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To sum it up, Mr. Chairman, this Republican budget is a fair and balanced American budget that fully funds our shared priorities while providing tax relief to working Americans and paying down our national debt. We should
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[Time: 15:45]
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher).
Mrs. TAUSCHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Democratic budget alternative. The Democratic budget provides a more realistic level of funding for our Nation's immediate defense needs. If we do not increase the amount of money we spend on our military now, Navy pilots will not have enough fuel to conduct flight tests, the Army will not have enough ammunition for training, and all branches of the military will face a shortage of spare parts. These shortages will have a real and lasting effect on the readiness of our Nation's military.
President Bush promised to improve the quality of life for our men and women in the military, but the Republican budget resolution fails to fund those priorities.
However, the Democratic budget alternative provides for a fiscal year 2001 supplemental appropriations bill totaling $7.8 billion to immediately address these needs.
I urge my colleagues to do the right thing for national security and vote for the Democratic budget alternative.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant).
Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, once again, class warfare, rich versus poor, politics of division, politics of fear. This madness must stop in America. Tell me who hires American workers. Is it the man on welfare, or is it the men and women who take a risk. Some of them go bankrupt, but some become successful and some gain great wealth. Thank God for that.
Wealth, profit, success are not dirty words in a free enterprise society; and by God, that is what we are, and we should be proud of it.
The dream of America is that we can be all we can be. We should be promoting and incentivizing the opportunity to gain wealth, not to demean those who have gained such wealth. After all, if the wealthy lose money, they move overseas and take your people and my people's jobs along with them. I want to incentivize the opportunity in America to gain wealth for all people, thus keeping those jobs here in America.
Mr. Chairman, our capitalist phenomenon not only creates jobs and stabilizes families, it does one more important thing. It stabilizes democracy not only in America, but around the world; and in doing so, it highlights the pitfalls, the injustice, and the failure of communism, I say to my colleagues.
I support the budget of President Bush. I commend the great work of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. NUSSLE). I want to close by saying, the President is right on. If we target some people in, you thus target people out. That is not the dream of America. This rhetoric of division can some day turn into the fuel of socialism, I say to my colleagues. What strengthens America is there is just one America, not two, not three. One people, under God, indivisible. That is the dream of America. Wealth, profit, and success are not dirty words.
The Democratic substitute is not all that bad; but it does still play to divide, and I shall oppose it and I will support the work of the gentleman from Iowa. I believe we have a fine budget. Parts of it can be refined. I applaud his efforts.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).
(Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
I rise in strong support of the Democratic substitute which provides substantially more funding for transportation over the next 10 years than does the budget resolution provided by the Republican majority.
Given the congestion in the Nation's transportation system, we must do better; and this Democratic substitute does better. The intent of the majority resolution is to honor the funding guarantees for highway , transit, and aviation as provided in TEA 21 and AIR 21; but the committee developed their resolution based on the administration's budget resolution, and they got it wrong.
The budget resolution brought to the floor by the majority does not include enough transportation funding under Function 400 to honor the firewalls of TEA 21 and AIR 21 and provide necessary funding for the Coast Guard.
This is not an issue of partisan politics, counting things differently. The administration admits they got it wrong. Ten days ago they admitted they got it wrong. OMB wrote to the Committee on the Budget to explain the understated transportation amounts necessary to fund the President's proposed budget.
Last night, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. YOUNG), our Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure chairman, in a discussion on the floor with the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. NUSSLE), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, got assurances that the chairman would work to restore funding to honor TEA 21 and AIR 21 in conference, and I commend our chairman for that effort. But the point is that what we are voting on does not provide enough funding for the transportation programs that it claims to fund . They have had 10 days to fix it. They even had a rule that included a self-executing amendment to the resolution; and we could have had it fixed there, but they did not do it.
In contrast, the Democratic substitute fully funds TEA 21 and AIR 21 guarantees for highway , transit, and aviation investments. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. SPRATT) does not say with a wink, I will take care of it later. He says, it is in here; add it up. The $33 billion additional is there to deal with these issues. Let us deal with the Democratic substitute.
Still worse than the disservice to transportation is the majority's treatment of education in this budget resolution. The Republican budget increases appropriated funding for the Department of Education by only $2.4 billion, or 5.7 percent, over the 2001 enacted levels. This is less than half the average increase Congress has granted education appropriations for the last five years.
