[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 3, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S531-S535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                THE PRESIDENT'S FISCAL YEAR 2005 BUDGET

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I came to the floor to address President 
Bush's fiscal year 2005 budget. This budget was presented to Congress 
yesterday. It has been characterized by the Concord Coalition, and 
others, as one of the most irresponsible Federal budgets to have been 
filed. It continues President Bush's failed tax policies, 
unfortunately, at the expense of Social Security and Medicare. It 
shortchanges funding for schools. It shifts the burden of paying for 
environmental cleanup from the polluters to ordinary taxpayers. And it 
hurts States in the Midwest, such as my own State of Illinois, that are 
facing terrible budget situations. It imposes new Federal mandates 
without providing adequate Federal funds.
  The budget is a fundamental reversal of the very things the President 
said his administration stands for. It is not compassionate, it is not 
conservative, and, sadly, it is not credible.
  Why is it not compassionate? The President's budget again fails to 
provide full funding for No Child Left Behind. This was the premier 
education policy of the Bush administration, supported, on a bipartisan 
basis, by this Senator and many others on the floor, with the 
understanding that as we identified the weaknesses and shortcomings in 
public education, we would come forward with the money to help the 
students reach the level of testing where they should be.
  Now we find in Illinois and States across the Nation that test scores 
show that kids need help, and the Federal Government continues to say: 
Take the test, announce whether you are a failing school or a 
successful school, and we will provide you with less money than we ever 
promised.
  During the debate on No Child Left Behind, Senator Paul Wellstone of 
Minnesota sat behind me. He opposed the program from the start. He 
said: You are going to create a program where the tests become the 
object of education rather than learning. Unfortunately, because the 
tests create such high stakes, many teachers will have no recourse but 
to teach to the test, thus dampening the enthusiasm to learn, the 
creative element that is part of education.
  That was Paul Wellstone's point. I said: Paul, I disagree with you. 
Tests are about accountability. We have taken tests all through our 
school years, and we should hold our students accountable, our teachers 
accountable, our school boards and others accountable through testing. 
So I disagreed with him on that premise.
  Then he added: But I will tell you something else. When it comes to 
providing the Federal resources that you are going to promise, I'll bet 
they won't be there. When the schools need them, they won't get the 
help from the Federal Government to improve the education of our 
children.
  Unfortunately, as I have traveled around Illinois, I am afraid former 
Senator Paul Wellstone was right on both counts. We are finding more 
and more teachers and principals and school boards complaining that 
they are spending more and more time focusing on tests, doing their 
level best to avoid being branded a failing school and facing sanctions 
from the Federal Government. And when they find some students who are 
not meeting the test standards, they are hard pressed to come up with 
the tutoring that is necessary, the afterschool programs or summer 
school programs to bring these kids back in the mainstream and to bring 
them up to the level where they should be.

  So what do we find in this budget from President Bush when it comes 
to his premier policy on education? The law in No Child Left Behind 
authorized $34.3 billion in funding to school districts in this next 
fiscal year--$34.3 billion. The President's budget only provides $24.9 
billion. The President's budget falls short by over $9 billion of 
keeping its promise to the American schools and people that we would 
give them a helping hand so that the kids could move forward in their 
education.
  In Illinois, a State which is facing a deficit, which is causing a 
lot of hardship, we are going to lose over $250 million which would 
have come to us had the President put in his budget a request for funds 
adequate to fund his premier policy for education. So in Illinois we 
are facing a mandate, No Child Left Behind, and no funds to pay for it.
  Well, I can tell you, school districts around my State can think of a 
lot of

[[Page S532]]

