colleagues and i'm proud of all the work they've put into this. people ran for congress to save this country from a debt crisis, to save it for their children and grandchildren and the members of this committee have been tireless in their advocacy of that end. i also want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. especially ranking member chris van hollen and staff. throughout this process you have shown a commitment to mutual respect in keep wig the best traditions of this committee and i thank you for that, chris. one year ago we came to this committee to markup what became the fy 2012 house passed budget. at the time i called it just a first step on the path to prosperity and we still have a long ways to go, but look at how far we've come since then. our budget changed the conversation in washington about our nation's fiscal future. some courageous democrats joined us in this conversation over the past year. and bipartisan opposition to the path of broken propositions is

growing. this year we take another step on the path to prosperity. one that builds in our important work. last year while taking several new strides towards a more prosperous nation. the effects of these, for years both political parties, republicans and democrats, have made empty promises to the american people. unfortunately, the president refuses to take responsibility for avoiding a debt-fueled economic crisis before us. instead, his policies put us on a path to debt and decline. we reject the broken promises of the past. the american people deserve real solutions and honest leadership. that's what we're delivering in our budget. house republicans are advancing a plan of action for american renewal. i want to take people's attention to the charts. it's very clear that absent action government spending on

health and retirement programless soon grow to consume every dollar of revenue that government raises in taxes. we can't avert a debt crisis without dealing with these programs. the fiscal gap. the government's fiscal gap promises that government is making future retirees for which it has no way to pay is growing by trillions of dollars every year. each year that congress fails to act, the u.s. government gets closer to breaking promises to current retirees while adding to a growing pile of empty promises to future generations. this is taken out of the president's budget itself. by its own admission, the president's budget does nothing oh overt this path of broken promises. in its own words, the budget allows the nation's "fiscal position to deteriorate."

if we stay on the current path, government spending and the size of government will skyrocket to record levels that a free economy simply cannot sustain. if we choose the path of prosperity, government can remain limited. our budget cuts over $5.3 trillion in spending relative to the president's budget. and returns spending as a share of the economy which historical norm of 20% by 2015. take a look at deficits. if we continue upon our current path, deficits literally spiral out of control. if we choose this path to prosperi prosperity, our budget keeps borrowing a check and puts us on a path to balance. we cut relative to the president's path. debt. if we stay on the current path this is the future that awaits us. a debt crisis. where we know we will sacrifice

our current economy and our children's future. it's a path that is accelerated by the president's budget. we are headed towards a debt-fueled economic crisis, and the president's own budget admits this by saying that their budget allows the fiscal position to deteriorate. if we choose the path to prosperity, we can lift this crushing burden's debt. our budget puts the nation's finances on a path to balance and ultimately on a path to pay off the debt never letting the debt get up to levels which could compromise our economy and shortchange the next generation. my colleagues on the house budget committee were instrumental in laying out this path to prot parity and its corcore plan of action putty end to empty promises from a bankrupt government and restoring the american promise. ensuring our children have more opportunity and enharriet a stronger america than the one our parents gave us. it is time for us all to get to

work elected leaders and the american people, to put an end to empty promises and at the end of the day, we have a basic choice that we're going to make. what kind of country do we want? what kind of people do we want to be? our budget is our answer to this question. we want a country that is prosperous, strong, secure, and free. and most of all, we want our people to fulfill our founding vision. a free people with the opportunity to achieve happiness for ourselves and our children. with that, i'll reserve and yield to mr. van hollen for his opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think we all understand that we gather today to consider a long-term budget plan and an especially consequential moment

for our country. unfortunately, this republican budget makes the wrong choices for america. i'd like to put up a slide now that shows the current job situation where we've come from and where we are, and what this slide shows is that as a result of the extraordinary actions, that have been taken over the last few years, and many difficult decisions made by the president and the previous congress, america avoided a second-grade depression and is now emerging from the ravages of a financial meltdown and near economic collapse. this chart is very vivid and very clear. what it shows is that the day the president was sworn in, we were losing jobs in this country at the rate of 800,000 jobs per month. gdp was collapsing. negative 8% growth. soon thereafter, congress and

the president took action. we stopped the free-fall and we've been climbing out of that. we've now had over 23 months of sustained private sector job growth. over 3.5 million jobs created. we need to sustain that growth. and our top priority has to be to make sure that we nurture that fragile recovery. it's clear that putting americans back to work is the fastest and most effective way to reduce the deficit in the short term. in fact, the congress many budget office estimates that our weak economy and underemployment is the major single contributing factor to the deficit, accounting for over one-third of the projected deficit for this fiscal year. now, both the president's jobs plan and the president's budget and the budget that we will propose as an alternative next week, make key investments in

