U.S. TROOP READINESS, VETERANS' HEALTH, AND IRAQ ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - April 25, 2007)
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Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, when the new majority came into power, they talked about being fiscally conservative. They talked about bringing fiscal responsibility back to the people's House. Well, that's not what we see here today, and that's not what we have seen for the last 4 months.
Last session, Mr. Speaker, we brought a bill that said if we are going to do emergency spending bills, let's clean these up. Let's not put pork barrel, unnecessary spending in emergency spending. We actually defined what an emergency is.
And then we set aside a reserve fund, $6.4 billion, to say we are setting this aside for emergency spending, and if we go over this amount, we have to scrutinize every dollar to make sure that it is truly an emergency.
What did the new majority do? To their credit, they carried these rules over into this session of Congress. Thankfully, they said, you know what? Let's not pork up emergency spending bills. Let's make sure that if it's really an emergency, it will get funded as an emergency. If it's not, it won't.
What happened the first time the pressure hit? They waived the rules. They waived the rules completely. And now the new budget resolution the majority is proposing gets rid of these proposals altogether. No more checks on emergency spending. All it takes is to waive the rules, stamp it as an emergency, and we can spend as much as we want. It's outside the budget caps. It gets added onto the deficit. And that's what is happening right here tonight.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, this bill right here violates the majority's own PAYGO rules by $5.8 billion. That's right. They are violating their own PAYGO that they put into place just a few months ago by $5.8 billion. They are adding $21 billion of nonemergency spending that were unrequested, that have nothing to do with the war on terror. And they have added $11 billion of congressional add-ons that have nothing to do with the war on terror, that were not requested.
The majority came out with their first spending bill, adding $6 billion on top of the deficit. Now they are adding $21 billion on top of the deficit with this unrequested, nonemergency spending. And in their budget resolution they are bringing to the floor, another $25 billion next year.
Fiscal responsibility is the last thing you could say to describe this bill. I urge rejection of this motion.
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