Martin Sabo

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Payne].

Mr. SABO. The gentleman from North Carolina has good judgment.

Mr. SABO. Absolutely.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, we have got to score enough cuts in Medicare and other programs to provide for a $242 billion tax cut over 7 years, and the Medicare cut was 270, now it is 230-something.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I reclaim my time. Mr. Speaker and Members, I think it is sort of a sad day. We have important work to do in this Congress. We should be passing a continuing resolution to have the Government operating. Then people who have very large and fundamental disagreements should be at the table negotiating differences. We should be there negotiating over substance and dollars that involve the fundamental future of this country rather than engaging in gamemanship. To my friends on the Republican side, Mr. Speaker, let me just say, Please watch your rhetoric as it relates to certain things. I hear all this description of honest numbers, real numbers. I don't know what they are, CBO doesn't know that they are. I would just remind my friends that from mid-summer to a couple of weeks ago those so-called and honest numbers changed by $135 billion. They were called real and honest in mid-summer; $135 billion later they are still real; and honest. The reality is we are looking to the future, we are trying to look longer in to the future than we have ever looked before in a budget. We are looking 7 years rather than 5 years. We have trouble looking 5 years into the future. We make guesses based on certain assumptions, and we should have a little humility. I happen not to disagree with my colleague's conclusion that we should use in the fundamental differences over CBO revenue numbers, where there is a $57 billion difference in 2002, but I do not describe them as honest or unreal, but if we are going to seriously try and balance the budget and hope that it may actually work, we should use cautious numbers. That is what they are, the more cautious numbers, not the real numbers as if somebody else is using unreal or honest versus dishonest. That is not the case. There are legitimate, very small differences in economic assumptions than when you project over 7 years become substantial. If we were projecting 5 years, those differences would not be that great. As a matter of fact, over the first 3 years amazingly the revenue number between OMB and CBO differs by a grant total of $1 billion. But just as in the hope that what we do this year may actually work, I want to use cautious numbers. I also want to make sure that we structure a program on the spending side that may actually work rather than putting together crazy scenarios where the odds of success are very little. That relates in part to how we structure a tax cut. Mr. Speaker, I look at their tax numbers, I disagree with them on the substance of capital gains tax cut for the most affluent in this country, but, if we are going to do it, do honestly. I look at their numbers, and it costs $9 billion in 2001, and then it gains money in 2002. Where did the money go? Then it is back up to $9 billion in 2003. How amazingly it goes like this, dips in the year they are in balance, and goes up the year afterwards. Same as using the most optimistic revenue assumptions. I look at their Medicaid Program. My State; I trust that better than the projections I get from various experts around here. Lo and behold, I discover that they expect in the first 2 years they are going to get more money than if we did no change. But then at the end of the year 4 it falls off the table. I compare it to our coalition budget. First 3 to 4 years, about the same; year 2002, miraculously theirs costs $2 billion less. Unrealistic assumptions about what States with any great flexibility can do. I suspect a little politics. All of these Governors are going to get all their money to play with with no guarantee they provide health care to anyone. I think they will all either be reelected to their second term in office or they will all be out of office before the real cuts occur that are going to force them either to take people off the health rolls or they increase their State and local taxes, and they do that throughout their budget. So to the President I say, Be cautious on your revenue estimates. To the Republican majority I say, Be real in the way you structure the long-term funding of programs. Then may be we can succeed in the end. But I have to tell my colleagues if I really want to balance the budget, have lower interest rates, which I think will happen, it is possible, but we are going to have to get pragmatic, we are going to have to depolarize things, and we are going to have to fundamentally conclude that borrowing lots of extra money to pay for a tax cut to start on the path to a balanced budget does not make much common sense.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SABO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], the minority leader. (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. No.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Hawaii always has Christmas in his heart.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Orton] my good friend. modification to house concurrent resolution 135 offered by Mr. Orton

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], my good friend. (Mr. DIngell asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], distinguished minority leader and my friend. (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my friend, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] is recruiting speakers, I will yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie], that kind and gentle soul. He may generate some speakers for the other side.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5\3/4\ minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to my friend, the gentleman from Montana [Mr. Williams].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, this is not an important resolution. It is one of not great relevance, but I will still vote for it, but it gives us an opportunity to visit a little bit about some objectives and numbers being used. Let me first say that this discussion of honest and dishonest numbers, or by implication dishonest numbers, is simply not the case. When CBO reestimated outlays for two of the major programs, Medicare and Medicaid, they moved closer to the assumptions of OMB, not further away. On the other hand, there are legitimate differences on projected revenues over 7 years, and the reality is in the first few years, they are relatively minor and they escalate in importance, because for the first time we are looking at 7 years rather than 5. The reality is, within the first 3 years of revenue estimates, the estimates between CBO and OMB are virtually identical. So what we have are some disagreements of people of good intent, making relatively minor differences in judgment, but which escalate into significant numbers over a 7-year period of time. And the reality is when we get to the table, as we should have been for the last several weeks, and talk about the substance of the budget, how we structure Medicare, how we structure Medicaid, how we deal with welfare reform, do we give the store away in taxes to the affluent and wealthy in the country, as the Republicans want to do, that we could work these things out. I personally think in the end when we have a 7-year plan adopted, it should be based on relatively conservative economic judgments. But I also think we need to look at the flow of how dollars flow. I hear my good Republican friends get so excited about these slight variations in economic estimates, which we need to talk about, but I also observe what they do with the budget to make it come in balance. They have a tax cut that explodes in costs after the first 7 years. The features of the tax plan that favor the wealthy in this country, the actual cost starts out modestly, and then it explodes. But one of the interesting things is, the cost of this tax cut keeps growing through 2001. Then, miraculously, it dips in 2002. And then it escalates very rapidly in 2003. Is that sound planning for a balanced budget? No, just a gimmick to hide their tax cuts for the most affluent in this country. I have seen lots of estimates of how benefits will flow under programs like Medicaid to our States, and a very interesting pattern happens when I ask my State officials what will happen. The first 2 or 3 years, relatively little impact. Then it falls off the table. No consistent flow for reforms of Medicaid in the 50 States in this country, but rather an accommodation maybe to the Governors, who are so enthusiastic about the Republican plan, who will all be reelected or have quit their current term of office before the harshness of their cuts take place; again, not a sensible flow of dollars, but rather designed to accommodate some of their friends in the early years and then the harshness comes later. So, Mr. Speaker, we have lots of work to do. The only way we are going to solve it is to sit down at the negotiating table as people of good will, trying to find a rational answer, being cautious on our assumptions for the future, because to project 7 years into the future is not easy. But we also have to make sensible judgments that flow in the long term, that do not all of a sudden call for the drastic cuts in the last year or two, or tax cuts that escalate in cost beyond the 7 years of this budget resolution, or gimmicks in the last year that hide the true cost of the tax cut for the rich in this country. Mr. Speaker, I will vote ``yes,'' but let us get serious. That is what counts.

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek]. (Mrs. MEEK of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)