Press Conference with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Press Conference

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER STENY HOYER (D-MD); REP. GEORGE MILLER (D-CA); REP. JOHN SPRATT, JR. (D-SC): REP. JOSEPH CROWLEY (D-NY); REP. HEATH SHULER (D-NC); REP. BEN LUJAN (D-NM)

SUBJECT: THE BUDGET

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Q Good morning.

REP. HOYER: Good morning. I'll wait for my colleagues.

Q Happy April Fools' Day.

REP. HOYER: The same to you. (Laughter.) I want you to keep in mind that your stories will probably run tomorrow. (Laughs\laughter.) So try to play them straight.

Thank you very much for joining us here. I'm pleased to be joined by my colleagues Chairman John Spratt, the chairman of the Budget Committee, who will be speaking; George Miller, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee; Joe Crowley, a member of the Ways and Means Committee and a leader of the New Dems; my good friend Heath Shuler from North Carolina, a leader of the Blue Dogs; and we think that Ben Lujan, one of our newest members, will be here as well.

Today Democrats will bring to the floor a budget that makes essential investments in our economic recovery and our fiscal health. I'd like to thank Chairman Spratt for the hard work not only that he has done but also that his committee has done. I'd also like to thank Chairman Miller and Representatives Crowley, Lujan and Shuler. There are few people in Washington who are tighter with the federal purse strings, of course, than my friend Heath Shuler, who is very focused on this issue, and he'll be speaking to that in just a minute.

I also want to thank, frankly, our Republican friends who have issued their budgets today. Now, they couldn't come together, apparently, on a budget. Mr. Ryan is issuing a budget, and apparently there's another budget that's being issued. So they apparently are divided on this issue.

We will have multiple budgets, as we normally do, as well. But we're not divided. You're going to see a unity of purpose, unity of commitment on the Democratic side. I don't mean unanimous, but great unity.

I want to thank my colleagues. This document is one of the most important documents that we adopt during a year.

It sets forth our priorities. It sets our -- forth our focus. It sets forth our commitment to that which we promised the American public when the president ran for office and when each and every one of us ran for office. And we promised that we would address the challenges confronting our nation.

The nation -- nation's voters turned to us and elected us to office. They did so at a time when the inheritance that this administration got was the deepest deficit in our country's history; a record unemployment growth over the previous year -- 4 million jobs were being lost; a crisis that had to be confronted immediately.

Very frankly, during the first 50 days of this administration, this administration stepped up to confront those challenges. We, the Congress, passed historic legislation to try to bring this economy back, stop this economy from hemorrhaging jobs, stopping record foreclosures and trying to stabilize not only our economy but the international economy as well, on which we have an interrelationship.

So all -- in all of those things, the president has displayed bold leadership. And we believe that leadership will be effective and the programs adopted will be effective.

Now we turn, however, to consideration of a budget, which is a plan for going forward. That budget not only seeks to invest in the priorities that our president has articulated and that we talked about in the election -- energy independence, health care for all Americans, education that will allow our people to be competitive with any in the world, maintain our domestic investments in the health of our people, the education of our children, our infrastructure. All of that, we believe, is designed as a package to create the jobs that we need and maintain the stimulus effects that were previously adopted.

John Spratt has led a committee which has come up with a budget which speaks to a broad spectrum of concerns within our caucus.

And that is why I think you see here behind me a broad spectrum of our party. And you will hear from them why they are supporting the Spratt budget that will be presented and voted on, probably tomorrow. There will be discussion about it today.

So without further explanation on my part, I want to yield to John Spratt, the chairman of the committee, to go through why this budget speaks to the priorities of our country and why he believes, and we believe with him, that this is a budget that ought to be supported not only by the members of Congress, but by the country as well.

Chairman John Spratt.

REP. SPRATT: Thank you, Steny.

