John Spratt

I am very concerned that this not drift into the supplemental budget situation.

During a time when we are plagued with problems, we can at least be thankful that the Obama Administration will have Peter Orszag, a steady hand, at the helm.

Our country faces massive problems: a recession that is deepening, unemployment that is soaring, business failures and foreclosures occurring at a rate not seen since the 1930's.

What we have tried to do is get this effort down to its essence. The two versions, iterations that we had in the committee were, I thought, prolific with different ideas and requirements. We have an existing system. It works well. We have…

Instead of making the government bigger, we need to right-size government and reform government. Rather, this Democrat budget represents the efficiency and effectiveness of FEMA, the customer service of the IRS, and the real thoughtful…

In South Carolina, 46,000 full- and part-time jobs are supported by agriculture. That is 22 percent of all the jobs in our State; $15.1 billion in income is attributable to agriculture, 17 percent of the State's total income. Our farmers…

The point, I am sure, is you are supportive of all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. You are limited by procedural rules to only dealing with that which is in the scope of the two resolutions. But, in fact, I am sure you are supportive of…

I have here a copy of the President's budgetary proposals for fiscal year 2008 published by the Congressional Budget Office. If you turn to page 6, you will see that the cost of the tax cuts, extending the tax cuts, which the motion…

But you haven't shown us the arithmetic. We are not sure your arithmetic is correct.

On the other hand, if you look at the surplus you are claiming, $96 billion, and also provide for these tax cuts, my information is that these tax cuts have a revenue impact of at least $180 billion. That would mean in the year 2012 there…

No. I'm talking about statements in our budget resolution which state emphatically and clearly, ``It is the policy of this budget resolution to preserve, defend and protect the middle-income tax cuts adopted in 2001 and 2003, which will…

It's my understanding, roughly speaking, that the cost of these tax cuts, the revenue impact of these tax cuts, in the first year was about $180 billion. If you take that kind of charge against the surplus and still have a surplus left of…

It would have to be pretty substantial. Isn't the cost of these tax cuts in the first year $180 billion or more?

PAYGO is never applied to discretionary spending. It would be very difficult at this time to do it when every year we have an end run around discretionary budget with the President's supplementals for Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be very…

Let me conclude by saying everybody should vote for this budget resolution if they want to see an orderly, fiscally responsible, disciplined process in the next fiscal year.

Well, I can only surmise what happened to your budget resolution. One reason it didn't muster, besides the fact that you lost 40 votes, as you recall, is I am sure there are certain Republicans on your side of the aisle who did not want to…

Well, the President's budget cut Medicare by $252 billion over a 10-year period of time and cut Medicaid by 50 to $60 billion over the same 10-year period of time.

If I were able to cast my vote, I would vote in favor of H.R. 249, as I have done in the past 109th Congress, rollcall vote 199. The number of wild horses is dwindling. Just a century ago, 2 million horses roamed the west. Today, the…

So long as we have troops in field in harm's way making the best of a bad situation, they have got our full support. We certainly wouldn't cut the funds out from under them and leave them in the lurch.

I thank Mr. Royce and Mr. Lantos for that clarification and commend you for your excellent work on this important legislation.

Finally, would the gentlemen then agree with me that any fuel reserve provided to the Indians for use in safeguarded, civilian nuclear facilities should be sized in a way that maintains continued fuel supply as a deterrent to Indian…

Will the gentleman suspend? I will yield you more time. I simply want to say to my friend from Georgia, if you want transparency as to earmarks, we offered an amendment. The Rules Committee would not make it in order. Our substitute…

As a matter of fact, our Republican colleagues control the House. They have a majority in the Senate, and, of course, they control the White House. So they cannot escape responsibility for these fiscal results.

I have great respect for the distinguished majority leader, but I have to take exception when he says if we hold the line on spending and let revenues continue, we will balance the budget in 5 years. The deficit this year without…

I will use those to say one thing that I haven't said, and that is, in reading this entire resolution which we offer, you will find four separate reserve funds for the improvement of health care. For example, we provide a reserve fund to…