[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 34 (Thursday, March 16, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2275-S2291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Mental Health Parity Assumption

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to begin by complimenting my 
friend from New Hampshire and the chairman of the Senate Budget 
Committee on a job well done. He has taken a difficult situation and 
produced the budget resolution before us today. Congratulations.
  I would like to raise the issue of mental health parity as the Senate 
debates the fiscal year 2007 Senate budget resolution.
  It is my understanding the resolution before us assumes the revenue 
impact of enacting a mental health parity law at a cost of $1.5 billion 
over 5 years. I want to make sure that it is indeed the case that the 
overall revenue number is such that it assumes Congress will pass a 
mental health parity bill.
  Mr. GREGG. I understand the interest of the distinguished senior 
Senator from New Mexico regarding mental health parity legislation and 
I would concur with my colleague's assessment. S. Con. Res. 83 does 
assume the revenue impact of enacting a mental health parity bill.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the distinguished chairman for his 
consideration and explanation of this important matter.


                        border patrol challenges

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, as the chairman may know, I recently took 
a trip with Senator Coleman to the U.S.-Mexican border to look at the 
challenges facing our Border Patrol agents as they work to secure the 
border against illegal immigration. One of our stops was at Fort 
Huachuca, AZ, where we saw, in operation, the lone UAV Predator B that 
the Customs and Border Patrol has in service. I was tremendously 
impressed with this technology and saw its usefulness in assisting our 
CBP agents in locating and interdicting illegal immigrants as they 
crossed the border. In fact, Mr. Chairman, while at Fort Huachuca, CBP 
caught 13 illegal immigrants using the Predator B right before our 
eyes.
  In our discussions with the CBP officials at Fort Huachuca, we 
learned that with a squadron of UAVs the CBP could provide 24-hour-a-
day, 7-day-a-week, coverage on the Mexican border. These MQ-9 UAVs 
would have satellite command, control, and communications which would 
allow them to be operated anywhere in the world from anywhere in the 
world, as well as an updated sensor suite to assist in finding illegals 
coming across the border. It is my belief that this body should make a 
significant investment in unmanned aerial vehicles.
  We also learned that there is an issue surrounding critical spares 
for the lone UAV in operation. I understand the CBP is scheduled to 
receive a second Predator B this year; however, we need to fund the 
critical spares CBP needs to keep these UAVs up and flying.
  Through conversations that I and my staff have had with FAA, I 
understand they are working out the issues surrounding the flying of 
UAVs within U.S. airspace. I would like to take this opportunity to 
encourage the FAA to continue to work with other Government agencies as 
well as the private sector to mitigate the problems surrounding the use 
of UAVs in U.S. airspace.
  Mr. Chairman, the chairman has been a leader in this body on so many 
issues but in particular on homeland security issues. I look forward to 
working with you in this effort and on this issue.
  Mr. GREGG. I thank my good friend and colleague from Georgia for 
highlighting this issue. Protecting U.S. borders is a basic Federal 
function; it is national security. I also believe these unmanned aerial 
vehicles can enhance our capabilities, as they have for our military as 
demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am in the position of being 
both the chairman of the Budget Committee and manager of this budget 
resolution, and also the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee 
that oversees the Department of Homeland Security both our 
counterterrorism and border security programs.
  The distinguished Senator from Georgia is known as a real leader in 
this area, and we appreciate his counsel. I might note that this budget 
resolution proposes increases of some $4 billion for border security 
focused on improving infrastructure and giving our men and women on the 
front lines

[[Page S2276]]

the tools to do the job. We will have to see how much of these funds 
survive the Appropriations Committee's 302(b) allocation process and 
the administration's transmittals of emergency spending. But I can 
assure the Senator we will take a hard look at the UAV program as a 
component of a border security infrastructure program.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, I would like to take a few 
minutes to speak about the tax gap. Before I get started, I first want 
to thank my colleagues, the chairman and ranking member of the Budget 
Committee, for their interest in the tax gap. As chairman of the 
Finance Committee, I too have a great interest in this topic. It is my 
intention to close the tax gap, and I look forward to working with 
Senator Gregg and Senator Conrad to achieve this important goal.
  The tax gap, as we all know, is the difference between the amount of 
tax owed by taxpayers from legal activities and the amount voluntarily 
paid on time. Today, specifically, I want to clarify the facts and the 
fiction regarding the possible solutions to this $350 billion problem.
  Under my chairmanship, the Finance Committee has held at least eight 
hearings to address the tax gap:
  No. 1, Oversight of the Internal Revenue Service, ``Taxpayer Beware: 
Schemes, Scams, and Cons,'' April 5, 2001; No. 2, Tax Code Complexity: 
New Hope for Fresh Solutions, April 26, 2001; No. 3, Taxpayer Alert: 
Choosing a Paid Preparer and the Pitfalls of Charitable Car Donation, 
April 1, 2003; No. 4, Tax Shelters: Who's Buying, Who's Selling, and 
What's the Government Doing About It?, October 21, 2003; No. 5, 
Bridging the Tax Gap, July 21, 2004; No. 6, Charities and Charitable 
Giving: Proposals for Reform, April 5, 2005; No. 7, The $350 Billion 
Question: How to Solve the Tax Gap, April 14, 2005; and No. 8, Social 
Security: Achieving Sustainable Solvency, May 25, 2005.
  During these hearings, we learned a lot about the tax gap, including 
several good ideas for closing it. We heard from the Joint Committee on 
Taxation. We heard from the Treasury Department, including IRS and 
TIGTA. We heard from the Comptroller General and GAO. We heard from the 
Justice Department. We heard from the Taxpayer Advocate. We heard from 
CBO. We heard from the States. We heard from the private sector, both 
nonprofit and for-profit. And, of course, we heard from the American 
taxpayer.
  From the testimony of all these hearings, and the expertise of all 
these witnesses, we identified several truths about the tax gap:
  No. 1, the tax gap is a huge problem for the tax system; No. 2, it is 
easy to discuss in the abstract; No. 3, there is no easy solution to 
the problem; No. 4, there is no one silver bullet; the tax gap can only 
be solved through many small steps; No. 5, enforcement is important, 
but any real solution to this problem will require legislative changes, 
the most important being Tax Code simplification; No. 6, closing the 
tax gap should not place an undue burden on honest taxpayers; and No. 
7, taking concrete steps to close the tax gap will require a lot of 
political will and bipartisan cooperation.
  In the spirit of bipartisan cooperation, I look forward to working 
with Senator Conrad and others to solve the tax gap problem. Before we 
can reach a bipartisan solution, however, we first need to get on the 
same page regarding the facts and fiction of this issue.
  A common misperception by some of my friends on the other side of the 
aisle is that the only thing we need to do to close the tax gap is give 
the IRS more money for enforcement. This myth asserts that if the IRS 
gets more funding for enforcement, both the $350 billion tax gap and 
the budget deficit will magically disappear. This myth is even being 
used as an offset for new spending.
  The Finance Committee's tax gap hearings have emphasized the 
importance of IRS enforcement. In fact, this budget will provide the 
IRS additional resources to get the job done. However, our best 
estimates suggest that enforcement alone could account for only 10 
percent of the tax gap, not 100 percent as purported by Senator Conrad. 
But even this possible 10 percent is misleading, because it doesn't 
accurately reflect the reality of expanded enforcement. To achieve 
these kinds of returns from enforcement alone would, I fear, require us 
to backtrack to a time when there was serious concern about the IRS 
overreaching and stepping on the rights of taxpayers. We must always 
keep a balance between taxpayer rights and enforcement.
  So yes, while I support additional enforcement, we need to keep our 
feet on the ground and our rhetoric in check as to how much can be 
achieved through enforcement and the level of enforcement that can be 
supported.
  We must also remember that it is vital that enforcement resources be 
targeted properly. We need to be smart in our use of enforcement. Too 
often the IRS has ``no-change'' audits. That is, they have spent a lot 
of time going through the shoebox of receipts belonging to some person 
and found out there were no problems. This is a waste of IRS resources 
and takes up the time of honest taxpayers. I been pleased to work with 
Senator Baucus to encourage the IRS to do the research and review that 
will allow them to focus their attention on the bad actors and get more 
bang for the buck on audits and enforcement.
  Let me note, too, from my work on the Commission on Restructuring the 
IRS that the Commission found that taxpayer service and clarity of law 
are vital in encouraging compliance. So many folks want to abide by 
their obligations as a citizen, but they can't because the law is too 
confusing, and they can't get the right answer. Service and 
simplification must be part of any effort to deal with the tax gap. I 
will return to simplification later in my comments.
  So if enforcement can't solve the $350 billion problem, what are our 
other options? Well, a little over a year ago, the Joint Committee on 
Taxation, at the Finance Committee's request, issued a report.
  This is the report right here. It is titled ``Options to Improve Tax 
Compliance and Reform Tax Expenditures,'' otherwise known as the 
``White Book.''
  This report provided about $190 billion over 5 years with some very 
controversial items. Let me give you some examples:
  Repeal the mortgage interest deduction for home equity loans. Subject 
State and local workers to the Medicare tax. Apply the payroll tax to 
most fringe benefits. Allow the offshore activities of U.S. companies 
to be exempt from U.S. tax.
  These are clearly controversial proposals, and I am sure there are 
not many in the Senate who would line up to endorse them today.
  Some other ideas came out of the Finance Committee's examination of 
the payroll tax gap last spring. The Joint Committee on Taxation and 
the Treasury Department testified on the leakage in the payroll tax 
system. To fix this leak, we heard some of the following ideas:
  Modify the determination of amounts subject to employment tax for 
partners and S Corporation shareholders. Provide consistent FICA 
treatment of salary reduction amounts. Remove the employment tax cap.

  Again, many of these and other comprehensive payroll tax proposals, 
all which would have improved Social Security solvency, were too 
controversial to stand on their own.
  With the lack of bipartisan cooperation on Social Security, we did 
not have an environment to consider these important, but controversial 
proposals. Perhaps, if there had been bipartisan cooperation on 
addressing the Social Security problem, we could have made headway on 
the payroll tax gap.
  In addition, no discussion of methods to close the tax gap can be 
complete without identifying the single most important one, which is 
Tax Code simplification. Our tax code is just too complex. Complex laws 
lead to inadvertent errors as well as opportunities for intentional 
noncompliance. Complexity in the Tax Code also contributes heavily to 
taxpayer confusion and real or perceived unfairness in the tax system. 
And studies have shown that if taxpayers feel they are being treated 
unfairly by the tax system, they are less likely to be compliant. Any 
real effort to close the tax gap cannot be taken seriously unless Tax 
Code simplification is part of the proposal.
  Finally, I also want to alert my colleagues to the fact that we have 
measures in the tax relief reconciliation bill that aim at some aspects 
of the tax gap. In particular, some of these are

