Date: 2014-04-08
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. We are looking forward to the debate on the budget over the next couple of days. Chairman RYAN mentioned that the critics of this budget call it draconian. I would just point out to the gentleman that the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee just referred to the budget that is before this House as draconian. Now. the chairman and I do agree on one thing. which is that these budgets that we bring before this Congress reflect our different visions of America. They reflect the choices that we make. They show what we care about. and they show what we care less about. They are fundamentally different blueprints for the future of this country. The President has presented a budget that will boost job growth. sharpen Americans competitive edge. and expand opportunity in the United States of America. Now. we have before us the congressional Republican budget. and of all of the Republican budgets that we have seen on the floor of this House since 2010. this one is the worst for America. Many will argue. Mr. Chairman. that we should not be taking this budget seriously because. after all. we have a shortterm bipartisan agreement and that the Senate would never pass this budget. but I urge the country to take it seriously because what it tells America is what our Republican colleagues would do to the country if they had the power to do it. If they could impose their will. this is the budget that they would impose. so we need to look hard at the consequences. What does it mean for America? What choices does the budget before us make for our country? At its core. it rigs the rules of the game for very wealthy and very powerful special interests at the expense of everybody else in the country and at the expense of other priorities in the country. For example. if you are a multimillionaire. under this budget. you will have your top tax rate cut by onethird. all the way from 39 percent. where it is today. down to 25 percent. That is an average tax break for millionaires of $200.000. That is great for people who are well off. What does this budget do to the rest of this country? It guts vital investments in our childrens future. it squeezes the middle class. and it violates important commitments to our seniors. Now. lets step back because the chairman mentioned the economic benefits of this budget. The reality is that our economic competitors around the world will eat our lunch if we pass this Republican budget. It provides for perverse tax incentives that ship American jobs overseas while shortchanging investments in jobs right here at home. As we will see over the next couple of days. it guts important investments that historically have helped power our economy. and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells us that. in the next couple of years. this is going to slow down economic growth. that it is going to slow down job growth. One estimate puts the job loss at 3 million jobs. At a time when we need to be modernizing our national infrastructurethe backbone of our economythis budget slashes the transportation budget by $52 billion in this year alone. stopping new projects. throwing construction workers off the job. It will condemn the United States to a potholed road of economic decline. and it refuses to include one thing that the Congressional Budget Office says will help boost our economy right now. which is to pass bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform. Mr. Chairman. as this budget provides these windfall tax breaks for the folks at the very top. lets see what it does to others in our country. We all depend on our kids getting a good education. It is good for families. It is good for the country. The saddest part about this budget is that it casts a dark shadow over the American Dream. and it violates the fundamental promise that every hardworking American should have a fair shot at success. At a time when we should be investing more in education in the United States. all told. if you look at early educationK12and college education. this budget cuts it by $370 billion below current services. That has devastating impacts on everything from Head Start to Early Head Start to K12 to college. Let me just mention one of the things it does to college student loans. It starts charging college students interest while they are still in college. before they have gotten out and gotten a job. That saves $40 billion in this budgetactually. a little more than thatin the same budget that provides huge tax breaks to the wealthiest in this country. So much for wanting to address the lack of upward mobility in America. rung by rung. this budget knocks out the steps of that ladder of opportunity. If you are to the manor born. you are going to be just fine under this budget. but for everybody else. tough luck and worse. Lets look at seniors as our next example. Those on Medicare will immediately pay more if they have high prescription drug costs. right? The chairman mentioned that the Democratic budget cut Medicare and turned it into something else. The reality is that the savings that were achieved in Medicare by ending some of the overpayments in the Democratic budget were recycled to strengthen key parts of Medicare. including to close what has been called the prescription drug doughnut hole. The Republican budget here reopens the prescription drug doughnut hole. If you are a senior with high prescription drug costs. it is $1.200 more per year. on average. as a result of this budget. Seniors who have been able to get preventative health services without having to put down copayments will no longer get those screenings. and now. they will be at risk of not getting the treatment and care when they need it. On top of all of that. it ends the Medicare guarantee by creating a voucher program. For seniors who decide to stay in the traditional Medicare program. they will see their premiums hiked by 50 percent when that goes into effect. They can stay. but they will have to pay big time to stay. That is not the Medicare guarantee. Middle class familiesI mentioned that this budget cuts the top tax rate for millionaires from 39 percent to 25 percent. That is a 30 percent tax cut. but it says it is going to do that in a deficitneutral manner. so it is simple math. Mr. Chairman. If you are going to do that. you are going to squeeze middle class taxpayers. In fact. this budget pretends that Chairman CAMP and the exercise he went through in the Ways and Means Committeethe factbased exercisenever happened because what Chairman CAMP found was that you couldnt bring that top rate down to 25 percent without squeezing middleincome taxpayers. That is why he had a top rate of 35 percent in his plan. and yet this says lets go to a 25 percent top rate. That means $2.000 more in taxes for a family with kids to finance the tax breaks for the folks at the very top. This budget reserves. perhaps. its cruelest blow for those who are seeking to climb out of poverty into the middle class. to have an opportunity to participate in the American Dream. In the last election. the Republican candidate. Mitt Romney. said he really didnt care about the 47 percent. This Republican budget sets out to prove that statement. If you look at this budget. it is an assault on Americans who are struggling to climb out of the middle class. We had a big debate in this Congress about food nutrition programs. The Republican plan called for $40 billion in cuts. It ended up being $8 billion. In this budget. it is $137 billion. Millions of more kids will go hungry as a result of cutting that safety net. and that is why faithbased groups that have looked at these Republican budgets over the last 3 years have said that they dont meet the tests of a society that cares for the least of these. I want to close by asking a question because our Republican colleagues say the goal has to be 10 years to hit this political target. It is interesting because the Republican budget 3 years ago didnt balance until around 2040. but now. we have this sort of political target that they have to hit. If it is so important to hit that. why do they ask everything of our kids and of our seniors and of struggling families and of nothing from very powerful special interests? This budget does not close one special interest tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit. not onenot a special interest tax break for hedge fund owners. not a special tax break for big oil companies. We have a race to hit their political timetable here. but we are not going to ask those special interest groups to pay one dime to help reduce the deficit. Here is the really strange thing: after all is said and done. this Republican budget does not balance in 10 years if. at the same time. the Republicans claim to be repealing the Affordable Care Act. It just doesnt add up. The math isnt there. What this Republican budget does is this: it gets rid of all of the benefits in the Affordable Care Act. It gets rid of the tax credits that help Americans purchase affordable care. It gets rid of the provision that says you can stay on your parents insurance policy until you are 26. It gets rid of the provisions that say you cannot be denied coverage because you have a preexisting condition. It gets rid of all of the benefits. Guess what it keeps? It keeps all of the tax revenue from the Affordable Care Act. You dont have to take my word for it. This is The Heritage Foundation. This isnt some liberal group. Here is what they say: Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of this budget is that it keeps the tax increases associated with ObamaCare. It is what they said about last years budget. This year is exactly the same. This budget also keeps all of the savings from Medicare. It doesnt recycle any of those savings to strengthen it as the Democratic budget does. but it keeps them. If you actually look at this chart. you will see that. in 2024. when the Republican budget claims to balance. without the revenues and the savings from Medicare. it doesnt come close to balancing. So our Republican colleagues have got to choose. Either you claim to have a balanced budget and you recognize that you support all of the revenues and savings in the Affordable Care Act or not. but you cant have it both ways. The sad thing is. after hitting everybody but the very wealthy in this budget. they still cant achieve what they claim is their goal. With that. I reserve the balance of my time.