John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Furthermore, we now know that the surplus is gone, per OMB. They have acknowledged it. CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, says the same thing. That ought to be an alarm sound calling for us to begin developing plans like the plan we developed with the President's father in 1990, the Budget Summit Agreement, the Clinton budget in 1993, the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997. Three times in the 1990s we did extra-special exercises on the budget that ratcheted down and helped put us in a surplus for the first time in a generation. This budget acknowledging the problems it has got now and in the foreseeable future does nothing. The most that they offer is a new disdain for deficits. They basically say deficits do not matter, a trillion here, a trillion there; it is no big deal.

Mr. SPRATT. I do.

Mr. SPRATT. That is Senator Dole, I think. The point we are trying to make now is that we may have a tax cut today, but if it ends up causing the government to incur more debt, the debt has to be paid. It has to be serviced. Interest on it has to be paid; and eventually, the people that pay taxes will have to service that debt, and there is a debt tax, a stealth tax that will come due, not in the near term, but whenever we do not have a surplus to charge it to anymore, and we do not, then what we do is charge it to the next generation, and that means our children and grandchildren. So we can have it all in this budget. They pay the tax. They pay the bill, the debt tax.

Mr. SPRATT. Let me wrap up and let us bring it to a conclusion because the gentleman has been in investment banking for the last 6 or 7 years, and the gentleman knows that traditional economic theory for as long as we have known anything about it has held that deficits have the same effect that any supply and demand function has. The government goes into the capital markets. In addition to private borrowers, it elbows out the private borrowers. It runs up interest rates, and high interest rates stifle growth in the long run. So we may get a little bit of kick right now out of running a deficit, but in the long run we have got the debt to pay; it is a fiscal drag on the economy. Secondly, it is a form of dissaving. When the government borrows the money it is just like an individual borrowing money. He is dissaving rather than actually saving and that takes away from the savings pool that we have got for capital formation and building the productive assets of this country, and over the long run it means we are not as productive as we otherwise would be. Then, finally, there is a moral aspect, which I just mentioned. When we charge our excesses to the deficit, we are charging it to the next generation, namely, our children and grandchildren. No way around it. Everybody's recognized that moral aspect in the past. This is an intergenerational thing. They will not only have to pay our Social Security deficit and Medicare deficit, they will also have to pick up the accumulated debts, the other things that we chose not to pay in our time because of this budget.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, on that point we conclude. I thank the gentlemen for participating.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, this past week in my hometown, York, South Carolina, we made history Ivory Latta, standing all of 5 feet 6 inches in her shoes, set a new state scoring record in high school basketball, breaking the standing record of 3,427 points set by Allison Feaster, now a player for the Charlotte Sting. Ivory was within reach of the record when York Comprehensive High School went up against East Forsyth High in the Dell Curry Basketball Shoot-Out in Charlotte, and she lost no time going after it. In the first 8 seconds of the game, she stole the ball and went in for a lay- up. She went on to score 52 points. This brought her career total to 3,439 points, more than any other player in our state, boy or girl, has ever scored. Since basketball season is far from over, Ivory will score more, and raise the bar even higher, before her high school career is finished. Ivory Latta is a star in the classroom as well as on the basketball court. She has a grade point ratio of 3.9, and is headed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on scholarship next fall. I bring this young lady's feat to the attention of the House because I think we will be hearing a lot more from Ivory Latta as she takes her extraordinary skills and team-play spirit on to college and possibly into the pro's. As her congressman, I share Ivory Latta's story with you because I am immensely proud of her. So is everyone throughout the Carolinas, and not least in York, which has declared Friday, January 10, ``Ivory Latta Day.'' The following is an editorial tribute to Ivory Latta that appeared in The Herald in Rock Hill, South Carolina on January 8, 2003: [From the Herald, Jan. 8, 2003] Latta Deserves Accolades York's Ivory Latta now stands as the greatest high school basketball scorer, boy or girl, in South Carolina history, and the universal sentiment seems to be: It couldn't happen to a nicer kid. On Friday, the day Latta reached and then exceed the scoring record, her biggest concern was her team. While she may be the spark plug for the York Comprehensive High School Lady Cougars, she is, first and foremost, a team player. On this day, the Cougars would fall to East Forsyth in the Dell Curry High School Basketball Shootout in Charlotte. But nothing could eclipse the accomplishment of Latta, the 5- foot-six guard who scored 52 points in the game, bringing her career total to 3,439. In reaching this pinnacle, Latta had to break the scoring title of another formidable local athlete. Until Friday, the scoring record of 3,427 points had been held by Allison Feaster, the Sting player, who set that record her senior year at Chester High School, in 1994. Latta seems to be following in Feaster's footsteps in other ways as well. Feaster was an outstanding student who went on to graduate from Harvard University in 1998. Latta, who maintains a 3.9 grade-point average, is headed for the University of North Carolina on a basketball scholarship. In addition to being tops in scoring, Latta has set numerous other records, including the number of 3-pointers made in a season (121), 30-point or more games in a season (23), 40-point or more games in a season (9), free throws made in a season (229) and free throws made in a state championship (17). Some young player, perhaps one just learning to dribble a basketball, may someday challenge this amazing record. Whoever that player may be, he or she could do no better than emulate Latta as a role model.