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dealing with problems we are seeing in tax-exempt entities--charitable 
donations and abuses of tax-exempt organizations. We have reforms of 
two types of charitable entities--donor advised funds and supporting 
organizations. Too often, people have been making donations to these 
organizations but retaining control and seeing an inappropriate benefit 
going to themselves and their family, rather than to the community and 
those in need.
  Let my colleagues understand, the issues of donor advised funds and 
supporting organizations are not minor as it relates to the tax gap. 
The IRS recently released its ``dirty dozen'' tax scams for 2006, and 
throughout the thousands of pages of Tax Code and regulations, abuse of 
donor advised funds and supporting organizations was targeted as one of 
the top dozen problems.
  Two years ago, the Commissioner of the IRS, in a letter to me, 
highlighted the abuse of donor advised funds and supporting 
organizations as the No. 1 problem IRS was seeing in tax-exempt 
entities.
  I think the public would view the Finance Committee as neglecting its 
work if it didn't seek to shut down such abuses. The Finance Committee 
didn't turn a blind eye; we worked on addressing these problems and 
drafting reforms. These reforms of donor advised funds and supporting 
organizations have been drafted on a bipartisan basis and with 
significant comment and input from the charity sector, particularly the 
Nonprofit Panel. I am pleased that these measures are now in tax 
reconciliation and conference. I think it is important that we take 
steps in addressing these problems here and now.
  But my point is that here is something--problems of donor advised 
funds and supporting organizations--labeled as one of the most dirty 
abuses in the entire Code, and yet I still have a few colleagues who 
come to me with this complaint, this change, this concern about what we 
are doing to stop the abuses. If the road is so full of potholes on 
dealing with these areas of clear abuse and relatively small dollars, I 
think we need to recognize the real problems ahead in dealing with the 
big issues in the tax gap. Unfortunately, all too often I find that the 
tax gap is an issue in which everyone shouts for solving in the 
abstract, while many of those same voices are stilled when it comes to 
the particulars.
  In closing, I want to re-emphasize the importance of this debate. 
Today, I have just scratched the surface on this topic. I praise the 
Treasury and IRS for taking some initial steps. I applaud the chairman 
and ranking member of the Budget Committee for their interest in 
closing the tax gap, and I welcome input from other Senators as well. I 
will eagerly entertain any specific ideas to close the tax gap as long 
as they go beyond ``more money for IRS enforcement,'' and as long as 
they do not place an undue burden on honest taxpayers. The solution to 
this problem needs to be bipartisan, and it needs to be legislative. 
Let's sit down at the table, separate the facts from the fiction, and 
work together to solve this tax gap problem.
  But, the bottom line for the discussion today is that the minority's 
point that closing the tax gap can be done just through enforcement 
just doesn't have merit. And, the $35 billion--and that is stretching 
it--that may be gotten through enforcement doesn't come close to paying 
for the over $100 billion in new spending that the Democrat leadership 
is pushing.
  Mr. President, virtually all Democratic Members have had a common 
theme in their purported offsets for their amendments to this 
resolution--they would close tax loopholes to pay for whatever popular 
spending program is proposed. Closing corporate tax loopholes is the 
common refrain to pay for spending. Several Members have referred to 
the raisers in Senator Conrad's substitute amendment to the tax relief 
reconciliation bill--and they keep trying to spend that same money over 
and over again.
  Of the raisers in Senator Conrad's substitute amendment, $30 billion 
of those are included in the Senate tax relief reconciliation bill that 
is now in conference between the House and Senate. Many of the 
proponents of these amendments that have been offered on the other side 
of the aisle, using tax loophole closers, were among the small minority 
of Members who opposed the tax relief reconciliation bill that 
contained offsets.
  This brings me then to the amendments that have been proposed. The 
sponsors say they have offset the costs of the amendments by closing 
tax loopholes. Senator Conrad's amendment contains the known universe 
of revenue raisers supported by those on the other side. If we assume 
that the raisers in Senator Conrad's amendment would have raised 
approximately $89 billion over 10 years that is still a far cry from 
the cumulative demands of the amendments that have already been offered 
from the other side. The amendments that have been offered that propose 
to use those tax loophole closers as offsets total $319 in new 
spending. That total is as of 3:30 p.m. this afternoon. We don't have a 
tally for all of the additional amendments that have been proposed 
since then. That new spending, by the way occurs over the budget 
period--5 years. That means we will have to find $319 more in revenue 
raisers just to cover those new spending items.
  Now, if you use a loophole closer that is already called for in the 
tax relief package that is in conference, we will also need to find 
another $30 billion in raisers to cover the tax reconciliation bill 
unless my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided that 
they are no longer interested in the tuition deduction and the low 
income savers credit and the work opportunity tax credit and the 
deduction for teacher expenses and small business expensing and, oh 
yes, AMT relief for nearly 20 million Americans. The Finance Committee 
staff hopes to use the full $30 billion that is already in conference 
in the Senate tax relief reconciliation bill for those important tax 
relief provisions.
  So, if we leave the $30 billion in raisers that are in tax 
reconciliation out of it, we will have $59 billion in net new revenue 
raisers available that are supported by those on the other side. Keep 
in mind, I'm giving the other side a break here because I'm using 10 
year numbers for the offsets. The 5 year numbers are probably less than 
half of the net $59 billion they could claim they are raising. If you 
subtract the $59 billion from the $319 billion in new spending 
proposed, it means the other side's amendments were short by $260 
billion. That's $260 billion, Mr. President.
  Now, that $260 billion needs to come from some place. It wipes out 
all the tax relief in the package. That means no extension of the child 
tax credit, marginal rate relief, marriage penalty relief, retirement 
security relief, or education tax relief when those provisions expire 
in 2011.
  It also means no extension of the Alternative Minimum Tax relief 
``patch'' and other extenders like the research and development tax 
credit.
  You can't have it both ways, Mr. President.
  Either the other side, if they had prevailed, would have added $260 
billion in deficit spending or they would've gutted the tax relief they 
claim to support.
  Budgets are about choices. In this case, the choices are clear. If 
the Democratic leadership were in control of the Senate, we would have 
no tax relief left in this budget or we would have added $269 billion 
in deficit spending. That deficit spending would be $269 billion higher 
than the deficits in the budget that the other side criticizes. Neither 
choice would be the right choice for the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG. The President's budget proposal fiscal year 2007 includes 
a plan to change, through issuance of a new administrative ruling, the 
way Bonneville Power Administration, BPA, retires its debt to the 
Federal Treasury. The plan would require BPA to use excess revenues to 
retire long-term debt more quickly. Because the change would be made 
through the rulemaking process, congressional approval would not be 
needed for the rule to go into effect. Analysts believe the proposed 
rule would result in 10-percent rate increase that BPA would be forced 
to pass on to ratepayers.
  This rate proposal is not acceptable. The Northwest is a region that 
is growing very rapidly, and our economy is built on hydropower. That 
means each year is different, depending on what

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kind of water year we have had. This proposal would limit BPA's 
flexibility to deal with the bad water years by taking advantage of the 
good ones.
  According to a February 8, 2006, analysis by the Northwest Power and 
Conservation Council, the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, 
proposal will result in a retail rate increase of at least 6.6 percent, 
raising power rates $145 million a year, costing retail customers an 
additional $26.13 a year, decreasing personal income in the Northwest 
by $109 million, and resulting in the loss of 1,120 jobs. The Pacific 
Northwest economy is only beginning to rebound from the recent 
recession, and increasing energy costs will only serve to slow that 
recovery. Surely, it is preferable to foster longer-term economic 
growth in the region rather than focus on a short-term revenue stream 
for the U.S. Treasury.
  Some assert that this proposal is good business practice because it 
prepays BPA's Federal debt. I disagree because the full story is not 
being told. While it is not unusual to prepay debt, it is certainly 
unusual for the Government to require this. In fact, this proposal is 
one-sided. It takes excess revenues away from BPA during good water 
years but does not assist BPA in bad water years.
  BPA has been prepaying debt for more than 20 years, even when our 
Northwest States had the second and third highest unemployment in the 
country. Power rates were not raised to do this. So why is the 
Government requiring prepayment of debt and an increase in power rates 
when the Northwest has been successful in prepaying debt without 
impacting rates? This does not make sense unless there is another 
reason for the proposal.
  According to the Department of Energy, DOE, the main purposes of the 
proposal are to allow more financial flexibility for BPA and to help 
build more transmission infrastructure. We agree with these goals but 
think the individuals in the region can better decide how to accomplish 
them.
  Unfortunately, it seems this proposal would result in the 
establishment of BPA as a revenue raiser for the Treasury--a 
questionable precedent and one BPA will not always be able to achieve. 
This proposal must be stopped.
  Senators Crapo, Wyden, and Murray have successfully inserted section 
312 into S. Con. Res. 83, which relates to requiring BPA to use excess 
revenues to prepay long-term debt. I commend my colleagues for their 
effort and support their provision, but this is just the first step in 
making sure that this proposal does not go forward. Our work is far 
from over.
  I will continue to work with my colleagues to put this issue to rest.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Levin-DeWine amendment would provide 
$140 million to the Advanced Technology Program to support cost-shared 
industry-led research and development of cutting-edge high-risk 
technology with broad commercial potential and societal benefits. The 
amendment is fully offset with reductions in function 920.
  The Senate has voted twice recently in support of this program. Last 
year the Senate voted to adopt a Levin-DeWine budget amendment to 
provide for the Advanced Technology Program, ATP. The Senate defeated 
an amendment that would have eliminated the ATP Program during 
consideration of the fiscal year 2006 Commerce-Justice-Science 
appropriations bill.
  We have lost nearly 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since January 
2001. We should be doing all we can to promote programs that help 
create jobs and strengthen the technological innovation of American 
companies and produce the systems that are defending our national 
security. This budget resolution includes $28 billion for agriculture 
but includes very little for manufacturing.
  In fiscal year 2006 the Senate funded ATP at $140 million, but 
because the House zeroed out the program, ATP ended up with only $80 
million in conference. The Senate needs to again provide $140 million 
for ATP to help ensure this program has at least last year's level of 
funding.
  The ATP is a very modest program which, according to the Department 
of Commerce, has had a result eight times more in technologies 
developed than the amount of money we have put into the program. This 
is an eight-time return on investment in advanced technologies which is 
achieved when the Department of Commerce partners with industry through 
the ATP. I urge adoption of the amendment.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, as a statement of priorities and a vision of 
where we want our nation to be in the years to come, this budget fails 
the test of responsible leadership. Instead of correcting the mistakes 
of the past few years, this budget repeats and compounds those 
mistakes. It adds to record levels of national debt. It favors the 
fortunate few over everyone else who is working hard and playing by the 
rules. It does far too little for the most vulnerable and needy 
Americans--our children, our seniors, our veterans. Unlike China, 
India, and other countries, it invests only a minute fraction of our 
resources in research and development. We've seen where this agenda has 
led us--it represents a stunning failure to address any of the major 
challenges of our era, like globalization, security, stagnant incomes, 
and rising income inequality.
  America has always been blessed with great natural resources. But in 
spite of these physical resources, our greatest strength has always 
been our human ones--the American spirit of ingenuity, creativity, and 
old fashioned hard work. Regrettably, the budget before this body fails 
to make the necessary investments to build and maintain the strength of 
our human capital, America's greatest asset. This may not be 
intentional; I presume that President Bush and my colleagues across the 
aisle believe just as strongly in boosting our nation's economic 
competitiveness. But regardless of their intentions, the fact is that 
mismanagement, misplaced priorities, and misguided faith in outdated 
economic ideologies continue to set us back.
  On Friday of last week, an article appeared on an international news 
wire that is rather stunning in its implications for the budget 
resolution now pending before the Senate. The headline of this article, 
Mr. President, reads, ``China to Boost Science, Tech Spending by Nearly 
20 Percent.'' The story continues:

       ``China will increase its spending on science and 
     technology by nearly 20 percent this year in a move to remain 
     competitive in the face of international challenges, the 
     government said . . . The State Council, or cabinet, last 
     month said 2.5 percent of China's gross domestic product 
     (GDP) would be allocated to spending on research and 
     development over the next 15 years, up from 1.23 percent in 
     2002.''

