The President's Budget for Fiscal Year
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THE PRESIDENT’S BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2002 HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 1, 2001 Serial No. 107–2 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget ( Available on the Internet: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/house04.html U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 70–617 DTP WASHINGTON : 2001 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Apr 02, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\107-2\HBU060.000 HBUDGET1 PsN: HBUDGET1 COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET JIM NUSSLE, Iowa, Chairman JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire JOHN M. SPRATT, Jr., South Carolina, Vice Chairman Ranking Minority Member PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan JIM MCDERMOTT, Washington, Vice Chairman Leadership Designee CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota KEN BENTSEN, Texas VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee JIM DAVIS, Florida MAC THORNBERRY, Texas EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina JIM RYUN, Kansas DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina MAC COLLINS, Georgia GERALD D. KLECZKA, Wisconsin ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky BOB CLEMENT, Tennessee GARY G. MILLER, California JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia PAT TOOMEY, Pennsylvania DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon WES WATKINS, Oklahoma TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin DOC HASTINGS, Washington CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California DENNIS MOORE, Kansas ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL III, Pennsylvania RAY LAHOOD, Illinois RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey KAY GRANGER, Texas JIM MATHESON, Utah EDWARD SCHROCK, Virginia JOHN CULBERSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South Carolina ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida ADAM PUTNAM, Florida MARK KIRK, Illinois PROFESSIONAL STAFF RICH MEADE, Chief of Staff THOMAS S. KAHN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel (II) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Apr 02, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\107-2\HBU060.000 HBUDGET1 PsN: HBUDGET1 C O N T E N T S Page Hearing held in Washington, DC, March 1, 2001 ................................................. 1 Statement of Hon. Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr., Director, Office of Management and Budget ........................................................................................................... 7 Prepared statement of: Hon. Jim Nussle, a Representative in Congress from the State of Iowa ..... 4 Mr. Daniels ....................................................................................................... 10 Hon. Ander Crenshaw, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida ....................................................................................................... 69 (III) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Apr 02, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\107-2\HBU060.000 HBUDGET1 PsN: HBUDGET1 VerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Apr 02, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\107-2\HBU060.000 HBUDGET1 PsN: HBUDGET1 THE PRESIDENT’S BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2002 THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2001 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m. in room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Jim Nussle (chairman of the committee) presiding. Members present: Representatives Nussle, Sununu, Hoekstra, Bass, Gutknecht, Knollenberg, Thornberry, Ryun, Wamp, Fletcher, Miller, Watkins, Hastings, Schrock, Culberson, Brown, Crenshaw, Putnam, Kirk, Spratt, Bentsen, Davis, Clayton, Price, Markey, Clement, Moran, Hooley, Holt, Hoeffel, Baldwin, McCarthy, Moore, Capuano, and Honda. Chairman NUSSLE. The committee will come to order. Today’s full committee hearing is called the Blueprint for New Beginnings for the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2002 to 2011. The wit- nesses for today’s hearings will be Mitch Daniels, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and then this afternoon at 3 p.m. the Honorable Paul O’Neill, Secretary of the Department of the Treasury. I ask unanimous consent that all members be allowed to put their opening statements into the record. Without objection, so or- dered. The way we would like to conduct this today is that I have an opening statement that I would like to make, and then I would in- vite John Spratt to make an opening statement, and then we will get right to the director. We welcome you to the committee, and we are glad you are here. Let me begin by saying, first of all, that I am happy today to ac- cept officially the President’s budget. We received it in speech form, of course, on Tuesday night. We actually received the copy yester- day, and I pronounce it alive and in excellent condition, based on my first reading. I believe that we have a solid foundation to begin this budget process this year. It is a foundation without, or I should say, it is a foundation that didn’t just start Tuesday night. Those of us that have been laboring on the Budget Committee on both sides recog- nize many of the different concepts in the budget as the President presented it, both in speech form as well as written form. We are building on a solid foundation of success of budgets. We are now in our fifth straight balanced budget, which, when I first came to Congress, was something that you almost could not (1) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Apr 02, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\107-2\HBU060.000 HBUDGET1 PsN: HBUDGET1 2 even believe you could audit. To say that you had 5 straight bal- anced budgets at that moment in time was something that no one would have believed. So we start with a very solid foundation. The way I like to look at budgets is that we are—I compare them to if you are going to go out and buy a home, if you are going to go out and build a home, the first you do is you hire an architect. An architect comes in and does the blueprint, does the drawing, the architectural drawing. He does not decide what the paint color is, certainly doesn’t decide the draperies or the appliances that you are going to put in your home, doesn’t necessarily decide the car- peting or the furniture, but does decide if you are going to have a one-car or two-car garage, whether you are going to have a base- ment or an attic, what exactly the sizes and dimensions are going to be. That is what the budget is. No, we don’t get into the tall weeds of the specifics of every single policy decision that occurs, but the outline and the blueprint is something that has to be solid, and I believe that what we have received from the President is a very solid foundation and a very solid budget. It builds on some success in the area of tax relief. The Con- gresses of the last couple of years have provided as much as $316 billion worth of tax relief to the American people. That will be built upon in this budget with $1.6 trillion worth of tax relief, tax relief from a tax surplus for the taxpayers who created it. In fact, today, as we speak, the Ways and Means Committee is beginning the process of putting together the first draft of that tax plan. It is not the entire plan, it is not the entire portion of the budget as the President suggested it, but it not only fits within this particular budget, but interestingly enough, it fits within the current budget, the work that the Ways and Means Committee is doing. So we are excited that that is happening so that it can give a shot in the arm to the economy and give money back to the people who deserve it. This budget builds upon further debt reduction. I am excited to let people know that we have, by the end of this current budget, been able to pay down the national debt. This is work that we have already done as a committee. We have been able to pay down the national debt to the tune of $625 billion. Again, a concept that when I first ran for Congress and came to Congress, was unbelieved at that moment in time that we could even begin to pay down the national debt, and it is something that will be built upon in this budget with $2 trillion of additional debt repayment. In fact, debt repayment to a sum that can be accomplished within the term of this next 10-year budget. We are going to be improving Medicare by not only setting aside all of the Medicare Trust Fund, but we have added, according to the President’s budget, $153 billion over 10 years for modernization in the prescription drug benefit. We are building on success in set- ting aside the Social Security Trust Fund, again, something that the last 3 Congresses have been able to do, locking up every penny of what will materialize to be about a $2.6 trillion Social Security surplus. VerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:13 Apr 02, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\DOCS\HEARINGS\107-2\HBU060.000 HBUDGET1 PsN: HBUDGET1 3 But there are some other responsible portions of this budget that I believe are important to highlight. We are funding America’s pri- orities and there are a number of them that we have had discus- sions and have set as priorities from this particular committee. Na- tional defense, bolstering national defense, but doing so in a re- sponsible way, not just throwing money at it, not letting, as the President said, the money drive the strategy, but first setting the strategy and doing a top-to-bottom review of the Defense Depart- ment before we do more than just make sure that the quality of life of our soldiers and sailors is taken care of.