[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 31 (Monday, March 13, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1987-S1996]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 
                                  2007

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to consideration of the budget resolution, which the clerk will 
report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Con. Res. 83) setting forth the 
     congressional budget for the United States Government for 
     fiscal year 2007, and including the appropriate budgetary 
     levels for fiscal years 2006 and 2008 through 2011.

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time until 
11:30 a.m. shall be equally divided.
  The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are now proceeding to the budget?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. That is correct. The budget is before the 
Senate.
  Mr. GREGG. I begin by thanking the committee, the committee staff, 
both the majority and Democratic side, for the assistance in getting us 
to this point. We had a markup last Thursday which was done very 
professionally. A lot of issues were raised. A lot of votes were taken. 
We were able to complete the budget on a timely schedule pursuant to 
the rules of the Senate.
  Now we are in the Senate. As everyone knows, under the rules of the 
Senate, we have 50 hours on the bill. Then we have what is known as the 
vote-arama. The Senator from North Dakota and I have been talking. We 
hope

[[Page S1988]]

we can coordinate things so that Members will be comfortable getting 
their amendments up and have adequate time and have certainty as to 
when their amendments are coming up, and in doing that, hopefully, 
actually reduce the vote-arama at the end. And cooperation would be 
helpful.

  Right off the bat, I thank the Senator from North Dakota and his 
staff. They have been extraordinarily cooperative as we moved forward 
throughout this process.
  Let me ask Members, if Members have an amendment, all on our side, 
tell us about it so we can get you a time slot.
  On the substance of the bill, the purpose of a budget, of course, is 
to be a blueprint for how the Government will spend its money in the 
coming year. The year for our Government begins on October 1, 2006. We 
are already into the 2006 year, so this is the budget for 2007. It is 
important, when we are doing a budget, of course, to be reasonably 
realistic about what the opportunities are, the demands are, what the 
needs are for saving money, what the tax structure will be in the 
country. We have attempted to do that in this budget.
  We began, basically, with the President's proposal. He sent up a 
budget. Ironically, under the rules of the Congress, the President's 
budget has no actual impact on the substance of the process. In fact, 
the budget of the Congress is never signed by the President. It is a 
document entirely within the Congress. Clearly, the President gives his 
thoughts and his guidelines. He is in charge of the executive branch. 
We take it seriously.
  We have looked at the President's budget and used it as a template 
for much of what we have done in this budget, although we have departed 
in a few significant ways. I congratulate the President for sending up 
a budget that is responsible. He controlled spending on the 
discretionary side and the non-Defense accounts. He did make proposals 
in the area of entitlement spending which were significant and which 
would bring about some restraint in the rate of growth, for example, of 
the biggest entitlement, which is Medicare and pensions, and even in 
the agricultural area he made some proposals. His budget is a 
legitimate and effective document talking about how we should, as a 
Government, go forward relative to the spending which we are going to 
undertake in the year 2007.
  We have, however, marked up the budget a little differently. Our 
purpose, honestly, my purpose is to reduce the deficit of the United 
States. That is critical. We have a situation facing us as a people and 
as a Nation which is unique in our history in that we have this large 
generation called the baby boom generation. It is the largest 
generation in our history, with 70 million people, about twice the size 
of any other generation.
  The baby boom generation is headed toward retirement. As they retire, 
it will put a huge strain on the operation of the fiscal house of the 
United States. That retirement begins in earnest in about the year 2008 
and accelerates and peaks in the year 2030. At that point, we have 
serious issues relative to how we control our budget, and we should be 
focusing on those concerns.
  But in the short run, there are things we can do to bring the deficit 
under control, and we should do this. This budget attempts to do that. 
In fact, this budget will reduce the deficit of the United States in 
half over the next 4 years. That is a fairly significant step forward. 
As a percentage of gross national product, by the year 2010, we will 
actually be down to about 1 percent of gross national product, which 
will be well below the historical norm of deficits in this country.
  Our deficit in the coming year, however, will be higher, and I will 
get into that discussion in a few minutes, but let me go back to this 
entitlement question because it is important as we start the discussion 
that we frame it in the context of the issues that concern me the most.
  We have outstanding at the Federal level, as a result of the coming 
retirement of the baby boom generation, an obligation of the Federal 
Government which amounts to $65 trillion. That is trillion, with a 
``T.'' It is hard to understand what a trillion is. I don't know what 
it is. I have heard all sorts of different explanations. I will try to 
put it in perspective. If you take all the taxes paid into the Federal 
Government since our country was founded, since we began to have taxes 
as a Federal Government in 1789, it represents $40 trillion. That is 
all taxes ever paid into the Federal Government. If we take the net 
worth of everyone in this country--their cars, their houses, their 
stock, whatever they own that is an asset, and we add it all up--the 
net worth of the American people is $51 trillion. That is the second 
blue chart.
  The total outstanding debt, therefore, of three major programs--
Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid--represents $65 trillion. So it 
is more than what has been paid in taxes since the beginning of time, 
as far as this country is concerned, and it is more than the net worth 
of our Nation. It is a staggering figure. That is a 75-year figure. And 
it is all driven by the fact that this baby boom generation is so 
large, and when it retires it will demand so much in the way of 
services.
  What is the issue? The issue is, if we have this type of an outyear 
liability, we need to do things today to try to structure our house and 
get it under control. In the last budget cycle, for the first time in 8 
years, we stepped forward as Republicans--I think we had two Democratic 
votes--we stepped forward as Republicans and passed what was known as 
the reconciliation bill to reduce entitlement spending by $39 billion 
over 5 years. Anyone would have thought we were scorching the earth in 
passing that bill from the outcry from the other side of the aisle, 
that all poor people, all people of need were being thrown out the door 
as a result of that reduction. Well, to try to put it in perspective, 
it was $39 billion. Actually, within that, the most significant item 
was the Medicaid item, which was $5 billion over 5 years, or in that 
period of 5 years, the Medicaid system was going to spend $1.2 
trillion.

  So $5 billion and $1.2 trillion would have meant that Medicaid--which 
was going to grow at 40 percent over that 5-year period, after this 
scorched-earth policy which we put in place, according to the folks on 
the other side of the aisle--Medicaid would still grow at 40 percent 
over that 5-year period.
  We did not even move it a percentage point. We moved it a fraction of 
a percentage point in the rate of growth of Medicaid. But it was a 
difficult exercise to get that through this Congress because we got no 
Democratic votes--well, we got two, I am sorry. And we had to pass it 
here with the Vice President voting for it.
  Well, we are now in an election year, and the President sent up a 
budget which, in an almost heroic way, he said, even though it is an 
election year, we should address some of these entitlement accounts, 
with Medicare being the biggest. He suggested $35 billion in savings in 
Medicare over the 5-year period. Medicare will spend $2.2 billion over 
that period, and it would mean the rate of growth of Medicare, instead 
of being 38 percent, would be 35 percent. I believe those are the 
numbers. I am not sure of those two numbers, but I think those are the 
numbers.
  In any event, it became very clear from statements made by my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle they were opposed to that. In 
fact, immediately--as soon as the President sent it up--they started 
saying Medicare was going to be slashed--of course, it was still going 
to grow at 35 percent--and that senior citizens would be harmed. That 
drumbeat immediately met it, as it did when the President suggested we 
should do something about Social Security. So no progress was made on 
that side with that, and, unfortunately, on our side of the aisle there 
was also a fair amount of hesitancy on that issue.
  I went to the chairmen of the various committees that the President 
suggested do these entitlement changes, and they all said they could 
not get the votes on their own committees to pass them out because the 
committees are ratioed in a way that means if you have one Republican 
who opposes it, you cannot pass out these types of things, and in each 
committee there was at least one Republican, unfortunately, who opposed 
it.
  So it became fairly clear to me, regrettably, that a major 
reconciliation bill this year, on the side of entitlements--because it 
is an election year--was not going to accomplish much

