Jim Nussle

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Schrock), a member of the committee.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), to talk about the second important pillar of our budget. Strength. The second is growth.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes to engage my colleague from California, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, in a colloquy. The gentleman from California is certainly one of Congress' most steadfast supporters of American's servicemen and -women. I understand he has a concern related to military housing and the privatization program.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 20 seconds to respond briefly and say that the gentleman from Maryland may want to read his substitute. It is interesting what you find out when you read the substitute. He said that it would be immoral to use one penny of the Social Security trust fund over the next 5 years. Well, guess what? Your substitute spends it all. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bonner), a distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, as I said before, strength, growth, and opportunity are the hallmarks of our budget. To speak about the strength portion of our budget, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), a member of the committee.

Mr. NUSSLE. I yield to the gentleman from California to engage in that colloquy.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would just say I appreciate my colleague's concerns. I strongly support the objectives of the DOD's military housing privatization initiatives. As we all know, the program, in existence since 1995, has leveraged the entrepreneurship of the private sector to build housing for our men and women in uniform much more efficiently than the government could do it itself. As Members will recall, last year the Committee on the Budget, as well as the Committee on Armed Services, achieved consensus on this matter and raised the statutory cap on housing projects in the House legislation. As it happened, the potential cap increase did not occur. The other body opted not to move this program. I repeat, both the House Committee on the Budget and the House Committee on Armed Services were already engaged in housing privatization. It was the other body that chose not to engage. We are all confronted again this year with the potential cap increase; and regrettably, DOD did not make a formal request on privatization when it submitted its budget in February. The Office of Management and Budget only cleared the privatization request for submission to Congress less than 2 weeks ago. DOD now believes that the cap limit will be reached by November of 2004. As we move forward, the Committee on Armed Services will be examining the request, and drafting its own legislative provisions I am sure; and when the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services moves his bill, I commit to work through the Committee on the Budget aggressively with OMB and CBO to come to a consensus to appropriately score this privatization initiative. The committee will also engage the Committee on the Budget, as well in the other body as we move into conference, so that the program can move forward; and, again, I want to stress my support for the program and my commitment to seeing this important quality-of-life initiative for our men and women in uniform move forward.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to respond briefly and say that, using the exact same standard that the gentleman just used, he voted at 7:03 p.m. last Thursday against a $1.2 billion increase in veterans' spending. A $1.2 billion increase in veterans' spending the gentleman voted against in committee last week. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Ryun), a member of the committee.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), from the Committee on Armed Services, in order to talk briefly about our budget.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan).

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I do not intend to object, but I hope that if speeches are going to be made during the time of a unanimous consent request, that that time be taken out of the opposition's time.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood)

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. I am trying understand here, when we talk about the other side where it is just talking about the fact that we are not living up to our commitments. Just so everybody knows, there are some other charts here that we want you to see. Total education: Annual growth over the last 5 years in the education accounts averaged 11 percent per year in those 5 years. So when we hear this lament that we are not spending enough on education, here are the facts. Eleven percent. There is no other part of government that has been growing at that kind of rate. In fact, it is growing faster than national defense. Let me show you another one. Special education, over the last 5 years, the average growth was 19 percent. While they are complaining about special education, we have not seen the final total, but I will bet they do not fully fund special education in their budget. I bet they do not reach that, do they? They just complain about it. Yes, they say they give a little bit more, but we have been providing 19 percent per year. Spending has more than doubled over the last 5 years for special education. Last but not least is No Child Left Behind. The No Child Left Behind program funding has grown 40 percent under this President. Annual growth over the last 4 years, my colleagues can see before them right here. In fact, it has happened so fast, there are States, Iowa is one of them, where Iowa actually had to turn back money that we are looking to investigate, we want to find out exactly why it is that money that went to Iowa and to other States under No Child Left Behind has now been sent back. That is unconscionable at a time when our classrooms and our teachers are talking to us, telling us that they need more money. We are increasing. We are meeting the totals. If the States had grown at the level we have been growing at the Federal level, we would not be in the predicament we are in. We are meeting our obligations. The States are not. We are growing our budget. We will continue that commitment. So as the lament continues, just remember, the increases are in here and the increases are coming.