  ``The government,'' the article goes on to say, ``will not only 
allocate more money but also encourage all segments of society, 
including companies, to put emphasis on research and development 
through measures including tax incentives.''
  Finally, it quotes the Minister of Science and Technology as telling 
the National People's Congress, ``Without progress on science and 
technology, it would be very hard to reach our target of becoming a 
well-off society.''
  On one level, we as Americans should welcome the decision by 
virtually any country to invest more in science and technology. In 
fact, if more nations were to make a similar decision, the world as a 
whole would greatly benefit by peaceful advances in commerce and in 
finding solutions to some of the planet's most intractable problems.
  But this news from China should also serve as a reminder to 
Americans, as we consider our budget priorities for the upcoming year 
and our vision for the future, of the commitment it takes to remain a 
leader in the global economy. Even with the passage of the amendment to 
increase Labor, Health, and Human Services funds offered by Senators 
Spector and Harkin, of which I was a cosponsor, this budget regrettably 
falls short.
  The average American family over the last few years has been working 
harder and harder just to tread water. A household earning the median 
income made $1,600 less in 2004 than they did 4 years earlier. 
Meanwhile, during the same period, the average family's health 
insurance premiums have risen by $3,600, or 57 percent. Their energy 
costs continue to rise--even though many parts of the country had 
warmer than usual weather this winter, families can still expect to pay 
more than $250 extra this year to heat their homes. If they have a 
child attending a public 4-year college, that bill has gone up by 57 
percent since 2000, as well.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim that this budget 
sets us

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on a path to fiscal responsibility. But as the Senator from North 
Dakota, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, has pointed out 
time and again before this body, that is anything but the case. Instead 
of saving for the retirement of the baby boomers--which is already 
beginning--we're borrowing like there's no tomorrow.
  In 2000, we had a budget surplus of $128 billion; in 2006, largely as 
a consequence of the fiscal recklessness of this administration and the 
majority party in the Congress, the Federal Government is expected to 
run a deficit of $371 billion. Under this administration, the president 
and his allies will have added $3 trillion to our national debt by the 
end of this fiscal year. That would put America's public debt at more 
than $8.6 trillion, or around $28,000 for every man, woman, and child 
in America. Further, under the current administration, the share of 
that debt held by foreign creditors has more than doubled.
  And it's not just the Federal Government that's borrowing, but the 
economy as a whole. Our personal savings rate in January was negative 
0.7 percent, the 10th consecutive month for which it was effectively 
zero or below. Our current account deficit continues to set new 
records; it was an unprecedented $805 billion in 2005.
  This dramatic run-up in the debt has real costs for America's 
families--both today and for future generations. It puts upward 
pressure on interest rates for things like student loans, home 
mortgages, and automobile loans. It raises the cost of capital for 
business investment. Rising interest rates, caused by America's growing 
indebtedness, represent a de facto tax increase on American families 
and businesses.
  This administration's fiscal recklessness has also hurt our ability 
to address our nation's most important priorities, like education and 
health care, that strengthen our economic competitiveness and allow 
more Americans to share in greater prosperity. This budget provides a 
clear illustration of this failure, with the drastic cuts it would make 
in these areas.
  The budget proposed by the Bush administration and my colleagues 
across the aisle would make the largest cut in our Nation's commitment 
to education in the 26-year history of the Education Department. These 
cuts will adversely affect students at all levels of learning. 
Investment and competitiveness begin with our children. As I have said 
many times before, education may be expensive, but ignorance costs 
more.
  As I noted earlier, college tuition and fees have increased 57 
percent for a public 4-year college. They have risen 32 percent for a 
private 4-year college since 2000. Yet instead of helping middle class 
families meet these skyrocketing college costs, this budget proposes to 
once again freeze the maximum Pell grant award at $4,050. In 1975, a 
Pell grant covered 80 percent of the cost of a public, 4-year college 
education; today, it covers only 40 percent. Surely we can do better 
than this for America's families. A college education should be a 
gateway to a better life for anyone willing to work for it, not just a 
privilege for those who can afford it.
  This budget also continues to underfund K-12 education. The president 
and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle tout their commitment 
to education in the No Child Left Behind law. But this law is 
underfunded by $15.4 billion this year. The budget also cuts Head 
Start, afterschool programs, and child care, all of which prepare our 
children to learn better and help parents keep their kids in school and 
off the streets.
  While countries like China are increasing their investments in 
science and technology, this budget would make a commitment in these 
areas that is little more than cosmetic. President Bush has talked a 
great deal about his so-called ``American Competitiveness Initiative,'' 
but under the budget he sent to the Congress, he would actually cut 
overall R&D funding in real terms for the first time since 1996. As a 
share of the economy, total Federal R&D funding would fall below 1 
percent for the first time since fiscal year 2003.
  One of the casualties would be biomedical and cancer research through 
the National Institutes of Health. Just two months ago, President Bush 
signed into law the first cut to NIH funding since 1970. Now, he has 
proposed further cutting funding for 18 of the 19 institutes in Fiscal 
2007, including the ones conducting research on two of America's 
leading causes of death: cancer and heart disease.
  The administration's proposals are reflected in the budget before 
this body today, which carries the same low level of overall 
discretionary spending. So while countries like China are setting goals 
like boosting R&D funding to 2.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product by 
2020, we have nothing but a catchy slogan and cuts in the kinds of 
investments we need to stay strong.
  This budget increases costs for entrepreneurs and small businesses. 
President Bush likes to say that his high- income tax breaks have 
benefited small business owners, but in reality, the distribution of 
benefits to small business owners has followed the same pattern as it 
has for everyone else--those with the highest incomes have received the 
most, and everyone else has been stuck with the bill. Among Americans 
with small business income, more than half of the benefits of the 2001 
and 2003 tax breaks have been spent on those making more than $200,000 
a year, or less than 8 percent of all small business owners, according 
to the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. So while few 
small businesses have gained anything meaningful from the tax breaks, 
the administration this year is proposing to increase their cost of 
capital by charging a new fee for Small Business Administration loans. 
This would be a direct tax increase on one of our most important 
engines of growth. For an administration that claims to value small 
business, the record fails to live up to the rhetoric.
  This budget fails the test of economic leadership not only by cutting 
investments in American competitiveness, but by abandoning our most 
basic American values. As Americans, we proudly look out for the least 
fortunate among us. Unfortunately, this budget fails to do this. It 
asks struggling parents to work more hours, but cuts the child care 
that helps them do it. It cuts funding for children's hospitals, like 
Hartford's Connecticut Children's Medical Center in my home state. 
Children's hospitals like CCMC train 30 percent of the Nation's 
pediatricians and more than 50 percent of the nation's pediatric 
specialists. This budget cuts food aid for senior citizens, pregnant 
women, and children. It cuts housing assistance and freezes funding 
that helps homeless veterans find work.
  By adopting this budget, the president and his allies in the Congress 
would continue to walk away from one of America's bedrock principles: 
that everyone in our nation should have an equal opportunity to live a 
free and meaningful life.
  While some of the amendments considered by this body appear on the 
surface to rectify some of the cuts this budget would make to vital 
priorities, they in reality fail to live up to their billing. The 
amendment offered by Senator McConnell, for example, claimed to support 
port security, which should be one of our nation's highest priorities. 
It would have done so, however, through a budgetary gimmick that would 
result in an across-the-board cut to other areas, including, 
ironically, homeland security and national defense. It also would have 
provided no new funds beyond the already specified discretionary 
spending cap. Instead, it would have offered nothing more than non-
binding instructions to the Appropriations Committee about how to 
allocate the funds under its jurisdiction. For this reason, I supported 
the port security amendment offered by Senator Menendez instead of the 
McConnell amendment. The Menendez amendment would have provided the 
funds we need for this critical priority without making other cuts, and 
done so in a fiscally responsible manner by shutting down tax shelters 
and closing corporate tax loopholes, measures that have already passed 
this body on a bipartisan basis but which have not become law.
  In the last few years, the American economy has weathered the storm 
of terrorist attacks, a downturn in the business cycle, natural 
disasters, and war. This is a testament to the strength and resiliency 
of the American people. But I wonder how much more our Nation can take 
of mismanaged economic policies and wrong priorities; of 
underinvestment in people, ideas, and innovation; and of an

[[Page S2280]]

agenda that increases the burden on the most vulnerable members of our 
society rather than lightening it, before we do irreparable harm.
  If we want to continue to increase living standards and expand the 
capabilities of our society so that all may benefit, we must continue 
to invest in people, ideas, and innovation. We need a budget that will 
make our Nation stronger and more vibrant. We need more than just 
cosmetic solutions to the major challenges of our era. Above all, we 
need our government's priorities to reflect the values of the American 
people, like opportunity and responsibility, and the American vision of 
shared prosperity, expanding freedoms, and a just society. Regrettably, 
the budget offered by the President and by my colleagues across the 
aisle fails to accomplish these goals and fails to make the changes 
necessary to put our Nation back on the right course.
  Mr. President, I have filed an amendment that will restore crucial 
investments to support our children and families in the fiscal year 
2007 budget. I am joined on the amendment by Senators Kennedy, Clinton, 
Harkin, Mikulski, Murray, Durbin, Lieberman, Cantwell, Kerry, Salazar, 
Baucus, Schumer, Lautenberg, Kohl, and Lincoln. It is important that we 
shift priorities and resources toward young children and families, to 
create an environment for healthy development and to help parents give 
their children the best possible start in life. Children represent one-
quarter of our population but 100 percent of our future. We must 
nurture their growth and education as they provide the human capital 
that will determine our Nation's success in the global economy.
  Today our families are working harder to pay for basic needs such as 
housing, fuel, health care, and childcare. At the same time, real 
income has decreased over the past 4 years. As a result, many hard-
working families are finding it more difficult to make ends meet.
  If our Nation is going to compete with the rest of the world, we must 
prepare our children for this challenge. It is essential that we 
cultivate the potential of each and every child. How can we know who 
may be a Nobel laureate, who may take us further into space, or who may 
be our future President, if we do not give them all an equal chance to 
thrive?
  We all agree that we should not burden our children and grand 
children with great debt. Nor should our Nation abandon their need for 
health care, education, and other necessities.
  As I said earlier, the amendment focuses on crucial assistance to 
children and families. The amendment is very simple. It takes several 
initiatives which have bipartisan support and restores the investments 
to a level that the Congress has already agreed to--in previous 
authorization or spending measures.
  This amendment would increase resources by $3.3 billion in the fiscal 
year 2007 budget resolution for five programs: the childcare and 
development block grant by $540 million; Head Start by $520 million; 
21st Century Community Learning Centers by $1.5 billion; Child Abuse 
Prevention and Treatment Act programs by $105 million; and the 
community services block grant by $650 million. In addition, it reduces 
the Federal deficit by $3.3 billion and pays for itself by closing 
corporate tax loopholes that were passed by the Senate in the tax 
reconciliation bill in February.
  This amendment attempts to renew investments that have failed to keep 
pace with our Nation's needs. This proposal will restore the community 
services block grant to $650 million, the level Congress appropriated 
in fiscal year 2002; the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act 
initiatives to $200 million for the level authorized for fiscal year 
2004; and restore funding to the level of $7.2 billion for Head Start 
to keep pace with inflation and recent across-the-board cuts.
  In addition, the amendment brings the investment in afterschool up to 
$2.5 million, the level authorized for 21st century community learning 
centers in the No Child Left Behind Act. The childcare and development 
block grant investment will reach a level of $2.66 billion from its 
previous level-funding of $2.06 billion, if the amendment passes.
  We must invest in our children and improve their lives. Each day, 12 
million children ages 0 to 4 spend much of their day in out-of-home 
child care while their parents work. In a majority of cases, having 
both parents work is a necessity, not a choice.
  Currently, about one in seven children who are eligible for childcare 
and development block grant--CCDBG--subsidies are receiving assistance. 
With childcare costing between $4,000 and $10,000 a year, many families 
simply can not afford to pay for the care they need. Average child care 
fees for a year exceed 10 percent of the median household income in 
most States. Not only is childcare an essential support for hard-
working families, it is an important early education opportunity for 
children.
  With respect to Head Start, only 50 percent of eligible children are 
enrolled in Head Start classes. Costs are rising for transportation, 
heating, and cooling, health insurance, and supplies. Some centers have 
cut back hours and days of service to children and let teachers go. Our 
children deserve a high-quality opportunity to learn and thrive through 
Head Start, and we should give more children that chance.
  As they struggle to reach their own potential and achieve financial 
stability, working families require support. Community services block 
grant initiatives serve 15 million individuals, 6 million families and 
3.7 million children. Forty-four percent of those receiving funds are 
gainfully employed, but they may still have trouble affording the cost 
of heating their home, putting food on the table, or sending their 
children to a quality childcare program. While each Federal dollar 
spent leverages more than $5 in State, local and private funding, the 
Federal investment is still essential to helping hard-working people 
get ahead.
  At the very least, we must keep children from harm. Each year, nearly 
3 million cases of child abuse and neglect are reported, and nearly 1 
million of these cases are substantiated. States lack the resources 
necessary to investigate suspected cases, to protect children, and to 
prevent abuse and neglect from occurring. The Child Abuse Prevention 
and Treatment Act--CAPTA--helps communities maintain and expand efforts 
to improve children's lives. The amendment seeks to increase this 
important investment.
  All of our children and families deserve a fair start. We know that 
investments in children pay dividends later in life. But it takes 
financial commitment and an understanding that we cannot waste a day of 
a child's life, leaving that child to play catchup later.
  Families are asking for our help. I ask my colleagues to join me in 
heeding their call and supporting this amendment.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, every year the Senate considers a budget 
resolution that sets forth the blueprint for the Government's spending 
and revenues. Unfortunately, the budget we are considering this year 
continues the administration's policies that have led to the deepest 
deficits and debt in American history. It also reflects the wrong 
priorities by cutting important programs like education and Medicare to 
fund large tax cuts which mostly benefit the richest among us.
  The result of these irresponsible fiscal policies is that we are 
passing on a huge burden to our children and grandchildren and 
threatening our economic security. Our Nation is currently $8.2 
trillion in debt--that's over $27,000 per person--and this astounding 
number is only getting worse. Earlier today the Senate voted to raise 
the Federal debt limit for the fourth time in 5 years, meaning we've 
increased our debt by $3 trillion since 2002. A sensible budget 
resolution would try to curb this unsustainable trend; unfortunately, 
this budget moves in the wrong direction. Under this budget, the 
national debt would grow to $11.8 trillion in the next 5 years.
  Continued deficits will mean rising long-term interest rates and 
slower economic growth. Continued deficits will make it more expensive 
to buy a house, pay for college, or pay off credit card debt. Alan 
Greenspan recently warned that, if left unchecked, deficits ``would 
cause the economy to stagnate or worse.'' Continued deficits will also 
mean the continued use of the Social Security Trust Fund to cover the 
funding shortfalls.
  Instead of changing course, however, this budget proposes to make the 
administration's tax cuts permanent.