[[Page S1989]]

other than to give people who were not willing to be constructive on 
the issue, and wanted to create a political issue, a sort of free shot 
at people who were trying to be constructive on the issues, 
specifically the President. So we did not put reconciliation 
instructions in this bill. But we still are aggressive in the accounts 
which we think are important and which will lead to getting us back to 
reducing the deficit in half.
  What are some of the other structures of this bill that I think are 
positive? Well, specifically, in the entitlement accounts--well, let me 
step back. In the area of discretionary spending, the President sent up 
a number, which was $30 billion over last year's spending. Last year, 
we spent about $843 billion on discretionary accounts. Now, 
discretionary accounts--for those of you listening who don't understand 
these arcane terms we use around here--discretionary accounts are for 
spending we do every year which we do not have to do, but we do it 
because it involves the necessity obligations of the Government. But it 
can be adjusted each year.
  Entitlement accounts, which I was talking about before--Medicaid, 
Medicare, Social Security--those accounts spend automatically. They do 
not adjust every year. If you meet certain conditions of income, of 
economic well-being, of health, of experience, you have a right to 
certain payments. Those are called entitlements. To control those, you 
have to change the law. That is why you have to have a reconciliation 
bill.
  To control spending, you have to reduce or adjust the spending in 
what is known as an appropriations bill as it comes through the 
Congress every year. So the Congress has its most significant impact on 
discretionary spending in that the budget can set a limit on how much 
money can be spent by the Federal Government under these discretionary 
accounts.
  Now, discretionary accounts would be things such as national defense, 
education, and laying out roads in some instances--although that is 
pretty much off-budget now--environmental concerns, some health care 
accounts.
  The President sent up this number, which was $30 billion above last 
year. Last year, we spent $843 billion. This year, the President's 
number was $870 billion. It was rescored by CBO to be $873 billion.
  So we said that is a reasonable number. We are going to hold that 
number. That is called the top-line discretionary cap. So all 
discretionary spending in the Federal Government will be held at $873 
billion under this cap.

  What does that mean? That means, essentially, if anybody wants to 
come to the floor and spend more money than that, they are going to 
have to get 60 votes to do it because they will be violating the budget 
discretionary cap. That is an enforcement mechanism we have around 
here, and sometimes the 60 votes are here and it gets waived, but, 
hopefully, people will be aggressive in protecting this number.
  With that number, defense spending goes up, under the President's 
proposal, about $28 billion of the $30 billion. And social spending, or 
nondefense spending--not all social spending--basically is held flat. 
In fact, in some accounts it actually goes down.
  We have aligned ourselves with the President's top-line number in our 
bill and recognize we need to make some adjustments in the way it was 
allocated, although our committee does not do allocations. That is done 
by the Appropriations Committee. We have suggested different 
allocations than what the President might have used. We put, for 
example, an additional $1.5 billion into education. We put an 
additional $1.5 billion into health care. We put an additional $2 
billion into border security.
  If we were the appropriating committee, that is what we would do. But 
we do not have control over this. This is entirely a decision made by 
the Appropriations Committee. But it is a statement of what the Budget 
Committee believed was a good allocation because we are required by law 
to allocate, but our allocations have no force of law. The only 
allocation that has force of law is, of course, that done by the 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran of 
Mississippi.
  So within the discretionary caps we have moved money around. There 
will be a lot of amendments that come to this floor over the next week 
as we debate this bill that will try to move the money around again. I 
would simply note that most of them will be statements of what people 
want but will have virtually no impact, even if they are successful in 
what people get because, once again, the budget does not control the 
allocations. The Appropriations Committee controls the allocations. 
Even if the cap were to be lifted, it would be entirely up to the 
Appropriations Committee as to where the extra money would go.
  But we feel strongly, or at least I feel strongly, and the 
Republicans on the Budget Committee--this was reported out of committee 
on a party-line vote, as it has been the last few years--we feel 
strongly that rationing, controlling, being aggressive in controlling 
the discretionary accounts is critical.
  Now, that brings me to the second topic. There is a lot of resistance 
to that, by the way. You would think that when you are running these 
types of deficits that people would be willing to be fiscally 
responsible around here, but, believe me, there is a lot of resistance 
because in general terms people are always willing to be fiscally 
responsible, but when they get specific, they have programs they want 
to see increased, which is human nature, I guess.
  Within the budget we have an allocation for defense. But what has 
happened recently--and this is an issue I have some concerns about--is 
that since the war on terrorism has begun, a war we did not ask for but 
which we are prosecuting aggressively, and I strongly support the 
President's efforts to fight terrorism--we have felt the need--it is an 
absolute need, and I do not think it is argued on either side of the 
aisle--to make sure we fully support our military in a way that is 
appropriate, and especially in a way that those men and women in the 
field in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places have the things they need 
to fight effectively.
  So what has happened is we have created this new budget process 
around here. We have the basic budget process, which is the core, which 
comes under the discretionary account, which I have been talking about, 
the $873 billion number, of which approximately half will be defense 
money. That is shown in green on the chart. That is what we call the 
core defense budget, national defense budget. That operates the 
national defense system.
  But on top of that, as part of the warfighting effort, there has been 
an emergency funding bill every year now for 4 years in a row, which 
has been very significant. Traditionally, emergencies used to run 
about--we would have emergency spending in the Federal Government of 
about $16 billion, on the average, throughout the 1990s. They 
represented usually disasters that had to be dealt with. Many of them 
were farm disasters. Some of them were floods.
  Now we are seeing basically a process where emergency spending has 
become what I call a shadow budget, but at a minimum, it is an 
alternative budgeting process where you essentially have two budgets 
around here. You have the budget, which is fairly aggressively 
disciplined through points of order, many of which I have put in place, 
some of which were put in place with the cooperation of the Senator 
from North Dakota, some of which were put in place by my predecessor, 
Senator Nickles, and some of which were put in place by Senator 
Domenici, the predecessor of Senator Nickles.

  But budget points of order lie in order to discipline us on the floor 
so the core spending of the Defense Department and other discretionary 
accounts is reviewed. It goes to the authorizing committees. It comes 
out of the authorizing committees. It comes to the floor and gets 
reviewed. If certain things are not appropriate, in some instances a 
budget point of order lies against it.
  This second budget which we now have around here--and it is an 
entirely separate budget. In fact, the average amount spent annually is 
about $90 billion, which would run the State of New Hampshire for about 
20 years--one emergency budget. So it is a pretty big budget. That 
budget has no controls at all. Essentially, that comes up here as an 
emergency. It does not go through the authorizing committee. It goes

