Volume 152, No. 61 covering the 2nd Session of the 109th Congress (2005 - 2006) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2680-H2687 on May 17, 2006.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO
CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 815 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 815
Resolved, That the requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII for a two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee on Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is waived with respect to any resolution reported on the legislative day of May 17, 2006: (1) providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 376) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2007 and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2008 through 2011; or (2) addressing budget enforcement or priorities.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McHugh). The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam) is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
(Mr. PUTNAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 815 is a same-day rule that waives clause 6(a) of rule XIII, which requires a two-thirds vote to consider a rule on the same day it is reported from the Rules Committee against certain resolutions reported from the Rules Committee. It applies the waiver to any resolution reported on the legislative day of May 17, 2006, providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 376, establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2007 and setting forth appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2008 through 2011.
Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that we pass this same-day rule. This resolution will prepare the ground so that the House may complete its business and pass a budget resolution. We are working to moving this process along toward the goal of setting the spending priorities for the next fiscal year.
The House is prepared to begin consideration of several appropriations measures to fund our government's activities, but we must pass this budget first. We must set the priorities in funding levels before we proceed with the appropriations process. The budget is our congressional spending blueprint. We must complete its consideration to move on with the business of the House.
The Committee on Rules will meet later today to provide a rule for the consideration of H. Con. Res. 376, the budget for fiscal year 2007, and I am pleased that this same-day rule facilitates the timely deliberation of this important legislation.
I urge my colleagues to support the same-day rule so that we can move forward to a serious discussion about the budget legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Putnam), my very good friend, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this martial law rule and in opposition to the outrageous process that continues to plague this House. Apparently the Republican leadership has twisted enough arms and broken enough legs to try to ram through their mystery budget package. And I call it a mystery because, aside from a select few chosen by the leadership, no one has actually seen this budget.
We are not talking about naming a post office here, Mr. Speaker, or congratulating a sports team. What we are talking about is the budget priorities that will affect every single American on issues like health care, education, veterans care, environmental protection, national defense, and it goes on and on and on.
So what is in this thing that we are going to see sometime later today? If it is anything like the last version of the budget, which came up a few weeks ago that was pulled, it is probably full of misplaced priorities, broken promises, and empty rhetoric. If it is anything like the last version, it will bankrupt our children and our grandchildren at the expense of the very wealthy. If it is anything like the last version, it will be an assault on our veterans. And if it is anything like the last version, it slashes critical programs in the areas of education, job training, environmental protection and conservation funding, public health programs, medical research, and social services.
But, Mr. Speaker, we do not really know what is in this budget because the leadership of this House would prefer us not to know. They would prefer the American people not to know.
To make a bad situation even worse, we have before us a martial law rule that allows the leadership to once again ignore the rules of the House and the procedures and the traditions of this House. Martial law is no way to run a democracy. Mr. Speaker, no matter what your ideology, no matter what your party affiliation, no matter what you believe about what the budget priorities of this Nation should be, every single Member of this House should have the opportunity to review a bill of this magnitude before voting on it.
Mr. Speaker, we really are in the Land of Oz here with the leadership saying, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. We know somebody is back there, and we know they are putting together a budget, in my opinion probably a lousy budget, but we really do not want anyone to know the truth. We do not want anyone to know the facts.
Mr. Speaker, those across this country who are watching these proceedings on their television must be wondering how and why the House of Representatives, the greatest deliberative body in the world, could be bringing a budget to the House floor without allowing all Members, even supporters and those who probably will oppose this bill, the opportunity to be able to look at it, to be able to understand what the implications are. But the fact is this much talked about budget, this much talked about but rarely seen budget, will be working its way to the House floor sometime today. I hope the Members will have an opportunity to look at the budget. They are not going to be given enough time, but I hope they will be given some time to see what it is before we begin the debate.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I agree with my friend from Massachusetts about the magnitude of this budget process and its importance and how we establish priorities in this government, how we lay out a spending blueprint.
My friend from Massachusetts has referred to this as the greatest deliberative body in the world on a couple of occasions, and I would just offer a slight correction that perhaps the Senate is the greatest deliberative body in the world, and we are the greatest legislative body in the world. They talk about it, and we act. We move forward on the agendas that are important to Americans, and we do it in a bold and decisive way, while perhaps the more deliberative body talks things to death and produces nothing.
