Paul Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chair, I will keep my remarks within 2 minutes. Mr. Chair, we can do better than that. We need to do better than that. Our country is losing tens of thousands of jobs every single week. We thought we were going to have bipartisanship here. That is what we were promised. None of that has occurred here. Mr. Chair, the most favorable measurement, the most favorable way to look at this package, 12 percent of this package is aimed at keeping jobs, at creating jobs. Twelve percent of this package goes toward creating or keeping jobs. All the rest of it is spending. Just plain, old spending. Spending, most of which occurs 2, 3, 4, 5 years from now, not during this recession. It's not enough for us to come here and criticize. So we have come here with our own ideas. We have come here to propose an alternative. And when you look at the way our bill works, the measuring stick used by President Obama's own economic advisor says that our bill that we have here creates twice as many jobs--6.2 million--for half the costs. So we have not only said this is a bad bill that we are considering, but here's a better way. Twice as many jobs, half the cost for taxpayers, 6.2 million jobs. This is a bill that should pass--the Republican substitute. Unfortunately, since there was no bipartisanship, no inclusion, we could have made a better bill that would pass into law, but it's not. So here we are with our alternatives. Using the President's own measuring stick on how you create, this creates more at less price, less cost to the taxpayers. But, unfortunately, because one party rules government and because one party is ruling it completely on their own, we will have missed this opportunity to create more jobs, save taxpayers' money, and not waste all of this spending.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Would the gentleman care to yield? MR. NEAL of Massachusetts. With that, I'd like to recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) for 2 minutes. (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, we can do better than this. We're losing tens of thousands of jobs a week in this economy. This is the worst recession we've seen in generations. And what are we about to vote on? We are about to vote on a trillion dollar spending package--yes, a trillion dollars, because the Congressional Budget Office just told us today just to pay for the interest on this bill is another $350 billion. We're going to vote on a trillion dollar spending package that amounts to basically a spending wish list for all the special interest groups out there. In fact, for those who are into all of this spending, half of the spending doesn't even occur for 2 more years. But the spending that occurs quickly are things like $15 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $6 billion for arts and culture, $600 million to buy new cars for Federal employees. Is this the way toward prosperity? Toward jobs? I want you to take a look at the tax policy in this bill. The big idea is let's give everybody a rebate that's 10 bucks a week per individual or a whopping $20 a week for couples. Do you really think that's going to turn this economy around? 2.7 percent of this bill is aimed at encouraging businesses to retain and create jobs; 2.7 percent of this entire $1 trillion bill to help businesses create jobs. I think we need a little more than that. We need to help the small businesses, the self-employed, the entrepreneurs get out there and create jobs. We had a major manufacturer in the Midwest just announce 20,000 layoffs yesterday. There is hardly anything in this bill that will do anything to help those manufacturers get those jobs back. What's worse is that after we go on this spending binge, this will lead to higher taxes. The Congressional Budget Office is saying we're going to have the highest unemployment we've seen in 25 years for the next 4 years. And what this bill will do is it will lead us to higher taxes; higher taxes on small businesses, higher taxes on capital, higher taxes on investment, on our savings portfolios, on our retirement, on our college savings plans. That's what is in store right around the corner at the end of next year. My fear is this: we need to come together with an economic rescue package that actually helps the economy. This bill is not worthy of our new President's signature. We can do better than this. This is not something that should come to the floor. I understand the majority can do as they please. They can shut the minority out--and that's fine, they did that, and that is their choice and their prerogative--but what really matters is whether this creates jobs, and it doesn't.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chair, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, passed last October, not only granted the Treasury the authority to use $350 billion in public funds to prevent a collapse of the financial system, but it also greatly expanded the Federal Reserve's policy toolkit in addressing the crisis through a somewhat obscure, but important, provision of the legislation. The bill authorized the Fed to begin paying interest on the reserves that commercial banks hold with the central bank. This ability has essentially allowed the Fed to establish a ``floor'' for the federal funds rate, the main lever of its economy-wide monetary policy stance, even while it greatly expands the provision of liquidity to various segments of the financial markets to address the crisis. To this end, the Fed has been increasing the asset side of its balance sheet through a variety of lending facilities and asset purchases. The scope of its lending has also been amplified by frequently invoking emergency powers under the Federal Reserve Act's ``unusual and exigent circumstances'' clause, which it has used to justify lending to important, non- depository financial institutions. The Fed has made it clear that it will continue to expand its balance sheet to make sure that credit is available to consumers and small businesses and the integrity of the overall financial system is preserved. In recent months, for instance, the Fed has established new and innovative lending facilities intended to boost the flow of funding to the commercial paper market and key asset-backed security markets, it has committed itself to purchasing billions of mortgage-backed securities in order to keep mortgage rates low for the health of the housing market, and it has continued to play a key role in providing assistance to systemically