[[Page S1990]]

through the appropriating committee, which is very effectively led by 
the President pro tempore, who is now presiding.
  But the fact is, it does not have any of the controls that have 
traditionally gone with regular budgeting, and it has become basically 
a fact of life. We are not going to get around it. We are going to be 
in this war for a while. It is going to be expensive.
  So I feel, and there are others who feel--I think the Senator from 
North Dakota agrees with me on this--we have to do something to make 
sure there is some review of this that puts it more in the camp of 
being a traditional budget rather than an extraordinary emergency 
budget which has no discipline to it at all.
  So in this bill, we essentially pick a number, $90 billion. Now, 
historically, the White House was not sending up any number for these 
emergencies. In fact, in the years 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 they sent 
up zero. They assumed no emergency at all. That was a bit of 
gamesmanship, in my humble opinion, to be kind.
  Last year, we, as a Budget Committee, put in a figure of $50 billion. 
So this year they assumed $50 billion. And when I asked the Assistant 
Secretary of Defense why they put in $50 billion, they said they did 
not put it in. It was in there only because last year the Congress put 
it in, and they felt they needed to have it in there in order to 
reflect what the Congress wanted last year and they didn't think it had 
any relevance at all.
  That being the case, what we decided to do this year is take the 
average of the last 4 years and put that in as the number because I 
want to get a reasonably accurate number so we have some truth in 
budgeting. So we put in a number of $90 billion for emergencies that we 
are assuming, which is why--if you go back to the first chart--in our 
budget the deficit actually exceeds the President's deficit because the 
President, in his budget submission, did not have the full cost of the 
emergencies which we know are coming up. I believed we should have it 
in there, so our budget deficit is projected as higher.
  My hope--and I think it is a reasonable hope--is that this will not 
go on forever. We are, hopefully, going to start drawing down troops, 
in Iraq especially, soon. And the cost of that war will recede. 
Obviously, the cost of Katrina, which was a big part of the cost last 
year, is already in place. That is pretty well spent out, or has been 
put in place--over $100 billion for the Gulf States.
  So, hopefully, this number will come down. But we are assuming next 
year, to the extent it comes down, it will be about $90 billion. In 
that $90 billion we are assuming a budget deficit that is about $40 
billion higher than the President's, based on the additional money we 
put in for the emergencies.
  Now, in order to put a little discipline into this exercise, we also 
put in a new point of order. I want to be very forthright about this. 
If we go over that $90 billion, there will be a point of order that 
will be put in against emergencies. They really should not be called 
emergencies because they are known commodities that are coming up here. 
They should be called extra budgeting for the war on terrorism.
  What we have done is put in a point of order which says if you go 
over the $90 billion, there has to be a more serious justification of 
why that money is spent, considering the average is $90 billion over 
the last 5 years, and it can be raised with a 60-vote point of order to 
try to get that discussion going around here. It is a minor attempt--
not a very big one--to try to put some discipline into this exercise.
  In addition, because of the fact that I still believe entitlements 
are the biggest issue the Federal Government has to face and 
recognizing that I was not successful in convincing my colleagues to do 
reconciliation this year, if you look at this chart, you will see the 
cost of entitlements going through the roof, especially Medicare. If 
you take Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security and combine them, we 
will spend more in 2030 than we spend today on the entire Federal 
Government. They keep going up. Basically we would have to radically 
increase taxes on working Americans beginning in about 2015 and ratchet 
up dramatically by the year 2030 to remain solvent, well over 
historical norms, if we are not going to do something about 
entitlements before then.
  In order to address that, I have asked for a new point of order. I 
didn't ask for it. This idea came from Mr. Leavitt, the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services. He suggested we put in place a tree which 
essentially says that if Medicare, which is supposed to be an insurance 
program, everybody goes to work and they get a Medicare insurance tax, 
it is supposed to accumulate and you are supposed to be able to pay for 
your retirement health care through the insurance tax. Parts of 
Medicare don't have the insurance. Part B, Part D are a little 
different, but the basic Part A is supposed to be fully insured by 
then. If the Medicare accounts dip into the general fund--and they 
shouldn't be dipping into the general fund at all--for more than 45 
percent of the cost of Medicare so they are basically not an insurance 
account anymore, they are basically a general fund account, which means 
that the general taxpayer is paying them twice--they are paying at the 
workplace, and then they are paying them out of the general fund--then 
at that point, if the Medicare trustees tell us that is going to happen 
for 2 years in a row, it is going to be more than 45 percent in 1 year 
and more than 45 percent the next year, then a point of order arises 
which says we need 60 votes to spend money on these entitlements, new 
money. The idea is to simply generate the discussion necessary to get 
some constructive activity around here on the issue of how we control 
spending in light of projected deficits caused by the baby boom 
generation retirement.
  There is going to be a lot of discussion today about tax policy. It 
is important to understand our view of tax policy. Obviously, there are 
two ways you address the deficit. You address it through spending and 
through revenues. I take the basic view that we are not an undertaxed 
society. I think Americans pay a lot of taxes. Whether they get what 
they deserve for what they pay in taxes, I am not so sure, but they 
certainly pay a lot of taxes. We will see charts from the other side of 
the aisle--I can't count how many times I have seen these charts, but 
we will see charts coming from the other side of the aisle which will 
say that revenues have dropped precipitously since President Clinton 
was President and that they have only started to recover incrementally 
in the last few years. The representation will be made that the 
majority of this drop is a function of cutting taxes which was put in 
place by President Bush in the first 2 years of his Presidency.
  Let me say that I disagree with that representation. We were in the 
biggest bubble in the history of the world. It was a bigger bubble than 
the tulip bubble, bigger than the south seas bubble. It was the 
Internet bubble of the 1990s when people were speculating and creating 
paper money without anything behind it through speculation on stocks 
relative to Internet assets. That bubble generated tremendous revenues 
as people sold stock and bought stock. But when it collapsed, which it 
inevitably would and did--and interestingly enough, there is a great 
history of these bubbles, all these bubbles collapsed, and they were 
all driven by the same philosophy: Somebody had the belief that the 
basic economics had changed and something had been invented which was 
going to circumvent the business cycle and there would be no more 
business cycles. It is a concept which people believed in in the late 
1990s. They generally believed that the technology advantages were 
going to cause us to expand revenues that would allow them to invest 
and speculate at rates which were massive and historical proportions 
never seen before.
  When that bubble collapsed, it generated a recession which obviously 
contracted Federal revenues. On top of that recession, we had the 
attack of 
9/11 which generated even a larger recession. The economic damage done 
by 
9/11 was massive. The reallocation of resources that had to occur, the 
basic grinding to a halt and hiatus taken relative to investment for a 
while as a result of Wall Street being in chaos for a period of time, 
all of this led to an even more severe recession or potentially more 
severe. However, prior to that event, the President had put in his 
first tax cut. Then after that event, he put in the second tax cut. 
Those two tax

[[Page S1991]]

cuts together were the perfect relief, the perfect formula for 
basically curing a recession and making it a more shallow recession 
than one might have expected. We are fortunate that we didn't actually 
fall into a deep and severe recession during that period. The primary 
reason we did not was because of the tax cuts.
  Another factor of these tax cuts was that they were oriented toward 
the productive side of our economy so that they created an incentive 
for entrepreneurs to invest. As a result of that investment, they 
created an incentive for people to generate economic activity. What 
comes from that? Jobs. We have had a massive economic expansion in 
jobs. We have had a massive expansion as a result of the incentives 
created in the tax law.
  Another thing was created by that. When people have more jobs, when 
there is more economic activity, we get more revenue. This chart 
reflects that dramatically. We see revenues jumping here. In fact, in 
2005, we had the largest increase in revenues in our history. If you go 
before 2005, you will see revenues coming up. But they are coming up 
dramatically, 6 percent, 7 percent. About an average of 6.5 percent is 
the projected revenue increase. It is a function of the fact that we 
have in place incentives today such as the capital gains and dividends 
rates that basically create an atmosphere where people are willing to 
go out and invest. As a result of those investments, they generate 
capital activity, which creates jobs, which creates taxable events and 
creates income to the Federal Government. In fact, as we can see from 
this chart, the historical level of receipts for the country is about 
18.4 percent of gross national product. Yes, we dropped down 
dramatically, but now we are seeing that line come up dramatically. We 
will reach a historical level of revenues fairly soon--if not next 
year, certainly the year after--and receipts will be back to what they 
should be as a percentage of gross national product because we will 
have put in place an economic engine to generate revenues, called a tax 
code, which creates an incentive for people to be productive and take 
risks and create jobs. That is what we wanted.