The budget of the Federal Government works a bit differently than it does for those Members who came from a State legislative background or from local government background. It is a two-step process. The budget lays down the markers, the fence lines, if you will, around the big numbers: X amount for Defense, X amount for Transportation, X amount for Health and Human Services. And the second step of the process then is the appropriations process, which consists of 11 separate bills moving to fill in the blanks: How many tanks and jeeps and bullets and bombs do you buy within the budget framework for defense? How many post offices do you construct or repair within the Postal Subcommittee? How many bridges and roads do you get within the Transportation? They put the meat on the bones.
The skeletal framework is this budget, this blueprint, this spending priority for the Federal Government. And the rule that we are here to debate, and I suspect that this will become a proxy debate on the budget itself, which is not what we are considering before the Speaker today; what we are considering is the procedure that allows us to move forward with the budget that is a hugely important blueprint for this Nation. It is important that we get going on it. We have now been considering it for several weeks. The committee mark has been available for over a month. The substitute amendments that undoubtedly will be presented to the Rules Committee as alternatives have been available for weeks.
So there is no mystery here. There is no secret. We are attempting to facilitate the work of the House.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Florida for his comments. And we should be the greatest deliberative body in the world. We should be the greatest legislative body in the world. But to be the greatest legislative body in the world, I think, requires some deliberation. And that is why so many of us have strong objections to this martial law rule.
We are faced with some very serious challenges in this country. The fiscal irresponsibility and misplaced priorities, I think, of the last several Congresses and by this administration have resulted in an incredible debt that I think is probably the biggest debt that this country has ever seen in our history. We are concerned about whether our veterans are going to be treated with the respect that they not only deserve, but they have earned. We are worried about whether or not these unfunded mandates that are contained in No Child Left Behind will get adequate funding. We are worried about health care, over 43 million Americans without health care in this country. We are worried about environmental protection and job creation and so many other things. We are worried about the high cost of energy and whether or not we are going to invest appropriately in alternative forms of energy.
But the gentleman is correct that what we are debating right now is not the budget, but the process under which that budget will be considered. And it just strikes me and a lot of other people on this side somewhat astounding that a bill of this magnitude would be brought to the floor under this proceeding.
The gentleman says that the budget has been available, that people know what is in the budget. Well, we know what was in the last budget that was brought before the House floor and that it was pulled when we did not have the votes. The question is what is new in the budget brought forward today? I assume that there are going to be some changes. If there are no changes, then I can understand the gentleman's point about this is not that big of a deal. But my understanding is that there are changes; that as we speak right now, there are back-room deals being negotiated and secret negotiations going on that most Members of this House, Republican and Democrat, have no clue about its content.
So this is a very, very serious matter. I do not think it is unreasonable to demand that every Member of this Chamber, Democrat and Republican alike, should be given the opportunity and the courtesy to be able to know what they are voting on, to know the implications of what they are voting on before this moves forward.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this martial law rule and also strong opposition to the budget resolution that we will be dealing with later this afternoon.
Mr. Speaker, the budget resolution that we will be debating is wrong and very bad public policy for at least three reasons: First, it is grossly unfair at a time when the middle class is shrinking, when the incomes of ordinary people are not keeping up with inflation, at a time when under President Bush 5 million more Americans have slipped into poverty, and at a time when the wealthiest people in this country have never had it so good, it is wrong, wrong, to continue to give tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in America. They do not need it.
Frankly, Mr. Lee Raymond, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, who received a $398 million retirement package, can survive. He will just about make it okay, trust me, without another Republican tax break.
Secondly, while the middle class is struggling, it is just plain wrong, as Mr. McGovern has just indicated, to cut back a desperately needed program. At a time when the cost of college education is soaring, when middle-class families are finding it harder and harder to afford a college education for their kids, how do we cut back on financial aid for college education at the same time as we give tax breaks for billionaires? That is wrong.
Everybody knows that the Veterans Administration is undergoing enormous financial stress. There are waiting lines for veterans in the State of Vermont, all over this country. 17,000 American soldiers have been wounded in Iraq.
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More and more are coming back with post-traumatic stress disorder. At a time when the VA is already underfunded, we cannot cut back on the needs of our veterans.
Thirdly, thirdly, we presently have a $8.3 trillion national debt, a heck of a legacy to be leaving to our kids and our grandchildren. This budget resolution will increase the national debt.
This is bad public policy. This martial law rule should be defeated and the budget resolution should be defeated.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Vermont for raising the points that he did. They are very timely in that almost as we speak, the White House signing ceremony will be occurring, where the President, along with the congressional leadership, will be celebrating the fact that we have prevented taxes from automatically increasing, something that the other side would have advocated by virtue of opposing the tax plan.
Now, let's talk a little bit about this tax issue.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. PUTNAM. I gladly yield to the gentleman from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, how does my friend feel about a tax bill, the one that the President is signing, which will give $43,000 in tax breaks to millionaires and a $10 a year tax cut to people making
$50,000 a year or less? Does my friend think that that is a fair proposal?
