[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 31 (Monday, March 13, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1997-S2019]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR
2007--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 1:30
p.m. having arrived, the Senate will resume consideration of the budget
resolution, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 83), setting forth
the congressional budgets of the United States Government for
fiscal year 2007 and including the appropriate budgetary
levels for fiscal years 2006 and 2008 through 2011.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I listened to the very able Senator from
Kentucky. His description of this budget does not quite fit the budget
I have seen, both in the Senate and in the committee. He talks about
deficit reduction. There is no deficit reduction here. Let's be clear
with people. There is no deficit reduction.
He talks about the deficit reduction bill offered last year by the
Republicans. They called it ``deficit reduction,'' but there was no
deficit reduction. They cut taxes $70 billion, cut spending $40
billion. Do the math. That did not reduce the deficit. It increased the
deficit. Is the deficit going to be lower this year after their deficit
reduction bill? Or is it going to be higher? It is going to be higher.
There is more deficit after their deficit reduction bill of last year.
Not only is there more deficit, but there is a whole lot more debt.
Let me say to my colleagues, here is what is happening under our
colleagues' fiscal plan. Here is what is happening to the debt of the
country. When President Bush came in at the end of his first year--we
do not hold him responsible for the first year because that is
operating under the previous year's Presidency--at the end of his first
year the debt was $5.8 trillion. At the end of this year, the debt will
be $8.6 trillion. If this budget is adopted, this 5-year budget, at the
end of the 5 years the debt will be $11.8 trillion. And they are
talking about deficit reduction? Where? Where is it? Show me. Show me
where they are reducing the deficit. This is the debt of the country.
The debt is skyrocketing under their plans.
Now the Senator talks about their deficit reduction plan of last
year. This is last year. The deficit was $319 billion, one of the
biggest ever. In fact, in the 5 years of this Presidency, he has had--
count them--four, when this year is complete, four of the biggest
deficits in the history of the country. In dollar terms, the four
biggest.
Last year, the deficit was $319 billion. The Congressional Budget
Office says if this budget is agreed to, this year the budget will be
$371 billion based on the President's proposal. Actually, the proposal
in the Senate is a little worse, at $371 billion. Is $371 billion more
of a deficit than $319 billion or less? This is after their big deficit
reduction plan. There is no deficit reduction.
What about going forward? What will happen going forward? Here is
what will happen, going forward, to the debt of the country. They say
the deficit will go down each and every year of this budget. Well, not
quite. The last year they say it blips up a little. They claim the
deficit will be going down. But, of course, they have left out some
pretty big things. They have left out any war costs past 2007. They
have left out any cost to fix the alternative minimum tax passed this
year. Over 10 years, that costs $1 trillion to fix. That is a big item.
They have left out the associated interest costs of those items,
[[Page S1998]]
which is ``other'' on the chart. They have also left out the money they
are taking from Social Security each and every year of this budget, all
of which gets added to the debt, all of which has to be paid back.
So when we add it all up, here is how much the debt is going to grow
under the plan before the Senate: In 2007, it will go up $680 billion.
Not the deficit they are talking about of $319 billion; the debt will
go up $680 billion. The next year it will go up $656 billion; the next
year it will go up $635 billion; the next year it will go up $622
billion; the next year it is going up to $662 billion.
Is there any improvement here? They are talking about deficit
reduction, they are talking about their improving the fiscal picture of
the country. No, they are not. The debt is going to grow every year by
more than $600 billion. The result is going to be at the end of this
period, the debt of our Nation will reach $11.8 trillion. Now I project
at the end of this year it will be $8.6 trillion. By the way, they are
getting ready to increase the debt limit by almost $800 billion in 1
year. We are going to have that vote this week.
So when they say they are reducing the deficit, it is just talk.
There is no reduction in the deficit going on here. In the deficit
reduction package they say they had last year, the deficit went up, and
the deficit is going up under their deficit reduction package. So let's
be straight with people.
Now, my colleague called the economy ``stunningly robust.'' No, the
economy is not stunningly robust. In fact, the unemployment rate just
went up. The unemployment rate just went up from 4.7 to 4.8 percent.
That is not good news. That is going the wrong way.
But I think of more concern is, if you compare this recovery to the
nine previous recoveries since World War II, what you see is this one
is far weaker than the average of the nine previous recoveries.
Let's look at what the numbers show. Here is real median household
income, as shown on this chart. Now, this would tell us whether the
economy is doing well. If this is such a robust economy, why isn't
household income going up? It is not going up. It is going down. Real
median household income has declined 4 years in a row.
To try to determine what is happening with this economy, we went and
looked at all the recoveries since World War II. Here is what we found.
On average, at this stage of recovery, the economy would be growing at
3.2 percent a year. That is what we have seen in the previous
recoveries: 3.2 percent growth; this recovery: 2.8 percent. It is
weaker than the average of the nine previous recoveries.
That is not the only indicator that things are not going as well as
we have seen in other recoveries. For the nine other recoveries since
World War II, this dotted line on the chart shows business investment.
The black line shows this recovery. It is 62 percent behind the average
of the nine previous recoveries.
My colleague just talked about how strong job growth has been. No,
job growth has not been strong. We went and looked at the nine previous
recoveries since World War II. This dotted red line on the chart shows
the average. This black line shows this recovery. And, look, we are 6.6
million private sector jobs short of the typical recovery. So when they
say things are going great, that is not what any serious analysis
reveals.
What any serious analysis reveals is that this recovery is lagging in
a substantial way behind the nine recoveries since World War II. It is
lagging in business investment by 62 percent. It is lagging in economic
growth--3.2 percent is the average of the nine previous recoveries, and
in this period, 2.8 percent. On job creation, we are 6.6 million
private sector jobs behind the average of the nine other recoveries
since World War II.
But I said this morning the debt is the threat. And here it is, as
shown on this chart. Our friends on the other side have been in charge
since 2001. This is their record. This is what has happened under their
fiscal plan.
The President told us if we adopted his fiscal plan, he would have
maximum paydown of the debt. Remember? He was going to virtually
eliminate the debt. It has not worked out that way. Not only has there
been no reduction in the debt, the debt has skyrocketed, and the debt
has gone up approaching--well, with this latest increase that is being
sought that they want to vote on this week--the debt under this
President will have gone up $3 trillion. If we adopt this plan, it is
going to go up another $3 trillion.
That is the hard reality of what we see before us. If you love debt,
you are going to love this budget plan. Our friends on the other side
accuse us of tax and spend. They are guilty of spend and borrow. Borrow
and spend, borrow and spend, spend and borrow, borrow and spend, spend
and borrow--that is their policy, to drive us deep into debt.
As I showed on the Senate floor, one of the most alarming things is,
increasingly, this debt is financed by foreigners. About half of our
debt now is held abroad. This morning I showed what an incredible
legacy this President is going to leave because it took 42 Presidents
224 years to run up $1 trillion of external debt, debt held by
foreigners. This President has more than doubled that in 5 years. That
is truly stunning.
Let me repeat, it took 42 Presidents 224 years--in fact, here is the
chart I used this morning that shows it--it took all these Presidents,
from George Washington to Bill Clinton--42 Presidents--224 years. Some
of them were sons of Virginia. The occupant of the chair is a proud
representative of Virginia. They were much more careful with public
money than this President. It took all these Presidents--42 of them--
224 years to run up $1 trillion of external debt. This President has
more than doubled it, in fact, substantially more than doubled it, in
just 5 years.
Now, as a result of this, we owe Japan over $700 billion. We owe
China over $250 billion. Here it is, as shown on this chart: Japan;
China; the United Kingdom, my favorite; the Caribbean banking centers.
We owe the Caribbean banking centers $111 billion. I sometimes ask
audiences back home: Are any of you doing your banking in the
Caribbean? I get very few takers on that. Somebody is doing their
banking in the Caribbean, and we are borrowing huge amounts of money
from them. We owe Taiwan over $70 billion. We owe South Korea over $66
billion.
Now, whatever else is going on, No. 1, this fiscal plan is not
working as advertised. The President said, very clearly, he was going
to have maximum paydown of the debt. The debt is skyrocketing, and when
our friends come out here and say, well, they have a deficit-reduction
plan, where is it? It certainly is not in this budget that is going to
increase the debt over $3 trillion over the next 5 years.
This year, the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office,
is going to be bigger than the deficit last year, after our friends
came out here and said they had a deficit reduction plan. In fact, they
passed it and they labeled it ``deficit reduction,'' but the deficit is
going up, not down. So their deficit reduction plan, like all these
other plans they have come out with, has not worked.
The President said he was going to have maximum paydown of the debt.
The debt is increasing. They say they have a deficit reduction plan.
The deficit is increasing, not being reduced.
And talk about economic recoveries, this is one of the weakest
economic recoveries of the nine we have had since World War II.
Something is not working. I believe one of the things that is not
working is that this pileup of debt is creating an enormous weight on
our country. At some point we have to take this on. This budget does
not do it. My own belief is, the only way we are going to take this on
is to do it together, Democrats and Republicans. Democrats certainly
cannot do it. We are in the minority. I do not think Republicans can do
it alone because they have proven they are not going to do it. And if
they wanted to do it, I do not believe they could do it on their own. I
think this is going to take us working together. And the sooner we get
together and the sooner we face up to this, the better off our country
will be.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I join in the desire of the Senator from
North Dakota to move forward in a bipartisan way.
We could start by approving this budget in a bipartisan way. But
independent of that, I agree, we--and we
[[Page S1999]]
have talked about this; actually I think we are the only two people
talking about this, but we have talked about trying to develop a
framework where we could actually address this issue.
But that is a global settlement. I would like to see it done. It is
going to have to address Medicare. It is going to have to address
Medicaid. It is going to have to address Social Security. It is going
to have to address revenues. And it needs to be done sooner rather than
later. But it is such a large idea that it is not going to occur this
week.
This week, what is going to occur, hopefully, is a step forward in
the exercise of disciplining ourselves through budget processing,
setting out a blueprint which defines where the Federal Government is
going to spend money, how it is going to spend money, and constrains
the Federal Government, especially on the discretionary side of the
ledger. I would like to have constrained the Federal Government a
little bit in its rate of growth on the entitlement side of the ledger,
but that is not possible, primarily because I get no votes from the
other side of the aisle.
The Senator from North Dakota has made a point of talking about
economic statistics relative to what the Bush administration and the
Republican leadership have done relative to this economy. His structure
and definition of this is, it is sort of dire, this economy. Well, that
is hard to accept on its face. This is not a dire economy. In fact, it
is a fairly robust economy that has gone through very significant
growth now for 5 years.
We have had 17 consecutive quarters of expansion of this economy.
That is big, 17 consecutive quarters. We came out of one of the most
difficult times, from an economic standpoint, in the history of this
country, probably the most difficult time in the postdepression period,
when we had the largest bubble in history, the Internet bubble
collapse, and when we were attacked and America was at war and found
the essence of our economy--Wall Street--basically destroyed in the
World Trade attack.
So they were double blows to our economy, and yet we have responded
as a government the right way. We cut taxes. We gave people an
incentive to go out there and be productive and create jobs. The
response has been that people have gone out, risked their capital,
taken risks, been entrepreneurs, created small business, and created
jobs.
We have had 17 consecutive quarters of expansion of this economy,
which is a lot of growth. We had a 3.5-percent rate of growth in 2005.
That is higher, as an average, than the 20-year average of the prior 20
years. We are growing at a rate faster than the average over the last
20 years.
Just last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced we created
243,000 new jobs. That is a huge jump in new jobs when you put it in
the context of the fact that for 30 straight months we have been
creating new jobs in this economy. Literally, 5 million new jobs have
been created in this economy since 2003. It is a result, in large part,
of the economic engine created by giving people the right to be
investors and entrepreneurs and capitalists and market-oriented, taking
risks and creating jobs--5 million new jobs. Do you know how many jobs
that is? That is more jobs than was created in Japan and Europe
combined. I would point out that Japan and Europe combined have a
population which is about half, again, larger than the United States.
So we have had 17 quarters of consecutive growth. We have had 3.5
percent GDP growth, which is above the economic average for the last 20
years. We have had 5 million new jobs created. Just last month, we
added 243,000 jobs. Those are pretty good numbers.
Let's put it in the context of the Bush administration versus the
Clinton administration.
Real disposable income--which is basically the essence of what you
really look at when you are talking about how people's lives are
getting better or worse--has increased $1,905 since President Bush has
been in office, which has been for about 5 years, 4\1/2\ years.
Under President Clinton, what was the increase? For the last term of
his office, the last 4 years when he was in office, during this period,
when we were going through this economic bubble, real disposable income
only went up $1,500.
So this President has exceeded the rate of growth, in real disposable
income, of the Clinton final 4 years, for which we hear so much about
what a great job President Clinton did on the economy. And except for
the fact he did not control the bubble, the fact is, the economy did
pretty well during his administration.
Real hourly compensation has gone up 8.9 percent during this same
period, whereas if you compare it to President Clinton's second term,
real hourly wage growth went up only three-tenths of 1 percent.
The rate of growth of a person's actual wages has jumped dramatically
in comparison to the Bush years versus the last 4 years of President
Clinton. This is true economic growth. It is hard to deny that. You can
deny it, you can be pessimistic about it, but the fact is the economy
is doing very well, especially in the context of the fact that we are
fighting a war on terrorism in the middle of all this, which has been a
fairly significant stress on our economy, and that we had the largest
natural disaster in the history of our Nation--exceeding even the San
Francisco earthquake of 1906--in the Katrina and Rita storms in the
Gulf States which essentially wiped out one of the great engines of our
economy, the Gulf States, especially in the area of energy production.
Still the economy grows.
In fact, interest rates--I remember the Senator from North Dakota
making a statement, I think it was last year, maybe the year before,
saying that interest rates were going to have to go up because the
Federal Government was crowding out borrowing--haven't gone up.
Interest rates continue basically to be affordable in the context of
historical interest rates. Yes, they are off a historic low, but they
are still well below what is the historic mean for interest rates.
So the economy is not only not dire, it is rather robust. It is
robust in large part because of the fact that we made the right
decisions at the beginning of this administration on the issue of tax
policy. We gave people an incentive to be productive, an incentive to
invest, to take risks, all of which translates into jobs, and jobs
translate into more revenue for the Federal Government.
We have gone through the charts of how much the revenue to the
Federal Government is jumping as a result of this economic activity. It
is a consistent statement made by the Senator from North Dakota that
the economy is terrible, but I don't think it is a correct statement.
Furthermore, this budget is obviously not a magic wand. It doesn't
have the capacity to say: Eliminate the debt or eliminate the growth of
the debt as we fight this war and we face issues of financial pressure.
But without this budget, the debt will be significantly larger. In
fact, as has been said before, spending will go up if the Democratic
proposals that came out of committee are allowed to pass. Taxes will
also go up because they propose tax increases. But that will have no
impact on the debt. That is a wash, according to their representation.
They spend $120 billion, and they raise taxes $125 billion or something
like that, so they may have gotten $5 billion over 5 years back for
deficit reduction. We usually underestimate the spending in those
programs and we usually overestimate the revenue, especially when you
are talking about loophole closing. That definitely usually
overestimates revenue. So I suspect we would have found the debt would
have increased, too.
But giving them the benefit of the doubt, there is no initiative here
on the floor--and there was no initiative in committee--which
significantly addresses the debt other than the budget that is before
us which puts a hard freeze on nondefense discretionary spending. That
addresses the debt. That means that next year you will add less to the
deficit than you would have if you didn't have that hard freeze. It is
not a big number in the context of the overall issue, but it is a big
number by New Hampshire standards. It represents billions of dollars
which will not be added to the deficit and therefore not added to the
debt. That is a positive.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire has very
[[Page S2000]]
ably used the oldest debate tactic known to man, which is the straw man
argument. He suggested I have said that the economy is terrible. Those
are not my words. I have not described the economy as terrible. I have
described the economy as not performing as well as it has in other
recoveries since World War II.
Let me repeat: Real median household income has declined 4 straight
years. That is not a sign of economic strength; that is a sign of
economic weakness. The economic growth in this recovery has
substantially lagged the economic growth we saw in the other nine
recoveries since World War II. In the other recoveries since World War
II, economic growth averaged 3.2 percent. In this recovery, it is
averaging 2.8 percent.
On business investment, this dotted line is the average of nine
previous recessions. This recovery is the black line. It is 62 percent
behind what we have seen in the other nine recoveries since World War
II. That is also true of job creation. The red dotted line is job
creation and the average of nine recessions since World War II. The
black line is this recovery, 6.6 million private sector jobs behind.
The most dramatic result is this: This is how our friends have
propped up the economy. They have done it by running up the biggest
debt in the history of America. Their proposal in this budget is to
keep on doing it, more debt on top of debt that is already at record
levels. When this President came in, at the end of his first year the
debt was $5.8 trillion. At the end of this year, it will be $8.6
trillion, headed for $11.8 trillion if this budget is adopted. That is
the wrong course for America. It is a mistake, and we will regret it
deeply if we allow this to go forward. That is why this budget ought to
be defeated. Only if this budget is defeated are we going to have a
chance to change course and get America on a firmer fiscal footing.
