Congressman John Tanner

Press Releases

July 22, 2009

TANNER PRAISES PASSAGE OF
COMMON-SENSE 'PAYGO' BILL

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. John Tanner said the U.S. House took a big step toward restored fiscal discipline by passing binding, common-sense “pay as you go” legislation co-sponsored by Tanner.

“Statutory PAYGO” requires that the federal government offset new spending, just as Tennessee families and business owners use when balancing their own budgets. After PAYGO helped balance the budget in the 1990s, Congress allowed PAYGO rules to expire in 2002.

“This is… the first step to restore some sort of constraint in the system where, when we change the law regarding mandatory spending or mandatory tax reduction, then we have to figure out a way to offset it,” Tanner said Wednesday on the House floor before the House passed the bill 265-166. “It is common sense.”

The fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democratic Coalition, co-founded by Congressman Tanner, has long championed re-instatement of PAYGO policies.

Following are excerpts from Tanner addressing his House colleagues Wednesday on the House floor.

MR. TANNER: If you look back at this decade, in the year 2000, revenue and expenditures were both around 19% of [Gross Domestic Product]. The country basically was breaking even by 2002 when PAYGO was allowed to expire. We had seen the economic policies of the country change dramatically in the summer of 2001, shortly before 9/11.

By 2003, the expenditures were over 20% of GDP, and the revenue coming in was 16.3% of GDP. Without changing our economic game plan that was enacted in June of 2001, we began to borrow money, mostly – 75% of it – from foreign sources. We now are beginning to be more and more vulnerable to our foreign creditors, who may or may not see the world as this country does, and secondly, we are transferring more and more of our tax base, whatever it may be, to interest….

The government has to do two things in addition, of course, [to keeping] our country safe. It has to invest in infrastructure. If you go anywhere in the world where there’s no infrastructure, nobody’s making any money. It’s almost impossible to make money on a dirt road with no water, sewer, electricity and so on. The government has to invest in infrastructure.

The second thing is human capital. If you read history, no country has been strong and free with an uneducated, unhealthy population. Public education and health care, preventative health care for children are necessary for the government to invest in so we can remain a strong and healthy society.

As we transfer more and more of our tax base to interest, we necessarily cripple our own ability as Americans to make those investments that are necessary for our country to be successful. This is, as I said, the first step to restore some sort of constraint in the system where when we change the law regarding mandatory spending or mandatory tax reduction, then we have to figure out a way to offset it.

It is common sense.

We’re going to demand if we can that it pass the Senate so we can have a statutory backstop, a statutory constraint. It’s not as strong as we would like, but it’s a first step. I would urge everybody who cares about the future of this – and I know we all do, [though] we may have a different idea on how to address [it], I ask you to seriously consider voting for this.

Tanner represents the 8th Congressional District in West and Middle Tennessee. Co-founder of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, Tanner serves on the Ways and Means Committee, where he chairs the Social Security Subcommittee, and on the Foreign Affairs Committee. A veteran of the U.S. Navy and the Tennessee Army National Guard, Tanner chairs the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and is serving a two-year term as NATO PA President.

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