The Budget

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, any American that may be watching tonight is probably bewildered by all of the discussion of budgets and continuing resolutions and perhaps debt ceilings, as well as the appropriations process. In order to understand where we are currently, it is important to look back at where we were. And what I would like to do tonight is share a little bit of information about what the government spends, where the revenue comes from, and then how we got into this current situation we are in. Right now, we have a $1.6 trillion deficit. We have $14 trillion of debt. That means every man, woman, and child in America, if we were to pay it off right now, owes $45,000. And the trajectory of spending is simply unsustainable. We are borrowing about 40 cents on every dollar that we spend. America cannot continue to do this. We all know that. We all know we are going to have to act with bold resolve to get the fiscal house in order.

But let's look at this chart, Mr. Speaker, for a moment. It shows the President's 2011 budget proposal. There was no budget in 2011, and this is part of the confusion. There was no finishing of the appropriations process. Right now we are trying to finish the appropriations process, cleaning up the mess from last year by passing what is called a CR, continuing resolution, that will fund the government for the rest of the year. But a lot of the numbers are based off a somewhat mythical budget, and it's just easier to talk about, I think, the President's 2011 budget to get a snapshot currently of where we are in terms of the fiscal situation.

Here is what the government spends and the categories in which it spends. If you look at the blue side of that chart there, that is what we in Washington call discretionary spending. And defense is about 20 percent of the discretionary spending here in the United States. The other section of the blue slice of the pie there is what we call non-defense discretionary spending. That's about 14 percent of the overall budget. A lot of the negotiations about reducing the budget at this time have centered around that particular slice of the pie.

The other aspects of government that we fund, Social Security, this maroon slice right here, is about 20 percent of the budget. Medicare is about 13 percent, Medicaid about 8 percent, and then another mandatory spending category, these are programs that are on auto pilot, whatever the demand is, we spend, we write the check. And it has grown very rapidly since the year 2008 when it was 11 percent. It is now 17 percent of the budget. This includes unemployment, welfare, supplemental security income for the disabled, jobs programs, as well as some of the TARP money, the bailout money for banks and Wall Street. That's the lion's share of the budget here, 57 percent. It is called mandatory spending, discretionary, 36 percent spending, that's defense and non-defense discretionary, and then we add interest on the debt, that yellow section right there, and that's about 7 percent. So that's basically what the government spends right here. And that totaled about $3.8 trillion in last year's projected budget for this year.

Now, where did the revenues for the government come from?

It is important to remember this number, $2.567 trillion; $3.8 trillion expenditures; $2.567 trillion in revenues. In this blue area over here, this is the largest area where we obtain income for the government, and that is the individual income tax. That is about 44 percent of overall revenues to the government. About half of Americans are paying income tax. This orange area is what we call payroll taxes. That is about 36 percent. Anybody who is working is going to pay a payroll tax. Corporate income tax, this yellowish area here, is about 12 percent. And then the rest of the budget receipts come from estate and excise taxes, as well as customs and other receipts.

But the important number to remember is $2.567 trillion as opposed to $3.8 trillion in spending. This shows you the imbalance. Again, remember, this was last year's projections. We were projecting $1.267 trillion based upon this spending level and this amount of receipts. But in reality we have just found out that the new deficit estimate is actually about $1.6 trillion. It is skyrocketing. It is simply unsustainable.

Now, let's look at the next chart, which is the budget proposed for this year by the President; and it has spending a little less, down from about 3.8 to 3.7, revenues up slightly from about 2.5 to 2.6, and this is due to some spending reductions as well as tax increases, which gives you a different balance here. You have a deficit projection of $1.1 trillion based upon these numbers.

Remember, Mr. Speaker, I said this is somewhat bewildering given that we don't have a 2011 budget or finished appropriations bill for this year, and we are now beginning to consider a 2012 budget in the midst of potentially, as well, bumping up against a debt ceiling vote shortly.

Again, it is important to understand how we got here with such enormous deficits. If we look back in time, the last 20 years, look at spending. In 1990, it was $1.25 trillion. In 2000, it was $1.79 trillion. This year, $3.8 trillion. The size of the Federal Government has basically doubled in the last decade. If you look at deficits as well, in 1990 we were talking about $200 billion deficits. I was a much younger person then, but I remember how shocking that figure was back then and how there were demands that something be done. In the year 2000, because of extraordinary productivity gains in the late nineties, we had a $200 billion surplus to the Federal Government. But this year, a $1.6 trillion deficit. It is off the charts. Our debt in 1990 was about $3 trillion. In the year 2000 it was close to $6 trillion. Again, this year it will be $14 trillion, and it is set to continue to skyrocket in the coming years.

The debt per person, per capita, $13,000; $12,900. In 2000, it was $20,000. Now it has doubled to about $45,000.

Mr. Speaker, I used to be on the Lincoln City Council in Lincoln, Nebraska. One of the responsibilities we had every year with our $90 million budget was that it had to balance. There was never enough money to have the ideal number of police officers that we wanted or the exact number of firefighting apparatus that we would have preferred or the street or road or park maintenance that we would have liked, but you had to make a decision. You had to make a decision about what were appropriate tax rates and reasonable public services and balance those. And by law, we also had to set a little aside.

Yet Washington doesn't have to do that. It can get away with enormous deficit spending because we have a big credit card. And for a long time, it really didn't matter.

At a negotiating table up here, there are really three factors: spending, benefits, and debt. And guess which one loses every time, Mr. Speaker? Debt. Just pile on the debt, because the consequences can be hidden from the American people. But the numbers now have gotten to be so shocking and the reality is coming home that I believe, I know, most Nebraskans and most Americans want this Congress to act with bold resolve to tighten the belt, to ask for some shared sacrifice to get this fiscal house in order, because this level of spending is unsustainable.

A business can't do it. A family can't do it. A government should not be able to do it, because the consequences are really threefold; and they are no longer hidden. They are out in the open.

This amount of debt and deficits creates basically three problems: one, it pushes off the obligation for the way in which we are currently living and spending onto children and grandchildren in terms of future taxes on them. It is unjust.

The second problem is that it creates the potential for inflation. There is already an argument going on that the Federal Reserve policies are monetizing our debt, basically printing money; and now you are seeing commodity inflation with price hikes in gasoline and other commodities. The effects are very real.

The third problem is we are transferring ownership of America to foreign countries. China officially owns about a trillion dollars of this debt; but if you look at the numbers more closely, it could be as high as $2 trillion. That means a transfer of the assets of this country overseas. So this level of debt, I believe, and I think most Americans know, is actually undermining the ability of the economy to turn around and create jobs. Now it is not only creating economic volatility and economic problems; it creates national security problems as we transfer more and more of this debt overseas and sell the assets of the country to others.

So it is simply unsustainable, Mr. Speaker, and we have to act with bold resolve. We are staring at white water rapids. The choice is we can either build a boat, put on life jackets and try to navigate those rapids as best we can, or we will be swept away by them. We are going to have to go through them; it is just how we do it.

That is what all the debates are this week, and will be in the coming weeks as to how do we set up the right framework of responsible budgets, responsible

appropriations, so that we can reset our economic course, get our fiscal house in order, begin to give the economy some stability, create jobs and, in turn, revenues come into the Treasury. So that is the course before us.

Mr. Speaker, I did want to talk about another topic tonight as well, and it is very important that even in the midst of these budget negotiations that are going on, we not overlook the fact that the State Department recently released its annual report on human rights around the world. This report spanning 194 countries calls out those governments that routinely and brazenly violate their stated commitments to universal human rights.

I think it is important that we draw back the veil on cruelty that is often perpetuated by the world's most powerful against the world's most vulnerable and appropriately elevate the issue in our national dialogue, as well as our international diplomatic efforts. The report spans 194 countries; and to the extent it is available, the report details the prevailing human rights conditions over the past year.

First, let me start with some good news. Of the countries surveyed, Colombia, Guinea, and Indonesia stand out for notable human rights improvements, the first democratically elected President since independence in 1958, and consistent improvements across a range of indicators, respectively, in those countries.

Countries where human rights conditions very sadly prompt serious concerns over the past year include Cote d'Ivoire, the Ivory Coast, where vicious fighting in recent weeks pursuant to a contested election has claimed numerous lives; in addition, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where rape is used as a political weapon; Iran, which still supports the stoning of women; Russia, which routinely and often violently suppresses the freedom of the press; and China, which has a history of forced abortion and sterilization to its demographic detriment.

Other countries highlighted in particular this year: Nigeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, Cambodia, North Korea, Vietnam, Belarus, Ukraine, Bahrain, Iran, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, where rapid deterioration of civil rights and evidence of tightening dictatorial rule are particularly tragic.

