Paul Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I am the last speaker. I reserve the right to close. So I will let the gentleman from Maryland use up all his time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. When we confronted the 2008 economic crisis, which launched us into the worst recession since the Great Depression, which threw millions of people out of work, which lost trillions of dollars in wealth in retirement savings for millions of Americans, that crisis caught us by surprise. We didn't see it coming. Out of that came very ugly legislation that lots of us supported. Mr. Chair, this one is the most predictable economic crises we've ever had, and we have a Senate that has chosen for 3 years in a row to just do nothing. We have a President who, for the fourth budget in a row, proposes to do nothing to fix it. In fact, he makes it worse. Here is what we're trying to do. We're trying to go to the country and offer them a solution. We don't think the country is headed in the right direction right now because a debt crisis is coming. So we feel morally bound and actually legally bound because the Budget Act requires that we pass a budget to offer a solution and an alternative: fundamental tax reform to get job creators creating jobs; take away the special interest loopholes and tax shelters and treat everybody fairly; stop raising the tax rate on successful small businesses to 45 percent, like is going to happen in January, and instead keep their tax rates low so they can create jobs; control spending; reform our welfare system. We believe the American idea is essentially an opportunity to decide if the safety net--and we believe in a safety net that is there to help people who cannot help themselves, and to be there to help people who are down on their luck get back on their feet. But we do not want to convert this safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency which drains them of their will and their intentions to make the most of their lives. We believe in a system of upward mobility and opportunity. We believe when we see Medicare and Medicaid going bankrupt that we should fix that. Let's let the States innovate, create, and have good solutions that meet the needs of their populations by giving them more control over Medicaid. They run it already right now. They just have all these government rules and regulations from Washington. Stop the rationing board from denying care to current seniors. Get rid of that, and replace it with a guarantee that current seniors get the promise made to them and future seniors actually have a program that's solvent. So instead of having 15 bureaucratic elites price- control their program, allow 50 million seniors in the future to choose which one they want the best. One-quarter of seniors already today pick among the private plans that meet their needs. We want to keep giving them the choices. At the end of the day, it's about a choice of two futures: Do we want this path of debt, doubt, and decline where we have a debt crisis, where the people that get hurt first and the worst are those who need government the most--the poor, the people in the safety net, and the elderly who depend on Medicare--or are we going to get this debt under control and pay it off and give our children a better future? At the end of the day, it's a philosophy. What the other side is doing and what the President is proposing is that elites in the bureaucracy who are unelected, they make the decisions. In my judgment, Mr. Chairman, that is paternalistic, it's arrogant, and it's condescending. So the question really is: Who do you want to be in charge of your life, you or these cronies in government? Do we want to keep taking money from job creators and from families and sending it to Washington so they can distribute it to their cronies, so they can distribute it to whoever has the clout, and so they can make all these decisions in our lives on health care, financial services, education, the environment, and energy? If we keep surrendering our liberties and our freedom and our dollars, we won't have the right to pursue happiness as we see happiness in our own lives. The idea of this country is that our rights come from nature and God to us automatically before government. Our rights don't come from government. But the idea that's being perpetrated, the path the President is putting us on, is one where he and his elites in Washington know better. They define our rights for us. They regulate, ration, and redistribute them for us. Whatever you call that, Mr. Chairman, that is not the American idea. We have a profound responsibility to look our children in the eye, like our parents did to us, and fix this country's problems so they can have a more prosperous future. We know, without a shadow of a doubt-- it's irrefutable--the next generation is going to be worse off. We know that if we allow this debt crisis to continue, if we allow it to kick in--and the experts tell us it could be as little as 2 years away-- everybody is going to get hurt and the economy is going to go down. We have a moral obligation to do something about that. What we're saying is do it now, do it on our own terms, do it in a way where people can see the reforms that are necessary so they are gradual, and do it in a way so that we can keep the promises the government has made to people who have already retired who count on government the most. At the end of the day, Mr. Chairman, this is about choices. And we are going to give the country a choice of two futures so they can decide whether or not we want to maintain the American idea in this country. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. At this time, I yield 5 minutes to a senior member of the Budget Committee and also a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Price.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I just have one more request for time, and then I will reserve the right to close. And I understand the gentleman has a number of other requests, so perhaps he would like to continue with his speakers?