important financial institutions. These actions on the part of the central bank have, in fact, come very close to replicating the original intent of the TARP program. And these actions, along with the deployment of the initial $350 billion of TARP funding, have shown signs of being effective--the economy is still in a precarious state, but a systemic, and catastrophic, collapse of our financial and credit markets has been avoided. My fear is that the second $350 billion in TARP funding will go far beyond the original mission of preserving overall financial market stability, and instead will be used to fund a heavy-handed, neo- industrial policy. Various industries have already marshaled their lobbyists for a claim on these public dollars. And with our Federal budget expected to reach historic levels this year, we cannot risk more public funds to be squandered. In light of the Fed's vastly expanded policy options for addressing key sources of market turmoil going forward and their relative effectiveness--combined with the very real risk that more TARP funding will be used for an industrial policy--I am voting against the release of the second half of TARP funds. Although I am concerned about the Fed moving into new and expanded policy territory, that concern is temperer by the fact that the Fed is relatively insulated from politics and lobbyists and is more singularly focused on the stability and health of the financial system, which was my foremost reason for approving the original TARP funding last October.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, today is the beginning of a new Congress. Our new President hasn't even taken the oath of office and we are throwing fiscal discipline out the door. This whole idea of PAYGO is gone. It doesn't exist. It is a charade. Let's take a look at what this bill actually does. This bill proposes to add all these new kids on the SCHIP program, and then in the out- years it shoves them off a cliff, taking 7 million children off of the SCHIP program. They do this only to carve and jam this bill into compliance with PAYGO. I received a letter from the CBO just this morning that if this bill was actually carried through, if you didn't kick all of these children off of this program, it would cost $42 billion more. This bill has a $42 billion deficit hole in it. The spending increase in SCHIP in this bill increases on average 23 percent a year. Madam Speaker, Medicare is going bankrupt according to the trustees, and that increases at 6.5 percent a year. We are being deprived of a bipartisan opportunity to extend the current SCHIP program, which would have an enormous vote here if you brought a bipartisan bill to the table. That is not what is happening. Budget gimmicks, fiscal irresponsibility, a $42 billion deficit, and the creation of a brand new entitlement program. And what is worse, we are committing our taxpayer dollars, which are so precious in this difficult economic time, to pay for insurance that people already have. 2.4 million people who already have private health insurance are going to get kicked off of their private health insurance and the taxpayers are going to pick up the tab. That is not fiscal responsibility. Let's solve the uninsured problem. Let's come together and fix the health care problems in America. Let's not bankrupt the country. Let's not play budget gimmicks. Let's not throw PAYGO out the window. And let's not take away the health insurance that people already have and make them have government-sponsored health insurance. We should reject this bill. U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC, January 14, 2009. Hon. Paul Ryan, Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman: As you requested, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the budgetary effects of modifying H.R. 2, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, to extend the program's authorization through 2019 in a manner that would provide sufficient funding to allow states to meet demand for increasing enrollment within the program's parameters. If H.R. 2 were changed to authorize the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through 2019 and to provide sufficient funding for such increasing enrollment throughout that period, CBO estimates that enacting that alternative version of the bill would increase deficits by $41.6 billion over the 2009-2019 period. In contrast, CBO estimates that the version of H.R. 2 introduced in the House of Representatives on January 13, 2009, would result in a net reduction in deficits of $0.4 billion over that 11-year period. The introduced version of H.R. 2 would authorize CHIP through 2013 and would provide significant funding increases over the next few years, leading up to a total funding level of $17.4 billion in 2013. The program's funding for the second half of fiscal year 2013 would be $3 billion. Under baseline rules, that amount annualized--$6 billion--would be projected for each subsequent year. The estimated cost of the bill assumes that funding level for CHIP for fiscal years 2014 through 2019. On that basis, CBO estimates that the introduced version of H.R. 2 would increase federal direct spending by $73.3 billion through 2019, including the costs of other provisions in the bill. (That spending would be offset by increases in federal tax revenues totaling $73.6 billion over the same period, primarily from increases in the excise taxes levied on tobacco products.) As an alternative to the introduced version of H.R. 2, you requested that CBO assume the CHIP rules and structure as currently delineated in H.R. 2 would remain unchanged through 2019 and that sufficient funding would be made available after 2013 to accommodate projected enrollment growth. The projected enrollment growth is based on expected growth in the total population, as well as changes in the health insurance market and the economy as a whole. Under those assumptions, CBO estimates that average monthly enrollment in CHIP would rise from about 9 million in 2013 to about 12 million in 2019. Based on the assumptions you specified, CBO estimates total changes in direct spending of $115.2 billion, as compared with the $73.3 billion increase we estimate for the introduced version of H.R. 2. (Revenue increases would remain unchanged.) Thus, the net budget impact of a modified version of H.R. 2, as you specified, would be an increase in deficits totaling $41.6 billion over the 2009-2019 period. If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contacts are Robert Stewart and Sean Dunbar. Sincerely, Robert A. Sunshine, Acting Director.