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time to answer the gentleman's question, I would answer the question with a question, which is how does the gentleman feel about the fact that 40 percent of American taxpayers end up with no tax liability, and the fact that the top half of all taxpayers in this country contribute almost 97 percent of all income tax revenues to the government? So you have to have a situation where the people who pay taxes are getting tax relief, because we have created such an upside down system where 40 percent of Americans have no tax liability. How is that sharing in the burdens of democracy? How is that contributing to the needs of the Federal Government?
Let me go into this a bit. Up to 40 percent of Federal tax filers cannot receive further tax relief because they have no tax liability. Millions of families in the bottom 20 percent have either zero tax liability or get money back from the government after April 15 through the Earned Income Tax Credit or the child tax credit. In 2003, as I said, the top half of taxpayers, the top 50 percent of taxpayers, contributed 96.5 percent of all Federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent, the bottom half, contributed less than 3.5 percent. This reflects the early effects of the Republican tax reforms under the Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act and the Jobs and Growth Tax Reconciliation Act.
The top 1 percent, the top 1 percent of tax filers paid 34 percent of all Federal personal income taxes in 2003, while the top 10 percent accounted for 66 percent of those taxes.
So this is not just about going after athletes and rock stars and Hall of Fame pitchers. It is small businesses who pay at the individual rate that are receiving the benefits of these tax reforms. It is married couples who have benefited from seeing the marriage tax penalty eliminated. It is families with children. It is an extension of the 10 percent bracket. It is the increase in the AMT, the alternative minimum tax, the Rostenkowski tax that was put in place under the Democratic leadership of the Congress, that now, like the insidious effects of the Federal Government, has found its way into the pockets of millions of middle-class Americans.
The tax bill the President is signing today prevents those taxes from going up on middle-class Americans, it prevents the AMT from taking effect on millions of people who don't know what AMT even stands for but are going to get stuck with a tax bill for it and it encourages investment in this strong economy.
Frankly, the results have been staggering, where revenues to the government have gone up 14 percent because of the fact that we have had in place capital gains rates, dividend tax rates, AMT relief, sales tax deductions, that allow people to continue to invest and take on new employees and take risks, which is the heart of a free enterprise economy.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his presentation, but when you talk about who is paying what in income tax, you are forgetting a very important part of the equation, and that is who is making what in income.
As the gentleman knows, or should know, in the United States today we have the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on Earth. The gentleman knows, or should know, that the wealthiest 1 percent in America own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. And the gentleman should know that the wealthiest 13,000 families earn more income than do the bottom 20 million families.
So when the gentleman said, my goodness, look at how much the wealthy are paying, those are the people, and in many cases, the only people who are seeing an increase in their income. The gentleman knows that family household income is stagnant, that working people are working longer hours for lower wages because the jobs that are being created by and large in this country are low wage jobs.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I am listening to my very good friend from Florida talk about the signing ceremony at the White House today where the President is supposedly celebrating his tax bill. I would argue that what they are celebrating is increased debt on the American people. I don't think that is anything to celebrate over.
I want to get back to process here for a minute, if I can. Democrats and Republicans differ on a whole range of issues, and we can argue that appropriately when the full budget comes before the House. But what is troublesome is the fact that we don't know what you are going to bring to the floor later today, and I have to believe that if the roles were reversed here and the Democrats were in control of the Congress and we were to rush a budget to the floor today without you having seen it, that you wouldn't be too happy either, that you would think that is not an appropriate way to do business.
This is May 17. We have been here 127 days this year, and we have only been in session 41 of those 127 days. To argue that we don't have the time or that we need to rush to get this budget passed or we don't have the time to deliberate, to even be able to read what is actually in the bill coming before us, I just think is hard to defend.
Also in this budget, unless it changes, but I am assuming it will be similar to the last budget, is that when we pass this plan, there will be an automatic passage of a $653 debt limit increase by the House. We would not have a separate debate or a separate vote on that.
When I go home and people want to know why aren't we doing more to control the spending, why aren't we doing more to control the debt, why don't you have a debate on the debt limit, my answer has to be, well, the issue of the debt limit is hidden in a budget. It is automatic. We don't even get a chance to vote up or down on something like that. That is an important issue, I would think, that even my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would agree with.
So putting the policy disagreements aside for one moment, the main objection to this martial law rule is the process, a process that doesn't even allow Members of both parties to have the opportunity to review what is in it. And deliberation is important, I would say to my friend from Florida. It is important that we debate issues seriously, that we debate important issues seriously, and not just the trivial ones. And this is important. Increasing the debt limit, the implications of this budget, this is important, and we should have that opportunity.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 8 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina
(Mr. Spratt).
(Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, it is fair to ask, why are we resorting to this extraordinary procedure, where we override all the rules of the House, on a matter of this magnitude including a rule that requires that a bill of this kind, a budget resolution, lay overnight for our examination before we bring it to the floor? The martial law rule mows down all exceptions, all of those procedural guards and guidelines, and makes something immediately subject to consideration by the House.
We have no idea what is going to be in that resolution when it comes, yet we are put to a vote here on a martial law resolution. It simply isn't good procedure, a good way to run the House.
I think that the reason we are playing this game of ``hide the ball'' is that the Republicans cannot muster the vote in their own ranks, still not yet, to pass their own resolution. Democrats aren't going to vote for it, because we haven't found it to be worthy of our support. But the reasons for their reluctance are they can't close the deal on their side either, plainly because it is a bad deal.
I want to show you just a few highlights, Mr. Speaker, of this particular bill to understand exactly why it is not a good piece of legislation and why we should adopt the Democratic substitute, a far superior approach to the problem at hand.
First of all, let's go back to what Mr. McGovern just said. When this Congress passed President Bush's first budget, we were assured by the Office of Management and Budget, that even with their tax cuts, $1.7 to
$1.8 trillion, even with their tax cuts, they would not be back to us to ask for an increase in the debt ceiling, the limit to which we can legally borrow, for at least another six or seven years. 2008 was the year they indicated.
But the next year, hat in hand, June of 2002, they came back and said, we erred a bit and we will need to increase the debt ceiling by
$450 billion. This Congress, with Republican support, voted for that debt ceiling increase.
The next year, May of 2003, they were back again, and this time they wanted a phenomenal sum of money, $984 billion, the biggest single increase ever in the debt ceiling of the United States. You would have thought that would have taken us for some period of time. But under the budgets of this administration, in order to accommodate those budgets, the debt ceiling had to be raised again in November of 2004, within 15 months after this huge increase of $984 billion, by another $800 billion.
Two months ago, just 2 months ago in March, this Congress raised the debt ceiling of the United States by $781 billion. That was 2 months ago, last March.
Now, in this resolution, when you vote for this, and I will show you an excerpt from the budget resolution right now, when you vote for this, everyone should read and be aware of page 121 of this resolution because it effectively says in voting for this, you are voting to increase the legal debt ceiling of the United States by $653 billion. Don't take it from me, look at the hard copy, the black and white print shown here on this poster, reproduced from page 121 of the budget resolution.
This resolution will increase the debt ceiling of the United States by $653 billion, or at least it will be the action of the House must take. The Senate would have to follow through. This will be the vote in the House, raising the ceiling by $653 billion.
When you add those increases, $450, $984, $800, $781 and finally
$653, all of which have been necessary to make room for the budgets of the Bush administration with their enormous deficits, when you add all these together, you get $3.668 trillion, $3.7 trillion since June of 2002. In 5 years, 5 years, we have had to raise virtually by 50 percent the debt ceiling of the United States, by $3.7 trillion. That is why we have got a martial law rule now. This budget won't stand scrutiny. These numbers simply are indefensible.
Let me show you, for example, what has happened to the deficits since the Bush administration took office. Over the last 5 years, with this budget we will experience the five largest deficits in nominal terms in the history of the United States.
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Once again, this is why, not only on our side are we not supporting it, but on their side, too, the votes are not there to pass this resolution, because it will not bear scrutiny.
Now, one of the things the administration and also the Budget Committee is attempting to do in order to begin squeezing this budget back into balance is they are coming down hard on one particular sector of the budget known as domestic discretionary spending.
Domestic discretionary spending includes education, it includes highways, it includes the government basically as we know it, including the operation of the government. It does not include defense, it does not include foreign affairs, it does not include entitlement programs; it includes the money we appropriate every year in 10 appropriation bills.
That is the one sector of the budget which constitutes less than 15 percent of the budget which they are bearing down on, and here is what is happening to those different functions in that particular part of the budget.
Over the next 5 years, the purchasing power, the real value of the amount of money that we appropriate for education, for health care, for research, for scientific endeavors, for the operation of the government, the park system, the court system, you name it, will decrease in value by $167 billion cumulative over that period of time.
This will begin to hurt. Let me illustrate how. Education. Surely this is a time in our national history when we should be unstinting in what we spend on education, because our survival in the global economy depends critically upon it. Education will be cut $45.294 billion below current services, $45 billion over the next 5 years.
