CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS HOUR

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia: I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and if we're going to be able to address the important matters that our assistant leader has suggested, it's going to depend on our ability to get the budget under control.

When we talk about the budget, we need to put the budget in perspective. I was first elected in 1992, and in 1993 we considered a budget that put an end to fiscal recklessness. We passed a budget that, by the end of the 8 years of the Clinton administration, had not only eliminated the deficit, but had created enough surplus to have paid off the entire national debt held by the public by 2 years ago. That would mean that we'd owe no money to Japan, no money to China, no money to Saudi Arabia. That budget also created a record number of jobs and

record economic activity, as noted by the record increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. So we had a good budget. We had fiscal responsibility, but unfortunately, in 2001, that came to an end when we reverted to fiscal irresponsibility.

Under the Bush administration, we passed two tax cuts without paying for them, a prescriptive drug benefit without paying for it, fought two wars in the middle of cutting taxes, and a $700 billion bailout, all of which put us in the economic ditch.

Now, in order to get these large deficits we now have under control, we're going to have to make some tough choices. Unfortunately, last year we started off in the wrong direction. We considered a huge tax cut bill last year that went in the wrong direction at a total cost, 2-year cost, of $800 billion. And to put that in perspective, $800 billion is more than we spent on the TARP program, about the same as the stimulus, about the same as what the health care bill spends in 10 years, that tax cut bill spent in two.

In case people don't really appreciate how big a bill that was, we checked with the National Conference of State Legislatures and ascertained that the total general fund budget, add them up, for 50 states, general fund budget of 50 states was $650 billion. We, in one vote, cut taxes by $800 billion.

And before that bill was passed, we asked, well, how are you going to pay for it? One of the ways is that we jeopardize Social Security in the bill, cutting the payroll tax, so money coming into Social Security will have to be subsidized by the general fund. That puts the Social Security program in competition with everything else in the budget. And so we put Social Security in jeopardy.

And we also had tax cuts for dead multimillionaires. I say dead multimillionaires because everybody expected us to have an exemption of $3.5 million, $7 million per couple, where you pay no taxes and begin paying taxes after that. Well, we increased that exemption, the amount you can get without paying any estate tax, to $5 million, and reduced the rate.

That additional assistance to dead multimillionaires cost $24 billion. Again, how are we going to pay for it?

You can look at the continuing resolution in next year's budget, a budget that the Republicans have already attacked for not cutting enough, and look what it does to the safety net:

LIHEAP, the Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program, for those that can't pay their energy bills and risk freezing to death, we cut that by one-half billion dollars to help fund the multimillionaire tax cut;

Women Infants and Children, the WIC program, so that babies can be born healthy and start off on the right track, we cut that program;

Job training and employment services, for those who have lost their jobs and may never return, trying to get a job that will be there, we cut that program;

Community health centers, public housing, at a time of record foreclosures, we're cutting those programs to partially fund that tax cut.

Opportunities:

Head Start, we only address the needs in Head Start for half the eligible children. We are going to cut Head Start to deprive millions of children of that important opportunity of starting off on the right track. We have found that Head Start will increase graduation rates, reduce delinquency, reduce the need for welfare, save more money than it costs. We're cutting that program;

TRIO and GEAR UP, programs that encourage young people to go to college, we're cutting those programs;

Assistance to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-serving institutions by significant amounts. Those deal with a lot of first-generation children;

Funds for improvement of postsecondary education, cut.

Our investments in America's future:

NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, Advanced Research Project, all cut. These are investments in our future;

The National Infrastructure Innovation Fund, and rescinding billions in high-speed rail. Other countries are investing in high-speed rail. We're cutting high-speed rail.

Now, we should be more responsible when it comes to balancing the budget, and we can do it. But you can't do it by beginning the discussion with an $800 billion tax cut without telling people how you are going to pay for it. Cutting critical safety net programs, initiatives to give opportunities for our youth, and initiatives that will invest in our future, these are the things that are being cut to fund that tax cut bill from last year.

We cannot disassociate ourselves from the connection of cuts that we are making today from the tax cut bills that we passed before. People are saying, well, we can't afford it. Well, we could have afforded it had we not passed that tax cut. We need to rescind what we did last year so we do not have to make these draconian cuts this year.

We should have been honest with the people last year. I don't think the people want cuts in Social Security, the safety net, and investments in our future. We can do better, and that's why we are going to be fighting against these draconian cuts that are so important to so many people and make sure that we go off and continue on the right track, as we did in 1993, where we can pass a responsible budget, address the needs of the people, create jobs, economic activity, and we were on course to paying off the national debt.