Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I'd be happy to yield.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, just for people who are trying to get educated about the budget process who may be watching, and among our colleagues, we put together a 10-year projection of the budget in a lot of different categories. The appropriators on a year-to-year basis can decide how much or how little to give any program, and every Member of this body gets a chance to vote up or down on that. So that's not what this is about. This is not about saving money. I hope we will all save money and get the deficit down. This is about what information is presented in terms of giving an accurate picture of what the cost is of providing goods and services. So I'm going to give the same example very clearly. Again, it's a very clear example. In fiscal year 2013, we're going to have $61 billion in the budget for discretionary spending for veterans' programs. Now under the current procedure, the Congressional Budget Office tries to figure out 10 years from now, knowing what we do about inflation expectations--and everybody calculates those into their financial decisions--what would it take to provide the same services for our veterans? Now what they're proposing is to put in $61 billion in year 10. But that's misleading because you're not going to be able to provide the services to our veterans at the same level for that amount. In fact, that will represent a 23 percent cut. So I would ask my colleagues, what 23 percent cut are you proposing to make in veterans' programs as we go through this budget? And why do you want to build in what is misleading in a sense that it creates a false impression of what a dollar will purchase 10 years from now compared to what it will purchase today?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), also a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think it's important to underscore the point, and I think the author of the bill would agree, that this legislation didn't save the taxpayer one dime. That's not what we're talking about. This bill, when you pass it, doesn't save one penny. Every year, with respect to the discretionary budget, we have Appropriations Committees in the House and the Senate who go through the budgets, and they decide what's appropriate and what's necessary to be budgeted for those agencies and those accounts every year. They can cut them. They can increase them based on the needs that are perceived by Members of Congress who are acting on that. That's not the issue. We need to tighten our belts. In fact, back in August, we made some significant savings. We need to continue to find savings. In fact, my view is, if we're really going to be serious about reducing the deficit and the debt, we've got to do this in a balanced way like bipartisan commissions have suggested. You've got Simpson- Bowles; you've got Rivlin-Domenici. All of them have said we've got to do a combination of cuts, and we also need to deal with the revenue. We can no longer afford to have tax breaks for the folks at the very top, that we can't keep all of these tax loopholes open that disproportionately benefit certain people over others, and tax breaks that actually encourage in some cases the export of American jobs when we want to be encouraging the export of American goods and American services. So that's a very important debate that we should have, but that's not what this does. This just has to do with how we present the baseline as to what can be purchased in terms of goods and services for certain dollars. And moving to this will create a very misleading perception, everyone knows. Let's say it took a certain amount of money to buy an aircraft carrier today and we wanted to know how much it was going to take to purchase an aircraft carrier 5 years from now. Let's assume over the next 5 years we're in the midst of rising inflation. What this would do is create the idea that since the number was the same this year as 5 years from now, hey, we can buy the same number of aircraft carriers. That's not true. You're going to get a quarter of an aircraft carrier, and that isn't going to do anybody any good. So again, Americans know that when they're comparing dollars and the value of their dollars over time, you have to take into account inflation. It happens every day in terms of financial transactions all over the country. So, again, this bill doesn't save a penny. This has to do with just how you present the budget in terms of a picture for the American people to look at and whether it's realistic in comparing what you can buy for a dollar today versus what you can buy for a dollar 5 or 10 years from now. And what we're saying is you should compare apples to apples so people know what the purchasing power of those dollars are in terms of goods and services. Then we, as the Congress, can decide whether we want to increase that amount or cut it, as we do every year. But this bill doesn't mandate any kind of cutting of that nature. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is the second budget bill that we've had today. There's been a lot of talk about what we need to do to help move the economy forward, to help put people back to work. Let's be clear: as was acknowledged earlier, these bills do none of that. This will not help create one job; this is not going to help grow the economy. We've got a lot of work that we should be doing, including taking up the President's jobs bill, which has been sitting in the House since last October. The economy remains very fragile. Those infrastructure investments and helping rebuild and repair our roads, our bridges, transit ways could be put to good use right now. With respect to this bill, the concern is that this creates actually a very misleading picture of what we can purchase in terms of goods and services with our dollars, and it gets more misleading over time. Why do I say that? Every American knows that when you're comparing the amount something costs between different periods of time, you have got to take into account inflation. You know what, $10 back 40 years ago bought a lot more than $10 today. What this bill does is it tries to kind of wish away inflation and, in that sense, it creates, as I say, a misleading sense of what we can expect in terms of goods and services purchased for taxpayer dollars going forward. I think every taxpayer would say that if we did not, we did not index their taxes for inflation, that would be a tax increase. That's why we index taxes. If we decided to pass a law saying no more indexation of taxes, it would be a hidden tax increase. Now, here I want to give a very clear example. In fiscal year 2013, we're going to spend $61 billion to help support our veterans, to help support our veterans, provide for