  The other side is going to hold up chart after chart which says, the 
tax cut was this big for this group, this big for this group, implying 
that what they want to do is raise those taxes. We don't happen to 
think raising taxes is the way you keep this economic activity going. 
We think the way you keep the economic activity going is to continue to 
drive the incentive for people to invest, take risk and, as a result, 
create jobs which creates economic activity and basically creates 
revenues.
  Another thing this chart shows that I believe is true is that you 
can't close this gap between expenditures and receipts on the revenue 
side unless you are willing to significantly increase the historic tax 
burden on the American people. You can't do it. You have to address the 
spending side of the ledger. You have to be willing to slow the rate of 
growth on discretionary accounts and hopefully soon on the entitlement 
accounts of the Federal Government, but you can't get there on the 
revenue side. And you certainly can't get there on the revenue side 
once the baby boom generation starts to retire because the numbers are 
too staggering. You would basically tax the young people, the working 
Americans, out of an existence, out of the capacity to have an 
existence of a high quality of life which we should be passing on to 
them, not taking from them, by creating a burden that is so high in the 
Federal Government that they can't afford it.
  So the issue is, generate revenues but don't do it by raising taxes. 
Generate revenues by creating an atmosphere where people are willing to 
take risk, be entrepreneurs, create jobs and, as a result, create 
economic activity.
  We have a fundamental disagreement between the two sides of the 
aisle. That has been obvious for a long time. If you listened to 
Senator Kerry when he ran for President, the theme of his campaign was: 
If we hadn't had those tax cuts, things would be great in this country. 
I take the opposite view. The tax cuts were what gave us less of a 
recession and what is giving us a recovery which is continuous and has 
created jobs. I think the last job numbers were something like 243,000 
new jobs, which is staggering, or a drop in unemployment claims or 
something. It was a huge number. We are seeing an economic continuation 
of economic activity which has been historic in its robustness and 
continuation. It is a function of the fact that we now have a tax code 
which to some degree--it isn't a great tax code--addresses what 
generates revenue which is that you give people an incentive to go out 
there and be risk takers and create jobs.
  On another issue of revenue where the Senator from North Dakota and I 
do agree--and we have accepted language which he suggested or we are 
going to before we finish--we believe strongly there are a lot of taxes 
which should be paid the Federal Government that are not being paid. We 
had testimony on this before our committee. I am not talking about drug 
money; I am talking about people underreporting. The Senator from North 
Dakota has been aggressive in pointing this out, and correctly so. We 
can collect more money. We don't get the score for that, unfortunately. 
Even though we are going to increase significantly the amount of money 
that will flow to the general revenue services for the purposes of 
audits--and they tell us that is going to generate between 10 and 40, 
maybe even $50 billion of revenue we are not getting today--we don't 
get the score for that. CBO won't score it. Still it is what we should 
do. So on the revenue side we are going to do that.
  That brings me to my conclusion so that we can hear from the Senator 
from North Dakota. We have an obligation to do a budget. We as a nation 
should not go forward without a budget in place; it is not appropriate 
to running a fiscal house. A lot of people can disagree with this 
budget--and just about everybody who comes up to me seems to--but the 
fact is, it is a budget which has made decisions. You can disagree or 
agree with them. Over the next 50 hours you can offer amendments to try 
and change it. But at the end of the day, a government that is spending 
$2.8 trillion needs to have some guideposts as to how it will be spent. 
There needs to be a blueprint. There needs to be definition. Every 
American who runs a household works off a budget, and it would be 
totally irresponsible if we did not have a budget.
  I hope the other side of the aisle will offer a budget as their 
alternative. There have been some rumblings that they may. In committee 
they offered a series of amendments which would have significantly 
raised spending and significantly raised taxes. If that is their 
budget, fine. But put a budget on the table. We have put our budget on 
the table. We think it is reasonable. There are things I would have 
done. I would have gone further in accounts if I had had the ability to 
pull it off. But independent of that, this budget is a responsible 
budget. It addresses spending in a responsible way, and it puts in 
place enforcement mechanisms which allow us as a Congress to put at 
least warning signs in the road when we start to get off the road of 
fiscal responsibility.
  I yield the floor and appreciate the courtesy of the Senator.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the chairman of the 
Budget Committee, for his many courtesies during the budget process and 
the budget hearings. There has been full consultation with respect to 
the operations of the committee, the hearings that we have held, the 
way we have conducted the markup, the way we will proceed here on the 
floor. I thank him very much for that set of courtesies. I also thank 
him for his professionalism. There are many places he and I agree. I 
think both of us would be the first to acknowledge that we are on an 
unsustainable course and that the country is going to have to face up 
to these growing deficits and debt. And the sooner we do it, the 
better.

  With that said, I do disagree with this budget. I don't think it 
meets the needs of our time. I don't think it faces up to this rapidly 
growing debt. I don't think it has the right priorities for the 
American people. And I don't think it has the right balance.
  If there is one message I would want to communicate, it is this: The 
debt is the threat. We hear a lot of talk about deficits, but really 
the threat to our country is the growing indebtedness of our country, 
an indebtedness that is increasingly being financed by foreigners.

[[Page S1992]]

  How did we get into this mess? We can go back to 2001 when the 
President told us that if we would adopt his financial plan, everything 
would go well. He told us:

       [W]e can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget 
     deficits, even if the economy softens.

  That is what he told us back in 2001. Now we are able to check the 
record and see, was the President right? This chart shows very clearly 
the President was wrong. We had a $236 billion surplus in the year 
before he took office, and this is the fiscal record since. The 
President's plan has plunged us into deep deficit, the largest deficits 
in our country's history.
  The next year, 2002, the President revised his position and said:

        . . . Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and 
     short-term. . . .

  He retreated from the assertion that we were not going to have 
deficits because obviously that proved wrong. Then he said the deficits 
are going to be small and short term. That was the next year. Now we 
are able to check that statement and see if that was right.
  Once again, the President was simply wrong. The deficits have not 
been small and short term; they have been large and long term. In fact, 
virtually every year, the deficits have gotten worse. In the first year 
under the President's plan, we had a $158 billion deficit. In 2003, 
that exploded to $378 billion. It increased even more in 2004 to $413 
billion. Then we had some improvement in 2005 with $319 billion. In 
2006, we are now forecasting once again the deficit going up.
  Far more serious than the deficit is the increase in the debt because 
the debt is increasing much more rapidly than the size of the deficits. 
I indicated for 2006, we are anticipating a deficit now of $371 
billion, but the debt is going to increase by $654 billion.
  I find very often people are confused on this point. They think the 
deficit is the amount by which the debt increases, and that is not the 
case. The biggest difference is Social Security funds that are in 
temporary surplus that are being used under the President's plan to pay 
for other things--to pay for tax cuts, to pay other bills. And when you 
add up the deficit and the amount being taken from Social Security, 
which has to be paid back, and other trust funds that are also being 
diverted and being used for other purposes, what we find is the debt in 
this year will increase not by $371 billion, the amount of the deficit, 
but instead by $654 billion. That is why I say the debt is the threat.
  The next year after 2002, the President, in 2003, no longer made the 
argument that the deficits were going to be small and short term 
because that was clearly not going to be the case. Now he revised his 
argument for the second time when he said:

       Our budget gap is small by historical standards.

