pretty generous state. it takes care of its most vulnerable citizens and the cost of that -- host: michael, i am sorry, we have to leave it there for the day but i appreciate you coming on. that concludes today "washington journal per call back tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. we now bring you to the u.s. house. .

[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, rabbi steven leon, congregation benai, zion, el paso, texas. the chaplain: o lord, this is the day that god has made. on it may we rejoice. these words from the book of psalm is in my heart on this

glorious day. imagine if each person would rise and thank god for one more day of life, for one more precious moment to make a difference for good in this world. how fortunate i feel to live in this blessed country of america where a rabbi from el paso, texas, is given the opportunity to offer a prayer before this historic assembly which represents the highest ideals of democracy. may each of us here realize what awesome moments god gives us each day and may we in partnership with the almighty help speed that day when every person in the world will be privileged to live in peace and freedom. and let us say amen. the speaker: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announced to the house her approval thereof.

pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from texas, congressman reyes. mr. reyes: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker: without objection, the gentleman from texas, mr. reyes, is recognized for one minute. mr. reyes is recognized for one minute. mr. reyes: thank you, madam speaker. and it is a real honor and

privilege to have i reserve the balance of my timi leon here this morning -- and it's a real honor and privilege to have rabbi leon here this morning. i know that back in my district, back in el paso people have gotten up extra early to see the rabbi give our opening prayer. it's a real honor and a real privilege and pleasure. thank you, madam speaker. and i yield back. the speaker: the chair will entertain up to 15 further requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio rise? mr. boehner: to address the house for one minute. the speaker: without objection. mr. boehner: madam speaker, american families and small businesses are hurting. the economy has been hurting, but this morning in previewing the president's speech tonight, our former colleague, the president's chief of staff,

said this. we rescued the economy. now, i'm sure that the 9.5% unemployment rate that we have in our country today and from most economic experts on his way up don't believe that we've rescued the economy. the 11.1% unemployment rate that we have in ohio, i'm sure those people are looking up today wondering, wait a minute, the president is going toay we rescued the economy? i don't think so. not only has the stimulus not worked and the economy not rescued, the president continues to promote policies that will create more unemployment in america. the national energy tax that went through this house last month will cause millions of american -- to lose their jobs over the next 10 years, 2.5 million per year. and we're debating the health care plan, the government takeover of health care, which

according to the president's council of economic advisor's model will cost five million more americans their jobs. i don't believe that the economy has been rescued. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. pascrell: mr. speaker, i rise in strong opposition to the so-called berther bill. you ought to read it. 1503 is predicated on the vicious and false rumor that circulates amongst fringe elements among our society that barack obama is not a citizen of the united states and his presidency is therefore illegitimate. i bring you a copy and i hold it up of his birth certificate, which has been authenticated in the state of hawaii by the department of health. and i also hold up an announcement in the newspaper

in august the 14th. yet, despite being categorically untrue, time and time again this rumor stays alive because of acknowledgment embodied in this legislation from legislate oors in this room -- legislators in this room. anything to bring the messenger down. these rumors hurt america. they hurt the strength of our country. the fact that some members of the minority would embrace this hateful rhetoric stuns me. these allegations have no grounding. and this bill is nothing but a shameful ploy to stir up dissension in the minds of the american people. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? mr. wilson: mr. speaker, i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. wilson: and to revise and extend. mr. speaker, republicans agree we need to reform the health care system. yet the democrat leadership

hide behind closed doors. they've chosen to go at it alone. as a result, they have a scheme of proposals that adds to the deficit, spends over $1 trillion and has a government takeover of health care and has garnered bipartisan opposition. democrats should sit down at the table with republicans and work on a bipartisan plan of reform. republicans have commonsense solutions that will help americans afford insurance regardless of preexisting conditions. we want to provide small businesses the resources and freedom to offer and keep insurance for their employees. house republicans and the american people do not believe we need to let big government take over our health care, ration the taxpayer subsidized care and raise taxes on small businesses that will, according to the national federation of independent business, cost 1.6 million jobs lost. in addition to the 2.6 million jobs lost since january. in conclusion, god bless our troops and we will never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman

from north carolina rise? mr. butterfield: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. butterfield: mr. speaker, one of our core democratic principles is in seeking health care reform is gaining control over health care cost. contrary to my friend, the minority leader, which he said a few minutes ago, this is not government takeover of health care. it's about guaranteeing health care for all americans and reducing the cost of health care which is just spiraling out of control. if we fail to control health care costs, families will continue to be burdened with higher premiums and unaffordable out-of-pocket expenses. businesses will be forced to drop coverage or lay off workers and our national and state budgets will become unsustainable. without reform, the cost of health care for the average family of four are projected to rise $1,800 annually for years to come. in my home district of north carolina alone, there were 400 health care-related bankruptcies last year caused primarily by health care costs not being covered by insurance. the reforms would keep

out-of-pocket expenses at $10,000 per year, ensuring that no american will have to face financial ruin due to health care costs. mr. speaker, i urge my colleagues to work together to find solutions. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? mr. poe: request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. poe: mr. speaker, the administration is demanding that congress pass nationalized health care before we go back to our districts for the august work period. they said it's urgent, that we had to do it or it will be the end of health care in america forever. well, that's what was said about the wall street bailout. congress had to pass the wall street bailout in 24 hours or we were all going to die and it passed and it's a miserable failure. next is the so-called stimulus bill. it was over 1,000 pages long. it was filed in the darkness of the night. nobody had a chance to read it. we were told we had to vote on it immediately or the world

would end. well, none of that happened. and the stimulus bill, too, was a disaster for our country. hasn't congress learned its lesson that passing legislation because the president says so is a bad idea? we need to get the health care right instead of just getting it done. the very lives of the american people depend on it. besides, the administration's current health care bill is a sick solution for america, and that's just the way it is. . >> mr. speaker, i'm proud today to be an orange co-sponsor of the pay-go legislation we will see on the floor later today because it represents a return to the responsible budgeting principles that we saw in the 1990's. during that time, the federal government made difficult fiscal decisions, but those tough choices took our country from record deficits to record

surpluses. yet the bush administration abandoned pay-go in 2002 and our country has rurpped to record deficits that have doubled our national debt. we owe it to the working families that elected us to match their tough household budgeting decisions. we must once again commit to redouse our national deficit and to tighten up the purse strings here in washington. i urge my colleagues to vote for this legislation and to return fiscal discipline to the congress. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? >> request permission to address the house for one nute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. >> i come before you today to highlight exactly how out of control government spending has become. as some in congress charge tarred a more than $1 trillion health care bill with little regard to our national debt, a reminder of how much we spent is in order. this year's budget increased

spending to $4 trillion, 28% of g.d.p., the highest since world war ii. we have a $2 trillion deficit. this summer we have been passing bills with double-digit increases in spending. there have been mention of tax increases to cover our financial obligations. where does this stop? sadly, it would appear, not in this congress. we look at the west coast and see a government with no fiscal discipline. in california, they laid off thousands of workers, withheld tax refunds and started pay-go with i.o.u.'s. we have a clear example of how reckless spending can paralyze a state. i hope the members of this body learn from that important lesson. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlelady from california rise? mrs. capps: the time for health reform is now. the american people need it and

we will pass a comprehensive health care bill out of this chamber before we break for august recess. we will pass a bill to reform health care that ends the current system of insurance company executives lining their pockets by denying you the care you need. and keep your health compling in tact, even if you louis your job and pass a bill that brings spending under control. it is easy to get caught up in the politics of washington as we work on this legislation. this is about the american people. when we pass this legislation, when the president signs it into law, every day families will be able to have access to reliable, affordable quality health care. let's get it done. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. for what purpose does the gentleman from washington rise? mr. reichert: permission to address the house. under the current health care proposal in the house, the

health compling of 16 million americans who hold individual market health plans is in jeopardy. we have heard, if you like it, you can keep it, but this bill takes away the freedom to choose and drives up costs. upped the bill, providers will be prohibited from enrolling even one new member. it is simple economics. the members will get older, sicker and costs will skyrocket and so will the premiums. costs will prevent providing coverage and force 16 million americans out of their current health care compling. this is not choice or freedom. last week, i offered an amendment in the house ways and means committee to stop this and it was rejected. i urge my colleagues to reject this bill so we can discuss solid solutions to protect health care of every american. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois rise?

