John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this bill walls off the surplus in the Medicare Part A trust fund. It says in effect that the surplus in the President's budget and in the congressional budget resolution should be at least as large every year as the Medicare Part A surplus. In addition, of course, tax cuts and spending increases could not reach that target. The idea of taking the Part A trust fund off the table, not off the budget, is a small step forward, because it means that a slightly higher share of the projected surpluses over the next 10 years are going to be devoted to paying down publicly-held debt. That is good for social security, that is good for Medicare, that is good for the economy. That is why I voted yes. But this is just a small step, a token step, since preserving the Medicare surplus does not really extend Medicare solvency for one day. Our long-term fiscal situation implies that over the course of the next 10 years, while we are generating these on-budget surpluses, we should be devoting a significant share of them to Medicare solvency, to debt reduction, and to social security solvency for the long run. That is why I said earlier on the previous bill that we ought to have a piece of legislation here which simply says we resolve that now, and into the future; we will set aside some fixed percentage of our own budget surplus every year for debt reduction or for contribution to these trust funds. The Clinton administration and our congressional Democratic budget resolution devoted more than 40 percent of the projected on-budget surplus to debt reduction; and we took $300 billion out of the general fund, that is out of the on-budget surplus, and put it in the Medicare trust fund in order to extend the solvency of the Medicare program into and past 2020. The Blue Dog budget, which was offered as an alternative, committed 50 percent of the projected on-budget surplus to debt reduction. But the Republican plan devoted essentially none of the surplus to debt reduction and took none of it, none of it, and put it into Medicare where it would ensure, at least extend the solvency of the program. Unlike the proposal made the other day by Vice-President Gore, as I have noted, this bill fails to take the Medicare trust fund off budget. It simply takes it off the table or out of the calculation. In addition, it has something in it that I would call a trap door. In fact, it was in the Social Security legislation, too. Specifically, any legislation that identifies itself as Social Security reform or Medicare reform, it only has to recite those magic words, ``is automatically exempt without further proof from the provisions of this lockbox.'' This is very much like the emergency spending exemption that we have got in current law. Any legislation that is designated an emergency by somebody, no matter how routine, is exempt from the spending caps. The same can happen with Medicare reform and Social Security reform. The bill itself says in black letters, all one has got to do is recite ``this bill is for Medicare reform, this bill is for Social Security reform,'' and, bang, these provisions no longer apply to one. Finally, Mr. Speaker, if the majority were really serious about using projected surpluses to reduce debt and save and protect Medicare and Social Security, then I think they would take this bill, this occasion, to repeal section 213 of the budget resolution which they passed weeks ago. In just a few weeks, the Congressional Budget Office is going to increase its estimate of the projected on-budget surpluses by $800 billion, a trillion dollars, maybe $1.2 trillion, maybe more. Section 213 of their budget resolution will allow the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to commit, give, devote as much as 100 percent of that increase in the projected surplus to the Committee on Ways and Means for additional tax cuts instead of debt reduction, instead of saving Social Security, instead of protecting Medicare, use 100 percent of it for tax reduction. If my colleagues were serious about debt reduction, serious about protecting Medicare and Social Security, surely, surely we would say some of these additional surpluses will be retained, set aside, and protected for these essential programs and this essential purpose, and that is debt reduction. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time I have remaining.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the deep cuts that this bill makes in Medicare contractor management. The funding is not just inadequate, it is grossly inadequate, so inadequate that it is bound to impair the quality of service delivered to millions of elderly and disabled Americans--many of whom rely solely on Medicare for their health insurance. Although the Administration requested $1.3 billion for contractor management, an increase just over 4%, the committee rejected any increase and instead cut funding by 6%. In years past, when there were funding cutbacks and shortfalls, HCFA ordered Medicare contractors to cut service to beneficiaries. Medicare payments for patient care were delayed. HCFA told its contractors to cut back human contact and make more use of voice mail. Voice mail menus are frustrating for everybody, but imagine how exasperating they are for an elderly person who wants a knowledgeable, caring person to answer a question about Medicare or solve a problem. The demands placed upon contractors will only be aggravated by elderly and disabled Americans who are the victims of the managed care companies pulling out of Medicare + Choice. In just one Medicare + Choice company that recently announced its pullout, there are over 100,000 elderly and disabled Americans. They will have no choice but to move back to the fee-for-service program, and this will increase the work load for Medicare contractors far more than anyone previously predicted. In making its budget request, the Administration assumed a 3.5% increase in claims. The pull-out of Medicare + Choice firms will add to that; and if funding is cut by 6%, the cuts cannot help but strain the Medicare contractors, who are already stretched out, and degrade the services they provide to elderly and disabled Americans and their healthcare providers. This cut in funding will: Curtail beneficiary and provider