This party that we belong to proudly is a big tent, is a diverse political party, and nothing reminds you of that more -- more intensely than working a resolution like this through all the different groups in the Democratic Party.

So it's all the more remarkable when you do that and come forth with a document which in committee received a unanimous vote. Every member, every Democratic member, voted for this resolution. Not only that, through 30 to 40 amendments that lasted over a day's -- full day's time, our membership stuck together with the intent of keeping the integrity of our resolution intact on vote after vote after vote -- and many of these were "Gotcha" votes, to boot. So that tells you something about the support for this resolution as we go to the floor today. It has strong support, and we expect a similar result on the House floor.

Here's what we're telling our members. If you want to vote for bold initiatives, believing that we shouldn't let the education of our children wait, it has to be done now, not put off for the future -- if you want to vote for bold initiatives like that, like health insurance for the millions who don't have it, our resolution lays the framework for it. We make it happen. And we do it in a way that the funding does not add to the deficit: deficit-neutral reserve funds.

If you want to show also where savings will be achieved, if you want to be able to go back home to your rotary clubs and the folks on the streets and your town meetings and say, "This is what I voted for, and these are the cuts, the savings it'll put in place," we're going to take student loans and convert them into direct loans, saving $53 billion over a period of five years. We're going to put money in the IRS and HHS and other government agencies and say we want to see stricter enforcement, because we believe program integrity initiatives like that can save as much as $50 billion.

Combing through the budget, we find other significant savings: Medicare Part C. We believe if it is bid and bid properly, CBO tells us that as much as $176 billion can be saved, over a period of 10 years. So there's savings in here.

We also say to our members, if you want to vote for deficit reduction, our resolution reduces the $1.8-trillion deficit, 1.3 trillion of which is left over from the Bush administration, deriving completely from the tax and spending policies of his administration. I'll bet you, we'll cut that deficit between now and 2014 to $586 billion.

Now, that's not a deficit that is satisfactory in and of itself. But it's quite an accomplishment. I wouldn't make that claim if I didn't think we could do it.

Indeed if you want to be sure your voting for deficit reduction will be carried out, accomplished, affected, our party is the party that balanced the budget in 1998, paid of $400 billion of debt and presented President Bush with a gift that no president in recent times has enjoyed, a surplus of $5.6 trillion. We wiped out the deficit. They wiped out the surplus.

We wiped out the deficit. They sent us, when the president left, a bill for $5 trillion in additional debt, statutory debt of the United States, and a debt today which we're struggling with of 1.8 trillion. But we are in earnest when we say we're going to take that 1.8 trillion and reduce it, to 5 to $600 billion, within the next four to five years.

If you want to vote for some tax relief, we've said all along, we're for middle-income tax relief. We've shown it in various ways. But this resolution shows that we have a net tax reduction in our proposal and the resolutions.

So we've got a good resolution, compared to the resolution that we just heard Mr. Ryan propose, which we're now trying to digest and finding awfully difficult to get down. Because it calls for some substantial cuts that are so, so enormous that they strain credulity.

One-point-four trillion dollars in reconciliation.

That can only come from one or two places. One is Medicare.

Two-point-six trillion dollars in Function 920. That's allowances. Those are undistributed cuts -- $2.6 trillion.

Freeze discretionary for 10 years. Lots of things get crunched in that, like education and infrastructure, which are essential to our economy.

Repeal the recovery act in midstream, before it's had a chance to do its work.

Cut the Ed Committee by $22 billion.

Going down the list, it gets to the point where even the Republicans, for the most part, will find it hard to vote for something like this. I find it very improbable that this can be put together in anything that would really have enough appeal to carry ever in the House or elsewhere on the Hill, in either party. But that's what they will be leading with today. And what we will be leading with is a positive, constructive piece of work that's good fiscal policy, good social policy as well, and we think we'll prevail accordingly.

REP. HOYER: Now George Miller, who is not only chairman of the Education and Labor Committee but also chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee.