ways to help their students, ways that do not involve the test we are 
sending them. Unfortunately, they do not have the resources to deal 
with it. But they deal with the test, paid for by the Federal 
Government, and do not have the resources to help the children.
  When it comes to housing, the President's budget eliminates entirely 
the Department of Housing and Urban Development's HOPE VI Program--the 
only Federal program that focuses on revitalizing the Nation's most 
distressed public housing developments. The Chicago Housing Authority 
received $105 million in direct HOPE VI grants in fiscal year 2001 and 
has also given approval to issue another $291 million worth of bonds.
  HOPE VI provides grants and unprecedented flexibility to address 
housing and social service needs. In Chicago, these grants were to be 
used to demolish 4,500 aging public housing units and to replace 1,675 
units with new ones in public and mixed-income housing.
  In most States, including my own State of Illinois, we are facing a 
terrible housing shortage. Working families are struggling to find 
safe, decent places to live. If we do not provide a helping hand to 
these working families, these families, with their children, will be 
pushed into housing situations which, sadly, are going to be very 
difficult for them to cope with. This decision by the administration to 
eliminate HOPE VI funding, to say we cannot afford this limited Federal 
commitment to help with public housing, is going to be an expensive 
one.
  The President's budget also will provide $12.7 billion in additional 
Federal funding for Medicaid between the current fiscal year and 2009. 
That sounds good: an additional $12.7 billion for Medicaid, but there 
is a catch. The President's plan requires that Medicaid funding remain 
budget neutral over a 10-year period. In other words, in 2011, 2012, 
and 2013 money going to the States will have to be reduced by the 
amount that they were compensated in higher payments early on in budget 
years. Who can believe in these outyears the cost of medical care will 
go down?
  So as the costs go up, the States are going to be asked to give up 
money that was paid them years before. That is not going to provide 
health care for a lot of families, particularly lower income families 
and those who cannot afford health insurance--unfortunately, a growing 
class in our society.
  When it comes to veterans benefits, for the second year in a row the 
Bush administration proposes that veterans pay a larger share of their 
health care costs.
  All of us come and praise veterans, as we should, the men and women 
who risk their lives for our country, some of whom I have seen recently 
at Walter Reed Hospital, and many you find returning from Iraq and 
Afghanistan. We are all there at the parades to shower them and their 
families with praise for their contribution to America. But our 
speeches are cheap and our words are hollow if we do not follow through 
with support for veterans programs.
  The President, in his budget, proposes increased fees for some 
veterans, including a $250 annual enrollment fee and an increase in 
monthly pharmaceutical copayments. Congress rejected both of these 
proposals in recent years. The Bush administration comes back demanding 
them in their budget.
  I might say a word, too, about the global AIDS commitment of the 
President. I thought the President spoke for this country and our 
values when he stood up a year ago in his State of the Union speech and 
said: Let's commit $15 billion over a 5-year period of time to fight 
the global AIDS epidemic. But for the second year in a row, the 
President's budget fails to meet his rhetorical promise to the world. 
It falls short of his full commitment.
  The President proposes $2.8 billion, which is again short of the $3 
billion annual commitment over 5 years. Furthermore, the President's 
budget proposes to cut our contributions to the Global Fund to Fight 
AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. He cuts it by two-thirds, from $550 
million this year to just $200 million in the upcoming year. The 
problem grows. Our commitment to it recedes and backs off. That does 
not help.
  When it comes to the environment, in the proposed Bush budget, the 
environmental programs sustained the second largest reduction of any 
section of the budget, after agricultural programs. For the first time 
since 1981--almost 22 years now--line items for environmental programs 
were reduced for two consecutive years.
  The President's budget will make taxpayers pay for even more of the 
cost of cleaning up toxic waste sites in the Superfund Program. 
Illinois has 40 such contaminated sites that are not to be cleaned up 
because Superfund is broke. The President refuses to fund it, and the 
President refuses to hold the polluters responsible. It means that 
average taxpayers and families across my State will have to pay for 
pollution caused by industries that are let off the hook by the Bush 
budget.
  The President is asking for $1.38 billion for the Superfund Program 
this year, all of which will likely come from general revenues because 
the administration has refused to reinstate the polluter pay program.

