[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 3, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S536-S537]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from Arizona 
talking about some of the statements that have been said on the floor 
today and really setting the record straight, which I think is very 
important.
  I would like to continue to talk about the President's budget. I 
heard people say the budget is too much; we are going to have bigger 
deficits. And then I hear people say: Oh, but it is not compassionate; 
we are not spending enough.
  What the President of the United States has submitted to Congress in 
a budget is very bold, but it is also very simple. The President of the 
United States is doing what every family and every small business would 
do when they are in a budget crunch, when their revenues are not 
meeting their expenditures. He is prioritizing the spending.
  He put as his very first priority the national defense of this 
country. He raised the spending from last year on national defense by 7 
percent. He made a priority the homeland security of our country, 
protecting our homeland. He increased spending 10 percent on homeland 
security needs.
  He decreased the growth in spending. We never decrease spending in 
Washington, DC. He holds discretionary spending to below 4 percent and 
nonsecurity-related spending to .5 percent--less than the rate of 
inflation.
  The President is saying we are going to prioritize our family budget 
just like families all over our country are doing. We are going to 
protect our country in national defense, we are going to protect the 
citizens of our country in homeland defense, and we are going to cut 
back in areas that are not absolutely necessary.
  I wish to talk about what the President has done and let the people 
of our country decide who is being responsible in our budgeting.
  He advances the ongoing efforts in the war on terror by providing 
$1.2 billion for rebuilding Afghanistan, continuing to build the broad 
coalition. NATO is now in Afghanistan in force to try to defeat that 
center of terrorism where the Taliban took hold and was helping al-
Qaida. We are making the commitment and keeping our word in 
Afghanistan.
  There is $5.7 billion in military and economic assistance to front-
line States supporting the United States in the war on terror.
  The President is strengthening and transforming our defense 
capabilities by providing $402 billion for the Department of Defense, 
an overall 7 percent increase. The President's budget is providing a 
3.5 percent pay raise for our military personnel; improving housing, 
which is something that I as the chairman of the Military Construction 
Subcommittee in the Appropriations Committee want to do, working with 
the President to assure that we have a quality of life improvement for 
our military personnel who are on the front lines every day protecting 
our country and in harm's way in many instances.

  He also provides a 10 percent increase in homeland security. We are 
providing $5.3 billion for the Transportation Security Agency, a 20 
percent increase; $6.2 billion for the Coast Guard, a 9 percent 
increase, because the Coast Guard is being called on today to step up 
to the plate to patrol our borders and our shores. They are doing a 
great job and we are making sure they have the capability to do that 
job.
  It doubles the level of first responder preparedness grants, 
targeting the high threat areas that face greater risk. These are the 
policemen, the firefighters, the front line first responders who can 
save lives if we have another terrorist attack. In many instances, it 
is those people who are outside our Senate Chamber today working on 
perhaps a new terrorist attack that has occurred in the Senate as we 
speak. The first responders are there trying to go through our 
buildings, gathering the unopened mail to see if there is any more of 
this ricin that was found in the Dirksen Office Building. We need to 
prepare those first responders so that everyone in America who might be 
vulnerable will also have an immediate response with trained personnel.
  It protects our food supply by providing $553 million, a 180 percent 
increase in funds for a new agriculture and food defense initiative; 
$274 million for a new vital surveillance initiative; $5.1 billion, an 
11 percent increase, for the FBI, to make sure we have the 
counterterrorism effort that our FBI can give.
  So these are the defense initiatives and the homeland security 
initiatives the President of the United States is providing for our 
country. That is exactly what I hoped he would do, focus on the big 
things that only the Federal Government can do to secure our country. 
That is his first responsibility, and he met the first responsibility 
in the budget that is being criticized today.
  Let us talk about the discretionary spending. Where are we putting 
the priorities in discretionary spending? We are cutting back on the 
increases in discretionary spending but we are holding the priorities 
that are so important. We initiate a job creation plan. We are looking 
at an economic recovery that is just in its initial stages, but we have 
not seen the jobs yet. The President is very concerned about people not 
having jobs. We are talking about a $250 million grant program for our 
Nation's community colleges. These are the places where we can train 
for jobs in the future. These are places where we can train for the 
high-demand occupations that are identified as the places where we can 
put people to work if they have the training.
  Our community colleges are the unsung heroes and heroines in our 
country because they can put people back to work with training. They 
can take people who have lost jobs in one sector and train them for 
something else. There is $333 million to help students make the 
transition from high school to college.

  He provides for a national energy policy, one of our best job 
creators, to ensure affordable, reliable energy supply; upgrading our 
Nation's electrical grid so we will not have blackouts and brownouts in 
any part of our country; promoting energy efficiency and increasing 
domestic energy production, which will protect the environment and put 
people back to work.
  The budget will also spur job creation by providing more than $20 
billion in small business lending and equity programs. Small businesses 
are the economic engine of our country. If we free small businesses and 
help them with the capital they need to expand their businesses and 
grow, we will be able to create the jobs that will stabilize our 
country.
  So through the President's budget we are trying to increase job 
creation in our country. We will not have a true recovery if we have a 
jobless recovery. The President understands and knows that, and he is 
trying to make sure we address that very important issue.
  Let us talk about education. President Bush is the education 
President. He wants to make the commitments that will allow every child 
to reach his or her full potential in our country. His budget increases 
title I funding by $1 billion, 52 percent more than in 2001; it 
provides $1 billion more for special education, a 75 percent increase 
since 2001;