  That is not really right, either, because here is the record with 
respect to the deficits in comparison to back in 1970, 36 years of 
comparisons. We can see the deficit under the President's plan has been 
the largest in dollar terms in our history. In fact, he is in first, 
second, and third place. He has the top three deficits in our country's 
history.
  There is a new report out that says the deficits as reported are 
themselves understated. Not only is the debt going up more rapidly than 
the deficits, but this is a report about what would happen if we were 
under the kind of accounting system virtually every company in America 
is under, accrual accounting. Here is what it says. This is a Gannett 
News Service report from March 3 of this year:

       If the United States kept its books like General Motors and 
     nearly every other business in the country, the 2005 budget 
     deficit would be $760 billion and rising, not $319 billion 
     and falling, as is commonly reported. . . .

  They go on to ask the question:

       How can two reports on the same budget be so different? 
     It's a matter of what's counted. The budget figures usually 
     bandied about in Washington are the amounts the Government 
     takes in and spends each year. The financial report, which 
     has been an annual requirement since the mid-1990s, does what 
     businesses are required to do: include the cost of promised 
     benefits.

  If that were done, the deficit for 2005 would not have been $319 
billion, the deficit would have been $760 billion.
  I am increasingly persuaded that the language we use in Washington 
misleads people. I go back to when President Bush came in and we were 
told we were going to have $5.6 trillion surpluses. It was never true. 
Much of that money was Social Security money. There wasn't much of a 
surplus at all. It was a temporary surplus, but every dollar of that 
money was going to be needed.
  This shows that if we were on an accrual basis such as virtually 
every other institution in this country operates on, we would not have 
had a deficit of $319 billion in 2005, we would have had a deficit of 
$760 billion.

  Then in 2004, the President changed his argument once again. He went 
from there are going to be no deficits, to they are going to be small 
and short term, to they are small by historical standards. When all of 
those proved wrong, then the President said: I am going to cut the 
deficit in half over the next 5 years. This is what he said in August 
of 2004:

       So I can say to you that the deficit will be cut in half 
     over the next five years. . . .

  I think the President will be proved wrong once again. Why? Because 
in reaching that calculation, the President simply left out things. He 
left out any war costs past 2007. He left out all the costs of fixing 
the alternative minimum tax, which will cost $1 trillion to fix. He 
didn't put any money in his budget for it past this year.
  When we add back in the items the President has left out and we go 
beyond the 5 years in his budget to capture the full effect of his 
proposed tax cuts, what we see is some modest improvement during the 5 
years in terms of the deficit--that is not true of the debt, by the 
way; it is true of the deficit--but past the 5 years, things get much 
worse as the full effects of the President's tax cuts take effect. Here 
is why.
  This chart shows the full effect of the President's proposed tax 
cuts. The President's budget only goes to this dotted line. But look 
what happens beyond the dotted line in terms of the cost of his tax 
cut. It absolutely explodes. Of course, not all this is captured in his 
budget.
  Similarly, none of the costs beyond fiscal year 2006 are in his 
budget for fixing the alternative minimum tax. The alternative minimum 
tax, the old millionaire's tax, is rapidly becoming a middle-class tax 
trap. It costs $1 trillion to fix over 10 years. The President doesn't 
have a dime in his budget to do it beyond 2006.
  The President has what I would call a rosy scenario. He says he is 
going to cut the deficit in half, but it is largely based on a fiction. 
It is not really a budget at all.
  On the alternative minimum tax, again the President has nothing in 
his budget past 2006 to deal with it. Mr. President, 3.6 million 
taxpayers were affected in 2005. By 2010, there will be 29 million 
taxpayers affected. And the President does nothing to address this 
need. There is no money in his budget past 2006 to face up to it.
  But that is not the only place the President has understated the 
costs. With respect to the war, in 2006 and 2007, the supplementals he 
has provided, he has $118 billion budgeted. The CBO says $312 billion 
is needed.
  Once again, the President is badly understating the true cost to the 
country and, as a result, winds up with a misleading budget result.
  When I say the debt is the threat--and I hope, if people take nothing 
else away from my discussion today, they will begin to understand that 
the great threat to this country is the burgeoning debt of our Nation. 
The debt is the threat.
  As I have indicated, the President has funded the war with a series 
of supplementals. The chairman of the committee had this chart up as 
well. In 2006, $118 billion; in 2007, he is only asking for $50 billion 
at this point. Really, is that what the war is likely to cost? Is all 
of a sudden the need for these additional funds going to be cut more 
than 50 percent? Or is the President playing hide the ball from us in 
terms of these costs?
  When I talk about the debt, the President early on acknowledged how 
important it is to face up to the debt. This is what he said in 2001:

       . . . My budget pays down a record amount of national debt. 
     We will pay off $2 trillion of debt over the next decade. 
     That will be the largest debt reduction of any country, ever.

[[Page S1993]]

     Future generations shouldn't be forced to pay back money that 
     we have borrowed. We owe this kind of responsibility to our 
     children and grandchildren.

  The President was exactly right. I agree with every one of these 
words in terms of the need to pay down the debt and we should not be 
shuffling this responsibility off on our children and grandchildren. 
That is what the President said. He said he would have maximum paydown 
of the debt.
  Let's look and see what has actually happened because, once again, 
the President was simply wrong. There has been no paydown of the debt. 
This is what the debt was at the end of his first year. We don't hold 
him responsible for what happened the first year because he is 
operating under the previous administration's budget.
  At the end of the first year, the debt was $5.8 trillion. At the end 
of this year, the debt will be $8.6 trillion. The President said he 
would have maximum paydown of debt. There is no paydown of debt here. 
The debt has exploded. And if the President's budget or the budget that 
is offered on the floor is adopted, at the end of the next 5 years, the 
debt will be $11.8 trillion--a national debt that will have more than 
doubled since the end of the President's first year in office, all of 
this before the baby boom generation retires.
  This President has racked up already more debt than any President in 
history and by a large measure. The debt limit has already increased 
over $3 trillion: $450 billion in 2002 was added to the debt limit; in 
2003, $984 billion; in 2004, $800 billion; now this week, they are 
asking for another almost $800 billion increase in the debt limit. That 
is why I say the debt is the threat.