  To pay for that increase, the President proposes cutting clean water 
funding from $429 million to $94 million. Last year the Bush 
administration proposed a 79-percent decrease in the same program.
  In agriculture, this is the area hit hardest by the Bush budget. This 
area sustained the largest cut with a reduction in discretionary 
spending of 8.1 percent and conservation programs are the first 
casualties. That is unfortunate, because preserving our soil and water 
resources are absolutely critical to the future of farming and critical 
to those who believe that we have a stewardship responsibility for the 
land. That responsibility is not met.
  The President's budget proposal imposes deep cuts in the COPS 
Program, a program started under the Clinton administration, which has 
been wildly successful. Cities and counties and local units of 
government, States as well, have come to the Federal Government and 
with a very simple application form brought more men and women in 
uniform onto the streets of America, making it safer. President Bush's 
fiscal year 2005 budget proposes no funding specifically for the hiring 
of officers and instead provides $17.6 million for community policing 
development initiatives, whatever that means.
  Even if all of this funding were used to hire law enforcement and 
school resource officers, it would be a 91-percent cut from the fiscal 
year 2003 funding level. In Illinois, during fiscal year 2003, COPS 
hiring grants provided funding for 123 full-time police officers. A cut 
of 91 percent that the President proposes would mean 111 fewer police 
officers patrolling Illinois neighborhoods and schools. This is a step 
in the wrong direction. This program is not only popular; it is needed.
  When it comes to homeland security, we can do better than the Bush 
budget. In Illinois, 671 law enforcement agencies have directly 
benefited from funding made available through the COPS Program since it 
was created in 1994. Since that time, over $410 million in COPS grants 
have been awarded to my State. These grants have funded 5,832 
additional police officers and deputies, as well as additional school 
resource officers who break up gangs and try to find out when children 
who have problems attending school have much bigger problems at home 
than even teachers realize.
  The President's 2005 budget request for homeland security includes 
$3.6 billion in the Office of Domestic Preparedness. This funding 
request represents a 19-percent overall decrease from this year, when 
$4.4 million was available. So we see that in areas of homeland 
security, this budget makes cuts.
  I am very concerned about this budget. I am also concerned about the 
fact that this is not a conservative budget. How can you claim to be 
conservative, as President Bush says he is, when his budget is swimming 
in more than $500 billion worth of red ink? Let me show you some charts 
which graphically tell the story.
  Every minute the Bush administration spends $991,000 more than it 
takes in. A few years ago we had a budget surplus under the Clinton 
administration. The number was $236 billion. A few years later, under 
this administration, we are anticipating a deficit of $521 billion. So 
that is a swing of $757 billion from surplus to deficit. It gets worse.
  We have asked the President year in and year out: How can you justify 
this?

[[Page S533]]

Look at the quotes from the President and this administration. He said 
in 2001:

       [We] can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget 
     deficits. . . .

  Sadly, he was wrong.
  In 2002, the President said:

       [O]ur budget will run a deficit that will be small and 
     short-term. . . .

  That is certainly not the case. We are facing recordbreaking 
deficits.
  In 2003:

       Our current deficit . . . is not large by historical 
     standards and is manageable. . . .

  Wrong again.
  In 2004:

       The deficit will be cut in half over the next five years. . 
     . .

  Clearly, he is going to be wrong again on that projection.
  Then you take a look at the claim that he will cut the budget deficit 
in half and you see that it is not credible. By 2009, the operating 
deficit is likely to be far larger than $237 billion. This is the 
deficit claim. This is the Social Security surplus which will be 
included in regular spending for our Government so that the President 
reaches his goal nominally when, in fact, he is doing it at the expense 
of Social Security.
  The Medicare surplus will be raided for $23 billion. The alternative 
minimum tax, which I predict will be the biggest single family tax 
issue this Congress faces over the next 5 years, to even fix that would 
cost $55 billion by 2009.
  And then, of course, we have the additional cost for war. Isn't it 
interesting that the President's budget doesn't include the cost of the 
war in Afghanistan and in Iraq, nor does it include increases in 
homeland security? So the deficit we are talking about doesn't even 
take into account the billion dollars per week we are spending on that 
war effort.
  Let me tell you how the President will maintain his spending when he 
runs out of money. President Bush's budget hides the full story. Every 
penny of the Social Security surplus will be spent by this 
administration under their proposed budget plan. The amount of Social 
Security surplus saved between 2005 and 2014: Zero. The amount of 
Social Security surplus spent in that same period of time: $2.4 
trillion. Instead of strengthening Social Security and Medicare as the 
baby boomers arrive, President Bush's budget plan will make them weaker 
than ever in our history.
  Let me also take a look at what happens with the Bush budget when you 
look at the full story. The President said repeatedly in his State of 
the Union Address that the key to our economic prosperity is to make 
his tax cuts permanent. I think, frankly, the first round of tax cuts 
were not advisable and were unwise. Not because we didn't need a tax 
cut and a stimulus but because the majority of the tax breaks went to 
the wealthiest people in America. The President has said we have to 
continue on that course, continue to give tax breaks to the highest 
income Americans.
  Sadly, if we follow the President's advice and make those tax cuts 
permanent, take a look at what this means in terms of the long-term 
budget picture: a $1.6 trillion, 10-year cost to extend the tax cuts. 
How can this be sensible, prudent, or conservative? It is a spending 
spree and cutting spree that fails to take into account the ultimate 
cost.