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, over the last few days we have heard about LIBOR, commercial papers, spreads, swaps, about the credit markets. This chart shows you just how bad things are in the credit markets. But what does any of this stuff mean? What is credit? Credit is confidence, it is credibility, trustworthiness in someone's ability to pay. Right now, our system is plagued with fear. There is no confidence. There is no trust. Lenders don't trust borrowers; sellers don't trust buyers. This bill, as flawed as it is, goes right to this issue. If it works, it stops that fear from spreading into outright panic. Will this bill prevent a recession? No, I don't think it will. But it will help us make sure that a recession is short and shallow, and not deep and long. I know one thing for sure. Doing nothing is the worst thing we could do. This is one of those once-in-a-century kind of crises, and we need to act to prevent it from becoming a once-in-a-century kind of a recession. In Wisconsin, we are already beginning to see the beginning of this. We are already starting to see the job losses. For me, this is a conscience vote. We of all people understand public opinion. We know it is not popular. But we see that gathering storm, we see it out there on the horizon. Our constituents may be outside mowing their lawns and looking up and seeing a sunny sky, but we see those storm clouds developing. And I want to know for sure that when the choice was made, I had made the decision to prevent that storm from gathering, to prevent those jobs from being lost, to protect our constituents from losing their retirement funds, from not getting that home loan, that car loan. I want to make sure that what we do here today snaps that fear out of the market and preserves those jobs, and makes sure that the bumpy road we are going to have is not nearly as bumpy as it would otherwise be if this bill fails.

Mr RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr RYAN of Wisconsin. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank our distinguished ranking member of the Financial Services Committee for all the work he has done this week. A lot of us have lost a lot of sleep, a lot of us who have looked at this situation. When Secretary Paulson came to us about a week ago, he gave us a three-page bill that said give me a blank checkbook and put $700 billion in it. I was offended at that time. So what happened since then? We added 107 pages of taxpayer protection to that bill. We understand the gravity of this situation, and we worked with our colleagues on the other side to make this bill a better bill. We made sure that there is an upside for the taxpayer so that when this happens, when profits come to these companies, we get their stock warrants, so the first person in line to get those profits is the American taxpayers so they can get their money back. We made sure that there is an insurance program that makes sure that Wall Street shares in the cost of this recovery plan. And we also made sure that the executives of these companies that made these bad bets don't profit from this rescue recovery plan. We cut the initial cost in half of this bill. Congress will have to approve the second half of this next year. Why did we do all of this? Because this Wall Street crisis is quickly becoming a Main Street crisis. It is quickly becoming a banking crisis. What does that mean? Why does that matter to us? Why does that matter to Janesville, Wisconsin? If it goes the way it could go, that means credit shuts down; businesses can't get money to pay their payroll, to pay their employees; students can't get student loans for next semester; people can't get car loans; seniors may not have access to their savings. Are we standing at the edge of this abyss? Nobody knows. But maybe. It is very probable. Madam Speaker, this bill offends my principles. But I am going to vote for this bill in order to preserve my principles, in order to preserve this free enterprise system. This is a Herbert Hoover moment. He made some big mistakes after the Great Depression, and we lived those consequences for decades. Let's not make that mistake. There is a lot of fear and a lot of panic out there. A lot of what this is about is getting that fear and panic out of the market. I think the White House bumbled this thing. They have brought this issue up to a crescendo, to a crisis, so that all eyes of the world markets are here on Congress. It is a heavy load to bear. We have to deal with this panic. We have to deal with this fear. Colleagues, we are in the moment. This bill doesn't have everything I want in it. It has a lot of good things it. But we are here. We are in this moment. And if we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us. If we fail to pass this, I fear the worst is yet to come. The problem we have here is we are one month away from an election. We are all worried about losing our jobs, and all of us, most of us, say this thing needs to pass, but I want you to vote for it, not me. Unfortunately, a majority of us are going to have to vote for this, and we are going to have to do that because we have a chance of arresting that crash. Just maybe this will work. And so for me and for my own conscience, so I can look at myself in the mirror tonight, so I can go to sleep with a clear conscience, I want to know that I did everything I could to stop it from getting worse, to stop this Wall Street problem from infecting Main Street. I want to get on my airplane and go home and see my three kids and my wife that I haven't seen in a week, and look them in the eye and know that I did what I thought was right for them and their future. And I believe with all my heart, as bad as this is, it could get a whole lot worse, and that is why I think we have to pass this bill.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Paul Weyrich for his many contributions to the cause of freedom and liberty. Mr. Weyrich is the proud son of Racine, Wisconsin--a city that I have the privilege to represent in the U.S. House of Representatives. Wisconsin has a long tradition of challenging the prevailing political sentiments, and producing intellectually-curious, reform-minded leaders. Paul Weyrich is one such leader. As a pioneer of the modern conservative movement, Mr. Weyrich has consistently served as a vocal defender of our economic and religious freedoms. On September 10, 2008, I had the unique opportunity to show my respect and admiration at the Paul Weyrich Legacy Dinner in Washington, D.C. On behalf of those I represent in Racine, Wisconsin, I extend my gratitude to this great American.