>> address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. quigley: we cannot forget one important factor in the health care reform debate, that the cost of inaction far outweighs today's price tag. we believe that we can live with our health care system as is, yet we forget until we show up in the emergency room at 1:00 in the morning with our daughter is sick with a bureaucrat in the room, our health insurance company. we believe those who are uncovered are costing us nothing, but overwhelming our emergency care facilities and costing you the taxpayer overwhelming amounts in fees that they cannot pay out of pocket. we believe that health care reform is the same with rising costs but costs are already on the rise. we are paying more out of pocket whether covered by an insurance plan or not, and getting less. if health care costs continue to increase at the rate they have, most american house holds will be spending 45% of their income

on health insurance by 2016. premiums have doubled in nine years, three times faster than wages. yes, mr. speaker, the cost of inaction far outweighs today's price tag. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois rise? mr. roskam: thank you, mr. speaker. americans are seeing jobs sift through their fingers. we have seen two million jobs lost. millions more under the cap and tax scheme that moved through the house and millions more lost if the health care plan moves forward. but our adventures don't stop there. the administration has proposed $2 billion in tax increases on worldwide american companies in the form of changes to tax did he ferlsdwsh deferral rules. it would cost as much as 2.2 million american jobs.

this isn't about bad companies, but about american companies and workers having the tools to compete overseas to pursue 95% of the world's customers who are living outside the united states and our borders. deferral is one of these tools that we need to make sure is in place over the long run to make sure americans can compete in worldwide markets. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlewoman from nevada, what purpose do you rise? ms. titus: permission to address the house for one minute. i rise to congratulate a dear friend and admired leader of las vegas. dr. jim nay. he was recognized as a veteran yarn at the annual convention where he received the award for his distinguished contributions to the advancement of medical

organizations. he is incomparable. he has served as president of the nevada vet association and on the board of medical exercise and named nevada's outstanding vet of the year. in addition he has been the chair of the executive board and president of that organization where he helped establish a metropolitanoring program and a commission on vet issues and restored rank of brigadier general to the army vet corps which he served earning the medal while vietnam. he is a respected leader in the field and i congratulate for receiving the most prestigeous award and i thk him on behalf of the people of las vegas and their pets for his compassion and dedication. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does gentlelady from oklahoma rise? ms. fallin: address the house. american families have taken a hit time and time again and are hurting. the stock markets have tanked, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have lost and unemployment has sored. we need to reform our nation health care's system and provide relief to american families by helping them with access to affordable health care and quality coverage for healthy living but we can't doo this unless we reign in the expensive costs and exploding deficit in spending. this house passed an energy bill that will cost $846 billion in new taxes, $1 trillion economic stimulus bill that has yet to create jobs. our national debt stands at $11.5 trillion.

house leaders have now been on a spending spree and about to raise taxes even higher for the health care reform bill. this approach is wrong and the american people know it. i cannot find a sincere attempt to reign in the costs and increase access to quality care. i only see more regulation and less choice and more taxes. there are market-based solutions to provide affordable health care and make it more portable and quality access to quality care. unless we are able to reform the health care system, it is going to be another spending spree here in congress. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? mr. moran: people are entitled to their opinions but not facts and the historical facts are it was the reagan and bush administration that busted the budget year after year establishing unprecedented

deficits. but then the clinton administration came in passed a balanced budget amendment against republican opposition, implemented the pay-go concept and generated $5.6 trillion of projected surpluses, alan greenspan was worried about too much surplus. the bush administration comes in rejected the pay-go concept, passes two tax cuts, starts a war not dime of which was ever paid for and now the democrats will come back and pass statutory pay-go, because pay-go is defining of the democratic's party's commitment to accountability. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana rise? mr. pence: address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. pence: the time has come to deny any and all federal funding to planned parenthood, the

largest abortion provider in america should not also be the largest resip yept of federal funding under title 10. i filed an amendment to block any funds to going to planned pearpt hood again. it's the same amendment that was supported by 189 bipartisan members in the year 2007 and i'm confident it would enjoy broad support again. it would prevent funds going to planned parenthood and not reduce the total amount of funds available for ethical family planning services. title 10 clinics do important work in the underserved communities around this country. a number of clinics across the nature offer beneficial services including patient counseling, breast cancer screening and ethical family planning. by contrast, planned parenthood's annual report reported it received $350 million in government grants and

contracts. they boast 305,000 abortions provided. title 10 money should go to meet the underserved community, not to provide offsetting resources for the largest abortion provider in america. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan rise? >> permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. >> today i want to tell you about ray roddy. ray was laid off from his job making engine components and realized he would need further education to find another job. he enrolled at jackson community college and working hard to become a nurse. ray isn't alone. 6.5 million americans have lost their jobs in the last two years and many remain unemployed. in today's economy with rising unemployment, it's critical to invest in our future by increasing the number of college graduates. that's why i support president obama's american graduation initiative.

this initiative will help prepare americans for the jobs of the 21st century and help people like ray gain the education and skills they need to compete in the global economy and will establish new grants to help community colleges improve access to education and build ties to businesses to increase graduates' chances of gaining employment. with the american graduation initiative, the number of unemployed americans will be dramatically reduced in the next 10 years by helping five million people earn more college degrees. ray roddy needs a job and he's going to get one. thanks to this exciting initiative, so will five million other americans. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from maine rise? ms. pingree: to address the house for one minute. i rise with hope and confidence that we are moving forward with legislation that will put our health care system on the right

track and bring quality affordable health care to all americans. i strongly support h.r. 3200, america's affordable health choices act. this is the right step for families, small businesses and for people in maine and across the country. but i have a warning that comes from my experience in the maine legislature and taking on the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies and the special interests that have done everything they can to block health care reform for a generation. mr. speaker, if we go home for recess without passing this bill, we will give the special interests and their lobbyists five weeks to dump millions of dollars into ad campaigns that spread misinformation, fear and contusion and give them five weeks to do everything they can to kill the best chance we have had in a lifetime to move forward on significant health care reform. we must pass this bill now. we absolutely cannot afford to wait.

i look forward to going back to my district in august and tell the good people of maine we didn't let them down. . the speaker pro tempore: the chair will receive a message. the messenger: mr. speaker, a message from the senate. the secretary: i have been directed to inform the senate has agreed to the recognizing the 40th anniversary of the food and nutrition of the department of agriculture in which the concurrence of the house is requested. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from kentucky rise? mr. yarmuth: i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. yarmuth: mr. speaker, we already know that the republicans have committed themselves to doing everything possible to prevent this body from passing the health care reform that the american people desperately need and want. yesterday and today we heard a greek chorus of republican talking points designed to misrepresent what we are trying to do, to help the american people to maintain and have

access to affordable health care. among the misrepresentations is we are going to somehow force the american people to be insured in a public plan. nothing could be further from the truth. the essence of our proposal is to provide choice and competition so that insurance companies will have to compete for the american people's business rather than the american people having to beg them to cover them and then to find that their coverage is inadequate when they really need it. this is the type of reform that we need for this country and for the american people, and no republican misrepresentations will prevent this body from acting. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? for what purpose? mr. thompson: i ask permission to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, on a daily basis we make our own choices. from decisions as simple as paper or plastic, decaf nated to ones as profound as

republican and democrat. we come from a nation of freedom that's allowed to us make the choices in our lives, but the democrats have their way, government bureaucrats will soon choose our health care. there's a television advertisement about a woman whose doctor told her to go get her affairs in order because she had cancer and less than six months left to live. several years later she is still alive and healthy because she went to another doctor. an unelected official in washington will be making health decisions for individuals and families across this nation. patient choice will be a thing of the past unless you are wealthy enough to go outside the system. when competition dies so does quality. mr. speaker, one of the reasons this nation has the best health care in the world is competition and compassion. let's choose not to lose that quality and to continue to be able to go to the physician who can be serve our needs. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio rise?

ms. kilroy: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. kilroy: i have engaged my community in a variety of town hall meetings, forums and opportunities for them to let me know what they need out of a health care bill, to tell me their stories. i'd like to share one of those with you. my constituent writes, this is not my story but it is the story of a close friend who died last november at the age of 50. during his life he was afflicted with diabetes and heart disease. he was self-employed, could not get health insurance because of his preexisting conditions. a few months prior to his death he asked me to review a brochure advertising a plan to get discould you tell us on various things, including medical services and drugs, but clearly stated it was not insurance. i told him the company was not promising anything, only a hope discounts could be obtained. he was going to pay the $178 per month premium anyway because he couldn't get

insurance, any other kind of help. a few months later he suddenly died. mr. speaker, we have an opportunity here with h.r. 3200 to pass a bill of historic proportions, to address issues like this constituent and many americans are facing, to have a health care plan that is affordable and accessible for all americans that will lower the cost of health insurance, that provides a public option, that gives people a choice of doctors and plans and puts an emphasis on prevention and wellness. i urge my colleagues to support this bill and thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired the gentlelady's time has expired. -- the time of the gentlelady has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> i rise in strong support of h.r. 2920, the statutory pay-as-you-go or pay-go act, as a long overdue return to fiscal responsibility. we hear a lot from our colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle talking

about their new found concern about deficits, but it was a republican congress that allowed pay-go legislation to expire in 2002, even after in fact it worked to produce two consecutive surpluses in 1999 and 2000 under a democratic president. unfortunately, the republican-controlled congress didn't renew pay-go in 2002, leaving us once again with annual deficits that this year now reach $1 trillion, most of it on their watch. mr. speaker, the cure for deficits is not floor speeches, catchphrases or expenseably produced charts. the cure is fiscal responsibility. this house, if it's going to be serious about fiscal responsibility, must return to statutory pay-go. i support the bill and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from illinois rise? >> request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. sh could you say key: a horror story about a