outreach programs that educate and answer questions. Delay responses to telephone calls, written inquiries, and reviews of ``medical necessity.'' Postpone waste, fraud, and abuse investigations. Make it difficult for contractors to respond to HCFA initiatives. As a consequence, elderly and disabled Americans will not receive the level of customer service they expect and deserve. More providers who participate in Medicare but are increasingly vocal in their dissatisfaction will leave the program. And if Medicare contractors, who pride themselves on their business and want to deliver a good product and good service do not have the resources to administer the program, they too will exit the business. Many of them already have, and more of them will if this cut in funding goes through. For all these reasons, we should meet the President's modest request for Medicare contractor management, and undo these self-defeating cuts. If their purpose is to impair Medicare fee-for-service, and make beneficiaries cynical about Medicare and seek another program, they may achieve that effect. But if our purpose is to give the elderly and disabled a Medicare program with the care, service, and attention they need, these cuts should be reversed, and the President's request should be filled.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. I thank the gentleman for that clarification.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to engage the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), the chairman of the committee, in a colloquy. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership in bringing this legislation to the House floor once again, H.R. 4205, the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001. It is a good bill, and all the better because of the title it bears. I supported it in the committee, and I am proud to support it here on the floor. I would like to take just a moment and ask the chairman about a provision in the bill on which we have collaborated in the past and which the gentleman helped reauthorize this year. That is Section 807 in title VIII of the bill. It is my understanding that this section simply removes the sunset date of October 1, 2000, for existing statutory rules that apply to the procurement of ball and roller bearings. Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman, do the changes made to existing U.S. law by H.R. 4205 mean that the limits on procurement of non-U.S. bearings will continue to have the effect of law?

Mr. SPRATT. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I represent a lot of military retirees; and I can speak to the sentiments others have voiced that they feel betrayed. This bill is an effort to try to make them feel that we are keeping the promises we made about military health care for life when we induced them to serve the better part of their adult lives in the armed services of the United States. The base bill here is basic. What it simply says is that, when they turn 65, if they are a military retiree, they can keep on going to a military treatment facility for medical care and the care they receive, if they have the space available, the resources available, will be paid for by Medicare, by HCFA. If the military treatment facility is not able to provide that care, then the retiree would continue to receive benefits that he had been receiving under the TRICARE program. Basically if the resources are not there, if the treatment facility cannot accommodate the military retiree, then that person will go back into the private network that he has always used if he has been a subscriber to TRICARE. This provides among other things for continuity of care. It will help us get military retirees to join TRICARE because they know when they get to be 65, they will not have to start all over again with a new battery of doctors and new treatment facilities. The Republican-passed budget, when it came to the floor, initially did not provide enough money for this, nor did it provide enough money for a pharmacy benefit. When it came back to us from conference, the conference report, however, provided $400 million, anticipating it might be used for something like this. And so that is exactly what we are doing. We are saying, let us use the money that is provided in the budget resolution to extend the Medicare program, extend the benefits of the Medicare program to military retirees so that they can go to those military treatment facilities they have always used. It is fair, it is sensible, it is affordable, it is not a token, it is substantial. We ought to do it.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support H.R. 4205, which is known as the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001. This is not only a good bill and deserves the support of the people in this House, it is named for an outstanding American, the chairman of Our Committee on Armed Services, who, through the years, has done yeoman's work. As the gentleman mentioned a few moments ago, this is the last time he will present as chairman the bill coming from our committee. We thank him for his excellent leadership and bipartisanship through the years. Mr. Chairman, at the outset, I would like to thank the gentleman for the work he did on this particular bill. All of us have worked hard on it and it has been glued together quite well. I will talk of the exceptions a moment later. But this bill would authorize $310 billion for defense programs, including $13 billion for the Department of Energy defense-related programs. It authorizes a funding level of $4.5 billion above the President's request, which, of course, was $13 billion above last year's level. The bill makes a number of vital readiness and modernization improvements which will keep our forces the best trained and best equipped in the world. The bill also addresses important qualities of life issues that are at the top of agenda for service members and their families. It gives a much needed 3.7 percent pay raise, plus a number of key improvements in the military health care system that will benefit service members and their families as well as military retirees. Mr. Chairman, last year was ``the Year of the Troops.'' Congress was successful in enacting a number of pay and compensation reforms that have helped to close the pay