Date: 2003-05-14
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. The numbers are astounding. Americans. hardworking Americans spent $135 billion complying with the Tax Code. And yet the other side insists on raising taxes. And. again. let me bring up some facts because I want to make sure we bring up the facts. I have got three proposals that the other side had. I sit on the Committee on the Budget. and we discussed these at length in the Committee on the Budget. We also discussed them at length. some of them. on the floor. One of them. the CBC/Progressive Caucus tax substitute. that is the substitute to what we are doing which is a plan to incentivize the economy by allowing Americans to keep more of their money so they can spend it. invest it. creating more jobs. This plan raised taxes. increased taxes by $44 billion in 2004. by then $420 billion over 5 years and $875 billion over 10 years. And. by the way. it also cuts defense spending at the same time. So they raise taxes. but they cannot fund or did not want to fund defense. and we know how important that is. This was. of course. the Blue Dog budget proposal that was discussed here on the floor. And I was here for that debate which basically has no support to increase. to get the economy going. but it balanced the budget by raising taxes. What a concept. Think about it. The economy is not doing too well so you raise taxes to balance the budget. This proposal would have raised taxes by. $124 billion in 2006 to 2011. These are their proposals. Here they are. And then. of course. you had another one which raised taxes by $128 billion over 10 years and had much more in government spending as well. Let us just spend more. Let us spend more money. send more money to the bureaucracy in D.C. But then they will say when we say. no. we have to look at fraud and cut fraud. abuse and misspending of money. they say. oh. but you are cutting essential services. We have heard about the cuts in. for example. Medi-. care. I have heard that on the floor of this House many. many times. We heard it tonight. We will probably hear it later on tonight and the day after and the day after. In fact. when we look at the facts. what is In the bill. in Medicare. it is a 7.2 percent increase in Medicare. There is no cut. It is an increase. It is a rather substantial increase in Medicare. Then Medicaid cuts. T have had people talk to me about Medicaid cuts. I have gotten emalls. how come we are cutting Medicaid. we are so nasty and rude. how come we are cutting Medicaid. Let us look at those cuts of Medicaid in our budget. It is a 9 percent increase in Medicaid. There is not a cut there. It is a 9 percent increase. Washington is the only place in the world where a 9 percent increase is said to be a cut. Nine percent increase is a 9 percent increase. The facts are the facts. Here it is. Yet we have heard that before. I am sure. accused of cutting Medicaid. Then. of course. we are cutting education. That is why we have to raise taxes. because we are cutting education. If we do not raise taxes. we have to cut education. Oh. really? Except that it is a 6 percent increase in our budget in education spending. a 6 percent increase. Oh. one that I have heard time and time again. and this one is annoying because of trying to use veterans. saying that we are cutting veterans. funding for veterans. That is just not true. It is a 10.7 percent increase for 2003. It is a 10.7 percelt increase. That is not a cut. They do not exist. It is not there. It is not true. but again. some will say. do not let the facts confuse the rhetoric. Do not let the facts confuse the issue. The facts are that the plan that we passed. the plan that is very similar to the Presidents plan. provides for jobs. creates jobs. keeps more money. allows the American people to keep more of their money. It is not a gift from government. It allows the American people to keep more of their money. provides increases in spending for the essential services like Medicaid. Medicare. education. veterans services. It does so in a responsible fashion. and those are the facts. Again. I assume. though. that my colleague would probably tell me that that is nothing new. right. saying that a 10.7 percent increase is a cut. That is something that I guess the other side is used to saying quite a bit.