59-year-old woman who was a registered nurse for 30 years, with health insurance. she retired to get her own small business, got her own policy with blue cross and blue shields. she went to a dermatologist with acne. she -- here's her word. shortly thereafter, i was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer and told i needed a double mastectomy. the next -- the friday before the monday i was scheduled to have my double mastectomy blue cross red flagged my chart due to the dermatologist's report. the dermatologist called and said i only had acne and pleaded not to hold off the surgery and then blue cross called to inform her that she was -- they were launching a five-year medical investigation into her medical history and that she would not be able to have the surgery. she was frantic. and then she found out that the insurance policy that she had been paying premiums on was

canceled altogether. she says the sad thing is blue cross took my premiums and when i was suspected of having cancer they searched for a reason to cancel me. this happened and seven months later the tumor doubled in size and went into her limp nodes and now her prognosis is worse. we have an opportunity -- into her lymph nodes and now her prognosis is worse. we have an opportunity to pass health care reform. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from california rise? ms. watson: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. ms. watson: mr. speaker, the house will be calling up statutory pay-go legislation which will restore the policy that led from deficits to surpluses under the clinton administration. statutory pay-go is a necessary step to restore fiscal discipline and begin bringing down the deep deficits that face our nation. without reducing the deficit, we won't be able to invest in vital priorities, including

health care, education and clean energy. the bill on floor this week requires all new policies that either reduce revenues or expand entitlement spending, be offset over five and 10 years. discretionary spending is not subject to pay-go, and exceptions can be made for emergencies. we also take into account the political reality that several policies will continue as in past congresses and allow them to be extended without offsets. medicare, physician payments, alternative minimum tax, currentess tape tax rates. i hope that all members will support our pay-go bill. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentlewoman has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. >> thank you, mr. speaker. before i was elected to the

house of representatives i was an entrepreneur. i started several technology companies. entrepreneurs across this country are a constant source of creativity, of job creation, of unleashing their cree atif potential to -- creative potential, to bring new products and services to the marketplace. there are people today, mr. speaker, that would love to be entrepreneurs, but the fact that they're wedded and trapped in jobs because of the none transportability of their health care. mr. speaker, for them and their families they have to keep their current jobs. they can't go off on their own. they can't start new companies. they might have great ideas that will unlock great value and yet they're prohibited from doing so. one of the great benefits of the obama health care plan is we'll allow people to pursue their potential, to create jobs, to go off on their own without taking that risk of losing health care for them and their families. by doing so we can unleash the potential of the american people and entrepreneurs across the country to create value and create jobs. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise?

mr. arcuri: mr. speaker, by the direction of the committee on rules, i call up house resolution 665 and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house calendar number 83, house resolution 665. resolved, that upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the house the bill h.r. 2920, to reinstitute and update the pay-as-you-go requirement of budget neutrality on new tax and mandatory spending legislation, enforced by the threat of annual, automatic sequestration. the first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. all points of order against consideration of the bill are waived except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule 21. the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in part a of the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution, modified by the amendment printed in part b of the report of the committee on rules, shall be considered as adopted. the bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. all points of order against provisions of the bill, as amended, are waived.

the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, to final passage without intervening motion except one, one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the committee on the budget. two, the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in part c of the report of the committee on rules, if offered by representative ryan of wisconsin or his designee, which shall be in order without intervention of any point of order except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule 21, shall be considered as read, and shall be separately debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent. and three, one motion to recommit with or without instructions. section 2, for purposes of the concurrent resolution on the budget, the amounts specified in section 421-a-2-a and section 421-a-2-c shall be considered to be those

reflected in section 314 and section 316, respectively, of the house companion measure. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is -- forgive me -- is recognized for one hour. mr. arcuri: thank you, mr. speaker. for purposes of debate only, i yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. dreier. all time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials into the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. arcuri: i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker, i rise today as a member of the rules committee and the fiscally conservative blue dog coalition and a proud supporter of this rule and h.r. 2920, the statutory pay-as-you-go act. when the 110th congress convened in 2007 i strongly supported the reinstatement of the pay-as-you-go principles in

the rules of the house. today we will take up the next step toward reinstating the statutory pay-as-you-go rule. these statutory requirements helped turned deficits into surpluses during the 1990's under the clinton administration. when the previous statute expired, mr. speaker, the result was a return to unchecked deficit spending which doubled the national debt in less than a decade. . the american people deserve better. we in congress must be forced to balance our spending the same way that every american family does. we should not spend what we cannot afford. we must find a dollar in savings or in revenue. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle may try to argue and say this is an imperfect bill. if this is the case, i would remind my colleagues that every journey is completed one step at a time.

this bill is just the first step. it is part of a delineated path towards fiscal responsibility. to date, this congress has passed critical pieces of legislation, like expansion of the schip and we did so in a way that was paid for, showing our commitment to fiscal responsibility. earlier this year, we adopted a budget resolution that placed the full cost of war spending on the books for the first time. these are steps in the right direction. this bill continues these important steps in the direction of fiscal responsibility. this legislation will require that all new policies reducing revenues or expanding spending be offset over a five and 10 years and require any future extension of upper income tax cuts to be offset and force a serious examination of wasteful subsidies in the budget and tax

loopholes that can be eliminated to offset more worth while programs. the statute would not be complete without an enforcement mechanism. the congressional budget office will continue to score legislation passed by congress. the office of management and budget keep a scorecard for revenue and spending during a year. it will trigger an automatic sequester of funds from the mandatory spending programs. mr. speaker, the american people have spoken and they want a return to fiscal responsibility that congress -- and congress abide by pay-as-you-go principles. this is the legislation that will make that a reality. as a member of the blue dog coalition, i have worked since being elected to congress to enact statutory pay-go and i urge my fellow colleagues to vote for this rule and h.r.

2920. and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. mr. dreier: thank you, mr. speaker. and let me begin expressing appreciation to my rules colleague for yielding me the customary 30 minutes and i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker, today is the 22 of july. we're just over halfway through calendar year 2009 and the federal deficit has exceeded $1 trillion, not with an m, b, but t. $1 trillion. so much money we can't even fathom. i have spent a while here and i can't imagine $1 trillion. and it's the amount of money already that the federal

government not has spent but the amount of money, mr. speaker, that the federal government has already overspent as we are halfway through this year. at the rate that we're going, by the end of the year, by the end of the year, the deficit, the deficit will approach $2 trillion. now, mr. speaker, if you think about that, the amount that we have overspent, spent more than what was actually taken in is actually based on this annual number, it quite possibly could be larger than the entire federal budget was just a decade ago. and the american people are paying attention. they're paying attention and they don't believe that such irresponsible spending is ever justified, but they are particularly outraged that it's

coming at a time when they are revamping their own budgets, cutting out every penny of waste and saving every penny that they possibly can. our economic challenges have fundamentally changed america's budgeting habits. they are spending less and saving more and they are paying off their debts and they're asking themselves why is my government doing precisely the opposite? well, the american families are spending less, saving more and paying down their debts. we here in washington, d.c. are doing the opposite, and they can't understand why that's continuing to happen. why is congress, during very difficult and challenging times spending trillions on bailouts, proposing new taxes that will burdenen our families even more and rack up so much debt that our kids, grandkids and

great-grandkids won't be able to pay it off. so much concern over spending, that it at no surprise that the democratic leadership wants to give the appearance of an interest in fisca responsibility. and quite frankly, mr. speaker, as i go through the analysis of this, we will find and the american people are going to understand that this is simply dealing with the appearance of trying to be fiscally responsible. the leadership on the other side of the aisle wants to be able to send out a press release to say that they care about this $1 trillion deficit spending that's taking place in the last six months and they're doing something about it. unfortunately, rather than actually reigning in the deficit, what's happened? they've proposed a bill that will do nothing to restore any semblance of responsibility and accountability to the federal

budget. as any hard-working american knows living within our means during tough economic times is painful, but mr. speaker, it's not terribly complicated. you have to reduce your spending. it's very simple. the democratic leadership will say that the bill before us today requires congress to spend only what it can pay for, but this claim is not terribly accurate. first of all, this bill does absolutely nothing to limit discretionary spending, which is 40% of the entire federal budget. let me say that again, mr. speaker. if you think about a family that has to reduce its expenses and reign in their own personal spending, they don't have the luxury of saying, well, here's 40% that i will exempt and that's what is happening with this measure. this bill makes it virtually impossible for congress to

implement tax reforms that will get our economy growing again and increase federal revenues. if the democratic leadership were actually interested in reducing the deficit, they would simply implement spending caps, caps on spending. that's the way to do it. instead, they have merely produced a fig leaf of a bill, fig leaf so they can send out the press release and go right on spending this country into object liveion, which is what has been happening. the proposal mandates tax increases while leaving discretionary spending completely unchecked. mr. speaker, this is not a theoretical discussion that i'm engaging in right now. we have been living under the democratic leadership so-called pay-go rules for 2 1/2 years. when they reinstated pay-go at the start of the last congress,

they said it would eliminate deficit spending. what has actually happened, mr. speaker? the deficit has skyrocketed from $162 billion, $162 billion in fiscal 2007 to this estimated $1.8 trillion, $1.8 trillion. from $162 billion in 2007 to $1.8 trillion. and that's just the deficit. that's a ten-fold increase and it all happened under this democratic majority with these brilliant pay-go rules that have been put into place. this bill will not cut the deficit. this bill will not help restore our economy. and i will say, quite frankly, mr. speaker, i'm really concerned that some will believe with passage of this bill, we have now addressed the problems and will lure many on the other

