Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
We're here at a very important time for our country. As a result of extraordinary actions that have been taken over the last 4 years, and thanks to the tenacity of the American people and small businesses, we have begun to climb out of a big economic hole.
If you look at this chart right here, you'll see where we were back in January 2009, the first month President Obama was sworn in and took office. At that time, the economy was in total free fall. As a result of actions that were taken, we've begun to climb out of that hole and now we've had 24 months--consecutive months--of positive private sector job growth, creating about 4 million jobs in the economy.
We need to keep that job growth going, and that's what the Democratic alternative does. It builds on the President's proposals.
In here, we have the President's jobs plan--a plan which has been sitting in front of this body since he introduced it back in September. We took some action on the payroll tax cut. That was good. But the President has also called for a major infrastructure investment to modernize our roads and our bridges. We fund that plan, as opposed to the Republican budget which, as we've heard, slashes transportation--in fact, next year by 46 percent in spending--and which independent analysts have said will cost the economy 1.3 million jobs in 2013 and 2.8 million jobs in 2014. That is not the direction we should be going.
We need to nurture the fragile economy. We need to deal with our budget deficits in a credible way, which this does. It takes us from deficits over 8 1/2 percent of GDP down to under 3 percent of GDP by 2015, and sustains them. And we do it in a balanced way by asking for shared responsibility.
I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I have great respect for the Speaker. I would just suggest that he may call it a tough choice to provide and lock in another round of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while cutting Medicaid by $800 billion, a full one-third, by the year 2022. Two-thirds of that money goes to seniors in nursing homes and disabled individuals. I don't know if it's a tough choice. It's certainly the wrong choice. And that's what this debate is all about. It's not about whether we reduce our deficits, but how.
With that, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Democratic Caucus, Mr. Larson.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I do think the focus should be on our children and on the future, and that's why our budget does not do some of the things the Republican budget does do, which is, for example, say that kids who have preexisting conditions, whether it's diabetes or asthma, get insurance. We make sure that those kids can't be excluded because of preexisting conditions. They don't. We make sure that the interest rates on student loans don't double this July, as their budget would allow, because we think it's important that those students have an opportunity to get the education to get ahead and succeed.
So I hope we will continue to focus on that question as we debate the choices that are being made in this budget.
I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Yarmuth.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm glad the gen tle lady brought up the issue of health care and how these budgets impact health care.
She described their proposal as giving seniors a choice. It's interesting that they would give seniors on Medicare a choice that they don't want themselves to have, that they give Members of Congress a much better deal in health care than they would give to seniors on Medicare.
Here's what their budget would do in ending the Medicare guarantee. This blue line shows the current level of support Medicare beneficiaries get from the Medicare program, up around 90 percent. That green line right there, that's the level of support Members of Congress get from the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan. You can see it's steady; as costs go up, the support goes up proportionally. The Republican plan, that red line, is the one for seniors. That takes support steadily down relative to rising health care costs so that seniors would have to eat those rising health care costs. They bear the risk. That is a bad plan for American seniors. It's a bad plan for America.
I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, who has focused a lot on these issues as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Neal.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thought we were back to reality today instead of in the land of make-believe. Mr. Mulvaney offered an amendment yesterday that was not the President's budget. We debated that last night. I don't know why we're continuing that charade.
I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Keating)
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I would just remind my colleagues that at the end of the 8 years of the Bush administration, after the tax cuts, which helped create the deficits, we ended up losing over 600,000 private sector jobs. That's the result of trickle-down economics.
The last thing we want to do is go back to those policies. The Republican budget takes us back to our policies. We invest in jobs.
With that, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Democratic leader, who's been focused on jobs, Ms. Pelosi.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Yes, I would. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, our Democratic alternative invests in the President's jobs proposal, a proposal that has been sitting here in the House of Representatives since September.
We reduced the deficit in a balanced and fair way. We make choices not to provide another tax break to the wealthiest but to say we need the combination of cuts and revenue, just like bipartisan commissions have done.
