The gentleman from wisconsin. Mr. Ryan i yield two minutes to the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Rothfus. Mr. Rothfus i thank chairman ryan for the hard work he has been doing over the last several years as we look to get a handle on the spending problem we have here in washington, d. C. Mr. Chairman, our debt is out of control. In the past 10 years it has doubled from 7. 1 trillion to 17. 6 trillion today. We paid 416 billion in interest just last year. Imagine where that money could have been better spent. Failure to address the debt and deficits reduces opportunity and prosperity for future generations and directly threatens our ability to pay for our priorities like Social Security, medicare, a Strong National defense and taking care of our veterans. Unfortunately, president obama has offered another budget that increases taxes, expands the government, does nothing to save medicare or Social Security and never balances. Harry reids senate will not even consider a budget this year. The budget we offer to the American People protects and preserves medicare and Social Security and balances in 10 years. When congress responsibly budgets, we increase Economic Security for our families and ensure we leave our children and grandchildren with more opportunities and a brighter future. Mr. Chairman, i call on my colleagues to do right things and pass this budget. I yield back my time. The chair the time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from oregon. Mr. Blumenauer at this point, i would yield 1 1 2 minutes to the gentlelady from texas, distinguished member of the judiciary, ms. Jackson lee. The chair the gentlelady from texas is recognized for 1 1 2 minutes. Ms. Jackson lee i thank the gentleman from oregon and the members for a thoughtful and important debate, and thats what this is all about, it is about gripping a hold of the heart and soul of america. The budget is actually a moral document, a moral compass of where we want to take this country. I think what needs to be explained to the American Public is in tulet, we have been making progress. The deficit has gone down from 1 trillion from the past administration, the bush administration, to now 680 billion. We are making trog, from losing 800,000 jobs a month to imagining close to 200,000. But the document that is on the floor today, the ryan budget, the republican budget chooses to not have the morality and affection for the American People that is desired. When you look at their budget, you will see that 3. 3 trillion, 69 of their budget is cuts for programs for people with low or moderate income, the people who need a stair step of opportunity. They give 200,000 in tax cuts to the top 1 and none of us have any challenge to prosperity and opportunity, but how can you have a budget that hits lowincome programs or programs that give opportunity, how many have gone to schools because of pell grants, 175 million in cuts. How many people have gotten their health care from medicaid and still do, like children . How many people have needed to have the snap program . I believe we have budgets to work all people. I plan to vote for the c. B. C. Budget and democratic budget and no on this republican budget. We need to have a standard that respects all people in this country and this budget does not. I yield back. The chair the time of the gentlelady has expired. The gentleman from wisconsin. Mr. Ryan i yield two minutes to the gentleman from arizona. The chair the gentleman from arizona is recognized for two minutes. Mr. Schweikert i have been listening to the speakers on the left and as the gentlewoman just spoke, its a moral document. I agree with that. Let us discuss what is moral for the next generation and the generation after that and the generation after that. I grabbed this little poster which had been dropped off to me last week and its a little poster from over at the center which has been doing calculations of what would United States debt look like if you took the debt and unfunded liabilities of this country and put it on g. A. P. Accounting, whats the real number, the window attached to the regular debt. Process in your mind what you have been told year after year of your unfunded liket. I need you to wipe liability, i need you to wipe that number clean. They came up with 205 trillion. 205 trillion of debt and unfunded debt and liability. You do realize if you go to google and look at the best estimates of the wealth of the world, our unfunded liabilities are now exceeding many of the estimates of the wealth of the entire world. And this is what so many members are willing to hand to our children, our greatgrandchildren and the future generation. If you want to make a moral argument that debt, those unfunded liabilities is the moral argument. I yield back. The chair the time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from oregon. Mr. Blumenauer i would yield a minute and a half, the gentleman from vermont, member of the energy and commerce committee, mr. Welch. The chair the gentleman is recognized for 1 1 2 minutes. Well well we are mr. Welch we are making an argument as we see it alliance with our point of view on the budget and the bottom line is we have to invest and have a balanced budget, but the question i have about this budget is whats going to happen to the potholes in america . I came out of the state legislature where we had constraints on it and we had to find ways to pay our bills within the needs of the people of vermont to pay them. We had to deal with real problems and required a confident approach in investing in the future. That has to be part of a budget and americas roads are falling apart, our bridges are falling down. This is a real disaster when it comes to meeting the infrastructure needs of this country. The American Society of Civil Engineers rates our infrastructure dplus and estimates that the amount of investment needed by 2020 to be 3. 