[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 23 (Friday, February 27, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1873-S1875]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   A BUDGET OF GIMMICKS, FALSE PROMISES, AND UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, with the release of the President's budget 
for the fiscal year 2005, and the upcoming markup of the fiscal year 
2005 budget resolution, it is now clear the promises made by this 
administration during the 2000 election have not been kept. Contrary to 
the promise made 4 years ago to ensure the Social Security benefits 
promised to our Nation's workers, our retirement and disability system 
has become more vulnerable.
  Contrary to the promise made 4 years ago to make health care more 
affordable, drug prices continue to rise and health insurance remains 
unobtainable for too many Americans.
  Contrary to the promise made 4 years ago to protect our Nation's 
vital industry, this administration's tax and trade policies have been 
an unmitigated disaster with an alarming number of jobs being lost 
overseas.
  Contrary to those assurances that it could be trusted to act as a 
prudent and responsible manager of our Nation's fiscal policies, the 
Bush administration has demonstrated neither prudence nor fiscal 
responsibility.
  In his February 2001 address to a joint session of Congress, the 
President promised to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 
years. He said that is ``more debt repaid more quickly than has ever 
been repaid by any nation at any time in history.''
  The President has not kept that promise.
  Since President Bush submitted his fiscal year 2002 budget, our gross 
national debt has increased from $5.6 trillion to $7 trillion, and 
deficits have risen to $521 billion in fiscal year 2004.
  With the deficit projections mounting, the cries of alarm are growing 
steadily louder. The IMF--an international organization normally 
concerned with the debt problems of third world nations--has issued an 
alarming critique of the United States, pleading with the Bush 
administration to rein in its massive budget and trade deficits. 
Similar warnings have emanated from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan 
Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and the U.S. 
Comptroller General, David Walker.
  Even the administration's own political allies, ranging from the 
conservative Heritage Foundation to private sector economists who 
endorsed the President's tax cuts, have pleaded with this 
administration to get its fiscal act together. Yet these warnings fall 
on deaf ears in this administration.
  After spending $1.7 billion to finance three enormous tax cuts in the 
last 3 years, the President's budget proposes an additional $1.24 
trillion--in other words, that is one and a quarter trillion dollars--
for more tax cuts.
  President Bush's assertion that his budget will cut the deficit in 
half by 2009 is one more in a litany of promises that will go 
unfulfilled.
  The Bush administration's own budget documents show that if none of 
its proposals were enacted into law, the deficit would still be cut in 
half.
  The President's budget actually makes the deficit worse in 2009 than 
if the Congress took no action at all.
  For the fiscal years 2001 through 2010, this administration's 
policies have transformed a 10-year, $5.6 trillion surplus into a $4 
trillion deficit--and it just keeps getting worse.
  The President's budget includes record deficit projections that will 
push our national debt to extreme limits never before seen in our 
Nation's history, or any other nation's history for that matter.
  President Bush's budget is a wake-up call for working Americans. 
Under the guise of inviting middle class workers to sit at the table 
and share in the tax cut, this administration ran up a tab that won't 
be paid for by those with golden parachutes. It will be the working 
man--the man who works with his hands, in many instances, or most. It 
will be the working man who gets stuck with the bill--the working man, 
the forgotten man in this administration. In this administration's 
tenure, the working man is the forgotten man.
  Instead of ensuring the Social Security benefits promised to 
workers--here me out there--the President's budget would spend the 
entire Social Security surplus over the next 5 years--all $1.1 trillion 
of it--to pay for the administration's tax cuts for the affluent and 
for the corporate elite. Not one thin dime would be allocated to save 
your Social Security.
  I remember life in the coalfields life in southern West Virginia when 
there was no Social Security. We had the old Raleigh County poor farm. 
Raleigh County is in south-central West Virginia, a great coal-
producing county over the years. I remember the old

[[Page S1874]]

county poor farm out at Shady Springs.
  It used to be when folks became old--and there in those coalfields 
they became old early--when they became old, they could no longer get a 
job. A person who was 60 years old, I can remember when I was a boy, 
was an old man. Sixty years old, that was old. Fifty-five years of age 
or 60 years of age was considered old. There was no Social Security 
when they became old. Those men and women who had given their best 
years in the toil and labor had given their best years. And they could 
no longer get work. The only thing they could do would be to go to the 
gates of their children with their hats in their hand and hope their 
children could take them in. Many of them went to that old county poor 
farm. No Social Security.

