Date: 2015-03-24
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I want to start by thanking the chairman of the committee. Chairman PRICE. for conducting the business of the Budget Committee in a professional manner. We have sharp differences but have expressed them in a civil fashion. I also want to agree with him with respect to the great job the Budget Committee staff has done. both Democrat and Republican. and agree with him on one more thingand it may be the last thing I agree with the gentleman on during this debate. Dr. Elmendorf. the current head of the Congressional Budget Office. has done a great job. and we are going to have a little bit more to say about that later. We all believe in America. Mr. Chair. but I do not believe this Republican budget reflects the values and priorities. It is the wrong direction for America. Now. as we gather here today. we are facing some good news. we are facing some bad news. and we are facing some really bad news. The good news is the economy is improving. More people are going back to work. In fact. the private sector has added 12 million new jobs over the last 60 months. It is not all rosy. Many Americans are still looking for work. but the unemployment rate has fallen to 5.5 percent. and trends are good. The bad news is that Americans are working harder than ever. but their paychecks are flat. This is not a new problem. Mr. Chairman. It is not even a problem in the last 2 years or just the last 5 years. It goes back quite a ways. In fact. as this chart indicates. we have seen a growing gap between worker productivity. which has been rising steadily. and the incomes and paychecks of most working Americans. If you look at this chart. it is very interesting. because it goes from 1948 to the 1970s. and you see these two lines are convergent. That means the additional worker productivitythe hard work of American workerswas translated into higher paychecks and compensation for them. But starting around the 1970s. you saw the great divergence. Worker productivity went up. People are working harder than ever. better than ever. but their paychecks and compensation have been pretty much flat. So. where is the value of that hard work going? If people are working harder than ever. why arent their paychecks keeping track? Well. that additional value of hard work is no longer going to regular working Americanspeople working for a paycheck. It has gone. overwhelmingly. to folks at the top. And I dont mean just the top 10. It has gone. overwhelmingly. to the top 1 percent of Americans. who have seen their incomes rise dramatically even as everybody else has pretty much been running in place and flat. So. our challenge to all those people working really hardharder than everis: How can we make sure that they benefit from that increased productivity? Mr. Chairman. we had some hope right after the November election. I remember opening up the newspaperThe Wall Street Journal. There was an oped piece by Speaker BOEHNER and Republican Senate Leader MITCH MCCONNELL. and here is what they said. They said that they were humbled by the opportunity to "help struggling middle class Americans" and to deal with "wage stagnation." That is what they said right after the election. But. Mr. Chairman. the very bad news today for the country is. if you look at this Republican budget. it turns out they were just kidding. This Republican budget is really hard on hardworking Americans and those who are looking hard to find a job. It says. Keep working harder. but you are going to get less. It will do nothing to increase paychecks and takehome pay for working families. In fact. it squeezes them even harder and tighter. It will increase the tax burden on millions of familiesthose in the middle class and those working hard to join the middle class. Amazingly. it just drops the higher education tax credits. It ends the boost in the child tax credit. Millions of Americans will lose access to Affordable Care tax credits. It is not just working families. Students who are working hard to try and get a job are going to find college even less affordable than today. This Republican budget cuts student loans. It increases the cost of student loans. It starts charging students interest while they are still in college. It cuts $90 billion from Pellmandatoryand more. It is not just students and working families. Seniors who have worked hard to secure a healthy retirement are going to see their costs go up immediately. Prescription drugs will cost more. Copayments for preventive health services go up right away. Nursing home care will get much more expensive as they cut $90 billion out of Medicaid. twothirds of which goes to help seniors and disabled individuals. Most of the rest goes to families with kids. And then they turn Medicare into a voucher program that will reduce Medicare benefits. So while this Republican budget squeezes hardworking families. increases the cost of college for students. squeezes seniorshigher costs for themit is great for those who are already in the top 1 percent. It is great for millionaires. In fact. this budget paves the way for the RomneyRyan plan to cut the tax rate for millionaires