I yield the floor.
Amendment No. 3002
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Gregg] proposes an
amendment numbered 3002.
Mr. GREGG. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be
dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To make technical and conforming amendments)
On page 3, line 11, strike ``$1,694,445,000,000'' and
insert ``$1,694,455,000,000''.
On page 3, line 23, strike ``reduced'' and insert
``changed''.
On page 21, line 3, strike ``$441,150,000,000'' and insert
``$411,150,000,000''.
On page 28, line 15, after ``000'' insert ``,000''.
On page 28, line 16, after ``000'' insert ``,000''.
On page 29, line 18, strike ``by $0 for fiscal year 2007
and''.
On page 42, strike beginning with line 11 and all that
follows through page 43, line 4, and insert the following:
SEC. 311. DEFICIT-NEUTRAL RESERVE FUND FOR CHRONIC CARE CASE
MANAGEMENT.
If the Senate Committee on Finance reports a bill or joint
resolution, or an amendment is offered thereto or a
conference report is submitted thereon, that would provide
$1,750,000,000 to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services (CMS) to create a demonstration project or program
that assigns a case manager to coordinate the care of
chronically-ill and other high-cost Medicare beneficiaries in
traditional fee-for-service Medicare, the Chairman of the
Senate Committee on the Budget may revise the allocations,
aggregates, and other appropriate levels and limits in this
resolution by the amount provided in such measure for that
purpose, provided that such legislation would not increase
the deficit for the period of fiscal years 2007 through 2011.
Mr. GREGG. This is an amendment to make corrections to the resolution
so it conforms to the resolution as ordered reported by the committee.
It has been agreed to by both sides. I ask unanimous consent that it be
agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--I certainly
will not object--this is something both sides are in complete agreement
on. I ask my colleagues to understand that this is a technical matter
to make certain that the resolution conforms to what was done in
committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
If not, the question is on agreeing to amendment No. 3002.
The amendment (No. 3002) was agreed to.
Mr. GREGG. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. CONRAD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. CONRAD. I see the Senator from Massachusetts seeking recognition.
I yield the Senator 20 minutes off the resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank our friend and colleague from
North Dakota for his leadership on this issue. I hope that those who
have had the chance to listen to opening debate will pay close
attention over the next 4 days. This is an enormously important
document we are debating. It is an indication of a nation's priorities.
It is important that we listen with care to the discussion.
Money isn't everything, but it is a measure of a nation's priorities.
Budgets are moral documents. They represent who we are and what we
value. Just 6 weeks ago, the President delivered a State of the Union
Address that gave hope to many of us in Congress for a budget that
meets the needs of the American people. The President told us that
night that a hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens in
times of suffering and emergency and stays at it until they are back on
their feet. But the budget before us tells a different story. It fails
to meet the security needs of Americans who are looking for real
security in the face of terrorism.
We have seen the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, the failure in
Iraq, a failing grade from the 9/11 Commission, failure on the security
of our ports, failure in curbing nuclear power in Iran and North Korea,
failure after failure when it comes to our national security. But you
would never know it from this budget. Does it prepare us for the next
disaster? Does it support a winning strategy in Iraq? Does it fully
invest in the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission? Does it secure
our ports and inspect every shipping container crossing our shore? When
it comes to nuclear weapons, does it provide the resources needed for
real nonproliferation? The answer to each one of these questions is no.
The administration and the Republicans may talk about national
security, but the real record is one of mistake and failure.
This budget is a failure, too, when it comes to meeting the needs of
our families here at home. When it comes to healing the sick, feeding
the hungry, caring for the poor, the elderly, or the disabled, this
budget falls short. When it comes to strengthening our economy, opening
the doors of opportunity, creating new jobs, and equipping America to
compete in the global economy, this budget again falls short. Instead,
it cuts vital programs on which people rely and offers even more tax
cuts to the wealthy.
Franklin Roosevelt had it right: The test of our progress is not
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is
whether we provide enough for those who have too little. This budget
does none of that. Countless families are facing serious problems. They
are being hit on all sides with higher health costs, higher heating
costs, higher college costs, higher gas prices. Their jobs and pensions
are in danger. Their savings are at an all-time low. They are caught in
a prescription drug nightmare because of a bill that put the drug
industry and the insurance industry ahead of patients.
These are hard-working men and women who play by the rules and take
care of their families, but this budget lets them down. Instead of
investing in education, it cuts school programs. Instead of helping the
elderly with their heating bills, it slashes funding for low-income
heating programs. Instead of training workers for new jobs, it
eliminates job training and vocational education programs. Instead of
helping
[[Page S2001]]
our young people afford college, it cuts college aid. But it provides
for $1.7 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. Those are the wrong
priorities for America. Compare that to the recent cuts to Medicaid.
Compare that with the $379 million cut in heating assistance for the
poor. Compare that with the cuts to education. Compare that with the
$456 million needed to help disadvantaged high school students reach
college under the TRIO, Upward Bound, or Talent Search Programs.
Yes, a budget is a statement of priorities, and we have seen where
this administration's priorities are on health. The Medicaid Program is
key to promoting a real culture of life in America. Medicaid provides
care to a third of all mothers giving birth, including the prenatal,
pediatric care their children need to be healthy.
Mere hours after the President declared in the State of the Union
Address that the Government would meet its responsibility to provide
health care for the poor and elderly, the President signed a bill to
impose draconian cuts on the Medicaid Program. According to the
Congressional Budget Office, that bill will cause 45,000 poor Americans
to lose coverage over the next 5 years, and 65,000 will lose coverage
within 10 years, and 60 percent of those losing coverage will be
children.
In Maryland, a quarter of families subject to increased premiums
disenrolled. In Oregon, higher costs caused disenrollment, and 67
percent of those who disenrolled became uninsured. Because of these
Medicaid cuts, 13 million Medicaid beneficiaries will have to pay more
for their prescriptions over the next 5 years, and 20 million will have
to pay more over the next 10 years.
When copayments rise for the poorest patients, health declines. A
study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that
increased copayments for medications for poor families caused an 88-
percent increase in adverse events, such as heart attacks and strokes,
and caused a 78-percent increase in emergency room visits.
This is what happens. If you cut back on providing assistance with
copays for individuals who otherwise would be eligible, we are finding
out, you end up paying a great deal more out of the health care budget,
in addition to increasing the pain, anxiety and difficulties these
families are facing.
A single mother with two children who makes $8 an hour currently pays
$3 when she visits the doctor and does not have any cost sharing when
her children go to the pediatrician. Under the new law, when her child
goes to the pediatrician with an ear infection, she may be charged $20.
When she goes to a doctor for treatment and a test for diabetes, she
will pay $50. She may have to pay as much as $832 a year.
A single mother with two children earning $25,000 now pays no
premiums or cost sharing for a child's medical care and pays $3
copayments for herself. Under the new law, she will now be charged
monthly premiums for Medicaid coverage for herself and her children.
Even if she manages to pay the premiums, she may have to pay $40 for a
visit to the pediatrician, and she will have to pay as much as $1,250 a
year for Medicaid.
Do you know what happens? Those parents, when they have that sick
child who has the ear infection or has that cough, are thinking: Is
this child $40 sick or $50 sick? Or if I go to the emergency room, is
this child $125 sick? Is my child $125 sick? I think I will wait
tonight. Sure, they are coughing, and sure they are in pain, sure they
are suffering, but I am working at a low paying job, and I have to make
the decision about whether I can afford care.
For a single mother of two earning the minimum wage, the new Medicaid
law imposes additional cost sharing on her children. They would now
face copayments for certain prescription drugs, and these copayments
would, for the first time, be indexed to the rate of medical inflation,
which is higher than the general inflation. And on minimum wage, her
income would not even keep up with general inflation since the minimum
wage has not been increased since 1997.
To add to these damaging reductions, the President's budget proposes
another $14 billion in reductions to Medicaid. The Senate budget
resolution has not adopted these serious cuts, but time and again, we
have seen how the House-Senate conferees follow the administration's
proposal rather than the Senate's measure.
The President's budget proposes $36 billion in Medicare cuts over the
next 5 years and $105 billion over the next 10 years. This means higher
premiums for seniors and the disabled and will result in reductions of
quality of care at hospitals and home health agencies.
In Massachusetts, President Bush's Medicare proposal will mean that
our hospitals will have to cut their budgets by more than $400 million,
home health agencies by $50 million, and nursing homes by $150 million.
Again, the Senate resolution has not adopted these reductions, but we
know where the conference report is likely to end up.
In addition, the budget resolution includes a deeply troubling
procedural barrier to fixing the problems in the Medicare drug program.
The Republican budget effectively torpedoes any sensible measure to
improve the benefit provided to seniors by requiring any such
improvements to overcome a point of order.
The budget resolution has adopted major reductions to public health
programs. Under these reductions, Massachusetts would lose millions of
dollars for programs that protect the health and safety of our people.
That cut means 17 rape crisis centers across our State will face
significant financial hardship, and our programs on violence prevention
and suicide would effectively be eliminated.
The cuts mean that programs to keep our children healthy would be
eliminated. Programs to screen newborns as early as possible for
hearing loss would be eliminated and so would our State oral health
program. That means 59,000 children would not get basic dental
screening, and over 35 programs that train health care providers to
deliver care in underserved areas and support diversity and proficiency
in health care would be eliminated.
Although we are living with the threat of natural and manmade
disasters, the proposed cuts would compromise our emergency medical
services and impair the system's ability to function as a safety net
for catastrophe.
Under the chairman's budget, NIH funding will barely keep up with
inflation. Last year's budget was cut so our medical research programs
are still suffering setbacks. Over the last 2 years, the NIH budget has
increased by an average of 1 percent per year. Not since 1970 has the
NIH been so consistently underfunded. If the NIH budget were simply to
keep up with inflation since 2005, we will have to increase the budget
by another $1.8 billion.
This chart indicates the Bush administration cuts to vital NIH
research. We see the important increases during early 2000, 2001, 2002,
and 2003. Then we see dramatic reductions. Under the President's
budget, the NIH budget would be flat for the second year in a row. That
hasn't happened in more than half a century.
This is the century of the life sciences. With all that we know about
the slicing of the gene, DNA, and all the possibilities of stem cell
research, most researchers believe that the opportunities to make
enormous progress on the diseases which affect every family, whether it
is cancer, Alzheimer's, or heart disease, are immeasurable. But we are
not going to have those promises fulfilled if we see the kinds of
reductions that we have seen in this budget.
We hear a great deal about the challenges we are facing to compete
internationally. We are told we need to be an innovative society, and
an innovative society needs innovative life sciences. That is certainly
an area of enormous possibility if we are going to provide resources
for the basic research. But, no, we are cutting back in these extremely
important areas. These are the areas in which we are cutting back: We
have seen reductions in the Cancer Institute, a reduction in the Heart,
Lung, and Blood Institute, reductions in research in diabetes and
kidney diseases. We know that $1 out of $4 spent under Medicare are
spent on diabetics; $1 out of $10 in the general health area are spent
on diabetics.
When we make breakthroughs in the diabetes treatments, we are going
to see an enormous change for the people who are affected by this
disease, and
[[Page S2002]]
we are going to have an enormous impact in terms of total health care
costs. But we are cutting back on those areas of research and we are
cutting back on mental health and cutting back on child health and
development. 18 of the 19 NIH institutes will suffer cuts compared to
the rate of inflation, which means that NIH will fall behind in the
race for new cures.
I don't believe those are America's priorities, but they are the
priorities of this President, and we are going to find out if they are
the priorities of this Senate.
Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has approximately 4\1/2\ minutes
remaining.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to address the issue of education.
This budget also fails to make education a priority. In this shrinking
world, education is an even greater priority than ever before, and our
budget should reflect that.
As a nation, we must invest in Americans by ensuring access to the
highest quality educational opportunities. We need to have the best
educated, the best trained, the most sophisticated individuals, and we
need to nourish the capacities of every person in the Nation.
Yet the President's budget has proposed the biggest cut to education
in the 26-year history of the Department of Education.
Here is what we have seen on the No Child Left Behind Act--I will
have an opportunity in the debate to go through this in greater
detail--but the commitment to No Child Left Behind, an Act signed into
law by the President, is to take every child who is not up to
proficiency and to make sure they are going to have the support systems
to get them up to proficiency--smaller class sizes, better trained
teachers, supplementary services, and greater involvement of parents in
these various programs.
However, what we have seen is that we are not living up to that
commitment--instead, we are leaving children behind because of
inadequate funding. This year alone, 3.5 million to 4 million of the
nation's students will be left behind.
We are seeing now under the current program that 29 States are going
to lose Title I funding, which are funds for the schools in greatest
need. Under this budget, there are going to be some 29 States,
including the State of Virginia, that are going to lose funding.
Many of the programs that the President has slated for elimination--
GEAR UP, TRIO Upward Bound and Talent Search--have been incredibly
successful in terms of providing students who might not have had the
opportunity to continue their education with the support they need to
do so. In the TRIO Upward Bound program we find that when measured
against students of similar backgrounds, nearly 70 percent of the
students who participate in these programs go on to higher education.
If we take a similar review of the students who don't participate, only
about 54 percent of them attend college.
Now let's look at what is happening in higher education. This chart
shows the cost of attendance at a 4-year public college versus the
maximum Pell grant. In 2001, we look at the gap between the cost of
going to a 4-year public college, and we look at it today, and we see
how this gap has grown to about 8,000 dollars. We have about 400,000
young Americans who would be able to go to college and who want go to
college, who have the intellectual ability to go to college, but who
just cannot afford it. And those numbers are increasing dramatically
over time.
At an appropriate time, I intend to offer an amendment, hopefully
with my colleague Senator Menendez and others, that will increase the
maximum Pell grant from $4,050 to $4,500, restore the eliminations of
TRIO, GEAR UP, the LEAP program, and Perkins loans, and further
increases the funding for all student aid programs, including what they
call the SEOG, work study and graduate education, and restores cuts in
vocational education and job training programs.
The cuts in the job training program make no sense whatsoever. We
have 73,000 jobs that are going begging in my State of Massachusetts.
We have 156,000 people who are looking for jobs. What is missing is the
connection between the training of those people who want the jobs and
the jobs that are there, and in this particular budget, we are cutting
those training programs, cutting the education programs, cutting the
training programs, and even reducing the title I programs that are so
essential.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 20 minutes.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I suggest the
absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allen). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, how much additional time does the Senator
need?
Mr. KENNEDY. An additional 4 minutes.
Mr. CONRAD. I yield an additional 4 minutes to the Senator from
Massachusetts on the resolution.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, please let me know when I have 30 seconds
left.
At some time, we will have an opportunity to see the Senate vote for
an increase in the areas of education, offset by closing a loophole
that has been accepted here in the Senate by 80 votes or more that are
available out there at the present time.
As many of us have seen, in a recent report, it was stated that about
650,000 engineers will graduate from China this year. There will be
330,000 engineers graduating from India, and 72,000 engineers from the
United States--and half of those are foreign students. We are falling
further and further behind. We are not talking just about outsourcing,
we are talking about outsourcing basic research. When we find IBM
opening up their new research centers in Bangalore, Intel opening up
their new research centers abroad, hiring 2,500 engineers over there,
we have to ask: Where are we here in the United States? Are we giving
the appropriate kinds of support for students to continue their
education?
We have seen the request and the statements that have been made in a
bipartisan way by Senator Alexander and Senator Bingaman, the reports
of the Academy of Engineers, the National Academy of Sciences, all of
which say that we need to respond here in the United States the way we
responded at the time the Russians sent up Sputnik, and that is to have
a major investment in the young people of this country.
Yes, we can give focus and attention just narrowly to math and
science, and certainly we ought to provide that, but in order to really
meet the challenge we are facing because of globalization, we have to
make sure we have the best trained, best educated young people and that
they are ready to meet these challenges. We need to equip every single
American with the ability to compete and succeed, and we need to equip
our country to be able to deal with globalization and ensure that we
are well-educated, that we will be an innovative economy, and that we
will provide innovative research. And when we have an innovative
economy, we will have an innovative defense.
This is a matter of national security. This is a matter of national
security and national defense, making sure that we are going to be at
the cutting edge of all of the research that is possible over a period
of years. That is going to be the issue in question on which we will
have an opportunity to vote during the course of this debate and
discussion, and I look forward to the opportunity to do so.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I say to colleagues on our side of the
aisle, what we are attempting to do is change
[[Page S2003]]
the way we handle the budget debate this year and to do it in a way
that will have more of the votes occur before the vote-athon on
Thursday night. That is what Senator Gregg and I are attempting to
accomplish. It is going to take cooperation.
