Date: 2012-03-28
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

And Im opposed for a simple reason. This document filed by Mr. MULVANEY is not the Presidents budget. And its being portrayed as a very misleadingit was a very misleading presentation of the Presidents budget. This is the Presidents budget. If you look at all the other budgets presented today. youll find numbers and youll find policy statements that describe the policies behind the budget. The thing Mr. MULVANEY filedno policy. In fact. he just said the Presidents policy raises gas taxes. I believe? Thats just a false statement. The other issue is why you have a number for revenue in the Presidents budget. You mentioned that there was a revenue number. The President never pretended otherwise. The Presidents budget takes a balanced approach to deficit reduction. It makes cuts. and it raises revenue. Lets talk about how he raises revenue. He raises revenue. in part. by getting rid of subsidies on the big oil companies. We think at a time of record profits. we dont need to have taxpayer subsidies for big oil companies. Our Republican colleagues. almost every one of them. have signed this pledge to Grover Norquist saying they wont get rid of one oil subsidy or one tax loophole for the purpose of deficit reduction. Well. the President thinks we need a balanced approach to deficit reduction. Now. you wouldnt know from reading Mr. MULVANEYs document. what he puts in place as the Presidents budget. that thats how the President raises revenue. You wouldnt know from Mr. MULVANEYs document that the President also asks the very top 2 percent of taxpayers to go back to paying the same top rate they were during the Clinton administration. a time when the economy was booming. because the President thinks we need to take a balanced approach. again. a combination of revenues and spending cuts. because the President believes. and I agree. that if you do it the way the Republicans do it. without asking the folks at the very top to share some responsibility. it means you deal with the budget at the expense of everybody else. at the expense of seniors. at the expense of middleincome Americans. and at the expense of important investments in our economy like investments in transportation. Their budget cuts transportation next year by 46 percent at a time when we have 17 percent unemployment in the construction industry. Their budget puts the brakes on the budding economic growth. So. Mr. Chairman. lets end this charade. The gentleman said he wanted to get beyond politics. This is politics at its absolute worst. presenting something as the Presidents budget without the policy detail. without the explanation to the American people about whats in the Presidents budget. As a result. he presents a very misleading version of what the President has asked us to do. In fact. the Democratic alternative that we will propose later adopts the general framework of the Presidents budget. We dont adopt every single proposal he makes in here. but we take the general framework. The difference is we have those policy statements. and we make it clear that we want to get rid of the subsidies for the big oil companies at a time theyre making record profits. We make it clear that we want millionaires. people making a million dollars a year. to go back to paying what they were during the Clinton administration. We make that clear in our alternative. So lets not play this political charade. Were going to have the Democratic alternative that. as I said. takes the framework of the Presidents proposal. Our Republican colleagues will have an opportunity to vote against that. But this is not the Presidents budget. and lets not pretend it is. I reserve the balance of my time.