Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Noting that the Republicans on the supercommittee have put a proposal on the table and the Democrats have not, I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo), a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I don't know. I'm a Boston Red Sox fan. We finally got ours, but we have a ways to go. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I don't. I have all these speakers.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Absolutely there's a goal of doing that, and it is the goal of being able to generate a growing economy that results from living within your means and then using those means to pay for what our society needs.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOODLATTE. If you don't have the resources to pay for what you need because you've spent it on a lot of other things, you're not going to have the infrastructure.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I'm not the chairman of the Judiciary Committee; Congressman Smith is. But I am happy to be here in his stead.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOODLATTE. The balanced budget amendment is fair to all because all it simply says is that for all time, the people of this country want their government to live within their means, not just right now, but in the future as well. Right now, we're not anywhere near living within our means; $1.3 trillion deficits each of the last 3 years, all that's being passed on to those children.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, I just pointed out that the rich pay far, far, far more in taxes than other people do, and they should. But this balanced budget amendment doesn't make any distinction between how you balance it, whether it's by increasing revenues, whether it's by economic growth, or whether it's by tax increases.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson), a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee and a great supporter of the balanced budget amendment.

Mr. GOODLATTE. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. As to the gentleman's complaint that this is all because we haven't taxed the rich, my goodness, in the last Congress, under the control of your party, you extended all of those tax cuts for everyone. And the fact of the matter is that the top 1 percent of American families pay 38 percent--38 percent--of the personal income taxes in this country today. That, by the way, is up from 34 percent in 2001. So all of this can be on the table when we have a discussion about how to balance the budget. All we're debating here today is the principle of whether or not we should balance the budget and looking at the past history where we have not, indeed, balanced it but six times in 50 years. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. West), who is not only a member of the House Armed Services Committee, but a great advocate for fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to the gentleman. First of all, let me just be very clear that when the gentleman talks about the sins that he wants to impose upon Republicans for not balancing the budget, I think that's a very good argument. But since this is a bipartisan bill and dozens of his colleagues will be voting for this, I think it's because those of us who vote for it recognize that this is true on both sides of the aisle, that there has been a lack of tough decisions that have led to balanced budgets. Every single year I vote for the toughest budget offered in this Congress. Those budgets never pass. Why? Because there's no requirement that they do so. So, what do we have? We have complaints on the other side of the aisle that this is a terrible plot on our part to bring about all kinds of harsh cuts. This balanced budget amendment doesn't make any distinction between whether you balance a budget by raising taxes or cutting spending. I'm going to do it to cut spending because I see lots of waste in our government. And I've voted for budgets that bring about a balance without raising taxes, but that is not the point here. The point is that it doesn't get done either way.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to my good friend from New York. I would just say to the gentleman that we do need to do the job, but you don't have to look ahead to wonder what's going to happen, all you have to do is look back. Over the past 50 years we've balanced the budget just six times and we've run up a $15 trillion national debt. Now, the gentleman has cited some criticism of Republican votes, but there are plenty of Democratic votes in the 4 years that the Democrats were in control of this Congress. Just recently we added $4 trillion to the national debt. Now, the fact of the matter is, over the 50 years, 37 of those years Democrats have controlled the House of Representatives and only 2 of those 37 years was it balanced. So when the gentleman says that some years will run surpluses and some years will run deficits, that's very true, but the history has been almost all of those years will run deficits unless we have a discipline in our Constitution to require that we do otherwise. And I would also point out that in the 4 years since the gentleman has been here and I've been here we've had balanced budgets. The gentleman, for I'm sure reasons that he felt were very justified, voted against all four of the budgets that balanced in this Congress. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Walsh), chairman of the Small Business Economic Growth Subcommittee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schilling), a member of the Agriculture Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), the chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, how much time remains on each side?

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman), the chairman of the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), a distinguished member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney), a member of the House Budget Committee.