John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, under section 207 of S. Con. Res. 70, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for fiscal year 2009, I hereby submit for printing in the Congressional Record a revision to the budget allocations, aggregates, or other appropriate levels for certain House committees for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 and the period of fiscal years 2009 through 2013. This revision represents an adjustment to certain House committee budget allocations, aggregates, and other appropriate levels for the purposes of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, and in response to consideration of the bill H.R. 6275, Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008. Corresponding tables are attached. Under section 323 of S. Con. Res. 70, this adjustment to the budget allocations and aggregates applies while the measure is under consideration. The adjustments will take effect upon enactment of the measure. For purposes of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, a revised allocation under section 323 of S. Con. Res. 70 is to be considered as an allocation included in the resolution. Any questions may be directed to Ellen Balis or Gail Millar.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, under section 210 and 212(b) of S. Con. Res. 70, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for fiscal year 2009, I hereby submit for printing in the Congressional Record a revision to the budget allocations and aggregates for certain House committees for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 and the period of fiscal years 2009 through 2013. This revision represents an adjustment to certain House committee budget allocation and aggregates for the purposes of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, and in response to consideration of the bill H.R. 6331 (Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008). Corresponding tables are attached. Under section 323 of S. Con. Res. 70, this adjustment to the budget allocations and aggregates applies while the measure is under consideration. The adjustments will take effect upon enactment of the measure. For purposes of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended, a revised allocation made under section 323 of S. Con. Res. 70 is to be considered as an allocation included in the resolution.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I am transmitting a status report on the current levels of on-budget spending and revenues for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 and for the 5-year period of fiscal years 2009 through 2013. This report is necessary to facilitate the application of sections 302 and 311 of the Congressional Budget Act and sections 301 and 302 of S. Con. Res. 70, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2009. The term ``current level'' refers to the amounts of spending and revenues estimated for each fiscal year based on laws enacted or awaiting the President's signature. The first table in the report compares the current levels of total budget authority, outlays, and revenues with the aggregate levels set by S. Con. Res. 70. This comparison is needed to enforce section 311(a) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the budget resolution's aggregate levels. The second table compares the current levels of budget authority and outlays for each authorizing committee with the ``section 302(a)'' allocations made under S. Con. Res. 70 for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 and fiscal years 2009 through 2013. This comparison is needed to enforce section 302(f) of the Budget Act, which creates a point of order against measures that would breach the section 302(a) discretionary action allocation of new budget authority for the committee that reported the measure. The third table compares the current levels of discretionary appropriations for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 with the ``section 302(a)'' allocation of discretionary budget authority and outlays to the Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee shortly will be distributing this section 302(a) allocation among its subcommittees, creating 302(b) suballocations. At that time, a point of order under section 302(f) of the Budget Act will become applicable to measures that would breach the applicable section 302(b) suballocation. The fourth table gives the current level for fiscal years 2010 and 2011 for accounts identified for advance appropriations under section 302 of S. Con. Res. 70. This list is needed to enforce section 302 of the budget resolution, which creates a point of order against appropriation bills that contain advance appropriations that: (i) are not identified in the statement of managers; or (ii) would cause the aggregate amount of such appropriations to exceed the level specified in the resolution.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's newfound concern for the budget deficit, but let me remind him from 2001 through 2007, his party controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House and accumulated a record debt and record deficits, and it takes a long time to turn this battleship around, but that's what we do in this budget. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1214, I call up the conference report on the Senate concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 70) setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2009 and including the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2008 and 2010 through 2013.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, every year the Budget Committee has one all- important task, and that's to outline a budget for Congress to follow. Today, we do just that as we pass the conference agreement on the budget for fiscal 2009. The Senate passed the conference agreement just yesterday. Passing a budget is never an easy task. This, in fact, will be the first time in 8 years that Congress has passed a concurrent budget resolution in an election year. Our conference agreement charts a new course. It returns the budget to balance reaching a surplus of $22 billion in the year 2012 and staying in surplus through 2013. Our budget adheres to pay-as-you-go because we believe in it. It embraces middle-income tax cuts and holds non-defense domestic discretionary spending to an increase of about 1 percent over inflation. Our budget begins by undoing the damages done by the President's budget to services that people depend upon. Take Medicare and Medicaid, for example, pillars of