  And what are the ramifications? Here is one that I find most 
stunning. It has taken 42 Presidents--all of these Presidents pictured 
here going back to the time of George Washington, through every 
President, including the President's father, and then President 
Clinton--it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up $1 trillion of 
external debt, our debt held by foreigners. This President has more 
than doubled that amount in 5 years.
  This is an utterly unsustainable course. It is an absolutely 
unsustainable course. Unfortunately, in this budget, nothing is being 
done about it except to make it much worse.
  The result of these extraordinary debts being held by foreigners--and 
there was a recent article in the Washington Post that indicates now 
that foreigners hold almost 50 percent of the U.S. debt. It used to be 
that we would borrow from ourselves to finance this debt. Not any more. 
Now we are borrowing from every country all around the world. We have 
borrowed over $680 billion from the Japanese. We have borrowed more 
than $250 billion from the Chinese. We have borrowed more than $230 
billion from the United Kingdom and, my favorite, we have borrowed more 
than $100 billion from the Caribbean Banking Centers. Why, we have even 
borrowed $60 billion, more than $60 billion, from South Korea.
  This is a course that is utterly unsustainable. Chairman Greenspan 
has said it. The Comptroller General of the United States has said it. 
The head of the Congressional Budget Office has said it.
  Now we have this budget on the floor, and this budget basically is a 
stay-the-course budget. It keeps running up the debt. It keeps running 
up the debt, and in record amounts.
  If that is what you want to support, I would say to my colleagues, 
vote for this budget. If you think the appropriate course for the 
country is record additions to our debt, then vote for this budget. 
Because in this budget, they have left out 10-year numbers, so they 
hide the effect of the tax cut proposals of the President. They don't 
have funding for the ongoing war costs beyond 2007. They don't fund the 
alternative minimum tax reform beyond 2006. They have left out entirely 
the President's Social Security privatization proposal.
  If we put back some of those things that have been left out, instead 
of the chart that the chairman showed with these red blocks with the 
budget deficit going down or appearing to go down, if you add back the 
omitted costs and you add back the money that is being taken from 
Social Security that adds to the debt--all of it has to be paid back--
and you add the associated interest costs, what you find is the debt is 
going up each and every year of this budget proposal by more than $600 
billion.
  In 2007, the debt is going to go up $680 billion. In 2008, it is 
going to go up $656 billion. In 2009, it is going to go up $635 
billion. In 2010, it is going to go up $622 billion. In 2011, it is 
going to go up $662 billion.
  Now, unless somebody thinks I am just imagining these numbers, making 
them up, let's look at what is in the budget offered by our colleagues, 
their calculation, their calculation of how much the debt is going to 
go up during this period. And, remember, they have left out war costs 
past September 7, 2007. They have left out the need to fix the 
alternative minimum tax. They have left out the associated interest 
costs. But even their calculations--even their calculations--show the 
debt going up this year, 2007, by $663 billion; in 2008, $577 billion; 
in 2009, $536 billion; in 2010, $513 billion; in 2011, $539 billion. 
This debt is running out of control.
  If we look at what are the causes, it is very simple. We are spending 
more money than we are raising in revenue. That is why we have 
explosions of deficit and debt. We are spending more than we are 
raising, and our colleagues on the other side don't want to reduce 
their spending to the amount of revenue they are able to provide, nor 
are they willing to raise the revenue to meet their spending. The 
result is an explosion of deficit and debt.
  This shows the relationship between spending and revenue going back 
to 1980. The red line is the spending line. You can see during the 
previous administration, spending as a share of gross domestic product 
came down each and every year. Why do we use gross domestic product? It 
is because economists say that is the way to take out the effects of 
inflation and real growth, so that you are comparing apples to apples.
  With the new President, President Bush, spending went up. Why did it 
go up? Overwhelmingly, it went up because of the need for more spending 
for national defense and homeland security, and to rebuild New York. 
Those are increases in spending that all of us supported on a 
bipartisan basis, and that took the spending up to something over 20 
percent of GDP. But look what happened to the revenue side of the 
equation. The revenue side of the equation went from a record level in 
President Bush's first year, and the revenue side of the equation 
collapsed. Part of it, as the chairman rightly describes, is as a 
result of economic slowdown, but about half of the reduction is because 
of tax cuts. Now we can see the revenue in 2004 was actually the lowest 
as a share of GDP since 1959--the lowest since 1959.
  We have seen a bump-up as we have seen economic recovery. The 
chairman is absolutely right; economic recovery does lead to revenue. 
Absolutely. The place where we disagree is the notion that some on that 
side of the aisle have that tax cuts generate more revenue. I have 
heard this so often from the other side: Tax cuts generate more 
revenue.
  Let's check the facts. What the chairman showed was projections. He 
showed what he forecasts or somebody forecasts is going to happen in 
the future. Let's not rely on future projections. Let's look at what 
has actually happened in the real world to revenue after the massive 
tax cuts of this administration. Did we get more revenue? That is a 
pretty simple question to ask and a pretty simple question to answer. 
The answer is no, we didn't. In 2000, before the big tax cuts, we had 
over $2 trillion of revenue. Then we had the massive tax cuts of 2001, 
and look what happened to revenue: It went down in 2002. It went down 
in 2003. In 2004, it still was well below where it had been in 2000. We 
didn't get back to the revenue base that we had in 2000 until the year 
2005.

  At what point are we going to dispel the myth that tax cuts create 
more revenue? They didn't, they haven't, and they won't.
  That is not my view. I am taking my view from what has actually 
happened in the real world, instead of some ideological belief and 
hope. Let's go on facts. Let's go on what has happened. Here is what 
Chairman Greenspan says:

       It is very rare and very few economists believe that you 
     can cut taxes and you will get the same amount of revenues.

  This is not based on just what Chairman Greenspan says added to the 
facts

[[Page S1994]]

of what happened since 2001; here is what an Economy.com report says on 
the U.S. macroeconomy:

       Economists find no support for the claim that tax cuts pay 
     for themselves. Four years after income taxes were first cut 
     and nearly four years after the recession ended, Federal 
     revenues are still slightly below their early 2001 peak on a 
     nominal basis; on a real basis, adjusted for inflation, 
     revenues are down 11 percent from their all-time high. 
     Therefore there is no support for the Laffer Curve effect: 
     the view that a tax cut can actually boost government 
     revenues as workers and entrepreneurs respond with large 
     increases in effort.

  From that, I don't make the argument that the answer to our problem 
is tax increases at this point. I do believe revenue has got to be part 
of the solution.
  Our friends on the other side and the chairman have said it has to be 
done on the spending side. Absolutely, the spending side has to be a 
very significant part of addressing this problem. But revenue also has 
to be a part of addressing this problem, and the first place we ought 
to look for revenue is not a tax increase. The first place we ought to 
look for revenue is the tax gap, the difference between what is owed 
and what is being paid.
  The revenue department says the tax gap is now $350 billion a year. 
Let me repeat that. The tax gap, the difference between what is owed 
and what is being paid, the revenue commissioner tells us, is now $350 
billion a year. If we were to just collect revenue due under the 
current revenue table, we would virtually eliminate the deficit. We 
would still have a problem with the debt because, as I have indicated, 
the debt is going up much faster than our deficits. But if we could 
collect the amount of money that is actually due, we would make 
meaningful inroads into this incredible abyss of deficits and debt, and 
we ought to do it.
  Also, as the chairman has said--and this is a place I agree--we are 
going to have to deal with the entitlements. Entitlements are growing 
much more rapidly than the size of the economy, and they are going to 
be added to by the baby boom generation. The baby boom generation is 
going to change all of this very dramatically. So at some point, we are 
going to have to face up to that.
  I think it is increasingly clear that the only way this is going to 
be faced up to is if we do it together. Republicans can't do it alone; 
Democrats can't do it alone. It is going to require Democrats and 
Republicans working together to face this challenge of a burgeoning 
debt, and the sooner we do it, the better.
  On the assertions that the economy is doing great, here is what the 
Comptroller General said about our current fiscal path before the 
Senate Budget Committee last month:

       Continuing on this unsustainable fiscal path will gradually 
     erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of 
     living, and ultimately our national security. Is anyone 
     listening? Is anyone listening? Here is the Comptroller 
     General of the United States telling us we can't stay on this 
     course, that it threatens our economy and even our national 
     security.

  For those who say the economy is doing fine, I present an alternative 
view. Here is what has happened to real median household income. It has 
declined for 4 straight years. Median household income has declined for 
4 straight years. We have looked at previous recoveries since World War 
II. There have been nine economic recoveries from recessions since 
World War II. We have compared this recovery to the previous 
recoveries. Here is what we found. Growth of the economy lags behind 
the typical recovery. On average in the previous 9 recoveries, GDP has 
averaged 3.2 percent; in this recovery, it is averaging 2.8 percent.