What we are doing with our colleagues now, we have agreed on the
first six amendments to be debated and the time for each. What we are
asking our colleagues to do is agree to exchange time for certainty--
certainty of when their amendment would be considered, certainty for
the amount of time they would have but less time than they could have
under the rules. People can disagree and they can say: No, we won't
agree to that. If they don't agree, we are going to be right back in
the soup, and we will be here until the wee hours Thursday. We don't
think that is the best way to debate this issue. We don't think that is
the best way for colleagues, all of our colleagues, to have the best
chance of having their amendments considered.
So I am sending this message out to colleagues: If we work together,
I think we can improve this budget debate process and have a whole
series of votes tomorrow afternoon that we won't then have to have
Thursday and do it again the next day and do it again the next day.
That is what we are asking colleagues to do.
Mr. President, would 20 minutes be sufficient for the Senator from
North Dakota?
Mr. DORGAN. Twenty minutes, yes.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from
North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have enjoyed the debate, the discussions
today, and I have watched some of it from my office. The budget is a
discussion about this country's value systems. It is very simple. I
have mentioned many times on the floor the proposition that if someone
asked you to write an obituary for someone you had never met but who
had died and the only information you had about that person was their
check register, what would you write? Well, you would write a little
something about what that person felt were his priorities in life, what
was his or her value system. What did they invest in? What did they
spend money on? That would represent their value system. That is what
you would tell about that deceased person you never met.
One hundred years from now, we will all be dead. Historians will be
able to look back at this moment and say: What were our values? What
was our value system? By looking at the Federal budget, they will say:
Here is what the United States held dear; here is what they invested
in; here is what their priorities and their values were.
Now, because this budget represents a set of priorities and values,
it is important to take a look at the first step in the budget process,
and that is the budget sent to us by President.
I recall, in the year 2001, the debate on the floor of the Senate
about the President's fiscal policy. This President came to town at the
time when we had a very large budget surplus for the first time in many
decades, and were predicting surpluses in future years.
This President said: Let's give away this future surplus. This money
doesn't belong to the Government; it belongs to the taxpayers.
Some of us said: Well, we don't have that surplus yet. Yes, the year
that we are in is a surplus, but we don't have the next 10 years as a
surplus. What if something should happen? Maybe we should be a little
conservative.
The President said: No, don't worry about being conservative. Let's
give back money we don't have but are expected to have because experts
tell us we will have a big surplus during the next 10 years.
So the President got his way and gave very large tax cuts. The most
significant amount went to the wealthiest Americans. And those large
tax cuts which now eat quite a hole in our revenue stream for this
Government turned out to be tax cuts, cutting revenue at the time when
we hit a recession some months later, the 9/11 attacks in 2005, about 9
months, 8 months later; then we had the war on terrorism, the war in
Iraq. So these large budget surpluses turned into very large budget
deficits.
My colleague, Senator Conrad, has described with this chart where
this administration will take us. This doesn't take an advanced degree
from Wharton School of Economics to understand. All you have to do is
look at this red ink and evaluate where this fiscal policy is taking
America.
I believe both political parties have contributed mightily to this
country. These are political parties, Democrats and Republicans, that
have a grand tradition of offering good ideas to America.
One of the things you used to be able to count on the Republicans for
was fiscal policy. The caricature was that they wore wire-rimmed
glasses and gray suits, they looked like they just swallowed a lemon,
and you could always count on them saying: We demand a balanced budget;
we demand a fiscal policy that adds up for the good and for the wealth
and for this country's future. There is no such thing as those
conservative Republicans anymore. There is a Republican in the White
House, and Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate who have a
completely different fiscal policy. It is a fiscal policy that steps us
up year after year after year after year toward greater debt.
I told you, things didn't turn out quite the way the President
suggested. He got his way here in the Congress because he had the votes
to get his way. So we have a fiscal policy that cut taxes mostly for
the wealthy--a few crumbs for the rest but mostly tax cuts for the
wealthy--and increased spending, especially relating to the aftermath
of 9/11 and the war in Iraq. We had the Emergency Terrorism Response
Supplemental Appropriations Act and DOD Appropriations Act, $17.6
billion added to that as an emergency in the fiscal year 2002;
emergency supplemental, $13.6 billion, 2002; emergency supplemental,
$65.9 billion, 2003; emergency supplemental, $85 billion, 2004. I could
go on and on. Over $400 billion sent to us by this President as an
emergency request passed by the Congress, none of it paid for, all of
it piled right on our children's debt which they will pay for at some
point in the future.
Now, did Congress vote for this? Sure. Is anybody going to say: Let's
send our troops, but let's not provide the equipment they need? No, I
don't think so. I think most of us have the same view on that. You send
troops to go into harm's way, then you have a responsibility to provide
the things they need to do their job. But shouldn't there be some
requests of the rest of the American people--not just the troops but
the rest of the American people--to weigh in here and to help pay for
some of these things? If we are going to ask that it be spent in
support of the troops, shouldn't we ask that it also be paid for?
As I said, we have a fiscal policy that is out of balance, out of
control, and we need to put it back on track. Let me describe what is
happening with some of this emergency money. It is the case that we
have been hit with a lot of things: a recession back in 2001--and no,
President Bush didn't inherit a recession. Let's set the facts
straight, if we can. The recession that began on this President's
watch, then 9/11, and then a series of others things, including
Hurricane Katrina.
Not only do we have a fiscal policy that is completely and thoroughly
out of whack, adding debt after debt after debt to our children year
after year, we also have a sea of incompetence almost never before
seen. Let me describe that with respect to Hurricane Katrina.
This is a picture of Paul Mullinax. Do you see Paul there? He has a
portable radio, he has a couple of bottles of water, it looks like
maybe he has some chips, and I think this is a little stove.
Paul is a really interesting guy. I met him, actually. He is an
independent truck driver from Florida. As you see, he is sitting out in
front of his truck. This is Paul's truck. He was sitting with a long
line of trucks, and that picture was taken on a base, Maxwell Air Force
base in Montgomery, AL. There were 100 refrigerated trucks at
Montgomery, AL.
Mr. Mullinax was instructed by FEMA, in the post-Katrina Hurricane
period, to take a truckload of ice from Newburgh, NY, to Montgomery,
AL. Actually they said take it to Carthage, MO, first so he picked up
the ice at Newburgh, NY, and then he went to Carthage, MO, and the
minute he got there they told him you need to go to
[[Page S2004]]
Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, AL, so he got there.
Then Mr. Mullinax sat there in front of his refrigerator truck for 12
days with 100 other refrigerator trucks that were also hauling ice. The
victims of Katrina desperately needed this ice, but it just sat there
at an Air Force base in Alabama.
So here was Paul, a Florida trucker who hauled the ice to Missouri,
then was told you need to go to Alabama, and with 100 other truckers,
Paul sat in front of his truck for 12 days. Then he was told by FEMA,
you need to take this ice to Massachusetts. You think I am kidding. I
hear someone giggling about that. The folks who were the victims of
Katrina needed the ice but he was told by FEMA to deliver it to
Gloucester, MA, and so he did. I don't know what happened to the other
trucks. There were 100 trucks lined up there.
It cost $15,000 to have the American taxpayers have Paul pick up ice
in New York and deliver it to Massachusetts by way of Carthage, MO, and
Maxwell Air Force Base, AL. In the meantime, the victims of Hurricane
Katrina could not get any ice. So Paul sat. Then he went to
Massachusetts to offload his ice. One load of ice, and there were
hundreds and hundreds of such trucks--and just one load of ice cost
$15,000, and was hauled from New York ultimately to Massachusetts.
A Mississippi sheriff, in the middle of all this, got so frustrated
with the ice truck fiasco that he ended up commandeering 2 trucks full
of ice and sending them directly to the relief centers for Hurricane
Katrina. Sheriff Billy McGee saw trucks sitting at a staging area in
Camp Shelby, MS, so he ordered two of the trucks to be sent to Brooklyn
and Sheeplow, MS, and a National Guard man tried to stop the sheriff
from rerouting these two trucks. The sheriff had the guardsman arrested
and got the trucks where they were to be offloaded for the victims, and
now the sheriff is being prosecuted for a misdemeanor.
Why do I tell you all this? Because we are spending a massive amount
of money with parts of a Government that are fundamentally incompetent.
It is almost unbelievable to see the way some of this money is
wasted. I think a lot of people take a look at the Federal Government
and they say there is a lot of waste, and I agree with that. We ought
to tighten our belts. We ought to get rid of some of this waste.
But there are lots of programs that are vitally important, and that
deserve funding. This includes, for instance, health programs for
people who live in rural areas of America. The President doesn't
distinguish between good spending and bad spending. The President
doesn't do that. He says my biggest priority is to preserve a 15-
percent tax rate on capital gains and, oh, by the way, everything else
can go by the wayside to pay for it.
So the community service block grant--it doesn't matter, we can get
rid of that if we want to. Rural health, we can get rid of that. All
these issues are less important to this administration than the issue
of preserving the 15-percent tax rate on capital gains. That is a fact.
I have worked with Senator Conrad for many years. We both come from
the same State. There is nobody better prepared on the floor of the
Senate to make the case on thoughtful and solid budgeting than Senator
Conrad. He understands common sense, understands the numbers.
I see another of my colleagues volunteering for recognition here--and
I will say that the chairman of the committee and the ranking member of
the committee have had an impossible job.
Trying to make sense of the budget sent to us by this administration
is like trying to connect two ends of two plates of spaghetti. It is
impossible. It cannot work because this is a budget that does not add
up under any set of circumstances.
Social services, that is the money that goes in grants and direct
appropriations to both agencies and nonprofits to help people around
this country--they are the ones that take a hit in many of these areas.
I held a meeting with social service groups and nonprofits in North
Dakota and asked them about this budget. They told me about the people
who are going to get hurt as a result of this. None of those people
serve here in this Chamber. They are just people who try to make a
living every day or try to exist in retirement with little income.
One of the stories that was interesting to me was a nonprofit group
which the day before had an 81-year-old woman show up applying for a
job. This is a group that helps people get work. The 81-year-old woman
wanted a job. Why? Because she lost her last job. What was her last
job, at 81 years old? Cleaning office buildings at 1 a.m. Go in at 1 in
the morning and clean office buildings at age 81. The company downsized
a little bit and she lost her job and now she wants another job. Why?
Because her payment under Social Security was $170 a month. That is
what she was left with. So she has to work at 81.
Should this budget reflect the needs of this woman who is cleaning
buildings at 1 in the morning at age 81? Sure it should. There are a
lot of people in this country who are vulnerable, who are in
difficulty, who understand they need some help. A good budget, a
thoughtful budget reaches out to those folks to say here is a helping
hand. We want to help you up. This budget doesn't do that.
This budget offers a helping hand only to the rich. In fact, every
budget since 2001 has been a budget that says let's give a helping
hand--to those who have much. That is the way the budget has been
working. It is unbelievable.
I want to put up another picture. I have used this a fair number of
times. I do it because a budget is about how much revenue do you have
and how much spending are you going to have. Let me tell you why we
don't have enough revenue, and why the President wants to cut funding
for key programs, especially program cuts that will hurt the most
vulnerable in our country.
This is a nice picture of something called the Ugland House. It is a
five-story white building on Church Street in the Cayman Islands.
According to David Evans, an enterprising reporter who did the story
about this building, this building houses 12,748 companies. The
companies are not all there in person. I am not suggesting that. But
this is the official home in the Cayman Islands, on Church Street, for
12,748 companies.
Do you know why? It is their mailing address. They need a formal
mailing address in a tax haven country so they can run their income
through a tax haven country and avoid paying the taxes they would owe
to the United States of America.
This goes on, getting worse. Is anybody talking about cutting that?
No, not really. In fact, this issue of cutting taxes for those who are
the most well off in America is not abating at all. This administration
believes its highest priority is to retain that 15 percent.
Interestingly enough, we don't have enough money for community
development block grants, rural health, the Byrne grants and so on, but
last year there was enough money in this Chamber to decide that these
companies and many more should get a 5.25-percent tax rate. That is
right, 5.25-percent tax rate on money they repatriate from abroad. The
expectation was they were going to pay a 35-percent tax rate. That was
the statutory rate. But we said--I didn't vote for it--but we said as a
Congress, we want to be generous so all of those big companies with
standard brands out there you would recognize, they want to repatriate
$30 billion worth of income, bring it back to this country. Did they
pay 10-percent income taxes on it as most people would at the lowest
income Americans? No, they didn't. Fifteen percent or 25 percent or 30?
No, they didn't pay any of that. They paid 5.25 percent. They saved
$102 to $104 billion.
This Senate had enough resources to decide we want to give the
biggest interests of this country a $102 billion tax break by allowing
them to pay a 5.25-percent tax rate but now we say we are out of money,
we can't afford to deal with those ends of the spending side that
affect the most vulnerable in our country.
I think those are very strange priorities. There is much to be said
about this budget. I am mindful, also, that it is easier to criticize
than it is to propose. I think it was Mark Twain who was once asked if
he would be engaged in a debate and said, Of course, as long as I can
take the negative side. They said, We haven't told you the subject. He
said, It doesn't matter, the negative side takes no preparation.
[[Page S2005]]
This takes even less than no preparation, to look at this budget and
look at what this is doing to America and understand that this is to
fiscal policy like mud wrestling is to the performing arts. This is an
abysmal failure that is dragging this country down, down, down into
deeper debt. The question I think most people would ask--they certainly
ask those who propose this from the White House, and those who
construct it here, is do you believe adding additional debt is a move
toward greater sensibility in fiscal policy?
The answer has to be no.
I have a whole series of recommendations on where we should cut
funding. I will not go over them at the moment and I will be happy to
come back at some point. I would start with programs such as TV Marti.
We actually spend money--we bought a new airplane last year to send
television signals to Cubans that they can't see. We have spent close
to $200 million on that program. It ought to be shut off immediately,
but we can't do it because too many of the Members of the Senate keep
voting for it. Why? Because of Florida. Why? Because of politics.
That is for another day. I have a whole series of recommendations.
These are areas where we can and should cut Federal spending. I think
we ought to. We ought to begin collecting revenues from companies that
have been generously provided tax breaks from the Senate and our
colleagues in the House, pushed by this President. We ought to get our
fiscal house in order.
As I started, I said I watched some of this debate today. This is
very important. This establishes some of the priorities for this
Congress and I hope finally this year we might get them right.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota, Senator Conrad.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from
North Dakota, for his comments and for his insights. I especially like
his picture of the building in the Cayman Islands that is the home to
more than 12,700 companies. Why is it their home? Because they are
engaged in a giant tax dodge, that is why. What they are doing is
acting as though they are doing business in the Cayman Islands so they
can show their profits in the Cayman Islands, because the Cayman
Islands do not have any taxes. What these companies are doing, many of
them are operating in the United States where they earn their money,
but they don't show their profits here. They have a series of
subsidiaries and they show the profits of the subsidiaries in the
Cayman Islands so they avoid their taxes here. That is what is going
on. It is a giant scam. That is not the only scam. There are all kinds
of scams going on.
One of perhaps the most remarkable scams is that companies in the
United States are buying sewer systems of cities in Europe and
depreciating them on their books in the United States to reduce their
tax burden here. Then they lease back the sewer systems to the cities
in Europe that are actually using them. If that isn't an outrageous
scam, I don't know what is. They are not just doing it with sewer
systems, they are doing it with metro systems, they are doing it with
all kinds of public infrastructure. That should not be permitted. Some
say if you shut that down you are increasing taxes. I don't think so. I
think you are collecting taxes that were legitimately owed in the first
place and you are stopping a scam. That is what we did in the Budget
Committee. When we offered additional spending--and we did, we offered
$126 billion of additional spending and $104 billion of it was one
amendment.
Some might say, there the Democrats go again, spending money. What
were we spending money on? What was that amendment about? I will tell
you what it was about. It was to make the assistance for veterans in
this country mandatory, not discretionary. I think people will be
surprised to find out that the way our budget is devised, support for
our veterans is considered discretionary. Medicare is considered
mandatory, Social Security is considered mandatory, but aid to our
Nation's veterans is considered to be discretionary.
We thought that was not right so we proposed switching aid to
veterans from discretionary accounts to mandatory accounts because we
think that is what the American people intend. I don't think they think
it is a discretionary matter, to provide assistance to young men and
women who have been fighting for us in Afghanistan and Iraq. So we
proposed putting that on the mandatory side of the budget. That shows
up as a cost--$104 billion. We offset it by proposing closing tax
loopholes in the tax gap.
The tax gap is now running at $350 billion a year. The difference
between what is owed and what is being paid is $350 billion a year,
according to the testimony of the Revenue Commissioner of this
administration. He said it before the Senate Budget Committee, and he
said we could capture $50 billion to $100 billion a year without
fundamentally changing the relationship of taxpayers to the Revenue
Service. We should do that.