  I mentioned the cost of the AMT reform, the alternative minimum tax. 
Just 3 or 4 million people are currently paying this tax. But the way 
it is geared to take into account inflation, millions more will be 
brought in to pay this tax. In fact, many families are going to learn 
that they are paying more in alternative minimum tax than any other 
tax. You can expect to hear from them. The President ignores this 
reality. The cost of reform of this alternative minimum tax goes 
through the roof if we don't do this and do it quickly. Sadly, there is 
no suggestion that we even consider the problem.
  Incidentally, when you take a look at the amount provided in 
President Bush's budget for ongoing military operations in Iraq and 
Afghanistan and the war on terror, there is zero provided. So in 
addition to the budget document we are considering, we will have a 
supplemental appropriations bill much later in the year which will add 
on more spending which we must have to sustain the troops in the field. 
How much: $280 billion is the anticipated cost between 2005 and 2014--a 
hidden cost which the Bush administration doesn't want to deal with 
directly in their budget document.
  The gross Federal debt, assuming extension of Republican tax cuts on 
a permanent basis, AMT reform, and defense policies, $15.1 trillion in 
2014. What a wonderful and glorious gift we are leaving our children 
and grandchildren. We are spending them into a debt that, frankly, they 
are going to have to deal with for the rest of their natural lives.
  What do the Bush administration's irresponsible fiscal policies mean? 
By 2009, each person will have a share of the national debt which will 
total $35,283. So the President says for the average family: We will 
send you a check for $300 or $400 for each member of the family, and we 
will give you a little bit of a helping hand.
  What he doesn't tell you is that, at the same time, he is mortgaging 
the future of this country. For what? For tax cuts for wealthy people.
  How do we pay off our debt in this country, how do we sustain it, if 
we are spending $991,000 a minute more than we are bringing in as the 
Bush budget proposes? There is only one way to sustain our economy and 
to pay off that debt. That is to borrow money. Which countries come up 
to the window and want to buy the securities to fund America's debt? 
Take a look at the list. The top 10 countries holding America's 
national debt: Japan, $526 billion; China, $144 billion, United 
Kingdom, $112 billion. The list goes down the line.
  Isn't it interesting that the countries that are holding our national 
debt in many instances are the same countries that have substantial 
trade surpluses with the United States? In fact, the two fit together. 
When China, for example, which now has an inordinate trade surplus with 
the United States, wants to make good on the extra dollars they have, 
they buy securities and pay off our national debt in that regard. So we 
end up beholden to the banking systems in these countries that, 
frankly, are holding America's debt. They have a powerful position. 
That has become a reality. In order to fund this debt--the largest 
deficit in our country, a debt that will grow to record proportions--we 
do two things. We borrow all the money in the Social Security trust 
fund and from the Medicare trust fund, and then we turn to nations 
around the world and ask them to buy the securities to sustain our 
debt. That is the future which the President is suggesting to us.

  During the course of the State of the Union Address, the President 
said at one point--I remember it well--that manufacturing jobs are 
increasing. I can say to the President, whether it is the State of 
Illinois or Iowa or Michigan, manufacturing jobs are not increasing. 
They are increasing in China. We have lost 20 percent of our 
manufacturing jobs in the last 5 years, and in Illinois there is no end 
in sight.
  Sadly, as you see the shrinking of our economy in each State, with 
more than 3 million jobs lost under the Bush administration, you 
understand that we are not only spending ourselves into long-term debt, 
we are not getting what is essential for America, and that is 
strengthening our economic base, making certain that our schools are 
the best, that we are training our children for the quality jobs of the 
future, making certain businesses have a helping hand from Government 
to help meet their health insurance obligations to employees, making 
certain that our trade laws are enforced in a fair way.
  I am a Democratic Senator who has voted for free trade in the past. I 
believe globalization is as inevitable as gravity. But we have to 
understand that simply entering into a trade agreement is no assurance 
that the other party--other country in this case--will live up to the 
terms of the agreement. We have seen case after case--steel is a 
classic example, where countries such as Brazil, Japan, and Russia 
started dumping steel in the U.S. By ``dumping,'' I mean selling it at 
lower than the cost of production. They were not only trying to bring 
in dollars from the U.S.; they were trying to close down the American 
steel industry. Sadly, they were successful, to some extent.