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds again just to point out that the Democratic alternative, while they come to the floor and lament that we do not fully fund No Child Left Behind, guess what? The alternative budget presented by the Democrats does not fully fund No Child Left Behind. Is that not interesting? In fact, the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce has called it somewhat hypocritical that you would complain on one side and not propose a budget that funds it on the other. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds just to say, yes, but you did not, either. You had the choice to put an alternative budget on the floor to fully fund the promises that you are complaining about here today and you chose not to. So be careful what you promise on the campaign trail. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself half a minute just to say I certainly have enormous respect for people's opinions, but I have to say I do not see a volleyball team anywhere in the budget that was mentioned, that we cut a volleyball team; and I am looking through here, and I just do not see it. I am amazed by the conversation we are hearing here today. My guess is that there is not a volleyball team funded in any of the other alternative budgets either, and if there is, I hope to God that it does not pass. We need to make sure that we control spending, and I do not think volleyball spending should be part of the Federal budget. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Brown), a very distinguished member of the committee. (Mr. BROWN of South Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 8 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite), a member of our committee.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, has the gentlewoman heard, and I have been hearing some confusion over our numbers, the Senate numbers, the Principi numbers, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and I commend the gentlewoman for her work in offering that amendment to increase my committee mark so that we go to a level that the Secretary had requested. But has the gentlewoman heard the same confusion over the numbers that the Senate finally passed off the floor in their budget?

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. First, I would like to thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for the tone of the debate. I think it has been a good debate, a healthy debate, and a discussion, as I said to begin with, about the blueprint for fiscal responsibility as we move into the future and exactly what the priorities would be. I suggested that it is probably very similar to the conversation that a couple might have with their architect as they go in and try and design a new home. Certainly there are going to be things that they agree on, and there are going to be a few arguments as they come up with that final design. But the long and short of it is we need a blueprint in order to move forward, and I commend the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for putting together a budget. We disagree with the plan that he has put forth; we have our own plan that we hope passes. It is one that builds on the principles of strength, growth, opportunity, and fiscal responsibility; and we believe it is the right blueprint at this time to manage the needs as well as manage the economic concerns of our country at this important juncture. We have heard a lot tonight about the fact that tax cuts caused every problem in the world, that somehow everything would be better without tax cuts, and we wring our hands all day long about the fact that we have such a big deficit, and what we forget is at this exact same moment there are people sitting around kitchen tables across America with their checkbooks and bills in front of them, probably as well as their tax return they just got back from their accountant or their tax preparer, or maybe they actually tried to scratch one out on their own, and it is becoming more and more complicated every year to do that; and it is becoming more and more difficult to pay bills and make ends meet, particularly with the kind of economic challenges that people face. So at this particular point in time, we believe it is not in order to raise taxes on those people who are having that discussion around their table. What they would say to us if they had the opportunity is the exact same thing they would say to each other, and that is, Can we do with just a little bit less, honey? Can we figure a way to turn the lights off maybe a little more often? Can we buy maybe a cheaper pair of gym shoes than the expensive pair of sneakers Johnnie wants. We still love Johnnie, of course, but maybe we can make ends meet by asking him to do with maybe a little less than the big powerful set of gym shoes that they sell at some stores. They look at all of their bills and say, Can we do a little bit less? It is not because they do not love each other or they do not care enough about their own situation; but they know, as we know, that at all times we should look for ways to save money and tighten our belt, particularly when times are tough. But one thing they do not say is let us do with a little bit less when it comes to income. That is one thing we are mindful of in this budget. We want to respect the income of Americans, we want them to be able to spend it, we believe they spend it more wisely; and that is the reason we continue the tax relief within this budget which has been a hallmark of our economic development plans. Let me be even more specific. When we talk about tax cuts, tax cuts did not cause the