This budget will lay the basis for what the President has proposed, namely to eliminate 42 programs in education, and, for the second time in a row, to cut what we appropriate for education below the level of the previous year.
Veterans. If there is ever a time when we should appreciate what our veterans do for us, it is now. There were 17,000 grievously wounded in the Persian Gulf. Surely, surely we should be providing amply for veterans health care. But this budget is $6 billion below what we call current services, maintaining what we provide now over the next 5 years. It cuts veterans.
Health. Now, that is a broad category, a big category, because it includes the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control. It includes a number of rural health care initiatives, a whole host of health care programs. This budget cuts those programs $18 billion.
Just 5 years ago, when we had a surplus, a $236 billion surplus in the year 2000, we resolved, Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, that we would double the budget of the NIH, but we are now reneging on that commitment. We achieved that goal; we are now backing back down the slope, and each year NIH is going to take a hit under this budget because it is $18 billion short of current services for health.
And then finally the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Water Drinking Act, the Corps of Engineers, which has extraordinary demands on it because of Katrina, the National Park Service, this budget imposes a cut of $25 billion below current services over the next 5 years.
Why are we here? Why are we seeking a martial law rule? Why? Because this budget will not stand scrutiny. Thank you.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from South Carolina's diligent efforts on the Budget Committee as the ranking member. He, along with our chairman, have forged a very strong working relationship. I respect his efforts on these issues, and he has certainly been working on them for years.
Let me take a moment, though, to scrutinize the Democratic substitute, where, if our budget is the Land of Oz, theirs is worthy of a good Sherlock Holmes novel, a who-done-it and where-did-they-put-it, because they seem to rely on revenues that just do not exist.
For example, the key component of their revenue in the Democratic substitute is over $700 billion in what the IRS calls the tax gap. In other words, it is the difference between what people owe the IRS in taxes and the collections that actually come in.
They assume, my friends on the other side of the aisle, in their budget projections that all $727 billion of that so-called tax gap shows up. Now, if they know where it is now to project it in their budget, please share it with us so that we may meet these needs, these unmet needs that have been described with great elaboration.
You seem to know where it is, because you know for a fact such that you budget for it, that it will appear, poof, that it will show up in time to make your budget balance.
They allow the important tax reforms that we have worked so hard to implement over the past several years to expire. They allow taxes to go back up. Their budget, their budget, provides for only $150 billion in tax relief, which I am glad to see that they are coming around to the concept that tax relief can be an important economic stimulant, as we were just hearing the opposite view in congratulating the President for signing $70 billion in tax relief, and yet they account for $150 billion, but say that our $70 billion was reckless and irresponsible. They would allow the child tax credit to expire, or the 10 percent bracket to expire, or the death tax to expire, or the marriage penalty to expire to make their numbers work.
And so when we get tied up in all of the rhetoric about this issue, it is important to remember that the budget debate that we will be moving forward with today is about choices. It is about a different set of priorities as represented by the two political parties for the future of this country. Our budget deals with both sides of the ledger. Our budget recognizes that over half of the Federal spending today is on the mandatory side of the ledger. It is on automatic pilot.
That is unsustainable. Both parties know that Social Security needs help. Both parties know that Medicare needs help. Both parties know that Medicaid needs help or it will sink the entire Federal budget. It makes up 55 percent of spending today. Within the decade it will make up two-thirds of Federal spending. Their budget does not address 55 percent of the Federal budget, a $2.17 trillion budget; just ignores it. That is not responsible. That is not dealing with the problems that we know exist and will only grow in magnitude and scale as time moves on.
These are the challenges that our budget attempts to deal with and deal with in a very responsible and balanced way.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida is absolutely correct when he says that this budget is about choices. And there are clear differences between what Democrats believe are the right choices and what Republicans believe. But the vote we are going to have on this martial law rule is also about choices, and the choice is, should Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, be afforded the opportunity to know what they are voting on, to be able to see what is in the budget that they are going to bring to the floor later today?
I do not think that that is unreasonable. I mean, even if you disagree with me and people on the Democratic side on all of the budgetary issues, I mean, do you not think that it is reasonable to require that Members should be able to know what is going to be in your budget, what changes you are going to make?
I mean, as I said before, when you vote for your budget, it is an automatic increase in the debt ceiling. I mean, what else is going to be put in there that we are not going to know about until when it is on the floor?
Mr. Speaker, I think the process is indefensible. We can argue the policy later, but the process is indefensible. We need to do much better.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).
Mr. BISHOP of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. McGovern for yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this martial law same-day rule, and in opposition to the budget resolution.