  It is not just economic growth, it is also business investment. Here 
is the average. This dotted red line is the average of the nine 
previous business cycles in terms of business investment. Here, the 
black line is this recovery. Business investment is lagging the average 
of the nine previous recoveries by 62 percent. What is wrong here? 
Something is wrong. Something has changed from our previous economic 
recoveries.
  It is not just growth of GDP, it is not just business investment, it 
is also job creation. This red line is the average of the nine previous 
recoveries from recessions since World War II. The black line is this 
recovery. We are running 6.6 million private sector jobs behind the 
typical recovery. At this very same period in the cycle, this very same 
time period, we are 6.6 million private sector jobs behind the average 
recovery since World War II.
  We have to face up to what is happening: burgeoning deficits and 
debt; a recovery that is not producing the same economic growth, the 
same business investment, the same job creation we have seen in other 
recoveries since World War II; and then we have a budget that I believe 
is also wrong on priorities. This budget says that in 2007, the tax 
cuts going to those who earn on average over $1 million a year will 
cost $41 billion for the year. Let me repeat that. Under the budget 
that is presented here and the budget of the President, the tax cuts 
going to those who on average earn over $1 million a year, the tax cuts 
for 1 year alone will be $41 billion. Meanwhile, the President says cut 
education $2.2 billion, the biggest cut education has ever been asked 
to take. I don't believe that is the right priority for the country.
  It is not just with respect to education. Veterans are being asked to 
take reductions such that it would cost $800 million--$795 million to 
restore those reductions, those cuts, in terms of what they receive. 
Actually, this $800 million is the $250 annual enrollment fee the 
President is asking for and the increase in their drug copayments that 
he is asking for--$800 million to eliminate those increased fees and 
costs to veterans. But the President's budget says: No, it is 50 times 
more important to provide tax cuts to those earning over $1 million a 
year. Those are his priorities. I don't think those are the priorities 
of the American people.
  When I look at law enforcement, I see the same thing. It would cost 
about $400 million to restore the COPS Program. The President cuts the 
COPS Program that puts police officers on the street. He cuts it about 
$400 million, which is one one-hundredth as much as is going to tax 
cuts for those who earn over $1 million a year. Are those really the 
priorities of the American people? Is it 100 times more important to 
give tax cuts to those earning over $1 million a year than it is to put 
police on the street? I don't think so.
  It doesn't end there. This budget, the President's budget, on local 
law enforcement grants, they don't just cut those, they eliminate them. 
The Byrne Justice Assistance grants, Safe and Drug-Free Schools--they 
eliminate them. They don't just cut them, they eliminate them. 
Vocational education--they don't just cut it, they eliminate it. The 
COPS Program, as I indicated, is cut 78 percent; firefighter grants, 
cut 55 percent; essential air service, cut 54 percent.
  I am not talking Washington-talk about cuts. I am not talking about 
restricting the rate of growth. I am talking about cutting from what 
was provided last year. Weatherization grants are cut 2 percent, Amtrak 
is cut 32 percent, community development block grants are cut 20 
percent, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program is cut 17 
percent.
  This is a budget that I believe is just wrong. I believe it is wrong 
for the American people. It is wrong because it explodes deficits and 
debt. It is wrong on its priorities. Let me just sum up with what the 
National Catholic Reporter wrote on February 17 of this year:

       But what has become clear during five years of the Bush 
     administration is now glaringly apparent in the easily 
     discerned outlines of its proposed 2007 budget: Cuts in vital 
     programs that benefit the poor and middle class, continuing 
     tax relief for the very wealthy.
       If budgets are, as some contend and we would agree, moral 
     documents, then this one suggests we have abandoned a basic 
     sense of right and wrong and any notion that we are at our 
     best when we strive to make life better for all, not just 
     those who manage to accumulate wealth.

  I want to end as I began. I believe the fundamental threat of our 
time is the growth of the debt. The debt is the threat. This budget 
absolutely fails to face up to that growing and burgeoning debt.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The Senator from New 
Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, just to briefly respond because obviously 
the Senator has made numerous points

[[Page S1995]]

here, I agree with some, and with some I disagree. But I think this 
focus on the debt is an interesting approach and one which I can 
certainly be sympathetic to, and I would be more sympathetic to it if 
during the markup on this bill we had amendments offered from the other 
side that would have significantly reduced the debt. That is not what 
we had. We had amendments which would increase the spending of the 
Federal Government by about $150 billion in entitlement accounts, about 
$16 billion approximately on discretionary accounts for this coming 
year, and then they raise taxes or proposed raising taxes in order to 
meet those new spending initiatives.
  If you are going to reduce the debt, you can do it, of course, by 
raising taxes. The last group of charts the Senator highlighted would 
be one way, and maybe the alternative they could seek on their side of 
the aisle would be where they would raise taxes by $41 billion on one 
segment of Americans, or they can raise taxes across the board, or they 
can raise taxes on specific groups. All of that is possible to reduce 
the debt, but that is not what they offered in committee. What they 
offered in committee was to increase spending on all sorts of 
initiatives and then raise taxes to cover the spending, which does 
nothing significant to reduce the debt.
  You can also reduce the debt by reducing the deficit because every 
deficit dollar is added to the debt. That is what we have attempted to 
do in this bill. We will attempt and we intend to reduce the deficit in 
half over 4 years on this bill, and we do it by aggressively addressing 
discretionary spending.
  The Senator is suggesting there are other places not mentioned in 
this bill, such as the AMT. Yes, we do not address the AMT. I believe 
the AMT, if it is going to be addressed, should be addressed in the 
context of tax reform where it is a revenue-neutral event. I would also 
point out the vast majority of AMT is paid for by people in high 
incomes; 75 percent of the AMT tax, I believe, comes from people with 
incomes over $100,000.
  First they put up a chart that says high-income individuals should 
have their taxes increased, and then they put up a chart that says we 
don't account for cutting taxes on high-income individuals. There is a 
little bit of inconsistency there, in my opinion. But the AMT fix 
should not be done in a vacuum. It should not be a hit on the Treasury 
to the tune of almost $1 trillion. It should be done in the context of 
major revenue reform, which allows us to adjust it so if low-income 
people or moderate-income people--there are no low-income people 
covered by AMT, but if moderate-income people find themselves falling 
in the AMT, the tax laws will be adjusted so they will be taken out of 
that, but at the same time we adjust in other areas to make the laws 
more fair and maintain the revenue base. That is the way to address 
that. You don't just unilaterally act on that. So I don't find that to 
be a compelling case they are making.
  They make the case on Social Security. We would have been happy to 
put Social Security in here if the other side of the aisle had not shot 
the idea down of any Social Security reform--which we really need, we 
need Social Security reform--shot it down before it even got up to the 
Congress.
  The President went around the country talking about a variety of 
ideas. He put everything on the table, and the other side of the aisle 
just started attacking him for even addressing the issue of Social 
Security. We know Social Security is a serious problem. We know it. But 
there is no point in moving forward on it if the other side of the 
aisle has an attitude that we are not going to do anything, we are just 
going to use it as a political club, which was exactly the approach 
that was taken when the President addressed it. So that is hard to 
accept as a valid thing that should be in this budget, Social Security.
  This budget does not assume the present tax increases after the 
budget window, which is different from the President's budget, so it is 
a different approach we have taken in this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. GREGG. How could my time possibly expire? I think I have 25 
hours.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time until 11:30 was evenly divided. So it 
is out before 11:30.
  Mr. GREGG. It is only 11:25.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota has the 
remainder of the time.
  Mr. CONRAD. I will be happy--maybe we can make an adjustment here, so 
the Senator can finish his thoughts and then I would have a brief time 
to respond.
  Mr. GREGG. That sounds good to me. Why don't we extend this for 15 
minutes? Divide the time equally?