The Democratic budget, however, provides $4.8 billion more in appropriated funding for education and related services than the Republican budget. Over the ten-year period from 2002 to 2011, the Democratic budget provides $129 billion more for education than the Republican plan. These funds allow Democrats to boost funding for critical priorities including class size reduction, school renovation, special education, and Pell grants and other higher education programs.
This past Sunday, I met with teachers and administrators of Duluth area schools, as well as state legislators, all of whom underscored the need for significantly greater investment in education. They shared with me their views on the need for greater education partnership with and expanded investment from the federal government.
For example, Frank Wanner, a teacher from the Duluth School District, said that in 1978 he had $1700 for classroom materials; today, the allocations buy only a box of Kleenex. Similarly, Russ Berntson of Proctor, Minnesota, said that 3,000 layoffs are expected in my home state of Minnesota in the next year due to underfunding and declining enrollment.
This kind of disrespect for public education must stop. Clearly, the Democratic substitute offers a substantially greater investment in education and the future of our country than does the committee or the administration budget resolution.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes and 15 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. DAVIS), my friend and colleague.
Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer my specific thanks to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. NUSSLE) and the rest of the Committee on the Budget on both sides for including an amendment by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. MORAN), my good friend, that would maintain the nearly 20-year-old tradition of pay parity between military and civilian Federal employees.
As many of my colleagues already know, the pay rates for both civilian and military personnel have fallen significantly below those of their private sector counterparts. Very recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report that confirmed that even now, more than 10 years after the enactment of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, FEPCA, civilian and military employees are paid 32 percent and 10 percent respectively less than their private sector counterparts.
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The Committee on the Budget has taken the first important step for protecting the 20-year tradition of pay parity between military and civilian Federal employees. I would like to thank my very good friend and neighbor, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. MORAN), for leading the cause of the committee and the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. NUSSLE) for accepting this. Without this and the help of the chairman of the Committee on the Budget we would not have had this included in the fiscal year 2002 budget.
A few words about the bigger picture, Mr. Chairman. The budget we have proposed is good for America's future. It shows a strong commitment to the fiscal responsibility that has long been lacking here in Washington. We are committed to paying down the national debt by providing $2.3 trillion for this purpose. That is the most that we can pay. The substitute pays down more of the debt that we can pay because of the long-term, non-callability of some of the government bonds, which leads me to suspect this money would lay around Washington and could be spent on other programs.
It also recognizes that the American people deserve to keep more of their hard-earned money by providing tax relief for every family that pays taxes. That, Mr. Chairman, is only fair. It does not do so at the expense of important programs such as Medicare. In fact, it incorporates the vital protections we passed overwhelmingly in H.R. 2 by keeping the Medicare part A surplus off limits for any purpose other than for Medicare itself or paying down the debt until necessary reforms are made. It recognizes the vital role the Federal Government plays in health care by providing a $2.8 billion increase for NIH.
Finally, it reflects the obligation we have to the future of our youngest citizens by increasing education spending by $47.5 billion over the next 10 years, including an 11.5 percent increase for fiscal year 2002, the largest percentage increase for any department.
Mr. Chairman, this budget is a clear reflection of our priorities. It protects our senior citizens; it teaches the young; it improves the Nation's health care economically, physically and mentally. I urge my colleagues to give it their support.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. ETHERIDGE).
(Mr. ETHERIDGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Spratt amendment for the children of this country.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to the Republican Budget Resolution. Unfortunately, this budget is a missed opportunity and it represents misplaced priorities.
Sadly, Mr. Chairman, this budget is very much a missed opportunity. The White House and the Republican Leadership have utterly failed to deliver on the President's promise of a bipartisan process that puts accomplishment for the American people above gamesmanship by Washington politicians.
More importantly, this budget fails to provide for America's priorities. We must pay down the national debt to remove that burden from our children and grandchildren and cut interest rates for items like cars and homes. This Republican tax package will return us to the days of big deficits, high interest rates, high unemployment and a struggling economy.
I support balanced tax relief as part of a comprehensive economic plan that will restore America's prosperity so that all of our hard working families can have security in their family finances. In my state of North Carolina, last month, we registered an unemployment rate higher than the national average for the first time in nearly two decades. We must pass a strong economic plan, not a wasteful tax giveaway.