I urge adoption of the amendment.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I want to start by thanking all the members of the Budget Committee, Republicans and Democrats alike. We had a very good debate in the Budget Committee. We had a good debate here on the floor. And I want to thank all our colleagues. We obviously have deep differences, but I think everybody conducted this debate in a civil manner.
I also want to thank the chairman for the way he conducted the proceedings in the committee. And to all the staff, Republican and Democratic staff, I want to thank our team, headed by Tom Kahn. Many of them are here on the floor. As I think everybody knows, they've spent many, many, many late nights working on this budget. So I salute all of them as well as the folks over at the Congressional Budget Office.
We obviously think that this budget proposed by our Republican colleagues is the wrong choice for America.
I now yield 3 minutes to the distinguished Democratic whip, my friend, our colleague from the State of Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank our colleagues for a vigorous debate, and I would remind everybody that just a few years ago when the President was sworn in, our economy was in a total free fall. The bottom was falling out, we had negative 8 percent GDP, and over 800,000 jobs were being lost every month. And as a result of extraordinary actions that were taken, along with the tenacity of the American people, we have climbed out of that hole that we inherited. We have now had 24 months of consecutive private-sector job growth. Let's keep that growth going.
The budget that the President proposed, the budget that the Democrats proposed, did that. It expanded investments in jobs. The Republican budget will cut our investment in transportation next year by 46 percent when we have 17 percent unemployment in the construction industry.
Independent analysts have said that their budget will cost us 1 million jobs this year and cost us 2 million jobs next year. That's not what we need. The Congressional Budget Office has said that over one-third of our current deficit is because of underemployment. Why would we want to add to underemployment, as the Republican budget does?
Now, in the long term, we've got to get our deficits under control. The issue is not whether we need to do that, the issue is how. As the previous speaker said, the question is the choice. Our Republican colleagues overwhelmingly have signed this pledge saying they are not willing to close one tax loophole--not one penny--for the purpose of reducing the deficit. And when you say to folks making over $1 million a year, you don't have to share any more responsibility of reducing the deficit, when you say to big oil companies we're going to keep going with the taxpayer subsidies, do you know what? You've got to take out the budget on everybody else, at the expense of seniors, at the expense of middle-income taxpayers, and at the expense of important investments in our economy. And that's what their budget does. That's why it ends the Medicare guarantee.
They're proposing to give seniors a deal that's a lot worse than we have for Members of Congress--worse than the one for Members of Congress, seniors on Medicare. They cut Medicaid by $800 billion, more than one-third of the program, by 2022, putting seniors and disabled individuals at risk. They cut education investments and would allow interest rates on student loans to double this July. Those are not decisions that we make if we want a strong economy and a robust future for our children and grandchildren.
So this is all about choices, and we don't think that it's bold to provide tax breaks to millionaires while you're ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors. We don't think it's courageous to protect big taxpayer giveaways to companies that ship American jobs overseas while we're cutting investments in education, science, research, and infrastructure right here at home. We don't think it's fair to provide another round of tax
cuts to folks at the very top. The Tax Policy Center says it's going to be close to $400,000 on average for people making over $1 million. We don't think it's fair to do that, financing those tax cuts by increasing taxes on middle-income Americans.
I would challenge our colleagues: show us how you make up for $4.6 trillion in lost revenue from dropping that tax rate without socking it to middle-income taxpayers? So far, Republican colleagues have been absolutely incapable of showing us that they're not shifting the burden to middle-income taxpayers.
So, Mr. Chairman, it is all about choices. Unfortunately, we didn't pass the alternative Democratic budget. Let's not make the mistake of passing this Republican budget plan. We can do better. We can do what bipartisan groups have done, take a balanced approach, cut spending and also cut the loopholes for special interests. Let's do it in a way that the American people would say brings us together, rather than apart.
So I would urge rejection of this budget. It makes the wrong choice for America. I thank the chairman, and I thank my colleagues.
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