Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. The other side of the aisle, I think, is trying to demonize this issue. It's constantly trying to say that Republicans favor the rich and that they favor the poor and are looking after the taxpayers. Their vote later today on the budget is going to prove they're not looking after the taxpayers. They're not concerned about our children and grandchildren. They're simply concerned with politicizing every issue they can possibly politicize. And I think that I have a perfect example of that stated by one of their own. Yesterday, the D.C. Examiner published an article on the underlying measure that this rule deals with, and I will place it in the Record at this point. [From the Washington Examiner, Mar. 31, 2009] Beyond AIG: A Bill To Let Big Government Set Your Salary (By Byron York) It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass. But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the ``Pay for Performance Act of 2009,'' would impose government controls on the pay of all employees--not just top executives--of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies. The purpose of the legislation is to ``prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards,'' according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses--everything-- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds. In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is ``unreasonable'' or ``excessive.'' And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate ``the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates.'' The bill passed the Financial Services Committee last week, 38 to 22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Reps. Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.) The legislation is expected to come before the full House for a vote this week, and, just like the AIG bill, its scope and retroactivity trouble a number of Republicans. ``It's just a bad reaction to what has been going on with AIG,'' Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey, a committee member, told me. Garrett is particularly concerned with the new powers that would be given to the Treasury Secretary, who just last week proposed giving the government extensive new regulatory authority. ``This is a growing concern, that the powers of the Treasury in this area, along with what Geithner was looking for last week, are mind boggling,'' Garrett said. Rep. Alan Grayson, the Florida Democrat who wrote the bill, told me its basic message is ``you should not get rich off public money, and you should not get rich off of abject failure.'' Grayson expects the bill to pass the House, and as we talked, he framed the issue in a way to suggest that virtuous lawmakers will vote for it, while corrupt lawmakers will vote against it. ``This bill will show which Republicans are so much on the take from the financial services industry that they're willing to actually bless compensation that has no bearing on performance and is excessive and unreasonable,'' Grayson said. ``We'll find out who are the people who understand that the public's money needs to be protected, and who are the people who simply want to suck up to their patrons on Wall Street.'' After the AIG bonus tax bill was passed, some members of the House privately expressed regret for having supported it and were quietly relieved when the White House and Senate leadership sent it to an unceremonious death. But populist rage did not die with it, and now the House is preparing to do it all again. I will quote briefly from the article. This is a quote--and I probably will say that more than once because I think it's very important to continue to make sure this is a quote: ``Representative Alan Grayson, the Florida Democrat who wrote the bill, told me its basic message is, 'you should not get rich off public money, and you should not get rich off of abject failure.' ``Grayson expects the bill to pass the House and, as we talked, he framed the issue in a way to suggest that virtuous lawmakers will vote for it, while corrupt lawmakers will vote against it. ``This bill will show which Republicans are so much on the take from the financial services industry that they're willing to actually bless compensation that has no bearing on performance and is excessive and unreasonable,'' Grayson said. ``We'll find out who are the people who understand that the public's money needs to be protected, and who are the people who simply want to suck up to their patrons on Wall Street.'' That's the end of the quote from the D.C. Examiner. I certainly hope that the gentleman from Florida wasn't inferring that I, a Republican who opposes this bill, am a ``corrupt lawmaker.'' None other than Thomas Jefferson in his manual, which is our guide here--Mr. Speaker, I know you are familiar with Mr. Jefferson's manual. It is what we use to guide us--not just day by day, but minute by minute on this floor. Mr. Jefferson