Every landmark budget reform enacted by Congress was intended to make the process more efficient so we can go about the business of funding programs important to the American people, particularly aid and relief to those who need our help the most.
We can all agree that a budget is supposed to be the congressional blueprint for funding America's priorities. Regrettably, however, the Republicans have abrogated this responsibility on at least two counts. First, this resolution comes halfway into the calendar year, and halfway into the third quarter of the current fiscal year, way too late to responsibly budget for America's priorities.
Second, this budget comes sandwiched between $70 billion worth of tax cuts for the most comfortable among us, and $100 billion in off-budget supplemental funds. It is this kind of fiscal irresponsibility that drives people to disapprove of the 109th Congress and why a change of leadership is needed before our country sinks deeper into red ink and before the budget resolution becomes completely irrelevant.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, the gentlemen from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton).
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam) for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I was listening a few minutes ago when I heard an exchange about taxes and the President's signature being placed on the tax cut extension bill today. I just wanted to share very quickly with the Members the thought that has been placed behind this over the last number of years.
If you believe, as I do, that tax policy can be useful in stimulating economic growth, then one might look for opportunities to show that that really worked. As a matter of fact it really worked. It really worked in 1962, when John Kennedy was President and he recommended that we cut taxes, and in 1962 and 1963, the Congress did cut taxes, and it worked. The economy grew.
Ronald Reagan suggested that we do the same thing, because the economy was not growing very well. And we did cut taxes, and the economy grew. And in 2003, when we were having very slow economic growth, following a shallow recession in 2001, President Bush suggested that we cut taxes, and we did, and the economy has been growing great, robustly ever since.
As a matter of fact, since 2003, we have had great economic growth, culminating last quarter with a 4.7 percent increase in GDP. Now, if we are going to cut taxes, then we have to cut taxes on people who pay taxes. Otherwise, by definition it will not work.
This chart to my left is a chart that expresses figures that have been compiled by the IRS. And it shows, as Mr. Putnam had pointed out, that the top 1 percent of taxpayers, wage earners, pay 35 percent of the taxes, 34.2 percent to be more exact. And it shows that the top half of the taxpayers in terms of their income levels pay 96.5 percent of the taxes.
Therefore, as we look at these figures, and the top 5 percent pay over 50 percent of the taxes, the top 10 percent pay 65 percent of the taxes, and as I said a minute ago, the top 50 percent of the wage earners in this country pay 96.5 percent of the taxes.
So I ask you, if John Kennedy believed that cutting taxes would make the economy grow, and he was right, and Ronald Reagan thought cutting taxes would work, and turned out he was right, and President Bush thought cutting taxes would work, and it turned out the economy grew as a result of his policies, then where are we going to cut the taxes?
Obviously the bottom half of the wage earners in this country paying 3.5 percent of the taxes, it will not do a lot of good to the economy if we reduce that even further. We have to cut it in the area of wage earners who pay taxes. And so it is very clear to me that today's signing of the tax cut extension bill is a well thought out, good economic policy venture, which will continue, as has been shown throughout history, to provide for a stimulus for economic growth.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would just say to the gentleman from New Jersey and some of the previous speakers that if these Republican policies are so wonderful, and if it is so obvious that they work, then why have you been struggling for months trying to get a budget together? Why are we here debating a martial law rule to bring up a budget that nobody has seen yet because you are still trying to work out deals within your own party, because you do not have the votes within your own party to pass this? This goes back to the point I had made at the very beginning.
{time} 1430
We can argue and argue about the policy, and that is totally appropriate. But how do you defend this process? I mean, how do you defend this process? And I think that that is a question that is yet to be answered.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. McGOVERN. I yield to the gentleman from Florida 20 seconds.
Mr. PUTNAM. Well, I thank the gentleman for his generosity.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, in his use of the term martial law, the fact that we are here in a democratic process arguing about it for an hour and then going to have a vote on it, under which chapter and verse of Webster's is that martial law where there is debate, discussion, transparency, and a vote?
Mr. McGOVERN. Well, I would say to the gentleman, I define this as a martial law rule because what it is doing is enabling the leadership of this House to bring a budget to the floor that nobody has seen. And I don't think that is democratic. I don't think that is respectful of the deliberative process here in this House. I don't think that that is something, if the shoes were on a different foot, the gentleman would want to tolerate. And I hope that, given the opportunity to be able to take control of this House, that we can demonstrate a different standard on some of this stuff.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Kind).
(Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, just in quick response to my good friend and colleague from New Jersey and his income tax chart, that really shouldn't be surprising to anyone here in this Chamber, because the whole basis of our income tax system is based on progressivity. Meaning, those who can afford more, those who are most wealthy, are asked to contribute more, and that is the fair and decent thing to do in our society.
