[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 167 (Wednesday, December 21, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14200-S14202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         BUDGET RECONCILIATION

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the matter now before the Senate of the 
United States is a budget. But it isn't a budget based on mainstream 
American values; it is an ideologically driven, extreme, radical 
budget. It caters to lobbyists and an elite group of ultraconservative 
ideologues here in Washington, all at the expense of middle Americans, 
those with the greatest of needs, and future generations.
  I rise today to express my strong opposition to the budget 
reconciliation conference report before this body. Rather than sharing 
the sacrifices

[[Page S14201]]

needed to get this Nation's fiscal house in order, this Republican 
budget and this legislation target ordinary Americans by cutting 
programs such as student aid, Medicare, Medicaid--all to pay for 
another round of budget-busting tax breaks for special interests and 
multimillionaires. This budget is an attack on the middle class and 
those in greatest need on behalf of lobbyists for the powerful. This 
budget is un-American. In fact, as the leading clergy of Protestants in 
this country has said, it is immoral.
  It is important to consider what is happening in America today. Of 
course, we know there needs to be fiscal constraint in this country. We 
are spending $2 billion a day in Iraq alone. Middle-class Americans are 
being squeezed. Their wages have been stagnant now for several years. 
Meanwhile, their costs are increasing for everything from a visit to 
the family physician--if, in fact, they are fortunate enough to be able 
to get in to one--to college tuition, home heating, gasoline for their 
cars. As a result, more Americans are struggling to make ends meet.
  This administration and this Congress should be helping middle-class 
families deal with these family issues. Democrats have developed a 
variety of proposals to do so. Unfortunately, every one of our 
proposals has been repeatedly blocked by the Republican majority.
  We are debating a reconciliation bill, the centerpiece of a 
Republican budget that not only fails to address the middle-class 
squeeze but makes it worse and saddles our children--my 5 children and 
my 15 grandchildren--with billions and billions of dollars in 
additional debt.
  This budget which is before the Senate has a name. Every piece of 
legislation that comes before this body has a name. The name given to 
this piece of legislation by the Republican majority is the Budget 
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Try that one on. The Budget Deficit 
Reduction Act of 2005. It increases the deficit of this country because 
of the tax cuts they are giving to those who don't need them by some 
$50 billion over and above these cuts. Budget Deficit Reduction Act? Is 
that Orwellian doublespeak?
  This legislation includes the largest student aid cut in this 
Nation's history. We have read all the articles about the costs of 
college increasing. You go to a State university now in Nevada. They 
are considering that everyone can go to school at the University of 
Nevada--Reno or UNLV--or the community college system. There were no 
basic academic requirements. If you graduate from high school, you can 
go to college. They are considering raising qualifications to get in 
those schools to a B average--eliminating people like me from being 
able to go to college. That is wrong. That is what this legislation is 
doing. A child's ability to be educated should not be dependent upon 
how much money their parents have.
  This legislation, instead of helping middle-class families struggling 
with these increased burdens, simply increases their costs and makes it 
even worse for them. Rather than opening doors of opportunity to all 
Americans, this bill will close the doors for many. Higher fees on 
students increase the rate of interest on student loans, weaken the 
financial foundation of higher education, and, I submit, weaken our 
country. Forcing middle-class families to pay more for college in order 
to partially pay for another fiscally irresponsible round of special 
interest tax breaks is not fair. It is bad economic policy.
  In today's global and high-tech economy, America's competitive edge 
depends increasingly on our commitment to education. It used to be that 
we could go to India and grab all the engineers and bring them here. 
India needs them now. We cannot do that anymore. We need to educate our 
own students. We should be increasing a commitment to educating our 
children. Instead, this bill goes in the opposite direction.
  Beyond the cuts in student aid, this bill also contained harmful 
health care cuts that will increase costs and deny access to millions 
of Americans. For example, Part B premiums for Medicare will go up, up 
for all seniors. Home health services are cut. I can remember 20 years 
ago, I went--a physician asked me to--to Las Vegas to visit his 
patients who were in hospitals. He said: They shouldn't be here, but 
under the rules we have, I cannot give them their medication at home. 
He said: Think how much money this is costing the Federal Government.
  We changed it so that people could stay home and be taken care of. We 
are changing that. We do not save money, we lose money.
  While at the last minute the Republican leadership decided under 
certain provisions to protect certain favored health care interests, 
they did not provide such protections for ordinary American seniors.
  Even more troubling than the cuts in Medicare are the cuts in 
Medicaid. Medicaid--health care for the neediest of all Americans. This 
bill targets Americans with the greatest needs and the fewest resources 
by forcing them to pay more for health care, cutting benefits, and 
making it harder for them to get the prescription drugs they need. Many 
of these people are hurricane survivors. We saw the huddled masses on 
television. We saw them in New Orleans because of the disaster, but 
there are many communities all over America, and the huddled masses are 
there, also. We just did not see them on TV. What do we do to help 
them? Nothing. Nothing.
  Many people in America are struggling to survive. These people need 
more help with their health care, not less. This bill cuts what little 
health coverage they have, if any, and increases their costs. For what? 
To pay for another round of tax breaks for special interests, 
multimillionaires, and billionaires. That is immoral.
  This legislation rips and tears at Medicare and Medicaid. This bill's 
cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are largely why this legislation is 
strongly opposed by all seniors. The largest seniors organization in 
America, the American Association for Retired Persons, does not like 
this legislation. Their chief executive officer, Bill Novelli, writes 
the following:

       The final conference agreement does not ask for shared 
     sacrifices to achieve budgetary savings. Rather it protects 
     the pharmaceutical industry, the managed care industry, and 
     other providers at the expense of low-income Medicaid 
     beneficiaries and Medicare beneficiaries who will foot this 
     bill.