gap between the military and civilian society that makes the military a more attractive career choice in a difficult recruiting environment. Mr. Chairman, this year is ``the Year of Health Care.'' I am pleased that the bill provides a number of important health care reforms. Foremost is the reform to the TRICARE pharmacy benefit. The bill's provisions authorizing mail order, retail and non-network pharmacy access for Medicare-eligible retirees goes a long way toward affording greater health care access and affordability for military retirees. The bill helps us keep the promise of lifetime health care made to those service members. Other major elements of the bill that are noteworthy include provision of adequate funding to support the Army's transformation to a lighter, more mobile force, the transition to the next generation of Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, and continued funding for tactical aircraft programs. This also makes significant investments in information technology and information infrastructure. I do, however, want to express my disappointment, Mr. Chairman, with the language of the bill regarding the Island of Vieques. The best way to ensure that the Navy will have access to this important training area in the long run is to support the agreement worked out between the President and the Governor of Puerto Rico. This agreement gives the people of Vieques a voice in the future of the area and provides economic incentives to allow the Navy to continue live fire training there. The language in the Chairman's mark would do nothing short of gutting that agreement. I know that all of us here today care deeply about the readiness of our Navy and Marine forces. I think it is fair to say there is generally a shared desire that this range be returned to its previous use. However, I believe that only through the implementation of the agreement between the President and the Governor of Puerto Rico will all sides to the dispute be accommodated and the range returned to the use of the military. I fear that the language in this mark will cause us to squander that opportunity, and I hope the Committee on Rules will make in order my amendment to correct this ill-advised provision. Also, Mr. Chairman, I wish to express my disappointment thus far that the rule does not allow the amendment of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) regarding military retirees and Medicare subvention. More about that later in the debate, but that is extremely important, and I hope that the second rule will include it. On balance, this is a good bill. I believe Members should support it. I sincerely hope that the process under which the bill is considered will permit the House to work its will on important issues such as Medicare subvention and the Island of Vieques. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. The irony of this bill is that it elevates the budget resolution to a joint resolution so that it has the force and effect of law, and then it takes the contents of this newly elevated resolution and literally guts it. It reduces us from what we have now, a debate on programmatic priorities, the different functions in this budget, which are more aligned to programmatic spending than any of the 13 appropriation bills that we have. It takes those and relegates them to the committee report so they lose a lot of their cause and effect. Secondly, it takes the one power that we have as a committee to sort of move the budget process and require committees to do what the House would have them do, a process called reconciliation, and also relegates it to the report. So having raised the status of the resolution to a law, it then downgrades the contents of them to relative insignificance. It means that, when we have the budget debate on the floor, we will be talking about big aggregated numbers that do not mean a lot of anything. We will not be coming here to say that we are talking about more for defense or more for health care or more for veterans' health care or more for housing. We will not be able to make that argument nearly as convincingly as we do now because all of this will be tucked away in the report, and all we will have in the resolution itself will be big aggregate numbers which will not necessarily mean anything about individual programs. This is a good amendment. It should be adopted.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is not necessary. It is not necessary as long as we keep our institutional memory and remember what happened among the public the last time we shut the government down. That ought to be impetus enough to get the job done, get the bills passed, and use temporary CRs to breach the gap until we do. It is not necessary and it is not useful, either. For one thing, it is not good for the institutions, in my opinion. It takes away all incentive for us to enact 13 appropriation bills on time, on schedule, by regular order. It is hard enough for us to do that now. If we pass the CR, it is no sweat, we do not have to get the job done. The automatic CR provision would be there to put $600 billion of spending on automatic pilot. We could not do our job with impunity. It is not good budget policy. What this effectively does is turn all existing discretionary appropriations into capped entitlements at this year's rate, because unless they are cut by a majority vote, they remain in effect. This backstops existing spending. It takes away all pressure for us to compromise. Having said that, I do not think we can begin to imagine all of the possibilities of games playing with the budget if this is adopted, not necessarily in this body, although I am sure we are up to it, but in the other body, where they have the power of filibuster. A minority of the Senate, by filibuster, can prevent the enactment of regular appropriation bills and leave the program funding levels at the capped entitlement level in the automatic CR. The President with his veto has all the more power now, if we pass this bill, because he can veto with impunity. He does not have to worry about the government keeping going because the automatic CR will fill the gap. We do not need any of these factors overhanging the budget process. This amendment solves very little and it raises all sorts of problems. It should be defeated.