[[Page S2281]]

Over 10 years, the cost of making tax cuts permanent would be 
approximately $2.8 trillion, or $3.3 trillion when the added interest 
payments on the debt are included. Although the cost of the President's 
tax breaks are as large as the entire budgets of the Departments of 
Agriculture, Labor, Education, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, 
Justice, Interior, Energy, State, HUD, and EPA combined, his budget 
cuts critical programs which are a small percentage of the deficit 
problems his tax breaks create.
  On a positive note, I was able to get an amendment included in this 
budget to provide $140 million to the Advanced Technology Program to 
support cost-shared industry-led research and development of cutting-
edge high risk technology with broad commercial potential and societal 
benefits. America has lost nearly 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since 
January 2001. We should be doing all we can to promote programs that 
help create jobs and strengthen the technological innovation of 
American companies and produce the systems that are defending our 
national security.
  I am also pleased that the Senate agreed to my amendment to add $6 
million to the budget for the establishment of new Northern Border Air 
Wing sites. Northern Border Air Wings have been operational in New York 
and Washington since 2004 and I look forward to the opening of 
additional sites in Michigan, North Dakota, and Montana in the coming 
years. These sites will help improve critical air and marine 
interdiction capabilities along our Northern Border.
  I am also pleased that the budget includes an important amendment 
that Senator Stabenow and I offered that will improve inspections of 
trash trucks entering the U.S. from Canada. These trucks pose a threat 
to our security and the environment, and this amendment is a critical 
step towards reducing these risks.
  I am also pleased that the Senate adopted an amendment to the budget 
resolution to fund the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, 
LIHEAP, at its full authorized level of $5.1 billion. This amendment 
would increase the LIHEAP funding for 2007 by $3.318 billion and offset 
the increased spending by closing corporate tax loopholes. The Senate 
has voted on five previous occasions to support full funding for the 
LIHEAP program, and I hope that this time the conferees on the budget 
resolution will retain this amendment. Full funding for LIHEAP will 
ensure that States are able to serve more people in need of assistance 
during both the cold winter months.
  While there are certainly some positive inclusions in this budget 
package, it is entirely too fiscally irresponsible and short-changes 
too many important programs for me to vote to support it.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I have serious reservations about this 
budget and will vote against it.
  At their best, budgets ought to embody discipline, vision, and 
accuracy. Not so for this budget. While it claims fiscal discipline, 
that claim is belied in the budget's bloated bottom line. While it 
claims strategic vision, that vision is a blurred blend of wasted 
dollars, missed opportunities, and neglected priorities. While it 
claims financial accuracy, that accuracy is of the quality found in an 
Enron balance sheet.
  The tax portion of the budget resolution is remarkable, not for what 
it contains, but for what it omits. It fails to account for the 
expiration of alternative minimum tax relief at the end of 2006. The 
AMT currently captures approximately 4 million, mostly middle-class, 
families and individuals in its high tax trap--a trap meant to catch 
only high-income taxpayers who take advantage of complicated loopholes 
to avoid paying their fair share. That number would swell to more than 
34 million people in 2011 under this budget.
  Instead of AMT reform, this budget contains $228 million to 
accommodate tax cuts that were included in the House and Senate passed 
reconciliation bills currently in conference. I voted against the 
Senate tax reconciliation bill because I could not support unnecessary 
tax cut extensions at a time of burgeoning deficits. The deficits are 
still burgeoning, and I still oppose those unneeded and unjustified tax 
breaks for our highest income taxpayers.
  The budget's generosity to high-income taxpayers is offset by its 
miserly treatment of our Nation's educational system. The budget 
proposes the largest cut to federal education funding in the 26-year 
history of the Education Department. Students, educators, parents, and 
administrators all lose out. Under this budget, funding for No Child 
Left Behind and special education will still fall far short of their 
authorized levels. The same holds for Career and Technical Education, 
Safe and Drug Free Schools, and TRIO programs. I commend Senators 
Specter and Harkin for their successful amendment to restore some of 
these deeps cuts, and hope their provision will survive conference with 
the House.
  As ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, I am also 
troubled that some of the most painful cuts in this budget would fall 
on important programs at the Administration on Aging. The meager 
funding levels in this budget would put Meals on Wheels and Family 
Caregiver Support Services on the chopping block. That means that, 
while Wisconsin's senior population continues to grow from 705,000 
senior citizens in 2000 to 730,000 seniors this year, and is projected 
to grow to 1.2 million seniors by 2025, this budget will not keep pace 
with needed services in Wisconsin or any other State.
  Funding for geriatric health professions is also likely to suffer. 
Title VII funding for geriatrics training is the only Federal program 
that specifically develops academic geriatricians at a time when more 
are needed. In prior years, Congress has demonstrated its strong 
support for the program through continued and increased appropriations 
over the past five years, including $31.5 million in fiscal year 2005. 
I was disappointed that the fiscal year 2006 Labor, HHS bill eliminated 
this program, and I am even more concerned that the budget before us 
makes it difficult, if not impossible to restore it in fiscal year 
2007. Delegates to the recent White House Conference on Aging ranked 
increased training in geriatrics among their top ten resolutions at the 
once in a decade meeting in December of 2005. Clearly, this budget does 
not adequately prepare for our aging population.
  Nowhere is that more clear than in the budget resolution's 
treatment--or lack thereof--of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. 
During consideration of this budget, many of us worked to improve that 
benefit. The launch of the drug benefit has been confusing and 
complicated for too many seniors and people with disabilities. Medicare 
beneficiaries who do not choose a plan by the May 15 deadline and 
enroll at a later date will face a substantial and permanent penalty. I 
cosponsored an amendment to extend the enrollment period through all of 
2006 to give people additional time to make the best plan choice for 
them. This amendment would have also allowed a one-time change in plan 
enrollment at any point in 2006.
  Enrolling in drug plans has been challenging and confusing for too 
many beneficiaries, and it makes sense to give them a chance to correct 
an initial mistake made during this difficult first year of 
implementation. Unfortunately, our amendment failed by one vote and the 
Senate instead gave Medicare managers discretionary authority to decide 
to extend the enrollment deadline for the drug benefit. While I voted 
for that amendment because I believe it is important to send a strong 
signal, I am concerned by recent comments made by the President and 
Medicare officials. Those comments clearly show their resistance to 
giving seniors more time to make a careful decision about what drug 
plan they will be locked into for the remainder of the year.
  In addition, under current law, prescription drug plans can change 
the drugs they cover as many times as they want--while seniors are 
prohibited from changing drug plans except during the annual open 
enrollment period. This means that after seniors complete their 
research and choose the drug plan they believe is the best plan for 
their needs, they have no guarantee that their drugs will continue to 
be covered all year. That is why I cosponsored an amendment that would 
prohibit Medicare prescription drug plans from removing a drug from 
their approved list until the beginning of each plan year. This would 
ensure that seniors will not lose coverage of the drugs

[[Page S2282]]

they take without being allowed to also change their plan.
  Finally, one of the most troublesome features of the new law is that 
it prohibits the Government from utilizing the tremendous purchasing 
power of the Medicare program to reduce prices. I cosponsored an 
amendment to repeal this provision and allow the Federal Government to 
negotiate directly with drug companies for lower drug prices for 
seniors. I am pleased the amendment passed and I hope this provision 
will remain in the final resolution.
  The budget was also improved by an amendment, of which I was an 
original sponsor, on the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, 
MEP. The amendment, which was unanimously accepted, would fund the MEP 
at $106 million for fiscal year 2007. I am a long-time supporter of the 
MEP program and believe manufacturing is crucial to the U.S. economy. 
By offering resources, including organized workshops and consulting 
projects, to manufacturers, MEP allows them to streamline operations, 
integrate new technologies, shorten production times, and lower costs. 
At a time when we want to increase economic activity and strengthen the 
manufacturing base of our nation, the MEP is a fiscally sound 
investment.
  I am similarly pleased that this budget was amended to include 
adequate funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. I 
voted to include $5.1 billion in order to fund this valuable program at 
its fully authorized level. Just a few months ago the Congress passed 
an energy bill, which I supported, which funded LIHEAP at $5.1 billion. 
This was a sorely needed update to a program where the funding has been 
frozen at an inadequate amount for years. There was bipartisan support 
for the Energy Bill, and I am pleased the Congress met the commitment 
we made in that bill.
  But even those improvements--important as they are to me--fail to 
make up for one of the central and most disturbing inadequacies of this 
budget. This budget simply fails to provide adequate resources to take 
care of our returning troops. Once again the President's budget 
requires the Veterans Administration to charge veterans an enrollment 
fee and increases the co-payments for veterans receiving medical care 
through the VA system. These charges add insult to injury when veterans 
are also being forced to wait for months before they are able to see a 
doctor at the local VA hospital. Senator Akaka's amendment tried to 
remedy this situation by adding an additional $1.5 billion to the 
budget, but his responsible approach was rejected.
  We face unprecedented challenges in our Nation today. War and 
terrorism demand our resources and attention. An aging population 
struggles to find the money to educate the next generation while 
battling sky high health care costs. Our powerful economy fights to 
create high quality jobs in a world market of constant technological 
innovation and fierce international competition.
  We need a budget that that sees and meets these challenges clearly--
vision. We need a budget that faces the difficult realities of our 
world today with honest proposals and precise numbers--accuracy. And we 
need a budget that does what we should and must and no more--
discipline. We have a budget that does none of that, and so I will vote 
``no.''


