John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to my good friend, the chairman of the committee on which I also serve with the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter). I think he would readily agree, having served in the Army, that morale is an important operational necessity. What we are trying to provide for in our resolution is, we have $422.7 billion next year for national defense, plus a huge supplemental. We are simply saying, can we not give some primacy to personnel benefits and move around just a bit of that money to address a long-standing bone of contention, namely, the fact that widows of deceased service members have drastic reductions in their pensions when they reach the age of 62. The gentleman knows that amongst reservists there is a big issue about TRICARE. We should be doing something to extend TRICARE to reservists in certain situations. Certainly, I think the gentleman supports the selected pay increases for the senior NCOs and junior officers, critical to keeping that core component of the services intact. That is what we are trying to provide for, Mr. Chairman. That is all. We are trying to say, out of $422 billion, that kind of money, surely we can give some primacy to these priorities.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds. Selected pay increases and TRICARE for reservists are for fighters, warfighters, not for nonoperational purposes or retirement purposes. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Chicago, Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say to the gentleman, the House Republican resolution calls upon the House Committee on Armed Services, by May 15, to come up with $2 billion a year in permanent savings out of operations that are now deemed to be wasteful or inefficient, and then to allocate those savings to some additional priorities. We are saying the same thing. We simply picked up on that idea and said, fine, here are three good personnel priorities to which this $2 billion in savings could be committed every year.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes to respond to the gentleman. The gentleman may not be aware of it, but this budget resolution which I am now offering as an alternative provides $6 billion more for homeland security than the Republican resolution, the committee resolution; it provides $5 billion more for law enforcement programs under the Justice Department; it provides the very same amount for national defense. So his criticisms are highly off the mark. Let me also take a minute to respond to my good friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) with respect to tax cuts. This resolution in section 201 says very clearly, it is the policy of this budget resolution to balance deficit reduction to middle-income tax relief. In that respect, we call for the Committee on Ways and Means to reconcile and extend the child tax credit, which will expire otherwise; the marriage penalty relief; the 10 percent bracket; to provide relief from the alternative minimum tax; to eliminate estate taxes on all but the very largest estates; to extend the research and experimentation tax credit; to accelerate the refundability of the child tax credit from 15 percent; and to include combat pay in determining refundability; and on down the list with five more illustrations of where we are calling for middle-income tax relief.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute. The Chairman. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman just said that we have cut taxes and revenues have gone up. In fact, taxes were cut in 2001. Revenues, individual income taxes were $994 billion that year. The next year they went down to $858 billion. The next year down to $793 billion. This year the estimate is $765 billion, well below the $994 billion level when taxes were cut on individuals. The facts simply do not bear out the statement he made. Let me also straighten out some other facts. First with respect to Medicare. The chairman, in putting together his mark, decided that he would adopt the CBO baseline for Medicare spending as opposed to the OMB baseline, which was $535 billion. CBO is $400 billion. So ignoring the President's actuaries, he put in the lower number. We, in order to have an apples-to-apples comparison with that resolution, have adopted the CBO baseline. Also, there is no difference between us in Medicare benefit spending. However, because the administration of the program can be improved, we provide $805 million more over 5 years for Medicare administration. Also, on the mandatory side, we provide $8 billion for the Family Opportunity Act, an act that has enjoyed bipartisan support because it provides Medicaid coverage to children with special needs in families who otherwise would not qualify for Medicaid and cannot obtain private insurance. This is compassionate conservatism. We provided $8 billion to fund that program so we can finally get it established, and we added two more provisions in our budget resolution. First, we said if the price of Medicare, in fact, exceeds $400 billion, then the prohibition against negotiating drug prices included in the Medicare prescription drug law should be suspended and we should negotiate lower prices. Secondly, we said take some of the excessive subsidies provided for the HMOs and redeploy that money. In the Committee on Ways and Means, we have got reconciliation instructions to that effect. Redeploy that money to make the Medicare prescription drug benefit better. We have a manifestly better set of provisions for Medicare and Medicaid in our budget resolution. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price). (Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to allocate portions of his time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds. I say to the gentleman a fiscally responsible budget is our budget because every year, if that is the measure, our budget accumulates, generates a smaller deficit. Over 10 years, our budget accumulates $1.2 trillion less debt than the Republicans' and ours goes to balance in 2012, a claim they cannot make. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Majette).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird), and ask unanimous consent that he have the right to allocate the time allotted to him.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield 15 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) for purposes of control.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark). (Mr. STARK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez). (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez). (Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey). (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green). (Mr. GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, for purposes of debate, I yield 15 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis).