Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Chairman, what we have got here with this particular amendment is more than a doubling down on what was already a bad idea.

We heard, actually, from Mr. Rogers, who is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a Republican Member of Congress, that the Republican version of the budget offered by Mr. Ryan was ``draconian''--draconian because of the impact it has on important investments that have historically helped make our economy grow, make us a world leader, make sure that we can keep our competitive edge in a global economy. The Republican budget coming out of the Budget Committee devastated those important investments.

Of course, they didn't close one single special interest tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit, but they decided to cut deeply into investments in our kids' education, everything from early education, to K-12, to college ed. They make no secret about it.

They want to charge college students higher interest rates and, at the same time, protect special interest tax breaks. What we have here in the Republican Study Committee's amendment is simply a doubling down on what the chairman of the Republican Appropriations Committee already called draconian.

The interesting thing to me, Madam Chairman, is that I would have thought that the Republican Study Committee would have taken a different approach. I would have thought they would have taken an approach that didn't require, as part of their budget, the revenues from the Affordable Care Act, but if you look at their revenue line, it is identical to the revenue line in the House Republican budget, which is identical to the Congressional Budget Office's revenue line, which The Heritage Foundation--no left-leaning group--has said means that these budgets incorporate the tax revenues from the Affordable Care Act.

Again, here is what The Heritage Foundation said:

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

It is what they have said about the House Republican budget's revenue line. This one has the same thing.

If they are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act, as they say they will, that revenue line should go down; yet no matter how you cut it, Madam Chairman, the choices remain choices that we do not believe reflect the values and priorities of this country, which are of protecting those special interest tax breaks for very powerful interests while gutting important investments in our future, investments that have been proven historically to make the United States the leading economic power in the world.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

The gentleman speaks about the importance of fiscal discipline and fiscal responsibility, and we agree.

The question we have is: Why do they exempt from the whole practice of fiscal discipline all of these what are called tax expenditures and tax preferences that have been put into the Tax Code many times by very powerful special interests?

What does a tax preference mean? It means in many cases that, because somebody has well-heeled lobbyists, he is able to escape having to pay taxes on something that everybody else has to pay for.

What our Republican colleagues are saying is they don't want to take away any of those special interest preferences for the purpose of reducing the deficit. They would rather cut deeply into our kids' education. They would rather charge college students more interest on their loans. They would rather increase class sizes in K-12, which is what happens when you cut Title I and special education.

They talk about opportunity, but the opportunities that they are protecting are those for the special interests who had their lobbyists do very well for them in Washington. Hey, hands off all of that. We don't want to touch that. But we are coming after everybody else, including, by the way, seniors on Medicare who will immediately see the reopening of the doughnut hole.

So if you are a senior with high prescription drug costs, that is going to cost you $1,200 more per year, on average, immediately. And then they begin to phase in in their budget their Medicare voucher program, which will end the Medicare guarantee.

This is all about priorities. The interesting thing here is that, despite all the talk about fiscal discipline from our Republican colleagues, it is hands off imposing any fiscal discipline on powerful special interests who have succeeded in getting themselves special deals in the Tax Code.

I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra), chairman of the Democratic Caucus and a member of the Ways and Means Committee, who has spent a lot of time focusing on these issues.

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