Providing for Consideration of H. Con. Res. 34, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2012
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. House Resolution 223 provides for a structured rule for consideration of House Concurrent Resolution 34. This rule makes in order every complete substitute submitted to the Rules Committee. Continuing a bipartisan tradition, we are making in order four Democratic substitutes and one Republican substitute, providing 4 hours of general debate, with ample debate on each substitute. This will allow the House to work its will and adopt a budget blueprint for fiscal year 2012.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and the underlying bill. The underlying legislation is our budget for 2012. Our 2012 budget is our blueprint for a strong and secure future for the next generation.
Each of us is here today because those who came before us made amazing sacrifices for the next generation--us--keeping alive the American Dream. In the last century alone, our parents and grandparents have won two world wars, overcome the Great Depression, defeated communism, and created the most prosperous and vibrant society in the history of mankind.
Today it is our turn. It is our turn to take a bold and necessary step to ensure that we pass on to our children this great blessing called America, and even a stronger America than the one we received from our parents.
Paul Ryan calls his plan The Path to Prosperity. I call it leadership. It is what our country has been thirsting for. It confronts our problems head on, and it proposes reasonable and responsible solutions to get us back on track.
Our plan creates jobs, real jobs, 1 million new jobs in America in the first year alone. It stimulates our economy, increasing our GDP by $1.5 trillion in the next 10 years. It protects and strengthens Social Security and Medicare. Let me say that one more time because so many people are trying to demagogue the issue: Our plan strengthens and protects Social Security and Medicare for the next generation of Americans. And it also reduces job-killing government spending by $6.2 trillion in the next 10 years.
Yesterday, our President, he got on board. Two months ago, he gave us his 2012 budget, and now we have 2012 2.0, the second time around. But the plan hasn't changed much, sir. The plan is basically the same. So let's compare our plan in the next 10 years to President Obama's plan over the next 12 years.
President Obama would add $4 trillion to our debt, leaving us at the end of the next decade with $26 trillion of debt, according to the CBO. Even our Democratic colleagues in the House agree, and they have presented a plan that breaks from their own President, cutting an additional $1.2 trillion off the deficit. The Republican budget cuts $6.2 trillion, bringing spending to under 20 percent of our economy.
The Republican plan proposes specific and responsible solutions to strengthen Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. The President talks very vaguely about a plan to cut waste and streamline Medicare and Medicaid, proposing to create yet another unelected commission to solve all of our problems. We don't need more unelected bureaucrats in Washington, sir, enlarging the scope of government. That's not real leadership.
The President tries to tax our way out of debt, placing the burden on those earning more than $100,000. But the problem, sir, is a simple one. If we were to tax these individuals 100 percent of their income, we still cannot cover our deficits this year alone. As a matter of fact, to tax our way out of debt, we would need to increase taxes across the board on every man, on every woman, and on every business by 60 percent. You simply cannot tax your way out of this debt. Imagine the effects this would have on our economy.
The President's budget cuts $400 billion out of our military. In the time that he has led us into Libya, in the time that we have two conflicts going on, it cuts $400 billion away from the men and women who are fighting for freedom, dying for liberty.
I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the underlying resolution.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. I yield myself such time as I may consume, Mr. Speaker, and I just want to address a few points that Congresswoman Slaughter brought up.
I have scoured the budget looking for this notion of a voucher system for Medicare. I've scoured the budget and simply cannot find anything that is, in fact, a voucher system. I have seen things about premium support.
But let's just talk about Medicare for a quick second. $800 billion the President has suggested must come out of Medicare in order to pay for national health care. So we are going to take benefits from our senior citizens in an attempt to provide health care benefits for 19- and 20-year-olds. In fact, that $800 billion is one way to actually increase the cost to every senior citizen in our country. Increasing taxes by $2 trillion in the next 12 months is a wonderful way to make our economy stumble, and that's what the President has suggested.
Finally, you cannot increase taxes on the very job creators themselves and then ask them to continue to create jobs.
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Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, let's just clear up a simple point here. The only specified savings in this budget are from raising taxes and cutting the military. If we really wanted to have an opportunity to make Medicare last longer, we could simply repeal ObamaCare, repeal national health care, and put the $800 billion back into Medicare.
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Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Congressman, the fact is simple. We could tax those over $100,000 a year 100 percent and we still simply could not close the deficit for this year.
The fact of the matter is people talk about this government getting smaller, and the President's original budget spent $47 trillion in the next 10 years--an $8.7 trillion increase in spending. We're talking about a $2 trillion increase in spending in the next 12 months in taxes. We're not talking about reducing the size and scope of this government.
We must get ourselves on a completely different trajectory. We must bend the trajectory back towards the American people, back towards the private sector, and eliminate the disincentive for growth in our economy called taxation.
So to the extent that we can flatten the tax, spread the risk, we find ourselves in a more prosperous society with a stronger economy led by those folks in the private sector. Entrepreneurs have an opportunity to take those dollars and reinvest them in such a way to create more jobs. It is a simple formula.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney).
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Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, finally, the Democrats do get it. What they get is, if they do not find a way to scare our senior citizens, they have no chance. When you cover the expenses of running this government and when you think about the fact that what the Democrats have proposed and what President Obama has proposed in his original budget is an increase of $8.7 trillion of new spending and $47 trillion of new spending in the next 10 years, the Democrats have finally found a way to cover their tracks, and it is on the backs of our senior citizens.
There is no doubt that the 2012 budget plan that we have proposed has no impact, not only on our senior citizens who are receiving benefits today, but on those over the age of 55.
Not only are the Democrats willing to scare our seniors based on nothing, but they want to go to 2 years after Medicare is bankrupt and then start having a conversation about numbers when Medicare would not exist under their plan.
What we do under our plan is a simple thing. We strengthen and preserve Social Security and Medicare for the next generation. We understand that it is time to roll up our sleeves and to get serious about preserving the American Dream for the next generation. Our budget does that by cutting $6.2 trillion out of the deficit in the next 10 years and by creating more than 1 million jobs in the next 12 months--but we go further. We simply say that you do not create more disincentives or higher taxes in order to improve our economy.
Let us do exactly what the previous generation, the Greatest Generation, has done for us--pass on the American Dream in its entirety. We have a responsibility to the next generation in taking the tough road today in order to make the American Dream stronger tomorrow.
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