[[Page S534]]

  What does it mean today to us to have fewer steel companies and fewer 
steelmaking jobs? Let me give you one illustration. Today, in Iraq, 
there are 8,400 Humvees that our troops are using in the field. These 
8,400 vehicles are special problems for us because they are not 
equipped with armored plating. If you go to Walter Reed and meet the 
amputees and injured soldiers, many will tell you: Senator, do 
something to make the Humvees safer.
  So when I went to the Department of the Army and said, ``What are you 
going to do about the armored doors needed on Humvees?'' they said, 
``It is our highest priority.'' I asked them how they would make them. 
They said they are going to turn to arsenals in Rock Island and 
Anniston Depot and contract it out. I asked: How long will it take to 
make 8,400 armored doors and get them there as quickly as possible to 
protect our soldiers? They said: If we work night and day, we can get 
it done in 1 year. One year? During World War II, we were building 
bombers every 12 hours and ships every 30 days, and we need a year to 
build 8,400 sets of doors to protect these Humvees?
  I was incredulous and asked why. They said: Senator, we only have one 
steelmaking plant left in America, which is in Pennsylvania, which has 
the capacity to make the steel we need for the armor on these doors. 
There is one left in America.

  When countries violate trade agreements and dump steel in the U.S., 
ruin our steel industry, close down the businesses, kill the jobs, 
endanger retiree benefits--after that happens, we find ourselves in 
this situation where we need steel, the best in the world need it 
desperately, and we cannot make it in the U.S.
  When the President talks about a strong America in the future, it 
involves education and job training and helping businesses pay for 
health insurance but also enforcing trade agreements. I supported the 
President's tariffs on steel as the only way to answer this dumping of 
steel. Are we going to quit now, since the WTO has threatened they will 
impose $2 billion in tariffs? I hope not. Frankly, I think we need to 
take a more aggressive stand when it comes to building our economy and 
jobs for the future.
  Don't tell me we are in a recovery. A jobless recovery is no recovery 
at all. Families who are still unemployed and cannot meet the basic 
obligations to keep their families together are not families that are 
better off just because productivity is higher in America. We need a 
stronger economy that has good growth, including jobs. Right now, we 
are far from it. The Bush budget doesn't move us in that direction. It 
is not a credible budget, a compassionate budget; it is not a 
conservative budget; it is a testament to a failed economic policy, 
where the U.S. economy is not back on its feet, where we continue to 
see people losing their jobs, where good-paying jobs are going 
overseas, and little or nothing is being done.
  That will be an issue which drives this electorate in this election, 
as it should. As we review the budget, I hope Members of Congress will 
step back and realize that making tax cuts for the wealthy permanent 
policy in this country will guarantee weakness in Social Security and 
Medicare for generations to come. If that is the reason my colleagues 
believe they came to the Senate, then they should stand and cheer this 
budget. But if they feel a special obligation, as I do and many 
colleagues do, to Social Security and Medicare, we should demand more.
  How can you claim to be conservative when your budget is swimming in 
more than $500 billion worth of red ink? The President is proposing a 
paltry $53 billion in revenue-raising measures to offset the budget's 
$1.3 trillion in tax cuts. And he's proposing changes in the budget 
process that will make it harder to increase spending on important 
social programs down the road while failing to place similar 
constraints on Congress's ability to extend tax giveaways to the rich.
  The cost of extending the tax cuts alone will reach $1.6 trillion 
between 2005-2014. Before the end of this fiscal year, Congress will 
have to raise the debt ceiling--currently at $7.4 trillion once again. 
The continuation of the administration's policies could produce a 
national debt of greater than $15 trillion by 2014. Is this fiscal 
conservatism?
  Even the unofficial voice of the right seems shocked by the fiscal 