said: ``The consequences of a measure may be condemned in the strongest terms; but to arraign the motives of those who propose to advocate it is not in order.'' Just because a Member chooses to oppose legislation, whether it be for reasons of policy or principle, they should not be disparaged by their colleagues, who wrestle with the very same voting decisions every day. We're seeing things which are unprecedented in our history. Just yesterday, the President of the United States fired the CEO of what was once the largest corporation in the world. Some of us are concerned about where this is going. Some of us think this is simply the wrong thing to do. It's easy to demonize the high-flying Wall Street fat cats who contributed mightily to our current situation. It's politically expedient to criticize corporate CEOs who seem tone deaf to the problems experienced daily by our constituents. But just because we're elected every 2 years doesn't mean that we leave our principles at the door when we enter this Chamber. Ambition is a good thing, but not when you impugn the motives of those who disagree. Those of us who have some experience understand that such words quoted from the D.C. Examiner, if they had been spoken on the floor, would have been considered inappropriate. They are just as inappropriate off the floor as they are on the floor. Mr. Speaker, this rule is wrong. The underlying bill is wrong. The efforts to continue to involve our government in places it has no business in is wrong. We need to do everything we can at this time--and we know we have people in this country hurting. Republicans are very, very sensitive to that. But the last thing in the world we need to do is to cut out the basis of this country--to weaken the very things that have made us the greatest country in the world. And involving ourselves more and more in controlling private enterprise will do nothing but to weaken this country more, to get our government involved. It's the wrong way to go. I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule and to vote against the underlying bill. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, I do want to talk about this bill, but it is very difficult to talk about this bill without also talking about the bill that it is going to undo. What I would like to point out--and I am sorry I did not think of this sooner--is that this bill really is redundant, and if it is not political theater, then I don't understand why we have to have the words ``executive or employee'' in this bill. I assume that every executive is also an employee. If this bill is not written as political theater, then we would simply say ``any employee'' because an executive is an employee. So I would like to ask the gentleman from Massachusetts if he would ask the Rules Committee to take a friendly amendment to take out the word ``executive'' because it is redundant. I would also like to point out that, this morning, when I spoke about the sponsor of the bill and about his ambition to get this bill passed, I neglected to say that I have heard that he has told people he wants to be the first freshman to pass a bill. That is very ambitious, but I think he has found a good piece of political theater.

Ms. FOXX. I was hoping he would ask----

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Himes is leaving, and I wanted to ask him a question, but I noticed that the majority party is getting their Members off the floor as quickly as they possibly can today so that we do not have a chance to ask them any questions. I believe that Mr. Himes voted for the stimulus bill, and what I wanted to ask him was whether or not he had read the bill before he had voted for it, but as I said, I think they are doing a very good job of getting their Members off the floor so they can't be put on the record in any way.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding time. This is a terrible bill. And we should vote down this rule. The bill is a de facto prohibition of tobacco. It's going to legislate a Big Tobacco monopoly. This bill is going to increase taxes, expand government bureaucracy at the expense of public health. This bill will decimate the family farm. This bill fails to focus on protecting our kids and instead, targets adult tobacco users and retailers. This bill will increase black market activity, potentially funding criminal enterprises and terrorists' activity. This bill precludes the development of reduced-risk products. The advertising and communication provisions of this bill are duplicative and unconstitutional. This bill eliminates Federal preemption of marketing and advertising, allowing each State to set its own standards. This bill is bad for the U.S. economy. It is another power grab on the part of the majority here. This is not something that we need, and it is not something that we should do. I am going to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill. On that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now would like to yield 6 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman 1 more minute.