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, my chairman of the Budget Committee just spoke, and, yes, he did read that the CBO said that the bill that passed on the doc fix, according to the CBO, does satisfy the trigger. So if you are satisfying the trigger, then why are you turning it off? If you are actually accomplishing the objective set out with this law, then why are you getting rid of this trigger? Why do we have this trigger? We have this trigger. It's a funding warning because Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicare is a $36 trillion unfunded liability. You know what it's going to be next year by this time? It's going to be $38.4 trillion. Do you know what will happen in 5 years if we do nothing to save Medicare as the Democratic budget proposes to do? $48 trillion unfunded liability. The preceding paragraph in this CBO report goes on to specify that the judgment, the referee of the trigger, are the trustees. So why don't we take this bill off the floor, have the trustees verify what CBO says that maybe, in fact, this bill that you just passed, that we all passed, does satisfy the trigger, and don't turn off this funding warning. Turning off this funding warning is basically saying, ignore the fact that Medicare is going bankrupt. Make sure that Congress does nothing to fix this problem. I might add that this CBO estimate relies on the fact that next year we are going to cut doctors by 21 percent in Medicare. The only reason this estimate holds up is if we guarantee a 21 percent payment cut to all doctors servicing Medicare. That's why we are in conformity with this trigger as CBO says. CBO is not the referee of this. The trustees are, the trustees of Medicare. Turning off this trigger is basically saying that we have no fiscal discipline, we have no intention of saving Medicare from bankruptcy, we have no intention of being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, we have no intention of controlling spending. We have every intention of making matters worse, not only by doing nothing, but adding more spending. That is reckless. That is fiscal abandonment. The trigger was a bipartisan idea. A Democrat in the Senate and a Republican in the House came up with this idea to make sure that Congress saw fair warning and actually addressed these issues before it got out of control. And so, instead of addressing these warnings, instead of bringing Medicare toward solvency, instead of making sure we can guarantee this program for seniors in the next generation, what are we doing in this Congress? We are sticking our heads in the sand. That is wrong. This shouldn't pass. You know better. More to the point, if you think you are satisfying it, then why are you turning it off? That makes no sense. The only opportunity, the only explanation is you don't want to have this tool of fiscal discipline. You don't want the American people knowing that you are actually contributing to the insolvency of Medicare, that you are actually making matters worse. That is wrong, and I urge defeat of this. Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we do have a crisis. Action does need to take place. This isn't the solution. This does not address the root cause of why we are in this problem. These companies, which are for-profit companies, have abused their trust of the American taxpayer, and we are not adjusting this. If we're going to do this, then let's make darn sure we're not putting taxpayers at risk in the future. This makes it worse. This bill says you can continue to go on and make your profits and we'll still bail you out down the road. This bill says you can continue having these big multimillion-dollar bonuses for your executives and go make all of this money, and if you fail, we'll get you. What this bill says, what Congress is saying today, is if you're big enough, if you're politically corrected enough, then we will privatize your profits and we will socialize your risk. The taxpayer will bail you out. Mr. Speaker, as a representative of taxpayers, not shareholders, we should reform these institutions so we do have a liquid mortgage market, so we do securitize the secondary mortgage market, so people can get affordable homes. But let's do it so we don't have costly taxpayer bailouts. This whole issue is about to put more than a trillion dollars of debt on to our books. And yet we're going to let them continue to leverage themselves and kick this can down the road. We should be more responsible with taxpayer dollars. We should address this crisis, reform these institutions, so that we're not down this path 5 years from now. When I first came to Congress 10 years ago, I criticized these organizations. And everybody told me, you're wrong, they pose no risk. Well, here we are today. I just wonder where are we going to be in 4 years, in 5 years, with the passage of this bill? We're saying, let them continue doing what they're doing. We're going to give them explicit lines of credit from the Treasury. We're going to even buy their stock, and maybe hopefully, maybe just sort of, we'll have a regulator that will contain these institutions. That is not responsible. We should reform these institutions now, either privatize them or publicize them, bring them into the government and make them government agencies, because, after all, the taxpayer is going to be left holding the books on this bailout. Mark my words. We've got to fix this. This is irresponsible. This is not the right way to do it. What we ought to do is go back to the drawing board and make sure that this costly bailout isn't magnified down the road.