REP. MILLER: Thank you, Leader Hoyer. And I'm honored to be here this morning, and congratulate Congressman Spratt, Chairman Spratt, and the members of his committee for reporting the budget that they did to the floor for consideration. It follows through on the president's pledges and priorities that we will rebuild the American economy on the foundation of new health care policies, a renewed education policy and a futuristic energy policy. And that's what this budget does.

With respect to education, it's very exciting to see that this budget, combined with the economic stimulus package, gives us the opportunities for the first time to really deal with children from early childhood education all the way through college, and restructuring and reinforcing the resources that are available. The science is so clear that on early childhood development, that if we get there with quality programs and with child development resources, that those children will do better in their elementary and secondary education, and if we have the resources there and we have the right assessments and we have the proper teacher development and professional development, that we can change the outcomes of those students during that course of education.

And then, of course, it addresses the affordability of college. With the reconciliation instruction that's provided from the Budget Committee, we will try to make the loan programs that are available to our students more efficient, more effective, more affordable, and provide additional resources for them to continue their education beyond high school.

When the president spoke to the joint session, he said he wanted every student, every American to go at least one year beyond, to acquire additional skills -- academic skills, career skills, training of whatever nature, but that was important to our economy.

This budget, with respect to education, responds to what every business leader who has come to this Capitol has demanded from this Congress, and that is to improve the American education system, so that when we emerge out of this economic crisis, we will be stronger, we will be better-educated, and we will be more competitive in the globalized economy that confronts us from now throughout our entire future.

And that's the pledge that the president made. It's the -- it's a promise that was kept in the Budget Committee.

You can compare that to the -- I guess we have one or two Republican plans. I'm not sure either of them mention education, except they talk about cutting maybe $22 billion out of the student loan program. But in fact when you look at the numbers, it appears that they're either prepared to freeze education funding, repeal the stimulus part of the program, and maybe even provide for cuts within the education in the future years. That is not expressing faith in America, faith in America's students, or the talent pool in this country. We hear all of the time the need to improve this system and to have more people not only go to college but to graduate from college. This budget enables Americans to have a better opportunity at fulfilling that promise and that dream of their families than any budget we've had presented us to us before.

REP. HOYER: Thank you, Chairman Miller.

Now Joe Crowley, leader in the New Democrats, member of the Ways and Means Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, from the state of New York.

REP. CROWLEY: Thank you, Steny. Thank you, Leader Hoyer, for inviting me here today. We actually look more like a football team, I think -- (laughter) -- and we have our quarterback as well.

REP. : Well, one of us does! (Laughter.)

REP. CROWLEY: One of us -- one of us was a football player. (Chuckles.)

REP. : The rest of us need -- (off mike). (Laughter.)

REP. CROWLEY: (Chuckles.) Thank you, George, very much.

He's already spoken, obviously, so he can be a little late.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm from Woodside, Queens, New York. If you don't know where that is, it's in the heart of New York City. If you took a dart and threw it at a map of New York City and you hit a bull's-eye, more often than not, you'll take the dart out and you'll see Woodside, New York. It's a middle-class, working- class district.

My wife is from Billings, Montana. The one thing that connects both of our communities is we're both facing the rising cost of health care. My in-laws are working-class people, union people from Billings, Montana. My wife herself is a nurse.

And how often do I hear of the problems that she sees on a daily basis and the problems that our nation is facing as it pertains to health care and the rising costs -- my constituents and my family in Montana having to work two or three jobs to make ends meet; seeing their health care costs rise over the last decade two-fold, now at over $12,000; seeing the GDP of our country and that 17.6 percent of that is spent on health care. It is a problem that is growing exponentially out of control, and we need to get on top of it. And that's what this budget does and does it in an honest way.

This crisis is not only straining the budgets of families; it is also impeding our ability to conduct business in our country. And we see that -- no better example than what's happening right now in Detroit and in our auto industry itself. We're competitively at a disadvantage with nations that have subsidized, in one way or another, their health care system for their workers and their employers -- employees within their country.