6 billion. This budget accepts the looming insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund and does nothing to fix it. Those potholes are not going to fix themselves and that is not republican or democrats but potholes in your district and mine. Scientific research, both sides are proud at americas scientific achievements and what this budget continues to do is reduce and squeeze National Institutes of health grants by about 1,400. The university of vermont has seen a 20 drop in those Research Grants and affects folks who are finding the cures for diseases in the future. The chair the time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. Ryan how much is left . The chair while there is no set time, the time is approximately 34 it will be 34 for full time and 32 on the minority side. Mr. Ryan all right. Having the right to reserve to close, we have no more speakers so ill let the gentleman consume the rest of the time. Mr. Blumenauer further inquiry, as i understand, the majority has consumed 34 minutes the chair has that much time remaining. And the gentleman from oregon has 32 minutes remaining. Mr. Blumenauer but were going to carry that. Got it. So i yield myself two minutes. The chair the gentleman from oregon is recognized for two minutes. Mr. Blumenauer thank you. And i do appreciate the back and forth discussion here, but i want to put this in perspective, if i could, because our friends with the republican budget have assumed, for instance, that were really not going to we dont necessarily have to raise taxes. We could actually cut some of the loopholes that weve offered repeatedly, and although that is referred to rhetorically, theyve never been able to follow through with any that they would cut. There are medicaid cuts and make no mistake about it these medicaid cuts are actually reductions in nursing home care for americas most vulnerable. Thats 2 3 of this money, and its going to be visited back on the states and impacting on families. They repeal the Affordable Care act, but they keep all the associated revenues. We went through a Campaign Season excoriating democrats for the reductions in Medicare Advantage and they keep that in their budget. Theres the magic of dynamic scoring, which weve heard about repeatedly for years which never quite proves itself. And then we have cuts to pell grants. We heard described in committee that these cuts to pell grants are not a problem because theyre just an excuse to raise tuition and enrich lavish academic salaries. Mr. Speaker, this republican budget not only would constrain us to have a freeze us into a downward decline in our infrastructure, it would be the lowest level of nonmilitary Discretionary Spending that we have seen in generations. Its not going to happen. It shouldnt happen, and my republican friends should not be able to get away with assuming that this is a viable and responsible approach. I hope well come to the point, again, where we can find a way to come together to deal with things that we fuelly agree on in a tangible way and make some real progress. The chair the time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from wisconsin. Mr. Ryan i yield myself four minutes. The chair the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized for four minutes. Mr. Ryan mr. Chairman, budgeting is about choosing. Budgeting is about setting priorities, and in this particular case, setting a path for the country. Weve got serious fiscal challenges unlike any weve had before. And when we look at some of these fiscal challenges, it is very clear that the sooner we get on top of these problems, the sooner we deal with these problems, the better off everybodys going to be. Here in a nutshell is our big fiscal issue. Its not a democratrepublican thing. Its not a partisan thing. Its sort of a demographic and math thing. We are going from roughly 40 million seniors to about 80 million seniors, retirees. The baby boomers are retiring 10,000 people a day at this pace for 10 years. The programs they use, that they rely on like medicare, really important programs, they grow 6 to 8 a year. So when you have a payasyougo system where current workers pay current taxes out of their current paychecks to pay for current when im m paying, retired, my kids will do the same for me, when you have an 89 increase in the retirement population but about a 17 increase in the taxpaying population, therein lies your challenge. So these programs are growing so much faster than our ability to pay. Theyre growing faster than wages, than our economy, than revenues. To the point where these programs that we rely on look, ive seen Social Security and medicare do very important things in my own family, in my own life. These things are going bankrupt. The sooner we fix it the better off were all going to be. The other problem is, if we dont fix this, if we dont even show the world or the country that we even intend to x this, our economy really suffers, because the economy, business, banks, credit unions, creditors, small business, large business, they dont know what the future is going to look like. So all these things we need to do to get people to take risk, to hire people, to invest, to start a new business, were slowing that down. Thats why the c. B. O. Says the economy is just slowing down. Its hard to get people out of poverty if we dont have good jobs that can get out of poverty too. Now, you look at a chart, were going into uncharted territory. Weve had big debt before. Our debt was as big as our economy in world war ii but for the years we fought world war ii and then it went back down. Because of this problem i described, not a republican or democrat problem, just americas problem, our debt is going more than twice the sees size of our economy. Twice the size of our economy. You cant have a Prosperous Society with na kind of debt. Its never been done before. And so what were saying is, lets get ahead of this problem. Lets phase in these reforms so that we can make good to our promise to our seniors whove already retired, so all those people who are nearing retirement, people