side of the aisle to continue on the road that they have been going down for the past 2 1/2 years. the true purpose of this bill is a very, very unfortunate one. the first is to attempt to provide political cover for members who want to have it both ways, carrying the mantle of fiscal responsibility while voting for trillion-dollar spending boone doingles. the second is to make meaningful tax reform impossible to implement. if we abide by the plan that was laid out in this bill, we cannot offer tax relief to a single working american without raising taxes at the same time. this includes tax relief that has been proven to increase federal revenues. we won't be able to do that under this measure, mr. speaker. tax relief that has proven to increase dramatically, the flow of revenues to the federal treasury would not be allowed

under this measure. in 2003, we cut the capital gains tax rate by 5%, and guess what happened? capital gains tax revenues, revenues to the treasury where we cut the capital gains rate by 5%, doubled in a two-year period of time. now, this tax relief is set to expire this year. and guess what? under this bill, we can't extend it without raising taxes. so if we double revenues by cutting the capital gains tax, it doesn't take a phd. if we raise taxes. this bill ties our hands and fails to implement strict guidelines where accountability is desperately needed. even the democratic leadership doesn't take this bill very seriously, adding in five pages of exemptions to an already

worthless attempt at fiscal responsibility. i find it interesting that they would even bother with these exemptions consider they waive their own pay-go rules all the time. in the last congress, they waived these rules to allow legislation to increase the defendant by $420 billion. they use gimmicks to get around their own budget rules which comes as no surprise that we have already passed the $1 trillion deficit spending mark here on july 22. mr. speaker, i urge my colleagues don't be fooled by what is clearly an attempt to cover up the worst spending pattern that we have seen in the history of the united states of america. the american people are figuring this out. they know what it takes to make

ends meet and they know that while they are reigning in their spending and dealing with the economic challenges that they're facing at this time, they know that we are moving in the otch sit direction. reject this -- opposite direction. reject this rule. we must demand true accountability for our constituents' tax dollars. with that, i'm pleased and privileged to reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from new york. mr. arcuri: i yield three minutes to the the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. mcgovern. the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. mcgovern: mr. speaker, i rise in strong support of this rule and support of the underlying statutory pay-go legislation. as a member of the budget committee, i am proud to be an orange -- original co-sponsor of this bill. some of my colleagues may be

asking why is a liberal democrat from massachusetts speaking in support of pay-go. it's true, mr. speaker, i have never been mistaken for a blue dog. i support this legislation because i despise this debt just as strongly as any member of this house. i support this legislation because i have two young children and i don't want to saddle them with a bankrupt nation. and i support this legislation precisely because it helps support the programs that i care most deeply about. every single dollar that we spend on interest on the debt is a dollar that we can't spend on health care or on education or environmental protection or transportation projects or tax breaks for middle-class americans. it's a dollar we can't spend on supporting our servicemen and women or ending hunger. in short, every dollar we spend on this debt is a dollar we cannot invest in the american people. and that is why we need this bill.

i am also pleased that this bill before us today protects the most vulnerable americans. the bill protects social security, veterans' programs, food stamps and food nutrition programs and other essential services. now, we hear a lot of rhetoric from the other side about how awful the deficit is, and they're right. but here's the question, where were you for the last eight years? why did you allow pay-go to expire when you were in the majority? where were you when the bush administration inherited a surplus and proceeded to squander it on tax cuts for the wealthy few? now, if someone wants to argue bigger tax breaks for millionaires is good economic policy, that's fine. but under this bill, they will be forced to acknowledge the cost of those tax cuts and show how they would pay for them. i don't think that's too much to ask. this bill before us at long last will take a good long look at wasteful subsidies and special

interest tax loopholes. mr. speaker, all of us, democrats and republicans like to talk a good game about deficit reduction, but this is where the rubber meets the road. it's our time to put our votes where our rhetoric is. it's time to pass statutory pay-go. it's time to dig this economy out of the ditch that the republican leadership created. and i urge my colleagues to support this good bill and i yield back. . for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? mr. dreier: i want to say to my good friend from worcester, i anxiously look forward to the day where we are not constantly looking backward and blaming the last congresses and president bush for every ailment of society. we need to look forward, and the thing he has been happening the last six months is we've seen this dramatic surge ♪ ing and the idea of engaging in class warfare, taxing those who

are job creators, who -- is i don't believe the best way to deal with the challenges that we have. at this point i'm happy to yield three minutes to our hardworking colleague from jefferson, louisiana, mr. scalise. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from louisiana is recognized for three minutes. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. speaker. and i want to thank the gentleman from california for yielding time and for the comments that he made earlier against the bill and the rule. and i rise as well in opposition to the bill because this bill, this pay-go bill as it's dubbed does nothing to control spending. i strongly believe we need to get our fiscal house in order. i think if you look at the actions of this administration, since president obama became president in january and speaker pelosi continued her reign, which she's been in office for 2 1/2 years now as the speaker, harry reid over in

the senate as well, you've seen spending get out of control here in this congress. and it's done so under pay-go. the pay-go rule that they're trying to put into law has gotten us to a point today where we're facing a $1.8 trillion, with a t, deficit. just last week the federal deficit this year exceeded $1 trillion. this is numbers that have never been seen before in the history of our country. and it all happened under this rule that we're hearing all these fourth of july speeches about how great pay-go is and how pay-go's going to require fiscal responsibility. we have pay-go today, and it's given us a $1.8 trillion deficit this year. and so what i proposed in the rules committee last night was an actual ability to require some strict discipline on pay-go by taking out the

exemptions, the loopholes. now, you ask yourself, if we have pay-go and the people on the other side are talking about and saying how wonderful it's going to be, if it's so good, how could it heeded us a $1.8 trillion deficit? that's because pay-go is a hoax. pay-go is waived every time they want to spend money that we don't have. and so they simply waive it. in fact, in the stimulus bill earlier in year, the largest spending bill in the history of our country, $787 billion of money that we don't have, it was ram through congress. not one person who voted for it had an opportunity to read it, but the president said it had to be done quickly because it's going to create millions of jobs. well, we've seen now it's a failure. where are the jobs? two million more americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus bill passed, and the bill passed without the funding in place, without any kind of offsets, no cuts at all. in fact, $787 billion of new spending under the pay-go rule. and so you would ask yourself if pay-go's so good, how could a $787 billion unfunded bill

pass under that rule? well, that's because they simply waived the rule. it's right here in the rule that they passed on the stimulus bill, many of the people that are co-authors of this bill were happy to vote to waive it. and they were able to waive it with a simple majority vote, and this bill that they're talking about today has the same language that still allows pay-go to be waived anytime they feel like looking the other way. and you would say, oh, they wouldn't do that. well, sorry to tell you, in the last congress 12 times, 12 times they waived pay-go. and in fact -- mr. dreier: mr. speaker, i yield the gentleman two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for an additional two minutes. mr. scalise: i thank the gentleman. so 12 times in the last congress alone they waived pay-go by a simple majority vote. i had an amendment last night in the rules committee to

require a 3/5 vote to say, if you really want to install fiscal discipline, then put a high bar so you can't waive it any time you want to spend money that you don't have. well, not one supported it. i tried to require that we balance our federal budget. many states have a fiscal discipline that's placed in their constitutions. unfortunately, we don't have anything like that here in washington, and the results are this congress is spending at unprecedented levels that's le to these debts. and one other hidden secret about pay-go, it is allowed to cut spending. some people around here don't know what cutting spending means. they just keep growing spending. but when pay-go has been used 34 times in the last congress it was used not to cut spending but to raise taxes. so once again not only is pay-go a hoax, it doesn't stop spending from being out of control at all because it's been waived every time they spent money. but 34 times in the last few

years pay-go has been used to raise taxes on american families. if you wonder why your tax burden keeps going up and up and up and you have pay-go that sounds good and you hear these fourth of july speeches on the other side about fiscal discipline, well, fiscal discipline to them means raising taxes on american families or just waiving it when you feel like spending money you don't have. the american people deserve better. they deserve honesty and transparency in their government, not some bill that purports to be about fiscal discipline and yet can be waived anytime they want to just look the other way and judging by history they've waived it every time they wanted to spend money that this country doesn't have. you know, we can hear about george bush all day and about republicans. for the last 2 1/2 years, the democrats have been running congress. nancy pelosi's been the speaker. harry reid's been the senate president, and barack obama today is the president. and in the last six months we've seen spending at unprecedented levels with a $1.8 trillion deficit. pay-go is a hoax.

let's get real fiscal discipline, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. the gentleman from new york, for what purpose do you rise? mr. arcuri: thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. arcuri: i listened to my friend from louisiana, and all i hear are is complaints about pay-go. then i see a sign that says pay-go equals tax increase which actually means nothing at all but it is a very nice sign. in fact, that's not what pay-go is about. and in fact, if pay-go did only -- did nothing more but put a check on spending i'd say it's worth voting for. but my friend on the other side of the aisle says he doesn't support it. you know, we see a lot of finger-pointing going on in congress. everybody blames the other side. but the fact of the matter is when they talk about spending, we are spending now because we are in the throes of a recession. yet, when the republicans were in control of the house of representatives, we see that

they didn't reinstate pay-go and they continue to spend. mr. dreier: will the gentleman yield? mr. arcuri: we put the word in the books for the first time which is a step in the right direction towards fiscal -- mr. dreier: will the gentleman yield? mr. arcuri: when i finish i'd be happy to yield. mr. dreier: ok, thanks. mr. arcuri: when we hear our friend from louisiana talk about pay-go and talk about all of the problems about pay-go, he doesn't acknowledge the fact that pay-go does require that pay-go requires that we spend only what we have. if it does nothing else he should support it. yet he doesn't support it because it's more of the finger-pointing we have in congress. i'll yield. mr. dreier: i'd simply inquire from my friend if he talks about how -- mr. arcuri: i never said pay-go was great. i said pay-go is a step in the right direction. mr. dreier: will the gentleman yield? mr. arcuri: pay-go is a step we need to take and that's what i said. i'd yield.