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, if this were about politics, then the easy thing to do would be just to vote for it. That's the political thing to do. I rise in opposition to this bill because it would increase the deficit, because it's coming to the floor with less than a day's notice and no opportunity for amendment. Madam Speaker, I support the highway program. But that is not what this debate is about. I understand how critical highway funding is for our Nation's roads and our bridges. We had a really rough winter in Wisconsin. We need to get back to work to fix those roads. It's also not a debate about whether the highway trust fund shortfall should be fixed. It should be fixed. It's about how we should pay for it, or if we pay for it. I support fixing it in a responsible way, which I don't believe this bill does. Because of my concerns, I introduced legislation earlier this year that would have fixed this program, this deficit, in a fiscally responsible way. In 1998, Congress passed a law called TEA-21 that gave the highway trust fund special protections in the budget process. This is what Bud Shuster, the chairman of the committee at the time, said about the bill: ``This is an historic piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, because now the American people will know that the trust is being put back in the highway trust fund. When the average American drives up to the gas pump and pays his 18.3 cents Federal tax, that money is free to be spent. It is a guarantee. It is an ironclad guarantee. Should there be more revenue going into the trust fund, that money will be available to be spent. Should there be less revenue going into the trust fund, then we will have to reduce the expenditures. It is fair, it is equitable and it is keeping faith with the American people.'' Madam Speaker, this bill moves from funding highways with gas taxes to relying on borrowed money. If the highway trust fund is going to get access to the general fund, as it is in this bill, then it should compete for these resources with all other discretionary programs. It should be budgeted for, but that is not what is happening here. My fear is that this transfer will be just the start, that we will be back here for a fix in 2010 with a bigger shortfall because as CBO says, the highway trust fund has not just hit a temporary rough patch, it is permanent red ink going into the future. The current shortfall is between $1.4 billion and $3.3 billion, and then it gets bigger year after year, well over a $300 billion shortfall over the next 10 years. Undoubtedly, when we get updated numbers from CBO and OMB, the shortfall will get even bigger. If highways are to continue to enjoy special budgetary status as trust-funded programs, then this general fund transfer should be offset or repaid. I want to work with supporters of this bill to find a way that avoids an increase in the deficit that this bill would cause. If Congress decides not to offset this transfer, then Congress should revisit the budgetary treatment for highways and reform it such that highways compete for funding in the annual budget process just as all other government programs do. I urge my colleagues to think about this. Let's come up with a funding mechanism that guarantees we fix this shortfall, and let's do it in a fiscally responsible way where we actually honor the integrity of the budget process.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Chairman Obey, Leader Boehner, and Mr. Lewis for bringing a bill to the floor that provides funding for our troops without restrictions on our commanders. My hometown is under water, and I am glad this bill provides funding to address flooding and to help the victims whose lives have been turned upside down by this flood. Likewise I am glad that this bill provides assistance to those facing unemployment since one of the largest employers in my district--GM-- recently announced it is closing a production facility. However, this bill is part of a very disturbing trend in how we budget and legislate--Omnibus appropriation bills. We are now resorting to two omnibus appropriations bills a year. We need to find a way to budget for emergencies, but my problem with this bill is not with the unemployment extension funding or the flood funding. These are temporary costs that have been included in emergency supplementals in the past. My concern is with the permanent expansion in an entitlement program that we are adding to an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Mandatory spending doesn't belong on an appropriations bill because mandatory spending is forever. An expansion in GI benefits is a good idea. However, we have an increasingly bad habit of just adding spending on top of the $3 trillion we are currently spending annually. I congratulate the Blue Dogs for initially objecting to the fact that the GI benefits in this bill were not offset. I don't support their remedy--which is to raise taxes--but if we are going to expand entitlements, we need to find offsets. In fact, we cannot afford the entitlements we have, much less an expansion in them. We are going to spend over $30 trillion in the next ten years; surely we could have found $63 billion in offsets. But we didn't even try. In fact, the cost of the GI benefits has grown in this final bill. We just kick the can down the road. The problem is that our children and grandchildren will live at the end of the road and all we are doing is leaving them with a mountain of debt. PAYGO does not exist. It is waived every time we have to make a choice. We are sent here to make decisions--to make choices--to govern. Like the floods, this bill takes the path of least resistance; it passes the buck--and the debt to future generations. We shouldn't budget or legislate this way, but I'm going to vote for this bill because it funds the troops and provides one-time emergency funding for unemployment assistance and floods.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First off, I want to start by congratulating Chairman Spratt. I mentioned this last time, but I think it is worth repeating. It is never easy to bring a budget conference report to bear, particularly in an election year, and Congress has had a pretty splotchy, spotty track record on this lately, and the chairman deserves accolades for keeping this process going, keeping this process alive. We've had problems with the farm bill, and this bill being on the floor today is real proof of the skill and determination by the Budget chairman, and so I want to give him the compliment he deserves for bringing this to the floor. It's important that we have a budget process. It's important that we recognize the need to budget in this institution, and doing this today recognizes that. But at the same time, Congress actually should budget, and I would argue, Mr. Speaker, that this budget is really nothing more than the congressional baseline with about a quarter of a trillion dollars slopped on top of it for the Appropriations Committee. And so what is the opportunity we have here today if we were actually really budgeting? I think there's three things that we ought to be doing in this budget in this Congress. One, let's have solid growth in our economy, and let's make sure we put ourselves in the position to lead in the international marketplace