Mr. Speaker, I believe he probably has the most difficult job that one has in the United States House of Representatives; and that is, each one of us, 435 of us, have opinions about how much money we should take from American families and spend in government, and once we get that money what should we spend it on.

   And certainly I have my opinions. I believe we need to do more to protect the family budget from the Federal budget. And at the same time there are some categories of government I wish we could spend more money on. I believe that there is still more we could do in policing our border, more we can do in veterans health care.

   But I strongly support this budget for several reasons. Number one, a budget is a whole lot more than just numbers. It is more than just an accounting green eye-shade function. It is about priorities. It is about vision.

   This is a budget that provides for the common defense. This is a budget that helps us fight and win this war on terror. It is a budget that promotes economic growth.

   Under this Republican administration's economic policies, we have come out of the recession. We have created 3 million jobs. We are giving Americans jobs and growth and hope and opportunity. And this budget protects that.

   And perhaps also, very important and very historic, this budget provides for something we call reconciliation. Now, in Washington terms, that is kind of an insider baseball term. But what it means is we start the process to reform our entitlement spending.

   Now, why is that important?

   Our friends on the other side of the aisle are always talking about how, for some reason, their budget is fiscally responsible and ours is not. But right now we have Medicare; over the next decade it is growing to grow at 9 percent a year. Medicaid is going to grow at almost 8 percent a year. Social Security is growing at 5 1/2 percent a year. The General Accounting Office tells us that if we do not reform these programs, that we are on a glide path to where our children and our grandchildren will have to see their taxes increased 2 1/2 times. This is fiscally responsible?

   Sure. We can balance the budget in 2040. All we do is we leave spending on automatic pilot, and we raise taxes on our children and grandchildren 2 1/2 times.

   Mr. Speaker, I see nothing fiscally responsible in that approach. And this is why I am a strong supporter of this. And I believe we must start the process of reform. Our children and grandchildren are facing this legacy, this sea, this tsunami of red ink. There is a question of generational fairness here.

   And Mr. Speaker, many of us in this Chamber know that we can get better retirement security at a lesser cost. We can get better health care at a lesser cost if we just have different policies. I mean, right now we know, we know that if we will embrace real Social Security personal accounts with real assets that owners can work and have a nest egg, that they can get more, greater retirement security than what present Social Security is promising and cannot deliver.

   Now, our friends on the other side of the aisle will find fault in this budget in a couple of ways. And I have been listening to the debate. They say tax relief is why we have these massive budget deficits.

   Well, unfortunately, they have not looked at the latest Treasury reports. We have actually cut marginal rates. And guess what? We have more tax revenue because people have incentives to go opt and create new small businesses and to expand and to hire new people. Again, look at the facts. The facts are indisputable. We have cut marginal tax rates, and we increase more tax revenue.

   But say that we believe in their theory, that tax relief is actually part of the problem. Say tax relief was just a line item that said the office of widget control.

   Well, if you look very closely at what this budget does, it provides $16.6 billion in tax relief versus $2.5 trillion in spending. That is less than 1 percent. So somehow less than 1 percent of the Federal budget supposed to cause all these problems? I do not think so. In this case, tax relief has proven to be part of the deficit solution, not the deficit problem.

   And when it comes to the deficit, the deficit is really a symptom. It is spending that is the disease. And without real reform, without real reconciliation, we do not get it, Mr. Speaker, and this is why I am so strongly in favor of this budget resolution.

   And once again I congratulate our great chairman, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) for the work he has done.