mr. bozeman's concern about the blend of gross recreamses and payroll tax. it seems there were expectations that are not now being met. if you could just address his comments. >> yeah. i mean, i completely agree. i think in my last answer to supervise source cohen, i continue to think that's the big, outstanding policy issue. it was certainly clear to it think everyone involved in the 2012 process that we were always going to err on the side of financial caution and that retiring the payroll tax was something that we would like to see happen. but we weren't going to do it at the cost of potentially soaking business taxpayers if we picked receipts that were too high or shortchanging the city if we picked gross receipts rates that were too low. we knew in 2012 that we just didn't have any good data on how much revenue and gross receipts tax package would raise and that's one of the reasons why we devised this kind of elaborate phase-in period. i would certainly agree with mr. bozeman that it's economically, you know, less than opt mall that we have two busines

mr. bozeman. mr. brown. mr. burr. ms. cantwell. ms. cantwell. mrs. o-uppercase-letter. -- ms. capito. >> so this is the actual vote to approve the budget deal. thanks on capitol hill, a lot of times, either work really slowly or really fast. we saw the really slow part from about 1:35, 1:45 in the afternoon, then the senate had some other options where they could have tried this out a little bit longer here. senator rand paul, who put the brakes on the bill earlier in the afternoon and through the evening, has basically relented and so they want very quickly from ending debate on that bill, that procedural vote, to actually voting on the bill itself. this is a straight up or down vote to approve that budget package. the second really important step in resolving this very short, they hoped, government shutdown in the overnight hours here. this will need a simple majority and so if they got, what was it, 72 votes in the procedural vote, it's not going to be a problem to get 51 votes on this. this will pass and then they will move it over to the house of representatives. >> so that was m

mr. bozeman. >> yes. hi. john bozeman again. thank you, chair. our organization hasn't taken any position on any gross receipt tax measure and i'm here to say that our organization, it's not what you're funding. the way we look at it is not what you're funding but it is how you're funding it. any tax, and our members pay a fair share, property tax, transportation tax to different departments and they're ok with that, as long as the money goes to the general fund and you debate how you want to fund city government and whatever you feel is important for the citizens here and the legislative arena. but when it comes to gross receipt tax and taxes by referendum, we have to say that it's difficult for us to ascertain exactly the sustainability of that tax to fund whatever you'd like. again, it is not what you're funding. it is how you're funding it. you have to look at the long-term economic consequences of an annual tax of $100 million-plus a year on any one specific industry and how that might erode your tax base over time because that would be impa

mr. chairman. follow up. >> senator bozeman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here today. we appreciate all of your hard work. the administration budget projects a debt to the gdp ratio to decline in 2023 and ultimately reduce to prerecession levels. presumably this change of directory as well as restraining spending. can you explain some of the key policies congress should consider in order to put our country back on a fiscally sustainable path? and also what is a healthy debt to gdp ratio in your estimation? >> i'll deal with the second question first. i think a lot of the academic literature would suggest to you that 80% really is sort of that danger zone. so if we could keep it below that that would be great. i'd like to see it back below 0 60, which i think are the prerecession numbers. regarding the question i would consider congress to consider, on the revenue side, senator, you may not have been here earlier when we mentioned this budget assumes that the individualu individual tax rates, the reductions expire five years into the current window, we assume those to p