  Then like the rays of hope breaking away the shadows in those West 
Virginia mountains, a new President, a crippled President, Franklin D. 
Roosevelt, came to the helm of this shipless state. He and a Democratic 
Congress enacted a law bringing to the country and to the old folks 
Social Security. I remember when those first Social Security checks 
came. A check came to my house where my old coal miner father--he was 
not my father, he was my foster father--received a check. And my mom, 
who was my aunt, had taken me to raise when my mother died in the great 
influenza in 1918. So the Byrds took me in and raised me and they drew 
a Social Security check.
  So I know what it meant for those who had to depend upon Social 
Security, and those out in the plains, mountains, the prairies, and the 
valleys of America, who still depend upon Social Security.
  But even the enormous surpluses in the Social Security accounts 
cannot cover the colossal cost of the administration's tax cuts. 
President Bush's budget would also cut the funding for those Federal 
programs that most benefit working families: Federal student aid, 
unemployment and job training programs, health care initiative for 
veterans and the poor and the elderly by a whooping $50 billion to pay 
for the administration's tax cuts. Hear me, out there. And still it is 
not enough.
  After Draconian spending cuts on the loss of the entire Social 
Security surplus, the President's budget proposes to borrow an 
additional $1.4 trillion. How long does it take to count $1 trillion? 
At the rate of $1 per second, how long would it take to count $1 
trillion? A thousand years? Two thousand years? Thirty-six thousand 
years.
  The President's budget proposes to borrow an additional $1.4 
trillion, much of it from countries such as China and entities like 
OPEC, to pay for what? To pay for its tax cuts, tax cuts for the well-
to-do, tax cuts for the wealthy. I say to the people from West Virginia 
who may be watching, there are not many of you included in that group.
  When you look at the promises of this administration on the one hand 
versus the performance on the other hand and the massive increases in 
the national debt necessary to finance their ill-conceived fiscal 
policies, our Nation would be left with a Bush debt gap of $4.5 
trillion.
  The administration is forcing working class Americans not only to 
shoulder a massive debt burden but also to give up those Federal 
programs and services from which they most benefit. The President's tax 
cuts are squeezing State revenue, forcing increases in tuition rates. 
The cost of attendance at a 4-year public college or university has 
gone up 26 percent since Mr. Bush became President, from an average of 
$8,418 in the year 2000 to $10,636 in 2003. Let me say that again: The 
cost of attending a 4-year public college or university has gone up 26 
percent since Mr. Bush became President, from an average of $8,418 in 
2000 to $10,636 in 2003. Interest rates on student loans will increase, 
while Pell grant moneys and Federal student aid programs are rolled 
back.
  Drug prices will continue to increase and veterans and senior 
citizens--the old folks; I can call them senior citizens; I can call 
them old folks because I am one of them, thank God--veterans and 
seniors will continue to see their savings depleted while cuts are made 
in those programs that help to provide them with basic health care.
  Workers' pensions will remain underfunded and vulnerable while this 
administration stands passively mute. Social Security's financing 
problems will continue to worsen as money that should be saved to 
ensure the benefits promised to workers is wasted on an ideological 
fiscal policy that advocates tax cuts above all else.
  The financial perils underlying the Social Security Program were 
brought to light this week when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan 
forced the President to confront the fact that his administration has 
been for 3 years hiding from the facts. Namely, if we continue on the 
fiscal course set by this administration, we will lose the only 
opportunity that we will have left to save Social Security. Congress 
has a responsibility to better educate the public about their Social 
Security system.
  The panic--have you ever heard panic in the voice of someone? The 
panic in the voices of my constituents as they called my office 
yesterday made it clear that more must be done to keep the public 
informed.
  What is regrettable is that the real problems confronting future 
Social Security retirees have only recently surfaced in the 
Presidential debates--how about that--only recently surfaced in the 
Presidential debates.

