John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In response to the gentleman's statement, it is still my understanding that child care, direct student loans, farm price supports, TRICARE for Life, military health care benefits, and trade adjustment assistance, among other things, would be subject to these automatic cuts. If there was some sort of growth over and above the cap that he has imposed, all of these things would get whacked unless Congress somehow intervened and saved them from being cut by administering cuts elsewhere in the budget. It is not a good idea. It is not a workable idea. And I continue to oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this bill would set an arbitrary cap on some of the most important spending in the Federal budget, the spending that supports Medicare, on which millions depend for their health care; the spending that supports Medicaid. All kinds of spending falls under the rubric of category of direct spending or mandatory spending, including debt service, the interest we pay on our national debt. So we fix a level that corresponds to the existing level of expenditure, and then every year it increases. The gentleman does allow for the spending level to increase with the rate of inflation measured by the CPI. As everyone in this room knows, the cost of health care every year, for as long as I have known it, goes up substantially more than the consumer price index so that over time in holding Medicare to no more than the rate of growth of the CPI, while the rest of health care spending is going up at a substantially higher rate, this is going to erode away spending authority for Medicare. It is going to result in automatic cuts in Medicare and other programs, affected programs. If the cuts are not taken out of Medicare, they will have to come all the more out of other programs. Secondly, since debt service, the interest we pay on the national debt, is included, we could have this anomaly: we could have a huge tax cut that would result in a substantial deficit, requiring us to borrow large sums of money. Interest on the principal for the additional debt would go up, and that increment over and above the entitlement cap would have to be taken out of other spending programs like the Medicaid or children's health insurance or TRICARE for Life, trade adjustment assistance. All of these programs fall under that category and would be subject to automatic cuts if we had any anomalous action like that. So this is not a good idea. Certainly these are not programs we want to put in that kind of jeopardy. We would like to exercise some control over their growth, and we have from time to time in the past voted to reduce rates of expenditure to curb the growth in Medicare and Medicaid and these other programs. But to do it automatically, to do it mindlessly, to do it with a meat cleaver is not the way to go on these programs on which so many people depend. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from Delaware.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This would be making a distinction between defense and nondefense spending. This gives you one big aggregate for all discretionary spending. That is how far back it takes us and how little definition it leaves to what we end up doing. We come up with three or four big numbers and that is the end of the budget. The gentleman is suggesting we could do something much more elaborate, but this would be the only statutory prerogative we would have which would mean that pretty soon we would probably not be doing any function allocations at all. It would not have any statutory basis. I am not saying they get great deference from the Committee on Appropriations today, but once we reduce the budget process to this, I doubt the Committee on the Budget would get any deference from the appropriators.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am just suggesting to my good friend and someone for whom I have great respect that he gives so much flexibility to it that it is limp when we get through with it. There is nothing left. It is a process without any teeth, without any structure, without any starch to it. It is almost meaningless. It is the last rites for the budget process. If we are going to do this we may as well just not do it at all. A couple of speakers have noted that the functions that we designate in the budget resolution do not correspond to the 302(b) allocation made by the members of the Committee on Appropriations. That is true. That is an old, old compromise. If we dared back away from that compromise, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) would be on his feet, I am sure, protesting vigorously that usurpation of their authority on the Committee on Appropriations. But it is an opportunity. When the Committee on the Budget and one party or the other party wants to propose new initiatives in certain areas, it might be education, it might be NIH in health care, it might be defense, it gives us an opportunity to make that proposal, to show what the consequences are for the bottom line and for trade-offs against other programmatic areas and then allows us to have a debate on that subject on the House floor. These aggregate numbers do not signify anything. They do not really tell you what is going to be cut and what is going to be increased, and that is the problem I have. We do not get the process started with that sort of message and direction that the budget resolution now gives to the process and the opportunity it gives to the House as a whole to make a statement of priorities and have something of a debate on programmatic priorities for the next 1 to 5 fiscal years. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I wish there were some procedure in the House where we could give a hand signal or maybe use a code word and incorporate by reference all of our comments previously made on the same subject. I have to repeat myself because this amendment is, to some extent, the same as the amendment previously offered. This amendment would eliminate the requirement that the annual budget resolution include 20 budget functions. Once again, this is one of the opportunities we have as a House collectively, all of us, to have a debate in-depth about our priorities, whether we want to spend more for education or whether we need to spend more for defense or highways, priorities that are big functions of our budget. It takes away that opportunity. It also takes away our perception into the budget to see whether or not it is adequate to provide for the many things we want to do. Secondly, as I have said, there are a lot of centrifugal forces in this House. There is a lot of fragmentation of what we do. It is very hard in this House and in the Congress to keep a picture of the whole, of what is happening altogether. The budget resolution gives us the ability to keep the puzzle kind of together, so we can get a perception into what is happening altogether. This particular budget resolution would not even require that discretionary spending allocations be split between defense and nondefense. It would simply call for a total of all new budget authority and outlays. So the House would forgo the opportunity to say we want to do more for defense while we are going to do less for nondefense in order to pay for the additional commitment to defense. It calls for an aggregate statement of revenues, but nothing with respect to the House's expression to the Committee on Ways and Means as to what those revenues might be, no reconciliation instructions, so a key function of the Committee on the Budget, a key means of exerting discipline and control in the institution, would be lost, and then a simple statement of the surplus or deficit. To me this is letting the reins go, giving up what little control and structure we have got, what little ability we have got to keep a picture of the whole composed at all times. I think it is a bad idea. If we want to do away with the budget resolution, let us just repeal it altogether because what this leaves in place is practically useless. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, once again, if we want to make the budget process opaque, more opaque, less transparent, then this will be the way to do it, but if you think we need more visibility, the House should assert more control, then we should have the kind of numbers we need to make honest judgments about the budget. We should stick at least with the process we have got. It is flawed, but this would be a travesty. This would destroy the budget process as it has existed since 1974. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say if the object of what we are doing tonight is to try to put some starch into the budget process, put some structure into it so we can get our hands around spending, get our hands around revenues, this is the opposite direction we should go.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to simply say again, how do we know if the spending amounts that are provided for in the budget resolution in the aggregate are reasonable or attainable unless you break it down into their component parts and can see what is provided for defense and nondefense programs from entitlements and for discretionary programs alike? This is not a good idea. It is a bad idea. It decimates the budget process, and I hope the House will reject it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition. Mr. Chairman, this amendment, if adopted, would reduce the budget process to one page. And while the budget process has its flaws and has not worked well, it has certain advantages to it. First of all, it gives the House one of the few opportunities we have to make a judgment among competing priorities: how much money we will spend for education, versus how much money we will spend for housing, versus how much we will spend for defense. Secondly, it gives us some kind of central mechanism where everybody can make a decision about whether or not we want to increase taxes and decrease taxes, and expedite the process for doing so by way of reconciliation. Or we may feel it is necessary that we reduce entitlement spending. The committees of jurisdiction of those particular programs do not normally cotton to the idea of taking a cut out of the entitlement which falls under their jurisdiction. Once again, the reconciliation process in the budget helps us accomplish those ends. And then, finally, one of the problems that I have, and I have served here 20 years, and I think many other Members would confess they have it too, is that everything we do is so broken up into so many different parcels and pieces that it is hard to get a picture of the whole. The budget resolution at least gives us a picture of the whole. It helps us keep a tab on spending, and it also allows us to know whether or not aggregate spending estimates and aggregate revenue estimates are accurate. If you reduce spending to one total for discretionary spending, for example, you can claim that spending can be shrunk. But unless you have 20 different functions to show how that shrinkage will take place, how those reductions would be achieved and affected, then nobody can judge whether or not, or will not be able to judge as well whether or not, that spending reduction, which you are claiming is reasonable and pragmatic and achievable, is indeed that. If you have to break it up into 20 different functions, it is one way the House gets together early in a session, expresses its priorities about those different functions; but it is also a way that we can tell whether or not that is realistic. On the other hand, if individual functions, whether it is defense or housing or health care or whatever, are understated well before this year's level, we may say that is not politically realistic, or that is not something I would like to see us do. And the budget resolution gives us an opportunity to vote on that as a House, one of the rare opportunities we get to express ourselves collectively. That is why I would strenuously oppose the notion of reducing the budget process to this summary kind of process. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I see the merit in having some sort of conscious, affirmative periodic review of the huge morass of agencies we have in the Federal Government; but I have some concern here that if a President disagreed with the Congress, you could have 289 Members of the House and 66 Members of the Senate who thought this agency should be reestablished, but the President could veto the bill that would reauthorize it; and, therefore, it would not come back into existence.

Mr. SPRATT. You would have automatic abolition of an agency? It would simply sunset?

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, like a lot of Members, many of the provisions offered here are matters of first impression. I have not seen this bill before, so I would like to ask either of the cosponsors a question about a critical provision of the bill for their clarification. It is my understanding that this amendment would require that after each commission completes its review of an agency every 12 years, that agency would be abolished automatically, would be extinguished unless, within a year, Congress reauthorized the agency. Is that correct? Am I reading it correctly?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of our time, 1\1/2\ minutes, to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind). (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps). (Mrs. CAPPS asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the Kirk substitute is Hensarling light, just as objectionable for most of the same reasons, only less so. He just put up his sign over there which said it would save $445 billion and which could be spent on Medicare and Social Security. That is the estimated savings produced by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) just said they are wrong, and yet he was holding up a sign indicating that the savings that he would accomplish are just what they indicated they would be. So he saves $445 billion for Medicare but he gets it by taking $175 billion out of Medicaid, $50 billion out of Federal civil service retirement and disability, $28 billion out of military retirement, $22 billion out of veterans' benefits, on down the list. That is how that $445 billion adds up. He limits the safety net programs to 2 percent. It is true, he picks out some programs that are sensitive, we might call them safety net programs, and he provides they will not be cut more than 2 percent, another difference between him and the gentleman from Texas. But this provision means that other programs are not deemed to be sensitive and they include child care payments, price supports, farm price supports, crop insurance, TRICARE military health benefits, among others; these face unlimited cuts, larger cuts because the other programs are shielded. These cuts could reach 43 percent by 2014 based on current projections according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. So this particular substitute is just as bad, only not in dollar terms quite as great, it is just as flawed, has just as many anomalies in it, and for the same reason should be rejected by everyone in this House. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the core idea is basically an appealing idea and lots of Members around here have had the experience where they have found something that they thought could be a legitimate saving, they have offered the amendment and prevailed, only to see the money is spent somewhere else. I disagree with the gentleman when he said a little while ago, and I think it was in a moment of zealousness, that if the savings were taken out of, say, the Cleveland Rock and Roll Museum, it would have to be spent somewhere else. It does not have to be spent somewhere else; it can be saved, and this mechanism was a way on to sort of lock box money, so that it could not be used again. But there are so many moving pieces. We have an authorization bill, an appropriation bill; a House and a Senate conference committee, and any time anybody makes any kind of change or different entry, there has to be an adjustment. This is a $2.2 trillion budget, and I think the bookkeepers, their minds would be boggled trying to keep account of this, as mine was when I was trying to read the gentleman's bill. So I do not discredit the idea, it is just the mechanism for enforcing it and truly making it work is so complicated, I think it collapses upon itself. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.