Some say that is a tax increase. I don't think that is a tax
increase; I think that is collecting taxes that are already due and
owed but aren't being paid. If we are not going to start insisting that
everybody pays, we are just going to run a system where some pay, then
shame on us, shame on the system. That is unfair to the vast majority
of people who are paying what they owe. The vast majority of people and
the vast majority of companies pay what they owe, but unfortunately we
have an increasing number of people and an increasing number of
companies that aren't. That is unfair to all the rest of us, and it is
dramatically increasing the debt of our country at the worst possible
time.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CONRAD. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there are two other issues that relate to
a tax hike, because a budget is about how much revenue you have coming
in and how much you are preparing to spend. I mentioned this little
Christmas gift--it is not really little--$102 billion given by the
Congress to companies that had parked income overseas but were
anticipating having to repatriate to this country and pay a 35-percent
corporate tax rate. This Congress and the President felt: Gee, we
probably should--maybe I should not include the President so much; it
was more the Congress decided that we really ought to give those
corporations a 5\1/4\-percent tax rate or a $102 billion tax break. So
the Congress did, and not with Senator Conrad's vote nor my vote, but
nonetheless the Congress did that. About $330 billion was repatriated.
Very quickly, we learned that the pharmaceutical industry repatriated
at the early stages--I am not sure what the final stage was--$75
billion which they earned abroad. The interesting thing was the
pharmaceutical industry said: We charge the highest prices to American
consumers because we don't make money elsewhere. We have to charge
lower prices in other countries because we are prevented from charging
higher prices. Now we discover they were making a lot of money overseas
because given the chance to pay a 5\1/4\-percent tax rate, when they
repatriated it, they repatriated a bunch of money they earned overseas
at lower prices for the same prescription drugs. We not only saw the
taxpayers short shrifted by the highest prices in the world, but now we
see the drug companies getting $75 billion of their income being taxed
at 5\1/4\ percent.
If I might make one additional point, we also have a provision in tax
law which says to companies: Shut down your plant in America, fire your
workers, move it to China, and we will give you a tax cut. And by the
way, the Joint Tax Committee says that is worth $1.2 billion a year or
$12 billion in 10 years. So we will spend $12 billion in the next 10
years giving tax cuts to companies that shut their American plants,
fire their American workers, and move their jobs overseas. If there is
any perversity in this Congress, it is those who refuse to be willing
to shut down that kind of a tax break. We have had four votes on it. I
have offered it four times. We have lost all four times. And on four
occasions, people stood up here in the Senate and supported a tax break
to companies that would ship their jobs overseas. It is almost
unbelievable.
The reason I mention this is that in the case of putting together a
budget,
[[Page S2006]]
you ought to be able to at least shut down those drains on the revenue
side that run against the public interest in this country. Is it in the
public interest to pay those companies to shut down their American
plants and fire their workers? I don't think so. Certainly it is not.
It is just nuts for the Congress to be saying: Let us reward that
behavior. And that is exactly what is happening this year to the tune
of $1.2 billion.
I say to my colleague from North Dakota that there are many areas in
revenue where we would try to plug a drain on our revenue, and the
other side will say: You are increasing taxes. Yes. I am increasing
taxes for those who aren't paying, for God's sake.
Maybe somebody camped out in the Ugland House, an official address in
the Cayman Islands, with a lawyer camped out, so they can move their
jobs to China, sell their products in America, and run their income
through a house in the Cayman Islands and avoid paying taxes. Do we
want to increase their taxes? Darned right. Why? Because they are not
paying their fair share. Everybody else does. What about them? Yet the
majority party keeps saying that if you are going to plug these
loopholes, you are increasing taxes. That is a strange viewpoint, and I
think one we need to fix. We need to solve these problems.
I appreciate the work of Senator Conrad.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator. I don't consider it a
tax increase to actually collect the taxes that individuals or
companies already owe which they are not paying. That is not a tax
increase. No tax rate is increased. That is not creating a new tax;
that is collecting the taxes that are already owed.
The Revenue Commissioner testified before the Senate Budget Committee
that the tax gain--the difference between what is owed and what is
actually being paid--is $350 billion a year. The deficit is going to be
$371 billion, and we are not collecting $350 billion of revenue that is
owed. I don't consider that a tax increase. I think that is simply
enforcing the laws that already exist.
I want to again alert colleagues. We are trying to change the way the
budget debate occurs. The chairman and I are trying very hard. We have
heard the complaints of our colleagues about vote-aramas. A vote-arama
typically occurs because time runs out before the amendment that has
been offered has a chance to be voted on under the rules of the Senate.
We are trying to make sure that the people have a chance to debate
those amendments and get a vote and dispense with some of these votes
before we get to Thursday night.
I hope very much that colleagues are going to agree to the timeframe
that we have set out in order to accomplish that purpose. If people
resist that, then we are going to be right back in a vote-arama
Thursday night and voting until the wee hours of the morning. If people
want a reform of the way we do business here, we need them to cooperate
and help us.
Perhaps the chairman could review what the order of business is going
to be for the rest of the afternoon and this evening in terms of the
opportunities that are going to exist for colleagues to come to the
floor tonight and talk about their amendments and make their opening
statements. We are going to be in business to the extent that people
take advantage of the time that is available.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota. I
agree with him and thank him for encouraging our membership to
participate actively early in the debate.
As he mentioned, we hope to reduce the exercise known as vote-arama
so we are not here until the wee hours of Friday morning or Thursday
night, and one way to do that is to get these amendments up and get
them offered.
What we are going to do this evening is reach an agreement for the
first six amendments, which we will begin debating tomorrow in
sequence, and then we will vote them tomorrow, with the vote time
coming off the bill. This evening, we are going to have a vote at 5:30.
I hope Members will come down between now and 5:30 and talk about the
bill or talk about their amendments. Then, after the vote at 5:30, the
floor will be open for Members to come forward and talk about their
amendments--not to offer them at that time because we are going to set
up this sequence. If Members have amendments they wish to offer, get in
touch with us, and we will get them in debating order.
That is the game plan at the moment. I appreciate the efforts of the
Senator from North Dakota in making that happen.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, we have Members who are now on their way
to the floor to speak on the budget.
I again implore colleagues, if they want to make an opening
statement, tonight is the opportunity to do so. If they want to talk
about an amendment and not offer it tonight but talk about it, tonight
is the opportunity.
As we get into tomorrow, the time is going to be very scheduled in a
very disciplined way so that we can make maximum progress. It is going
to be that way Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday until we finish.
Tonight is the opportunity to make opening statements. Tonight is the
night to talk about amendments that you might otherwise not get time to
talk about. Again, this won't be the time to actually offer amendments,
but you can describe it, you can debate it, and you can discuss it.
Please. We are giving colleagues this opportunity tonight so that
tomorrow we can get amendments up and vote on amendments and get the
work of the Senate concluded.
I thank the Chair.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I talked earlier about the $12 billion
expenditure, $1.2 billion a year over the next 10 years, according to
the Joint Tax Committee, that we use to reward companies that move
their jobs overseas by giving them a tax break for such activity.
I have previously offered this on four occasions. I have lost it on
four occasions in the Senate. I can't believe there is anyone left in
the Senate who, having thoughtfully evaluated this, would believe we
should continue to give tax breaks to those who ship jobs overseas.
In the hope that other of my colleagues have seen the light or felt
the heat or some way or other found an epiphany about this subject, I
anticipate offering this again and consider my previous statement to be
an opening statement when I would offer such an amendment, so I
wouldn't require any particular time on it. I have already spoken on
it, and perhaps my two colleagues would consider at an appropriate
point accepting the amendment. It is infused with such wildly common,
common sense my hope would be that my colleagues would decide to simply
accept the amendment on this fifth occasion on the floor of offering
the amendment, especially inasmuch, I might say, as Ford Motor
announces that they are going to close plants and get rid of 30,000
workers, General Motors is going to get rid of 25,000 to 30,000
workers--and the list goes on. By the way, not only get rid of their
workers but cut their pensions and run them through with health care
problems and payment of corporate health care accounts.
Given all that news, my guess is that perhaps the sentiment would
have changed, believing maybe now is the appropriate time to shut down
this perverse tax incentive that rewards companies that fire their
American workers and move their jobs overseas.
At some appropriate point, I will consider offering it. I would not
need time to debate it.
Again, I say to my two colleagues that my hope and expectation would
be that you would just accept the amendment at some appropriate time.
And this would stand as some future discussion, if I offer that
amendment at the appropriate time.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I may have already asked, but let me renew
this unanimous consent request that for the duration of the budget
debate, when there is a quorum call, the time be deemed to be running
against both sides equally.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
water infrastructure
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I rise to engage the distinguished chairman
in a colloquy.
Mr. GREGG. I yield to the Senator.
Mr. CRAPO. I wish to express my appreciation for your efforts to put
together a well-crafted fiscal year 2007 budget resolution that
balances the
[[Page S2007]]
need for critical Government programs while taking a strong stand
against our budget deficit.
As the committee works to address these critical needs, one area of
the administration's request in particular needs special mention--the
proposal to reduce funding for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund,
CWSRF, and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, DWSRF. Although the
administration's budget submission makes a number of difficult choices,
the recommendation to reduce funding to the CWSRF and the DWSRF
represents a tremendous hardship for communities throughout the
country.
Recent studies show that our Nation's water and wastewater
infrastructure needs severely exceed the availability of resources at
the local and State level to meet them. So many towns and cities across
our country have exhausted their abilities to raise utility rates and
issue bonds to pay for needed improvements. At the same time,
increasing Federal water quality and drinking water standards force
utility managers to upgrade systems or fall into noncompliance.
No community or customer wants to be served by a failing water or
wastewater facility, but the Federal Government's commitment to
addressing these regulatory mandates must be mated with its assistance.
Without this commitment, communities can be left with nowhere to turn
for help. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2002 that the
United States has between $132 billion and $388 billion in clean water
infrastructure needs alone over the next 20 years and the spending gap
over that time will reach $70 to 360 billion. Similar figures affect
the Nation's drinking water infrastructure.
Idaho, a small State by population and infrastructure needs, still
only receives about $15 million annually, but its aggregate water and
wastewater needs over the next 20 years will approach $1 billion by
some estimates. For instance, the rural city of Castleford, ID, has
become out of compliance with the EPA's arsenic standard for drinking
water. In order to conform with the rule, the town, with a population
of less than 200, will have to expend more than its entire annual
operating budget to update the water infrastructure system.
The principal means for assisting utilities are the SRFs, which
provide a loan pool for State agencies to work with distressed
communities. The SRF assistance help finance infrastructure projects at
the local level, and those communities in turn repay those loans so
that the State might aid other communities in need.
That is why I believe it is so problematic to see a continuing
decline in funding for the CWSRF and DWSRF. As recently as 2 years ago,
funding was $1.35 billion and $850 million, respectively.
Unfortunately, budget pressure has forced the CWSRF down to $900
million in the current fiscal year, and the President has proposed to
reduce that to $688 million for the next year. While the DWSRF is
proposed at only an $8 million reduction, a fateful and disturbing
trend is developing.
As the past chairman of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee
on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water, I led efforts in two successive
Congresses to update and increase the authorization for the CWSRF and
DWSRF. Although those legislative initiatives never made it to the
Senate floor, I remain committed to helping communities in Idaho and
throughout the country address their water and wastewater needs.
During the debate on this budget resolution in the Budget Committee,
an amendment was offered to condemn the President's call for reductions
in those important accounts. I opposed that amendment because I want to
focus effort where it counts, by working with my distinguished chairman
and the Appropriations Committee to restore funding for the two SRFs to
the best of our abilities.
Mr. Chairman, I ask that you join me in working through the balance
of the budget resolution process, as well as during your service on the
Appropriations Committee, to help restore these vital funds.
Mr. GREGG. Thank you, Senator Crapo. I agree with your comments about
the importance of these resources, and I applaud your leadership in
this area. While the President's request for these accounts is lower
than many would like, I believe that during the appropriations process,
Congress will try to remedy this problem. As you know, historically,
the President tends to request lower funding levels for these accounts,
and Congress usually pluses them up through the appropriations process,
often quite significantly. For example, in 2004, 2005, and 2006,
Congress provided considerably more for the Clean Water SRF Program
than the President requested, +492 million, +291 million, and +$157
million, respectively. As Congress works to finalize the fiscal year
2007 budget resolution, I will continue to work with you on these
issues.
Additionally, in my role as a member of the Appropriations Committee,
I will certainly be cognizant of the funding needs for SRF Programs.
Mr. CRAPO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GREGG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the
vote scheduled for 5:30 today the Senate resume consideration of the
budget resolution for debate only this evening; provided further that
when the Senate resumes debate on the resolution on Tuesday, the Senate
begin consideration of the following amendments in the order listed
below under the listed times for debate: Conrad amendment, the Conrad-
Feingold amendment on pay-go for an hour, equally divided; the Talent
amendment on defense for an hour, equally divided; the Kennedy
amendment on education for an hour, equally divided; the Chafee
amendment on IDEA special education, an hour equally divided; the Byrd
amendment on veterans, equally divided; the Akaka veterans amendment,
equally divided.
I further ask consent the votes occur in relationship to the
amendments beginning at approximately 3 p.m. on Tuesday, with no
second-degree amendments in order prior to the votes in relationship to
the amendments. I ask consent that the vote time consumed under this
agreement count equally against the resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from North Dakota for working this
out. It is a good start to this bill. It gives us an opportunity to get
out of the box with a series of amendments, get them voted on and
hopefully reduce the vote-arama at the end of the bill.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for working this out,
as well. I thank our colleagues for their willingness to cooperate and
to say to other colleagues that this sets a good example. I hope very
much other colleagues and their staff are listening and that they
understand if we continue on this course, we could have a much better
budget debate and not wind up in that vote-arama, voting four times an
hour with very little discussion or debate intervening. I hope very
much colleagues are listening and that they will continue to cooperate.
I am especially grateful to the six colleagues who have already
agreed in this order to these time limits, at these times.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burr). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I take it the parliamentary situation is
such that it is in order for me to now be recognized?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. SARBANES. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, at the very outset, let me say I have closely followed
Senator Conrad's remarks on the budget. It is something I have done
each year he has
[[Page S2008]]
served as the ranking member on the Budget Committee. As always, I
found his presentation to be both clear and insightful. For anyone who
cares deeply about fiscal responsibility, as he does, the picture he
has painted of America's fiscal condition is deeply troubling. I
express my own deep appreciation to Senator Conrad, as I think people
all across the country should do, for seeking to focus attention on
this important problem.
Day by day, we have different issues which grab the headlines and the
public's attention, but, meanwhile, this deteriorating situation of
America moving further and further down into a fiscal box goes on. The
implications of that are very far reaching.
Senator Conrad has sought to call our attention to that, to focus our
attention upon it, and to make us come to grips with this challenge. I
commend him for what I think has been a very important public service.
As we set out to consider the budget for fiscal year 2007, I think it
is necessary for all of us to recognize the budget resolution is, in a
very basic sense, the most important document we will deal with in this
Congress.
The budget contains within it literally hundreds and hundreds of
decisions that are critical to our national life. Each time it comes
before us, it puts to us the questions: What are our values? What are
our priorities? What are we trying to accomplish as a society?
It is within the budget that we set our priorities. We make these
judgments: how much of our resources to commit, how much to raise
through the taxing system, how large a deficit to run. All of these are
very basic questions, and the priorities set among these programs
determine the direction of our national life.
Now, I think in order to judge the current budget and to develop some
informed and responsible answers, we need to place that budget in the
fiscal and economic context in which the Nation now finds itself.
You do not need a very long memory to recall that a few short years
ago, under President Clinton, as he was moving through his second term,
after we, the President and the majority in Congress, had made some
very hard choices on taxes and spending, restraining spending and
raising some taxes, primarily on upper-income people--we were able to
turn around the Nation's fiscal status.
In 1998, the Federal Government reported its first surplus in the
budget since the 1960s. When President Bush took office, we were in our
third straight year of a surplus in the Federal budget, and we were
projecting surpluses over the next 10 years of $5.6 trillion--five and
a half trillion dollars in surpluses projected over a 10-year period.
Obviously, this was a pretty healthy position to be in. It would
have, of course, allowed the Nation to pay down the large national debt
that had been accumulated as we moved through the 1980s and into the
1990s. But in what I predict history will write as a gross
irresponsibility, President Bush, in effect, squandered the projected
surpluses by instituting irresponsible and reckless tax cuts--tax cuts
whose overwhelming beneficiaries were those at the very top of the
income and wealth scale. These were not broad-based tax cuts. These
were tax cuts whose benefits, upon analysis, were seen to be focused
very much on the top few percent of the income scale.
When the President submitted his first budget proposal, he asserted:
We can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget
deficits, even if the economy softens.
``We can proceed with tax relief without fear of budget deficits,
even if the economy softens.''
The following year, with a budget already in deficit, the President
advocated for yet another tax cut--yet another--promising that ``our
budget will run a deficit that will be small and short term.'' In fact,
the President's budget that year, 2002, stated the deficits would be so
short term that today--as he was looking ahead--the Government would be
back in surplus.