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner). (Mr. TANNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time to explain to everybody what is happening here. In 1990, after years of trying to get our hands around the deficit, we finally had a budget summit with President Bush and we devised not only a 5-year plan for reducing the deficit, but we also passed something called a Budget Enforcement Act and it contained several new rules, budget process controls which have had a significant impact on our ability to get rid of the deficit. In particular, we adopted a set of discretionary spending ceilings, a ceiling on discretionary spending, we adopted it in 1991, we renewed it in 1993, and we extended it in 1997, and that held discretionary spending to substantially lower rates of increase than the 1980s. We also adopted something called the pay-as-you-go rule, which said with respect to entitlement spending, if you want to liberalize the entitlement benefit or add a new one, you have to pay for it or you have to go through the catalog of all of the other entitlements and reduce the entitlement by enough to pay for the new one you are creating or an increase in the benefit that you are providing for. In addition, with respect to tax cuts, we said if you want a tax cut, it will have to be budget neutral. You can cut taxes one place, but you have to increase them elsewhere so the deficit is not worsened, or you can offset a tax cut with an entitlement cut so that once again it is budget neutral. A lot of people at the time scoffed at these process changes on the grounds that we were just rearranging the deck chairs and they would not have any real results. One of those who was skeptical at the time was Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Fed. When he appeared before our committee this March, March 2, he said in response to my question, Congressman, I thought that whole set of rules had very little chance of working, and I was wrong. It really did matter, much to my surprise. The PAYGO rules, for example, have been extremely and always very useful. That is what the Chairman of the Fed said. He came back to us in September and repeated and said the same thing. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), the chairman of our committee, on June 27 acknowledged that the President was seeking an extension of the discretionary caps and the PAYGO requirement and implied that that needed to be done. I think he and I were in basic agreement on that. What has happened is we never did it. I introduced legislation to that effect and it has never come to the floor of this place; we have never had a hearing on it. We have never done it. So we are here just before adjournment, the discretionary spending caps are gone in 2002. They are gone. The PAYGO rule has expired. It is gone. The 5-year budgets that we adopted in 1991 and 1993 and 1997 are gone. The last one ran out in 2002. So all of the devices we had to control the budget that worked spectacularly well in the 1990s; we reduced the deficit from $290 billion when President Bush left office to $330 billion surplus in 2000. When President Bush came to office, the second President Bush came to office, unlike his father, we gave him a budget in surplus, $127 billion in surplus. It is gone, and the budget devices that worked so well to help us contain the deficit, reduce the deficit every year for 8 straight years in the 1990s are gone too, and there is no effort here to reintroduce them. Now, there is one last vestige of the PAYGO rule. PAYGO required sequestration, across-the-board cuts. If you ignored the PAYGO rule and increased entitlements or cut taxes and therefore increased the deficit, there was a scorecard kept, and at the end of the year if that scorecard showed an excess amount on it, the law decreed across-the- board reductions in spending in selected accounts. We are now faced with that particular law for this year and for years to come, because even though the PAYGO rule has expired, it still applies as to existing law and future years. This bill takes out that last vestige. We have done away with sequestration as to any future legislation, we have done away with the PAYGO rule and discretionary spending, no 5-year budget at all, it takes that last vestige. What it does, even worse, is it passes up the opportunity to take the legislation that we have offered to extend the PAYGO rule, to extend the authority for 5-year discretionary spending caps, to extend the authority for sequestration, to reinstall those budget disciplines, those process rules that got rid of the deficit in the 1990s, to reinstate them. This bill completely ignores that opportunity and simply wipes the slate clean. So what is happening here? What is this all about? The purpose of this is to clear the way for the next session of Congress with no disciplines whatsoever; tax cuts as much as you want. There will be no restraints, no 60-vote margins in the Senate, no other restraints, no PAYGO rules that have to be waived, no scorecard, nothing. This takes away all of the discipline at a time when the budget is literally in free-fall. We have a deficit that increases this year to $159 billion from a surplus of $127 billion last year. It goes up next year and the next year and the next year, and there is no plan in place, nothing implicit in the budget, no 5-year plan to deal with it, and this erases any hope whatsoever of that. Now, we are offering, we are offering a motion to recommit. The gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore) will offer that motion, and it will simply say as of this year, next year, go ahead and wipe the scorecard clean. But as to future years, the scorecard will still be there, the PAYGO rule will still have that remaining applicability. However, it will not apply if the President sends us a budget which gets in balance finally by the year 2008. Mr. Speaker, that is a small thing to ask. If we are going to have any kind of discipline, any kind of planning, it is the right thing to ask for. The right way to vote on this bill is to vote for the motion to recommit and then we will have something that we can live with and something that leaves at least some small modicum of discipline in place.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