                           amendment no. 3116

  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. Mr. President, some of my colleagues may be 
surprised to learn--like I was--that some agencies are skimming off the 
top a portion of some of the congressional appropriations and keeping 
that money in that agency.
  My amendment is simple. It says: If it has been determined that a 
constituency warrants a direct appropriation--one that has gone through 
the scrutinizing process and is supported by the House, Senate and then 
signed into law--then that constituency should receive the full amount.
  Bureaucrats at the agencies should not be unilaterally determining 
that some sort of ``surcharge'' should be assessed to these projects. 
It amounts to a tax on our constituents. And it usurps the authority of 
Congress by circumventing the legislative process and giving nameless 
faceless bureaucrats the authority to alter legislation after it is 
signed into law.
  And in the case where our constituents determine that the full amount 
of the earmark is not needed and turns back some of the funding to the 
government--this amendment says that instead of going to bureaucrats in 
the agencies to spend as they wish--it should instead go towards 
deficit reduction.
  I offer this amendment because long before some started discussing 
concerns about the appropriations process, I identified--with the 
assistance of the Congressional Research Service--and have made an 
effort to investigate this practice of skimming from Congressional 
appropriations. Let's just say our efforts thus far have been less than 
successful: almost half of the agencies that have been contacted for 
information have not bothered to respond.
  Each year, I invite Nebraskans--including community officials and 
nonprofit groups--to propose investments that help ensure some of their 
tax dollars are returned to the state. I am often approached by 
Nebraskans seeking help with a project that has been identified as a 
priority by local officials or others in the community. I support these 
direct investments only after they have been proposed by Nebraskans and 
been subjected to reviews to ensure they are both necessary and 
responsible.
  In the absence of a full accounting of how the agencies handle this 
practice, I am working with the information that has thus far been 
shared with me. I plan to continue my efforts to seek out information 
on this practice by the agencies. I can assure this body that as the 
budget process moves forward this year, I will continue in my efforts 
to crack down on this practice by agencies to skim some off some of 
these funds.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I oppose this budget. This 
administration has chosen to continue down an unsustainable economic 
path. They have put forth an irresponsible budget that does not take 
constructive steps toward righting our Nation's fiscal course. I 
strongly urge my Senate colleagues not to follow suit.
  Our Nation is going in the wrong direction. The signals grow more 
evident each day.
  Deficits are at record levels. The debt is reaching astronomic 
heights. And we have fewer resources available for important domestic 
programs.
  Under President Clinton, we had 4 years of budget surplus. And, when 
he left office, we had a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion.
  But the economic policies of the past 5 years have produced a 
catastrophic turnaround. Record budget surpluses have given way to 
record deficits--projected at $1.6 trillion over the next decade. And 
the debt is projected to exceed $11 trillion.
  This budget resolution assumes that the deficit will decline from 
$359 billion in FY 2007 to $177 billion in FY 2011. Unfortunately, 
these numbers don't tell the whole story.
  This is a 5-year budget. This clouds the full impact of the 
administration's policies. The debt and deficit are set to explode in 
the out years--the end of the 10-year window. And, this does not even 
include the costs of ongoing military operations in Iraq and 
Afghanistan beyond 2007 and reforming the alternative minimum tax 
beyond 2006.
  When all costs are included, this budget proposal will contribute 
$1.14 trillion to the Federal budget deficit over the next 5 years.
  In this year alone, our national debt is slated to increase by $654 
billion. This is a far cry from the President's goals for deficit 
reduction, and deeply troubling to those who value fiscal 
responsibility.
  As a result, we are now again confronted with raising the nation's 
debt limit. The increase--from $8.2 trillion to roughly $9 trillion--
will be the fourth major hike in the last 5 years.
  In 2000, our national debt was at $5.8 trillion. Today, this figure 
stands at $8.27 trillion. And, at this rate, with all costs included, 
debt will more than double to $12 trillion in 2011.
  Additionally, more and more of our debt is being held in foreign 
hands. We now owe Japan $685 billion and China over $250 billion. It 
took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up $1 trillion of foreign held 
debt. In only 5 years, President Bush has more than doubled that 
amount.
  Contrast this with the last 3 years of the Clinton administration, 
where we

[[Page S2283]]

paid off more than $200 billion in debt to foreign countries.
  These staggering figures represent a great burden for future 
generations who will have to pay the bill. They also keep interest 
rates high, limit economic growth, and slow job creation.
  This President has the worst record of private sector job growth 
since Herbert Hoover. And the jobs that are created are largely minimum 
wage and temporary work. Americans are working harder, for less money. 
Average household income for working families decreased by $1,669 
between 2000 and 2005, when adjusted for inflation.
  By almost every indicator, American families are facing tough times: 
Housing affordability, a big problem in California, is at a 14-year 
low; Health care costs are up 50 percent since 2000; Gas prices are up 
60 percent; College costs at public universities are up 57 percent; 45 
million people are going without health care, including 6.6 million in 
California; and 37 million Americans are living in poverty, a number 
that has increased each year under this administration, U.S. Census 
Bureau.
  You'd think that this budget would attempt to provide relief for most 
Americans. Instead middle-class families are asked to do more with 
less.
  At the same time, the President is proposing to make tax breaks 
permanent for the wealthiest Americans--at a cost of $1.3 trillion over 
the next decade. And, when you combine the cost of the tax cuts with 
costs of war in Iraq--currently totaling $370 billion--the inevitable 
result is that critical domestic programs are squeezed.
  The budget before the Senate today reflects these constraints by: 
Cutting food stamps, by $272 million; Cutting food assistance for 
seniors and children, by $111 million; Reducing the effectiveness of 
our police officers in cutting COPS by more than $407 million, 15,000 
officers nationwide; Cutting $244 million from firefighter grants; 
Failing to reimburse state and local governments for the Federal 
responsibilities in paying for the incarceration of illegal immigrants; 
Cutting funding for 18 of the 19 National Institutes of Health, 
including those conducting research on cancer and heart disease; And, 
No Child Left Behind, the President's signature education program, 
would be underfunded this year by more than $15 billion and $55.78 
billion since it was enacted.
  These are vital priorities that must be funded.
  Because of record federal deficits and debt, money that could have 
been available for education, healthcare, defense, infrastructure, job 
development, and homeland security, must now go to interest payments.
  In 2006, interest costs alone on the national debt will total nearly 
$400 billion. And, this figure will grow to nearly $600 billion over 
the next 5 years. Total non-defense discretionary spending--$416 
billion in this budget--is only modestly larger than this interest 
payment.
  This could have been prevented.
  The Congressional Budget Office estimated that last year, economic 
problems caused only about 8 percent of the deficit. The rest resulted 
from policy choices by Congress and this administration--largely tax 
cuts for the wealthiest among us.
  The time has come to chart a different course, and make the tough 
choices that the President and this resolution avoid.
  We must adopt a balanced approach to both taxes and spending and 
return to a program of fiscal sanity.
  When I first came to the Senate, over a decade ago, a small, 
bipartisan group decided to get our fiscal house in order. Democrats 
worked to bring spending under control. And Republicans pledged not to 
push for additional tax cuts.
  I have no problem holding the line on spending, but believe that it 
must be done in the context of a more responsible approach to tax 
policy.
  We must consider rolling back the tax cut for the wealthiest 
Americans, to bring the income tax rate from its current 35 percent 
back to 38.6 percent.
  This will affect those earning more than $312,000 per year--less than 
one percent of taxpayers--but will save nearly $130 billion over the 
next decade.
  Finally, we need to work together to begin addressing some of the 
deeper structural problems with Social Security and Medicare--before 
these programs fall into crisis.
  These are not easy answers. But, we must change the direction in 
which this nation is moving. We cannot afford to continue down this 
path of fiscal irresponsibility. Americans work hard to balance their 
checkbooks and live within their budgets. They deserve a Government 
willing to do the same.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I cannot support this budget resolution. It 
closely mirrors the President's budget which projects the largest 
deficit in history for 2006 $423 billion. We are on an unsustainable 
path. We cannot continue year after year to pass budget resolutions 
that increase the deficit, rather than put us on a course of fiscal 
responsibility.
  Not only should we be concerned about growing deficits, we should be 
concerned about the debt. Under this budget, the deficit will increase 
to $371 billion for 2006, and the debt will increase by $654 billion a 
year. The Senate has just passed a $781 billion increase in the debt 
ceiling, the fourth largest debt limit increase in our Nation's 
history. This is the fourth time that the Bush administration has 
requested an increase in the debt. These increases now total $3 
trillion.
  The service on the debt alone for this year is $220 billion. This 
money could be put to better use. With the approaching retirement of 
the baby boomers, we should not be increasing the debt.
  The budget being debated today is not based in reality. It leaves out 
the full 10 year numbers. Without these numbers, the budget hides the 
full cost of making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. The budget 
does not include funding for the ongoing war costs beyond 2007. Relief 
from the individual alternative minimum tax, AMT, is only addressed for 
2006. It does not include the President's Social Security privatization 
proposal.
  This budget is incomplete. If the missing items were added back, the 
debt would increase every year by more than $600 billion. The deficit 
and debt will continue to explode because the budget will continue a 
course of spending more than the amount of revenue raised.
  It is not right to vote on budget that is incomplete. In his budget, 
the President only chose to address the AMT for 1 year--2006--and chose 
not to address it for the current budget year. The administration's 
budget deliberately leaves out a more permanent solution for the AMT 
for two reasons: first, the AMT would add additional costs to the 
budget; and second, the AMT masks the true costs of the 2001 and 2003 
tax cuts.
  This budget resolution follows the administration's lead. It chooses 
to only address the AMT for 2006 and to extend tax provisions that do 
not expire until the end of 2010. The budget does not address the 23 
million families that will be impacted by the AMT in 2007, but the 
budget makes sure that the tax cuts that are skewed to those making 
more than $1 million are extended through 2011.
  This budget continues the repeated pattern of choosing tax cuts for 
the wealthy rather than investing in our future. The tax cuts going to 
those who on average earn over $1 million a year cost $41 billion for a 
single year. In contrast, the President's budget cuts education by $2.2 
billion--the biggest cut ever for education. This budget shortchanges 
veterans. There are reductions in law enforcement, firefighter grants, 
and essential air services. These are just a few of the many examples 
how the budget's priorities are misguided.
  The budget does not adequately address healthcare. Access to quality, 
affordable health care continues to be a challenge for most Americans 
and the Bush budget only exacerbates the problems. And what about the 
uninsured? There is nothing in this budget to help them. Sure, there 
are some recycled, stale proposals the administration has been trying 
to advance for 5 years now but nothing really new. Nothing that will 
help any families gain access to coverage that is quality, affordable, 
comprehensive care. It's high time we have a real debate and discussion 
in the Congress on real reforms necessary to address the health needs 
of our nation.
  The budget resolution assumes the deep cuts and unprecedented fees 
for the Small Business Administration, SBA. The administration's 
request of

[[Page S2284]]