Now, let's look at what has happened. Exactly the opposite of what
the President predicted has happened. Under the irresponsible fiscal
policy that this President has pursued, we have run deficits each and
every year since 2001.
In 2002, the deficit was $158 billion. President Bush inherited a
surplus in 2001 of $128 billion. The three previous years had had
surpluses as well, and then there was a $158 billion deficit in 2002.
The deficit rose to $378 billion in 2003, rose again in 2004 to $413
billion, fell slightly in 2005 to $319 billion, and is now projected to
go back up again in 2006 to $371 billion. Far from being small and
short term, these deficits are at record levels.
This chart shows the deterioration in the Nation's fiscal position
over the last 35 years. As we see, the budget went into the red more
and more and more. In fact, in 1992, we had the previous record deficit
of $289 billion. Then there were the years I referred to when we came
out of deficit and ran a surplus. Now we have dived back into deficit,
thanks primarily to the excessive tax cut and other factors, including
the slowing of the economy and the involvement in Iraq. We ran a record
deficit in 2004 of $413 billion. What an extraordinary deterioration in
fiscal position to go from here to there.
The deficits would be even larger if we were not using the Social
Security trust fund each year to mask the cost of the President's
policies. When we do a unified budget, we include in it any surplus or
deficit in the Social Security trust fund, and the Social Security
trust fund has been running a positive balance. That offsets the
picture of the deficits, but it is not a totally accurate picture.
The President has submitted a budget this year that would cause our
Nation's fiscal health to continue to deteriorate. Regrettably, the
President's budget does not even tell the whole story. It fails to
account for very significant and substantial obligations overseas and
for significant and substantial obligations at home. I want to give two
examples of that. There are others. We could develop a longer list. But
for purposes of illustration in terms of dealing with a budget that is
not fully transparent and fully accountable, I will give two examples.
From the very start of the war in Iraq, the administration has not
reflected its true cost in the budget and in the budget submissions. In
retrospect, one is given pause by the fact that the very day the
bombing started on Baghdad in March of 2003, we were debating the
budget resolution on the floor of the Senate--3 years ago.
Of course, since the war had just started at that time, the budget
resolution before us did not contain funding for that war. Instead, the
President came along and submitted a request for an emergency
supplemental appropriation to cover the initial war cost. That is not
out of the ordinary. The budget had been submitted. The war had not
been started. The money was not included for the war. I noted at the
time that the money requested in the emergency supplemental
appropriations was clearly only a downpayment and that much more would
be needed to cover the full cost of the war and of the reconstruction.
I am frank to say to my colleagues, I fully expected that the President
would include those costs in his next budget submission. In other
words, I expected that, having now become involved, the costs of that
involvement would be reflected in subsequent budget submissions, and
yet the President's budgets in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006
did not include a single cent for the ongoing cost of operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, the President continued to ask for
funding for Iraq and Afghanistan outside of the regular budget process.
This year the President has included a placeholder of $50 billion in
his budget. Even for the administration, after 2 years of not
recognizing these costs, it finally hit home that they had to do
something. So they put, as it were, a placeholder of $50 billion in the
budget that was submitted, when everyone knows that significantly more
than that figure will be needed. This is not responsible budgeting. The
President is refusing to own up to the true cost of his policies.
Let me turn to a domestic issue which is not fully reflected in the
budget but, again, as we know, is going to happen. That is the cost of
fixing the alternative minimum tax. This tax was put in place as part
of our Tax Code in order to require that very wealthy people, who are
using various exemptions and deductions in the Tax Code to avoid paying
any taxes at all, would
[[Page S2009]]
pay at least a certain amount of tax. It was an effort to assure some
equity and fairness in the workings of the tax system. What has
happened is that the threshold levels of the alternative minimum tax
have not been adjusted for inflation. As a consequence, this tax is
beginning to affect middle-class Americans to whom it was never
intended to apply. We have adjusted it in previous years. It is clear
it will need to be adjusted again at a significant cost. But those
costs are not reflected in the budget the President has submitted to
us.
When these two items are taken into account, plus the deficits the
President is projecting on the basis of his revenue and spending
programs, we are now projecting a 10-year deficit of $3.5 trillion.
Think about that. When the President came into office we were
projecting a surplus over 10 years of $5.6 trillion. Now we are
projecting a $3.5 trillion deficit. This is a deterioration in fiscal
position of over $9 trillion. Because of these annual budget deficits,
which we are running and are projected to continue to run, the debt of
the country is projected to explode. It is now projected to rise to
$11.8 trillion, almost $12 trillion, in gross Federal debt by the year
2011.
Look at this incredible runup in debt that has happened since 2001.
We have moved up in an escalating way. We are at $8.6 trillion in 2006.
We are projected to go to almost $12 trillion by 2011. Net interest
payments on this debt are expected to consume more than $1 trillion
over the next 5 years. These are just the interest payments on the
debt. Each dollar that we pay in interest is one less dollar that we
can invest in key areas that will help to keep our economy competitive
in the future. We face a global competition. Other nations are
investing in workforce training, physical infrastructure,
transportation networks, research and development. If we fail to rise
to that competitive challenge, we are going to fall behind, not move
ahead.
These debt figures, some say, are just numbers. It is hard to get
your imagination around $12 trillion in debt. But these numbers all
reflect real obligations. These will have to be paid off by the next
generation and the generation after them through higher taxes and a
reduced standard of living. As the New York Times put it in an
editorial entitled ``The Pain That is Yet to Come'':
America cannot escape the consequences of its debt
indefinitely. The effects may be sudden or gradual, but
either way they mean a weaker economy than would otherwise be
the case.
This debt has another troubling aspect to it as well. We are
financing this deficit by mortgaging our financial future to foreign
lenders. The United States, in roughly a quarter of a century, has gone
from being the world's largest creditor nation to being the world's
largest debtor nation. In my view, there is a basic contradiction
between being the world's largest debtor nation and asserting a role as
the world's leading nation.
Our international deficit, called our current account deficit, was
nearly $800 billion last year, over 7 percent of our Nation's gross
domestic product. In effect, we rely on over $2 billion of foreign
inflow into the country each and every day. Warren Buffett was recently
quoted as saying:
Right now the rest of the world owns 3 trillion more of us
than we own of them. In my view it will create political
turmoil at some point. Pretty soon I think there will be a
big adjustment.
This large adjustment could come in the form of higher interest rates
here at home, a sudden crash in the value of the dollar or a sharp drop
in our stock and bond markets. We don't know exactly what will happen
because we are not in control of our own economy. Much of that control
is in the hands of others overseas.
As Blanche DuBois said in Tennessee Williams' play, ``A Streetcar
Named Desire'':
We have become utterly dependent on the kindness of
strangers.
``Utterly dependent on the kindness of strangers.'' Obviously, this
situation should raise serious concerns about our ability to conduct
our foreign policy in the future if we are constrained and limited by
the need to keep our creditors willing to lend us money.
Regrettably, in the budget plan submitted this year, the President
offers no solution to bringing this national debt under control. In
fact, the President is calling for the permanent extension of his tax
cuts for the wealthy at a cost of trillions of dollars.
I didn't agree with the President's tax plan in the days in which we
had a budget surplus. I felt then it was too large, too heavily
weighted toward the wealthy. Some argued--and I thought it had some
logic to it--for a short-term targeted tax cut aimed primarily to
middle- and working-class Americans and, at the same time, using the
surplus to pay down our debt. In other words, to do a combination of
those things.
What I opposed and did not understand was the very excessive tax cuts
the President put forward then and his continued support today for tax
cuts in times of war and enormous budget deficits.
We keep moving along year to year in this way, and we make these
budget decisions, and then we go on to other business, but all the time
these policies are working to drive us deeper into debt. As I said,
much of this debt is held by foreign lenders, and that amount is
growing all the time.
At the end of fiscal year 2001, 31 percent of the outstanding Federal
Government debt was held by foreign lenders. Over the succeeding 4
years, borrowing from abroad accounted for more than 80 percent of the
increase in our Government debt. So we have seen the debt rise and the
portion of the debt held by foreign lenders, in percentage terms, rise
at a much more rapid rate.
If foreign lenders continue to buy 80 percent of new Federal debt,
the Federal Government will owe more than half of the debt to foreign
lenders by 2011. That is equivalent to almost 25 percent of our
expected gross domestic product. Think of the leverage we are placing
in the hands of foreign lenders. And a shift has also occurred from
private to Government lenders with respect to where those funds are
coming from.
Regrettably, the President's budget also cuts substantially a number
of programs designed to help working and middle-income people in this
country. For example, Federal education funding has been cut by the
largest amount in the 26-year history of the Department of Education.
These cuts come at a time when tuition and fee increases have placed
college education out of reach for many students. Since 2000, tuition
and fees have increased almost 60 percent for public 4-year colleges
and 32 percent for private 4-year colleges.
The budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development is,
once again, marked by cuts in programs that provide housing services
and a healthy home environment for millions of American households. The
President has proposed a 20-percent cut in community development block
grants, a 25-percent cut in elderly housing, a 50-percent cut in
housing for the disabled, and despite everyone's recognition of the
essential services provided by our police and firefighters--everyone
waxes eloquently about our first responders--the budget proposes to cut
funding for community police by close to $400 million and to cut the
fire programs by more than half.
Let me try to put this in a little bit of context in terms of the
choices being made with respect to priorities.
In fiscal year 2007, the benefit of the President's tax cuts for
millionaires, those with incomes over $1 million, will total $41.3
billion. That is the benefit for millionaires resulting from those tax
cuts.
I mentioned cuts in education, housing, police, and fire. We could
fund all of those programs that I listed--in other words, bring them
back up to the current levels--for less than 10 percent of the benefits
flowing from that tax cut for millionaires--less than 10 percent. I am
not supportive of the bulk of that tax cut. I think it was giving much
to those who already had more when we had other pressing needs facing
us. But just 10 percent of it would bring education, housing, fire, and
police back up to current base levels.
What does it say about our priorities as a nation that we are placing
these tax cuts for people at the very top ahead of investments in these
programs?
What is said, of course, is: We can't do the programs because we have
a deficit. The public needs to ask: Why do we have this deficit? And
the reason we
[[Page S2010]]
have it is because of the tax cuts. So in terms of setting priorities,
the tax cuts were given a higher priority than investments in education
or in housing or in stronger police and fire, and I could go through
the rest of the budget reflecting the same decisions and the same
choice in terms of priorities.
I could develop that list at some length, but let me conclude with
one last point. I think the American people have a strong sense of
fairness and equity. There have been a number of events during the
course of this administration which have underscored the necessity to
come together as a nation with this sense of fairness and equity--the
attacks of 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, the
devastation of Hurricane Katrina, most prominent among them. But to
move ahead, we must share the burden, and, unfortunately, the
President's budget continues to favor the very wealthy. They are not
carrying the burden. In fact, they are being relieved of some of the
burden through the tax cuts while leaving the majority of Americans to
carry the burden.
So as we move forward with this budget process, we need to ask
ourselves: What are our priorities as a nation? In my judgment, the
President's budget does not reflect the values of the American people.
It is neither fair nor responsible. While some changes were made in the
Budget Committee, I still think it basically reflects the policies
submitted to us by the President which I think are not fair, not
responsible, and I urge my colleagues to reject the budget resolution.
Mr. President, I know Senator Feingold is here on the floor and would
like to be recognized for up to 25 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. SARBANES. I ask unanimous consent for that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. FRIST. Reserving the right to object, I have a short statement to
make, and then I will be happy to yield to the Senator from Wisconsin
or have the ranking member yield to him.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the unanimous consent
request?
Mr. FRIST. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will be very brief. I am obviously
disturbed--I know what the Senator from Wisconsin will be presenting
shortly. I expect him to offer a resolution to censure the President of
the United States--he made those intentions clear yesterday, and I
expect him to do that shortly--a censure of the President for defending
the United States of America and protecting our homeland security.
As I implied in some statements I made publicly yesterday, I do
believe this is a political stunt, a political stunt that is addressed
at attacking the President of the United States of America when we are
at war, when the President is leading us with a program that is lawful,
that is constitutional, and that is vital to the safety and security of
the American people. It is being offered at a time--with really an
attack on what the President is doing--at the same time we have
terrorists right now intending to attack Western civilization and,
indeed, the people of our homeland.
With that being my feeling and the intention being so apparent to me,
I do want to make it clear that if that is the case, and if this
resolution is offered tonight, we will be ready to vote on that censure
resolution tonight.
That being the case, then I will offer a unanimous consent request at
this juncture.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately after the
5:30 vote this evening, the Senate proceed to a vote on the resolution
of censure to be submitted by the Senator from Wisconsin, without
further intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I understand this has not been discussed
with the minority leader, this proposal for a vote, and I would
therefore object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The unanimous consent
request is not agreed to.
Mr. SARBANES. I would respectfully request of the leader that he
should have a discussion with the minority leader before seeking to set
the agenda.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I then ask unanimous consent that
immediately following the budget vote scheduled for tomorrow afternoon,
the Senate proceed to the consideration and an immediate vote on the
resolution of censure that will be submitted by the Senator from
Wisconsin without any further intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I object for the same reason. I think
the majority leader should have a responsible discussion with the
minority leader before setting the agenda of the Senate. It should be
an elemental courtesy in the conduct of the Senate's business.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I heard the objection. I just wanted to
discuss our willingness on what is an important issue. We are talking
about the censure of the President of the United States, and we are
ready to vote on that this afternoon.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, does the Senator from Maryland yield me
time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be
recognized for up to 25 minutes as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. SARBANES. I understand, Mr. President, this is off the
resolution; is that right?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin asked to speak as
in morning business. Is there objection?
Mr. SARBANES. I think an agreement was reached that it would be off
the resolution and count toward the time on the resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to that stipulation?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, it is our understanding that 25 minutes
would count on the underlying bill.
Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, is there a unanimous consent
request pending?
Mr. SARBANES. Only that the 25 minutes that Senator Feingold is going
to use will come off the resolution.
Mr. REID. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Who yields time?
Mr. FEINGOLD. I understand I have been recognized for 25 minutes as
in morning business; is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. An objection has been heard to the unanimous
consent request of the Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thought that was the second unanimous
consent. I simply asked originally for 25 minutes in morning business,
and I believe that was approved.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request of the
Senator from Wisconsin to speak as in morning business for 25 minutes?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will
object, we are perfectly willing to have the Senator speak but have the
25 minutes count to the underlying bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is an objection.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, what we need here in the Senate is more
debate, not less debate. I certainly have no problem with the Senator
from Wisconsin speaking for as long as he wishes, and if the managers
of the bill wish to yield time off the resolution to him, it is fine
with me. I do want to say this, however: For the majority leader--and
he has the right, I don't dispute that at all--to come to the floor
without notice to his counterpart and offer a unanimous consent request
is something that I never tried to do. I always tried to give him the
benefit of my telling him what I plan to do, and I think that is the
right thing to do. I am sure
[[Page S2011]]
there was nothing willful in what he did; I am sure it was just an
oversight.
To try to limit debate on this most important matter that Senator
Feingold is going to put before the Senate is not appropriate. I have
no problem with arranging a time to finish debate on the Feingold
proposal, but it seems to me what is happening in the Senate is there
is no time to debate much. And we are under a statute, and that is why
we are here today with the budget resolution, with 50 hours on this.
But if we look at what we have facing us in the future, in the
immediate future, the Secretary of the Treasury has asked us to
increase the national debt from $8.2 trillion to $9 trillion. Now, if
there were ever an opportunity for the American people to hear the
differences between the two parties, I think it would be on that
debate. Or, even if that weren't the case, something where we are being
asked to increase the national debt by $800 billion, shouldn't there be
a debate on that?
To show our willingness to cooperate on something this important, I
agreed with the distinguished majority leader that we would have 5
hours of debate on the national debt and three amendments that we would
offer. We would have a half hour on each of ours, an hour and a half
time is all we wanted. When we are going to be asked to increase the
national debt by approximately $800 billion, I think it is fair that we
could have a few hours to talk about that.
But it appears at this stage that is not going to happen. It appears
there will be the 50 hours on this matter that is now before the Senate
which will be completed sometime Thursday, and there will be a mad rush
to get out of here for the week break that we have. Of course, offering
amendments after the matter is brought to the attention of the Senate,
I mean we can't do that because we may shut down the Government. And
that is why the majority has waited so long, even though Secretary Snow
advised us in December that there was going to be a problem with
the national debt ceiling.
So I have no problem with the Senator from Wisconsin being yielded
time off the resolution by the distinguished ranking member of our
Banking Committee who is now managing this bill for Senator Conrad, but
I want the record to be spread with the fact that this is an issue that
deserves more debate, not less debate. I don't care if the time is used
off the budget resolution.
So I would ask the distinguished Presiding Officer to read, or
recall, at least, the unanimous consent request that was made by the
distinguished majority leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The unanimous consent request of the majority
leader?
Mr. REID. Yes. It was my understanding the request was that the
Senator from----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin would be recognized
for 25 minutes as in morning business.