Mr. SPRATT. It was Ryan No. 7, according to mine. It is Ryan No. 6, the pay-go amendment.

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

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

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman began his amendment by saying that this would allow us to dedicate all Social Security funds to debt reduction. But in truth, the debt reduced, the debt held by the public, would be bought up by the Social Security administrators and there would be a commensurate increase in the debt held by the administrator, the Social Security Administration, for the decrease in the debt held by the public. So in truth there is no real debt retirement. I am in favor of doing that, but that is not really debt retirement. If you want to retire debt, pay off debt, you have got to use the on-budget surplus for debt reduction. If you wipe it out with tax cuts or mandatory spending increases as this would allow, then it will not be there for additional debt reduction, point number one. Point number two. He says this will protect Social Security. But in truth what he is doing is removing the cushion that does protect Social Security. Suppose we are wrong about future surpluses and suppose we have a big tax cut or a big spending increase premised on the expectation that these projections will actually obtain and they do not obtain, the economy takes a downturn. What happens is that you are into Social Security, because you have removed the cushion, the on-budget surplus that would absorb the downturn in the economy. You are back into Social Security, so it puts Social Security in jeopardy. To protect Social Security, he reaches back into the past and gets an instrument, a tool, we called it a club in the closet once, called sequestration. We go back to the old principles of sequestration and Gramm-Rudman-Hollings I and Gramm-Rudman-Hollings II here. If you have a downturn in the economy, if the surplus does not obtain, if you have a tax cut or a spending increase premised on payment out of the surplus and the surplus does not show up in the future, then you have sequestration so that you stay out of Social Security. We had sequestration in Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. How many times did we use it? Once. March 1, 1986. Thereafter, when the law was changed, we never used sequestration again to any substantial extent. It is a phony device. It will not ever happen. In any event, if it does, you will cut Medicare instead of cutting Social Security and the same people are going to be hurt. So this is not a good idea. Let me tell the gentleman, I respect him. We work together on the Committee on the Budget. He was not here in the 1980s and the 1990s when we grappled with solutions. One of the solutions to the deficit that we came up with was the pay-go rule. The other was the discretionary spending ceiling. The pay-go rule was a reaction to our failed experience under Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. In Gramm-Rudman- Hollings, we said we are going to project the deficit for the future each year, and we had then $180 billion deficits. So we said over 5 years we are going to eradicate this deficit. 180 over 5 equals 36, every year we are going to reduce the deficit by $36 billion until it is zero. It did not happen. One reason it did not happen is that the first year out of the box, the first year in our experience with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings the deficit went from $180 billion to $221 billion. That was not supposed to happen. The economy made it happen. As a consequence, we were $41 billion deeper in debt than we really thought we were, $41 billion behind the mark where we thought we were going to start. That could happen here. We have been lucky, we have been fortunate, but one day this gravy train could come to an end. The increasing revenues that have fueled the increasing surplus could also terminate. When that happens, all of these spending increases and tax cuts that we are premising on paper are projected surpluses may turn awry. We may find ourselves in deep trouble because we have assumed that they were going to happen. The safe, conservative, responsible and proven way to go is to leave the pay-go rule the way it is and only cut taxes when you identify a revenue stream or an entitlement cut to offset the consequences to the surplus.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my request for a recorded voted on Ryan amendment No. 7.