But the one thing that that chart does not show is one of the most regressive taxes in the entire country, which is the payroll tax, the FICA tax, which is cut off at $90,000. And that is something that everyone under that 50 percent category is paying taxes on based on every single dollar that they earn. Yet they conveniently ignore that fact, and the fact that they are robbing those trust funds right now, both Social Security and Medicare, which comes from the FICA tax in order to help pay for the tax breaks for the most wealthy.
I agree with my friend from Florida, who I serve on the Budget Committee with, that we do have a challenge with entitlement spending. We have to lock arms in a bipartisan fashion to get those growing costs under control. But his party has forfeited any basis of fiscal responsibility related to entitlement spending by passing the largest expansion of entitlement funding in over 40 years with the new prescription drug plan, something that is not paid for, something that in fact has no cost containment measures in; it specifically prohibits any price negotiation with the drug companies, and it is blowing a hole in the Federal budget. And that is outrageous.
And what is even more outrageous is something that my ranking member on the Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt, pointed out on page 122, and that is the fifth increase in the debt limit ceiling in the last 6 years. This has been the largest, the fastest expansion of national debt in our Nation's history under this Congress and this current administration. And what is even more alarming is we no longer owe this debt to ourselves. China is the number one purchaser of our government deficits today, and they are soon to be followed by Russia and Saudi Arabia. Why? Because of the petro dollars that are flowing to those two countries and who are in turn starting to buy more of our debt.
The amount of debt that is being accumulated is truly staggering, and deficits do matter. And this is something I am going to point out during general debate, because of who suffers when we run deficits? I will tell you who suffers. It is the children and the students of this country who are suffering, when we are going to see another $4.5 billion worth of cuts based on current funding levels for higher education programs under this budget, where they are defunding special education funding, going from 17.8 percent down to 17 percent when the bipartisan goal has been funding it at a 40 percent federal cost share. Those are the people who are suffering when we run deficits. We have a better alternative with the Democratic substitute, a substitute that pays-as-we-go and I hope our colleagues support that.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to my friend and colleague from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and support of the budget, and I support the budget for a number of reasons. But I do want to say, as I listen to the arguments from the other side, they are a little bit all over the place. And yet that is not unusual, because if you are in the minority party, you can pick and choose your relevancy. And generally the message that we are hearing from that side is it cuts too much here, it doesn't spend enough there, I don't like this, I don't like that. And yet they don't have a unified plan except to vote ``no'' on everything. We won't pick up a vote, you guys know that. The only thing they are unified by is a ``no.'' They cannot even within their own caucus support a budget that could get a majority. And we would like to work with them.
We just heard they don't like the Medicare prescription drug benefits, so they are, I guess, against the Medicare prescription drug benefit and want to return to the days when seniors were choosing between food on their table and medicine that they needed from their doctor.
We have heard they are supporting a Social Security tax increase. Well, I had a lot of Social Security town meetings; I didn't hear anybody who wanted to increase taxes on Social Security. I don't know if that is an official view or just one Member, but I do know that in terms of Social Security, there again it was a big ``no'' vote because they did not want to participate.
Now, what they also don't like is the economic prosperity that we are enjoying right now, because their whole view is if somebody is making money, then they are bad and they are evil, because they have this obsession with the wealthy in our society; unless they are a union, business agent, or a Barbra Streisand and some of the big wheels of Hollywood who fund their coffers, then it is okay to be rich and wealthy.
The interesting thing, though, is that under Republican Party policy, the economy has done so well. And think about this: that the domestic gross product grew by 8 percent the first quarter of 2006, and in the month of April alone 138,000 new jobs were created. We know, because it is an economic fact, that since our tax reductions went into play for farmers and small businesses, that 5 million new jobs were created. And there is a very important thing in there, business expensing, that allows the bicycle shops back home and the clothes store and the pet shops to expand and get a tax deduction for doing so. I know the Democrat Party doesn't like business, which would include small business. I think it is okay to have a healthy distrust of some of the big Wall Street guys. Some of those firms, after all, are Democratic. So we should kind of distrust some of those. They were big Clinton supporters, as I remember some of that crowd. But small businesses need this, because they can grow, and we need to give them some tax incentives.
In terms of tax receipts, as I sit in the Appropriations Committee, and bill after bill the Democrats want to spend more on and they want to take away this mythical tax cut for the rich, and the idea is because the rich are paying their taxes that the deficit is down. And yet the Treasury Department has reported that the receipts are up $137 billion, that is 11 percent, in the first 7 months of the year, of the fiscal year of 2006 which started October 1. So receipts are up 11 percent and yet taxes are down.