veterans health care and other services. This is part of the discretionary budget. We also provide help in some of the mandatory budget. Now, this bill would have you believe that 10 years from now, that $61 billion is somehow going to provide you the same amount of goods and services to take care of our veterans. We know that's not true. We know that $61 billion 10 years from now is going to provide a lot less health care for people who served this country. And so let's not play make-believe, and that's what this bill does. What the Congressional Budget Office does right now is they make the assumptions that reasonable forecasters would make. As the author of the bill has said, there's no law right now that tells CBO how to do it. We leave it to the independent, nonpartisan body, the Congressional Budget Office, to figure out what's the best way, what makes the most sense for budgeting purposes. And they say, you know what; we should do what every American does when they're comparing dollars spent in the past or in the future. We need to normalize that. We need to index that to get a real sense of what taxpayer dollars will be able to purchase; otherwise, it creates a misleading impression. And so CBO, the independent group, said we need to take an account of inflation. What this bill does is says as a matter of law, ignore that. As a matter of law, we're not going to wish away inflation. We're going to pass a law that says for these purposes, don't take it into account. And as I say, it will create a very misleading picture of what it will take to support investments like veterans' health. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I hear what you're saying with veterans. Absolutely true, on a bipartisan basis, we understand we're going to make sure we support the veterans and we're going to make sure they get the cost-of-living increase. And the reality is, you mentioned the defense budget. That's 50 percent of the discretionary budget right there. Are we going to make sure that we provide increases to make sure that we can maintain the same national defense?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire if my colleague from Georgia is prepared to close.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we have had a good debate. There have been a couple of themes. One is that this bill in and of itself, I think everyone acknowledges, won't save the taxpayer one penny. It doesn't do that. In order to save the taxpayer money and reduce the deficit, we have to make the tough decisions that Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Ryan mentioned. There are obviously disagreements as to how we go about doing that. We've talked about the importance of trying to make sure that as we go forward we have a budget that reflects the values and the priorities of the American people, and one where we are covering our costs. That means paying our bills. A lot of us believe that in order to do that we've got to get rid of some of the tax breaks for the folks at the very top, that we need to close a lot of the special interest loopholes. That is a very important debate. The question here is just how we put together an accurate reflection for the American people about our best guess of what I think should be a budget that shows what their taxpayer dollars will purchase in terms of goods and services. It is a question of measurement. How do you measure what you're going to be able to buy for the American people or buy for our veterans 10 years from now? When you put $61 billion in the budget today, which is what we pay for veterans' health issues and for other veterans' programs in the discretionary budget--and as Mr. Hoyer says, let's pretend we're going to put $61 billion in for that program 10 years from now--that is a cut when you take into account inflation and what we know about the increases. In fact, Mr. Culberson, from the Appropriations Committee, was here on the floor, and he's absolutely right. He says you can be sure that the appropriators are going to build in inflation. We're going to make sure we take care of that. In fact, we're going to do a little more than that because medical inflation runs higher. If we're trying to give an accurate measure to the American people about what the budget is going to look like every 10 years, why would we put a number a member of the Appropriations Committee said is not going to be realistic and that we know, as we gather here, is not realistic? If we are going to be serious about budgeting, we need to have the best and most accurate sense of what taxpayer dollars are going to buy in terms of goods and services. What this does, as Mr. Hoyer says, is to play let's pretend. Let's pretend that, for the same nominal amount, you're going to be able to get as much in terms of veterans' health care 10 years from now as you are today. If we do that, the real question to ask up front is: What veterans' services and benefits are we going to cut? Now, the Appropriations Committee decides each year exactly how much to cut and how much to add. That's why, at the end of the day, this is all a question of the will of this body to make tough decisions; but let's make tough decisions off an accurate measure of what things will cost both now and in the future. In order to do that, we should maintain the existing practice, which shows us exactly what that is, and not create what I think will be a misleading sense that we can get more for our buck than we really can. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Look, I think everybody in this body understands that the more good information we get the better. That's why it's troubling that in this particular bill we're asking the question of CBO in a way that will only give us partial information. I already mentioned that we left out the impact, the economic impact from what we think should be included. We think the appropriations investments in transportation should be included in any economic analysis. Clearly, important investments we make in science and research and innovation and our infrastructure have an economic impact, but this doesn't ask for any of that information. There'll be some amendments that say we should. Hopefully our colleagues will vote for them. But what is very bizarre is the way this is structured so that it doesn't require a macroeconomic, dynamic analysis of the major change in law that we will make with respect to whether or not to extend all or some of the tax cuts, because the way it's written, it will assume those tax cuts are already in place. Now, we've already had an analysis that was done by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a macroeconomic dynamic analysis. It does say at the end of that period it would actually have a drag on the economy because it increases the deficit. So