areas of our economy that will help spur job creation now and ensure our success in the long term. it calls for initiatives to help modernize our roads, our bridges, our schools, and when you have an unemployment rate in the construction industry of over 17%, that is a win-win for the american people. in addition, the president's plan, our plan, will not expand incentives to ship american jobs overseas as this republican budget does, but it will invest in jobs here at home so we can make it in america. in addition to helping small businesses put more americans back to work, our budget will make strategic long-term national investments to out-educate, out-innovate and out-compete the rest of the world investments that are essential for long-term economic growth and to maintain our competitive edge.

now, long-term economic growth also requires that we enact a plan now to predictably reduce or deficits and debt, and, mr. chairman, the issue is not whether we enact a plan to reduce the deficit subpoena it's how we do it. it's the choices we make. to govern is to choose and the choice is made in the republican budget are simply wrong for america. it is not bold to provide tax breaks to millionaires while ending the medicare guarantee for seniors and sticking seniors with a bill for rising health care costs. it is not courageous to protect tax giveaways to big oil companies and other special interests while slashing investments in our kids' education, scientific research and critical infrastructure. it's not visionary to reward corporations that ship american jobs overseas while terminating the affordable care act that provides affordable care to tens

of millions of americans. and it is certainly not brave to give governors a blank check to fund their pet initiatives and a license to cut support for seniors in nursing home, individuals with disabilities and low-income kids, and it is not fair to raise taxes on middle-income americans to pay for another round of tax breaks for the very, very wealthy. and yet those are the choices that are made in this republican budget. where's the shared responsibility? we have american men and women putting their lives on the line in afghanistan while others hide their income in the cayman islands, in switzerland and refuse to pay their fair share. as the bipartisan simpson-bowles commission indicated, any responsible effort to reduce the deficit requires a balanced approach that addresses both spending and revenue, and republican budget fails that simple test.

probably not a surprise, since 98% of house republicans have signed a pledge refusing to close a single special interest tax loophole or eliminate a single subsidy for a big oil company for the purpose of deficit reduction. in keeping with that pledge, the republican budget rigs the rules of the game in favor of the very wealthy and in favor of powerful special interests and it does so at the expense of middle-income americans, at the expense of seniors and at the expense of critical investments to help our economy grow stronger. in addition to locking in that portion of the bush tax cuts, that benefits the very wealthy, this republican budget proposing another tax windfall. for the very wealthiest americans. combined on average they will get $150,000 tax break for a millionaire. because by cutting the top rate

from 35% to 25%, generates an income loss of about $5 trillion. based on joint tax committee estimates. and you have to make up that $5 trillion loss if you're going to do this in what you say is a revenue neutral way, and as we will show later, you are financing those tax cuts for the super wealthy at the expense of middle-income americans. income, i'd like to now put up another chart here, because all of this is done in service to what has been a proven failure of an ideology. the notion of trickle down economics. the notion somehow when you provide tax breaks to folks at the very top it's going to trickle down and boost everybody else in this economy. we've been there. we tried it. it was called the eight years of the bush administration. what happened at the end of

those eight years was net loss in private sector jobs. but what also you see is that little up loop after those tax cuts, you saw a huge increase in after-tax income of the top 1%. so it was a rising tax break, didn't lift all votes. lifted the odds but it didn't lift anybody else. and so what are the consequences of not asking for shared responsibility? it means everybody else, everybody else, has to bear the burden of deficit reduction, and it means we have to compromise important investments to help our economy grow stronger. now, we understand you've got to make some tough cuts, in the budget control act we've cut $1 trillion. in fact, we cut the amount of discretionary spending recommended by the bipartisan commission, but what your budget proposes is another trillion

dollars in non-defense discretionary spending, and that will simply devastate important investments, and you don't even show where you're going to get those cuts. you just put a big pool at the bottom of your budget saying go find them without explaining the consequences of that. now, our country's become an economic power house in part because we work together to make those important investments, like the g.i. bill, like the interstate highway system. and by gutting those investments, you're prescribe as recipe for national decline. now, let me turn to the question of health care. every member of this committee knows that the rising health care costs represent a huge challenge for the federal budget. but we've also sat through a lot of hearings where we know that the, for beneficiary increase in costs in the medicare program over time has actually been less than the increase in beneficiary costs in the private insurance market.