deficit. There has been a lot of discussion here tonight that somehow tax cuts are causing all of the problems in our country. Let me show Members the chart, because what we have done is we made that same chart which has been discussed here tonight, and we put it all in there. The white area here are the tax cuts. The green area here is that new discretionary spending that was just referred to by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt). The red area is what we call new mandatory. Most of that is the Medicare bill. But the blue area that Members see here is the economic gut-punch that we have gotten as a result of a number of things, the dot-com bubble bursting, corporate scandals, 9/11, and the ongoing challenges as a result of a number of issues within our economy, some natural, some not, within that business cycle. If we look at this, the tax cuts do not dive us into a deficit; the spending, the economy is what has driven us into deficits. In case Members believe we are just putting the tax cuts on top because it does not work, let us put them on the bottom and see how that works. Let us put the economy on top. The economy alone drives us to a deficit. The economic changes that our economy has had since September 11, in particular, have driven us down into a small deficit; but the new spending for the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq, the war with Afghanistan, homeland security, protecting our country and a lot of other additional spending for education, for veterans, has driven us even further. So before we blame the tax cuts, be careful how this is looked at. If you put the tax cuts on top, they do not get us to a deficit. If we put the tax cuts on the bottom, they do not even take us out of the deficit. In fact, the proposals that are put here today are just wishful thinking if you believe you can take away tax relief from Americans, tax relief away from small businesses and assume they are going to continue to be able to drive the economy and make sure we have the kind of economic changes that create jobs far into the future. One other point with regard to this which is important, the tax relief package is working. It is working. All Members have to do is look at the real gross domestic product over the last number of years and you can see exactly what happened. Here is the recession. That was that recession that President Bush inherited. That is the reason why back in this particular time here we said let us reduce taxes slightly in order to get that economy back on its feet. Then 9/11 hit, and we decided to boost the economy even more; and we not only had a bipartisan tax relief package, we decided to make those tax cuts permanent. What has happened? As Members can see, the last 2 years now we have seen staggering economic growing. The last 6 months alone have been the fastest growing period for our economy in 20 years. As every single economist will tell you on both sides of the political spectrum, the lagging indicator that always is the last to develop is jobs, and that is because people are tight with their money. They are not going to make an investment decision until they know the coast is clear. And the coast is clear. We are going to continue to make sure that these tax relief packages within this budget are not only extended but are made permanent. We do not want there to be an automatic tax increase, and that is the reason our budget adopts that. Last but not least, let me talk about spending. We have heard today all sorts of things with regard to spending. We have heard that Republicans have been spending too much, and we have heard that Republicans are not spending enough. In fact, we have even heard that we are not spending enough on volleyball teams. That was even part of the debate here today. Regardless of that debate, here are the facts. This is the total budget for the last 10 years. This is a chart that many of my Republican colleagues do not want me to show, and I can understand why because it shows that during our period of time we have increased spending; but, there are two parts to this ledger that I want Members to understand. First and foremost, I think it rebuts very clearly the arguments that have been made that somehow we are being Draconian in our cuts, that we are cutting too far, cutting too deep, that it is going to throw people out on the street and seniors are not going to get the resources they need, and veterans are not going to get the resources they need. That is simply not the case. Our increase in spending growth has averaged 5 percent each year since our first budget. Now, some of those changes have not been all that positive. Unfortunately, within all this spending there is some waste. There is more waste than we care to admit, and that is the reason within our instructions this year the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) was suggesting that we only are looking at a very small portion of the budget. We are looking at that portion of the budget, but we have expended the view of the budget. We believe there are weeds within the entire garden of the Federal budget, and we need to look in every corner of that garden to pull weeds. That is the reason we are going to continue the effort to look for wasteful Washington spending, not only on the discretionary side of the ledger, but also on the mandatory spending. We know that the Democrats have not been in control during that period of time, and it would be easy to blame the Republicans for some of the spending that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) talked about with regard to homeland security and the war in Iraq; and it is true that with regard to that area I was showing Members on the chart where increases in discretionary spending have been large, Democrats voted for it, too. Yes, we were in charge, but most of it was done in a bipartisan way, and I think Democrats are proud of that. I think Democrats are proud of the fact they voted to increase spending for homeland security, I think Democrats are proud of the fact they