Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget Alternatives

Floor Speech

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, in developing the Democratic alternative budget, we sought and received input from all parts of our Democratic Caucus. The result is a budget that I believe reflects the values and priorities of our Democratic Caucus, and the values and priorities of the American public. While no budget offers each and every idea we might include as individuals, the final product is a powerful vision of how to reward Americans who are working hard to get ahead and to promote economic opportunity for all Americans.

Both the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) budgets contain some important ideas and initiatives that are not included in the Democratic alternative budget. I believe that both are far superior to the Republican budgets on the Floor today.

The CBC budget contains additional investments in education and other areas that I support and believe are important to our future. While the plan includes somewhat higher revenues and spending than in the Democratic alternative and the President's request, I support the increased investment and revenue levels it provides.

The Progressive budget also contains many initiatives and policy changes I support that are not included in the Democratic alternative budget, including a 4 percent cost-of-living pay increase for federal employees to help compensate for years of pay freezes. I also support adding a public option to the ACA exchanges, a proposal that is included in the CBC plan. In addition, I support a financial market trading fee, and have put forward an ``Action Plan to Grow the Paychecks of All, Not Just the Wealthy Few'' that would use the revenue to provide more tax relief to the middle class and those working to join the middle class. The tax relief includes paycheck tax credits for American workers, as well as a number of incentives for apprenticeships and training programs and for employee profit-sharing and retirement savings. One of those incentives would use tax policy to leverage higher pay for hard working employees. Specifically, the CEO-Employee Paycheck Fairness Act, which I introduced, prevents corporations from claiming tax deductions for CEO and executive bonuses and other compensation over $1 million, unless their workers are getting paycheck increases that reflect increases in worker productivity and the cost of living. The action plan also includes a modernized and expanded Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit that goes beyond the President's proposal in important ways, including by making it refundable.

Similarly, I strongly support putting a price on carbon, and have introduced legislation--the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act--to create a cap and dividend program to reliably lower carbon emissions and auction off permits to the first-sellers of fossil fuels. I believe it is important, however, to offset potential increases in energy costs for American homeowners, so my bill provides a dividend to every American. Professor James Boyce of the University of Massachusetts--Amherst has calculated that this approach will leave about 80 percent of American families with more money in their pocket at the end of the day. This legislation has been endorsed by Bill McKibben and key organizations including the Sierra Club, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and Communities United (Maryland).

In the case of both of these policies, the Progressive Caucus budget spends the proceeds on other program priorities. It has $2.7 trillion more spending than in the President's budget and the Democratic alternative, and $2 trillion more the CBC budget. The Progressive Caucus budget has $5 trillion more revenue over ten years than both the President's budget and the Democratic alternative budget, and almost $4 trillion more than the CBC budget. This is in part because the CPC budget does not rebate all of the carbon tax and does not use revenue from the financial market trading fee to provide tax benefits for low- and middle-income Americans.

While I support many of the initiatives in the Progressive Caucus budget, I believe we should use the revenue generated by a financial market trading fee and a price on carbon to more directly boost family incomes and assist those struggling to find work. Like Leader Pelosi and others who share many CPC priorities, I differ on some of the details of their policy changes. But most of all I am very grateful to the CPC for their significant contribution in the development of the Democratic Alternative and for their vision--which I share--of a growing economy with more shared prosperity.

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