Mr. REID. But the time would be used off the budget resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. REID. I have no objection.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I yield
first to the majority leader to comment.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, a lot is happening very quickly now. In a
very few minutes, we are going to get to the Senator from Wisconsin who
has appropriately requested 25 minutes, and the unanimous consent
request will be that the time would come off the bill and it will be as
in morning business.
Just to clarify, he has said his intentions representing the other
side of the aisle to offer a resolution to censure the President of the
United States for a program that I have said and will restate is a
lawful program, is a program that is constitutional, and is a program
that is vital to the safety and security of the American people. My
response to that unanimous consent request was if that is the case and
if that is the position of the Democratic Party, that we are ready to
vote at 5:30 or after our 5:30 vote today. That unanimous consent
request was objected to by the other side of the aisle.
Then the second unanimous consent request that I propounded was that
we would vote after a series of stacked votes tomorrow on the
resolution to censure. There was an objection from the other side of
the aisle.
When we are talking about censure of the President of the United
States, at a time of war when this President is out defending the
American people with a very good, lawful, constitutional program, it is
serious business. And if it is an issue that the other side of the
aisle wants to debate or debate through the night, I guess we are
willing to do that as well. But the censure of the President is
important, and if they want to make an issue of it, we are willing to
do just that.
I have no objection to the unanimous consent request that has been
made.
Mr. REID. There is no unanimous consent request now pending; is that
right?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. No. You reserved the right to object, but
there is only one pending before the Senate at this time.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask that the unanimous consent request
giving Senator Feingold 25 minutes be expanded to give this Senator 25
minutes, with the time running off the bill.
Mr. REID. So now we have Senator Feingold speaking for 25 minutes,
that would be yielded off the budget resolution, and Senator Specter
speaking for 25 minutes, that being yielded off the resolution; is that
right?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is the pending request. Is there
objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, and there is no other unanimous consent
request before the Senate at this time?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
The Senator from Wisconsin.
Resolution of Censure
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, when the President of the United States
breaks the law, he must be held accountable. That is why today I am
submitting a resolution to censure President George W. Bush.
The President authorized an illegal program to spy on American
citizens on American soil, and then misled Congress and the public----
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, will the Senator from Wisconsin yield for
a question? May we have a copy of your resolution?
Mr. FEINGOLD. I will be introducing it at the conclusion of my
remarks. I will be happy to supply the Senator with a copy of the
resolution, but I do intend to introduce it at the conclusion of my
remarks.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, if the Senator from Wisconsin would let
this Senator have a copy of it now.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I just said I would be happy to give the
Senator a copy of the resolution right now.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my time be started over
again.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, when the President of the United States breaks the
law, he must be held accountable. That is why today I am submitting a
resolution to censure President George W. Bush. The President
authorized an illegal program to spy on American citizens on American
soil, and then misled the Congress and the public about the existence
and the legality of that program. It is up to this body to reaffirm the
rule of law by condemning the President's action.
All of us in this body took an oath to support and defend the
Constitution of the United States and bear true allegiance to the same.
Fulfilling that oath requires us to speak clearly and forcefully when
the President violates the law. This resolution allows us to send a
clear message that the President's conduct was wrong.
And we must do that. The President's actions demand a formal judgment
from Congress.
At moments like this in our history, we are reminded why the Founders
balanced the powers of the different branches of Government so
carefully in the Constitution. At the very heart of our system of
government lies the recognition that some leaders will do wrong and
that others in the Government will then bear the responsibility to do
right.
This President has done wrong. This body can do right by condemning
his
[[Page S2012]]
conduct and showing the people of this Nation that his actions will not
be allowed to stand unchallenged.
To date, Members of Congress have responded in very different ways to
the President's conduct. Some are responding by defending his conduct,
ceding him the power he claims, and even seeking to grant him expanded
statutory authorization powers to make his conduct legal. While we know
he is breaking the law, we do not know details of what the President
has authorized or whether there is any need to change the law to allow
it. Yet some want to give him carte blanche to continue his illegal
conduct. To approve the President's actions now without demanding a
full inquiry into this program, a detailed explanation for why the
President authorized it, and accountability for his illegal actions
would be irresponsible. It would be to abandon the duty of the
legislative branch under our constitutional system of separation of
powers while the President recklessly grabs for power and ignores the
rule of law.
Others in Congress have taken important steps to check the President.
Senator Specter has held hearings on the wiretapping program in the
Judiciary Committee. He has even suggested that Congress may need to
use the power of the purse to get some answers out of the
administration. Senator Byrd has proposed that Congress establish an
independent commission to investigate this program.
As we move forward, Congress will need to consider a range of
possible actions, including investigations, independent commissions,
legislation, or even impeachment. But at a minimum Congress should
censure a President who has so plainly broken the law.
Mr. President, our Founders anticipated that these kinds of abuses
would occur. Federalist Paper No. 51 speaks of the Constitution's
system of checks and balances. It says:
It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices
should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But
what is government itself, but the greatest of all
reflections of human nature? If men were angels, no
government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men,
neither external nor internal controls on government would be
necessary. In framing a government which is to be
administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in
this: You must first enable the government to control the
governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
We are faced with an executive branch that places itself above the
law. The Founders understood that the branches must check each other to
control abuses of Government power. The President's actions are such an
abuse. His actions must be checked and he should be censured.
This President exploited the climate of anxiety after September 11,
2001, both to push for overly intrusive powers in the PATRIOT Act and
to take us into a war in Iraq that has been a tragic diversion from the
critical fight against al-Qaida and its affiliates. In both of these
instances, however, Congress gave its approval to the President's
action, however mistaken the approval may have been.
Here is the difference, Mr. President: This was not the case with the
illegal domestic wiretapping program authorized by the President
shortly after September 11. The President violated the law, ignored the
Constitution and the other two branches of Government, and disregarded
the rights and freedoms upon which our country was founded. No one
questions--no one questions--whether the Government should wiretap
suspected terrorists. Of course we should and we can under current law.
If there were a demonstrated need to change the law, of course,
Congress should consider that step. But instead, the President is
refusing to follow the law while offering the flimsiest of arguments to
justify his misconduct. He must be held accountable for his actions.
The facts are pretty straightforward. Congress passed the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, nearly 30 years ago to
ensure that as we wiretap suspected terrorists and spies, we also
protect innocent Americans from unjustified Government intrusion. FISA
makes it a crime to wiretap Americans on U.S. soil without the
requisite warrants, and the President has ordered warrantless wiretaps
of Americans on U.S. soil. So it is pretty simple. The President has
broken that law and that alone is unacceptable.
But the President did much more than that. Not only did the President
break the law, he also actively misled Congress and the American people
about his actions and then, when the program was made public, about the
legality of the NSA program. He has fundamentally violated the trust of
the American people. The President's own words show just how seriously
he has violated that trust.
We now know that the NSA wiretapping program began not long after
September 11. Before the existence of this program was revealed, the
President went out of his way, he went out of his way in several
speeches to assure the public that the Government was getting court
orders to wiretap Americans in the United States, something he now
admits was not the case.
On April 20, 2004, for example, the President told an audience in
Buffalo, ``Any time you hear the United States government talking about
wiretaps it requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way.''
In fact, a lot had changed. But the President wasn't upfront with the
American people. Just months later, on July 14, 2004, in my own State
of Wisconsin, the President said, ``Any action that takes place by law
enforcement requires a court order. In other words, the government
can't move on wiretaps or roving wiretaps without getting a court
order.''
And then, Mr. President, last summer on June 9, 2005, the President
spoke in Columbus, OH, and again insisted that his administration was
abiding by the laws governing wiretaps. ``Law enforcement officers need
a federal judge's permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, a
federal judge's permission to search his property. Officers must meet
strict standards to use any of these tools. And these standards are
fully consistent with the Constitution of the U.S.''
Now, Mr. President, in all of these cases the President knew that he
wasn't telling the complete story. But engaged in tough political
battle during the Presidential campaign and later over the PATRIOT Act
reauthorization, he wanted to convince the public that a system of
checks and balances was in place to protect innocent people from
Government snooping. He knew when he gave those reassurances that he
had authorized the NSA to bypass the very system of checks and balances
that he was using as a shield against criticisms of the PATRIOT Act and
his administration's performance.
This conduct is unacceptable. The President has a duty to play it
straight with the American people. But for political purposes, he just
ignored that duty.
After a New York Times story exposed the NSA program in December of
last year, the White House launched an intensive effort to mislead the
American people yet again. No one would come to testify before Congress
until February, but the President's surrogates held press conferences
and made speeches to try to convince the public that he had acted
lawfully.
Most troubling of all, the President himself participated in this
disinformation campaign. In the State of the Union Address he implied
that the program was necessary because otherwise, the Government would
be unable to wiretap terrorists at all.
Now, Mr. President, that is simply untrue. In fact, nothing could be
further from the truth. You don't need a warrant to wiretap terrorists
overseas, period. It is clear. You do need a warrant to wiretap
Americans on American soil, and Congress passed FISA specifically to
lay out the rule for these types of domestic wiretaps.
FISA created a secret court made up of judges who develop national
security expertise to issue warrants for surveillance of suspected
terrorists and spies. These are the judges from whom the Bush
administration has obtained thousands of warrants since 9/11. They are
the judges who review applications for business records orders and
wiretapping authority under the PATRIOT Act. The administration has
almost never had a warrant request rejected by these judges. It has
used the FISA Court thousands of times, but at the same time it asserts
that FISA is an ``old law'' or ``out of date'' in this age of
terrorism, that it can't be complied with. Clearly the administration
can
[[Page S2013]]
and does comply with it except when it doesn't. Then it just
arbitrarily decides to go around these judges and around the law.
The administration has said that it ignored FISA because it takes too
long to get a warrant under that law. But we know that in an emergency
where the Attorney General believes that surveillance must begin before
a court order can be obtained, FISA permits the wiretap to be executed
immediately as long as the Government goes to the court within 72
hours. Now, the Attorney General has complained that the emergency
provision does not give him enough flexibility; he has complained that
getting a FISA application together, of getting the necessary
approvals, takes too long. What the Attorney General is actually
talking about, the problems he has cited, are bureaucratic barriers
that the executive branch put in place. They are not mandated by
Congress. They are not mandated under FISA. These were put into place
by the Justice Department, the executive branch itself, and they could
be removed if they wanted.
FISA permits the Attorney General to authorize unlimited warrantless
electronic surveillance in the United States--unlimited--during the 15
days following a declaration of war to allow time to consider any
amendments to FISA required by a wartime emergency. This is the time
period that Congress specified very clearly. Yet the President thinks
he is above the law. He thinks that he can just ignore that 15-day
period and do this indefinitely. The President has argued that Congress
gave him authority to wiretap Americans on U.S. soil without a warrant
when it passed the authorization for use of military force after
September 11, 2001.
That is ridiculous. Members of Congress did not pass this resolution
to give the President blanket authority to order warrantless wiretaps.
We all know that. Anyone in this body who tells you otherwise either
was not there at the time or isn't telling the truth. We authorized the
President to use military force in Afghanistan, a necessary and
justified response to September 11. We did not authorize him to wiretap
American citizens on American soil without going through the process
that was set up nearly three decades ago precisely to facilitate the
domestic surveillance of terrorists with the approval of a judge. That
is why--and I have heard them do this very clearly--many Senators, both
Republicans and Democrats, have come forward to question this bogus
theory.
This particular claim is further undermined by congressional approval
of the PATRIOT Act just a few weeks after we passed the authorization
for use of military force. The PATRIOT Act made it easier for law
enforcement to conduct surveillance on suspected terrorists and spies
while maintaining FISA's baseline requirement of judicial approval of
wiretaps of Americans in the U.S. It is also ridiculous to think that
Congress would have negotiated and enacted all the changes to FISA in
the PATRIOT Act if it thought it had just authorized the President to
ignore FISA in the AUMF.
In addition, in the intelligence authorization bill passed in
December 2001, we extended the emergency authority in FISA at the
administration's request from 24 hours to 72 hours. Why did we do that?
Why do that if the President has some kind of inherent power or power
under the authorization of force resolution to just ignore FISA? That
makes no sense at all.
The President has also said that his inherent executive power gives
him the power to approve this program, but here the President of the
United States is acting in direct violation of a criminal statute. That
means his power is, as Justice Jackson said in the steel seizure cases
a half century ago, ``at its lowest ebb.'' A letter from a group of law
professors and former executive branch officials points out, ``Every
time the Supreme Court has confronted a statute limiting the Commander-
in-Chief's authority, it has upheld the statute.'' The Senate reports
issued when FISA was enacted confirm the understanding that FISA
overrode any preexisting inherent authority of the President. As a 1978
Senate Judiciary Committee report stated, FISA ``recognizes no inherent
power of the President in this area.'' And ``Congress has declared that
this statute, not any claimed Presidential power, controls.'' So
contrary to what the President told the country in this year's State of
the Union, no court has ever approved warrantless surveillance in
violation of FISA.
The President's claims of inherent executive authority and his
assertions that the courts have approved this type of activity are
baseless. But it is one thing to make a legal argument that has no real
support in the law; it is much worse to do what the President has done,
which is to make misleading statements about what prior Presidents have
done and what courts have approved to try to somehow make the public
believe that his legal arguments are much stronger than they really
are.
For example, in the State of the Union, the President argued that
Federal courts have approved the use of Presidential authority that he
was invoking. I asked the Attorney General about this when he came
before the Judiciary Committee, and he could point me to no court--not
the Supreme Court or any other court--that has considered whether,
after FISA was enacted, the President nonetheless had the authority to
bypass it and authorize warrantless wiretaps. Not one court. The
administration's effort to find support for what it has done in
snippets of other court decisions would be laughable if this issue were
not so serious.
In the same speech, the President referred to other Presidents in
American history who cited executive authority to order warrantless
surveillance. But of course, those past Presidents--like Wilson and
Roosevelt--were acting long before the Supreme Court decided in 1967
that our communications are protected by the fourth amendment, and
before Congress decided in 1978 that the executive branch could no
longer unilaterally decide which Americans to wiretap. I asked the
Attorney General about this issue when he testified before the
Judiciary Committee. And neither he nor anyone in the administration
has been able to come up with a single prior example of wiretapping
inside the United States since 1978 that was conducted outside FISA's
authorization.
So again the President's arguments in the State of the Union were
baseless, and it is unacceptable that the President of the United
States would so obviously mislead the Congress and American public.
The President also has argued that periodic internal executive branch
review provides an adequate check on the program. He has even
characterized this periodic review as a safeguard for civil liberties.
But we don't know what this check involves. And we do know that
Congress explicitly rejected this idea of unilateral executive
decisionmaking in this area when it passed FISA.
Finally, the President has tried to claim that informing a handful of
congressional leaders, the so-called Gang of 8, somehow excuses
breaking the law. Of course, several of these members said they weren't
given the full story. And all of them were prohibited from discussing
what they were told. So the fact that they were informed under these
extraordinary circumstances does not constitute congressional
oversight, and it most certainly does not constitute congressional
approval of the program.
In fact, it doesn't even comply with the National Security Act, which
requires the entire memberships of the House and Senate Intelligence
Committee to be ``fully and currently informed of the intelligence
activities of the United States.'' Nor does the latest agreement to
allow a seven-member subcommittee to review the program comply with the
law. Granting a minority of the committee access to information is
inadequate and still does not comply with the law requiring that the
full committee be kept fully informed.
In addition, we now know that some of the Gang of 8 expressed concern
about the program. The administration ignored their protests. One of
the eight members of Congress who has been briefed about the program,
Congresswoman Jane Harman, ranking member of the House Intelligence
Committee, has said she sees no reason why the administration cannot
accomplish its goals within the law as currently written.
None of the President's arguments explains or excuses his conduct, or
the
[[Page S2014]]
NSA's domestic spying program. Not one. It is hard to believe that the
President has the audacity to claim that they do.
And perhaps that is what is most troubling here. Even more troubling
than the arguments the President has made is what he relies on to make
them convincing--the credibility of the Office of the President itself.
He essentially argues that the American people should trust him simply
because of the office he holds.
But Presidents don't serve our country by just asking for trust, they
must earn that trust, and they must tell the truth.
This President hides behind flawed legal arguments, and even behind
the office he holds, but he cannot hide from what he has created:
nothing short of a constitutional crisis. The President has violated
the law, and Congress must respond. Congress must investigate and
demand answers. Congress should also determine whether current law is
inadequate and address that deficiency if it is demonstrated. But
before doing so, Congress should ensure that there is accountability
for authorizing illegal conduct.
A formal censure by Congress is an appropriate and responsible first
step to assure the public that when the President thinks he can violate
the law without consequences, Congress has the will to hold him
accountable. If Congress does not reaffirm the rule of law, we will
create another failure of leadership, and deal another blow to the
public's trust.
