Appointment of Conferees on S. Con. Res. 11, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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

The House has passed a budget. It is a budget that is wrong for America. It does not reflect our country's priorities, and it does not reflect our values. What it says to the American people is work harder and take home less. That is the House budget. We also have the Senate budget. The Senate budget is also wrong for America. The Senate budget also says to the American people work harder and take home less. That is the message.

When you have got a House budget that is wrong for America and a Senate budget that is wrong for America, both which say to the country ``work harder and take home less,'' the midpoint between the two--or any point between the two--is also wrong for America and also says to the American people work harder and take home less.

Now, why do I say that both the House and the Senate budgets say ``work harder and take home less''?

It is because, amazingly, they both actually increase the tax burden on working families. How? They actually phase out the increase in the child tax credit, which helps working families. They phase out the increase, or get rid of the increase, in the earned income tax credit. They entirely get rid of the higher education deduction. These are deductions that families use to help make college more affordable. They get rid of the Affordable Care Act tax credits, which help millions of Americans afford health insurance. They are squeezing hard-working, middle class families.

At the same time, the House budget calls for a big tax cut for folks at the very high end of the income scale--for millionaires. If you look at the Romney-Ryan tax plan, which this budget green-lights--sort of paves the way for--it would call for a one-third cut in the top tax rate. That is a huge windfall for the wealthiest in the country in the same budget that is increasing the tax burden on working families.

What else do the Republican budgets do?

They disinvest in America. They slash way below the lowest historical levels in recorded history the amount that we invest in the categories of the budget that help our kids' educations--early education, K-12, special education. They devastate that part of the budget that is used to invest in innovation and in scientific research, things that have helped power our economy.

Their budget assumes that the transportation trust fund will run dry in a few months. That is not accounted for within their budget numbers.

So that is what the Republican budgets do, both the House budget and the Senate budget. There is no way to remedy those problems in conference because any point between those two is bad for America.

The only way to remedy it would be if we were able to instruct the conferees to adopt the House Democratic budget proposal that we put forward a few weeks ago which actually provides additional tax relief to working families. It significantly increases the child and dependent care tax credit, so if you are a working family and want to make sure your child is in quality health care, you are going to get a little bit more tax relief; or if you have an elderly loved one at home that you want to make sure has quality care, you get a little more tax relief. If you are a two-worker family, we scale back the marriage penalty. So the Democratic budget actually provides more tax relief for working Americans while the Republican budget provides tax increases to working families.

The Democratic budget also invests in our future--in our kids' education, in scientific research, in transportation--by closing a lot of the tax breaks in the Code that actually encourage American companies to move jobs and capital overseas. We get rid of those loopholes and say let's invest the money here in America. That is what the Democratic budget does. The rules don't permit us to instruct the conferees to do the right thing and adopt that alternative which does reflect the values and priorities of people around the country.

There are two little things where the Senate budget is actually minusculely better than the House budget, but they are important things. They are important things that passed in the Senate with a large Democratic vote and some Republican Senators as well.

One is a provision to say let's provide a fund, let's provide room in the budget for earned paid sick leave so that moms and dads who have kids who are sick at home don't have to choose between forgoing their income and caring for their kid at home. They don't have to choose between worrying about making their rent payment or their mortgage payment or their grocery bill payment on time and making sure their kids are cared for when they are sick. That is part of the Senate budget. So we are asking our colleagues to instruct the conferees to at least adopt that one little glimmer of good news in the Senate budget.

The other difference relates to the House proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher program at the end of the budget window. What does that plan do? What it does is it shifts the risks of higher costs within the Medicare system onto the backs of seniors, and the Congressional Budget Office has shown that for those seniors who choose to remain in the traditional Medicare program, their premiums would go up significantly. That is what the House budget does. It voucherizes the Medicare program. The Senate budget does not. So we are asking our colleagues to accept the Senate version which is not good when it comes to Medicare generally, but at least on this one point is better than the House bill.

Mr. Speaker, that is our motion to instruct. I wish we could instruct the conferees to adopt the Democratic budget proposal which, as I said, says to working families: We hear you; we know you are working harder than ever; we know you feel like you are on a treadmill; we know a lot of you feel like you are falling behind; and we have a budget to help you.