But this budget focuses on prevention, up-to-date information technology, national research on the effectiveness of treatment, and it builds on the current system of private and public insurance coverage, emphasizing making health care affordable, improves safety and quality, makes coverage affordable to all and provides Americans with a choice of health plans and physicians, including the opportunity to keep their present health care plan.

And this budget -- and more importantly to the gentleman who's going to follow me -- this budget assumes that health care will be paid for and not added to our national deficit.

I think it is ironic in many respects that the Republican party offered their budget plan today on April 1st. I would make some joke about it, but I assume if I did, it would find itself somewhere on national television, so I'll try to avoid making some comment about that.

But the Republican plan for health care, including Medicare, is to give everyone a voucher, deregulate the insurance market and say, after that, you're on your own. We as Democrats don't believe that's the answer or the solution to the problem we're facing right now. We ideologically have an honest and fair difference of opinion here.

Now, the people have spoken. They've put us in charge. They'd like to see us move forward with the president's budget proposal, and that's what we're going to do this week.

REP. HOYER: Thank you, Joe Crowley.

Our budget is about doing what Americans expect us to do. Primarily two things: grow opportunity in America, and do so in a fiscally responsible way.

I said about Heath Shuler, who is a leader in the Blue Dogs, our fiscally focused -- most fiscally focused group in our Congress and in our caucus, that Heath Shuler has been a leader in that effort. It's important that not only do we talk about the investments in making our country grow jobs and be competitive, because we educate our people, but it is also -- and to include our people in health care coverage -- but it is also important that long-term we make sure that our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are not pushed deeper into debt.

Mr. Spratt talked about halving the budget deficit -- in fact, brings it down about two-thirds, from about 10.5 percent to 3.5 percent of our gross domestic product.

Heath Shuler is focused on doing that in a fiscally responsible way, so that at the end of our process, as we look down the road, we can say to our children not only did we invest, but we did so in a fiscally responsible way. Heath Shuler of North Carolina.

REP. SHULER: Thank you, Leader Hoyer.

As I walk in my office every morning, I have two paintings. One is a painting of Haywood County. That's where I reside with my family, my two small children and my wife. My children are 4 and 8; my little boy will be 8 in a couple of weeks. As I look at that painting as I walk in -- and it's a picture of the Smokies, Great Smokey Mountains -- and as I walk into my office, I see a painting of my home town, Swain County -- it's a constant reminder to me, as the first painting, where my family lives. It's our future generations, my children, my grandchildren. And as I walk into my office, I see that -- that foundation, where I was raised. Never forget where you come from.

So much of that that I was taught growing up was honesty, integrity. And with the lack of transparency and dishonesty in the budgets, both in the business world and government, have put us in the mess that we're in today. But we now have a budget.

It's an honest assessment of where we are. And if we have that honest assessment, we know how to get out of the mess that we're in. We can fix the problems that we're facing.

The budget's honest; it's accountable; it's transparent. Yeah, it's ugly, but it's an honest assessment.

To my Blue Dog leaders and my colleagues, I want to talk about three areas of which we felt we were -- played a significant role in a part of the budgetary process. This was only three. The first: It limits non-Defense discretionary spending, resulting in billions of fewer tax dollars being spent. We lowered that number.

Ensured that health-care reform is deficit-neutral. And let's talk about health care. How long is health care going to be -- continue to be -- kick the can down the road? This budget allows us to have a -- an open and honest discussion about the future of health care in America. And one of the most important things for us to get out of the problems that we've been faced -- and the lack of responsibility in the last eight years -- it makes sure that we'll have statutory PAYGO as we move forward.

So I thank Chairman Spratt, Leader Hoyer for their continued -- their hard work, their dedication and being able to work with a very diverse group within the Congress. And I thank you for your leadership, gentlemen. Thank you.