by having an economic policy that puts America ahead, in the lead and in a position to win in this era of global competition. Number two, we need to reform our health and retirement security programs so we can fulfill the mission of our health and retirement security programs in this country. The government is making promises to people right now in health and retirement security that it knows it can't keep. We all know this here. We know, Republicans, Democrats, that our government is making promises to a generation of Americans and another generation of Americans that we know are unsustainable. So we need to come up with a plan to make good on that promise, which right now is not being fulfilled. And number three, while we do that, we have got to lift this burden of debt on the next generation. We, with this budget, are going faster down the pathway of sending a crushing burden of debt and taxes on the next generation. Both parties are to blame for this. So I'm not simply saying that all of the sudden now the Democrats are running Congress it's all bad. Both parties have been responsible for not addressing these problems. But now that my friends on the other side of the aisle are in the majority, this is their opportunity. This is their chance and opportunity to actually address this problem and take it head-on. And what are they doing? Nothing about it. Here's the problem, Mr. Speaker. Not only does this budget propose to do nothing to address these issues, it makes them worse. Because by doing nothing, we're going deeper into debt. Under this budget, what this budget proposes we do for 5 years, by doing nothing to address the two biggest problems we have, the two biggest programs we have, the two biggest unfulfilled promises we have, namely, Medicare and Social Security, this budget proposes to go $14 trillion deeper in debt to just those two programs alone; by doing nothing for 1 year according to the trustees of Medicare and Social Security, $2 trillion deeper into debt. This budget, $14 trillion increase. But here's also what this budget does propose. What it does propose is the largest tax increase in American history, $683 billion over the next 5 years. That equals about $2,000 in per year tax increase on the average American family, and there's no effort to cut wasteful spending in government whatsoever. We've heard about the Bridge to Nowhere. We've heard about the $50 million rain forest museum. We heard about the bill passed 2 weeks ago to give $250 million for one earmark from a Senator from the other side of the Rotunda for one company. We're earmarking ourselves to oblivion in this Congress, and this bill does nothing to curtail that. This bill basically assumes that there's no waste in the Federal Government, that every taxpayer dollar is being spent well and wisely and with full accounting and full transparency, and because of that, this ought to give the government even more money to spend on top of the baseline. This bill will push the appropriations above the $1 trillion mark in the next coming year. That's an increase of $80 billion, an increase of 9 percent over last year. This bill, as a consequence of giving this 9 percent increase in discretionary spending, will lead to the largest annual increase in the debt in our Nation's history. And so for all the talk of fiscal conservatism, for all the talk of fiscal responsibility we're going to hear in the next hour, this bill right here we're debating, right here, largest increase in debt in our Nation's history, exceeding the $1 trillion mark in government agency spending. And this bill does absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing, to address the upcoming entitlement crisis. As I mentioned, this bill adds to the entitlement crisis. It increases the entitlement liability in this country by 37 percent, $14 trillion increase in unfulfilled promises and contingent liability, a 37 percent increase. Now, given the fact that this bill does nothing to address the long- run problems in this country, what about the short-run? What about the problems in the short-run? This bill does nothing to propose any new energy policy whatsoever. We have $4 gasoline, and this is where it really hits close to home. This is where I really have a personal problem with the fact that we're doing this bill. You know, just 2 days ago in my hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, General Motors just announced they're shutting down the factory there, the factory that has produced the Yukon, the Tahoe and the Suburban. And the reason they're shutting down the factory at the end of this model year is because of $4 gas. It costs a hundred bucks to fill up a Suburban, and people aren't buying them. Thirty percent decline in sales just this year alone, and people are scratching their heads and wondering how did this happen, how did this come to be, why do we have $4 gas. Well, here's the problem, Mr. Speaker, we're 60 percent dependent on foreign oil, and you know what's so galling about that is the fact that we have about seven times the amount of oil under our ground in this country than Saudi Arabia has under theirs. Yet it's all off-limits. We have got 16 billion barrels of oil up in ANWR that are off-limits by Congress. We've got 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf off-limits by Congress. We have 2 trillion barrels of oil in the Intermountain Region in this country, all off-limits by Congress. We know how to drill in a very safe and environmentally sound way. And what's more galling from that is the Congressional Research Service is now telling us, just passing the ANWR legislation, the smallest of these three fields I just mentioned, would get us about $191 billion in revenue to the Federal Government over the next 10 years. Imagine what we could do with that. Imagine the deficit reduction that could occur as a consequence of that. Imagine the hydrogen, the fuel cells, the research that we could do to actually invest in a Manhattan Project to get us off of oil itself. But unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle are not doing anything. So while I'm happy we have a budget resolution on the floor, I'm very dispirited and very disappointed in its content. Largest tax increase in American history. Absolutely nothing to confront the entitlement crisis in this country, a 37 percent increase in this liability. Largest increase in national debt in the American history. And nothing to address the long-term and nothing to address the short-term by making us less dependent on foreign oil. I find it interesting that our friends on the other side of the aisle are so critical of our foreign policy as being too unilateral; yet what we're simply saying to other countries is we're going to drill for oil in your country and buy that from you and not explore it in our own country. A little bit of a hypocritical stance, I would argue. With that, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, let me inquire as to how much time remains for each side.