John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlelady from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Could I ask how much time we have left?

Mr. SPRATT. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. SPRATT. I beg your pardon. I was discussing something with another of our Members on the floor.

Mr. SPRATT. I'd say we're cleaning up in the aftermath of the Bush administration's 8 years of fiscal policy that left us $5 trillion deeper in debt.

Mr. SPRATT. The budget before us now began with the President's submission, as it has since 1921.

Mr. SPRATT. We voted upon it here. But who occupied the White House? Who sent us the budget?

Mr. SPRATT. For the purpose of response, I yield 90 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey. (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 5 minutes to the gentlelady from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, so I reserve the right to close.

Mr. SPRATT. Does the gentleman have further speakers?

Mr. SPRATT. Why don't you proceed with that speaker. Then I'll proceed with closing.

Mr. SPRATT. I reserve the right to close. Does the gentleman have further time?

Mr. SPRATT. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this is where we are. Bobby Jones, a great golfer once said, ``You play the ball where it lies.'' The fact of the matter is that after 8 years of the Bush administration this, sadly, is where the ball lies. When President Obama came to office less than 100 days ago--and remembering that, I think everyone would have to fairly concede these are not problems that he created. When he came to office, he found awaiting him on the doorstep of the White House a budget that was $1 trillion, nearly $800 billion in deficit for this year and substantially in deficit for the forthcoming year. He didn't create it; he didn't ask for it. It was thrust upon him and left to him by the Bush administration. He found an economy in crisis and he found that remedial steps had been taken that cost the country hundreds of millions of dollars, a good portion of which is being spent out--the TARP program is an example, the takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is an example. All of these things cost substantial sums, and they were policies taken before this administration came to office. They have swollen the deficit to the unprecedented size of $1.7 billion this year. The budget that we are proposing--which I now seek to have sent to conference so we can wrap it up, put it to bed and make it enforceable--the budget that we are proposing is a deficit-reduction budget. How can I say that? I can say that because we show credibly, I believe, that the budget deficit declines from $1.752 trillion under our resolution to $586 billion in the year 2013. In 4 fiscal years, we will reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars. How can we do that? One of the reasons we can do it is that quite a few of the items that have swollen the deficit in this and next fiscal year are nonrecurring, and when they are finally played out, the problem of debt reduction will be much, much more manageable. That is, if we have a plan, it will be manageable. We cannot simply leave it to some open-ended plan. And so what we have proposed here is a plan that will systematically, methodically move the deficit down, down, down by $1 trillion over the next 4 to 5 fiscal years. Now, it's a deficit reduction budget. No question about it. But it is not so committed to deficit reduction that it overlooks and postpones other priorities. For example, national defense will grow by 4 percent, a healthy growth rate that means national defense, including what is spent on supplementals for Iraq and Afghanistan, will be $686 billion next year. Veterans. Let's not forget our veterans. We appreciate them more than ever. We will be putting $5 billion more into veterans health care, raising it to $53 billion. Health care reform. This budget tackles issues that other administrations have either ignored, dodged, avoided, or failed to implement. Health care reform. Tough nut to crack, but it takes it on. The environment. Energy independence, critically important. We've seen it with the spike in energy prices over the last year. This is something we need to do and do now. This bill provides for that. Education. If you want to be able to say to a small child the next time you go in an elementary classroom, You can go to college. Yes, you can. You can go to college like anybody else. Yes, you can, then you should vote for this resolution because it strengthens Pell Grants by more than any bill we've passed in a long time to come. So this is a deficit reduction bill, which is a bill with a conscience, with priorities, that carefully laid out here and carefully provided for here, and, therefore, I would submit that everyone interested in education, the environment, energy independence should take a close look at this bill. Now, it's been said that we have substantially increased taxes in this bill. That's not true. Read CBO's report. Over the next 5 years, there is a net reduction in tax revenues of some $480 billion and $1 trillion more than that over the next 5 years after that. There is deficit reduction left here. The marital penalty provisions, the middle class, middle-income tax cuts that we passed in 2001 and 2003 are, for the most part, all reenacted and extended by this resolution. So 233 Members, a very solid majority of the House, listened to the arguments pro and con, read and listened to the debate and decided this is a better way to go. I submit, let's stick with the course we set for ourselves several weeks ago. Let's send this budget on to conference where we can make it an enforceable piece of legislation. I yield back my time.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. I think it would be useful for everybody, Members in particular, to understand exactly what the Republican motion to instruct is. There are four items. First of all, they would effectively move to drop, discard the House reconciliation provisions that deal with health care. That's health care reform. That's our initiative we're launching to try to encompass and provide some form of health care to the 46 million Americans unfortunate enough not to have it. This would thwart our plans to move on that front. And education, which basically deals with Pell Grants and guarantees student loans trying to provide them to more students at lower costs, why would anybody want to thwart those objectives? Secondly, they would remove reconciliation as a vehicle to enact climatic change. Well, that's not even envisioned in the House budget. Cap-and-trade is not mentioned, not in the budget resolution, not in the report accompanying it. It's not mentioned. We took it out. It is not specified. The reconciliation instructions to which they refer go to the Energy and Commerce Committee and to the Education and Labor Committee and the Ways and Means Committee but not for purposes of dealing with climate change. That is not even briefed as one of the purposes. It's not part of the intention. These instructions go to health care and education. Thirdly, to retain a Senate point of order against legislation that ``eliminates the ability of Americans to keep their health plan or their choice of a doctor.'' I support that. You support that. We all support that. This budget supports it, the House supports it. It is totally unnecessary. This is creating a straw man and knocking it down by creating an argument as to facts that simply don't exist. We don't have anything in our legislation that would in any way impede the choice of Americans to keep their own health plans or choose their own doctor. And finally, ``to eliminate Congress' ability to develop comprehensive reform packages by restricting future offsets only to spending cuts.'' In other words, if we wanted to do something worthy, we think, of undertaking and we would propose to pay for it by raising taxes--let me give you an example, cigarette taxes and CHIP, Children's Health Insurance Program. We just passed the second iteration of the CHIP bill that will extend medical coverage to millions of children who never had it, never lived in families who could afford it.