  What is unforgivable, however, is if it were not for Chairman 
Greenspan's comments, this administration may not have even raised it 
as an issue this year. The President's evasive remarks have been to 
assure the American people that he will not cut the benefits of 
retirees or those near retirement. But what does that mean for 59-year-
olds? What does that mean for 60-year-olds? Oh, I wish I could say I 
was 60 again. Maybe not. Maybe not.
  What does that mean for 59-year-olds or 60-year-olds? Will the 
President try to cut their Social Security benefits or not? To cut 
Social Security benefits, without first engaging the public about its 
intentions, should tell us a great deal about the fiscal priorities and 
methods of this administration.
  In the face of this dismal reality, the administration does not offer 
solutions, it offers excuses--just excuses. This administration can 
only argue that their budgetary decisions are not their fault. The 
recession and out-of-control spending is to blame for massive deficits. 
Corporate accounting scandals are to blame for weak pension funds. The 
September 11 terrorists are to blame for the shoddy economy.
  All of these arguments are belied by the facts.
  Our investments in education, health care, transportation, and other 
domestic discretionary programs are not the source of this 
administration's deficit problems. Domestic discretionary comprises 
only 9 percent of the increase in spending over the last 3 years, and 
it represents only 17 percent of all Federal spending. President Bush's 
budget does not even look at mandatory expenditures for savings even 
though they comprise two-thirds of the Federal budget. While the 
President's proposed spending cuts would significantly undermine our 
education and health care investments, it would barely make a dent in 
the administration's deficit projections.
  Meanwhile, the Defense Department is plagued with accounting problems 
so severe that the Secretary of Defense cannot account for billions of 
taxpayers' dollars. The General Accounting Office estimates that the 
very earliest that the Defense Department could possibly pass an audit 
would be the year 2007, and that is optimistic. The administration does 
not even know how much time and how much money it will take to fix the 
accounting problems.
  It is absurd that the administration is proposing to cut vital 
domestic investments while billions and billions and billions of 
dollars are lost every year in the Pentagon's broken accounting system. 
The administration's deficits have exploded, and they have exploded in 
large measure because revenues as a percentage of our gross domestic 
product have declined to their lowest levels since 1950--1950. 
According to the House Budget Committee, the three Bush tax cuts have 
increased the deficit by nearly $2.6 trillion from 2001 to 2013.
  The notion that the administration's deficits were created by a poor 
economy and increased spending is pure fantasy. It is made all the 
worse by this administration's efforts to hide these facts from the 
public--from you,

[[Page S1875]]

you. They say it is your money. The administration is touting the tough 
choices it is making to cut the deficit in half over 5 years. Yet its 
budget is full of ``magic asterisks'' that assume an initiative will be 
offset, such as the $65 billion health care tax credit but provides no 
information on from where that savings will come.