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I will yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Conaway.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. At this point, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the vice ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Barrett from South Carolina.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) be allowed to manage time for our side for a moment of time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, what this is all about is priorities, that is what budgets are, and when you take a look the priorities in this budget, it is a huge missed opportunity. I started the beginning of this debate by complimenting the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina for bringing a budget to conclusion, and I really sincerely mean that. I am from Wisconsin. I didn't really know what the definition of a ``distinguished southern gentleman'' is. I do now know by serving with John Spratt, and he deserves credit for bringing a budget resolution to the floor in an election year, which is something that is not often done around here. So I sincerely want to compliment the gentleman for that. But what about the budget we have here being brought to the floor? I see some young people in the audience here, some young people in the well here. I have some young people in my family. I have a daughter who is 6, a son who is 5, and a son who is 3 years old, and by the time my three kids are exactly my age, this Federal Government will be doubling their taxes. The pathway that we are on right now with the unsustainable fiscal crisis in this country is one in which, instead of taxing 18.3 cents out of every dollar to pay for the Federal Government, which is what we have been doing for the last 40 years, the next generation, my children's generation, when they are raising their kids will be paying 40 cents out of every dollar just to pay for this Federal Government. We know for a fact that we are shackling the next generation with a mountain of debt and taxes that is unsustainable. We are bequeathing this to the next generation, unless we fix this, unless we step up as every preceding generation has done in this country and make things better. What does this budget do? Not only in a time of economic recession, not only in a time of $4 gas prices, not only in a time where the grocery bill is twice as high as it was last year, we are raising taxes across-the-board the most we have ever raised them before, taxes on marriage, taxes on having children, taxes on making money, taxes on starting small businesses, taxes on pensions, taxes on retirement. This budget does that. But what is even worse than that is that this budget proposes to increase this debt, this legacy of debt to our children and our grandchildren, by $14 trillion for just two programs alone. It is unconscionable. Both parties lay blame, but should claim responsibility for getting us to where we are. I am not simply saying here that Republicans have always been pristine and Democrats have always been bad. We got into this together. We are going to have to get out of this together. The problem is, this is no way to go. We shouldn't be doing this to our grandchildren, to our children, to the ``X Generation.'' That is what this budget does, the largest tax increase in American history, which is going to hurt our economy even further and cost jobs. When you raise taxes, you lower jobs. When you raise taxes, you take money out of paychecks. You hurt families. You don't give them the ability to get going, to succeed. Their paychecks don't get stretched farther, they get stretched shorter. And when you consign the next generation by simply walking away from the problem and saying to our kids and our grandkids, instead of giving you a $40 trillion debt for Medicare and Social Security, we are going to give you a $54 trillion debt for Medicare and Social Security, each household today, if we want just these two programs to work, would have to set aside $353,000. What this budget says is each household will have to set aside $474,000. We are abdicating leadership in this budget. It is wrong. What we need to do is come together, both sides, recognize this problem, and realize that the way to prosperity in this country is not to tax our way out of this problem; it is to address this spending problem in this House, address the culture of earmarks, address the spending that we have here and get it under control so that the next generation can be better off. That is what my folks told me the legacy of this country is all about. Each generation rises to the challenges in this country and leaves the next generation better off. Well, what we are doing with this budget is we are severing that legacy. We know for a fact, it is guaranteed, it is statistically a truism by all sides of the aisle, we are going to sever that legacy and we are going to give the next generation an inferior standard of living, unless we defeat this budget.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a roadmap for America's future, legislation to transform our Federal Government, to reform the Nation's health care entitlements, Social Security, and the Federal Tax Code. My legislation does three things: It fulfills the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans by making Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid permanently solvent. Second, it lifts the massive debt burden off of future generations. Third, it promotes solid, sustained economic growth and job creation, and puts the U.S. in a position to lead, not merely to survive in the global marketplace. This is a real plan, with real proposals, with real numbers to back them up, and real legislation to implement it. I recognize that this is an ambitious proposal. Not everyone's going to agree with every part of it. That is fine. These problems are not Democratic problems and they are not Republican problems, and neither are the solutions. We need to build bipartisan support for action in Congress. If nothing else, it is my sincere hope that this will spur Congress to move beyond simply rehashing the problem, to debating and implementing actual solutions for the American people.