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), the dean of the North Carolina delegation.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Ms. FOXX. I would like to enter testimony from Commissioner Steve Troxler into the Record, and I would like to recognize Mr. Buyer from Indiana again for 5 minutes. Testimony of North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, Subcommittee on Rural Development, Biotechnology, Specialty Crops and Foreign Agriculture--March 26, 2009 Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me here today to talk about a topic I know very well. I grew tobacco in Guilford County, North Carolina, for more than 30 years. I dealt with dry weather, wet weather, the steady decline of quotas, and the end of the federal price- support system. As North Carolina's Commissioner of Agriculture, I have seen tobacco production bottom out following the end of federal price supports. And I have seen it rebound. North Carolina produced nearly 385 million pounds of flue- cured tobacco on 171,000 acres last year. We are still the nation's leading producer of flue-cured tobacco, despite the fact that we now have less than 3,000 tobacco farmers. That might seem like a lot, but in 2002, we had 8,000 tobacco farmers. When it comes to tobacco, I have seen a lot. But I have never seen the situation facing North Carolina's tobacco farmers today. Tobacco farmers are under siege. First, Congress raised the excise tax on cigarettes by 62 cents a pack. Now many states are lining up to do the same. In North Carolina, Governor Perdue has recommended raising the tax on cigarettes by $1 per pack. The consequences for our farmers will be severe. The increase in the federal excise tax hasn't even taken effect yet, but it has already impacted North Carolina farmers. Cigarette companies have reduced 2009 contracts with our farmers by as much as 50 percent. If the state excise tax goes up, too, our growers will be hurt even more. And, this increase could also lead to job losses in the manufacturing sector. Tobacco manufacturing employs more than 10,000 North Carolinians and pays average wages of more than $86,000 a year. That's more than twice the state's private industry average of $39,000. The last thing North Carolina--or any state--needs right now is more lost jobs. In addition to higher taxes, Congress is considering regulating tobacco. Congressman Waxman's bill would put tobacco under FDA oversight. This is ill-advised. FDA's focus right now should be, and needs to be, on food safety. Expanding FDA's mission would dilute its effectiveness in protecting our nation's food supply. Chairman McIntyre and Indiana Congressman Buyer have introduced a bill that would create a new agency within the Department of Health and Human Services to oversee tobacco products. One of the things I like about this bill is that it would not subject farmers to additional regulations on the way they grow tobacco. That's good. North Carolina growers increasingly rely on export markets. In fact, tobacco is our most valuable agricultural export, valued at more than $1 billion. Additional regulation would put our growers at a competitive disadvantage in international markets. Agriculture is by far North Carolina's largest industry, with a $70.8 billion economic impact. Tobacco manufacturing represents almost $24 billion in added value for North Carolina's economy. On average, a single tobacco plant is worth 71 cents in revenue for a U.S. farmer. That same plant will yield an average of $15.74 in state and federal taxes on tobacco products. This money supports a variety of economic and health programs. A decrease in tobacco revenues will ultimately hurt states' ability to carry out programs that benefit many citizens. In closing, I want to say that farmers must endure many hardships. They have to deal with the weather and manage their input costs amid fluctuating commodity prices. As I've said many times though, the single greatest factor in a farmer's ability to make a living isn't the weather, but government policy. I urge you to make wise policy decisions concerning the future of our nation's tobacco farmers. Your decisions will ripple throughout the states, in communities both large and small. If you regulate and tax U.S. tobacco farmers out of business, America will become reliant on foreign tobacco that is not subject to the same high standards. The situation will be no different from the many problems with imported foods that our nation has experienced in recent years. Please choose wisely. Thank you.

Ms. FOXX. I yield the gentleman another 2 minutes.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now would like to yield 3 minutes to our distinguished colleague from Michigan (Mr. Rogers).

Ms. FOXX. I yield the gentleman another 30 seconds.

