Date: 2014-04-09
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me just pick up where Mr. HOYER left off and ask the question: Why would the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee call this Republican budget draconian? After all. the chairman of the Budget Committee has said today: Dont worry. Actually. were going to continue to grow the government just a little more slowly. But what that ignores is the fact that the portion of the budget that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee has jurisdiction over is that portion of the budget that we have used historically in this country to make investments that help our economy grow. They are investments in our kids education. from early education. to K12. to college education. That is the part of the budget that we have used to invest in research and development with discoveries at places like NASA that have had huge spinoff benefits for the rest of the country and the economy. investments that actually helped lead to the Internet. that have been hugely beneficial to our economy. That portion of the budget doesnt grow a little less slowly. They cut that portion of the budget. In fact. as a share of our economy. it is cut by 40 percent below the lowest level since the 1950s. since we have been keeping track. And so that is why we are saying that our global economic competitors are going to be cheering this Republican budget. We are talking about we would like to see a Make It In America agenda. This is a "make it everywhere except America" agenda. This actually provides tax cuts for U.S. corporations that move jobs overseas. and yet it cuts investments in jobs and economic development right here at home. That is why it is so misguided. That is why the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee says it is draconian. What is worse. it makes those cuts in our kids education. basic R&D. and makes the cut in the senior prescription drug benefit while protecting these tax breaks for the most powerful and the very wealthy. The chairman has referred a number of times to tax expenditures. In fact. he mentioned the other day that. on an annual basis. tax expenditures are over a trillion dollars. in fact. more per year than Social Security. Medicare. and Medicaid. Some of those tax expenditures have worthy policy goals. but a lot of them are there because very powerful special interests have gotten an exemption for themselves to the kind of Tax Code that everybody else has to pay for. What we have said is we should get rid of some of those tax breaks for the purpose of helping to reduce our deficit so we dont have to hit our kids education so hard. so we dont have to disinvest from basic R&D. so we dont have to make the kind of cuts that the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee calls draconian. But. no. Republicans dont want to do that. They say every time you close a tax loophole. you have got to use it to reduce the tax rate for wealthier Americans. We dont say. if you identify a spending program that no longer makes sense. you have to go spend it somewhere else. But when it comes to special interest tax expenditures. that is exactly the Republican position. You can only use it to bring down tax rates for multimillionaires. As a result. while the winners in this Republican budget are those folks at the very top. they sock it to everybody else. They sock it to seniors on Medicare. they sock it to our kids education. and they sock it to the fundamental economic power of this country when they disinvest in the things that have helped make us a global power. and that is the wrong decision for America. So I urge my colleagues to vote "no" on this Washington Republican budget. and I yield back the balance of my time.