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is true that this has been voted upon before. We were desperate for solutions and so this was one of the jerry-rigged solutions that we came up with. It has been through committee. It has been on the floor. Let me tell my colleagues what is wrong with it. We can have a cut here on the House floor or in committee of a particular program that is unpopular amongst Members here in the House. They can have a cut in the Senate of the same amount, or roughly the same amount, of a totally different program. When you then go to conference, there is no coming together on the cut that has been made. The House has decided to cut one thing that is not popular here, the Senate has decided to cut another thing that is not popular there. The amount is roughly the same, so both Houses have interests in their so-called lockbox accounts that have to be reconciled, but there is no reconciliation on the item to be cut, how that number is to be achieved. They may be at total loggerheads over that particular issue. That is one of the problems with it. Secondly, you can cut something that is one time, nonrecurring, that would not have any really future prospect of spendout, but nevertheless, it has future consequences for the budget, because, if I understand the gentleman's amendment correctly, once you achieve that cut here on the House floor, if you specify that the cut will be charged to the lockbox account, then you have to reduce 302(a) and (b), and then, having done that, discretionary spending has been reduced overall, the discretionary spending ceiling is not only lowered for that year, but successive years so long as it remains in effect. Even though if this could have been a one-time nonrecurring item, something that did not have future consequences, it could and will have consequences for the budget. For all of these reasons, this lockbox idea is an idea whose time has come and passed. We do not need it now. There is no reason to complicate the process with it. I strongly recommend that we do not approve it tonight.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, one of the gravest responsibilities that is given to us in Congress is the power to declare war. We have the power to raise armies and navies. We have the power to regulate them. And we have the power to determine when they will be put in the field, when young men and women will be put in harm's way to protect the interests of this country. Frankly, we do not exercise that power very well. We have the War Powers Act, which gives the President presumptive authority to dispatch troops into conflict; and we have the power to recall them by passing a resolution of dubious legal status. We rarely exercise it. In the 18 years I have been here, I think we have used it twice. One restraint we have is the knowledge on the part of the President and the executive branch that every year, every year, they must come here hat in hand and ask us to fund the defense budget of this country. And if they dispatch troops, under the biennial budget, they will have $600 billion to spend, they will have twice the amount that we will appropriate this year in our defense budget and a 2-year lapse of time before they have to come up here and account for how they have spent and used that money. Unless we have better controls on how we are going to dispatch troops to combat and commit our forces, I do not think we need biennial budgeting. It is one of the few limits we have, however we may exercise it, upon the use of our military in foreign theaters. I think we should retain that short leash, that 1-year appropriation, to remind the executive that he still must come to Congress for the authority to put our men and women in harm's way.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, I will stipulate that the budget process is broken, and I will stipulate that the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) have worked in earnest and in good faith to come forth with solutions, some of which I agree with, but not all of them. In fact, I think there are provisions in this bill that could compound our budget problems rather than solving them. At the core of the bill is a new idea: that we make the budget resolution a joint resolution rather than a concurrent resolution. Basically, this means that the President has to sign it before it is effective. And when and if he does sign it, of course, it becomes law. Now, frankly, I think that idea is not without merit. It could be the device for bringing the President and the Congress together earlier in the process rather than later in the process. But, in reality, we are all politicians and we know that these budget compromises are usually made at the 11th hour because that is usually when our back is against the wall and we have to come to some kind of decision. The chances are that we would not have an agreement, not have closure with the White House, particularly in a divided government. And, in that event, this bill would not facilitate the process, it would not improve the process; it would only delay the budget process well into the month of June. Now, if a joint resolution which becomes law is the chosen vehicle for the budget resolution, it also becomes a moving vehicle which is an occasion for passing all sorts of laws, not just budget laws, but other things too. The text of the bill recognizes this problem and tries to prohibit these extraneous matters from being attached to the budget resolution. But we all know that the Committee on Rules in this House is master at overruling such prohibitions, waiving points of order. And in the Senate, the other body, there are hardly any germaneness rules, and 60 Senators can override anything. So this moving vehicle becomes a vehicle for passing all kinds of laws. It opens the door to one-shot riders, such as some prohibition on abortion spending across the board, and to major legislation. The