  Mr. CONRAD. Could we do it for 12?
  Mr. GREGG. Whichever. Twelve is fine to me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CONRAD. We can split the time so the Senator has a chance to 
conclude his thoughts.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. The context of my comments are basically directed to the 
issue of debt. I believe debt should be reduced. I believe the way you 
reduce debt is to begin by reducing the deficit, which is what the 
budget does. But the presentation that this budget uniquely aggravates 
the debt is really not viable in the context of the solutions which are 
being offered by the other side because none of the solutions being 
offered by the other side would reduce the debt, either. They are 
basically offering--or at least they did in committee--amendments which 
increase spending and increase taxes, thus taking resources which 
logically the other side would want to use to reduce the debt but 
isn't, and spending the money. In the end, that doesn't reduce the debt 
at all.
  I didn't see in the markup at all any proposals that would reduce the 
debt coming from the other side. We look forward to them offering a 
budget which accomplishes that. I would be most interested in such a 
budget because I do think it is important we do that. We tried to do it 
in our bill by reducing the deficit in half over the next 4 years, 
which does take money and reduce the debt because any time you reduce 
the deficit, you reduce the debt. You are not adding to the debt.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the use of calculators be 
permitted on the floor Senate during consideration of the budget 
resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the following staff 
members from my staff and from Senator Conrad's staff be given all-
access floor passes for the Senate floor during consideration of the 
budget resolution. From the Republican staff: Cheri Reidy, Denzel 
McGuire, Jim Hearn; from the Democratic staff: John Righter, Steven 
Posner, Sarah Kuehl.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the staff of 
the Budget Committee be granted the Senate floor privileges for the 
duration of the consideration of the budget resolution:

       Amdur, Rochelle; Bailey, Stephen; Bargo, Kevin; Binzer, 
     Peggy; Brandt, Dan; Cheung, Rock E.; Delisle, Jason; 
     Donoghue, Samuel; Esquea, Jim; Fisher, David; Forbes, Meghan; 
     Friesen, Katherine; Green, Vanessa; Gudes, Scott B.--Staff 
     Director, Full Access Pass; Halvorson, Dana; Hearn, Jim; 
     Holahan, Betsy; Isenberg, Cliff; Jones, Michael; Kermick, 
     Andrew.
       Klumpner, James; Konwinski, Lisa--General Counsel, Full 
     Access Pass; Kuehl, Sarah; Kuenle, Jason; Lewis, Kevin; 
     Lofgren, Michael; Mashburn, John; McGuire, Denzel; Millar, 
     Gail--General Counsel, Full Access Pass; Miller, Jim; Mittal, 
     Seema; Morin, Jamie; Myers, David; Nagurka, Stuart; Naylor, 
     Mary--Staff Director; Full Access Pass; Noel, Kobye; Olivero, 
     Tara; O'Neill, Maureen; Page, Anne; Pappone, David.
       Parent, Allison; Pollom, Jennifer; Posner, Steven; Reese, 
     Ann; Reidy, Cheri; Righter, John; Seymour, Lynne; Smith, 
     Conwell; Soskin, Benjamin; Turcotte, Jeff; Vandivier, David; 
     Weiblinger, Richard; Woodall, George; Wroe, Elizabeth.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I go back to where I started. The debt is 
the threat. This budget before us increases the debt $600 billion a 
year, each and every year of its term. That is the reality. That is the 
budget we have before us. It is the obligation of the majority to offer 
a budget, and they have

[[Page S1996]]

done so. It is our obligation to comment and critique their budget, 
which we have done.
  The most important critique that I offered is that this budget 
explodes the debt. It is undeniable. It is clear. Their own numbers 
show that it explodes the debt.
  Beyond that, the chairman references what happened in the committee. 
I believe he didn't mention our first amendment--it will be our first 
amendment on the floor--which is a pay-go amendment to restore budget 
discipline to require that if you want to have more mandatory spending, 
you have to pay for it. And if you want to have more tax cuts, you have 
to pay for them. But they defeated that budget discipline. They 
defeated that budget discipline, and they proposed this budget that 
explodes the debt.
  In addition, every one of our amendments--I don't know where the 
chairman got his number--that cost $128 billion in committee, we 
provided $134 billion of funding for those amendments.
  We reduced the buildup of deficit and debt by $6 billion. But that is 
not the point. The point is, what needs to be done--and I think the 
chairman might agree with this--is to take on this debt threat. The 
only way it is going to happen is if we do it together. Your budget 
doesn't do it. We are not going to offer a budget that is going to do 
it because if you offer one on your own, you couldn't pass another one. 
If we offered one on our own, we couldn't pass it on our own--certainly 
not in the minority.
  I have come to the conclusion--I have talked to colleagues over the 
weekend, and I believe the chairman may share this view--that the only 
way we are going to take on this debt is to march together. It has 
become so serious and so big that neither party can do it alone. That 
is the truth.
  Again, we didn't offer tax increases in the Budget Committee. We did 
offer to more aggressively close the tax gap to pay for these measures. 
And the biggest spending measure that we offered--in fact, nearly all 
the increase in the spending, or a significant majority of it--was in 
one amendment, and that was to take veterans' benefits from the 
discretionary side of the budget to the mandatory side of the budget. 
We do not believe veterans' benefits should be considered 
discretionary. It is not discretionary. It is mandatory that we provide 
for these veterans. That amendment cost $104 billion. But we paid for 
it.
  Unless anybody wonders if there are tax loopholes out there to close, 
let me tell you about one of the most recent scams which was uncovered 
where companies in the United States are buying sewer systems of 
European cities, depreciating them on their books in the United States, 
and then leasing the facilities back to European cities.
  Is that a tax increase to take away that scam? I don't think so. Is 
it a tax increase to take away the scam that allows a five-story 
building in the Cayman Islands to be home to 12,500 companies which 
claim they are doing business in the Cayman Islands? They have a five-
story building down there that is the home to 12,500 companies. Is it a 
tax increase to end that scam because there are no taxes in the Cayman 
Islands and that is where those companies want to show their profits?
  Shame on those companies, shame on the Cayman Islands, shame on us 
for allowing that to happen, and shame on us for not collecting the 
revenue that is due under the current system. The vast majority of us 
pay what we owe. The vast majority of companies pay what they owe. But 
we have an increasing number of individuals and an increasing number of 
companies that aren't, and we ought to go after them. It is $350 
billion a year. The revenue commissioner said we could get at least $50 
billion to $100 billion of that amount without fundamentally changing 
the relationship of the revenue service to the taxpayers of the 
company.
  Social Security reform: What the President proposed is not what I 
would consider Social Security reform. Once again he was going to 
borrow the money. He was going to borrow hundreds of billions of 
dollars to change the Social Security system. Of course we opposed 
that. Not only was he going to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars, 
but he himself was going to cut benefits. We oppose that. I am proud to 
have opposed that.
  I am not for any more of these plans that explode the debt of the 
country. We have had enough of that. The debt does represent an 
enormous threat to the economic security of America. I believe that.
  Could I be advised of the time remaining, how it is divided?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 3 minutes 50 seconds, and the 
Senator from New Hampshire has 3 minutes 40 seconds.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, at this point, would the Senator join me 
in yielding that time?
  Mr. GREGG. Take it off the bill.
  Mr. CONRAD. We yield the time remaining.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time is yielded.

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