$624 million is insufficient to meet the needs of small businesses in 
this country that need access to capital, counseling and Federal 
contracts. By the SBA's own calculation, the request is $18 million 
less than what was available to the Agency last year when congressional 
initiatives and disaster supplemental appropriations are excluded.
  I proposed an amendment to increase the funding shortfall by $151 
million and it was offset by closing abusive corporate tax loopholes. 
Unfortunately, this amendment did not garner bipartisan support. 
However, we were able to reach a bipartisan agreement that would 
increase SBA funding by $130 million.
  This budget is another example of how the Republican controlled 
Congress continues to misuse the reconciliation process. The 
reconciliation process was designed to make it easier to pass difficult 
legislation that would provide fiscal discipline. It is now being used 
to ram through tax cuts and pet priorities that do not have the support 
of 60 Senators.
  I am vigorously opposed to the inclusion in the budget of assumed 
revenues and a reconciliation instruction for the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee linked to opening the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge to oil and gas leasing and development. I object to the 
inclusion of drilling in the refuge for two primary reasons. First, it 
is irresponsible to base our budget on the highly speculative 
projection of lease revenues from the Coastal Plain. Second, I oppose 
using the reconciliation process to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling 
because it would limit consideration of this highly controversial 
issue.
  The reconciliation process is being used to address only one Senate 
committee's jurisdiction, and is clearly intended to authorize oil and 
gas leasing in the Arctic Refuge. This underscores that the real 
objective of the process is not deficit reduction, but rather to 
circumvent normal Senate process and procedure with respect to this 
controversial subject.
  On the whole this budget reflects no new ideas and recycles bad 
policies. This budget fails to address reality, and I therefore cannot 
support it.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today, I filed an amendment that would 
increase funding for basic research at the National Institutes of 
Health, and restore cuts made under the President's budget to critical 
R&D programs. It would have been fully offset by closing tax loopholes. 
But I faced opposition from my Republican colleagues and it was not 
accepted.
  This budget and the President's American Competitiveness Initiative 
make no new serious commitments to invest in R&D. The President would 
have you believe that he is increasing our investment in R&D when it 
barely keeps pace with projected inflation. To fund the increases at 
the National Science Foundation and other increases, every other R&D 
agency will see real cuts for the next 5 years. It just creates winners 
and losers.
  In fact, this budget keeps our R&D investment stagnant--it has 
already flat-lined at 1.1 percent of our GDP.
  If America is going to compete and win in the global economy, we must 
innovate and support basic research in all areas. We want the new 
inventions and new technologies and new cures to be made in the U.S.A. 
And that means supporting the basic research that is the foundation of 
new discoveries that will create the good jobs of the future.
  But this budget cuts funding for basic research. The National Academy 
of Sciences, the Council on Competitiveness, and Nobel prize winners 
like American physicist Steven Chu say that is wrong for America's 
future.
  When Dr. Chu testified before the Senate last year, he said ``There 
are growing signs that all is not well . . . We call for an increased 
federal investment in long-term, basic research.''
  The Internet, the laser, MRIs, and the mapping of the human genome 
all came about from basic research at DOD, NIH, and other Federal 
agencies. Think of the millions of jobs that these innovations have 
created.
  I intend to continue my efforts in the Senate to ensure that American 
innovation will continue. It is critical to our growth and our future 
competitiveness.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss my amendment to 
the fiscal year 2007 budget resolution, which would have provided 
immediately for a $4,500 Pell grant for needy students. My amendment 
would have redirected the savings generated by the HELP Committee as 
part of reconciliation back to student aid, as originally intended and 
passed by the committee and the full Senate.
  Last year, through Chairman Enzi's leadership, the HELP Committee 
drafted a bipartisan Higher Education Act reauthorization and 
reconciliation instructions. The committee was instructed to find 
savings of $13.7 billion--$7 billion of which was to be generated from 
education programs. The committee developed reconciliation instructions 
that included savings of over $20 billion. As a member of the HELP 
Committee, I can say that we purposely generated additional savings 
with the intent that a portion of the savings would be returned to 
students in the form of grant aid.
  Accordingly, the committee created two programs for Pell-eligible 
students. We allocated $2.25 billion for SMART grants to target aid to 
students who study math, science or a critical foreign language. We 
also allocated $6 billion to the Provisional Grant Assistance Program, 
or ProGAP. These increases in the Pell grant program are critical, 
given that tuition has increased rapidly.
  This year alone, tuition rose by 7.1 percent at public colleges and 
5.9 percent at private universities. Yet students and families have 
seen no growth in the Pell grant program in the past 4 years; the 
maximum Pell award has been stagnant at $4,050 since fiscal year 2003. 
ProGAP would have immediately provided current Pell recipients with a 
$4,500 maximum grant.
  However, when the Deficit Reduction Act returned to the Senate from 
conference with the House, ProGAP had been eliminated and was replaced 
by Academic Competitiveness grants. The majority will claim to have 
increased grant aid for needy students through Academic Competitiveness 
and SMART grants.
  However, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that less than 
10 percent of Pell-eligible students will be able to take advantage of 
the Academic Competitiveness and SMART grants in 2006. The percent of 
eligible students rises slowly, from 10.3 percent in 2007 to a paltry 
13.5 percent in 2010. Given the existence of both Academic 
Competitiveness and SMART grants in the conference bill, adopting my 
amendment would have allowed us to help both needy Pell students and 
target math and science programs.
  The intention of the committee was for the savings generated from 
changes to the student loan programs go towards deficit reduction and 
student aid. Not only did the final bill significantly reduce the aid 
going to students, the savings are clearly going for tax cuts that will 
not help the families we sought to help in the bill we passed in the 
Senate. In fact, even with the savings generated through the Deficit 
Reduction Act, the tax cuts cost more than the savings we generated. 
The newest tax cuts yet again result in an increase to the deficit.
  Currently only one-third of the U.S. workforce has a postsecondary 
education, but it is estimated that 60 percent of new jobs in the 21st 
century will require a college education. Workers who have attended 
college on average have higher incomes and lower rates of unemployment 
than those who don't. And those with a college education also are more 
likely to have jobs with benefits like health care, retirement and 
pensions plans.
  My amendment would have restored our original intent of the Senate by 
redirecting the savings generated by the HELP Committee into the 
pockets of needy students, not the pockets of the wealthy benefiting 
from the tax cuts.
  Mr. President, I withdrew my amendment after we had a huge victory 
for education--the overwhelming passage of the Specter-Harkin amendment 
which would provide $7 billion in increased funding to health and 
education programs. As an appropriator, I know first hand how critical 
that funding will be for education programs in fiscal year 2007. But we 
must all fight to retain that funding when the budget resolution is 
conferenced with the House. We should not accept a final budget 
resolution that does not contain the funding provided through the 
Specter-Harkin amendment.

[[Page S2285]]

  While I withdrew my amendment today, I will continue to fight for 
increasing Pell grants and student aid. We can do better than level 
funding for our nation's needy college students.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, as many of you know, I am co-chair of the 
Senate Rural Health Caucus and have worked on rural hospital and 
provider equity issues for a long time. Of course, the Senate does not 
always agree on every issue especially when it comes to health care. 
Over the years, however, the Rural Health Caucus has proved to be a 
bipartisan forum for Members on both sides of the aisle to come 
together and work on real solutions to help rural Americans have access 
to the same affordable, quality health care services as folks living in 
urban areas.
  There are now over 80 members of the Rural Health Caucus, and 
together we remain committed to making sure the unique health care 
needs of rural and frontier areas are met. We all shared the success of 
passing landmark rural Medicare equity provisions in the Medicare 
Modernization Act of 2003. This legislation included the most 
comprehensive attempt to put rural providers on a level playing field 
with their urban counterparts. Clearly, this was a significant victory, 
but there is much more still to do.
  As most of you know, the President's fiscal year 2007 budget 
eliminated or severely reduced several effective and efficient rural 
health programs. Now, I have long believed that we need to hold Federal 
agencies and programs accountable for the taxpayer dollars they spend. 
I also believe the Federal Government cannot be all things to all 
people. Congress must take the necessary, and often difficult, steps to 
ensure we put this country on a solid path toward reducing the deficit. 
Of course, we all have different ideas on how to achieve that goal. I 
agree with Chairman Gregg that we can start by slowing--and in some 
cases--eliminating wasteful spending. The budget before us focuses, 
primarily, on cutting spending and encouraging growth. If programs are 
not meeting their intended purpose, or are not performing well, then it 
is fair to look at eliminating the program. Many of the programs 
Congress funds are duplicative in nature. We have a responsibility to 
identify reasonable ways to root out waste, streamline program creating 
and spending, and manage our limited resources so that we can serve 
folks better.
  While it is important to identify and eliminate wasteful and 
inefficient programs, I also believe that we must support government 
policies that work. Rural health care programs operate on a shoestring 
budget. Current spending for all rural health discretionary programs is 
relatively small, but it plays a critical role in solidifying the 
fragile health care infrastructure common in rural communities. There 
are several important rural health programs such as: rural hospital 
flexibility grants, rural outreach program, trauma care, small hospital 
improvement program, health professions training, and rural access to 
emergency devices which all play a key role in delivering services to 
our medically underserved rural areas. The importance of these programs 
should not be undervalued. They meet our unique rural health needs by 
improving emergency medical service networks, developing chronic 
disease management programs, implementing quality improvement 
initiatives, and helping small rural hospitals unable to keep their 
doors open convert to Critical Access Hospital, CAH, status.
  In Wyoming, rural health programs have made a real difference in the 
quality, access, and affordability of care available in our frontier 
communities. That is why I am extremely pleased to see the budget 
before us today assumes a $235 million increase for the Health 
Resources and Services Administration, HRSA, over the President's 
request. Chairman Gregg's mark clearly states this $235 million 
increase is primarily intended to support rural health programs. I want 
to take this opportunity to thank Chairman Gregg for his hard work and 
support of this important issue. These increases will go a long way 
toward helping rural hospitals and providers deliver essential health 
care services to many remote and medically underserved areas.
  I also want to especially thank my colleague from North Dakota, 
Senator Conrad, for consistently partnering with me to ensure fair and 
equitable rural health treatment in the budget process.
  I now look forward to working with all members of the Senate Rural 
Health Caucus as we fight to ensure adequate funding for rural health 
programs during the fiscal year 2007 appropriations process.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague, the 
distinguished Senator from Oregon, to speak out against the 
administration's proposal to fund the Secure Rural Schools Program with 
a fire sale of our public land. It is vital to rural Montana and rural 
America that we reauthorize and fully fund the Secure Rural Schools 
Program, but we should not do it by putting a ``for sale'' sign on our 
prime hunting and fishing lands.
  The administration's padlock proposal to sell public lands to 
reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Program sells rural America short. 
Montana and Oregon like many other States are outdoors States. We hunt. 
We fish. We take our kids hiking and camping. Our public lands are part 
of our recreational heritage as Americans. We should be increasing 
access for hunters and anglers, not putting more padlocks on more 
gates.
  The administration's land grab proposal is bad for sportsmen, an it 
is bad for our schools. Back in 2000, I was proud to be a cosponsor of 
Senator Wyden and Senator Craig's secure rural schools bill. The Secure 
Rural Schools Act has given counties more money, more certainty, and 
more flexibility. I would call that a pretty good solution. We should 
not be abandoning 6 years of success. It is vital to our rural 
communities that we reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act, and I 
will fight tooth and nail with Senator Wyden to protect our public 
lands, reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act, and stop the 
administration's misguided land grab.
  Mr. WYDEN, Mr. President, I am in full agreement with my friend and 
colleague from Montana. The idea to sell public lands to fund the 
secure rural schools reauthorization is a fundamentally flawed one. It 
pushes the debate over public lands and forestry back into the 
political briar patch despite the power of the legislation to bring 
traditional enemies together all across rural America in over 40 States 
and over 700 counties. It is because of the good work by my friend from 
Montana that this faulty idea is not assumed as part of this budget we 
debate today.
  As Senator Baucus and I continue our exhaustive search in the next 
weeks for offsets to pay for the reauthorization of the county payments 
legislation, he and I will continue our work to defeat the ill-
conceived and divisive idea of selling off public lands to pay for the 
continuation of such a collaborative and locally successful program. 
From his position as the ranking member of the Senate Finance 
Committee, on which I am privileged to serve with him, I feel sure that 
he will come up with the winning solution to offset the costs of 
reauthorizing this vital national program.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, last year when the Senate was considering 
the national intelligence reform bill, we adopted several 
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
  One of those recommendations was to hire an additional 2,000 new 
Custom and border protection agents each year for the next 5 years. 
This body agreed with the recommendation. We agreed that our national 
security depended on such an investment, and we enacted that 
recommendation into law.
  We are now considering a budget resolution that will determine 
whether Congress will keep the promise we made to the American people 
to protect our Nation's borders. There are many provisions in this 
budget that demonstrate a commitment to border security. I thank and 
congratulate Chairman Gregg for those provisions. But the budget that 
was reported out of committee includes funding for only 1,500 new 
agents in the coming year.
  My amendment would provide $153 million to ensure that we hire 2,000 
new agents next year. This amendment is fully offset. Let's face it--
the threat of illegal border crossing by people who wish to kill us is 
very real. In order to prevent another terrorist attack on American 
soil, we must improve every aspect of our Nation's security. Our 
security is truly only as strong as our weakest link.