Mr. SPRATT. I yield myself 30 additional seconds. We did that by increasing the taxes on a pack of cigarettes and other tobacco products, a fair tradeoff. But we were only able to do it and say that we were staying deficit neutral and well within the balance of the budget because we were able to use this offsetting revenue to cover the cost of the program. This particular amendment would have thwarted that particular strategy. So these are four different items they are proposing now, none of which will stand muster. They should be defeated. This motion should be defeated. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd).

Mr. SPRATT. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge). (Mr. ETHERIDGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield one of the remaining minutes on my side to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz).

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me clarify just a few things, because we have heard repeated on the floor today arguments made several weeks ago when the concurrent resolution first came to the floor that this was the biggest spending bill in the history of the country. The truth of the matter is simply this: spending is unprecedentedly large. The reason is we are in the midst of one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression and we have taken remedial steps which have been costly to the Federal Government, quite a few of which were launched under the Bush administration. So that has swollen the total spending and the total deficit for this year. But listen to this: total outlays for 2009, fiscal year 2009, total outlays, the whole budget, is $3.8 trillion. Next year under this budget total outlays will be $3.5 trillion. You have heard it said repeatedly over there that spending is going up. It is coming down. It will come down further, just as will the deficit, because this is a deficit reduction budget resolution which reduces the deficit from $1.752 trillion to $533 billion in 3 or 4 fiscal years. That is a matter of truth. If you care to take the time and pick up a copy of the committee report, you will see on page 5 this simple sentence about the tax situation: ``This budget resolution calls for reducing the revenues provided under CBO's baseline forecast, reducing them by $613 billion between 2009 and 2014 and by $1.48 trillion between 2010 and 2019.'' These are facts. They haven't been refuted. Every time we have asked that their arithmetic be explained to back up their rhetoric, we have not gotten an answer. Now, let me say a word or two about reconciliation. Reconciliation has been since the outset of the budget process in 1974 an essential part of making a budget. If you listened to the argument here on the floor, what you heard were a lot of red herrings. For example, it was suggested that this is going to be an impediment to choice; this is going to get in between patients and their doctors or patients and the insured and the insurance companies in choosing health insurance. There is nothing in here, nothing whatsoever that even breathes a word about either of those subjects. There is talk here that this would in fact deal with cap-and-trade, even though we took cap-and-trade out of the President's budget request, removed it completely. It is not spoken of or mentioned there. And you heard Earl Blumenauer just on the floor a minute ago. He would love to see it there, but it is not. He made an honest examination of it. It is not there. But you wouldn't know it to listen to the other side. You will also however thwart the passage of some things that we think are worthy and vital. Certainly we want to improve higher education and the access to higher education for all children in America, thinking that it is their birthright if it is something they can attain. And we definitely, decidedly, clearly need to do something about 46 million Americans who do not have health insurance. If we were to pass this resolution and then take out the reconciliation provision, we would have a very difficult time ensuring ourselves that legislation to that effect would be produced on a timely basis. That is what reconciliation is all about, simply this: we can say that the committees of jurisdiction on the Budget Committee through action on the floor by a certain date do a certain thing to raise a certain sum of money or to lower revenues by a certain sum. That doesn't get the bill off the floor. You still have to command a majority on the floor. That doesn't get the bill out of conference. You still have to confer with the Senate, work out your differences and get it passed again by both Houses. And that doesn't get you past go. You still have got to get the President to sign the bill. All those hurdles are still in place. It is not like we are going to go off running to the races if we adopt this. We simply assure ourselves that by a date certain, certain action will be taken. Finally this: there is some seemingly simple language here about offsets, saying if you want to increase a program, you have got to actually cut spending to offset it. There is nothing wrong with that. I was one of the sponsors of and supporters of, and still am, of something we call PAYGO. But if we want to provide that everything must be offset by commensurate spending decreases, you will kill the opportunity we have had to pass programs like CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program, the expansion of which, the creation of which, was allowed by use of tobacco taxes and cigarette taxes. So this motion to instruct is unnecessary, unwarranted, and it will impede the passage of what we believe is a good budget resolution. Therefore, we would urge all Members to vote against it.