Care Act.

Here is what The Heritage Foundation had to say about the budget:

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this budget is that it keeps the tax increases associated with ObamaCare.

So our Republican colleagues keep saying their budget balances in 10 years, then they keep saying they are repealing all of Affordable Care Act. Both things cannot be true.

Now, what is true about the House Republican budget is the priorities it reflects, and, once again, it protects and rigs special interests tax breaks for very powerful groups at the expense of the rest of the country.

Yes, as I indicated earlier, the President has proposed that we get rid of some of the tax breaks that actually have a perverse incentive for companies to ship jobs overseas, to close those tax breaks, use that revenue to invest in our infrastructure and help power our economy right here at home.

From a Republican colleague's perspective, oh, no, you can't cut one special interest tax break, not for hedge fund owners, not for Big Oil companies. No, no, you can't do that.

But you know what you can do? You can come after the senior prescription drug benefit by reopening the doughnut hole, costing seniors another $1,200 a month. You can come after our kid's education. You can charge college students higher interest to raise about $40 billion, higher interest while they are still in school, before they get a job.

You can do all that, but, hey, hands off the big special interests. So I am glad that the previous speaker reminded us exactly what this Republican budget does

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

The gentleman just mentioned Social Security Administration funds for operations. Let me tell you, if you vote for the House Republican budget today, you are going to be decimating the funds available for those kind of ongoing operations because they cut that part of the budget that allows for the administration of the Social Security Administration and cut it big time.

So it is interesting to hear my colleague talk about the President's budget in that regard, but I would suggest he look at the impact from the House Republican budget.

Let me just say, Mr. Chair, I indicated earlier that we with like to vote on the President's policies. We have been waiting a very long time to vote on comprehensive immigration reform. In fact, we filed a discharge petition to do it.

We would like to vote on increasing the minimum wage. We filed a discharge petition to do it. We would like to vote on emergency unemployment insurance. We filed a discharge petition on that.

The Speaker of the House has refused to allow democracy to work. Now, we have what is clearly a stunt. As I said, I am a supporter of the President's budget; I support the President's policy. I think it is a stunt. The White House recognizes it as a stunt. We will have, tomorrow, the Democratic alternative that has the support of the White House.

I still find it incredulous that our colleagues are telling us that they really are giving 10 minutes per side of debate to what they claim is before us, which is 2,000 pages, right?

These are our colleagues that went around the country calling for transparency and accountability. They really want Members to vote on something that the Congressional Budget Office has not had a chance to score?

Apparently, they are going to do it next week because they are in the process of looking through the President's budget. So even if this were on the level, which it is not, you can't compare apples to apples without the Congressional Budget Office analysis.

So I am so glad our Republican colleagues were able to speed-read through this thing in 10 minutes and make judgments. The good news for them is that is not the President's budget either.

So let's not play games. Let's recognize that, as we debate these budgets, we are debating the country's priorities. We are debating very different priorities. Once again, the House Republican budget chooses to double down on rigging the rules for very powerful special interests.

If you are a millionaire, you are going to get a one-third cut in your tax rate under the House Republican budget. You know who is going to pay for it? Middle-income taxpayers will have to pay more to finance that tax break for the wealthy--in fact, $2,000 for a family with kids, on average.

You know who else is going to have to pay for that? Our kids' education, Early Head Start, Head Start, K-12, college kids.

You know what else is going to pay? Our competitiveness as a country because we are not going to make the investments that, historically, have helped power this country forward in the area of transportation and infrastructure.

Republican budget, you know when the trust fund goes insolvent? This summer. Nothing in there, nothing in the Republican budget to address that issue, just swoosh, down the tubes insolvent.

Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to actually vote on the President's proposal, as I said, to eliminate some of the special interests tax breaks that encourage companies to move jobs overseas, close those down, so we can invest in our transportation right here at home.

So let's not fall for this political stunt. I mean, I have to believe that if my colleagues seriously wanted a debate a 2,000-page document, that even they would agree that it merits more than 10 minutes, even they would agree that we should have the benefit of the Congressional Budget Office's analysis before we ask this body to take on that responsibility.

So let's not fall for sham. Let's reject the amendment by Mr. Mulvaney; and then, tomorrow, let's vote in support of the Democratic alternative.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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