irresponsibility of this administration. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh 
weighed in on the gloomy fiscal picture painted by this budget on his 
nationally broadcast radio program. ``Bush has outspent Clinton,'' 
Limbaugh told listeners last Thursday. ``I hate to say this; I'm sorry 
folks.''
  And how can you claim to be credible when you increase funding for 
missions to outer space, provide even more tax breaks for the wealthy 
but cut money for community oriented policing, for higher education and 
for critical transportation projects?
  In 2000, our Nation had a $236 billion surplus; in 4 short years, the 
Bush administration has managed to turn that into a deficit for the 
current fiscal year that they project to be $521 billion. CBO estimates 
the fiscal year 2004 deficit will be closer to $477 billion. Either 
way, that is a striking turn of events, and neither figure tells the 
full story. Once Social Security is factored out of the budget, the 
OMB's fiscal year 2004 projected deficit soars to $675 billion.
  The President claims his budget will cut the deficit in half in 3 
years. This promise speaks directly to the credibility gap facing this 
administration. The President simply isn't leveling with the American 
people; we've heard this story before.
  In 2001, the President, upon inheriting a fiscally sound house, told 
us that ``we can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget 
deficits.'' He was wrong.
  In 2002, when it was clear that this wasn't the case, he told us that 
``our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term.'' 
Wrong again.
  In 2003, he said, ``Our current deficit is not large by historical 
standards and is manageable.'' Once again, wrong.
  Now he is promising to cut the deficit by half over the next 3 years 
and is focusing his deficit reduction plan on limiting domestic 
discretionary spending. That is not a credible solution. Growth in 
domestic discretionary spending has been almost non-existent over the 
past 2 years. Out-of-control spending did not cause these record 
deficits. The President's irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthiest 
Americans did.
  The OMB's estimates were $134 billion greater than the estimates the 
Bush administration used to build support for the program in Congress. 
Democrats in the House are calling for an investigation into when the 
President knew that the number would be much higher than the one used 
during deliberations.
  The $521 figure is slightly inflated. No one else is this high. CBO 
is $477 billion. The $521 includes $20 billion in lower revenue 
estimates for fiscal year 2004 just to be ``careful.'' This would 
certainly make it easier to cut the deficit in half if the baseline 
from which you are cutting is artificially inflated tens of billions of 
dollars higher than anyone else's estimates of that baseline.
  Another component of the credibility gap is that the President is 
engaged in a high-stakes shell game, shifting the actual responsibility 
for paying for his policies until after he has left town and hiding 
their true costs from sight in the current budget.
  The administration provides no estimates of the cumulative 10-year 
deficit in this budget, thus masking the real long-term costs of these 
policies. Groups on the right and the left have estimated that the 
administration's policies will add over $5 trillion to the federal debt 
over the next 10 years.
  The budget does not include the full cost of the supplemental 
spending in Iraq that was passed last year, some of which will take 
place during this fiscal year. We know we will be in Iraq. Why isn't 
all of this money included in the DOD budget?
  Furthermore, the CBO says that as late as 2009, we may still face 
tens of billions in costs to fight terrorism. Yet, these funds are not 
included in the budget either. The President has added $250 billion in 
supplemental requests since taking office; we can certainly expect more 
of these in the future.
  The President's budget ignores the impeding retirement of the baby 
boomers, and fails to factor in the full cost of the Alternative 
Minimum Tax relief he requests in this budget.
  Finally, despite promising during this campaign to make Social 
Security solvent, the administration's budget proposals will use every 
penny of the

[[Page S535]]

