Statement on PAYGO
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this legislation to help restore fiscal responsibility. And I salute President Obama and Majority Leader Hoyer for their leadership on this important issue.
Listening to this debate today might leave the American people confused about Republican values.
Republicans regularly declare their fidelity to controlling federal spending. And they claim to want to fix our broken health care system. And yet, Republicans oppose our common-sense “pay-as-you-go” legislation. And Republicans oppose our historic health care reform bill.
My question to the Republicans is simple:
When they controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House for eight long years, why didn’t they control federal spending or reform health care? Why is it that the first thing they did with their power was to cut taxes for the rich without paying the cost? They did it in 2001 and 2003, turning budget surpluses into deficits.
Why is it that they added a record number of earmarks to the appropriations bills, running the deficit up further? And why is that in eight years they never, ever made health care reform a priority? NOT EVER.
Meanwhile, Americans’ health care costs kept rising. And insurance company denials of care continued. And the number of uninsured grew.
Eight years of all-Republican government -- spending the taxpayers’ money like drunken sailors, rising deficits and inaction on health care.
But they have made rhetoric a priority. And they have made politics as usual a priority.
Now that they are out of power, they speak about controlling deficits and reforming health care, but they openly state that they hope our president fails.
Their record is a shame and has really hurt our country.
I have been a supporter of “pay-as-you-go” budgeting since 1982, when I introduced the first PAYGO bill.
When liberals and conservatives worked together with President Clinton to adopt PAYGO rules, Democrats reigned in historic budget deficits left over from President Reagan and President Bush in the 1980s and early 1990s. And we recorded budget surpluses.
President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress eliminated PAYGO rules. As a result, interest payments on the long-term debt are crowding out national priorities. In 2007, Democrats made PAYGO part of our rules again. Our legislation today strengthens those rules by giving them the force of law.
Our bill says Congress could neither cut taxes nor increase entitlement spending without first deciding how to afford those new costs. PAYGO requires difficult decisions about national priorities and how to afford them. If we can’t pay for new tax cuts or entitlement spending, we can’t have them. It is that simple.
PAYGO will strengthen the economy by helping to reduce interest payments on our debt, and by helping us to address our health care reform, modernizing energy policy and college affordability.
Our health care bill, for example, will not increase the deficit one dime. And our new college affordability bill is also fully paid for, and will actually return $10 billion to help reduce the deficit.
Democrats are working hard to ensure that, going forward, we exercise the fiscal discipline that hard working Americans need and expect from us. Vote yes on PAYGO.
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Posted by Peake, Amy at 07:34PM | | Comments () | TrackBack (0)
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