mr. chairman , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time . 
before us today is an excellent budget , the result of an excellent process , and the product of an excellent chairman , the gentleman from iowa . 
despite some occasional overheated rhetoric , the fiscal year 2006 budget resolution is , in fact , a modest attempt by a reasonable majority to hold down the growth of government spending . 
this is one of the strongest budgets i have seen since coming to congress . 
true , it makes tough choices . 
imagine , it prioritizes spending , and it starts the long process of modernizing the federal government while rooting out waste , fraud , and inefficiency . 
but , mr. chairman , american taxpayers deserve no less , especially today . 
we are at war with an enemy who threatens us here at home and on the other side of the world . 
our security spending must therefore take priority , and in turn we must make difficult but necessary choices about non-security spending . 
that is exactly what this budget does . 
it meets our needs at home and abroad without raising taxes , which would stifle our economy , or wasting money , which undermines the hard work the american people did to earn those tax dollars in the first place . 
of course , for some people , regardless of the fiscal and international circumstances , taxes and spending are never high enough . 
this year , as every year , they have warned us about the dire consequences of trusting the american people with their own money . 
last year , the same critics made the same criticism of our efforts , which we now know ultimately slowed the growth of non-security discretionary spending to about 1 percent . 
these critics assured us that our budget would bust a hole in the deficit . 
and yet last year , the deficit came in $ 109 billion smaller than experts originally thought it would , specifically because of the increased economic growth directly attributed to republican tax relief passed since 2001 . 
millions of jobs were created last year . 
indeed , more than 3 million of them have been created since the house took up president bush 's similarly criticized jobs and growth tax relief package 21 months ago . 
so , in short , mr. chairman , the economic data coming in every month speaks to the wisdom of the fiscal policies of the republican majority . 
the critics were just wrong , and they are wrong again this year . 
the principal mantra against this budget is that it will explode the deficit , despite the evidence of last year 's shrinking deficit projections . 
what , one wonders , do they think that the $ 67.1 billion in additional spending that they propose at the committee on the budget markup would do ? 
the balanced budgets of the late 1990s should serve as our model , they say . 
well , i agree . 
and i would remind them that the balanced budgets of the late 1990s were passed by republican congresses , without much help from our friends on the other side of the aisle . 
hardly any of them voted for it . 
how anyone takes credit for policies they opposed is beyond me , but i guess that is politics . 
but , again , so is the idea that raising $ 392.4 billion in new taxes , as committee on the budget democrats proposed just last week , would somehow help the economy to create jobs . 
well , mr. chairman , the facts are indisputable : democracy is on the march around the world ; the war on terror is being won ; the economy is growing ; jobs are being created ; deficit projections are shrinking ; and the looming demographic crises facing social security and medicare are being addressed , all thanks to the courage , the policies and the leadership of president bush and this republican congress . 
that the same people who have criticized us all along are criticizing our budget today , mr. chairman , only suggests we must be doing something right . 
so i urge all my colleagues to give more momentum to our success and support the budget resolution before us . 