[[Page S2286]]

  For too long, the lack of funding for border agents has been a weak 
link. By funding additional agents, we protect both our southern and 
our often neglected northern border. This will make it harder for 
terrorists to enter the United States and attack us.
  There have been several news reports recently that I want to bring to 
my colleagues' attention.
  Last year, intelligence officials confirmed that the terrorist, 
Zarqawi, plans to infiltrate America through our borders. He plans to 
attack targets such as movie theaters, restaurants, and schools. My 
amendment commits the resources to make sure that this does not happen.
  Just last summer, in Detroit, a Lebanese national named Mahmoud 
Youssef Kourani, who was in the United States illegally, pled guilty in 
Federal court to conspiring to raise money for a recognized terrorist 
group. He was in the United States raising money to fund terrorists. 
That is outrageous. But what is equally outrageous is how he came into 
the United States in the first place.
  Kourani took advantage of our porous border. Kourani paid a Mexican 
consular official in Beirut $3,000 for a visa to enter Mexico. Once in 
Mexico, he snuck across the U.S.-Mexican border in 2001 and settled in 
Michigan.
  According to Federal prosecutors, Kourani and another member of his 
family are heavily involved with the same group that killed 214 marines 
in Beirut in 1983 and which is also responsible for bombing two U.S. 
Embassies.
  While in the United States, Kourani also helped harbor other illegal 
immigrants. Thankfully, he was prosecuted before he could inflict any 
direct harm on any American.
  Given how easy it is for people like Kourani to enter the United 
States, I believe that my amendment is imperative to our national 
security.
  My amendment does not require any additional spending. It is 
completely offset. This amendment is paid for.
  Homeland Security spending must be based on priorities. The fact that 
terrorists would use our borders to gain access to the United States to 
attack us is a real threat. So we must provide funds for Customs and 
border protection.
  Four and a half years ago it only took 19 to change the course of 
this country. We must do everything that we can to prevent another 
terrorist attack on American soil.
  The world has changed dramatically since 9/11 when the terrorists 
used our open and trusting society against us. We can not allow a 
repeat of that tragedy.
  This amendment will help those who guard our frontiers by providing 
the necessary, and I stress necessary, tools to ensure the safety of 
our citizens.
  I urge my colleagues to adopt my amendment.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, as we continue to debate the budget 
resolution, I wanted to raise an important issue with my colleagues. 
The budget for fiscal year 2007 that was proposed by the administration 
would discontinue all activities of the National Children's Study or 
NCS.
  This important study which was authorized as part of the Children's 
Health Act of 2000, provides for the development and implementation of 
the largest longitudinal study of children ever conducted in the United 
States. The goal of the study is to improve the health and well-being 
of children. The information from this study will be used to determine 
and affect the major causes of childhood illness such as premature 
birth, asthma, obesity, preventable injury, autism, developmental 
delay, mental illness, and learning disorders.
  These disorders, among many other high-frequency diseases that 
afflict children, result from the interaction of multiple biologic, 
genetic, chemical, social and behavioral factors that combine to 
determine health. Researchers will analyze how these elements interact 
with each other and what helpful and/or harmful effects they might have 
on children's health. By studying children through their different 
phases of growth and development, researchers will be better able to 
understand the role of these factors on health and disease.
  The National Children's Study will follow a representative sample of 
America's children in order to identify causes and develop treatments 
of specific diseases, and develop population-based intervention 
strategies to prevent illness and ameliorate the impacts of poverty and 
substandard environments on children's growth, development, and mental 
health. This will include approximately 100,000 children from over 100 
locations throughout the United States.
  Since 2000, over 50 million has been spent planning the study. Over 
2,500 scientists and community members from across the country have 
developed a study plan that defines research question, hypotheses, and 
critical exposure and outcome measures beginning before pregnancy and 
continuing throughout the life cycle of children. In 2005, the Study 
designated seven Vanguard pilot centers throughout the United States, 
including sites in California, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, 
South Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin to begin the study with over 100 
additional sites planned across the Nation.
  It is unfortunate that funding for the study was zeroed out the 
President's budget and would be extremely shortsighted to put off this 
study. While there are upfront costs to conduct a study of this size, 
they are dwarfed by the cost of treating the diseases and conditions it 
can be expected to address. The National Institute of Child Health and 
Human Development, NICHD estimates that the major chronic diseases the 
study will address directly cost American $269 billion per year. If the 
study were to result in only a 1 percent reduction in those costs, the 
expense of the entire 20-plus year study could be recouped in a single 
year.
  The environment in which our children grow up has changed 
significantly over the past 50 years, resulting in increases in rates 
of diseases such as asthma, obesity, and learning and other 
developmental disabilities. In order to overcome these challenges, we 
need to invest in the National Children's Study, in addition to other 
research efforts to improve our understanding of how to prevent disease 
and improve the environments in which our children live.
  As a parent of three children, and now a grandparent of three, I know 
how important it is to provide a healthy environment for our youth. I 
hope the future will be brighter for future generations, and one way we 
can make that happen is by finding the answers to many health questions 
that plague us today. The National Children's Study will be one of the 
richest information resources available to children's health and 
development and will form the basis of child health guidance, 
interventions, and policy for generations to come.
  It is my hope that this body will do all it can to restore the cuts 
to the NCS and keep this critical work moving forward, and I will work 
with my colleagues through the Appropriations Committee to make that 
happen.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, my amendment No. 3154 to the budget 
resolution would restore much-needed funding to the Bulletproof Vest 
Partnership Program. The administration's budget slashes this program 
by $20 million, which amounts to a 63-percent cut to a program that 
helps save the lives of law enforcement officers nationwide by 
providing State and local law enforcement agencies with the resources 
to help buy body armor for their officers.
  My amendment supports the allocation of $41 million in funding for 
bulletproof vest partnership grants to fully fund it at the authorized 
level of $50 million in fiscal year 2007. The increase in funds is 
offset by discretionary spending reductions.
  Our former colleague Senator Campbell and I authored the Bulletproof 
Vest Grant Partnership Act of 1998 in response to the tragic Carl Drega 
shootout in 1997 on the Vermont-New Hampshire border, in which two 
State troopers who lacked bulletproof vests were killed. The federal 
officers who responded to the scenes of the shooting spree were 
equipped with life-saving body armor, but the State and local law 
enforcement officers lacked protective vests because of the cost.
  We have successfully reauthorized this program three more times: in 
the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act of 2000, in the State 
Justice Institute Reauthorization Act of 2004, and

[[Page S2287]]

most recently as part of the Violence Against Women and Department of 
Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005. It is now authorized at $50 
million per year through fiscal year 2009.
  Year after year, the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program saves the 
lives and spares injuries of law enforcement officers nationwide by 
providing more help to State and local law enforcement agencies to 
purchase body armor. Since its inception in 1999, this highly 
successful DOJ program has provided law enforcement officers in 16,000 
jurisdictions nationwide with nearly 350,000 new bulletproof vests. In 
Vermont, more than 150 municipalities have used this partnership help 
to purchase 1,400 vests. Without the assistance this program offers, I 
daresay there would be close to that number of police officers without 
vests in Vermont today.
  Compounding the ongoing funding needs to help purchase vests, 
concerns from the law enforcement community over the effectiveness of 
body armor surfaced nearly 2 years ago when a Pennsylvania police 
officer was shot and critically wounded through his relatively new 
Zylon-based body armor vest. In August 2005, the Justice Department 
announced that test results indicated that used Zylon-based vests may 
not provide the intended level of ballistic resistance. Unfortunately, 
an estimated 200,000 of these faulty vests have been purchased--many 
with vest partnership funds--and now need to be replaced.
  We know that body armor saves lives, but the cost has put these vests 
out of the reach of many of the officers who need them. This program 
makes it more affordable for police departments of all sizes. Few 
things mean more to me than when I meet Vermont police officers and 
they tell me that the protective vests they wear were made possible 
because of this program. This is the least we should do for the 
officers on the front lines who put themselves in danger for us every 
day.
  I want to make sure that every police officer who needs a bulletproof 
vest gets one. If the Senate approves this amendment to fully fund this 
program at $50 million, then we will be on our way to helping ease the 
burden faced by officers and their families and to further our mission 
to provide every police officer who needs a safe vest with the means to 
purchase one.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, as a member of the Budget Committee, I am 
deeply disappointed that the budget we are considering and the one 
proposed by the President last month will make finding adequate funding 
for so many of our Nation's domestic priorities exceedingly hard to 
achieve.
  Budgets are about priorities--hard-working South Dakota families know 
that because they have to make priorities in their family budget every 
day. Unfortunately, the President and the Republican leadership in 
Congress fail to make investments in key programs that assist average, 
hard-working Americans.
  Federal education mandates are woefully underfunded. Yet the 
President's budget proposed the largest cut to Federal education 
funding in the Department of Education's 26-year history. Further, for 
the second year in a row, the administration proposed a 5-percent 
across-the-board cut to crop and dairy payments for producers. As well, 
the President's budget included $16.9 billion in cuts to Medicaid and 
about $35 billion in cuts to Medicare over 5 years. While I am pleased 
the Senate budget resolution does not contain all of the President's 
budget cuts, we cannot continue to try to balance the budget on the 
backs of students, farmers and ranchers, and seniors.
  While the administration is advocating cuts to important domestic 
programs, it is estimated that the cost of the Bush tax cuts for those 
making over $1 million annually will be more than $41 billion in fiscal 
year 2007 alone.
  Despite what the leadership likes to say about their budget, this is 
not a fiscally responsible budget. I think it is time we put our 
Nation's finances back in order. This budget assumes that the deficit 
for fiscal year 2007 will be $359 billion, and decline to $177 billion 
in fiscal year 2011. However, these assumptions omit items like the 
cost of extending expiring tax cuts, fixing the alternative minimum 
tax, AMT, the ongoing war costs, and the spending of the Social 
Security and other trust funds. When these costs are included, the 
Nation's debt will increase by more than $600 billion every year over 
the next 5 years.
  To put this in perspective, consider how much U.S. debt is held by 
foreigners. It took 224 years and 42 Presidents--all of our Presidents 
from Washington to Clinton--to have $1 trillion in debt held outside 
our country. In just 5 years, that foreign debt level has more than 
doubled.
  I believe one of the best ways we can restore fiscal responsibility 
is to reinstate the pay-as-you-go rules that were in effect from 1991 
to 2000. The pay-go rule simply means that if you want additional 
mandatory spending or tax cuts, you have to pay for them by offsets or 
obtain a supermajority vote to pass them. Unfortunately, the Senate 
failed to adopt a pay-go rule to the budget resolution yesterday on a 
tie vote of 50-50.
  Instead, we are being asked to support a budget that I don't think 
reflects the values and priorities of a majority of South Dakota 
families, and does not restore fiscal responsibility. I will continue 
working in a bipartisan manner to make improvements in the fiscal year 
2007 budget and restoring our Nation's fiscal strength.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, as we debate the Senate budget resolution 
for fiscal year 2007 and the bill before us now to raise the debt 
ceiling, I want to talk for a moment about the broader issue of fiscal 
responsibility and honesty.
  We are about to significantly raise the limit on our national debt 
for the fourth time in the past 5 years, this time to nearly $9 
trillion. With deficits as far as the eye can see, we are on an 
unsustainable budgetary path that threatens not only to severely 
restrict our Government's ability to provide critical services but to 
cause irreparable damage both to our economy and our influence in the 
world community.
  Alan Greenspan articulated our situation clearly in his last months 
as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Mr. Greenspan said, ``our 
budget position will substantially worsen in the coming years unless 
major deficit-reducing actions are taken . . . crafting a budget 
strategy that meets the nation's longer-run needs will become more 
difficult the more we delay.''
  Even more troubling, our deficits are worse than they seem. While the 
Congressional Budget Office has estimated the size of this year's 
deficit at $371 billion, that figure does not account for the tens of 
billions of dollars of emergency supplemental spending that we can all 
anticipate to address needs in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also does not 
include the $180 billion we are raiding from the Social Security trust 
fund, nor does it take into account the interest we will need to pay on 
the additional debt. As Senator Conrad has pointed out, we anticipate 
the national debt will increase by $654 billion this year.
  Six years ago, we were running a budget surplus. While the national 
debt was $5 trillion, for the first time in almost 20 years, we found 
ourselves in a position where we could start to pay off some of that 
debt. We knew we would soon face the demographic pressures associated 
with the retirement of the baby boom generation, but we had the 
resources at our disposal to begin preparing for those pressures.
  Now, just 6 years later, the circumstances that gave us a reason to 
be optimistic have all but dissolved in a sea of irresponsible fiscal 
policies, dishonest accounting, and partisan opportunism.
  To be sure, not everything that brought us to this point was within 
our control. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, shook our 
economy, gave rise to new and unexpected costs, and rightly caused us 
to shift our national focus to the threat of international terrorism--
sometimes, unavoidably, to the detriment of our ability to sufficiently 
focus on our looming fiscal challenges.
  Having said that, much of what led to our current crisis was within 
our control. The fairness of the multiple tax cuts that Congress passed 
in the last 5 years was certainly within our control.
  Whether or not those tax cuts were paid for was certainly within our 
control.