by a third. It paves the way. It green lights it. If you look at this budget. it is based on a failed and unproven economic theorytopdown. trickledown economicsthe same old theory. the theory that collided with the real world under President Bush in the 2000s. right? It cut the top tax rate. The theory was that benefits would trickle down and lift everybody up. Guess what? Incomes to the top 1 percent went up. Everybody else ran aground. Yachts went up. Everyone elses boat ran aground. That is what happened. Guess what else went up? Deficits went up. Mr. Chairman. but everybody else was running in place or fell behind. And here is the thing. While this Republican budget makes life harder right away for hardworking Americanslife will get harder immediatelyit also disinvests in our future. It slashes the part of the budget we use to invest in our kids educationfrom early education and Head Start to K12 and beyond. It is a sad day when we start chopping away at the ladder of opportunity in this country. It will also devastate the investments our country has historically made in scientific research and innovation. investments that have helped power our economy and keep us at the cutting edge of world technology. And guess what else? It provides no solution. no answer to the fact that in just a few months. in May. we are going to face a shortfall in the transportation trust fund that will result in a construction slowdown this summer. It does nothing about that in the budget. It says: Oh. were going to come up with something after todayin a couple months. So. Mr. Chair. when I say that this budget disinvests in America. it is not rhetoric. It is a mathematical reality. I want people to look at this chart. This is a chart of the share of our economy that we spend on the investment portion of our budgetthe investment in our kids education. the investment in scientific research like the medical research to help find treatments and cures to diseases like cancer or diabetes or other diseases that plague American families. Here is what the Republican budget does. It takes that investment budget and throws it off the cliff. to the point that it is 40 percent below the lowest level as a share of the economy since we have been keeping records in the late 1950s. Here is a country that invested in the GI Bill. We invested in our infrastructure and the National Highway System. We have invested in our kids education. This Republican budget disinvests in America. So it cuts all those things. I will tell you one thing it doesnt cut. It doesnt cut one single tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit. Not one penny. Not one penny to reduce the deficit. We hear that the highest priority is to reduce the deficit. but. yes. lets cut our investment in education. Yeah. lets cut our investment in innovation. Lets not fund the transportation trust fundbut we are not going to cut one single tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit. not for corporate jets. not for hedge fund owners. not one. Despite all that and despite the deep cuts it makes in our investment. the reality is this budget doesnt balance. It doesnt balance. not by a long shot. Mr. Chairman. This budget takes budget quackery to new heights. It claims to repeal the Affordable Care Act. but it uses the revenues and the savings from the Affordable Care Act to claim balance at the end of 10 years. Senator ENZI. the new Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. said that was kind of a budget accounting that he didnt think was right. The Heritage Foundation. they called that question as well in comments last time this came up. Here is the other thing. The budget doesnt account for the almost $1 trillion in tax extenders that our Republican colleagues brought to the floor last fall and are on the way to bringing to the floor now. $1 trillion. If you add that to the deficit. which is real money. it is even farther out of balance. Then they go and claim a deficit dividend based on phantom deficit reductions. Here is the number. This is in the 10th year. This is in the 10th year when they say their budget is really in balance by $33 billion. Well. it is not. If you take out the Affordable Care Act revenue. if you take out the Affordable Care Act savings. if you add in the tax extenders costs that our Republican colleagues keep bringing to the floor. you dont come close to balance. not close. Mr. Chairman. This balanced budget stuff. it just isnt true. It is just not true. It would make Enron accountants blush. I think. Mr. Chairman. most Americans would agree that this budgetcutting tax rates for the very wealthy. while increasing the tax burden on working families. raising the cost to seniors. raising the cost to students. cutting vital investmentswill simply stack the deck even more in favor of the very wealthy and the very powerful and make it harder on everyone else to get ahead. Mr. Chairman. we can do better. We can do much better. and Democrats will propose a budget that promotes a more rapidly growing economy. with more broadly shared prosperity. That will be the right direction for America. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.