The Republican budget doesn't do that. It doesn't help at all. But at least maybe, in these two little things, we can send a signal today that we understand that working families are struggling, and we want to make sure that we do something to help them.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I would remind my colleague that when President Obama was sworn in, we were losing 780,000 jobs per month--per month. We were in a nosedive. It took a little while to climb out of that deep valley, but we have now had 61 consecutive months of positive job growth--12.1 million jobs, longest streak in history. So job growth is coming back. We have got a ways to go, no doubt about it. We need to do even better. That is why I don't understand a Republican budget that the Congressional Budget Office tells us will slow down economic growth in the next couple years. That is what the nonpartisan budget pros tell us: it will slow down economic growth. Our Republican colleagues say we don't have enough, and yet they have got a budget that the Congressional Budget Office says the next couple of years are going to slow it down just as we are continuing to grow at record levels.

They also have a budget, as I indicated, that says to people who are out there working hard: You are going to get squeezed even harder on your take-home pay. You are working harder than ever, but you know what? We are going to actually increase the tax burden on working families.

Now, let me say a little thing about this Medicare voucher plan. The way to reduce our healthcare costs is to move toward a system that rewards the delivery of value rather than volume in our healthcare system. And in fact, one of the great untold success stories we know over the last couple years has been because we have begun to move in that direction; we have saved trillions of dollars, over a trillion dollars, without sacrificing quality of care.

The problem with the Medicare voucher plan is it doesn't improve health care by changing the incentives to move toward more value and more quality rather than quantity and volume; it actually saves Medicare money by shifting the risk of higher costs onto seniors. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that under their plan, those who choose to stay in the fee-for-service system would pay 50 percent more in terms of premiums. So that is the real-world impact of that proposal.

Now, what are the priorities of our Republican colleagues? We keep hearing that this is a balanced budget. It just isn't so. This is a phony argument. This budget says it is repealing the Affordable Care Act, and yet it only claims balance because of the revenues generated from the Affordable Care Act they claim to repeal. That would make Enron accountants blush.

What else? This Thursday in this House we are scheduled to vote on a proposal to get rid of the estate tax on estates for couples of over $10 million--$10 million. That is about 5,500 people a year. A cruise ship fits more people than that.

Here is what it does. For all of the estates in the country, let's just be clear what the Republican budget looks out for and what the bill they are bringing to the floor this week looks out for.

Blue, the 99.85 percent, are the estates that already are not impacted at all. The bill they are bringing to the floor of the House this week is for that teeny little sliver of red, .15 percent of estates.

That is what the Republican budget is all about, and that is what they are looking out for in a budget that cuts our kids' education funding, cuts our investment in scientific research, and increases the tax burden on working families. That is what this is all about.

Guess what, this estate tax cut for estates of couples over $10 million is not factored into the Republican budget. That loses $268 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. That is not accounted for in the budget they are talking about today.

Two days from today, they are going to bring to the floor a bill that busts their own budget. That is pretty amazing, and the claim that it balances is just a phony claim.

Finally, while it is providing those big tax breaks to estates of over $10 million, it doesn't close a single tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit--not one, not for corporate jets, not for hedge fund managers, not one tax loophole closed, when they claim they want to reduce the deficit.

When you dig a little deeper, Mr. Speaker, this Republican budget is wrong for the country. It is great for folks who have already climbed that ladder. Most people who climb the ladder want to keep that ladder there, so more people can climb up, but this is a budget where people who climbed it just yanked the ladder up and said: We're on the top. Forget about the rest.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), one of the people who will be designated as one of my fellow conferees.

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

My friend and colleague from Georgia mentioned tough choices. It is interesting that the Republican budget chooses not to cut one corporate tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit. Apparently, that is too touch of a choice for our Republican colleagues--not to close the corporate tax break, not to cut the tax break that benefits hedge fund managers.

They don't cut a single one of those tax breaks to help reduce our deficit, but they do want to increase the premiums on seniors who choose to stay in the traditional Medicare Program.

They may call it a choice, but for most Americans, if I say your premium is going to go up 50 percent, yeah, you can choose to have your premium go up, or you can go somewhere else.

That is not a heck of a real choice for most seniors who are struggling financially. Sure, it is a pay-to-stay plan, but you have got to pay a lot more in premiums, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It is not according to me; this is according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The Democratic budget does make the decision to close some of those special interest tax breaks to help reduce the long-term deficit, so we don't have to increase the costs and risks to seniors on Medicare, so we don't have to increase the cost on student loans and start charging students interest while they are still in college. No, we don't do that.

They are right. We think those are the right decisions that we made not to increase the costs of student loans and not to increase the costs and risks to seniors on Medicare.

Yes, we choose to cut some of those special interest tax breaks instead. And we certainly don't think that we should be providing another big tax break to those estates in the country worth more than $10 million.

Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased now to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth), another person who is going to be designated a conferee, a member of the Budget Committee.

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

I would just make two points. The first, as I mentioned earlier, one of the great untold success

stories of the Affordable Care Act reforms, as well as other reforms in the health care system in recent years, is that we have dramatically reduced the cost of health care on a per capita basis.

In other words, the increased costs per person of health care have been dramatically slowed down, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which has helped save Medicare and other health care programs over $1 trillion. That is the right way to do it, by realigning the incentives so we are rewarding value in our Medicare system, not volume, as opposed to the Republican voucher plan, which saves money by shifting the risk onto seniors.

The other point--and we have talked about this over and over--it just ain't so that the Republican budget balances. Again, it requires the revenue from the Affordable Care Act, that amount of revenue, in order to balance, at the same time they say they are getting rid of it.

Two days from now, they are going to add over $268 billion to the deficit by getting rid of the estate tax for estates over $10 million. That is not accounted for in their budget. It puts their budget out of balance.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

First of all, the Republican budget doesn't balance. You can't claim the revenues from the Affordable Care Act at the same time you claim to repeal the Affordable Care Act. You can't claim balance and then 2 days later bring to the floor of the House a bill that provides tax breaks to American estates over $10 million that is not accounted for in the budget that you claim balanced. So it doesn't balance.

It actually does increase the tax burden on working families. How? Again, it gets rid of the increase in the child tax credit; it gets rid of the bump-up in the earned income tax credit; it eliminates the Affordable Care Act tax credits; and it eliminates the higher education deduction that helps families afford to send their kids to college. So, in fact, it is increasing the tax burden on working families.

Who is it not increasing the tax burden on? Folks at the very, very top.

The chairman of the committee talks about economic growth. We need economic growth. History has taught us that economic growth comes when you have a country where the hard work of Americans and increased worker productivity is translated into higher pay and benefits so they can go out and spend money on goods and services, and the economy and everybody can move forward together.

What we have got in this budget is the same old-same old. This is trickle-down economics all over again. This is based on the theory that has been disproven in the real world, that you grow the economy by cutting tax rates for millionaires. We tried that in the early 2000s. What happened? Surprise, surprise. The incomes of folks at the very top went up. Incomes of everybody else, flat. What else went up? Deficits went up.

The chairman says the Republican budget is a budget for all Americans. Two days from today they are going to bring to the floor a bill that gets rid of the estate tax for estates over $10 million, 0.15 percent, about 5,500 American families. As I said earlier, you can put more people on a cruise ship. That is who the Republican budget looks after.

Now, look. The Democratic budget, it takes the opposite approach. It actually provides tax relief for working families. Yes, we do close some tax breaks for special interests to help reduce our long-term deficit.

We also call for increasing the minimum wage for millions of Americans who are working hard every day, yet at the end of the year, the amount they earn still puts them below the Federal poverty level. That is not right.

We also call for equal pay for equal work. Today is Equal Pay Day. Today represents the number of days since the end of last year, the number of days more that women have to work to achieve the same pay as men in the workplace. That is not right, and the Democratic budget addresses that issue.

We also say it is not right that corporations should be able to cut their employee pay or cut their workforce and still get a tax deduction for CEO and executive bonuses over $1 million. Right? Pay your CEOs whatever bonus you want, pay your executives whatever bonus you want, but for goodness' sake, why should they get a tax deduction for those bonuses if they are not increasing the pay of their own workers? That is not right. That is what the Democratic budget says: we should get rid of that inequity and actually use the Tax Code not to incentivize corporate jets, but actually to incentivize greater pay for more workers.

And this motion to instruct also says, for goodness' sake, let's do what the Senate agreed to do. Let's do what the Senate agreed to do. Let's call for an earned paid sick leave provision so that families don't have to say that, in order to take care of a sick loved one at home, they have to forgo the paycheck that allows them to pay their rent and the mortgage and put food on the table.

And yes, we do not believe that you should turn Medicare into a voucher plan. We have put forward proposals for reform to move toward a system that rewards value over volume.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, despite passing on the risks of higher health care costs to seniors through that plan, there is not a shred of evidence that that plan in this particular budget will actually do anything in the end to help Medicare other than to shift that burden onto seniors.

So the Republican budget is the wrong way to go for the country. It is a budget based on a failed ideology that somehow we are going to grow our economy through trickle-down economics, top-down, trickle-down. That failed our economy.

Let's have an economy based on broadly shared prosperity. Let's reject the Republican budget, accept the motion to instruct, and ultimately adopt the Democratic alternative.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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