Date: 2013-03-20
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I actually had been prepared to come to the floor of this House and say this was a refreshing moment. that this was going to be a moment of bipartisanship. I commend the gentleman from South Carolina for finally offering a balanced plan to reduce our longterm deficit and a plan that will make sure our economy grows rather than offering a plan that results in over 750.000 fewer American jobs by the end of this year. and I hope that the gentleman will demonstrate his sincerity in the support of his own bill by voting for it. We will be able to tell whether this is simply some kind of stunt or a genuine effort. Mr. Chairman. let me say. with respect to the comments about the Presidents budget. I think everyone in this country knows that this Congress was here until January 2 of this year. trying to work out a compromise to avoid going over the fiscal cliff. and until wed resolved that. the President had no idea how much revenue would be available for the budget. I think most families recognize that you need to know how much revenue is available as you put together a budget. number one. Number two. weve been lurching from one manufactured crisis to another. The sequester. You need to know how the sequester is going to turn out before you know how much money is going to be available for government agencies. Finally. when the President has to put together a budget. its not like the budgets Members of Congress put together in which you have one amount for all of defense or just one amount for the function for all of health care and all of education. The President actually has to allocate that money among different agencies. Thats part of the process. So the President will be submitting a budget now that we know what the revenue stream is. now that we have some idea as to where we are in terms of those other issues. Im glad the gentleman brought forward this alternative. because it is the Senate Democratic proposal for the most part. Just for the record. he has left some stuff out. but its close enough for negotiation and discussion purposes here. What this measure does is. number one. replaces the sequester. It replaces the sequester with a balanced approach to reducing our longterm deficit so that you avoid the job losses that will result from the sequester. Our referees. our umpiresthe nonpartisan Congressional Budget Officehas told us. if we allow that sequester to remain in place. you will have 750.000 fewer Americans working at the end of this year. We also know that youll have 2 million fewer jobs next year. So its a good thing that the gentleman brought to the floor a proposal to replace the sequester. After all. in comments last year. the Republican leader. Mr. CANTOR. called for a plan to replace the sequester. so we support that. The gentleman talks about the Senate proposal on taxes. What he doesnt tell you is what the Senate proposal does. Like the House Democratic proposal. it proposes to balance the budget through a combination of cuts but also cuts to tax expenditures. These are the special preferences and deductions in the Tax Code. We say. yes. we should eliminate some of those tax preferences for very highincome individuals. Our colleagues tell us there are about $4 trillion worth of those that mostly go to highincome individuals. We say. okay. lets close some of those tax breaks of about $1 trillion over 10 years to help reduce the deficit. Whats different between the Republican plan and this plan that our colleague has brought up is that they propose to provide tax cuts for very wealthy people. financed by increasing the tax burden on middleincome people. We put that question to the test in the Budget Committee just the other day. We said. if your plan doesnt propose to give folks at the top a big tax breakbecause you do in your budget drop it from 39 percent to 25 percent. So a millionaire sees more than a third cut in his rate right off the bat. So we said. well. if its not your intention to finance that by increasing middle class taxes. you should support this amendment. It was called the Protect the American Middle Class from Tax Increases. and it was very simple. It said. as part of tax reform. dont raise taxes on middleincome people to finance your tax breaks for folks at the very top. Every Republican voted "no." So. yes. this plan that the gentleman has brought forward today. apparently under sort of a mock bipartisanship. will reduce the deficit in a balanced way. It calls for shared responsibility. and it certainly does not give folks at the very top a tax break financed by middleincome taxpayers like the Republican proposal does. I reserve the balance of my time.