Ms. FOXX. Yes, we do.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act will not serve to advance the cause of improving public health, and instead will serve only to act as an unnecessary and expensive regulatory scheme at the expense of our rural farming communities, our small businesses, and the American economy. This bill includes more than $5 billion in new tax increases on tobacco companies and gives sweeping control of the tobacco market to the FDA. This bill imposes undue bureaucratic and logistic hardships on tobacco manufacturers by burying them under multiple layers of regulation. FDA regulation will have a devastating economic impact on rural tobacco companies, their employees, associated businesses, and the largely rural communities which they support. As Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt noted, this legislation could also be viewed by foreign governments as a hostile trade action. Many of the clove and other flavored cigarettes that are banned under this bill are manufactured in foreign countries. This also grants de facto power to ban existing conventional tobacco products. It will dramatically increase black market activity. It favors larger companies over smaller companies. It favors existing products over new products. It creates insurmountable barriers to development of reduced-risk products. It limits the ability to communicate with adult consumers. It eliminates existing Federal preemption of State limits on labeling, marketing, and advertising. And, it grants FDA indirect authority to mandate changes in farming practices. In effect, this is a very, very bad bill. I urge my colleagues to vote against the rule and to vote against the bill. We do not need more examples of Big Brother as we are seeing in this Congress and in this administration. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, it is very interesting to come and listen to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It is clear they are living the book ``1984'' by George Orwell because they are constantly rewriting history to suit their purposes. I want to say that if there is anybody out there who hasn't read ``1984'' by George Orwell, or hasn't read it in a long time, I strongly urge you to do so because we are obviously living through what Orwell predicted. We are just a few years later than he suggested it would be. I love the attitude of my colleagues, too, who say we are going to give all of the money to the rich. It displays their approach to our country. Their attitude is that the government owns all of the money and if money is not taken from citizens, then it is being given to them by the government. Our country is the greatest country in the world, founded on capitalism and founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and founded on the rule of law. The money doesn't belong to the government, it belongs to the hardworking people who earned it. I think that in a nutshell sums up their attitude: The government should be in charge of absolutely everything, and we are seeing that play out with the proposals coming out of this administration and out of this Congress. Again, they are doing their best to make excuses for it by rewriting history. Our economy was doing very well under the Bush administration until January 2007 when the Democrats took control of the Congress. They like to ignore those 2 years they were in control of Congress and President Bush was still President. We had 55 straight months of job creation. Suddenly that ended in January 2007 when they took over. Gas prices started going up, and they reached their peak under this Democratically controlled Congress. And I think it is very, very important that people be reminded of that. They have said that President Bush created the largest deficit in our Nation's history. That simply is not true, and it isn't true that President Obama has inherited the largest deficit in history. But we are going to do our best to straighten out that issue. They also like to say that the Republicans have no alternatives to what the Democrats are proposing. That also is not true. We have always had alternatives. This session in particular we have brought forth very specific alternatives. Last week we presented a 16-page document primarily of principles. This week we are releasing our balanced budget resolution, and we will have a balanced budget and it does the kinds of things that the American people expect to be done. It will be balanced, unlike the Obama budget which puts us greater and greater into debt and creates a deficit. Our budget improves every single year and achieves a surplus in 2019 which is when the Obama budget has a huge deficit and a huge debt. Under our budget, the national debt will decline by more than $6 trillion, compared to the President's budget which averages deficits of more than a trillion dollars a year. It is true that we give tax relief, but that is important. Again, we want the American people who earn their money to keep more of their money rather than turning it over to the government under duress and allowing bureaucrats to spend that money. We will also fully fund defense which is the number one role of the Federal Government. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle constantly forget to talk about that. The Federal Government is the only government in our country that can provide for our defense. We suffered a terrible situation on September 11, 2001, and we have not had another episode since then because the administration kept us safe. We also create a zero-growth baseline for nondefense spending, and we assume repeal of most of the provisions in the so-called stimulus bill. We make no changes in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. However, we do clamp down on wasteful and low-priority mandatory spending. We are also going to assume savings from an earmark moratorium, something that the American people desperately want to see.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman yield?

