Date: 2006-05-17
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. first and foremost. I want to thank the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Putting together a budget is not an easy task. It takes a lot of work. a lot of time. so I want to thank them for doing that and for proposing what I think is a piece of legislation that really dramatically shows the differences between the two sides. Compared to the committee budget. this substitute increases taxes by $96.6 billion in fiscal year 2007 alone. and it increases taxes also on the American people by $516.9 billion in the next 5 years. Now. I know that when you deal with numbers of this scope. it is hard for people. those of us here sometimes and people back home. to really kind of grasp what that is. put that in perspective. So I wanted to try to put what those numbers. those tax increases on the American people that this amendment proposes. what they really are like. The tax increase proposal for fiscal year 2007. again $96.6 billion. proposed by this amendment. and I have a board here that has a picture of the State of Florida. the State that I am honored to represent. and they just had a legislative session in the State of Florida. The tax increases in this amendment are larger than the entire budget of the entire State of Florida. Now. keep in mind what we are talking about. The State of Florida. the fourth most populous State in the entire country. which funds from their budget schools and housing projects and every road in the State and environmental protection. including Everglades restoration. and law enforcement and prosecutors and health care and the court system and the public defenders and the judges. et cetera. et cetera. et cetera. et cetera. So if you get the entire budget of the entire State of Florida. it is smaller than the tax increases that this amendment proposes just in 1 year. Just in 1 year. I think that kind of puts it in perspective. But that is not all. because if you look at the tax increases proposed for the 5year program that this amendment proposes. which is a tax increase on the hardworking American people of $516.9 billion. and I have another board. that tax increase is larger than 1 years expenditure of Argentina. the Bahamas. Belarus. Belgium. Colombia. Costa Rica. Croatia. the Czech Republic. Bulgaria. Egypt. Guatemala. Honduras. Jordan. Libya. Pakistan. Panama. Puerto Rico. Thailand. Uganda. Uzbekistan combined. So some people say we are spending too much money on foreign aid. No. The tax increases in this amendment over 5 years are larger than what these countries spend in 1 year for all their expenditures combined. I think that puts it in perspective. But we can go further. We can go further. Let us put the entire Western Hemisphere. this amendment is asking the taxpayers of the United States in 5 years to pay in new increased taxes more than the entire expenditures of the governments of the entire Western Hemisphere combined. Yes. Mr. Chairman. Brazil. Argentina. Panama. Belize. Jamaica. Dominican Republic. Peru. Colombia. Venezuela. Guatemala. Costa Rica. Haiti. Paraguay. and all the Caribbean. If you funded their expenditures for 1 year. it is still not as large as the tax increase that this amendment imposes on the American people for the next 5 years. But some people may say. Well. I do not know a lot about those countries. maybe they are just not that large. They are. But maybe they are not that large. So let me see. what is the biggest economic superpower that we hear about all the time? Let us pick China. Communist China. We know what a huge superpower it is. We know that it is an incredible monster of an economy. Let us look at what their expenditures are in 1 year. and let us compare it to the tax increases that this amendment proposes to impose on the American people in increased taxes over the next 5 years. The expenditures of China for 1 year. $424.3 billion. and yet this tax increase on the hardworking American people over 5 years is larger than that expenditure of China. But also throw on top of that the entire budget of the State of Florida. and you still have about $20 billion of wiggle room to play with. � It is important to realize that there is a huge difference between these two bills. Under the budget. the following tax relief under this proposed amendment would obviously expire: the $1.000 child tax credit that all families benefit from. the 10 percent bracket. which the entire middle class benefits from. the repeal of the estate tax. which ob-. viously would kill small businesses by that tax increase. And the worst part. though. is not only does it increase taxes to an incredible degree. it also then cuts expenditures. For example. there is no provision for supplemental funding for the combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq or even for natural disasters. so it increases dramatically taxes. but does not fund our war effort. At the same time. it cuts defense spending by $6.6 billion in budget authority and another $4.6 billion in outlays. Again. it asks to do that at a time when our men and women in uniform are in harms way. Again. I want to thank the sponsors because it is a dramatic difference. but for all those reasons I would obviously urge a "no" vote. Mr. Chairman. I reserve the balance of my time.