mr. dreier: i thank my friend for yielding. i apologize protuesdayly for putting words in my -- protuesdayly for putting words in my friend's mouth. he's propounding the legislation that's before us. i have had' ask my friend, mr. speaker, -- i'd ask my friend, mr. speaker, if in fact we'd see this statutory implementation of pay-go, if it would have any way diminished the kinds of increases that we've seen in the appropriations process that have already taken place in the nine bills that have passed, one of which had a 22% increase in spending, and i'd reesht if it my friend would respond as to whether or not this bill will in any way -- i'd appreciate it if my friend would respond as to whether or not this bill will in any way do that? mr. arcuri: the purpose of pay-go is any money we spend in the future we have a way of providing for either by creating cuts or by raising revenues in other ways.

that's what pay-go is all about and it's about doing it over a five-year and a 10-year period. mr. dreier: will the gentleman yield? mr. arcuri: with that, mr. speaker, i'd yield three minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. cuellar. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for three minutes. mr. cuellar: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to support this h.r. 2920. i rise because there's many americans who are living paycheck to paycheck, dollar by dollar. as i travel from laredo to the rio grande valley, my constituents around the country are gathering around the kitchen table trying to figure out how to make those hard financial decisions. they're making tough choices by which basic needs they can afford. many live by very a very simple principle, if you have $5 nen you should spend $5 -- then you should spend $5. i stand in support of the pay-go legislation because it will rein in national spending and will help us during these difficult times.

if we return to the fiscal responsibility for -- philosophy we had in the 1990's when pay-go spending created record budget surpluses, we would change our economy. americans can't spend their money recklessly right now and our congress shouldn't either. our children deserve more and the people in our nation deserve better. the pay-go legislation is a golden opportunity to get our bank account out of the red. it's time to stop the borrow and spend mentality. especially as we consider the health care reform bill. it's important that we spend taxpayer dollars wisely. i'm supportive of good government efforts to increase fiscal responsibility, to make sure we have effective, accountable and effective government. this is why the blue dogs have been supporting the performance-based budgeting bill to make sure we have effective and accountable government. that increases transparency and efficiency in spending.

americans and texans are doing their part to be fiscally responsible. we need to pass pay-as-you-go. at this time i yield back the balance of my time. mr. dreier: mr. speaker, will my friend yield, if i could engage in a colloquy with him? the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman from yield back? mr. cuellar: i yield back. mr. dreier: i look forward to engaging with inside colleague. mr. speaker, my friend from laredo is a very thoughtful member and a good -- very good personal friend of mine. and i will say that the opening statement i think really gets right to this point. talking about how families have to deal with the economic challenges that we are facing today. the thing that concerns me greatly is that when i engamingd in a colloquy with my -- engaged in a colloquy with my friend from utica on the implementation of pay-go would in any way reduce the appropriations levels that we've seen, one of which had a 22% increase, he responded by

saying that i understood the process and knew that this would not in any way be able to actually take place. so i guess the answer to the question i posed from my friend from utica is no. so i would say to my friend from laredo that i think it's very important, mr. speaker, for us to realize that while we all want to -- i'm engaging with my friend from -- of course. i'm happy to yield to my friend from utica. mr. arcuri: about half of the discretionary spending -- nondiscretionary spending is on military, do you think that we should be cutting the amount of spending we do for the military? mr. dreier: if i could reclaim my time, mr. speaker, i will say that i believe that we need to have a cost-effective national defense. i believe that when we can bring about reductions in the level of expenditures when it comes to waste, fraud and abuse within the military, absolutely. i want to bring about those reductions. but when you, mr. speaker, look

at the dramatic increases, the $1 trillion in deficit spending that has gone into a wide range of new areas into which the federal government has never, ever been involved before, it is essential that we recognize -- mr. arcuri: will the gentleman yield? mr. dreier: of course i'll yield. mr. arcuri: do you think that any increases in military spending that we made should be cut as well? mr. dreier: if i could reclaim my time, mr. speaker, of course. we have yet to deal with the department of defense appropriations bill. i know it's going to be marked up. i anxiously look forward to seeing what that will consist of. but frankly in the proposed budget i believe that has as an increase one of the smallest levels of increases compared to the 22% increase that we saw on other appropriations bills. the fact is there is a role for the federal government. the number one priority the federal government happens to be the national security of the united states of america. and so to say that because we might have an increase in the level of defense expenditures

as we live in a very dangerous world and that somehow justifies a multi-- now what we are headed towards a multitrillion dollar increase in deficit spending is apples and oranges when one looks at what should happen. so i'd like to engage, if i might from my friend from laredo, as we look at this challenge, as we look at this challenge that families face when they are at the kitchen table, recognizing that with the difficult economic times that we have, we have to -- they have to bring -- they have to rein in their spending. they have to pay down their debts. they have to increase their level of savings. how is it that he with in this measure can exempt 40% the discretionary spending level that is here? how is it that we can say that reducing rates on things like capital gains, which doubled the flow of revenues of the

federal treasury, when reduced it by 5%, how is it we can't do that any longer under this so-called pay-go provision? and i'd be happy to yield to my friend if he'd like to respond. mr. cuellar: sure. and, again, thank you very, very much. again, i appreciate the comments of the gentleman from california, a good friend of mine. we have to first -- to answer this question we have to look at history. when pay-go was implemented back in the 1990's, it expired in 2002. the majority at that time decided not to put it back again or reimplement it. . we saw from the history there was a surplus and part of the reason was we had a statutory pay-as-you-go provision. when this expired in 2002, you saw that the defendant and again this deficit that you are talking about and i'm concerned about it as your but the deficit didn't occur on january 20 of this year, but something that

has been happening for the last four, five years. i know we have some differences, but i hope we can get both the democrats and republicans on both sides of the aisle to work together and come up with a way to stop this deficit. because as you well know, look, this is what we have. we have over $11 trillion in debt that we have right now. 40% of that is owned by foreign countries. and the gentleman from california, if you had a business, imagine what would happen if you woke up and your neighbor, friendly competitor suddenly owned 40% of your mortgage, that would put you in a difficult situation and this is what we're facing. mr. dreier: i thank my friend for his thoughtful remarks, but i would say as we look at the discretionary spending caps that were put into place in the 1990's with the pay-go provision that was there, they are thrown out in the window in the package my friend is touting today.

families don't have the luxury of saying, we will exempt -- let's buy a new car. we don't need to worry how much the purchase of that new car is going to be. let's think about maybe the cost of some addition to the house and we have to be skerpped about that. families don't have that luxury and my argument is, as my friends on the other side of the aisle tout this pay-go measure as somehow being relating to the challenges that families are having to make today, it is difficult to do that because there is no correlation with the ability of the congress to simply waive these provisions and the necessity that families are facing today. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. arcuri: i thank my friend from california for his comments and i would just point out that

we are in unpress departmented times. we are in -- unprecedented times. we are conducting two wars overseas, one in iraq and one continuing in afghanistan, and that re-- requires increases. it continues increases in veterans' spending. we have seen unprecedented natural disasters and seen an economy in the downturn. as a result of those things, it is necessary for spending to take place. and with that, i yield three minutes to the the gentlewoman from south dakota, a member of the blue dog coalition, ms. herseth sandlin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for three minutes. ms. herseth sandlin: i thank the gentleman from new york. i rise today in strong support of the rule and the statutory pay-go act of 2009. i would like to thank speaker pelosi and majority leader hoyer

whose steadfast support have been essential to the efforts of the blue dog coalition and others across the spec spectrum of our caucus and mr. miller and mr. welch who worked to restore this important budgetary tool to help move the nation from dangerous deficits to surpluses in the late 1990's, a tool that was abandoned by the republicans in the bush administration. in 2006, the new majority established house pay-go rules in an effort to restore fiscal discipline to congress sm the house pay-go rules and this statutory pay-go bill stand for a simple principle. new entitlement spending and new tax cuts should be paid for. we can't have everything we want. we need to do what families in south dakota and across the nation do, budget responsibly. it's not, our nation our will pay the price. we paid $249 billion in net

interest to service government debt in fiscal year 2008. we know something is wrong with our priorities. think of what we could do with an extra of a quarter of a trillion dollars, we could invest in needed priorities or pay down the debt. the house pay-go rules is the first step. the massive buildup of debt that occurred over the past eight years not only threatens our economic future that puts our national security at risk. foreign held debt has grown more than 200% increasing from $1 trillion from january, 2001 to $2.7 trillion, which works out to be 80 crepts of every dollar of new debt issued since 2001 being bought by foreign entities. china alone uped by 850%. today, we finally have a

