Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, once again, instead of debating a bill that would create jobs and bring this economy back or a comprehensive effort to put our fiscal house in order, we're here on this floor tonight focusing on a so-called budget reform bill.

This bill will do nothing to spur economic growth, it will do nothing to bring us closer to a balanced budget, although it could greatly confuse and complicate the budget process.

We must be clear what this bill does, Mr. Chairman. The bill pretends that inflation doesn't occur. It's a pipe dream. By eliminating baseline calculations, it would make it far more difficult to estimate future budget needs. We need to know exactly what it would take to maintain the current level of effort and the current level of services in governmental programs. With that knowledge, we can make realistic decisions, knowing what result those increases or decreases would produce. But this bill would deny us that knowledge. All too often, we'd be making budget decisions in the dark without knowing their full implications.

Efforts like this should find bipartisan opposition. Make no mistake. This bill would--or it could--not only lead to the slow starvation of funds for Democratic priorities like Head Start, clean energy research, and WIC, but it also could starve all programs, including the Border Patrol, military health and veterans' programs, and the FBI. At the very least, it would make budget decisions, both increases and decreases, less precise and less efficient.

I'm voting ``no'' on this bill. I urge my colleagues to do the same. Let's stop wasting time on so-called budget reform bills. Instead, we need to get to work on the real budget to hammer out a comprehensive agreement, to bring this economy to full strength, and to get our fiscal house in order.

[Time: 18:00]