  Contrary to the Bush administration's past budgets, with surplus 
projections extending out 10 years to justify their tax cuts, this year 
President Bush proposed a 5-year budget--a 5-year budget. It hides from 
the public the alarming long-term deficits projected by the 
Congressional Budget Office. It hides the real cost of the 
administration's proposals, such as the $1.1 trillion cost of extending 
the Bush tax cuts. Further, President Bush's budget includes no 
additional funds for Iraq, even though the administration reportedly 
will submit another supplemental request for Iraq--when? After the 
November elections.
  Not many of you, perhaps, are old enough to remember the old 
vaudeville shows, where they would tell you, ``Watch this hand,'' while 
they were doing something they did not tell you about with the other 
hand, or, ``Now you see it; now you don't.''
  So they do not tell us how much money they need for Iraq, but they 
reportedly will submit another supplemental for Iraq after the November 
elections.
  Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, is where the budget deficit is 
the most deceptive.
  To date, contrary to the modern tradition of an administration 
funding large-scale, ongoing wars, at least in part, through the 
regular appropriations process, the Bush administration has refused to 
request funds for the war in Iraq in its annual budget.
  Why? They do not want you to know. They want the American people to 
be fooled. The administration waits until funds for the troops are 
almost exhausted before requesting additional funds through a 
supplemental--through a supplemental. The Bush administration's purpose 
is clear. What is it? To limit debate, to limit discussion, to limit 
having to explain to those people out there who are watching the Senate 
through those electronic lenses--to limit having to explain to the 
American people how much this war will cost. This unnecessary war, how 
much will it cost, this war which the American people should never have 
fought, never. They were fooled, then, into believing there were 
weapons of mass destruction all over Iraq and that we were in danger of 
seeing a mushroom cloud. But to date there have been none found. This 
administration, which will argue until they are blue in the face that 
black is white and white is black, will still say: Oh, there are still 
weapons of mass destruction there; we just have not found them yet. 
They are there. Well, who knows? Maybe they will be. But that is not 
the way it was when the administration proposed our invasion of Iraq 
early last year.
  How much will it cost, to say nothing of how many lives will be lost 
before it is over? How many lives? On how many doors will that knock 
fall before the war ends?
  See, we have two wars. We have the war in Afghanistan, which resulted 
from the attacks upon us on the Twin Towers, on the Pentagon--the 
attacks by al-Qaida, by the 19 hijackers, not one of whom was an Iraqi. 
Not one was from Iraq. That is the war that is still going on in 
Afghanistan. That is the war I support. That is the war I have 
supported from the beginning. But I have never supported the other war, 
the Bush war, the war still going on in Iraq, the war that comes under 
the rubric of the doctrine of preemptive strikes. That is another war. 
That is the Bush war in Iraq. That is the war in which the American 
people should never have had to spill a drop of blood. The American 
people should never have had to send one of their sons or daughters to 
fight. That is the Bush war, and nobody knows how many more lives will 
be lost before that war is over.
  This year, the political posturing has gotten worse. Not only did the 
President not include any funds in his budget for the ongoing 
operations in Iraq, the administration has announced no supplemental 
will be sent to the Congress until after the November election, 
depriving the American voters of any opportunity to judge the President 
based on his promises about the cost of a war in Iraq. This is a budget 
of gimmicks, false promises, unrealistic expectations. It is a budget 
of misdirection, canards, speciousness, spuriousness, sophistry, 
equivocation, fallacies, prevarications, and flatout fantasy.
  Worse, under the guise of reining in budget deficits, this 
administration is continuing its assault on the values of the working 
class. This is an administration of corporate CEOs and Texas oil men. 
The corporate elite of this administration did not grow up wondering if 
their parents could afford to send them to college. Their parents did 
not have to choose between paying for groceries and paying for health 
care. Their parents did not have to stay up late at night worried about 
whether they would lose their pension benefits or whether Social 
Security would be enough to provide for their retirement.
  When the administration proposes to cut these programs or fails to 
provide adequate resources for them, it is because it has no personal 
understanding of the plight of American workers and how much the 
President's budget cuts affect middle-class Americans.
  Only a President who never had to apply for unemployment benefits 
would oppose extending them when so many workers are without a job. 
Only a President who never needed overtime pay would advocate taking it 
away from those workers who rely on it to make ends meet. Only a 
President who never needed Federal aid to attend college would advocate 
cutting it back for those students who cannot attend college without 
it.
  When this administration leaves office--and I hope it won't be long--
its legacy will be an enormous debt, an enormous debt burden that will 
weigh heavily on the middle class. In the process, it will have 
severely weakened their safety net and will have left little means for 
fixing it. But it won't matter to this President. At that point, he 
will just move back to Texas, back to good old Crawford, TX, knowing 
that his pension and his health care benefits are secure, and that 
corporate CEOs and Texas oil men are wealthier and more comfortable 
than ever before. He will never have to rely on the safety net his 
administration has worked so hard to dismantle.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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