president who is committed to pay-go. the first bill he sent to congress was a statutory pay-go bill. many of our friends on the other side of the aisle have been concerned about deficits and i welcome that. we should be concerned about the national debt as one of the most pressing and consequential issues facing our country and we should recognize statutory pay-go is one tool among many but a strong tool enforcing the congress to spend within its means. statutory pay-go, controlling both spending and tax policy is absolutely critical in the long-term for long-term growth and prosperity. and that's something people across the political spectrum should be able to agree on. many people talk about a commitment to fiscal responsibility, but no one can be taken seriously in that claim if they do not support the strong effective and proven tool of statutory pay-go. so today, mr. speaker, on behalf of our nation's children and grandchildren, i urge the house

for colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote to restore this crucial tool of fiscal responsibility for the sake of the nation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentlelady has expired. the gentleman from california? mr. dreier: i would like to inquire of my friend how many speakers he has remaining. he has 19 minutes and we have eight minutes remaining. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california has eight minutes. mr. dreier: i don't know how many speakers. look like there are thoughtful members here on the floor and i look forward to hearing from them. mr. arcuri: we have several speakers -- at least two. mr. dreier: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from reserves. the gentleman from new york. mr. arcuri: i yield three minutes to the the gentlewoman from california, ms. harm and. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for three minutes. ms. harman: i thank the

gentleman for yielding and rise in strong support of this rule and the underlying pay-go bill. for those who worry about hemorrhaging deficits and debt, this bill is for you. i was here in the early 1990's, in another century and remember well casting a career-risking vote in 1993, totally partisan vote for the clinton budget that i believe put the country on a balanced budget and created surpluses for the first time in a generation. sadly, it was also the last time in a generation that we saw those surpluses. and today is a proud moment for the blue dog coalition and our dogged pursuit of bipartisan budget solutions. as a self-proclaimed grandmother dog, i salute my colleagues in the group and former leader and

colleague, charlie stenholm for championing this issue of pay-go. many of us in this chamber yes or no for more bipartisanship. i would urge my colleagues to seize this moment to embrace the concept that makes absolute common sense and that is that the government pays for the programs it enacts, including the defense programs that it enacts. and one of the great promises for this legislation is that we will finally put predictable work horse on budget as we should and consider them in the context of a very large budget at a time of deficits and debt that are much higher than any of us would like to see. so, mr. speaker, with this bill, we have the opportunity to hit the reset button and to engage in more honest budgeting. yes, some compromises had to be

made and i'm sure other members would like a tighter one. but the bill before us makes a statement by congress that the delusional out of control spending in the past years is behind us. surely this is what democrats and republicans alike can celebrate. millions of american families are swallowing hard. truly my families in our state of california in making tough financial choices right now. the federal government must do the same. i urge an aye vote and call on our friends in the senate not to allow this much needed legislation to languish. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the gentleman from california. mr. dreier: i will reserve the balance of my time. we have one other speaker and i plan to close. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman from california reserves. the gentleman from new york. mr. arcuri: i yield two minutes to the got from pennsylvania. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. mrs. dahlkemper: i rise today to address this chamber not as a member of the house of representatives but as someone who knows firsthand the balancing act that american families and small businesses have to negotiate in order to make ends meet. when raising our five children, my husband and i had to make tough choices every day. we had to choose a smaller house so to put food on the table and buy shoes and clothing. we had to choose to go camping in our state park rather than disney world. and every day we had to make tough choices in running our small business to ensure we could make our payroll, grow the business all at the same time. this balancing act is not unique. any parent who has shopped for dinner at the grocery store and any entrepreneur who has handled the books for their small

business understands the importance of living within their means. this begs the question. if small businesses and families have to live within their means, why shouldn't congress as well. i support statutory pay-go. we have important work to do here in congress such as rebuilding our economy to create good paying jobs and eninsuring quality health care for all americans. however, it is irresponsible to build our children and grandchildren's future upon a foundation of debt. if we do not begin to balance short-term deficit spending with long-term fiscal discipline, our children will face a greater mountain of debt, higher taxes and cut the federal investments in priorities like education, health care and international security. i thank my colleagues for making fiscal responsibility a priority. i urge passage of the rule and the important underlying legislation.

and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. who seeks recognition? the gentleman from california. mr. dreier: does my friend have any -- mr. arcuri: i have one more speaker. mr. dreier: mr. speaker, at this time, i'm happy to yield two minutes to our good friend and hard working colleague from tennessee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from tennessee is recognized for two minutes. mrs. blackburn: i thank the gentleman for yielding and i say thank you to our colleagues across the aisle for bringing forward a pay-go statute. it is of concern to me, though, that the statute, the way this is written, the way they are approaching pay-go could lead to tax increases, because what we are not seeing from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is a willingness to reduce spending. and we know that you are going to have an effective pay-go policy, that you have to be able

to reduce what you're spending. that is a requirement. and every appropriations bill that we have, i filed 5% across-the-board reduction amendment for a spending cut. and the reason i do that is what we have learned from our states, what i learned from being a state senator is that across-the-board spending reductions work. they work. they reduce what you are going to lay out the amount of money that you are going to spend. so let's do this in a bipartisan way. let's agree that we are actually going to reduce spending. let's agree that we're going to have pay-go enforcement, that we're not going to cry emergency every time we have a katrina, every time we have a tsunami, every time we have a need for extra spending that we don't go call for a special appropriation that allows us to circumvent the

pay-go rules. and let's be certain that we put all that spending on the table, that we put it all on the table and that we agree we're going to reduce what we are going to spend. what we have seen is the pay-go rule the way it is written, the way they've put it in place has led to a deficit that has gone from $162 billion to over $1 trillion. that is over a 1,000% increase. and i think this body would be well served to make that 5% hair cut, set a nickle aside from every dollar for our children and grandchildren, their future and opportunity. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. arcuri: i'd like to say to my colleague from tennessee is that if katrina was not an

emergency and did not merit emergency spending, then i cannot in my wildest imagination what would. that is the reason why we have an emergency spending exception to any pay-go requirement to allow government to do that which the voters sent us here to do and that is to ensure that when a catastrophe and when an emergency strikes that we are there to do everything that we possibly can to help the people who have been injured by it. and with that, mr. speaker, i would yield three minutes to the gentleman from tennessee, a proud member of the blue dog coalition, mr. tanner. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from tennessee is recognized for three minutes. mr. tanner: thank you. thank you very much for yielding. this bill today is not what some of us would like, but it is something that we think maybe could pass the senate which after all has a hand in this statutory approach. it is the first step to restore

a rule that was allowed by this congress to expire in 2002 which effectively removes a constraint, one constraint on what almost everybody wants to see happen. and that is you want to vote against any taxes and you want to vote for all the programs. this is one small step to try to address that urge that i guess all of us share from time to time. if you look back at this decade, in the year 2000, revenue and expenditures were both around 19% of g.d.p. the country basically was breaking even. by 2002 when pay-go was allowed to expire and we had seen the economic policies of the country change dramatically in the summer of 2001 shortly before 9/11, we had a situation

develop where by 2003 the expenditures were over 20% of g.d.p. and the revenue coming in was less than 17%, actually 16.3% of g.d.p. and without changing our economic game plan that was enacted in june of 2001, we began to borrow money, mostly 75% of it, from foreign sources. what that has done is created a situation where we now are beginning to be more and more vulnerable to our foreign creditors who may or may not see the world as this country does and secondly, we are transferring more and more of our fax base, whatever it may be, to interest -- tax base, whatever it may be, to interest. as my friend from new york just said, the government has to do two things in addition, of

course, the first thing to keep our country safe. but the other two things it has to do is invest in infrastructure. if you go anywhere in the world where there's no infrastructure, nobody's making any money. it's almost impossible to make money on a dirt road with no water, sewer, electricity and so on. the government has to invest in infrastructure. the second thing is human capital. if you read history, no country has been strong and free with an uneducated, unhealthy population. and so public education and health care, preventative health care for children is necessary for the government to invest in so we can remain a strong and healthy society. as we transfer more and more of our tax base to interest, we necessarily -- mr. arcuri: an additional minute. mr. tanner: we necessarily cripple our own ability as

americans to make those investments that are necessary for our country to be successful. and so i -- this is, as i said, the first step to restore some sort of constraint in the system where when we change the law regarding mandatory spending or mandatory tax reduction, then we have to figure out a way to offset it. it is common sense. we're going to demand if we can that it pass the senate so we can have a statutory backstop, a statutory constraint. it's not as strong as we would like but it's a first step. i would urge everybody who cares about the future of this country, and i know we all do, we may have a different idea on how to address, but i ask you to seriously consider voting for this. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. who seeks recognition? the gentleman from california. mr. dreier: the gentleman has

no further speakers? mr. arcuri: i'm prepared to close. mr. dreier: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for six minutes. mr. dreier: thank you very much, mr. speaker. this has been an interesting debate. i would say that ms. harman and i join a desire to deal in a bipartisan way with our challenges. and i will acknowledge from the git-go that everyone, democrat and republican alike, decries deficit spending. i mean, we all regularly talk about the fact that we need to get our fiscal house in order. that was a plank of the platform that president obama ran on, and it's the plank of the platform of virtually every candidate for public office. and i believe that we should work in a bipartisan way to get our fiscal house in order. the problem that i have with the measure that's before us is to me it's the quintessential example of the effort that we often see on legislation.