in their later 50s who are thinking about planning for their retirement, lets make good for them but lets acknowledge that those of us in the x generation and lower, younger, these programs will not be for us when we retire. We need to fix this. And oh, by the way, we need progrowth solutions, reform the tax code, balance the budget, have an Energy Renaissance in america, streamline our regulations so businesses know how to plan so we can plan and create Economic Growth. This budget does that. Thats why join us cogan will later in the show. Conversation on facebook and twitter. Let me say to him, lets bury the hatchet. [applause] first, i want to say to the gephardter that jane and i would like to invite hi m and his wife to missouri. I hope we can come to your district in illinois. Find more highlights on our Facebook Page. Yourn, brought to you by providor. Atellite provider. Akin toed something the realignment and closing commission, an outside group with integrity, former members of congress, no current members to do an audit of congress from top to bottom. If its not fulfilling its purpose, eliminate it. Dhere are now three hea starts. Two . O we have the other the first wasnt working. Fixing a broken washington. Partyheritage foundation as he signs books and chats with guests. Panels on race, power, and politics. And strengthening communities, a historical narrative. On cspan 2. President obama signed an executive order. The president is joined by Lilly Ledbetter. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States accompanied by mrs. Lilly ledbetter. [applause] thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] thank you and good morning. My name is Lilly Ledbetter and i am honored to stand here today on behalf of women everywhere who are struggling to make ends meet because of the gender pay gap. My perm story of unfair pagan in 1979 when i started at good year tire and rubber company. I thought a job at good year could help put my two children through college and enable my husband and i have to Financial Security in retirement. As the only female supervisor, i persevered through daily harassment and took as little leave as possible because i never knew if my job would be waiting when i returned. Almost two decades into my career at goodyear, i received an anonymous note that said i was being paid thousands of dollars less than my male counterparts. All i could think about is how much my family had done without and how hard it had been over the years and how i would never catch up to my male co worker salaries nor have the retirement benefits. My legal battle for fair pay soon began and wound up in the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court decided in 2007 that goodyear had been paying me unfairly long enough to make it legal, i knew i wasnt ready [laughter] i knew i wasnt ready to give up my fight for fair pay. Less than two years later, Congress Passed the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act [applause] and president obama [applause] and president obama made history with his signature on the bill. [applause] the first bill he signed sending a clear message about his priorities. Standing behind the president as he signed my name sake bill into law was one of the greatest moments of my life. Yet i knew and the president knew that my bill was just an important first step in the fight for fair pay. In the five years since, we have seen my bills companion legislation, the paycheck fairness act stalled in congress with Little Movement the fight for fair pay. That is until today. Folks often refer to me as the face of fair pay. But for today, at least, that time belongs to president obama. [applause] today president obama will sign an executive order that will ban federal contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay and their salaries. Not only is this a critical piece of the stalled paycheck fairness act, but this action also gets at what was my largest barrier for all of those years ago. I didnt know i was being paid unfairly and i had no way to find out. I was told in no Uncertain Terms that goodyear then and still a government contractor, fired employees who shared their salary information. It was against company policy. Whoever left me that anonymous note did so bravely knowing that he or she could face retaliation if they were found out. For my namesake bill through todays executive orders, president obama has been the outspoken leader women and families need on fair pay. I urge congress to join the president on the right side of history by passing the paycheck fairness act. [applause] i thank president obama for his continued courage and vision and am deeply moved to be the one to introduce him today. Please join me in a very warm welcome of president barack obama. [applause] thank you. Thank you, everybody. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you, everybody. All right. Well, thanks to my friend, Lilly Ledbetter, not only for that introduction but for fighting for the principle, equal pay for equal work. It is not that complicated. Lilly, i assure you, you remain the face people dont want my mug on there. They want your face. [laughter] you know, as lilly mentioned, she did not set out to be a trail blazer. She was somebody who was waking up early every day, going to work, doing her job the best that she could. Then one day she finds out after years that she earned less than her male colleagues for doing the same job. I want to make that point again. [laughter] doing the same job. You know, sometimes when you when we discuss this issue of fair pay, equal pay for equal work, and the pay gap between men and women, youll hear all sorts of excuses. Oh, well, they are child bearing and they are choosing to do this and that. She was doing the same job. Probably doing it better. [laughter] same job. [applause] putting in more hours. But she was getting systematically paid less. And so she set out to make sure this country lived up to its foundings. The idea that