The fundamental message that this report conveys to the world is that responsible governance rests upon two pillars. The first is a respect for human rights, and the second is a respect and responsibility for the rule of law. No society can flourish and prosper without these important transcendent principles as they are exercised in the form of religious liberty, freedom of speech, the right of assembly and peaceful protest, as well as fair and free commerce.

The human rights reports describe abuses that shock the conscience and tear at the elaborate fabric of the community of nations in which we live. These include the ill treatment of dissidents, appalling prison conditions, extrajudicial killings, and, as I mentioned, forced abortion and sterilization policies that treat human beings like animals, violating their most intimate and fundamental human dignity. The reports present detailed accounts of systemic corruption, security forces run amok, acting with state-sanctioned impunity, kangaroo courts that condemn innocents without recourse, making a mockery of the rule of law. These dark trends are very often deeply entrenched, creating enabling environments that fuel violence--and even genocide in some countries--toward vulnerable persons and ethnic groups.

The reports address the barbaric scourge of human trafficking for sexual and other forms of ruthless exploitation, such as forced labor. The reports speak truth to perpetrators of heinous crimes of violence against women and children, and they highlight the feckless enforcement of laws to protect civilians against torture and other forms of cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment. Taken together with related reports on human trafficking and freedom of religion, these particular reports on human rights provide keen insights into the state of our world in which we live today.

Mr. Speaker, even as we consider these sobering matters, let us also recognize with due humility that the struggle here in the United States for the right to life, the most basic of human rights, particularly for unborn persons as well as the terminally ill and elderly and those suffering from cognitive disabilities that render their deplorable marginalization as ``vegetables'' even in our most esteemed medical, political, and social circles, is a very deep problem that we must wrestle with here in our own country. Yet we have one basic advantage. This Nation has learned through bitter experience that self-determination and reasoned discourse are far more powerful engines of growth and prosperity than subjugation by the nature of a police state. Sadly, too many countries in the international community lag significantly in the development of this fundamental ideal, that of the notion of a people having a basic say, having a voice, in shaping the governments under which they live and the ability to shape their own futures according to transcendent and universal norms of justice.

Over the past year, as natural disasters summon us to compassion for people in Japan, New Zealand, Chile, China, Colombia, Haiti, Iceland, Indonesia, and Pakistan, as well as other nations ravaged by violent storms, including our own, we are witnessing another upheaval, a remarkable upheaval, in an important world region which calls for our focused attention. The Arab Spring movement has been driven by individuals joining their voices, motivated by a common thirst to realize their human potential and the desire to secure a decent operating space within civil society. This movement is emblematic of lessons learned throughout the centuries. History has shown us that rule by suppression in its various forms and degrees is very difficult to sustain over the long term, particularly now with the opportunity we have for the sharing of ideals and principles. State-sanctioned force and coercion against the innocent, in various manifestations, has tended to backfire against their enforcers and enablers sooner or later.

The human rights reports challenge today's leaders to shake off the archaic and destructive patterns of abuse that foster so much needless human misery, sapping the productivity and vitality of countless millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, Mr. Speaker, in our world today. However, as useful as these reports are, they do not tell the full story. As the difficult work of societal transformation begins for newly enfranchised citizens in the key countries of Egypt and Tunisia, for instance, many people throughout the world, in places like China and North Korea and Iran, continue to suffer silently with no one to tell their story, with no one to document their plight, far from the gaze of cameras that convey real-time images for all the world to see.

But these reports hold an important message for us as well. In this interdependent world of shared technology, shared communication, travel, and commerce, we have failed to recognize a shared vision of justice. The United States is constantly called upon by the nations of the world to stand up against the forces of brutality. We are constantly called upon to engage in all matters of complexity that are causing human misery, which are really due to three factors: the generosity of the American taxpayer; the philosophical ideals that govern us and which do not allow us to sit by idly when we see human misery and suffering; and the fact that we are an exceptional and unique superpower. Though other nations are growing in economic strength, given our philosophical ideals and our historic role as that exceptional superpower, it is a bit ironic that the world still turns to us, even though many other economies are growing very, very rapidly, when people cry out for justice.

So, Mr. Speaker, it is time to elevate at the table of dialogue and negotiation basic norms of human dignity and the governmental structures which nurture and protect that dignity. Let those norms sit alongside the negotiations over trade, commerce, and security, for this is ultimately more valuable than any economic gain, which is transient and passing. I believe it is time to focus on the permanent things, those which last, which will be the legacy we will leave to the future of our country and to the future of the world.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Source