REP. HOYER: Thank you very much, Heath.

You know, all of us can relate to that story that Heath tells about his two children. I have three daughters; you've heard me talk about them on the floor. I have three grandchildren, and I -- yes, I have a great-grandchild. Heath is not going to get there for a very long time indeed, nor will Ben, but the fact of the matter is, that is part of our responsibility.

And the people who really have had the most contact with their constituencies are the members who have been just elected, who just came through tough elections, who went door-to-door, worked through the shopping centers in their districts, talked to the Rotary Clubs and found firsthand what their people were thinking about as they sought congressional office for the first time.

We have a representative, one of those people, and he is going to speak to his view of the budget from the perspective of a young man, perspective of a new member, and perspective of a member from the western part of our country, Ben Lujan.

Ben?

REP. LUJAN: Good morning to everyone. And thank you, Leader Hoyer, Chairman Spratt, for bringing us together today, but also for your courage and commitment to the people of our country.

Leader Hoyer is absolutely correct. As we travel across the district in New Mexico -- and I represent a Western state, a very rural state, where it takes many hours to get across that great state -- you get to hear from people directly. You talk to them, they invite you into their homes, and they share their stories with you -- the problems with health care, what they want to see for future education for their kids, aspiring a better tomorrow than the one that they have.

And, you know, there's been a lot of ideas that have been brought forward today, and that's what we need, is new ideas. That's what I was encouraged to do by everyone that I had a chance to visit with across New Mexico. And that's what's happening now.

You know, the challenges that we face after the last eight years, especially in the area of energy -- and that's where I'd like to spend some of my time today, Mr. Chairman and Leader Hoyer -- we're facing mounting job losses, concerns with climate change, and we must transition towards investing in dependable, clean energy, renewable energy, moving forward with energy efficiency, jobs that can be produced right here at home.

You may say, "Well, you represent a Western state; how can you come forward with assertions like this?" Well, I'll tell you, when you look back, if you look at the New Deal and how rural America benefited from the electrification of the United States and the investment that was made, and you look at some of the jobs that were created, with moving forward electricity generation after Hoover Dam, and what that means to the country today, that's what we're talking about with the level of commitment that this Congress has and that this budget has with being responsible while being bold and courageous and moving forward strong energy policies.

President Obama's committed to these goals, and we share his commitment. The budget outlines principles to increase America's energy independence and to create jobs in renewable energy industries all across the country that will change the way that we generate and deliver power.

The House Democratic budget embraces these goals, including short- and long-term goals and plans for achieving energy independence to ensure the security of our nation, job creation and building a clean-energy future.

The Democratic budget builds on a significant funding and tax incentive for the recovery act by increasing our critical investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency by some 18 percent for 2010.

That's incredible, when you think about the policies of the last eight years compared to the actions that we're going to be taking now, the idea of what we're going to be doing to -- creating the jobs all across the country. And you compare this in stark contrast with the goals that are being outlined today, as my friend Joe Crowley outlined.

You know, the House Democratic budget supports a clean-energy economy. Bold idea. New idea. Ideas that are going to be important to foster -- and change the way that we do things. We need to do this to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.

Such an honor to be part of this Congress, with the leadership of the members behind me, the leadership of the members that we work with every day.

You know, we were inspired in the opening day of the session that we needed to put aside our differences, from both the majority party and the minority party. And we need to think about that. When we make decisions as members of Congress, there's real people and real lives that are being impacted. And we were elected to make a difference in their lives.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman Spratt, Leader Hoyer, for your courage and for your leadership in helping us navigate and move forward, especially during these tough economic times that America's facing. We're going to get some things done this year, and it's a proud honor to be a part of it.

Thank you, sir.

REP. HOYER: Thank you. Thank you, Ben.

Questions?

Q Mr. Spratt, I have a --

REP. SPRATT: Yes, sir.