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I hate to have to come to the floor today to talk about how bad this bill is, but it's impossible not to do that. This bill gives millions of dollars, billions of dollars in farm subsidies to millionaires. This bill takes all budget discipline in this Chamber and throws it out the window. It sweeps PAYGO under the rug. Ninety-seven percent of the world's consumers don't live in this country. They're overseas. And the way we help farmers is to open up markets to their products overseas. This bill shuts that down. This bill makes it next to impossible for us to be able to open up markets for our farmers. A farm bill ought to help the family farmer in tough times. This doesn't do that. This is corporate welfare. This is subsidies for multi-millionaires. In fact, you can still live on Wall Street, make half a million dollars and get farm subsidies under this bill. This bill is not going to help agriculture. This bill is going to help corporate agriculture, not family farmers. I believe that we should sustain the President's veto. And this is not always good to say it's bipartisan. And I hope, on a bipartisan basis, we support this veto and pass a farm bill that actually helps the family farmer and takes away these exorbitant subsidies to multi- millionaire corporate farming operations. We ought to protect conservation. We ought to help the Third World raise themselves out of poverty, and we ought to open up markets for our farmers so they have more people to sell their products to. That's what a farm bill ought to look like. That's not what this farm bill does. I urge a sustain of the veto.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Condensing all of that, is it my understanding, then, that this is not sustained because PAYGO does not apply to direct spending so long as it's in an appropriations bill? Is that correct?

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order that the measure causes an increase in the deficit over a 6- and 11-year period and therefore violates clause 10 of House rule XXI, the PAYGO point of order. Mr. Speaker, there is undeniably net direct spending included in this bill. Hence it increases the deficit. Simply by putting new entitlement spending on an appropriation bill in order to evade PAYGO would constitute a blatant loophole in the PAYGO point of order. If PAYGO is designed to prevent increases in the deficit, this measure should not be considered here today. I therefore urge that my point of order be sustained.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today in strong opposition to this emergency supplemental spending bill that not only would bust the budget with billions in nonemergency spending, but it would also raise taxes on small business. I can't think of a worse time to implement a tax increase, with a weak economy that is struggling to create and grow jobs. Republicans will not support this bill. The President will veto this bill. Yet the Democratic leadership brings it to the floor and continues to play politics with funding for our troops. The President's request, submitted 15 months ago, was for $108 billion. The Democrats, once again, can't help themselves. And they have added an additional $6.6 billion of this. And to add insult to injury to the American taxpayer and our troops in harm's way, this amount actually reduces the President's request by $3.5 billion. I guess that's what you get when a bill is written unilaterally and in secret. If the majority brought us a clean supplemental with just funding for the troops, it would undoubtedly have been passed with a big bipartisan vote and sent to the President before Memorial Day so there is no disruption in funding. That should be what we're doing, and not playing politics with funding for our troops. That is what a majority would do if they were serious about passing a bill and not playing politics. But that is not what the Democrat majority has done here. Instead, 15 months after the President asked for the troop funding, the majority has brought a bloated bill to the floor that will cost the American taxpayer $250 billion over the next decade. This is a bill they wrote in secret, without allowing committee markups, while only allowing Members 18 hours to review a bill that would provide an amount equivalent to 26 percent of the spending in last year's regular appropriation bills, and without allowing the full House to work its will in an open and Democratic process. It violates the budget passed by the majority by adding $6.6 billion to the amounts assumed for the war supplemental for the House-passed budget resolution. And the Democratic leadership has decided to lard this bill up with $66 billion in mandatory spending. While they raise taxes to pay for the GI benefits, this bill adds billions in funding that has nothing to do with the war and is not fully offset. So they say they are meeting the PAYGO rules. But they don't meet it for all the other spending in this bill. Mandatory spending does not belong in war emergency supplementals. The mandatory provisions in question deserve serious debate as stand-alone bills. Why are they hiding this in a war supplemental? They should be proud of these provisions and let them withstand the full light of day through the regular committee process. And if increasing spending by over $66 billion wasn't enough, they are proposing to raise taxes on Americans as well, to tax and spend rather than paying for this increase with reductions in other spending. The last thing we ought to be doing today is raise taxes. They will say this is a tax on millionaires. But this tax is going to hit small businesses. These are the job creators in America. This is the worst thing we can do as this economy is struggling. Yesterday the House waived the PAYGO rule to give farm subsidies to millionaires.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Yesterday, the House waived the PAYGO rules to give farm subsidies to millionaires. Today, the House wants to enforce PAYGO to raise taxes on small businesses. I fear for this institution. The majority is taking us down a slippery slope. And I don't think they are going to be able to put this genie back in the bottle. The committees have been ignored. The budget has been ignored. The rules have been ignored. What is next? I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.