so it is not a solution to say to people, we're going to put you into the private market. and it's very clear that if you do that, what you're going to end up doing is rationing care based on income. now, the affordable care act took a number of measures to help reduce the health care costs throughout the health care system. you repeal that. at the time you say you repeal it you say you'll come up with another bill that will make sure that no one's denied insurance, because of pre-existing conditions. you've got a bill that says you're going to find way to lower health care premiums. haven't seen that bill yet. so you're getting rid of something that provides affordable care to tens ever millions. we haven't seen the other bill yet and, again, this doesn't reform medicare. it deforms it. let me make it clear what happens, because despite claims that the market competition will curb rising costs, the plan here

places an artificial cap on the amount of the voucher of premium support, whatever you want to call it. now, our republican friends have said, well, it's just like part d, prescription drug plan in medicare. it's not. there's no cap in part d. you said, well, it's like the federal employee. s' health benefit plan. that's not true either. there's no cap on the amount of premium support given the members of congress, and yet you're prescribing for folks on a medicare plan that provides that cap, which will transfer costs to them. tr transfer costs that you don't take the risk transferring to other members of congress. finally, you rip apart the safety net with respect to medicaid. you black ewa whacked to be tun of ar one-third of the medicaid budget by the tenth year and mr. chairman, to say you're doing that in order to repair, as this

thing says to repair the safety net? i think people are going to be hard pressed to understand how cutting it by one-third a program we all know, is already under funded, is somehow repairing it. finally, let me just say that this budget, it doesn't balance in ten years. it doesn't balance in 20 year, and when you look at the out year numbers. i just think it's important that members keep in mind, and cbo has said this clearly in the letter they sent to the chairman, that it's not based on a cbo analysis of any policies that are in this plan. it's not based on that analysis subpoena in fact, i'm just going to read exactly from the cbo letter so we all understand. it says those calculations meaning those in the cbo report do note represent a cost estimate for legislation or analysis of the effects of any given policies.

cbo has not considered whether specified paths are consistent with the policy proposals for budget figures released today by chairman ryan as part of his budget. budget resolution. they are based on the figures specified by the chairman eand his staff. i'll close with this point. as you start to look to the out year, 2030, 2040, 2050, you look at that chart that we always see, i just want members to understand that when cbo says that -- they will decline, all they're being given is numbers from the republican staff and saying, plug this in as an assumption. everyone here at the committee could do that. they're not based on an analysis of specific policy changes that are being recommended, how those policy changing -- so i hope, mr. chairman, that as we move forward we can better understand the impact of those policy changes and come up with a

bipartisan approach at the end of the day, whether it's this year or at some point in the futch aerpd, again i thank the committee for its time. a portion of the debate that took place this morning in the house budget committee's markup of the republicans' 2013 budget. we'll have more from that markup in just a moment. right now committee member, in recess attending a series of votes in the house, and house members right now having just approved the rule for debating a bill that would end certain provisions of the health care law. two more votes in the house in this afternoon, during this particular portion of the day, and then members will return to the budget committee to continue work on the markup of the budget this afternoon. we'll have live coverage of that, and we do expect it to go until late tonight. we'll stick to it. right now, though, more debate from earlier in the republican budget proposal. this is about 15 minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ranking member. i thought a good way to start today as we get into the details of what we're going to be

discussing is to try and provide a little contrast. a little comparison between what we'll be we'll be offering on the republican side and what our colleagues on the other side have offered in the past, and may be offering over the course of the past couple of days. i want to contrast what we have done as republicans versus what the senate democrats have done. they haven't done a budget in three years. so it's not possible actually to do that contrast. and that unfortunately the senate democrats are following on the lead set by this committee, when it also failed to offer a budget during the last year the democrats were in charge of this committee. that leaves us only with the president's budget with which to provide contrast wheen what we're offering and what the other side is offering. what jumps out at you first, is the taxes. $1.9 trillion in brand new taxes. more taxes on income, more taxes on gasoline, more taxes on giving gifts to other people.

and then perhaps more defensively, more taxes on dying. what else comes out is $1.5 trillion of new spending in the president's budget. more spending on welfare. more spending on paying people not to work. and more to alternative energy. particularly those who have given football contribution toos the particular administration. if you want to sum up the president's budget, the one we're trying to provide the contrast to here today, it would be in some old fashioned language which used to be fashionable. it's a tax and spend opg. it raises taxes. and it raises spending. i wasn't around during those times. my guess is during the late '90s the previous democratic administration made it no longer fashionable to use the tax and spend liberal.

