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

Mr. Chairman. we had a discussion yesterday and today about different approaches to the budget. and weve had a discussion about the Budget Committee budget. the Ryan budget. that was on the floor and will be voted on later. That budget. of course. is an uncompromising budget. If you look at this budget. its even worse. And on top of that. this budget has even more gimmicks than the earlier budget that we talked about. So what are those gimmicks? Well. first of all. this budget says it comes into balance in 4 years. Look. if you want a race to a fake balance. obviously you should vote for this one over the Republican caucus budget. But the reality is. it gets to that balance by keeping the savings from ObamaCare. which our Republican colleagues say they want to eliminate. that they want to repeal. You dont have to take my word for it. The Heritage Foundation did a quick action alert on this budget. Here is what they say: "Another failing of this RSC budget is that. like the committee budget"-in other words like the principal Republican budget-"it keeps revenues near the levels reached with ObamaCare tax hikes even though it repeals the health care bills spending provisions." So lets just be really clear what that means for the American people. They are repealing the spending provisions. That means they are getting rid of all the benefits in the Affordable Care Act. including the provision to make sure that your child can stay on your insurance policy until they are age 26 so a family is not bankrupted by an accident or some disease that their child gets. It means the provisions that make sure people cant get denied coverage because of preexisting conditions. that is gone. So they get rid of all that. but they keep the ObamaCare taxes. That is what the Heritage Foundation says. Guess what? They also keep the savings from the Affordable Care Act in the Medicare area that we achieve by ending the overpayments to some of the insurance companies and other changes in the incentive structure. We did it without hitting beneficiaries. They have railed against that in the past. but it is right here in their budget. And here is the catch: they say their budget gets a surplus in just 4 years. Well. the surplus is $22 billion. they claim. But here is how much of it comes from the Affordable Care Act. from ObamaCare. They have got a little under $100 billion in revenue that year coming in. and then they have got Medicare savings. So not close to balance in 4 years without those provisions. which. as the Heritage Foundation points out. are in there. And do you know what? Even at the 10year window. even at the end of the 10year window. they claim to have a $246 billion surplus. and yet they wouldnt get there without the savings from the Affordable Care Act. from ObamaCare. Thats a hoax. To come to the floor and say you will have a balanced budget in 4 years or 10 years. but guess what. you are going to repeal ObamaCare. your budget doesnt work when you do that. That just doesnt add up. Now. they have another big sort of gimmick in this one that is not in the other Republican budget that has to do with taxes. So the problem with the main Republican budget is that it will provide tax breaks to very wealthy people and help finance those tax breaks by bringing down those rates by raising the tax burden on middleincome people. As we discussed earlier. we actually put that question to the test in the Budget Committee. We offered an amendment that says: Well. when you do tax reform. dont make it a Trojan horse for raising middle class taxes to finance tax breaks for the wealthy. Protect the American middle class from tax increases. A simple amendment. Every Republican on the committee voted "no." So that is their problem with the main Republican budget. This one has another problem. It creates two tax systems and says: Taxpayer. you get to choose. And then it assumes that they are going to choose the one that is worst for them. Because if they choose the one that is better for the taxpayer. from the taxpayers perspective they dont have enough revenue in their budget to come to balance. Now. look. the American people are smart. If you give them two choices. obviously people are going to add them up. and they are going to pick the tax return where they pay less. And if the American people are as smart as I think they are. they will blow another hole in this RSC budget. So I am not even beginning to talk about the fact that they. once again. more than double the sequester cuts to places like NIH and places where we do scientific research. that they slash our investment in infrastructure. They do all that. They do even more of that than the other Republican budget. but it has the same fundamental gimmick with respect to ObamaCare. And then on top of that. it has this other tax gimmick in it. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.