M. Speaker, I am honored to stand here today in support of the Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Resolution Conference Report.

I want to thank my friend and Budget Committee Chairman, John Spratt, for all of his incredible work on this budget. He’s smart, he’s fair, and no one cares more about these issues. I also want to thank our Ranking Member, Paul Ryan. I believe he is a thoughtful and bright member of this House, even though we usually disagree on the issues.

I also want to thank the staff of the Budget Committee – Democrat and Republican – for their tireless effort and their commitment to public service.

M. Speaker, the budget conference report that we are considering today represents so much more than a clean break from the past. It is a blueprint for the future. It is a roadmap for economic recovery and for investing in national priorities that will provide the American people with shared prosperity in the years and decades to come.

The conference report lays the groundwork for health care reform, clean energy and quality education. It will create jobs, support working families, strengthen our national defense, and renew America’s global leadership.

By cutting taxes for the middle class – $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for over 95 percent of the American people, Mr. Speaker – and investing in affordable health care, education, and clean energy in a fiscally responsible way, we are taking the first critical steps to lifting our economy out of recession and creating good jobs for America’s workers.

For the last eight years, President Bush flat-out mismanaged the federal budget. How? By enacting huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that led to skyrocketing deficits, by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without paying for them, and by refusing to invest in the American people. This budget cuts the deficit by more than half by 2013.

And in order to get us back on a fiscally sustainable path, the budget provides a REALISTIC assessment of our fiscal outlook. Unlike the Bush Administration, we actually budget for the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan instead of hiding them under “emergency” spending categories. We budget for natural disasters that inevitably will occur.

This conference report CUTS taxes for 95% of Americans. Let me repeat that, M. Speaker, because we will hear a lot of rhetoric from the other side about taxes. This budget cuts taxes for 95% of Americans. It provides immediate relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax, eliminates the estate tax on nearly all estates, and works to close corporate tax loopholes.

You see, all of us believe in altering the tax code. We believe that we should reduce the tax burden on the middle class and those trying to get into the middle class. We believe that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to shirk their responsibility by hiding their profits in offshore tax havens. The other side believes we should reduce taxes for the very wealthiest. It’s a simple difference in philosophy.

And most importantly, this budget actually invests in the American people. What a welcome change from the past eight years.

We invest in health care reform, not just to improve health care quality and improve coverage, but to reduce the crushing burden of health care costs on American businesses. Everybody likes to talk about health care reform; this budget actually gets it done.

We invest in clean energy in order to create jobs, improve the environment and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Everybody likes to talk about energy independence; this budget actually gets it done.

And we invest in education to reclaim our place as the best-educated workforce in the world. We work to expand early childhood education and to make college more affordable. Everybody likes to talk about improving education; this budget actually gets it done.

And this is a budget that will allow Congress, if and when the time comes, to vote up-or-down on health care reform and education reform, and avoid the infamous obstructionism so characteristic of the other body and the other side of the aisle. It certainly doesn’t guarantee passage of such reforms, but it will allow for and require a straight up-or-down vote in each chamber.

I know that change is hard. I know some of my colleagues want to cling desperately to the failed policies of the past. But the good news is that despite all the nasty press releases and television ads and talk radio attacks on the President, the American people still support President Obama’s vision for America.

That’s why this budget is so very important. This is a budget with a conscience. It’s a budget that believes in the American spirit. And it’s a budget that fulfills the promises that President Obama made to the American people.

M. Speaker, we are at a crucial moment. Our country can meet its potential. Our children can have a better future. Our economy can once again create good-paying jobs. But in order to make that happen, we need to change. We need to move in a bold, innovative new direction. We need to pass this budget.

I urge my colleagues join me in support of this rule and the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.