perhaps with good purpose. we have seen other things accomplished during the late '90s. this president is making every effort to bring the words tax and spend liberal back into this town. and maybe that's fair. s maybe he's at least being honest about where his party ask wanting to take the country. i suppose many folks in this town would be okay with a tax and spend approach, if it provided us with some balance. of course, the most glaring error of the era is that it never balances. doesn't try to balance. it's hard to call it a budget if it never balances. the president talks about using a fair and balanced approach but you would expect most people would think a fair and balanced approach arrives at something that balances. but it doesn't. if you want to use a different term for the president's budget,

they're at the end of the year. it's not a budget. it's the end of the year and why should people care? we talk about the trillions dollars in debt. the credit crisis that we fate. the debt shock that we're going to face. but i fear that that probably means more to economists and to analysts and to politicians than it does to folks back home. so i think it's important when we look at the president's budget, we look at what the president's proposal for the future of this country means to the people back home. because the president never brings the budget to balance, by the end of this ten-year budget window, the president will be proposing to spend more money on interest than he does on veterans benefits or unem ploit. hi proposed to spend more on interest than medicaid. almost twice as much on interest than all nondiscretionary

spending put together. that includes education and public safety. twice as much money on interest as on those things. and almost nearly as much money on interest as on medicare and/or defense. is that a plan for the future? is that really the country that we want to live in where we're spending that much money on interest payments for the deficits that we've run up during these years? our budget will spend a quarter trillion more on medicare than on interest in 2022. almost a quarter million more on medicare than on interest in 2022. you'll hear allegations that we are cutting medicare, that we are ending medicare. it's the republican plan that spend more money on medicare than it does on interest because we get our spending under control. that's what you can expect when we take a balanced approach,

instead of taxing and spendsing deeper into debt. i learned this morning they expect to offer their own budget next week. i wm that. i would guess that the budget he's going to offer will probably balance eventually. if nothing else, i would will provide stark contrast. so with that, mr. chairman, i was going to yield time to the gentleman from texas. he stepped down. at this point i'll yield back. we'll get a chance to speak later on this morning. >> at this time i yield ten minutes to dr. price. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me commend you and the members of the committee and the staff to come up with what i believe is a wonderfully positive and visionary document for turning in country around and getting us on a path to economic vitality.

we're here today to consider a budget, which is our positive blueprint for how we can and must address a predictable and looming crisis while putting our nation on a path to future prosperity. the american people are smarter than the politicians in washington. they understand washington cannot continue to spend beyond its means. ignoring this budget is absolutely irresponsible and reckless. we're bringing this budget resolution to reduce spending, to fix a broken bureaucracy and to ensure that tax creators keep more of their hard earned money. this is a bold vision for our nation's future. it restores fiscal responsibility by cutting the deficit over $500 billion in the first year alone and trillions in the years to come. it will end the president's annual trillion-dollar deficits.

the president's budgets have been trillion dollar deficits plus. we'll do so without taking in more money out of the packets of the american people. the house budget save $5 trillion over the next decade when compared to the next decade. we so without retliing on $2 trillion of tax hikes that the president wants. one of the most important solutions in the budget that puts on on a path to prosperity is a complete and full repeal of the president's health care law. the health care law is a threat to the affordability of the health care in our country. to protect the pins pls of health care that we hold dear, our budget includes patient centered health reforms that empower people and their families to make important personal health care decisions. our budget strengthens, improves

medicare by empowering citizens to choose from a list of guarantee, mr. chairman. i want my colleagues to hear this. guaranteed coverage options. including traditional medicare. but the president in his democrat colleagues do is to raise medicare. up nearly $700 billion while providing no mechanism to pay this money back. without structural reforms, the only option left to harness the skyrocketing costs in medicare is to inch lemplement price con. he blans to implement that through the advisory board. the president's health care law by rating medicare and empowering the advisory board to determine medicare payments is a direct threat the the vital lifeline for seniors. conversely, our budget empowers 50 million seniors to choose a plan that best suits their needs. rather than allow 15 unelected,

unaccountable bureaucrats to do so for them. seniors have ang opportunity to choose a health care plan or tradition until medicare. no changes are made for those in and near retirement. no doubt we'll hear the same old tired accusations that we've heard in the past we've heard them already. what we need as a positive and not more demagoguery. many would prefer to ignore medicare's physical challenges and issue false criticisms and accusations. we believe it's our responsibility to bring in honest ideas that engage in an honest and factual debate. there's no denying that our health care programs are currently unsustainable from a