voted to increase spending for defense, I think they are proud they voted for increases for special education and for a number of those programs that you have come to the floor here today and suggested that you want even more increases. Most of those increases in discretionary spending, in particular, have been bipartisan. Last, let me say with regard to other spending, yes, there were many amendments in our committee to increase spending far beyond what our budget calls for, but there have been examples of this throughout our history. For example, the Medicare account, there has been a lot of complaints within the media that for some reason we are not taking into consideration the full amount of the costs of Medicare. First and foremost, the Democratic substitute last year would have spent about $1 trillion, more than double the amount we had for Medicare. Secondly, if you notice the alternative presented by the Democrats, they adopt the CBO baseline for Medicare spending, meaning they do not believe the actuaries from OMB or from HHS any more than we do. Nobody is quite clear exactly where Medicare spending is going to go. It is our job here in Congress to control it. Right now the Congressional Budget Office is controlling with regard to that spending, and we both put it into our baseline as the Medicare line item. If they would adopt their rhetoric as part of their budget, they would not balance anytime in the near future. Let me say in closing that when we come up with a budget like this, or a blueprint like this, there are going to be a lot of people who have to give. There are many people within our conference who wanted to increase spending in some areas; they wanted to go further with decreases in spending in others. What we have tried to come up with is a common-sense solution to a problem that is going to take a number of years to resolve. All of the budgets that Members will see on the floor today, none of those budgets balance it this year or even next year or even within the next 5 years. All of them recognize that we need a path to get back to responsible budgets and balanced budgets. And so which path are Members going to choose? Are Members going to choose one that respects the family budget and does not increase taxes? Are Members going to choose one that holds the line where we can hold the line on spending? Are you going to choose one that allows us to begin to weed the garden of mandatory spending where we can find waste, fraud and abuse; and are you going to choose one that does what I believe is so important, and that is to make sure that our country is protected first and foremost so our freedom is protected? I believe that budget provides that strength for our country, that growth for our economy, and that opportunity for our constituents' future; and it does it in a fiscally responsible way. I believe our budget is the kind of budget that can help get us back on the track that we need in order to get back towards fiscal responsibility, and I ask for Members' support and vote on the budget resolution for 2005. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, first, let me speak to Medicaid since the subject has come up a couple of different times. Since 1995, let us be very clear about this, since 1995 Medicaid spending has grown 95 percent, a 95 percent increase. The average increase was 7.7 percent per year. Federal Medicaid outlays increased from $108 billion in 1999, as an example, to $173 billion this year, an average of 10 percent a year just since 1999 alone. Federal SCHIP, that is the program for kids that has been mentioned here, spending grew from $1.4 billion in 1999 to an estimated $4.8 billion this year, an average annual increase, listen to this now because we are hearing from the other side that Medicaid is being cut, and I want you to listen to this number for kids, an average annual increase of 27 percent, 27 percent. It is mind-boggling to me how we can be talking about cuts at a time when we are increasing at 27 percent for SCHIP and 95 percent over the last 10 years for Medicaid. Let me also bring up another subject that we just had a colloquy on on the floor with regard to veterans spending, and I want to be clear because I know that there are many colleagues out there that are listening to this debate, particularly with regards to veterans' health care. In our committee, we increased veterans spending to meet the request that Secretary Principi put forth in our committee in a hearing that he said, when he made his request to the Office of Management and Budget, his request was $1.2 billion higher than the President finally acquiesced and gave his department. Included in that were fees and were copayments, things such as that. We decided to do something in our committee in order to achieve not only a $1.2 billion increase, but to do so without any offsetting receipts. The Senate did something similar on their floor. They increased veterans spending as well, but when they did it, they offset some of that spending, so that while the gross number does look higher, they have offsetting receipts there that could be accomplished either through mandating copayments or mandating a means test of some sort. So when you look at the House versus the Senate budget on veterans spending, the House is higher in the net effect of spending for veterans than the Senate. We will work out the differences in conference, and we will arrive at a number, I believe, that will be $1.2 billion over the President's budget, the budget that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs requested in the first place, and that is an agreement I believe we can achieve. But just so we are clear for those Members that have been listening, that have been hearing from some veterans that the Senate number is higher, it is wrong. Be careful. They have hidden costs, hidden fees, the possibilities of means testing in their budget. We do not have that. Our number is higher and we ought to stick with that number. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Con. Res. 393.