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte). (Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, let me yield myself 2 minutes to say, you know what ends the Medicare guarantee? The Medicare status quo. We had the chief actuary of Medicare in the other day. He said it is $37 trillion in the hole. That's the unfunded liability for Medicare. Look at the driver of our debt. Medicare is growing at such a rate that it goes into bankruptcy, the part A trust fund goes bankrupt in 2021, according to CBO. Now, what does the President's law, the current law in law, do? It says we need to slow the growth of Medicare spending by putting a cap over Medicare. That's in law today. And then it says, in order to enforce this cap, we're going to have 15 political appointees that the President will appoint for 6-year terms. They make the decisions. They decide what health care providers can do or cannot do and what they get paid. The Medicare chief actuary came and told us the other day, they'll start off by paying Medicare providers 80 cents on the dollar to provide Medicare benefits and then go down to 30 cents on the dollar. You think your doctor's going to do what you need if he gets paid 30 cents on the dollar? He said that 40 percent of Medicare providers are either going to go out of business or just stop taking Medicare patients altogether. That's the current law. That ends the guarantee. Here's what we say: Get rid of the rationing board. Stop the bureaucrats from getting between the doctor and her patients. And don't change Medicare for people 55 and above so that you can keep the promise the government's made to them. But for those younger generations, because the program is going bankrupt, you must reform it in order to keep the promise to current seniors.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I will claim time in opposition, but I will yield half my time, 5 minutes, to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield myself an additional 1 minute to say this: And the way we keep the Medicare guarantee is to save this. You get a list of guaranteed coverage options from Medicare, and among those choices are comprehensive private plans and the traditional Medicare option, and Medicare will subsidize your premiums. Those subsidies go up every year. If you're low-income, all of your out-of-pocket costs are covered. As you get sick, more and more coverage to prevent you from having sticker shock. And if you're wealthy, yes, more will be paid out of pocket because we think you can afford it. That saves Medicare. That makes it solvent. And the competitive bidding that is done to make those providers compete against each other for our business, using choice and competition, is what the Medicare actuary tells us is the best way to preserve and save the Medicare guarantee. You see, premium support with competitive bidding ensures guaranteed affordability. This is an idea that has had bipartisan support going back to the nineties. Yet our friends on the other side of the aisle would rather have politics than to really work to save the Medicare guarantee. I yield 3 minutes to the doctor from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Chair, in 2011 PolitiFact labeled the line ``this ends Medicare as we know it'' as the lie of the year in 2011. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma, a member of the Budget Committee and also, I think, a member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Cole.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to simply say, yesterday they said we're cutting taxes on millionaires by $150,000, today it's $300,000--it's probably going to be $1 million tomorrow. What I would simply say is, this line that says we're ending the Medicare guarantee, let me remind you, Chairman, that this was rated the ``lie of the year'' of 2011 by the nonpartisan PolitiFact. We don't want a rationing board running Medicare. We want seniors in charge of Medicare. We don't want to take more from successful small businesses that create our jobs and make them uncompetitive in the global economy. We want to take special interest loopholes out of the Tax Code to lower everybody's tax rates, but especially those of small businesses that create our jobs. And more importantly, we want to balance the budget, pay off the debt. Ours is the only budget that does that. The so-called ``balanced'' approach by our friends on the other side of the aisle doesn't even pretend to get the debt paid off, let alone under control. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, Dr. Harris.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. That's right. I thank the gentleman. The cap on Medicare that is in law under the President's budget applies to current seniors. That doesn't occur for current seniors in our budget. We don't put this cap because we don't want the 15 bureaucrats putting price controls on care to current seniors. For future seniors 54 and below, Medicare grows at the same rate that the President's budget proposes it grows at. The difference is we don't want the bureaucrats rationing care. On the purposes of taxes, I love this issue about tax fairness. The President is proposing higher tax rates and more loopholes. Here's the point I'm trying to make.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Yielding myself an additional 30 seconds, I'll say this. If you look at the current code, the top 1 percent of taxpayers get almost all the tax shelters, all the loopholes. So here's the novel idea that we have come up with, and it's a bipartisan one. Get rid of the tax shelters so you can lower everybody's tax rates. And so a person who is parking their money through an average of about $300,000 in tax shelters, for every dollar in that tax shelter that's taxed at zero, we're saying get rid of the tax shelter and subject all of their money to taxation so we can lower everybody's tax rates.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield myself an extra 30 seconds to simply say when eight out of 10 businesses in America file their taxes as individuals, raising these tax rates hits job creators. Sixty-five percent of net new jobs come from small businesses. Half of Americans work in these kinds of small businesses, and my friends on the other side of the aisle are saying it's not enough that they pay more taxes than their foreign competitors; we need to make them pay a 45 percent tax rate in January. Well, I've got news for you. Countries around the world are lowering their taxes on their job creators, and the President is proposing to raise it. That is a job-killer. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from the First Congressional District of Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. By that, I am very amused, Madam Chairman. With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Palazzo).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Olson).

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield the gentleman from Georgia an additional 1 minute.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. To catch up on time, does the gentleman from Maryland want to yield to another Member?

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Chair, the hyperbole knows no bounds these days. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Lankford.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Chair, I yield myself 1 minute to make a statement. I'm pleased my friend from Maryland brought our chart down to the floor with his yellow background.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.