medical care for millions of Americans. The President would cut Medicare by $479 billion over the next 10 years and Medicaid by $94 billion. We reject those cuts. We restore Medicare and Medicaid to current services, and we accommodate adding up to $50 billion more for the Children's Health Insurance Program, fully offset, to reach the millions of children who are eligible but not yet enrolled in CHIP. The President proposes $18 billion in cuts over 5 years in new fees on military retirees and veterans, actually increases in fees of $18 billion. We reject those fees and add $3.7 billion above current services to the veterans' health care system. The President even digs into education, cutting Function 500, education, training, employment and social services, not only next year but over the next 5 years by $32.7 billion. We reject the President's cuts in education and, in particular, his elimination of 47 educational programs. Instead, we make significant increases for education every year over the next 5 years. Our budget supports not just investments in education as such, but in research and development and science and innovation, through NIH and NSF and other entities, providing substantially more than the President requested. Finally, since strong countries are made up of strong communities, we believe that law enforcement grants and community development grants and transportation grants are part of the Federal role. We, therefore, reverse the President's deep cuts in the community development and social services block grants and in LIHEAP and law enforcement, and our budget invests in the Nation's infrastructure. Because this budget upholds all of these priorities, it has drawn support from dozens of nonpartisan groups, from the AARP to the American Legion to the American Hospital Association. All of them and many more have sent us letters of support, and I encourage my colleagues to support it as well. We face in this country not just this budget deficit, not just a trade deficit, but an energy deficit that is on the minds of us all. Read the President's budget, however, and you will find little that's new about skyrocketing energy costs, renewable energy, clean fuel technology, conservation, and efficiency. What you will find are heavy hits on LIHEAP, the one program that helps families weather the high price of fuel oil, heat their homes in winter and cool them in summer. Our budget restores LIHEAP to a level that's $3 billion above the President's budget. And for funding development of alternative fuels, renewable energies, and other energy initiatives, our budget provides $7.7 billion. As I mentioned, this conference agreement extends tax cuts to help middle-income families caught in the current slump. For example, we protect 20 million middle-income households from being hit by the alternative minimum tax, 20 million Americans for whom it was never intended. We accommodate the extension of the middle-income tax cuts, the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, and the 10 percent individual income tax bracket. Our colleagues on the other side will claim, however, that this budget raises taxes. Let me say emphatically, this budget does not raise taxes. But don't take my word for it. Here's what outside experts say. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: ``The conference agreement does not raise taxes.'' The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution: ``The budget would not raise taxes.'' The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: ``This year's budget does not include a tax increase.'' There is one other criticism our colleagues across the aisle may make but cannot sustain as to this conference agreement. In terms of national security, we provide the same dollars as the President's base budget requested, except that we call for better stewardship and better priorities, such as nonproliferation, supporting nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and materials, maybe the most menacing threat facing us. If anything, our conference agreement protects the homeland and internal security more than the President's budget because we reverse his cuts in local law enforcement and firefighters and the Coast Guard and the first responders. Most important of all, we do everything that I have cited within the context of a balanced budget. When President Bush took office in 2001 the budget was in surplus by $236 billion. His economists looked out over 10 years and saw nothing but surpluses, $5.6 trillion in all. President Bush told the country we could have it all, guns, butter and tax cuts, too, and never mind the deficit. Now, almost 8 years later, we see the disastrous consequences. Under the fiscal policies of this administration, the Bush administration, our national debt has mushroomed, increased from $5.7 trillion in 2001 to $10 trillion in 2009. Since the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the White House during much of this time, they cannot escape responsibility for these abysmal fiscal results. Faced with these grim facts, what does the President's budget propose for 2009? More of the same. He is still in effect saying that we can have the guns and the butter and the tax cuts, too, and that deficits don't really matter because foreign investors will keeping buying our Treasury bonds. In contrast, the budget before us is a step in the right direction. It may not be the grand or final solution, but this budget moves us in the right direction, enforcing fiscal responsibility, though not to the exclusion of other values that we hold dear. I urge support for this conference agreement by all Members of the House. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. I yield myself 30 seconds before yielding to the gentleman from Texas. Let me just make clear, this budget moves us to balance in 2012. And the fact of the matter is, the plain history of the matter is that when the Republicans took the White House in 2001, the budget the year before was $236 billion in surplus. By the year 2004, they had made that surplus advantage to where we had a deficit of $412 billion, a swing of $648 billion on their watch. They controlled the House, they controlled the Senate, they controlled the White House; and they've added $4 trillion to the national debt. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia, a member of the committee, Mr. Scott.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore), also a member of the committee.