The President's wrongdoing demands a response. And not just a
response that prevents wrongdoing in the future but a response that
passes judgment on what has happened. We in the Congress bear the
responsibility to check a President who has violated the law, who
continues to violate the law, and who has not been held accountable for
his actions.
We are hearing people say that somehow this censure resolution sends
a terrible signal to the terrorists who want to do us harm. I tell you
what is a terrible signal, that we are so meek in response to this
terrorist threat that we are going to let the President of the United
States break the law of this Nation and not do anything about it. Now
that is a victory for the terrorists if we won't even stand up for our
system of Government because everybody has to be afraid to mention that
this President broke the law.
Passing a resolution to censure the President is a way to hold this
President accountable. A resolution of censure is a time-honored means
for the Congress to express the most serious disapproval possible,
short of impeachment, of the Executive's conduct. It is different than
passing a law to make clear that certain conduct is impermissible or to
cut off funding for certain activities.
He should be censured.
The Founders anticipated abuses of Executive power by creating a
balance of powers in the Constitution. Supporting and defending the
Constitution, as we have taken an oath to do, requires us to preserve
that balance and to have the will to act. We must meet a serious
transgression by the President with a serious response. We must work,
as the Founders urged in Federalist 51, to control the abuses of
Government.
The Constitution looks to the Congress to right the balance of power.
The American people look to us to take action, to speak out with one
clear voice, against wrongdoing by the President of the United States.
To conclude, in our system of government, no one, not even the
President, is above the law.
I send the resolution to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The resolution will be received and
appropriately referred.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
Pennsylvania is recognized for 25 minutes.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, might I ask the Senator from Wisconsin to
stay on the floor?
Mr. President, I think this subject matter is worthy of debate, but
notwithstanding my experience of debating, I don't think I can debate
without someone to debate with. I tried to attract the attention of the
Senator from Wisconsin before he departed the Chamber. I think I got in
right as he was on the way out the door.
But let me ask his staffers if they would invite the Senator from
Wisconsin to return to the floor. Having listened to his long
soliloquy, I would appreciate the benefit of his presence so we can
deal with these issues in some substantive detail.
At the outset, I say that I agree with a number of things which the
Senator from Wisconsin said and items which are in his resolution.
When he comes to the resolve clause and speaks about censure and
condemnation of President Bush, I think he is vastly excessive. Call it
over the top, call it beyond the pale, the facts recited in this
resolution simply do not support that kind of conclusion.
Going right to the heart of the issue, the Senator from Wisconsin
says in the fourth ``whereas'' clause on page 2 that the President does
not have the inherent constitutional authority to act in distinction
and difference from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
That is what you call a naked assertion unsupported by any statement
of law, unsupported by any rationale.
The Judiciary Committee, of which the Senator from Wisconsin is a
member, has held two hearings on the authority of the President to
conduct electronic surveillance. And there has been a great deal of
testimony from reputable sources saying that the President does have
inherent authority under article II of the Constitution.
If that legal conclusion is correct, then constitutional authority
trumps a statute.
The Congress cannot legislate in derogation of the President's
constitutional authority.
We cannot enact laws which take away authority prescribed to the
President under the Constitution, just as we cannot legislate to take
away authority that the Supreme Court has under the Constitution. Just
as we cannot delegate our authority which the Constitution gives to the
Congress, we cannot delegate our authority in derogation of our
constitutional responsibilities and authorities.
Those are very basic principles of law.
I am sorry that the Senator from Wisconsin saw fit to condemn and
excoriate the President for 25 minutes but doesn't have time to come to
this floor to answer a simple question. And that simple question is,
Doesn't the Constitution trump statute?
A subordinate part of that question is if the President has inherent
authority under article II, isn't it incorrect to say that the
President has violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which
would be superseded or trumped by the President's constitutional
authority?
We are going to have some more hearings before the Judiciary
Committee. If I don't have an opportunity to confront the Senator from
Wisconsin this afternoon, I will find another opportunity to do so.
But I think the Record should be plain that in the hearing last month
a number of academicians testified that the President does have
inherent authority under article II to supersede the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. And the Attorney General testified at
length that the President has inherent authority under article II,
which would lead to the conclusion that if Attorney General Gonzalez is
correct, as a matter of law, then there is no violation of law by the
President. Admittedly he is taking the President's side, but that is
the job of Attorney General as a generalization. He also represents the
American people, and he has to discharge his oath consistent with his
duties to the American people.
There are a number of points, as I have said earlier, where I think
the Senator from Wisconsin makes a valid argument.
I think on his third ``whereas'' clause on page 1 of the resolution,
where he says that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the
exclusive statutory authority for electronic surveillance, he is
correct. That doesn't rule out the Constitution superseding the
statute, however.
When the Senator from Wisconsin says on his third ``whereas'' clause
on page 2 that the resolution authorizing the use of military force did
not change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, I think the
Senator from Wisconsin is correct. But the correctness
[[Page S2015]]
of those two propositions do not supersede the inherent article II
authority of the President. And that is the issue which has yet to be
resolved.
The majority leader spoke very briefly this afternoon before the
Senator from Wisconsin presented his resolution. Senator Frist said
that we are dealing with a lawful program. Senator Frist is in the
position to make an evaluation on that subject because Senator Frist is
one of the so-called Gang of 8, which has had access to the program. He
has been briefed on the program.
I believe the Senator from Wisconsin is correct in the body of his
resolution when he raises an issue that the statute requires all
members of the Intelligence Committee to be briefed. That is the
applicable law. It may be that there are good reasons for not briefing
all the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and all members of
the House Intelligence Committee. Perhaps because members of the
Congress leak. But if good reasons do exist, then the President ought
to come to the Congress and ask it to change the law. I agree with him
that the Congress leaks. I have to say, in the same breath, that the
White House also leaks. That is not a very good record for either the
Congress or the White House.
That is why I have prepared legislation which would submit the NSA
electronic surveillance program to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. That court now passes on applications for search-
and-seizure warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
They apply the standard, which is different than the standard for a
search-and-seizure warrant in a criminal case. They have expertise in
the field. They also have an exemplary record for keeping secrets.
That is the way to deal with this issue. There must be a
determination on constitutionality. It is not possible, in my legal
judgment, to make a determination as to whether the President's
inherent article II powers authorize this kind of a program, without
knowing what the program is. I don't know what the program is. The
Attorney General would not tell us what it is when he testified last
month. I understood his reasons for not telling us, even though we
could have gone into a closed session. But the Judiciary Committee was
looking at the legalities of the program. We were in a position to
render a judgment on whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
was the exclusive remedy, and whether the resolution to authorize the
use of force changed the FISA act. But it is a matter for the
Intelligence Committee to get into the details of the program which,
until last week, the administration has been unwilling to do.
I have great respect for my colleague Senator DeWine, and have talked
to him extensively about this issue. He and I serve on the Judiciary
Committee together. I like his idea about getting the administration to
submit the program to, at least, the eight members of the Senate
Intelligence Committee who, according to the press accounts, were
briefed about it last week. I do not think it is adequate, as other
parts of the DeWine legislation propose, to allow the surveillance to
go on for 45 days, and at the end of that 45-day period to then give
the administration the option of going to the FISA Court or to the
Senate subcommittee. The subcommittee does not grant authorization for
warrants. The subcommittee function is oversight. It is not a
replacement for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
A way is at hand to deal with this issue. The majority leader,
Senator Frist, said we have a lawful program. That opinion has weight,
substantial weight in my mind, but it is not conclusive. Senator Frist
is not a judicial official. It may be that a more detailed analysis is
necessary than has been presented to the Gang of 8. I don't know,
because I don't know what they heard or what they learned.
How much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 11\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield the floor?
Mr. SPECTER. No, but I will at the conclusion of my presentation.
We ought to focus for a few moments on the importance of judicial
review on the fourth amendment issues of search and seizure.
With the limited time I have left, I have only a few references, but
I begin with a famous case in 1761 where a Boston lawyer defended
Boston merchants who had been searched by customs house officials.
James Otis gave a stirring 5-hour speech, charging the customs officers
``break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they
break through malice or revenge, no man, no court may inquire.'' Very
weighty words in 1761. Maybe if James Otis had seen this program, we
could take his word on its constitutionality.
John Adams described this case as the spark of the American
Revolution. He stated:
Then and there was the child Independence born.
Then in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, it is stated that
one of the key reasons for the American Revolution involved the King
allowing his officers to violate the rights of Americans and then
protecting them ``by a mock trial, from punishment,'' for the injuries
that they had committed.
And then we have the fourth amendment. We need to go back to the
basics of this amendment, which prohibit unreasonable searches and
seizures. That is the question in this matter.
In 1916, in the Weeks case, the Supreme Court of the United States
ruled that evidence obtained in violation of the fourth amendment could
not be used in a criminal trial. In 1961, in Mapp v. Ohio, the Supreme
Court of the United States ruled that the due process clause of the
14th amendment prohibited States and State criminal prosecutions from
using evidence obtained as a result of an unreasonable search and
seizure.
We have had the Supreme Court of the United States intervene, even in
time of war, to limit the President's authority. During the Korean
war, President Truman cited ``the existence of a national emergency''
to ``be able to repel any and all threats against our national
security.''
The Supreme Court of the United States, in Youngstown Sheet v.
Sawyer, said the President did not have that authority. They said it
exceeded his authority.
In the Hamdi case, 2004, 18 or 20 months ago, the Supreme Court
stated:
We have long since made it clear that a state of war is not
a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights
of the Nation's citizens.
And the Court went on to say:
. . . whatever power the United States Constitution
envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other
nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it
most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when
individual liberties were at stake.
We have a way through this maze. The way through the maze is for the
Congress to give jurisdiction to the FISA Court. That is our job, to
give jurisdiction to Federal courts. We have dealt with the issue as to
whether there is a case or a controversy. There is one. Without going
into details here, it is not an advisory opinion.
But this resolution calling for the condemnation and the censure of
the President is out of line and out of bounds. In listening to the
Senator from Wisconsin, I did not hear, at any time, him say the
President has acted in bad faith. The President may be wrong, but he
has not acted in bad faith. I think all would concede that the
President was diligently doing the best job he can. And I agree with
him. I think the President's best job is satisfactory, and that no one
has ever accused him of bad faith.
In the absence of any showing of bad faith, who has standing to
censure and condemn the President and then not stay in the Chamber to
debate the issue? I do hope this matter is referred to the Judiciary
Committee, and not to the Rules Committee. We have already had two
hearings on matters relating to this subject. I especially want to see
this resolution referred to the Judiciary Committee because if it is in
the Judiciary Committee, I can debate Senator Feingold. If it goes to
the Rules Committee, I cannot debate Senator Feingold. Now, isn't that
a powerful jurisdictional argument for the Judiciary Committee?
Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SPECTER. I do.
Mr. DURBIN. First, through the Chair, I commend the Senator from
Pennsylvania. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has
shown
[[Page S2016]]
extraordinary leadership in convening two separate hearings on this
question of the wiretap issue, the first with Attorney General Gonzales
which I attended and thought to be one of the more challenging and
interesting committee hearings I have ever attended--it went on for a
whole day--the second, sadly, was in conflict with another meeting, a
Rules Committee on ethics reform and I did not attend it, but he
invited constitutional scholars to come and speak to the same issue.
Many on Capitol Hill may shy away from controversial issues,
particularly if they involve an administration of the same party. I
commend the Senator from Pennsylvania for being an exception to the
rule on this issue and for speaking up and standing up.
I wish to ask a question. After listening to Attorney General
Gonzales' testimony before our committee, it appears that the thrust of
the constitutional argument justifying the wiretap goes back to a vote
that we share, a vote we both cast in favor of authorizing the use of
military force on September 18, 2001. I ask the Senator from
Pennsylvania if he believed that in casting his vote for that
resolution authorizing force to pursue those responsible for September
11 that he was giving the President authority to wiretap American
citizens without obtaining a court order required by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978?
Mr. SPECTER. No.
Mr. DURBIN. The next question I wish to ask the Senator from
Pennsylvania, and I appreciate his forthright response, the majority
leader, Senator Frist, came to the Senate a few moments ago and said he
believed the wiretap program of President Bush was constitutional and
legal. Does the Senator from Pennsylvania agree with that conclusion?
Mr. SPECTER. I neither agree nor disagree. I do not know. As I said
more extensively in the body of my comments, I do not have any basis
for knowing, because I do not know what the program does. I think it
may be that the program could be structured as going after only al-
Qaida conversations. And I would like to see some proof of that. Quite
frankly, I would like to see some proof that they have reasonable
grounds to think one party or the other is al-Qaida. That is in the
body of Senator Feingold's whereas clauses.
It may be that they have been able to take a limited amount of
information, destroying the rest, and that it has produced very
important results with a minimal incursion. I do not know the answers
to those questions. But I certainly think you ought not castigate the
President as a criminal until you do know the answers to those
questions.
Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator will yield for a further question.
Mr. SPECTER. I do. And I want to thank you for being here in Senator
Feingold's stead.
Mr. DURBIN. Well, I am standing here----
Mr. SPECTER. You are a little tougher to debate than he, but I thank
you for coming.
Mr. DURBIN. I would like to ask the Senator from Pennsylvania one
last question.
When you referred to the suggestions of our colleague, Senator
DeWine, on the Judiciary Committee, and other proposals to change the
law that might accommodate what we are now seeing in this wiretap
program, is that not an admission that what is going on now is
violative of law or at least outside the bounds of the laws as written
which authorize wiretaps?
Mr. SPECTER. No, I do not think it is an admission because, like
consent, it has to be informed. And I do not think he is informed. I do
not think anybody is informed. I do not think Senator DeWine intends to
make an admission. I think Senator DeWine, in good faith--very good
faith--is searching for a way out. And I think he made a significant
step forward when his actions resulted in seven members of the Senate
Intelligence Committee being briefed. The reason I say ``I think'' is
because I do not know what they were told. But I think that is a
significant step.
Senator DeWine's proposal of legislation to allow the program to go
on for 45 days is no concession. It is going on anyway. His idea to
bypass the FISA Court and allow the Administration instead to go to the
Intelligence Subcommittee, I think, is not appropriate because the
Intelligence Subcommittee does not have the function of a court.
So I think he is doing the best he can. But right now we are flying
blind on a great deal of this, and we have to accept very limited
representations by the Gang of 8, and now the new Gang of 7. And no
matter what, it does not amount to judicial review.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have an important announcement to make.
Will my friend yield to me?
Mr. SPECTER. I do.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Pennsylvania has
expired. The Senator does not control time.
The Senate minority leader is recognized.
Death of Maggie Inouye
Mr. REID. Mr. President, at 4 o'clock this afternoon, an hour and 15
minutes ago, Maggie Inouye died. I had the good fortune of being able
to visit with the Inouyes Friday night.
On behalf of the entire Senate, I extend condolences to Senator
Inouye and his son Daniel Jr. This wonderful couple had been married 57
years. They were married in 1949. Senator Inouye proposed to Maggie on
their second date. Daniel Jr. goes by the name of Ken. He has been at
his mother's side, as has Senator Inouye, for many days.
She was a wonderful woman. She formerly taught at the University of
Hawaii. She was such a steadfast supporter of her husband in everything
that he stood for.
Anyone who has spent any time at all with them knows how much they
cared for each other, loved each other. Her death brings sadness to the
entire Chamber because it is a loss for the entire Senate family.
Senator Inouye is a very nonpublic person. He holds everything very
close to his vest, and he was not someone who came to luncheons or
meetings with us and talked about his wife's illness. That was a
personal thing for him.
But she needed the support of her family. She had a very difficult
time. She will now have peace, and to a certain extent so will Senator
Inouye because he has suffered with her.
Senator Inouye is such a wonderful human being. In my visit with him
and Ken on Friday,--his wife was there but in another room--we talked
about a lot of things. We laughed a little bit. We cried a little bit.
Here is a man who is a true American patriot. We throw those words
around a lot, but we are not throwing this word around. Dan Inouye is a
true American patriot who served with distinction and valor during
World War II, and that is an understatement. He was awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor for courage above and beyond the call of
duty.
Senator Inouye will be away from the Senate for a while. He is going
to take Maggie back to Hawaii. But I wish my words were adequate to
convey my personal affection for Senator Inouye and that of the entire
Senate, but they are not. So the Record will have to stand on that.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a moment?
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I am happy to yield.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Reid for bringing this sad
news to the attention of the Senate family. There are many things that
divide us, but there are things that unite us. We are united when
Members of our Senate go through personal tragedy. Senator Reid knows
better than anyone on our side of the aisle the personal sacrifices
Senator Inouye has made over the last months and years as his wife has
gone through this serious illness.
It is clear, from what he has given of his life, he took his vow very
seriously to stand by her in sickness and in health. It is a tribute to
this man, his devotion, and to their love which sustained them for 57
years.
I thank the Senator from Nevada for bringing this to our attention.
We all join in expressing our sadness at her loss and will stand by
Senator Inouye and his family to ask them to try to remember, at this
time of loss, those good memories of times together. We hope those
memories will sustain their family.