Ms. FOXX. Well, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his help on this Special Order. I think that having a variety of folks come in and speak about this issue is much better than having one talking head here. We have lots of different perspectives. We come from different experiences. I think that's very important to us. But I want to summarize some of the things that we have been talking about, and frankly, I hadn't thought about using the term ``March Madness'' for what's going on, but I certainly do think it's an appropriate term for the proposals that have been made for this budget. But I want to again reiterate some of the things that have been said before. This budget will give us the largest tax increase in the history of this country. It will be more borrowing than all the other Presidents have proposed in the history of this country. If you take every President from President George Washington to President George W. Bush, what President Obama has recommended and what the Democrats have endorsed in this Congress is going to create more gross debt in 10 years than all the other President's combined. That is a pretty staggering thing to think about. Thomas Jefferson was a very wise man. He's represented here in this Chamber. We have a lot of folks in the gallery today. I'll point out to you that around the top of the House there are these profiles of people. All of them are ancient lawgivers except two. Behind me, over the Speaker's podium, there are two Americans--Thomas Jefferson to my right and George Mason to my left. The rest are ancient lawgivers--with Moses being over the center door in full face. We honor Jefferson in this country. The Democrats supposedly honor Thomas Jefferson for his wisdom. But this is what he said--and they have certainly forgotten this--``I sincerely believe that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.'' Thomas Jefferson, 1816. Our Founders understood this. They wanted a small Federal Government, not one that would oppress the people, not one that would give us huge tax increases and take money from the people. They can spend better than the government can spend it. That's what Thomas Jefferson believed in--and I believe in that--and I'm so sorry that the Democrats have forgotten the lessons he taught their party and taught our country. Another thing in this budget is a new energy tax that will cost every household up to $3,128 annually. The President promised tax cuts. There's going to be about $600 in tax cuts given to the average family. But, in exchange for that, they're going to be $3,128 more for energy. It doesn't sound like a good deal to me. It's also going to cost American jobs. We know the cap-and-tax plan, in addition to all these taxes, are going to cost jobs, because the majority of the tax increases are going to fall on small businesses. They're not going to be able to keep being the engine of job creation that they have been. There's going to be a new tax on charitable giving, which could cost American charities at least $9 billion a year. The cynical attitude behind this is: We don't need the private sector doing all these things. We're going to take your money because government knows how to spend the money better. In fact, it will destroy many charities in this country that are doing wonderfully good things. But it will hurt them and, in some cases, destroy them, all in the name of having the government run our country. Some people have said that this sounds a lot like Animal Farm. I would say to people: If you haven't read 1984, if you haven't read Animal Farm in a long time, or, if you've never read them, get them out and read them and think about what's happening in this country as it compares to what was written in those books. This will be the highest level of borrowing ever. It's going to be unchecked spending, which will result in borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China, the Middle East, and other nations that own our growing debt. As I said earlier, for the first two centuries of this country, Americans have worked hard so their children could have better lives and better opportunities. Democrats want to reverse that order by having our children work hard so we don't have to make the hard choices now. Let me show you another chart here. Again, you don't have to take my word for it. I can show it to you graphically. This is going to be doubling the debt held by the public. Look how those numbers go up. This is what it was under Republican control of the Congress and a Republican administration. This is what it is under Democratic control. According to the CBO, President Obama's budget would add $9.3 trillion to the national debt. This will lead to unprecedented borrowing, with debt held by the public increasing from 41 percent of GDP in 2008 to 82 percent of GDP in 2019. We have never seen that kind of debt, even in wartime. In 2010, the budget's going to spend $172 billion on interest on the national debt. Just think about that--$172 billion just on interest. It's going to be piling up more and more debt and less money to spend on real priorities. This is not the way for America. Putting our children and grandchildren into debt is wrong. After we had the bailout last fall, I went home and I was taking my grandchildren to school and they said to me, ``What were you doing in Washington? We know you were up there, you came back, you went back.'' I said to my 12-year-old grandson and 9\1/2\-year-old granddaughter--I said, ``Well, what the Congress just did was put you, your children, and your grandchildren into debt for more money than you're ever going to be able to pay off.'' And my 9\1/2\-year-old granddaughter Rana said to me, ``Grandma, why do you want to put little children into debt? I said, ``Rana, I don't. That's why I voted ``no.'' That's why most Republicans voted ``no.'' We understand what's happening here. We don't want to do this. But what is about to occur here is even worse than what happened last fall, even worse than what happened with the stimulus. These people are going headlong in because they don't want to take the responsibility to do what needs to be done now--trim spending and make tough decisions. Somebody said the other day that we're pretty soon going to be like Argentina, because the Federal Reserve is printing dollars trying to get the economy stimulated. The government's spending, spending, spending. We're pretty soon going to go into a situation where we're going to look like a third-world country. I don't think that's what most Americans want. Most Americans love this country, they want us to continue to be the greatest country in the world, and they want us to continue to be successful in what we do. They want us to leave a country that is good and economically and fiscally healthy to our children and our grandchildren and to our posterity. That's not the direction the Democrats are taking us. They cannot blame this on the Republicans because they have been in charge of the Congress since January 2007. They started the spending going that way. The President, who's promised so many good things and led the American people to think that he would be a moderate person and who would bring good change to this country, is bringing change, all right--the kind of change that is going to lead us down a very, very dark path and create problems that will take a long, long time for us to fix. So I want to say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that this is the wrong thing to be doing. You've been cramming things down our throats and down the throats of the American people for the past 2\1/2\ months. This is not the direction this country should be going in. We need to be fiscally responsible. We need to remember our oath to the Constitution. We need to be looking after this country and the people who elected us here to do that. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

Ms. FOXX. Right. So no Republican voted for that stimulus bill which took out this provision; is that correct?