Now, why is that? Well, you could put it this way. If a business was doing three or four transactions a day and we were getting a tax on each transaction, now they are doing eight or nine, ten transactions a day, and we are still getting that tax. So we are taxing more because there is more activity and there are more transactions in the business world. And, again, because of that, the revenues are up $137 billion.
Now, last year they were up $274 billion, or an increase of 14.6 percent in fiscal year 2005. That is very significant for folks to remember. And, as Mr. Saxton said, President Kennedy, President Reagan, and now President Bush have shown the American people spend their money better than we do in Washington. And, again, I want to speak as an appropriator. I am in these meetings and I am convinced the American people can do better with their own money than we can. It stimulates the economy, it creates jobs, it is good for all of us. And then, in Washington, we do get more revenues.
Do I want to cut spending? Yes, I do. Do I think we need to reform entitlement? Yes, I do. I want to work on a bipartisan basis to do that, though, because I think that is the way the American people want to see us cooperate.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on both sides?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fossella). The gentleman from Massachusetts has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Florida has 9 minutes remaining.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I again rise in strong opposition to this martial law rule. We have rules and procedures in this House, and today by bringing this martial law rule to the floor and by bringing a budget bill to the floor, sight unseen, we are breaking those rules. We are basically making a mockery of the procedures that are in place to ensure that Members of Congress, at a minimum, know what in fact they are voting on when some of these bills come to the floor.
This is not a trivial matter. The budget is a big deal. It sets out our priorities. And it is totally appropriate for people to be able to debate all different issues openly and on the House floor. And I would again, after listening to the gentleman from Georgia, I guess my question to him is, again, if things are so wonderful, why can't you even get Members of your own party to get behind a budget?
But putting that aside, this vote we are about to have is on process, it is on whether or not Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, should have the right to read what is in the proposed budget. I don't think that that is too much to ask for. I don't think that is unreasonable. I think most Americans who are watching this debate are scratching their heads saying, why can't you show us what is in this bill? What is the big secret? When are we going to have this budget available to us? When are we going to know what is in it? When are we going to find out what deals have been negotiated behind closed doors? I don't think that is unreasonable.
So I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this martial law rule, and let us demand that we have a process in place in this House and have some integrity.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts. He does have a way with words and continues to refer to a process whereby, in order to waive the rules of the House, you must come to the floor, introduce a resolution, it must be given an hour of debate, which we have been engaged in very vigorously, and be voted on. I mean, Pinochet and Castro would laugh at the notion that that has anything to do with martial law. This is a process under our rules that requires a vote. It requires debate. It requires transparency.
The simple fact of the matter is we have to move a budget. This Nation needs the spending blueprint, it needs the discipline, it needs the restraint that a budget provides. Then the appropriators, as my friend from Georgia has discussed, the appropriators take over. And they can pass within that box that we have put Federal spending in, in the Federal budget, 11 different bills that deal with each component of government: defense, veterans, transportation, energy and the environment, military quality of life, the whole range of issues that then are debated again in committee, in subcommittee, on this floor, in the conference with the Senate.
This is a transparent process, a patently transparent process where people are free to watch their Members actively, aggressively, work to take language out of bills, to put language in the bills, to shift formulas around to benefit high-growth States or to protect low-growth States from having those monies shifted around; to put more money into veterans and less for the arts, or more into the arts and less for the Corps of Engineers, or more for the Corps of Engineers because of Katrina; to set aside emergency funds because we know that every year there will be a drought or a wildfire or a hurricane or an earthquake. All of those huge issues that are embodied in over $2 trillion in Federal spending are here today in the form of the Federal budget.
This bill, this resolution, allows us to move forward with that process that began months ago, that began on a bipartisan basis in the Budget Committee, that was debated extensively in the Budget Committee, that was marked up in the Budget Committee, and will end up on the floor of this House today.
This is an open process, it is a transparent process. Anyone who has observed this debate can see that it involves a great deal of viewpoints about a great deal of very important issues. And that is the position we find ourselves in here today. It is a healthy process because it is a fundamental decision about the direction that Americans' hard-earned tax dollars will be taken.
{time} 1445
Will those tax dollars find their way into bloated bureaucratic programs? Will they find their way into duplicative programs? Will they find their way back into a surging economy? Will they find their way into investments in the cure for cancer and Lou Gehrig's disease and a whole host of other ailments? Will they fund our troops in the theater of war?
That is the decision we are positioned to move forward on here today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question will be postponed.
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