I thank the Senator from Nevada.
[[Page S2017]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, it has already been announced that
Senator Inouye's wife Maggie has passed away.
I ask unanimous consent that the statement made by my great friend
about his wife be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Statement by U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye on the Passing of His Wife,
Maggie Inouye
Washington.--I am saddened to report that my dear and
lovely wife of nearly 57 years, Margaret Awamura Inouye,
passed away today at 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center. She was 81, and her death was due
to complications resulting from colon cancer.
``Maggie was recently hospitalized because an examination
found small blood clots and some fluid in her right lung, and
she had been undergoing a process of draining out the fluid
and dissolving the blood clots.
``This most recent medical challenge came after Maggie
underwent surgery in November 2004 to remove a cancerous
growth from her large intestine. Her surgeons had pronounced
that operation a success.
``As she has done throughout her life, Maggie handled her
difficult situation without complaint, and with dignity and
grace. Although her chemotherapy treatments would leave her
drained, she always had a smile for you and she retained her
optimistic outlook.
``It was a most special blessing to have had Maggie in my
life for 58 years. She was my inspiration, and all that I
have accomplished could not have been done without her at my
side. We were a team. She always supported me, listened to my
ideas, and many times offered invaluable suggestions that
always proved she was capable of achieving as much on her own
right, given her intelligence and education. Instead, she
chose to join me on a special journey that took us to
Washington, and gave us the privilege of serving the people
of Hawaii.
``On the campaign trail, she was invaluable. During my
first race for the U.S. Senate in 1962, legislative work in
the U.S. House permitted me to make only short trips back to
Hawaii. I was facing a formidable opponent, the son of the
wealthiest man in Hawaii. Both Time and Newsweek magazines
didn't think much of my chances of winning. But Maggie put
some magic into my campaign. She returned to Hawaii that
June, and spent seven days a week visiting every island and
making . hundreds of speeches on my behalf. When I finally
did get back in October, my campaign manager met me at the
airport and said, `We're glad to have you, but Maggie's been
doing great.' I won, and I won big. In my heart, I know that
without her I could not have won that pivotal race that put
me on the path to become a United States Senator.
``I first met Maggie in the autumn of 1947, a week before
Thanksgiving, when we were introduced to each other. She was
already known as a poised, graceful, articulate, and gentle
lady from a good family who was very much ahead of her time.
Back then, few women went to college. But Maggie not only
earned her undergraduate degree in education from the
University of Hawaii, she went on to earn a master's in
education from Columbia University in New York City. With her
graduate degree, she returned home to Hawaii, and began her
career as a speech instructor at UH.
``I, too, had returned home--from the war and from my
injury rehabilitation regimen that I had undergone on the
mainland. I was enrolled at the University of Hawaii, and was
still trying to chart my future. However, I was certain of
one thing almost immediately after I met Maggie: I was going
to marry her. I don't think the possibility of marriage had
ever occurred to me before that moment, but afterward it
never left my mind. Everything I had and wanted to have
suddenly became absolutely meaningless unless Margaret
Awamura would share it with me.
``On our second date on December 6, 1947, I asked her to
marry me. Without hesitation, she said, `Yes.' Her answer
made me feel like I was in heaven. She was willing to have as
her lifelong partner a man who at that time was nothing
more than a combat veteran on the GI Bill whose future was
still uncertain. Her numerous other suitors had much more
to offer, as they were already professional men.
``During the 18 months before our marriage on June 12,
1949, we were an unusual couple on the UH campus. She was an
instructor; I was an underclassman. Of course, it was
Maggie's salary as a teacher at the university that saw us
through those first years of our marriage.
``In the early 1950s when I was studying at George
Washington to earn my law degree, Maggie was the breadwinner,
while I contributed what I received from my GI education
benefits and my pension as a retired Army Captain. While I
was in class, she was working at the Department of the Navy's
Bureau of Yards and Docks, first as a file clerk and soon she
was promoted to administrative secretary.
When we returned to Hawaii, I went to work for the City and
County of Honolulu as a Deputy Public Prosecutor, while
Maggie returned to the University of Hawaii as an instructor
in education. It was a position she would hold for six years.
``In 1964, five years after she left UH, Maggie gave birth
to our son, Daniel K. Inouye, Jr. That was a most special
day, perhaps because we became parents at a rather late stage
in our lives.
``Kenny and I--as well as the people of Hawaii--were
blessed to have had Maggie in our lives. She was a most
special woman, and she will always be in my heart.''
In addition to Senator Inouye and Daniel K. Inouye, Jr.,
Mrs. Inouye is survived by five sisters, Edith Satow of
Carmarillo, California; Grace Murakami of Honolulu; Betty
Higashino of Orinda, California; Shirley Nozoe of Honolulu;
and Patricia Tyler of Sudbury, Massachusetts. Funeral
arrangements are pending.
MARGARET AWAMURA INOUYE AT A GLANCE
Personal
Born on June 23, 1924, in Wailuku, Maui.
Married Daniel K. Inouye on June 12, 1949.
One son.
Education
Kaiulani School, Honolulu.
Central Intermediate School, Honolulu.
Roosevelt High School, Honolulu.
University of Hawaii at Manoa, bachelor's in education,
1946.
Columbia University, New York, master of arts, 1947.
Career
Instructor in speech, University of Hawaii, 1947-50.
File clerk and later promoted to administrative secretary,
Bureau of Yards and Docks, Department of the Navy,
Washington, DC, 1950-52.
Instructor in education, University of Hawaii, 1953-59.
Recent Honors
The Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic
Ideals at the University of Hawaii.
In 2005, Maggie Inouye was selected as one of Roosevelt
High School's most distinguished alumni.
In 2003 at the Philadelphia Kvaerner Shipyard, she
christened Matson's new containership, MV Manukai.
Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for this time.
Mr. President, on behalf of my wife Millie and my entire family, I
rise to express our sincere sympathies, our deepest condolences, and
our warmest aloha to my dear friend and my colleague, Senator Daniel K.
Inouye, for the loss of his lovely wife Maggie, who passed away this
afternoon.
Over the past year, whenever I spoke to Senator Inouye, I would ask
him about Maggie, and his reply to me was: She is a trooper. She is
doing the best she can. And that really sums up it so well about
Maggie.
Maggie was definitely a trooper. She was a wonderful, wonderful lady
who served our country as a Senate spouse for the past 40-plus years.
Maggie was a classy woman who was well respected everywhere she went.
She had a heart of gold and will definitely be missed by the people of
Hawaii and the families here in Washington, DC. My thoughts and prayers
go to Senator Inouye, to his son Kenny and his wife, their extended
family, and all of the Inouye staff here and in Hawaii. We stand
waiting to do whatever we can to help in this difficult time. We will
miss Maggie. May Maggie's soul rest in peace.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise standing near our friend and
colleague from Hawaii as we think about his colleague in the Senate and
the fond relationship they enjoyed. If a poll was conducted in this
Chamber or among the Members of this Chamber, if you said: Who is the
most respected, beloved, wise Member of the U.S. Senate, you would come
up with only one name, not that there aren't others of friendship and
good will and intellect and all of those things, but Danny Inouye is
the exceptional person. His demeanor was quiet and thoughtful and
always helpful, and he served his country in a way that few have in our
history, having lost his arm in Italy and fighting on to lead his
troops.
I give you that background that all of us are so familiar with: a
Medal of Honor winner, a distinction so rarely given, only to true
heroes, to true leaders. But Danny is a multidimensional person. He
always had room for friendship, warmth, and affection, and his
companion of 57 years, someone he always talked of with respect and
admiration, and the linkage was true and fast. He relied on some people
for advice and counsel and always cleared the air with his own
thinking. But Maggie, his wife, was someone who was such an integral
part of Danny Inouye's living that this moment is especially tragic. He
looked after her
[[Page S2018]]
with love and affection and talked to those with whom he had contact
about her, never really resigning in tone or in words the fact that she
was not doing well.
So when a Member, a friend like Danny Inouye loses his dearest
friend, his beloved wife of 57 years, their relationship, we all feel
sadness, we all feel touched by his loss and want him and his family,
his son and all of the Inouye family, to know that we all care, we all
share Danny's grief. We all are ready to stand with him as friends and
try to bolster his view about the future by reminding him how valuable
he is to all of us and that we understand his pain, his anguish, and
the sadness he feels. I think I speak for many in this Chamber: We want
to express our feeling and devotion to Danny Inouye, friend, soldier,
leader, our sadness, our grief at this terrible loss he has sustained.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I join with the other Senators in
expressing my sadness tonight as to Senator Dan Inouye's loss. I think
all of us see Senator Inouye as the gold standard of caring. He has
always cared about his constituents. He has always cared about his
colleagues. But, most of all, he has cared about his family, and he
threw himself with every ounce of his energy and strength into caring
for his spouse who has passed today.
It is important for the Senate to note that in addition to his
caring, what Senator Inouye is best known for is his quiet sense of
dignity. This is a place where it can get loud and clamorous at times,
and what Dan Inouye has always done is to try to always take the quiet
path, to lower the decibel level, to try to get Senators to keep a
perspective. That is why he always put his family first.
There are many fine people in the Senate, but when we think about our
colleague Dan Inouye tonight and all he did for his spouse in those
last few months, there is no better person, no better colleague, no
better friend all of us could have than Dan Inouye. I just wanted to,
along with my colleagues, let him know he is in my thoughts and prayers
tonight.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in expressing our
sincere sympathy to Senator Inouye on his loss. He is certainly one of
the finest, most respected Members of this body. He is one of the great
Senators who have served here and has been a true American patriot,
serving his country with such fidelity and putting his very life on the
line, and nearly losing it, and winning the Nation's highest honors in
the course of serving his country.
So I would just say from this Senator, and on behalf of so many of
us, we are sorry to hear this news, and our prayers and support are
with Senator Inouye at this time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise this evening to talk about the
budget that is before the Senate. But before I do, I want to add my
voice to my colleagues who have come out here to express their
condolences to our colleague, Senator Inouye, on the loss of his wife
and long-time partner. Certainly, as the Senator from New Jersey said,
Senator Inouye is the most respected Senator in this body, and he
served his country well. Mrs. Inouye, too, has served her country by
allowing Senator Inouye to be such a historic figure in this country
and such a great leader and by all the time that was demanded by that.
She has served her State, she has served her country, and we are all
grateful. And to Senator Inouye, he and his family are in my thoughts
and prayers as well.
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would like to offer my deep condolences
to our good friend and colleague, Dan Inouye, and his family and to the
people of Hawaii on the death of our friend Dan's wife, Maggie, who
died this afternoon.
The death of anyone is cause for grief. The death of a spouse is an
even greater cause for grief. The death of the spouse of a good friend,
Dan Inouye, is even more grievous to all of us.
Knowing Dan Inouye as we do, we are all hard pressed to find anyone
who is as wonderful and caring, a statesman, generous, as wise a man as
Dan Inouye. A Japanese American under the most difficult of
circumstances, he served his country--and served it with tremendous
valor.
His wife Maggie I did not know well. You can tell a lot about a
person in the first 5 or 10 minutes of just meeting someone. Maggie was
just like Danny--very wise, very deep, very caring, very generous,
classy like Dan.
I say to Dan, to his family, and to the people of Hawaii, you all
have our hearts, you have our prayers, our thoughts are with you as
well as with Maggie in this most difficult time. Know that we are
thinking of you, we are praying for you and for your family.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I come to the floor on a matter of great
sadness for the Senate family. Today, at 4 p.m. at the Walter Reed Army
Medical Center, after a long and difficult struggle with colon cancer,
Margaret Awamura Inouye, the lovely and gracious wife of Senator Dan
Inouye, passed on.
On behalf of my colleagues, I offer my deepest condolences to the
esteemed senior Senator from Hawaii. Our hearts go out to the Inouye
family as they mourn their loss.
Dan and Maggie were married for 58 blessed years. They met in Hawaii
in 1947 right before Thanksgiving. He had just returned from the war
and rehabilitation. She was back from Columbia University with a
master's degree in education.
For Dan, it was love at first sight. And he didn't hesitate to make
his intentions known. He popped the question on their second date, and
to his great, good fortune, she said yes.
For nearly 6 decades, she stood by him, encouraged him, and believed
in his success. Dan credits Maggie for putting him on the path to
becoming a U.S. Senator. Without her, he said he couldn't have made it.
The Senator tells us that Maggie handled her illness with dignity and
grace--that she always had a smile and kept a bright outlook.
Mrs. Inouye is survived by her husband, Dan, their son, Dan Jr., and
her five sisters, Edith, Grace, Betty, Shirley and Patricia.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Inouye family.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if I might ask to be recognized for 3
minutes on the budget resolution now pending.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Thank you very much.
Mr. President, I would like to conclude the matter raised between
Senator Specter and myself about the resolution brought to the floor by
Senator Feingold.
I heard yesterday that Senator Feingold was going to offer this
resolution. I did not realize he would do it today. I have spoken to
Senator Feingold, and I believe it is his intention not to bring this
to a vote today, as some have suggested, but, rather, to use this as a
catalyst to bring about the kinds of hearings and investigations that
this Congress owes to the people of the United States on the wiretap
program.
I have saluted Senator Specter earlier for his leadership on the
Senate Judiciary Committee. I am sorry the Senate Intelligence
Committee, given a chance to do the same thing, failed to exercise its
oversight responsibility on this same program.
I think it is important, regardless of party affiliation, that we ask
the critical constitutional and legal questions about this wiretap
program. This resolution by Senator Feingold will be a catalyst for
that type of investigation, those types of hearings. Whether that
results in a censure of the President or any further action against the
President remains to be seen. But it certainly says to the American
people, we are not going to ignore what could be one of the most
serious constitutional issues to come before this Government in
decades.
I have read this resolution Senator Feingold has offered. I agree
with Senator Specter, I do not think when we voted to go to war against
the Taliban we said to the President that he could ignore the law, that
he could go about wiretapping Americans without court approval. That is
basic to America.
The President has said over and over publicly, if we are going to
wiretap people, we will get court approval. Well, it turns out that is
not the case
[[Page S2019]]
at all. I do not know how often because I have not been briefed on the
details, but apparently on many occasions this Government has
wiretapped the conversations of American citizens without court
approval. The President and the administration have not followed the
clear letter of the law. That is an important and serious
constitutional question.
I think the resolution being brought to us by Senator Feingold will
cause us to look anew at this critically important issue. Whether it
results in any action by Congress, as I said, remains to be seen. But I
think it is important that we accept this challenge by the Senator from
Wisconsin and that hearings be held in the Judiciary Committee, if that
is where the resolution is eventually referred, and possibly even in
the Intelligence Committee.
I hope the Intelligence Committee will start to move on this on a
bipartisan basis. It has historically been a bipartisan committee. But
recently in the last few weeks there have been many important votes
taken on partisan rollcalls, votes relative to the authority and
exercise of that authority by this committee in investigating this Bush
administration.
It would be good if the committee could return to its bipartisan
ways. I think it would give the institution of the Senate a vote of
confidence that we can stand and investigate Presidents of either
political party if there is serious and important policy questions to
be determined.
I yield the floor.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, what is the time agreement?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is a previous order that at 5:30 we will
move to executive session and proceed to a vote on Calendar No. 520.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I think back to a young Senator Inouye,
serving in our military, putting his life at risk and nearly losing it
for our country. One thing he had a right to expect of his Congress
was, as a soldier, he would be supported in the conflict.
We are here today hearing of a resolution presented by Senator
Feingold to censure the President of the United States. It is baseless.
It is not sound in law, and it is not sound in policy. We, by over a
three-quarters vote, voted to send our soldiers in harm's way. This
Senate voted to do that. We authorized the President, in a use of force
resolution, to identify those responsible for attacking us and to
attack and destroy them, to use such military force as he deemed
appropriate to attack and kill them. And our soldiers have been doing
that.
The Supreme Court recently had to deal with the situation in which an
American citizen was captured abroad, Hamdi. They caught him. It went
before the Supreme Court of the United States, and the issue was
whether he was entitled to a trial.
The question was, Was he entitled to a trial? The Supreme Court held
otherwise. The Supreme Court said that he was a prisoner of war, and
the authorization of military force authorized the military to attack
and kill enemies of the United States. It also authorized them to
capture them. That was incident to the use of military force.
It is quite plain that our history of military affairs supports the
concept that surveilling in a time of war is incident to the carrying
on of war. In the same way that we have a right to take an American
citizen and lock them up in jail without trial if they are identified
to be with the enemy, we can surveil the enemy's communications.
The President authorized simply this: al-Qaida conversations in which
one of the parties to that conversation is outside the United States
could be monitored. We know it was through those kinds of
communications that 9/11 occurred. We had sleeper cells here activated
by foreign communications.
It is wrong to undermine this President while we have our soldiers at
war and at risk, to suggest that he has done something wrong and needs
to be censured.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. I express my strongest disapproval of the propriety of
this resolution.
____________________