let's make sure that we get full information, and that's where I do want to end, by just pointing out that the most recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, in terms of the impact of the recovery bill, was in a document dated November of 2011, and there's a chart in there that shows a range. Obviously since the recovery bill is no longer in full effect in this current year, you don't continue to say the positive impacts. But Dr. Elmendorf has testified numerous times before the Budget Committee and indicated that had it not been for the passage of the recovery bill, had it not been for actions of the Federal Reserve, economic growth today would be much slower. That would mean more people out of work. We need to do better. We need to get things moving faster. That's why we should take up the President's jobs bill that has been sitting in this House since September. That's why I hope the conference committee on the payroll tax cut extension for 160 million people will get our job done quickly so that we can provide those opportunities to help the economy grow when it's in this very fragile state. So, Mr. Chairman, I just close by saying we all want information. Let's just not ask for information in a selective way designed to get a preconceived answer.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I would inquire of Mr. Price if he has any further speakers?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire about how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I refer the gentleman to the bill, the piece of the document I've referenced several times already. This kind of work is done. What you're asking for here is to, again, leave off part of the equation, for example, the recovery bill. The recovery bill was primarily an appropriations bill. Leave off part of the equation, but also when it comes to the revenue piece, skew the request. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I will not on my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's mistaken. I mean, we do get analyses now with respect to the economic impact. There's a provision in the House rules that I referenced earlier that asked for that, and in fact, Joint Tax has done exactly that. The figures I was reading with respect to the negative impact on growth in the out-years were from a dynamic analysis the Joint Tax Committee has done pursuant to House rules.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I'm glad the gentleman raised the question of the long term, and it begs the question about why this bill is written in a way such that we would not be requiring an economic analysis of the major change of law that we may be making with respect to tax policy, which would be to extend the 2001, 2003 tax cuts, all or some of them. Let's talk about the long term because, in fact, the Joint Committee on Taxation which, of course, is the entity that does the tax analysis for the Congressional Budget Office, has said that at the end of that 10-year period, extending those tax cuts actually slows down the economy--page 6 of the testimony of the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation before the House Committee on Ways and Means, September 21, 2011. What they point out is that at the end of the 10-year period, you're losing GDP growth. Again, why? Because if you have big tax cuts that are financed by borrowing, as the Republican rules of the House were changed to allow, Hey, we can provide tax cuts for folks at the very top, put it on the credit card, no more pay-as-you-go, that increases the deficit. You increase the deficit, as the economy begins to recover, that's when it really begins to crowd out private investment. So those tax cuts begin to slow down the economy in the end of the 10-year period, and they're not an efficient use--especially the tax breaks for the folks at the top 2 percent--it's not an efficient means to getting the economy moving again. We saw in the 1990s under President Clinton we had a higher top marginal tax rate: 20 million jobs were created, booming economic times. So I'm glad the previous gentlemen raised the issue of the long term. Again, we're all a little perplexed about why this bill is written in a way that the major change in law that we could make either this year or next year with respect to the full or partial extension of the tax cuts wouldn't even trigger this economic analysis. That is astounding. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman another minute.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, I go back to the fact that you're asking CBO to only give one side of the story, and I would just refer Mr. Price, my friend, colleague, to page 3 of the bill, lines 12 through 16, where you say, the Congressional Budget Office shall, to the extent practicable, prepare for each major bill or resolution reported by any committee of the House of Representatives or Senate, in parentheses, except the Committee on Appropriations of each House. I go back to the fact that every American knows that when we invest in our infrastructure, when the companies invest in their plants and equipment, when we invest in our roads and our bridges and our highways, that can have a positive economic impact. In fact, if this House of Representatives were to take up the President's jobs bill, which he asked us to pass in September, that would invest more in our infrastructure, that would help the economy. Of course, you wouldn't want to know, apparently, about the positive impact on the economy of the President's jobs bill because that involves investment through the transportation process. So, it does tilt the field in a significant way when it comes to decisions we make here with resources. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), my colleague on the Budget Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I just have to emphasize again, I already read from the portion of the bill that says we want economic analyses of major pieces of legislation except from the Committee on Appropriations. Again, transportation and infrastructure investments over the history of our country have provided important economic growth. The President asked this Congress to take up his infrastructure investment jobs bill last September. Congress hasn't taken it up, and now apparently we don't want to include in the study the positive economic impact that something like that would have. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Hastings. Before I say a word about the legislation which Members of Congress would have an opportunity to vote on if we defeat the previous question, I just want to say a word about the bills that are the subject of the rule here today.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I would be very happy to yield to Mr. Hoyer.