[[Page S537]]

it increases funding for early reading programs, a 12 percent increase 
over just last year. The President knows that if you can catch a child 
early, you will be able to correct that child's reading problems and 
allow that child to absorb the education that allows the child then to 
reach his or her full potential. The budget helps 5 million students 
pursue postsecondary education by providing $12.9 billion in Pell 
grants, an $856 million increase.
  He is fulfilling his promise to increase the funding for historically 
black colleges and universities, minority-serving institutions, by 30 
percent, $394 million by 2005. That is this year's budget. It provides 
$57 billion in direct and guaranteed student loans to postsecondary 
students and reforms higher education student aid by raising loan 
limits for first year students, expanding options to offer courses 
online and increasing loan forgiveness for those teaching certain 
subjects in high poverty schools, a great trade, a win for everyone. If 
we can put teachers in schools that have teacher shortages and forgive 
student loans, we will make up the interest that would be paid on those 
student loans by giving more children a chance for a quality education.
  So how can one say the President is not doing right by education when 
he is focusing on the increases in spending in education that will fund 
No Child Left Behind, the act we passed to try to increase options for 
education so that our public school education can compete with private 
school education and give parents all the choices they could possibly 
need to do the best for their children?
  We know every parent has the dream for his or her child that that 
child will be able to get a great education and send that child off 
into America, into the world, fully ready to earn a living, raise a 
family, and have a good life.
  Let us talk about health care. Let us talk about what the President's 
priorities are in the budget in health care. The President expands 
health care coverage by making it more affordable for small businesses 
to purchase coverage for employees through association health care 
plans. It is very important that we lower the number of uninsured 
Americans. We can do that by making health care coverage available to 
small businesses that want to cover their employees and help their 
employees but they cannot afford the premiums if they are a small 
business. If we can pass association health care plans, as the 
President has requested us to do, we can take millions of Americans off 
the uninsured rolls. That is what we are asking our colleagues to help 
the President do.
  It implements the prescription drug discount card to give immediate 
discounts of 10 to 25 percent to cardholders. In the next couple of 
months, our seniors will be able to take those prescription cards and 
buy drugs with a 10 to 25 percent discount. So that is immediate 
help. That is while we are also building up a system that will give 
even better choices and more options for prescription drug coverage to 
our seniors. The President's budget will give $600 annually in 
immediate assistance to low-income individuals to pay for prescription 
drugs. So the low-income people are going to get that $600 direct, 
immediate assistance. And then the drug benefit plan should be 
implemented by 2006.

  The President does provide incentives in his budget that will provide 
immediate help for our seniors for prescription drug discounts now, and 
to work toward the options that will provide real help for a 
prescription drug benefit for our seniors.
  Environment: The President has several things in his budget to 
enhance the Nation's supply of clean, affordable energy by increasing 
funding for clean energy resources, by trying to have more research 
into hydrogen and fuel cell research and development. He wants a zero 
emissions coal fuel powerplant and he wants to fund development of that 
in this budget he is presenting.
  He presents the President's Healthy Forests Initiative to prevent the 
catastrophic wildfires we saw raging through western America. It was 
just horrible to see what was happening in California this last year, 
the forest fires that were raging and taking people's homes as well as 
their property. The President has a $58 million increase to remove 
excess wood and brush that fuel these fires.
  He would accelerate the Great Lakes cleanup by providing $45 million, 
a fivefold increase over previous levels to clean up the Great Lakes.
  He tackles the remaining Superfund sites. We all know the toughest 
sites to clean up are these Superfund sites. But he is willing to take 
this on and increase, by 50 percent, the funding for Superfund cleanup 
so we will be able to get a handle on the worst environmental hazardous 
areas that we have in our country.
  I have heard all the talks on the Senate floor today that have 
criticized the President's budget. I think the President has a balanced 
budget. He is prioritizing where we need to prioritize. He is providing 
for the national defense for our country. He is providing for the 
homeland security of our country. He is putting the money in education. 
He is putting the money into job creation and job training, and he is 
helping to meet the health care costs of our senior citizens and people 
who work for small businesses.
  Our President presented to Congress a balanced budget. Everybody can 
find something to criticize, something they would not prioritize the 
same way. But the President is leading and the President has presented 
us a budget that will cut the deficit in half in 5 years while 
maintaining the homeland security and defense our people have asked him 
to provide. I think we should work with the President to pass this 
budget and have some budget authority that will keep us from 
overspending and increasing the deficit further.
  Mr. President, this should be a team, not a critical debating 
society. We should be teaming together to help America get through the 
war on terrorism, fund our priorities, cut the deficits, and be 
responsible to the people who elected us, as the President is trying to 
do.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will have a few remarks at the close on 
what has been a difficult day, but very positive in many ways as we 
have come together and faced the challenges before this body and have 
been able to conduct very productive and very useful business over the 
course of the day in spite of a major distraction on the outside that 
was magnified and illustrated by the fact that three Senate office 
buildings closed and people do not have access to a lot of the papers 
in their own offices. In spite of that, we are continuing the Nation's 
business in a very productive way.

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