John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. SPRATT. The gentleman is absolutely wrong. I have sat here and listened to his misconstruction of my budget for as long as I am going to take it. He is absolutely, dead-set wrong. He doesn't know what he is talking about.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I would simply inform the lady that we voted for the full budget act that put the budget in balance in 1998 for the first time in 30 years and then again in the year 2000, put it in surplus by $236 billion. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), chairman of the Democratic Caucus.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, budgets are moral documents, and one measure of a budget is how it treats the least among us. The House Republican budget resolution severely weakens the safety net for the least among us, cutting income security programs by some $14.9 billion over 5 years below the level of current services. Among the programs cut, actually totally eliminated, would be the Commodities Supplemental Food Program, which provides nutritious food to 420,000 elderly people every month and to 50,000 mothers. HOPE VI would be eliminated for repairing and refurbishing public housing. Supportive housing for the disabled would be slashed by 50 percent, housing for the elderly cut by 26 percent, and, in addition, $4 billion in reconciled spending cuts that are directed to the Ways and Means committee, implying cuts in the Earned Income Tax Credit, TANF, SSI, unemployment insurance, these programs within their jurisdiction. Here to discuss further the implications and consequences for families and communities is the senior member from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, to whom I yield 8 minutes. (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) to respond further to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, in the area of health care, there is a major difference between us. Some 6 or 7 years ago we got together on a bipartisan basis and agreed that every year we would try to increase the budget of the NIH such that over 5 years it would be doubled. We achieved that goal, and now every year the Bush administration is marching us right back down the hill. This year in their budget submission over 5 years they have proposed short-funding public health and medical research programs at a level of $18 billion below current services. The programs at risk range from the National Institutes of Health to the Centers for Disease Control to graduate medical education at children's hospitals to rural health. The Democratic budget resolution, by contrast, spares these programs from deep cuts and restores them, fully funding them to the level of current services. Mr. Chairman, I yield 8 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the dean of the House and the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, to discuss further the impact of these cuts and ask that he be allowed to yield the time that is granted him.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

Mr. SPRATT. The gentleman has 2 minutes remaining on his original allocation of time?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from Texas back his 2 remaining minutes.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the President sent us a budget that was woefully deficient when it came to homeland security, which is a pressing concern for all of us. The Republican budget, I will give them credit, to some extent corrects that woeful deficiency by $11 billion. But over 5 years that funding level for homeland security, a pressing, critical domestic need, is still $6 billion below current services. We restore homeland security at least to the level of current services. Thus we would be funding programs that are critically needed to deal with what most of this House recognizes is a tremendous deficiency, namely, seaport security, which pales in comparison to what we have done for airport security; and it is one of the reasons for the outcry over the Dubai ports deal. Mr. Chairman, I now yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, to discuss the consequences and the differences between our budget and theirs when it comes to homeland security.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I would say to the chairman of the Transportation Committee, we do better by transportation than your colleagues on that side of the aisle. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas to respond.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. SPRATT. I am not even going to deign to respond to that. You got my responses so wrong, I don't know where to start. We provide exactly the same amount of money for defense. We just had that debate out here. You weren't on the floor. But I am turning to other topics worthy of debate. Mr. Chairman, I now yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished lady from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I will use those to say one thing that I haven't said, and that is, in reading this entire resolution which we offer, you will find four separate reserve funds for the improvement of health care. For example, we provide a reserve fund to cover an increase in Medicare payments to physicians to avoid a cut, a sustainable growth rate cut of 4.6 percent. We say that if you can bargain down the price of prescription drugs, you can put the savings in a reserve fund and use it to improve coverage under Medicare for prescription drugs, closing the donut hole, for example. So I would commend that to everybody's attention. There is a real difference between our budget resolution and theirs, and I ask support for ours.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, with respect to veterans' health care there is also a big difference. The President's budget funds veterans' health care at $12.5 billion below the Democratic Alternative over 5 years, and on top of that the President calls for veterans to be assessed a $250 fee to enroll for care at a VA Hospital. In the markup in our committee, House Republicans raised funding for 2007 by $2.6 billion above current services. But from 2008 through 2011, the Republican budget resolution cuts veterans' health care by $8.6 billion less than what CBO estimates is needed to maintain current services. By contrast our resolution, the Democratic resolution, maintains funding every year at the CBO level of current services from 2008 through 2011. Here to discuss further the impact of the two budgets upon veterans' health care is a Member who knows all about this. He is the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction on this matter. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. I said earlier that this is an excellent opportunity to show the difference between Democrats and Republicans. This document does that; but with respect to national defense, function 050, there is no difference, because to the dollar we have provided the same amount of funding as the Republican resolution. There is no difference. On the other hand, with respect to education, there is an enormous difference because the Republican budget resolution cuts education by $45 billion over 5 years below what we call the level of current service, staying where we are. Last year, for the first time in 17 years, the President requested less for education in 2006 than was appropriated in 2005; and this year, he asked for an even larger reduction, $2.2 billion less in 2007 than appropriated for 2006, and these cuts come on top of big cuts, crippling cuts in federally guaranteed student loans. To discuss further the impact and consequences of these enormous cuts in education, which our resolution does not provide for--we fully restore education to current services, fully restore the cuts they would make--is Ron Kind of Wisconsin, a member of the Education Committee, and I yield him 6 minutes for that purpose.