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished chairman of our caucus, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, to close the debate, I now yield the balance of our time to our distinguished Speaker, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Franks amendment. This amendment would increase fiscal year 2009 funding for the Missile Defense Agency, MDA, by $719 million, backing up the bill to the level of the budget request. The administration asked for $9.3 billion in fiscal year 2009. This represented an increase of $680 million above the 2008 level. With prudent reductions and selected increases, this bill authorizes $8.6 billion, a substantial sum of money for the Missile Defense Agency, which is roughly equivalent to the level of current spending. We provide for increases in funding for systems that are geared to current threats, like the Aegis BMD and THAAD systems that the combatant commanders have told us they need and need now. At the same time, we make prudent reductions in longer-term, less-mature vehicles like the Multiple Kill Vehicle and the Airborne Laser. We don't know, looking at this amendment, that the money can really be executed, spent wisely. Even if we do, we have to ask where is this money coming from? We find when we look that the $719 million is coming out of RDT&E, which is tantamount to saying that MDA, missile defense, is over and above more important than the UAVs, more important than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the FCS, the Army's Future Combat Systems, and the Navy's DDG-1000. A whole host of other systems that will depend on adequate funding will be denied that funding by the $719 million hit which this amendment would impose upon those particular systems. This is a balanced bill. The cuts and adjustments have been made to it so we that could come up with a system that covers our comprehensive needs. Missile defense is just one of many. They have all been judiciously done, and we should not disrupt the pattern of this balanced bill by making the cuts that the gentleman would propose. So I urge everyone to take a close look at this, but to stick with the committee chairman's very careful and very balanced view.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. SPRATT. I don't think it will encounter that problem in conference. The rule waived points of order. So we are clearly in a proper status right here. I think this bill advances the whole idea that we are working with, and as you know, it will go through another iteration before it comes out of conference, I am sure.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment that would strike the provisions of section 1224 in the bill. It would replace those provisions with language requiring the Director of National Intelligence to submit to Congress regular updates of the National Intelligence Estimate with respect to Iran's nuclear capabilities, present and prospective. As offered in committee, section 1224 imposed a multiplicity of reporting requirements, including all sorts of data from the Department of Defense. Mr. Reyes offered a perfecting amendment culling out many of those requirements and calling for a new commitment to readiness throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East. Rather than proliferate reporting requirements, my amendment cuts to the heart of the matter, Iran's nuclear capabilities, and calls for regular, periodic reports. What it seeks is basic: a sober analysis of a gravely serious matter in a proven format, the National Intelligence Estimate. This report is gleaned from all 16 parts of our intelligence community, and the job of fusing that data, and drawing the right conclusions, is assigned to the National Intelligence Director, a position created by Congress by the unanimous recommendation of the 9/ 11 Commission. We need an assessment, but we need an assessment that is rigorous and objective, pulling no punches, analyzing seriously all issues surrounding nuclear weapons and fissile materials in Iran. And, fortunately, we don't have to invent that vehicle. It exists already in the form of the National Intelligence Estimate, like the NIE of last November, 2007. It satisfies this requirement. And my amendment ensures that this requirement continues to fulfilled, not ad hoc, but at regular intervals, for the benefit of Congress. My amendment simply places responsibility where it already rests by law and uses a reporting process that is well established. Why reinvent the wheel? The appropriate vehicle for an ongoing objective of analysis is an updated NIE, not an independent, redundant, parallel effort, overseen by DOD. There are many good reasons for having unity of command here, but one is simply this: By consolidating analysis in the NIE, we discourage the temptation to ``forum shop,'' look for agencies that will be favorably disposed. My amendment allows for many of the points of inquiry in the bill's existing language, including input from our allies. But it focuses the NIE on near- and mid-term implications rather than on speculative far- term projections, and it does not rush to a military response as a presupposition. My amendment leaves in place the bill's current requirement to provide Congress 15 days' written notice when major developments in the nuclear weapons program are detected. But the bill shifts that burden from the Secretary of Defense to the President. This amendment, the amendment I offer, is truly, Madam Chairman, a perfecting amendment. It improves the language of the bill, and it helps section 1224 fulfill its stated purpose. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the committee, Mr. Skelton.

Mr. SPRATT. I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I appreciate the tenor of his question. What we have tried to do is get this effort down to its essence. The two versions, iterations that we had in the committee were, I thought, prolific with different ideas and requirements. We have an existing system. It works well. We have reaffirmed it in the latest intelligence act we recently passed in creating the National Intelligence Director. Let's make him or her the supervisor of this process; and the vehicle, the NIE. That's the customary way of doing it, and should be the preferred way of doing it. That is why we put that emphasis in this bill.

Mr. SPRATT. Not subject it to what?

Mr. SPRATT. That is the reason we are offering it on the House floor as opposed to offering in it the committee, where it may have resulted in a sequential referral. So far as I know, nobody has raised a point of order about the appropriateness of hearing it in this context.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).