Date: 2015-04-30
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. and I rise in strong opposition to this budget conference report. I do agree with the gentleman on one issue. which is that the staff of the Budget Committee on both sides. Republican and Democrat. have worked very hard. but. Mr. Speaker. I have to say that the product that is brought before us today is the wrong direction for America. We began with a House budget that was wrong for America. and we went to conference with a Senate budget that was wrong for America. It is not surprising. but it is still disappointing. that we come to the floor today with a budget that is wrong for America. Why do I say that? We are all entitled to our opinions. but we dont get to make up our own facts. The reality is. according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. the folks who are referees in this House. in this Congress. where people have competing opinions. they have said that this Republican budget will slow down the economy over the next couple of years. It is right here on page 3 of their report. Real GNP. real economic growth per person. would be lowered by as much as 0.6 percent under the specified paths than under the baseline 2016 to 2018 CBO budget estimates. Lets translate that. What that means is that. compared to what would happen in the economy without the Republican budgetif we didnt have thisthis will make things worse. This will slow down economic growth. This means less economic growth per person in the United States of America. That is not me saying it. that is the nonpartisan budget experts saying it. So it is going to slow down economic growth. although we have good news. some good news in the economy. right. I mean. we have seen month after month now of positive economic growth. We would like to see the economy grow faster. and we would like to see it grow stronger. but we have seen over 61 consecutive months of positive economic growth. Why in the world would we want a budget that over the next couple of years slows down that economic growth. according to the Congressional Budget Office? But it gets worse than that because one of the chronic problems we have seen in our economy. Mr. Speaker. over the last many yearsnot just 2 or 3 or 4. but over decadesis this phenomenon where Americans are working harder than ever and they are more productive than ever. but their paychecks are flat. Their takehome pay is flat. You have rising worker productivity on the one hand. people are working harder than ever. but it is not translating into higher wages and benefits. Back about 30 or 40 years agowe had a chart with rising worker productivityguess what else was rising with it? It was worker wages. But. over the last 30 years. we have seen people working harder than ever. and productivity has gone up. but wages for most Americans have been pretty flat in real terms. The gain of that increased worker productivity has flowed dramatically and overwhelmingly to folks at the very top end of the economic ladder. and God bless them. But why would we want to bring a budget to the floor of the House that squeezes even tighter and harder the people who are working hard every day and not seeing their paychecks go up? How does their budget make life harder for most Americans? First of all. Mr. Speaker. it increases taxes on working families. They get rid of the bump up in the Child Tax Credit. They get rid of the strengthening of the Earned Income Tax Credit. They eliminate entirely the college deduction that helps families afford college in this era of high tuition rates. they get rid of that. They eliminate the Affordable Care Act tax credits. meaning millions of Americans will no longer be able to access affordable care. Students. they actually start charging students higher interest rates on their loans. Right now. a student in college doesnt have to pay interest on their loan while they are in college. Our Republican colleagues apparently think that $1 trillion of student debt is not enough. They want to charge them more. It is a fact under this budget. Seniors. they want to reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole. It is not a secret. They have said they will do this. As a result. seniors with high prescription drug costs on Medicare will be paying lots more. and they will be paying higher copays for preventative health care under this Republican budget. Mr. Speaker. working families. students. and seniors are all squeezed even tighter. I will tell you who is not squeezed at all under this budget. the folks at the very top. This budget greenlights the RomneyRyan tax plan. What does that plan propose? Lets cut the top tax rate for millionaires by onethirdby onethird. Lets take it down from 39 percent to the 28. 25 percent range. That is who gets a big break in their tax rates. While they are cutting tax rates for folks at the very top. what else are they cutting? They are cutting our investment in our kids education. They are cutting our investment in science and research at places like NIH. They are cutting our investment in modernizing our infrastructure which has helped power our economy. Why? It is because they are cutting the portion of the budget we use to make those investments by 40 percent below the lowest level as a share of the economy since we have been keeping records in the 1950s. That is a disinvestment in America. so they are cutting those investments. I will tell you what they dont cut. Mr. Speaker. They dont cut one special interest tax break to help reduce the deficit. not one penny. Apparently. that corporate jet tax deduction? Oh. they really need it. Apparently. that special tax rate for hedge fund managers? They really need it because they dont want to eliminate any of those in order to reduce the deficit. They do apparently want to increase taxes on working families and cut our investment in education. Here is the sad part about it. Mr. Speaker. After all that. it still doesnt balance. not by a long shot. Here is the chart. Im sorry we have to go through this math so many times. but I will tell you that the current chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Senator ENZI. before he became chairman. talked about this budget accounting scam that is at the heart of the Republican budget and at the heart of the claim that they have a balanced budget because. you see. they claim that. at the end of the 10year window. they are $33 billion in balance. but they also say they are eliminating the Affordable Care Act. Guess what. the budget relies on the same level of revenue as the Affordable Care Act. If you get rid of the Affordable Care Act in those revenues. you are not close to balance. I will tell you what else it doesnt take into account. the tax provisions. You may recall. Mr. Speaker. that we had on this floor. just about 10 days ago. a Republican proposal to eliminate the estate tax for estates over $10 million. That was the overwhelming economic priority of our Republican colleagues. to get rid of the estate tax for estates over $10 million. about 5.500 people in this country per year. You can put more people on a big cruise ship. That added about $260 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Guess what. it wasnt accounted for in the Republican budget. If you did account for that in the other tax cut measures for special interests that are being brought to the floor. it is even further out of balance. so this is just Alice in Wonderland accounting. Mr. Speaker. we really should be going back to the drawing board. We havent even talked about the whole sort of shell game being played with the OCO account. which is already having an impact on appropriations bills here in the House because our Republican colleagues are doing this year the exact opposite of what they said we should do just last year. Read the Republicans own budget conference committee report. Mr. Speaker. let me just close with respect to veterans because the reality is that the first bill coming to the floor based on this budget conference report for veterans and military construction. the Veterans of Foreign Wars says it is bad for veterans. It has a lower amount for our veterans than in the Presidents proposal. We believe we should be true to the values and priorities of this country. and we dont think that means giving folks at the very top. millionaires. another cut in their tax rate while disinvesting in the rest of America. Mr. Speaker. I must strongly oppose this Republican conference committee report because it really does take America down the wrong path. and I reserve the balance of my time.