President and the leadership might get together and decide they want to ram something through in a hurry, bypass the authorizing committees. That is why the Committee on Transportation, among others, has said this has insidious potential, this could open the door to all kinds of diversions. What do we get if we do make it through this process, if this joint resolution does, in fact, get adopted? We get a shell of a resolution. The irony of this bill is they elevate the status of it to a law, and then they gut it if it is meaningful content. What we get is about six or seven numbers. This debate is not about programmatic choices, it is about numbers. And because this particular bill would take the budget functions and put them in the report; would take the one power that the committee has, the power of reconciliation directives and put that in the report and downgrade the status of the two, we diminish the status of the debate on the floor. The one opportunity when we come to the floor and have a debate on programmatic priorities is taken away from us, because we are not talking about programmatic priorities. There are no more budget functions in the resolution before us. They are just aggregate numbers, discretionary spending, defense spending, nondefense spending, surpluses, and things of that nature. So, this takes us back, it does not take us forward. I do not think this is an improvement on the process. That is why I think we should vote down the base bill and go back to work on real solutions to our budget problems.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I would be the first to admit that the budget process needs an overhaul, but not this overhaul, not this bill, for many reasons. It is not the right fix. Parts of it I agree with, but many parts of it not only are not the right fix, I think they would be counterproductive. Back in 1990, we sat down in earnest with the budget process as part of the budget summit agreement, and we made some budget process changes that laid the foundation for deficit reduction throughout the last decade and for the surpluses that we enjoy today. We adopted what we call a ``pay-as-you-go'' rule, a pay-go rule, with respect to tax cuts and entitlements. Basically, we said nobody can worsen the deficit. If you want to propose a tax cut, you have got to have an offsetting tax increase or an offsetting decrease or cut in entitlement, or permanent spending, and if you want to add to or liberalize the entitlement benefit, you have to identify a revenue stream to pay for it or diminish some other entitlement benefit so it is deficit neutral. This rule served us well. But recently, in recent years, we have flouted it, and flouted it with impunity. We started this budget year, this legislative session, with a major tax cut bill. I stood right here in the well of the House and said this bill violates pay-go. It also violates section 303(a) of the Congressional Budget Act, which basically says that pieces of legislation of this significance, whether they are spending legislation or tax legislation, will not be considered until we have a budget resolution. It was ignored. Now, today, we bring this bill to the House floor which would change the architecture of our budget process, and yet the most significant fault right now, the most significant fault with our budget process, is the fact that the discretionary spending ceilings that we established back in 1990, set again in 1993, reset again in 1997, are an anachronism today. They are out of date. The ceiling which we legislated several years ago for fiscal year 2001 is $541 billion. The 302 allocation to the Committee on Appropriations and the budget resolution that the Congress passed exceeds that ceiling by $60 billion. That is not small change. That is not a non-trivial excess. The 302 allocation is $600.3 billion, $60 billion above the ceiling. We have got that problem, and the consequence of it, if we do not do something about it, is sequestration, an automatic process we set up for across-the-board cuts. The committee and the Congress were able to avoid it by function 920, unallocated cuts in the budget resolution. That is just treading water. We have got that problem. We today started the appropriations process with the military construction appropriations bill. The first order of business, if we are starting the appropriations process, should be to adjust these ceilings, because we all know that the appropriators are not going to cut those 13 bills down to $541 billion. They will be lucky to bring them in at $600.3 billion. If we were earnest, sincere about amending the budget process, we would do something about the pay-go rule and violations like the bill we brought to the floor where section 303(a) was just totally ignored, and we would do something right now, here and now, with the most immediate and relevant problem with the budget process, and that is, the fact that we are well above, inevitably going to be far above, the discretionary spending ceiling, and we are going to trigger sequestration. That is the order of business today, and that is why we ought to vote down this rule and get down to what we really should be doing in the way of budget process and budgeting.