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

Mr. SPRATT. If the gentleman would yield further, Mr. Speaker, and sequestration?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, would it be the chairman's intention in the next Congress to introduce legislation, pass it through our committee, bring it to the floor, which would reinstate discretionary spending caps and the PAYGO rule for 5 additional years?

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me make clear that the motion to recommit will wipe clean the scorecard, $125 billion on the scorecard this year. It will wipe it clean for 2003. It will only apply to the future and it will only require that the President give us a budget which shows some light at the end of the tunnel, a balanced budget by 2008. So for this year and next year, it will allow us the freedom of movement without being concerned about it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind). (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. SPRATT. I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I first encountered this thing we call a continuing resolution when I was a young officer in the Army working for the Assistant Secretary of Defense Comptroller. I remember how it was explained to me then by the DOD's General Counsel. He said, in effect, the Congress is saying to us we have not got our job done, we are a little embarrassed, so just keep spending money at the level it is being spent until we can catch up and get things done right. This year, more than any year I have ever seen or known about, we are deficient in doing our job. Eleven out of 13 appropriation bills have not been passed. Let me just pick out four and point out to Members the consequences of having a continuing resolution in lieu of a properly worked appropriation bill. Veterans medical care. If Members are not aware that veterans are calling their district offices and saying they cannot get an appointment at veterans hospitals in less than 6 months, Members have not been talking to their staff. The Veterans Administration is overstretched, overcommitted, and we are not in this resolution providing them a dime more than they got last year to deal with a problem that is getting worse all the time. So Members are turning a deaf ear to the veterans who are calling and saying what good is health care when it needs to be delayed for 6 months. That is the situation that I am finding in my office, and I dare say it is true all across the country, and this resolution turns a deaf ear to the veterans of this country and their pleas for the health care promised them. Education. Last year the President made a big deal, and rightly so, out of his signature education bill. Democrats in the House and Senate, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and Senator Kennedy, joined him in inaugurating the bill called Leave No Child Behind. It was a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. When we passed that authorization bill in the House, the price tag on it was $26.4 billion. We said that we recognize that school districts are going to have additional substantial obligations, and we wanted to send money with the mandates we were imposing upon them. We said we need to increase what we are spending on elementary and secondary education so that the school districts will be able to meet their obligations and will be funded at the Federal level for the obligations that the Federal Government is imposing upon them. Mr. Speaker, 6 weeks later after the authorization had passed, the President sent his budget up and guess what, his budget funded the bill at $4 billion less, $19 million less than we were then spending for elementary and secondary education, and that is the way we will leave it if we pass the CR instead of going back to the Labor-Education appropriation bill and properly funding education as we should. Education will be shorted. We will leave a lot of children behind. $4 billion would put a lot of our school districts that are already hurting because of statewide budget cuts in dire straits. It is true in my State; I dare say it is true in every State. Highways. No Member should vote without looking at this list right here. I just looked at it to see what happens to the highway bill, what we will fund compared to what TEA-21 might have provided. South Carolina will get $49.162 million less than we would otherwise get if we did a proper appropriations bill. We are a small State. If you are larger than South Carolina, and most of you are, you better check this list because you are going to be surprised at how much you will be shorted in highway funding if you vote for a CR over a proper transportation appropriation bill. Finally, the SEC. The SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, makes money for the Federal Government. The SEC charges fees that amount to about $1.2 billion every year. It then spends about $450 million a year, and the $750 million difference goes into the Treasury. They make money for the Federal Government. If there is one agency of the Federal Government that is challenged right now, if there is one thing we need to do for this economy, to restore confidence in the stock markets and corporate accountability, the SEC has to be the watchdog. They have to do it. They need more money. The man who wrote the bill, Sarbanes-Oxley, said they need $776 million. You would still have a $500 million contribution out of their fees to make to the Federal Treasury. Pass this continuing resolution instead of a proper appropriation bill and the SEC will get $450 million, slightly less than that, in fact. It is not right. I am ready to stay here and do it right. That is what I submit every Member should do. We can do it. We can do it between now and Thanksgiving. We can do it right. We can take care of highways, we can take care of veterans, we can take care of the SEC. We can do it right. We should do it right and not pass this CR.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

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