Q -- (certain ?) question. It's about something that you said earlier. There was a proviso under President Bush's plan, sir, to zero out the so-called death or estate tax to zero. It kicks back to up to 45-percent rates by -- rate by 2010. Why is that, especially at this time when families are struggling? And is that a good idea at this point, to have that sort of a --

REP. SPRATT: Well, thanks for the opportunity. Because what we've proposed is to take the estate tax and leave it in place for the parameters for 2009. That means that each decedent would have an exemption of $3.5 million. Husband and wife, therefore, could shelter $7 million at least -- more with some estate planning, irrevocable life insurance and things of that nature -- but at least $7 million of shelter.

The marginal rate applicable to estates has been brought down from a peak of 55 percent to 45 percent. And there's provision made also for a lifetime exclusion for gifts of $1 million. That's a very substantial package for moderately wealthy Americans. Indeed, this is a repeal of the estate tax for 99.5 percent of our population, because they otherwise, given their resources, will have adequate exemptions and exclusions to protect them from any estate-tax liability. We think it's a good deal.

On the other hand, if it -- the total repeal would have a substantial additional impact on revenues. And this is also a time when we need to -- we simply can't be profligate about tax cuts, and we think we've struck a good balance.

REP. HOYER: Let me make a comment on that, because although I have not seen the specifics -- I just -- I haven't seen it at all. I've talked to my staff briefly about it. But both the Ryan and the -- I'm not sure who's the sponsors of the other, the RSC -- the Republican Study Committee -- budget. Both incorporate the continuing focus on giving tax cuts to the very wealthiest Americans. Their tax policy led to deep debt, high deficits and an economy that went into the tank. Their failure to regulate the economy, on the thoughts that those who had the most would simply regulate themselves, obviously was an abysmal failure, and the American taxpayer is paying the bill. This is an effort to get us out of those policies and into the policies that during the 1990s created the most vibrant economy that almost all Americans have experienced in their lifetimes.

Q Leader Hoyer?

REP. HOYER: Yes?

Q You're coordinating health-care reform efforts, and you talk a lot about your efforts to reach out to Republicans (of like mind ?). But the Republican on the Senate side who -- (off mike) -- health care, Senator Enzi, has called the use of reconciliation a declaration of war. If Democrats use that tactic, are you essentially giving up on bipartisanship?

REP. HOYER: The budget provides that that would not be available till September. Specifically, for the (first ?), that's a fallback position. I hope Senator Enzi has read that bill and understands what our commitment is. We want to work together.

Chairman Miller, who is one of the leaders, and Chairman Rangel and Chairman Waxman who will be the leaders on our side, along with Chairman Dingell, Chairman Emeritus Dingell, on the health care -- I will be working with them simply to help them work together. They've already been working together.

But I think all of us believe that this is a fallback position, not an entering position. Our entering position is, we want to work with Senator Enzi. I know that Chairman Miller wants to work with his ranking member, and will. Chairman Waxman wants to work with his ranking member.

And Chairman Rangel wants to work with his ranking member.

But it takes two to tango. And if there is a positive response, then we'll move forward. In fact, Chairman Waxman, in our chairman's meeting this morning, indicated -- are you going to be there too?

Chairman Waxman indicated that he is going to be meeting on energy, not on health care but on energy, with the Republican Conference. He and Ed Markey so that, I think, that's a specific example of wanting to reach out and say, we want to work together.

Q But by fall back, is that like saying, don't worry, I won't shoot you, unless you make me?

REP. HOYER: We're not going to shoot anybody. What we're going to try to do is adopt a health care policy that includes every American in health care coverage. We think that's good for the country, good for the health of our citizens, good for our children and families. This is not about shooting anybody. This is about saying, we think this is a very important objective. And there are mechanisms to accomplish that.

And let me say, when you hear the Republicans talking about that, remind them, if you will, that in 2003 -- 1995, the Contract with America, reconciliation; 1996, welfare reform, reconciliation; 2000, marriage penalty tax cut, reconciliation; 2001, President Bush tax cut program, reconciliation; 2003, President Bush 2003 tax cut, reconciliation; 2005, legislation that reduced spending on Medicaid and raised premiums on upper-income Medicare beneficiaries, reconciliation.

Why do I go through that litany? This is the regular order. This is provided for in our rules. It's provided for in our rules, so that we can facilitate moving ahead on issues critical to the American public.

Q There's been a lot of talk, in the Senate, against reconciliation, including among your fellow Democrats.

Do you expect this to survive conference?

REP. HOYER: Well, I don't want to anticipate conference. But I noticed that a number of Democrats have indicated that reconciliation is certainly an appropriate item, to be in conference, that they will consider.

Again, as you know, there was substantial opposition stated with reference to reconciliation on the global warming/energy part. We chose not to do that. We chose not to do that because, as I say, Chairman Waxman and Chairman Markey are meeting with -- are hopeful to meet with the Republican conference in this coming month -- or this month. And why? Because they want to work together.

So this is simply the utilization, as the Republicans used on a regular basis -- that's why I mentioned so many of the years that they were in charge that they used reconciliation, because they thought it was a way to effect policies they thought were good for the American people. And we disagreed on many of those. But we think it's an appropriate process, and we're going to pursue it.

Now, for global warming, we have not included provision for reconciliation on that.

Q I'm wondering if --

REP. HOYER: She said the last question, but yours will be the last question.

Q Thank you very much. On a different subject --

REP. HOYER: Unless anybody else wants to make a comment on anything. (Laughter.)

REP. MILLER: I just wanted to say that --

REP. HOYER: George?

REP. MILLER: -- reconciliation was used for student loan reform on a very broad bipartisan basis. I think, in fact, one of the Republican budgets has reconciliation in it this year to cut $20 billion out of the student loan accounts. So reconciliation is one of the budget tools that's available to us, and it's been used by both parties. And in our case, it was used with great bipartisan support when we did student loan reform.

Q I was wondering if any of you have taken a look at the Republican budget -- (off mike) -- to have an opinion about their proposed budget -- (off mike)?

REP. HOYER: I have not. I don't know --

REP. SPRATT: I'd just have to say that their size and magnitude seems improbable to us. I think we probably should give them a fair shake by looking at them extensively. We don't have them -- we got a copy of this just momentarily before we came over here, so it's hard to say anything, except that it's an awfully -- what they're proposing far exceeds anything that's ever been accomplished before and will require deep, eviscerating cuts, maybe even voucherizing the Medicare program. We aren't sure about that, so I would caveat what I just said, because we've just made a superficial -- (off mike).

REP. HOYER: I agree with Chairman Spratt. We haven't -- I have not had, nor has my staff had, the opportunity to review the document that was just issued -- a couple of hours ago, I guess. However, we have reviewed the challenge that confronts us. And Mr. Spratt and Mr. Shuler in particular, and the Blue Dogs in particular, have looked at the challenge that confronts us.

And how do you get from where we are and the inheritance we have, from the Bush administration's fiscal policies, putting us deeply into debt, very high deficits and an economy that, as I said, was struggling, how do you get from here to there? And we looked at the options.

I can only conclude that if in fact, the Republicans are achieving the ends that they say they are achieving, they do so by employing draconian means, as it relates to the impact on people, in this country, and on our ability to grow this economy, create jobs, stop mortgage foreclosures, and get our people back to where they want to be and the quality of life that they want to lead.

So although I have not, nor has anybody here, I think, had the opportunity to review the specific proposals, we have reviewed the challenge that confronts us and the numbers. And it's hard to believe that you can get, to where they say they're going to get, without doing some things that I think the American people will reject, as policies, and which I think a lot of their members are going to find difficulty voting for.

Thank you very much.

END.

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