John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis). (Mr. DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York and South Carolina (Mr. Meeks).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, our Republican colleagues have just laid out six principles by which to judge their resolution and our resolution. Let me take each one of those principles and apply it and compare the two resolutions. First of all, maximum debt elimination. I heartily agree the more debt we can eliminate the better. Let's look at the bottom line on the two resolutions. Our budget resolution will provide $3.7 trillion for debt reduction. Theirs will provide $2.8 trillion for debt reduction. We provide $915 billion more for debt reduction. It is not even close. Furthermore, to the extent that they spend $1 out of this $500 billion contingency fund that they create, that will be $1 less for debt reduction. Tax relief. Some of this surplus, a substantial share of it surely should be given back to the American people. We heartily agree with that principle. So what have we got? A third of the surplus that we set aside for tax relief, and we target it to those taxpayers who need it most, hard-working middle-income families. Furthermore, this resolution makes in order, directs the Committee on Ways and Means by May 1 to provide $60 billion in tax relief this year, fiscal year 2001, before September 30, in order to give this sagging economy a stimulus. That means we have got $800 billion of tax reduction in this bill. By any yardstick, that is substantial tax reduction. Education is at the top of the charts, a big concern amongst all people all over this country. Their budget increases education by 5.6 percent next year. Compare that to last year: 18 percent increase last year. Compare it to the last 5 years: 13 percent over the last 5 years. Compare it to our budget resolution: $130 billion more for elementary and secondary education, higher education, Pell Grants across the spectrum, $130 billion more than they provide for education. There is no comparison. There is no question. We win hands down on the issue of education. National defense. I believe in a strong national defense. That is why we put in our budget realistic funding for defense. We have $115 billion in our budget over and above inflation for national defense. Their budget, on the other hand, baselines national defense and tells us that, when Mr. Rumsfeld tells us what the number is, they will supply a new number. In the meantime, we are providing substantial increase and realistically budgeting national defense. Medicare reform, Medicare reform, read their budget. I defy my colleagues to find one syllable in there that deals with Medicare reform. It does not take up the issue. The only thing that even pretends to be Medicare reform in their resolution is a vague proposal to have some kind of prescription-drug coverage. But guess what. It is paid for out of the Medicare trust fund, the HI trust fund, which is already obligated for inpatient benefits. Now they double-obligate it. They drain $153 billion off the Medicare trust fund, I guess you can call that reform; but I will tell you, my colleagues, what it does, it shortens the solvent life. It makes the problem worse. I would not call it wholesome reform. Finally, Social Security. They make it point number six. We make it point number one. Now that we have the wherewithal, the resources to do something about the Social Security situation, that is, the liabilities that we have for benefits promised but not yet provided, we intend to do something. We take $910 billion, one-third of the surplus over the next 10 years, and put it, 50 percent, in the Social Security Trust Fund, 50 percent in the Medicare Trust Fund. We extend the solvent life of Medicare to 2040 and Social Security to 2050. There is no question that on all six of these principles we win hands down. Look at the scorecard, then decide how to vote. My colleagues should vote for our resolution. It is better even by the criteria they set down.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, some budgets are more important than others. Some years the budget is routine, even inconsequential. This budget this year is a watershed budget, much like the budget we did in 1993. It will determine the path we take for many years to come. Let me say to the committee that the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) has endeavored to do a diligent, methodical job to cover the waterfront of the budget. We have done more work, the kind of work we should do, this year than we have in recent years, but the job is not done. That is not really to criticize him. The truth of the matter is, the facts are not in. We do not have the budget backup data; it is still to come from the Office of Management and Budget. We do not know what the number for agriculture will be, a very big add in discretionary and mandatory spending. We do not know what the real number for defense is. Instead, what we have is a budget with placeholder numbers for these two large and critical accounts. As to defense, for example, that is more than half of discretionary spending. We asked for Mr. Rumsfeld to come over and testify. He declined. He is in the middle of his study for the transformation of the United States Armed Forces. So what did we do? This resolution contains extraordinary authority for the chairman of the committee, acting unilaterally, by himself, to come over and plug in a number for defense once that number is determined at any time up until July 25. We suspect that that time will be after the tax cuts. So what we are doing is authorizing substantial tax cuts, huge tax cuts, historically high tax cuts in this particular resolution, without knowing what two of the largest spending categories are going to be. There is an appearance that because of the surpluses we have we can have our cake and eat it too. We can have these huge tax cuts and not really have to cut essential programs elsewhere in the budget. But among other things, because we do not have this budget detail, there are implied budget cuts coming that will be revealed once the budget documents get here and hit the street after April 3. Let me mention just one: the President has plussed-up NIH by $2.8 billion. So do we. It is important. However, the President's plus-up comes at the expense of other programs within the Department of Health and Human Services. It is not additional money; it is money that comes out of the hide of the rest of that department. There are other agencies like the CDC equally as important as NIH. We have not yet seen the documents, but we are told from documents that have been leaked or released that among other things, in order to pay for the NIH plus-up, we will cut, number one, the child care development block grant by as much as $200 million; number two, the account for abused and neglected children. That is why this budget should not be considered today; it should be put off until we have the detail to make the right kind of judgment about the fundamental decisions we make today in this budget resolution which will affect us for some years to come.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 7 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley). Going back to the topic of education on which I think we are clearly superior, who better to talk about education than the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley), who is a public school teacher. She in turn will recognize and yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), who is a former professor at Duke, and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), who is a former professor of physics at Princeton.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis).