  That is not Senator Reid speaking, that is Bill Novelli, CEO of the 
AARP.
  Unfortunately, this bill's Medicare and Medicaid reductions are not 
the only cuts to this Nation's safety net. The bill cuts funding for 
child support enforcement.

  When I was a young lawyer, I went after some deadbeat dads. Oh, they 
were hard to trap. They would move from jobs, move from towns. They 
could always get ahead of their children. But we changed the law so 
that now we have law enforcement provisions to go after these 
deadbeats. My son-in-law's sister, in the District Attorney's Office in 
Las Vegas, spends her full time going after these deadbeat dads. Well, 
we are going to cut back on this.
  This legislation cuts foster care--foster care. Think about that. We 
all know of people who are foster parents. They have big hearts. They 
have big needs. And we are going to cut them back.
  This legislation cuts back programs for low-income seniors and people 
with disabilities. I see the Senator from Illinois is in the Chamber. 
We were together in Arizona. I don't remember the man's name, but there 
was a man who was an Indian. He testified before us and he talked about 
how little money he made. He was handicapped. But he worked. And he 
ended his presentation by saying: I am a proud American. He had a 
little difficulty of speech, but it was clear what he said. There are 
many proud Americans who are people with disabilities and low incomes. 
They need our help. This legislation cuts the ability to help them.
  It reduces the availability of housing for families in need. It 
eliminates FHA's ability to rehabilitate housing. The legislation 
before this body also badly weakens the Temporary Assistance for Needy 
Families programs which help move low-income Americans from welfare to 
work. There was an overwhelming bipartisan consensus in the Senate that 
we should not change TANF in this fast track. But the Republican 
leadership ignored that and decided, in the dead of the night, to make 
the most significant change to welfare policy in a decade.

[[Page S14202]]

  The bill apparently includes very expensive and unfunded new 
requirements on States, reducing their already limited flexibility. 
Meanwhile, the legislation badly underfunds the childcare that parents 
will need to move from welfare to work. The majority is happy to harm 
those with the greatest needs. They have gone out of their way to 
accommodate lobbyists for special interests. For example, lobbyists for 
HMOs won a huge victory when the conferees rejected the Senate's 
proposal to eliminate the discredited HMO slush fund. Lobbyists for the 
pharmaceutical industry saved the industry from adjustments in Medicaid 
rebates. And lobbyists for certain types of medical equipment won 
special accommodations as well.
  All these favors for special interests should not come as a surprise. 
After all, that is what we have come to expect from this Congress. The 
policies being pursued by this Congress are a corruption of our 
Nation's values. How can it be that we are about to cut student loans, 
Medicare and Medicaid, and then turn around and provide even more tax 
breaks to special interests and multimillionaires? Have they no sense 
of decency? Have they no sense of shame?
  The capital gains and dividend tax breaks called for in the 
Republican budget that are so important to President Bush and this 
leadership would provide almost half their benefits to those with 
incomes of more than $1 million. They will get a tax break of more than 
$30,000 a year.
  Meanwhile, the losers won't just be the ordinary Americans who will 
suffer cuts in student loans, Medicaid and Medicare, all Americans will 
lose because the tax breaks backed by the Republican leadership will 
cost substantially more than their spending cuts will save. As a 
result, the deficit will go up, interest rates will rise, the economy 
will suffer, and the burdens on our children and grandchildren will 
increase.
  Finally, this budget is wrong for many other reasons and in many 
other dimensions. It is wrong to target middle-class families already 
struggling to send their kids to college. It is wrong to target 
Medicare and Medicaid, which serve seniors and Americans with the 
greatest needs. It is wrong to use these cuts to help pay for tax 
breaks that largely benefit those with incomes over $1 million. It is 
wrong to do all this while handing out favors to special interests and 
their lobbyists. And it is wrong to approve a budget that will increase 
the deficit and burden future generations.
  This is not a budget based on mainstream American values. It is an 
ideologically driven, extreme budget that caters to lobbyists and an 
elite group of ultra-conservative ideologues in Washington, all at the 
expense of middle-class Americans, those with the greatest needs.
  This budget will be approved unless enough reasonable Senators on the 
other side stand up and do the right thing. I hope they will. And I 
hope we can finally persuade the leadership in this body, the 
Republican leadership, that it is time--it is long past time--to stop 
catering to special interests and to start putting the American people 
first.

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