The Republican budget mortgages the future based on a guess. If the projected surpluses fail to materialize, Social Security and Medicare will be on the chopping block. The American people know that the budget projections are not real. They are an estimate. It is irresponsible to make decisions that will directly impact people's lives based on a ten-year number we know is no more reliable than a ten-year hurricane forecast.
As the only former state schools chief serving in Congress, I was very pleased by the President's promise to increase education investment. But this budget is a big disappointment because the increase is due largely to the education appropriations we passed last year. It rolls back the clock on school renovation by making those funds compete with other needs. This budget does nothing to help states build schools to relieve overcrowding and get our students out of trailers. Other areas that could be subject to cuts include child care, Head Start and job training that are vitally important to allow people to make the most of their God-given abilities.
Mr. Chairman, a great deal of attention has been paid lately to the trouble on Wall Street and signs the economic boom may well be over. One sector that hasn't been booming for some time is agriculture, and farmers in my district have been hurting in the face of production cuts, commodity price losses and natural disasters. I was appalled when the Budget Committee passed its budget that would gut important farm programs. If approved, these cuts would eliminate funds to identify solutions to the state's hog waste problems and force dozens of our Farm Service Agency offices to close their doors. These agriculture cuts are wrong, and I will fight to restore them despite the Budget Committee's action.
Mr. Chairman, this budget is a missed opportunity, but it doesn't have to be that way. I urge my colleagues to vote down this budget and come together to pass a responsible budget that honors America's values and respects the people's priorities.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I have served in this House for more than 18 years; and for most of these years, the deficit has been our dominant concern. It has actually been a fixation. It has taken us almost 20 years and $4 trillion in debt to escape the fiscal mistakes we made in the 1980s and turn this big budget around, out of deficits and into surpluses.
Today I have one priority, one overriding objective, and it is simply this: to make sure that we do not backslide into the hole we just dug ourselves out of. That is my overriding objective and that is why I have a problem with the Republican resolution, because it leaves so little room for error.
I hope that these blue-sky projections that total some $5.6 trillion in surpluses over the next 10 years will materialize. It will be a great bounty for all of us. But if they do not and if we pass this resolution, we can find ourselves right back in the red again in the blink of an economist's eye. This chart says it all. That is how thin the ice is on which this budget skates for the next 10 years.
We, at least, avoid or lessen that problem, that risk, by setting aside one-third of the surplus, or $910 billion, if these projections pan out. To the extent that these projections do not pan out, that share of the surplus serves as a buffer to protect Social Security, Medicare and their trust funds from being raided again. So we have downside protection; they do not.
The next problem I have with the Republican resolution is that it gives so much room, so much room to tax reduction that it leaves almost no room for anything else. If we want to see the consequences of that, if we have not been listening to this debate up until now, just go through the major accounts of the budget. We are both committed, at least rhetorically, to providing Medicare prescription drugs, but we provide a real Medicare benefit with $330 billion in real money. They provide a meager $153 billion and take that, siphon that out of the Medicare trust fund .
We provide for education. We believe in education. We provide $130 billion more than they do, because we have a balanced budget.
We provide for the environment, parks, conservation. We had a bill out here last year where we increased the amount of money we are spending there significantly. We fully fund it; they do not.
Finally, this resolution does nothing to save or make solvent Social Security and Medicare for the long run. For years and years now, we have known that we face a shortfall in both of these programs looming in the future, just over the horizon of this budget. But we have not had until now the resources to do anything about that problem. The $2.7 trillion surplus in the general fund which we hope we now have over the next 10 years gives us that opportunity, and we dare not do anything else with it if we are going to be true to the commitments that have been made to the beneficiaries of the Social Security and Medicare program, and that includes almost all Americans.
The question is, will we uphold this great compact on which the country
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To keep the promises that we made, we set aside $910 billion, one-third of the surplus, and transfer it in equal shares, half to the Medicare trust fund , half to the Social Security trust fund , making Social Security solvent until 2050, and making Medicare solvent to 2030.
[Time: 16:00]
By contrast, the Republican resolution siphons money out of the Medicare trust fund , shortens the solvent life of that program, and does nothing at all for Social Security.
If Members want to save Social Security, if they want to provide a real prescription drug benefit, if they want to do something for education and scientific research, for successful programs like COPS, if Members want to provide $740 billion in tax relief over 10 years and $60 billion over the next several months, if Members want to pay down the debt by $900 billion more, their choice is clear: Vote for the Democratic budget resolution.
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