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to yield 7 minutes, for purposes of control, to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) to address the agricultural aspects of our budget resolution.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen).

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from New Haven, Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the assistant minority leader.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, before yielding to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), I yield myself such time as I may consume to say by explanation that the $5.6 trillion surplus from which we are both working is a projection of the Congressional Budget Office; and in making that projection, they assume that discretionary spending, the money that we appropriate annually every year, will be increased each year by the rate of inflation. In light of that, we have provided for defense, national defense, which consists of more than half of the so-called discretionary spending budget. We have provided realistically in our budget resolution $115 billion over 10 years to pay for the modernization of our national defenses and for increased pay for our personnel to improve recruitment and retention and for military housing and other quality-of-life advantages that they justly deserve. That is in budget authority, $48 billion more, than is provided in the Republicans' budget resolution. So it is a significant amount of money. Whether it is enough or not, only the future will tell, but nobody can deny that $115 billion over inflation is a substantial plus-up for the defense budget. Madam Chairman, to discuss further the defense budget, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), who represents, among other things, I believe, the Pentagon.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, just quickly in response to the last gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu), with respect to taxes, we all came together on a tax cut in the Balanced Budget Agreement in 1997, $270 billion, which I helped negotiate. Our budget resolution on the floor right now provides $910 billion out of the surplus, one-third of the surplus, for tax reduction. Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) to discuss electoral reforms, which we provide $1.5 billion for in our budget resolution.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel).

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, in giving the lion's share of this budget to tax reduction, the budget resolution leaves little room for other priorities, including law enforcement. To talk about our budget which provides $19 billion more for law enforcement is the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano). Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano), the former mayor of Sommerville, Massachusetts.

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, I would simply like to show my good friend, the gentleman from Missouri, a chart that we prepared which is our analysis of the gentleman's budget. If they will look at the bottom line, the gentleman was not here when the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), the ranking member on the Committee on Agriculture, spoke, but it is the bottom line that concerns him. The truth of the matter is, there is nothing exceptional or extra in this budget for agriculture. The Farm Bureau and farmers on the whole are betting on the come; they are hoping that the Committee on Agriculture can come up with a new farm bill which will allot them some additional money. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) will then have the authority to add that money for agriculture and defense. The problem is, the bottom line is $20 billion. If defense beats agriculture first to the trough, they could easily take $10 billion or $15 billion of that $20 billion. If we follow that bottom line over to the year 2005, it is negative. It is declining every year. It is down to $600 million, $600 million into the Medicare Trust Fund. So we have a very constrained limit, and that is what the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) was saying just a minute ago. Let me now turn to debt reduction, because everybody keeps coming back to that. Clearly if that is a good thing, and we both agree that it is, we should be judged by it. If we are judged fairly, our budget resolution provides, by our calculation, $3 trillion, 681 billion in debt reduction. Theirs provides $2 trillion, 766 billion. We are $915 billion better on that score alone. Madam Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore).

Mr. SPRATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, in response to what has just been said, let me say if there is a difference between two budgets, it is more distinct on the issue of education than anywhere else. While the gentleman claims that they have increased education between this year and next year by 11.5 percent, he can only claim that by claiming over $2 billion that we have already appropriated in the last Congress for education. If we back out that money already appropriated, the increase is about 5.6 or 5.7 percent. If we compare that to last year, the current year, in 2002, that will pale in comparison. In 2001, we have an increase of 18 percent for education. Over the previous 5 years, we have had an increase averaging 13 percent. What they are now bringing to the floor as an education budget pales in comparison to what we have done in the recent past, and it pales in comparison, it is no comparison, to what we are presenting in our budget resolution. Our budget resolution will take our good fortune, the surpluses we have now, and invest more than $150 billion above the rate of inflation in education, $130 billion in our Democratic budget resolution for education over and above what the Republican resolution provides. So if they say this is a first criterion, then on that score we win hands down. There is another salient difference between us and them. That is on Social Security and Medicare. All through the 1990s we have been able to foresee the day coming when the baby boomers retire, and when they all retire, Social Security and Medicare, two essential programs, are going to be stretched, possibly to the breaking point. We did not have in the early and mid-1990s the wherewithal to deal with this problem. Even when we finally got the budget in surplus, it still was not big enough to step up to this huge problem. But now that we have gotten the year-to-year deficits out of the way, we have to face the long-term deficit. We may be sitting on an island of surpluses right now, but we are surrounded by a sea of debt. That debt runs into trillions of dollars for benefits promised but not yet provided Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries in the future. Given the opportunity, we have got the obligation to do something about it, and our budget does something about it. Our budget will take one-third of the surplus and transfer it in equal shares to the Medicare Trust Fund and the Social Security Trust Fund, extending the solvency of Social Security to 2050 and Medicare to 2040. The Republican budget resolution does nothing at all for the solvency of those two systems. In fact, it actually takes away from the solvent life of the Medicare system by allowing a new prescription drug benefit to be deducted from the trust fund, diminishing the fund available to run the regular benefits now provided by that program and shortening its solvent life. We add prescription drugs, but for the additional benefits, we provide additional money out of the general surplus of the Treasury. Madam Chairman, I yield 9 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)