sometimes we tend to do what makes us feel good rather than doing good. the reason i say that as i listen to the thoughtful remarks of my blue dog friends, they talked about exactly what i raised. that being the challenge that families are facing at the kitchen table. recognizing that because of difficult economic times it is essential for them to reduce their spending, to increase their savings and to pay down their debt. those are the three things that families across this country are doing today at the kitchen table. and you know what, the notion of saying that the federal government is not going to expend dollars that it doesn't have or able to offset is something that does have a lot of appeal and it makes us all feel very good. but that family sitting at the kitchen table or a small business man or woman can't say

we're going to exempt 40% of our expenditures. we want to -- yes, we all want to get the auto industry going, but the idea of saying that we want to buy a nice new car and we don't have to deal with any kind of offset for that. and it's essential for us to get the economy growing. and we know that while it may sound counterintuitive, every shred of combeercal evidence we have going from john f. kennedy, we can increase the flow of revenues to the federal treasury. most recently was the 5% reduction in capital gains. now i know in the economy we are in there are not many people that have capital gains today. if we were to bring about a reduction in the capital gains rate we would as we've seen most recently a doubling of the flow of revenues of the federal

treasury. and yet, mr. speaker, under this measure we're not able to do that. so what we've got is an effort that can make us all feel good. and it is true. i mean, there have been a lot of great statements made, juxtaposing the challenges that working families are facing and the challenges that we face here in washington. but implementation of this statutorily will in no way address the fact that as of july 22, today, we have a federal budget deficit that is $1 trillion, and we're headed towards $1.8 trillion, maybe even beyond that. meaning that the federal deficit, the federal government alone will spend more than it has brought in, and that level will be higher than the entire federal budget was just 10 years ago. and so it's wonderful to say that we are going to work in a

bipartisan way, and it's wonderful to say that we all decry deficit spending. but because the american people are hurting and we need to get our economy growing, i do not believe that that measure before us will do one thing other than make a lot of people feel very, very good. so with that, mr. speaker, i'm going to say that i believe we can get it better. this is not only not a step in the right direction, it is in many ways something that will create a climate whereby people will say we've taken care of this. and i'm afraid that it will send the wrong message to the american people and it will send the wrong message in our quest to get our economy going, to create jobs and more opportunity for the american people. so i urge a no vote. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from new york, for what purpose do you rise? mr. arcuri: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to thank my friend from

california for his management of this rule. mr. speaker, since the beginning of 2007, the democratic leadership of the house of representatives has shown a strong commitment to the pay-as-you-go rules. first, by reinstating the pay-go rules -- rule in the rules of the house in the opening of the 110th congress, and now in working to bring this important legislation before the house. i applaud the blue dog coalition, my colleagues there for their outspoken leadership on pay-go. when i explain to folks back home what pay-go is, i ask them the question. i ask them if they have to balance their own books each month if they have to ensure that they have enough income coming in to cover their expenses. and, of course, they respond that they do. and i then ask, shouldn't the federal government operate in the same way when it involves spending your tax dollars? my constituents get it, the american people get it.

mr. speaker, unfortunately there are still some members of congress who are steadfastly against the idea of being fiscally responsible in balancing the federal books the same way our constituents balance their checkbooks each and every week. the legislation we will consider later today will require congress to balance the books or face the harsh consequence of automatic cuts to offset the shortfall in our spending. now, i certainly appreciate the born-again republican commitment to fiscal responsibility, but the real question is why the republicans allowed pay-go to expire in the first place under the last administration. not only did they not advance the cap discretionary spending, which they are criticizing us for not coupling with the pay-go statute, but they wouldn't even renew the pay-go provision which we are now doing. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle criticized the majority for the increase in the deficits since the beginning of 2007. one of the reason for this is we have put the full cost of the war in the books for the first time. it's the hardest thing to do but the most responsible thing to do. the republicans kept it off

their balance sheets, but the democrats have taken the most fiscally responsible approach and placed the entire cost of the war on the books which adds nearly $1 trillion to the deficit. so to say that we have single handedly raised the deficit over $1 trillion since 2007 is disinjen with us at best. furthermore, the budget adopted by congress this year cuts the deficit by nearly 2/3 in four years, and contains even deeper costs in deficits than were proposed by the president. under the concurrent budget resolution adopted by the house and the senate, the deficit will be cut by $1.7 trillion or 12.3% of g.d.p. in 2009 to 3% of g.d.p. in 2014. i strongly believe that we in congress must balance our own books and maintain fiscal responsibility similar to what is asked of all taxpayers in dealing with their own personal finances. i urge all members to vote yes on the previous question, yes on the rule and to vote yes on

h.r. 2920. i yield back the balance of my time and i move the previous question. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on adoption of the resolution. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the resolution is agreed to, without objection. mr. dreier: on that i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from asks for the yeas and nays. the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question are postponed. . the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: and the subject of a federal investigation into potentially corrupt political contributions has given $3.4 million in political donations

to no less than 284 members of congress. the "new york times" reported that he set up shop at a busy intersection between political fundraising, directing tens of millions of contributions to lawmakers while steering hundreds of millions of dollars of earmarks back to his clients. it was recently highlighted that with the firm's example is potentially corrupting link between campaign contributions and earmarks even the most earmarkers want to avoid the appearance of pay-to-play system. they have questions noted to campaign contributions made on behalf of the firm, including questions relating to strawman contributions and reimbursement for political giffings, pressure on clients to give, a suspicious pattern of giving and donations

related to activity. "roll call," the firm and its clients when it reported that they have provided thousands of dollars worth of campaign contributions to key members to legislative activity such as the deadline for earmark request letters or passage of a spending bill. whereas the associated press highlighted the huge amounts of political donations from firms and clients to select members and noted that the political donations have followed a distinct pattern. the giving is especially heavy in march, which is prime time for smithing -- submitting earmark requests. and including several that were approved even after news of the f.b.i. raid of the firm's offices and justice department investigation into the firm was well known. whereas after a review of the fiscal year 2010 defense

appropriation earmark list recently made available includes 70 earmarks worth hundreds of millions of dollars from former p.m.a. clients. the associated press reported said the f.b.i. said the investigation is continuing, highlighting the close ties between earmarks and raising of campaign cash. whereas the media tonings focused on the nature and timing of campaign contributions related to the firm and reports of the justice department raised concern about the integrity of congressional proceedings and the dignity of the institution. now, therefore be it resolved that the committee of standards on official conduct shall establish an investigative subcommittee and investigate into relationships between the source and timing of past campaign contributions to members of the house and earmark requests made by members of the house on behalf of clients on

behalf of the raided firm. the speaker pro tempore: the resolution presents a question of privilege. for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey rise? mr. andrews: mr. speaker, i move to table -- i rise prematurely. i do not wish recognition at this time. i move to table the appeal of the ruling -- the chair has not ruled yet, has it? i move we table the ruling of the chair -- table the resolution, please. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to table. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no.. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the motion is -- mr. flake: i ask for a recorded vote. . i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, yeas and nays are

ordered. members will record their ves by electronic device. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, this 15-minute vote on the motion to table will be followed by five-minute votes on the adoption of h. res. 665 and motions to suspend the rules on h.r. 1675 and h.r. 2938 and h. res. 69. this shall be a 15-minute vote.' wwwww gggggg 3 www3 ss #3 s s3 332

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 221, the nays are 187 --

the speaker pro tempore: think yeas are 225, the nays are are 188 with 14 answering present. the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 224, the nays are 189, with 14

volting present. -- voting present. the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 224, the nays are 189, 14 answering present, the motion is adopted. wok the motion to reconsider is

laid upon the table. the unfinished business is a vote on the adoption of house resolution 665, the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house calendar 93, house resolution 665, providing for consideration of the bill 2920, to reinstitute and update the may as you go act enforced by the threat of annual automatic sequestration. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on adoption of the resolmt%og)hbb)h

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 243, the nays are 182, the resolution is adopted, without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from florida, mr. grayson to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 1675 on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 1675, a bill to amend section 811 of the cranston-gonzalez national affordability act to improve the program under section for housing for persons with 8dbp"s

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 376, the nays are 51. 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from illinois, mr. costello, to suspend the rules and pass h.r. 2938, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 2938, a bill to extend the deadline for commencement of construction of a hydroelectric project. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house sus@ás)h)h)haa h$sáu's$p,h's s'u