Social Security surplus over the next 10 years to pay the bills we are 
racking up today.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will respond to my colleague from Illinois. 
First, regarding the budget deficit, and comments made earlier 
regarding intelligence issues, I will find it interesting to see 
whether those who are so concerned about the Federal budget deficit 
will back up their words with actions by voting against runaway 
spending.
  Alan Greenspan, head of the Federal Reserve, says the biggest problem 
is that Congress cannot restrain its bad spending habits. So for 
colleagues such as the Senator from Illinois--will they vote against 
the $30 billion in subsidies in the energy bill? Will they vote against 
twice that much in unpaid for highway funding--that is to say, unpaid 
for in the highway trust fund? It will be interesting to see how those 
who complain about the deficits actually vote when it comes to adding 
to the deficit.
  Remember that last year, when we had a whole series of votes, when 
the Republican majority finally got a budget passed, we had to defeat a 
whole series of amendments by our Democratic colleagues--we usually got 
51 or 52 votes--because almost all of the members of the Democratic 
Caucus voted in favor of spending more money in these amendments. We 
defeated something like $88 billion in spending amendments offered by 
our Democratic colleagues. Thank goodness we did. That amounted to over 
a trillion dollars in savings over the 10-year period of the budget.
  So for my Democratic colleagues to complain about spending and budget 
deficits and then go on and vote for the projects that they can brag 
about back home, I think that at least is--shall we call it a 
dichotomy, in any event.
  What about this business of tax cuts for the wealthy? Actually, I 
have some statistics here which I think are interesting. It shows that 
the reduction of the tax rate, the top marginal rate--these are the 
``wealthy'' that our Democratic colleague spoke about--actually, mostly 
helps small businessowners, the very people who create the bulk of the 
jobs in this country.
  You cannot have it both ways, my friends. You cannot complain on the 
one hand that we are cutting taxes for the people who create the jobs 
and then complain we are not doing anything to create jobs. That is 
just exactly what the tax rate reductions on the highest marginal rate 
accomplished. About 78 percent of that savings went to small 
businessowners. These are the people who pay at the top individual 
rate. They are subchapter S corporations or partnerships; we call them 
flowthrough entities, which pay at the top individual tax rate. They 
are small business employers. Sixty-two percent of the income tax 
filers in the top bracket are small businessowners, and 98 percent of 
the companies are small businesses.
  According to the Small Business Administration, 75 percent of all of 
the new jobs are created by small businesses, which would suggest that 
small businesses created over 2 million of the 2.8 million jobs added 
since the start of 2002. How were these small businesses able to create 
those jobs? They had the capital to invest to do so. How did they get 
the capital? We cut their marginal income tax rates. Again, they 
received, by far and away, over three-fourths of all the relief that 
went to the top filers, the small businessowners, by cutting that rate.
  Tax cut for the rich? No. It was for the small businessowners to 
create the jobs that have gotten our economy moving again.
  Let's recall who actually pays the taxes in this country. These are 
Internal Revenue figures, I might add. The top 1 percent of taxpayers 
pays over a third of all of the taxes. One-third of all the taxes are 
paid by 1 percent of our population. The top 5 percent of the taxpayers 
pay over half, 53.4 percent. So just the top 5 out of 100 are paying 
more than half of all the income taxes in the country. The top 10 
percent pay about 65 percent--in other words, almost two-thirds.
  How much does the top 50 percent pay? Ninety-six percent. In other 
words, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers in this country pay less than 
4 percent of the taxes. So divide the taxpayers in this country into 
two parts. One of our Democratic colleagues running for President is 
fond of saying there are two Americas out there: the wealthy and not so 
wealthy.
  Let's take the top 50 percent and the bottom 50 percent. The top 50 
percent is paying 96 percent of the taxes, and the bottom 50 percent is 
paying less than 4 percent of the taxes. Naturally, if we are going to 
give a tax cut to taxpayers, you are going to be cutting the taxes of 
those who are paying most of the taxes. But I wouldn't call these 
people all rich.
  As a matter of fact, if you look at the categories, the top 50 
percent makes $28,528. I wouldn't call that rich. How about the top 25 
percent? We ought to be getting into the rich category here: $56,000 
income a year. Raising a family of four, that is not exactly a big 
income these days. You can get by on it, but I wouldn't call those 
people wealthy or ``the rich.''
  I think we have to be a little bit careful. And I know my colleagues 
wouldn't do this, but there are those outside this Chamber who would 
demagog this issue saying it is all about dividing America between the 
wealthy and the deserving, the so-called middle class.
  We appreciate the fact that America is made up of every stripe of 
folks, and they all contribute in one way or another, but when it comes 
to creating jobs, it turns out if you reduce the highest marginal rate, 
which is what we did, what we have done is to reduce the rate for small 
businesses which have created the jobs that have gotten the economy 
going again. That is the effect of the tax relief that was recommended 
by President Bush and this Congress approved.
  I suggest we give a little credit to the President for helping to 
stimulate the economy, create jobs, provide economic growth that is 
unparalleled. We had over 8 percent growth in the third quarter last 
year, and 4 percent in the last quarter. The stock market is doing very 
well.
  It seems to me the message ought to be one of hope; that we have 
turned this recession around; that we have reduced taxes. As a result, 
we are creating jobs and actually things are looking pretty good.
  If our Democratic colleagues would like to help us keep a lid on 
spending, then stop voting for every amendment that spends more money. 
It is pretty much that simple, Mr. President.

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