Ms. FOXX. But no Republicans need to--in the House--need to be embarrassed, right, because none of us voted for this.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to come here today with some of my colleagues to talk about several issues that we think are of very much concern to the American people. Whatever we do here in terms of spending, we know has a major impact on our country. And it's not just for today that it has an impact but it's for a long, long time. And so we are highlighting today what is happening with the budget that has been made public today and that's going to be debated next week, and probably adopted, unfortunately, unfortunately for the American people and for our children and our grandchildren, maybe even our great grandchildren. So we'll be talking about that for the next hour. And I'm joined by two of my colleagues that I want to yield some time to to ask them to make some presentations on some particular issues they are very familiar with and do a wonderful job of explaining. So I'd like to yield now to my colleague from Georgia, the distinguished physician, Mr. Gingrey.

Ms. FOXX. Well, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for setting the stage for this and for reiterating what we, as Republicans, believe so strongly in--that the President's budget spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much. Well, what we know now is that the budget presented by the Democrats in the meetings in the Budget Committee yesterday is basically the same. They kept trying to say their budget was going to be different from the President's. They have heard the firestorm. The American people are beginning to wake up. They realize that some things that were said to them in last year's election are not turning out the way they thought they were going to turn out, and they are getting a little spooked by that, so they've been trying to backpedal from that. They were saying there is going to be less spending, smaller deficits, lower debt, but in the meeting yesterday, during the markup, we know now that the two budgets are really the same. Here are some of their comments that prove that. We don't have to say it. We just use their own words: ``This budget resolution shares the President's priorities.'' ``This is a key step to making the President's plan a reality.'' ``The President has proposed, and under this budget, we support his plans.'' The chairman's mark ``embraces and supports the President's budget.'' These remarks admitted the obvious. The mark could be described as different only if one believed the following: that the 5-year budget window as opposed to the President's 10-year plan is not designed to hide the explosion of cost after 2014 for the President's ambitious, big-government agenda; that the Alternative Minimum Tax will be fixed in a deficit neutral fashion--that is, by raising other taxes, though the Democrats, themselves, have rejected this approach for the past 2 years; that Making Work Pay Tax Credit, a key provision in the President's budget, will not be extended unless offset, and it was created as an emergency; that the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the TARP, is over, and the Treasury Secretary's financial stabilization plan will get no more funding; and that the mark's numerous reserve funds, also known as tax-and-spend, will not be used to increase spending and taxes in the President's plan for a sweeping expansion of government. So we know now that the Democrat budget, presented by the Democrat leadership, is the same as the Obama budget, so we will go on to show why we think this budget is not the right thing to do. Before we spend more time on that, I want to give some time to my colleague from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette), who has an excellent presentation to show how we are getting into the messes that we are getting into as a result of the action of the majority. I know there are still some people out there who don't understand that this Congress is controlled by the Democrats. It has been controlled by the Democrats since January of 2007, and while they keep talking about what they have inherited, they have to own up to the responsibility at some point. I yield now such time as he may consume to my wonderful colleague from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette). (Mr. LaTOURETTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)