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, the administration has devoted a lot of energy to touting the successes of the economy, particularly with respect to the job statistics, as justification for the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. But let's look at the record. When President Clinton took office in January 1993, there were 109.7 million jobs in the national economy in the work force. When he left office in January of 2001, there were 132.5 million jobs. That means that during the 8 years of the Clinton administration, there was a gain of 22.8 million jobs. These were the jobs created during the Clinton administration at a time when we brought the budget to balance, making the bottom line of the budget every year better and better and better to the point where we had a surplus in 1998. Now, compare that job gain, 22.8 billion to what has happened during the Bush administration. When President Bush took office in January 2001 there were 132.5 million jobs in the economy, according to the BLS. By January of 2006, 2 months ago, the economy had a total of 134.6 million jobs. That is an increase of 2.1 million jobs, versus 22 million jobs created during the Clinton administration. No comparison. Stark contrast. What is even worse is the fact that the Bush administration has seen most of its job gains of more than 50 percent occur in the public sector, not in the private sector. The tax cuts that have led to the deficit did not generate the jobs that were proposed or projected in the private sector. Far from it. Growth has come in the public sector. And this is worst of all. Job growth in the manufacturing sector under President Clinton grew by 315,000. Not impressive, but at least not a loss. Under President Bush the manufacturing sector has lost 2.9 million jobs. 2.9 million jobs over the last 5 years, an average of 48,000 jobs a month. Now, when we say that the economic gains that appear from this GDP growth and other things that look positive, stock market, the Dow Jones are all doing well and are healthy vital signs, we are glad to see them. But they are not translating into the lives of the ordinary working Americans. This is why the loss of manufacturing jobs, the best paying jobs in our economy, particularly for blue collar Americans, this is why it has happened, because this is why the family median income in real terms adjusted for inflation has gone down almost every month since 2001. So beneath the glitter and generalizations are some stark facts that don't really appear to support the claims the Bush administration has made. Namely, they have created just over 2 million jobs, whereas the Clinton administration created 22.8 million jobs during his time in office. And they have presided over a devastation in the number of manufacturing jobs, a loss of 2.9 million manufacturing jobs in our economy.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, in describing the difference between Republicans and Democrats, between them and us, when it comes to the budget resolution for 2007, let me go straight to the bottom line: We have got a manifestly better bottom line. The Democratic substitute returns the budget to balance in the year 2012. Building on our reputation for fiscal responsibility which we established in the 1990s during the Clinton administration, every year the bottom line of the budget got better and better and better until the year 1998 when we had a surplus and the year 2000 an unprecedented surplus of $236 billion. That was the year before the budget was handed over to President Bush, and it has gone downhill ever since. So what is the difference between us on the bottom line? The Democratic budget resolution returns the budget to balance by the year 2012. In the interim, our budget runs smaller deficits and racks up less debt. Not by a huge amount, but by a significant difference. The Democratic resolution also holds nondefense domestic discretionary spending to the level of current services over 5 years, showing that we can exercise spending control without devastating vital services and programs that people dearly depend upon. The Republican resolution, as I said, never reaches balance and presents no plan or prospect of ever wiping out the deficit or reducing the debt. The Republican budget resolution in fact would make the deficit worse by $410 billion over 5 years than would just a basic, current services treadwater budget. OMB projects a deficit for this year, 2006, of $423 billion. House Republicans project a smaller deficit of $372 billion, and they project this deficit to decline to $348 billion in 2007, showing a bit of improvement. But these projections still mean that on the watch of President George Bush the five largest deficits in our country's history will occur. The five largest deficits in our country's history will occur on the watch and administration of President Bush. To make room for the Bush administration's budget, four times Republicans in the House and Senate have raised the debt ceiling of the United States by $3.015 trillion. They have raised the debt ceiling by over $3 trillion between June of 2002 and March of 2006. Under the Republican budget resolution, the statutory debt ceiling will increase by an additional $2.3 trillion by 2011. This means that debt ceiling increases from 2002 to 2011 will equal $6 trillion, and the statutory debt will stand at $11.3 trillion, more than doubled over the 10-year period 2002 to 2011, from $5.3 trillion when President Bush took office to 2011. We can talk about budget in terms of fiscal policy, we can talk about it in terms of budget policy or just plain accounting issues, should we have accrual budgeting or cash budgeting, but here is the bottom line. This budget is a moral document, and the choices it makes, for whom it helps and whom it hurts, but, more importantly, in the debt it accumulates which we hand over to our children. Are we going to be the only generation in recent American history which bequeaths to our children this dreadful legacy of debt, mountainous debt, $11.3 trillion by 2011? Today we will make the decision once again as to whether or not that is going to be the legacy we leave our children and grandchildren. To discuss this further, I now yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) and request when his time comes, he can use this time and allot it to the other Members of the House.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, the opening prayer was given by the Reverend Clyde Pickney Thomas, Jr. Reverend Thomas has served in the ministry of the Southern Baptist Church since 1974 and is now the pastor of Cherokee Avenue Baptist Church in Gaffney, South Carolina, a pulpit that he has filled with distinction since 1979. Reverend Thomas is not only a prominent preacher of the gospel, but a pastor who has developed courses of study for adults, youth, and children, conducted an extensive sports ministry, and taken at least 10 mission trips to places as far away as the Amazon. He is married to Joanne Cash Thomas, and they have two sons, Clyde Preston Thomas and James Grady Thomas. I have had the privilege of attending Sunday services at Cherokee Avenue and, afterwards, having lunch in the fellowship hall. I can attest to the fact that the preaching and the cooking were both first rate. I want to thank Reverend Thomas and thank also the Speaker and Father Coughlin for allowing Reverend Thomas to open today's session with prayer. Thank you very much.