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 426, the nays are zero. 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from california, mr. baca, to suspend the rules and agree to h.res. 69, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 69, resolution recognizing the need to continue research into the causes, treatment, education and the eventual cure for diabetes, and for o,r@bp"nhu's)s pro tempore: on

this vote the yeas are 420, the nays are zero. 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the resolution is agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what reason does the gentleman from tennessee rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on science and technology be discharged from further consideration of house resolution 631 and that the resolution be referred to the

committee on energy and commerce. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. members please take care conversations from the floor. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? mr. spratt: mr. speaker, pursuant to house resolution 665, i call up h.r. 2920, the statutory pay-as-you-go act of 2009, and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 2920, a bill to reconstitute the pay-as-you-go

statutory legislation enforced by the threat of annual automatic sequestration. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to house resolution 665, the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in house report 111-217, is adopted and the bill as amended is considered as read. after one hour of debate on the bill, as amended, it shall be in order to consider the amendment in a nature of a substitute printed in part c of the report if offered by the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. ryan, or his designee, which shall be considered as read and shall be debatable for 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent. the gentleman from south carolina, mr. spratt, and the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. ryan, each will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from south carolina. mr. spratt: i ask unanimous consent that members have five legislative days to revise and extend and insert material relevant to the consideration of h.r. 2920 in the record. the speaker pro tempore:

without objection, so ordered. mr. chairman, i rise in strong support of the statutory pay as you go act of 2009. to understand this bill, it's important, or useful to understand its short history. at the outset of the 1990's, congress passed the budget enforcement act to ensure the budget summon agreement would be carried out. the speaker pro tempore: i ask the members to take their conversations from the floor and give courtesy to the members that are speaking. mr. spratt: among its provisions was a rule called pay as you go or pay-go for short. they accused of -- us of dodging the hard decisions we had to make. but the budget was in surplus and it was clear pay-go had played an important part in the

success. in 2003, -- in 2002, the budget enforcement act was allowed to expire and president bush and the republicans, the majority at that time, chose not to reinstate pay-go. without the process rule in place, the budget deficit -- the budget plunged from a surplus of $236 billion in 2000 to a deficit of $214 billion in 2004. in april of 2005, in congressional testimony, alan greenspan said, and i'm quoting, one of the real problems we had was allowing pay-go to lapse in september of 2002. were we still to be able to exist under a pay-go regime, which i thought worked very well, i think we'd have a lot fewer problems now. when democrats took pack -- took back the house, a reinstatement of pay-go was at the top of the agenda pay-go was made a rule of the house the day we convened.

without support of the bush administration, there was no way to get it enacted into law. but now work the support of the obama administration, the underlying legislation we are pushing and advancing today was originally sent to us by the president, mr. obama. with the support of the obama administration, we're in a position to take a longer stride toward budget discipline by enacting statutory pay-go into law. the obama administration inherited a colossal deficit, swollen to accommodate massive measures. we must focus attention on our long-term fiscal health. pay-go rules cannot by themselves convert deficit into surplus, but they can help. they rein in new entitlement spending and tax cuts this they are easy to pass and hard to

repeal by insisting on offsets and deficit neutrality for new laws, it holds the bottom line constant. it's a common sense rule that everybody can understand. when you're in a deficit, don't make it worse. when you want to spend a dollar, save a dollar. everybody can understand the common sense logic of this bill. i would add that pay-go has not only been a common sense idea that found its way into the rules of the house and the statute books but has traditionally received bipartisan support. it was enacted in 1990 under a republican president and democratic congress. in 1997, it was extended under a democratic president and republican congress. this is not a panacea. i wouldn't hold it out as that. it's not the ultimate solution to deficits. but it is a significant step in the right direction. it was proven to work in the 1990's and needs to be reinstated for that purpose now. i reserve the balance of my

time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. ryan: mr. speaker, at this time, i yield four minutes to myself. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for four minutes. mr. ryan: i wish the budget committee had an opportunity to mark up this bill. however, the decision was made to bypass the budget committee and go straight to the floor this bill is not a simple extension of current law. it bypasses the deliberate and transparent process and we're rushing legislation to the floor. it's an ongoing trend of a disturbing trend which is write legislation in the leadership offices, rush it to the floor, ram it through congress without legislators legislating. we have one of the most talented chairmen of the budget committee who knows more than anybody else how these laws work, mr. spratt, it should have gone through his committee. unfortunately, written in leadership, rushed to the floor, out it goes. that's a disturbing trend with how this congress is working.

let me talk about the need for fiscal restraint and fiscal discipline. we concur, we agree, we have to do things to get our fiscal house in order. we need to equip congress with more and better tools to get this budget under control. unfortunately, this isn't the cool. this tool does not work. let's look at pay-go's track record thus far. since pay-go was instituted as a rule here the budget deficit under the last republican budget was $161 billion. the budget today, the deficit is at $1.8 trillion, more than ten-fold increase. let me show you how much spending last year in increases were subject to pay-go for this year's spenting. 2%. 2% of spending that has gone out the door this year was stouget pay-go. 98% was not. that's $876 billion new

spending not stouget pay-go. since the majority gave us this new pay-go rule, look at what happened to deficits. deficits as far as the eye can see, never going below $600 billion. in 10 years above a trillion dollars. pay-go does absolutely nothing to arrest that development to address that. more to the point, mr. speaker, pay-go exempts already 40% of the budget. 40%. all the money the federal government spends on government agencies. all that discretionary spending isn't touched by pay-go. more to the point, mr. speaker, is that all those unfunded liabilities we have, according to the general accountability office, $62 trillion of unfunded liabilities are already out there, due, promises made to taxpayers that the government right now count have funded, to medicare, medicaid, social security, a mountain of debt is before us and what does pay-go do to

address it? absolutely nothing. pay-go does nothing whatsoever to address the runaway entitlement problems we have today. it simply says if we're going to build new programs, new nondiscretionary, mandatory entitlement programs, then and only then shall we pay for it. we know the track record of something like this. without spending caps, without reform to go after existing spending programs, this simply results in raising taxes. so we believe that this is more or less a machine to raise taxes to pay for new and more costly government programs. it does nothing to attack the fact that we have trillions upon trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities right now. it does nothing to attack the fact that just this year alone, discretionary spending is going up 8%, 11% for discretionary spending, it ignores those things. it's like buying a fire extinguisher after your house

has burned down. congress is going to commit all these fiscal crimes, only to put pay-go in place after they've been committed. so mr. speaker, this bill, as well-intended as it may be, is not the solution. there are better ideas. and i only wished that we could have gone through the budget committee and collaborated in making this bill better. with that, mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from south carolina. mr. spratt: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from texas a meck of the committee. >> the gentleman is are recognized. mr. doggett: for eight look years, fiscal responsibility was abandoned by the bush administration and its congressional neighbors. whenever a difficult decision came along, they played a devastating game of kickball to the tune of, don't worry, be

happy. record surpluses turned into record deficits. and the economy began to collapse. this did not happen by accident. republican ideologues urged the approach of fiscal deficit with more borrow, spend, and tax cuts as the best tactic to starve government and ensure that democrats were never able to address the other deficits in our society, educational deficits, health care deficits, and more. this year, with only seven months so far to correct eight years of failure, as we clean up the mess that we were given, we reaffirm our commitment to pay as you go and we're already making it a reality in one of the most significant challenges of our time, the health care deficit. we correct it without adding to the fiscal deficit. we're paying for long-neglected health care reform by cutting costs in the system and taxing the few at the top who

benefited the most from the bush era. fiscal response blet, fiscal security is national security. today's vote signals we are abandoning the republican fiscal model which is straight out of the magic kingdom. their rule like the first law of disney is that wishing will make it so. that may work in the law of fairy tales but it's been a budgeting disaster and economic nightmare we begin correcting today. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. ryan: at this time, i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from ohio a member of the budget committee, mr. jordan. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. jordan: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman for yielding and his continuing efforts to try to bring some fiscal sanity to this town and this place. mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to this so-called pay as you go bill. most americans, frankly, would label this tax as you go. families and businesses across

the country are tightening their belts but this congress keeps spending like there's no tomorrow, putting our country on the path toward bankruptcy. now they're trying to get the american people to look the other way with this smoke screen called pay-go. earlier this year, we offered a balanced budget. that's pay as you go but this bill doesn't balance the budget. for three years we've been offering amendments in committee and on this floor that would hold the line on spending. that's really pay as you go, but this bill doesn't hold the line on any spending. in fact this bill is another facade to allow spending and spending and spending. remember last week, for the first time, for the first time in american history, we hit a $1 trillion deficit. it's slated to go higher as we have a few months left in this fiscal year. just to reiterate a couple of points the ranking member made in his opening comments. last year with the pay as you go rule the majority had put in place we exempted $420 billion

worth of legislation from that very rule. and the deficit increased by $1.7 trillion. that's over 1,000% increase over the current pay as you go policy the majority has had in place. we need real pay as you go. our substitute offered by our ranking member, mr. ryan, is the right approach. it has spending caps, it has deficit targets, it takes the right approach to balance our budget and will have a super majority requirement, something we need to override the spending limits and caps in the bill. we don't need more smoke screens and empty promises we always see from washington. what we ed is real fiscal responsibility. let me say this. over the next decade, the deficit -- excuse me, the debt is slated to reach $23 trillion. think about what it takes to pay that off. you first have to balance a budget. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. ryan: i yield the gentleman an additional minute. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman is recognized. mr. jordan: $23 trillion. first you have to balance the budget, then run a $1 trillion surplus for 23 year, that doesn't count the interest which is approaching $1 billion a day. we need to get serious and not have smoke screens and facades. we need real pay as you go we need real fiscal responsibility. one of the thing this is a make this is cunltry great is the idea that parents make sacrifices for their children so that they can have a better life than they did. they in turn become adults and parents and do the same for their kids. it's been that psych that will allowed the united states to become the greatest nation in history. when you begin to reverse that process and leave the debt to someone else, that's a real problem. today we can do the right thing. vote this legislation down and enact the substitute version offered by mr. ryan. if we do that, we can start to move in the right direction and do what's right for our children and grandchildren. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. spra