[[Page S2288]]

  And whether or not we are honest about including the costs of the 
ongoing military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the need to provide 
continuing relief for middle-class families from the alternative 
minimum tax, and the inevitable costs associated with any proposal to 
address the problems faced by our entitlement programs is certainly 
within our control.
  We must be more responsible and more realistic.
  First, we must begin working today to prepare for the retirement of 
the baby boomers. While the situation is not as dire as some would have 
us believe, the Social Security system cannot support itself in its 
current form forever. We need to make tough decisions in order to 
restore that program to a path of solvency.
  In addition, with health care costs skyrocketing, we need to take a 
hard look at Medicare and Medicaid in order to ensure they can continue 
to provide high-quality care for the elderly and the poor. Again, the 
problems associated with these programs will only grow with the 
retirement of the baby boom generation, and we need to act now to avert 
a full-fledged fiscal disaster.
  Second, we must be more realistic about aligning our tax policies 
with our spending policies. American families understand the simple 
fact that you cannot spend more than you take in. Yet this fact seems 
to escape this administration and the current congressional leadership. 
Year after year, we see massive spending reductions in vital programs 
followed up by even bigger tax cuts.
  Contrary to what some seem to believe, the tax cuts of the past 5 
years are not going to pay for themselves. While I support many of 
those tax cuts-- particularly those that benefit middle-class 
families--it is undeniable that they have resulted in lower revenue for 
the Federal Government and will continue to do so in the long run. This 
is especially in light of the fact that they were not paid for and will 
therefore add to the national debt and increase the associated interest 
costs.
  Third, we cannot afford to be dishonest about costs we know we will 
face. The President's budget contained no funding for the military 
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond next year. Yet the 
Congressional Budget Office has said we should expect to pay $312 
billion in war-related costs for the period between 2007 and 2016.
  Furthermore, we know we will need to provide relief from the 
alternative minimum tax for middle-class families. The Senate recently 
passed legislation that would contain a 1-year fix of the AMT at the 
price tag of $30 billion. The cost of providing AMT relief for the next 
decade is estimated at $1 trillion. Yet neither the President's budget 
request nor the proposal before the Senate includes the cost of 
providing any AMT relief beyond this year.
  And this is to say nothing of how costly it would be to make 
permanent the President's 2001 tax cuts, which is something we all know 
he will try to do. A recent estimate by the Center on Budget and Policy 
Priorities indicated that the cost of extending the President's tax 
cuts through 2016 would be nearly $2 trillion.
  This debate is as much about honesty as it is about crunching 
numbers. How can we expect to be adequately prepared for the looming 
influx of Americans into the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid 
programs if we are not honest about costs we know we will have to deal 
with--and not just over the long term but this year?
  Yet another troubling symptom of our current misguided policies is 
the growing percentage of our debt that is being purchased by foreign 
investors. As Senator Conrad has repeatedly pointed out in recent 
weeks, the level of debt purchased by foreign investors under President 
Bush is more than twice the amount purchased by foreign investors under 
the previous 42 Presidents combined. Foreign investors--whether it be 
the central banks of foreign countries or private investors--now own 
nearly half of all publicly issued U.S. debt.
  I was astounded by the following statistics. According to the 
Economic Policy Institute, if foreign lenders keep buying U.S. debt at 
their current rate, the Federal Government will owe $3.8 trillion to 
foreign lenders by 2011, an amount equivalent to 23 percent of expected 
gross domestic product for that year. We will owe those lenders $181 
billion in interest alone.
  To provide some context, that amount is 2\1/2\ times the size of the 
entire fiscal year 2007 budget for the Department of Veterans' Affairs.
  I realize that we cannot fix all of these problems this week, or even 
this year. But we can start to bring some sense to our Nation's fiscal 
priorities by going on record in support of our most critical programs 
and by embracing fiscal responsibility.
  It is why I have consistently cosponsored classic pay-go proposals, 
which aim to ensure that both spending increases and tax cuts are fully 
paid for.
  There is much more that is wrong with the Government's fiscal 
practices and priorities than what I have discussed today. Among other 
things, I do not believe that our budget goes far enough in supporting 
rural America; I do not believe it does enough to provide resources to 
State and local law enforcement; and I do not believe it does enough to 
promote community development.
  More than anything, however, the debate on the Senate floor this week 
is about our broader priorities as a nation. It is about whether we 
value candor and responsibility over partisan opportunism. If we do not 
act soon to reverse our direction, we will have made our decision, and 
it will have been the wrong one.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, the Humphrey Hawkins Act of 1978 specifies 
that time should be set aside in the consideration of the budget 
resolution for debate on economic goals and policies. As the ranking 
member of the Joint Economic Committee, I rise today to talk about how 
the budget submitted by President Bush and the version of that budget 
which we are debating this week in the Senate embody the wrong goals 
and policies to address the challenges facing the American economy.
  If you listen to the President and my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle, you would get the impression that the economy is in good 
shape and that their policies have been successful. But if you listen 
to the American people you know that there is considerable anxiety 
about the economy and considerable disapproval about how the other side 
has managed economic policy.
  The American people are right. All is not well with the Bush economy 
and the President's economic policies. President Bush likes to cite 
statistics on how fast the economy is growing and how much 
productivity--the output a worker produces in an hour--has increased. 
What he doesn't mention is that on his watch the economy went through 
the most protracted jobs slump in decades; that there is still 
considerable evidence of lagging labor force participation and hidden 
unemployment; and that the benefits of productivity growth have been 
showing up in the bottom lines of companies rather than in the 
paychecks of workers.
  The President doesn't mention that disparities in wages and incomes 
are growing wider. Those who are already well-to-do are continuing to 
do very well. But the typical American family is struggling to make 
ends meet in the face of rising costs for energy, health care, and a 
college education for their children.
  The administration and its supporters will not take responsibility 
for the failure of their policies. They say that their tax cuts are 
working and that all the American economy needs is more tax cuts. But 
the Bush tax cuts have not created an economy that works for ordinary 
Americans and they have mortgaged our future. Responsible analysts have 
shown that the President's tax cuts for the rich were poorly designed 
for generating jobs and putting people back to work in the wake of the 
2001 recession. They had very low ``bang-for-the-buck'' in terms of job 
stimulus in the short run, but they were so massive that they created a 
legacy of large budget deficits and mounting debt that will be a drag 
on the economy in the long run.
  President Bush has squandered the hard-won fiscal discipline achieved 
in the 1990s. He inherited a 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion 
and turned it into a stream of deficits.
  This year's budget gives the illusion that we will be making 
substantial progress in reducing the deficit over the next few years. 
But that is not

[[Page S2289]]

what responsible analysts say. They point out that a realistic budget 
assessment shows continuing structural deficits over the next several 
years and a potential explosion of the deficit once the costs of the 
baby-boom generation's retirement kick in fully.
  With a $5.6 trillion 10-year budget surplus now a deficit of at least 
$2.7 trillion, this administration has turned us into a nation of 
debtors, relying on the rest of the world to finance our budget 
deficits and the rest of our excessive spending. Yesterday we learned 
that the current account deficit--the broadest measure of our 
international payments imbalance--was $805 billion last year, an amount 
equal to 6.4 percent of GDP. That is a record both in dollar terms and 
as a share of GDP.
  The ballooning international trade and budget deficits dramatize the 
misplaced fiscal priorities of the President and the Republican 
Congress. The administration's large Federal budget deficits and 
mounting Federal debt are putting enormous pressure on the trade 
deficit and the dollar. We are mortgaging our future to foreign 
investors and foreign governments instead of getting our fiscal house 
in order and boosting our own national saving.
  And we are not investing in people here at home the way we should be. 
A new analysis of the President's budget by the Democratic staff of the 
Joint Economic Committee shows that the President's policies would add 
to the deficit and reduce investments that aid moderate- and lower-
income families in order to pay part of the cost of tax cuts going 
disproportionately to those with very high incomes.
  The JEC Democratic staff analysis shows that the burden of cuts in 
those programs that provide benefits to individuals would be borne 
disproportionately by families in the bottom 40 percent of the income 
distribution. The share of spending cuts borne by those families would 
be disproportionate to their share of aggregate family income and to 
the share of any benefits they could expect to receive from the 
President's proposed tax cuts.
  Families in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution would 
absorb 32 percent of the cuts in payments for individuals, even though 
their share of aggregate family income is only 3 percent. Families in 
the next lowest fifth of the income distribution, with 8 percent of 
aggregate family income, would bear 23 percent of the budget cuts in 
payments for individuals.
  Disparities in the impact of the President's budget proposals on 
families in different parts of the income distribution are even more 
pronounced when the tax cuts are taken into account. Families in the 
bottom 40 percent of the income distribution would receive only 6 
percent of the benefits from tax cuts while bearing over half the 
burden of the spending cuts. In contrast, families in the top 20 
percent of the income distribution would receive over 70 percent of the 
benefits of the tax cuts while bearing only 14 percent of the burden of 
the spending cuts.
  The net impact of those cuts would leave families at the bottom of 
the income distribution shouldering nearly all of the pain while 
families at the top of the income distribution would reap nearly all of 
the net benefits.
  A budget resolution that echoes the President's budget neither meets 
the pressing needs of the American people nor addresses the long-term 
challenges that lie ahead. Clearly, we're in for another year of 
policies that do little to help the average family or bring down the 
deficit.
  A long-term budget and economic disaster looms if we don't restore 
fiscal discipline. The President's large and growing Federal budget 
deficits leave us increasingly hampered in our ability to deal with the 
host of challenges we face. We need policies that address the problems 
facing the country's most disadvantaged citizens and help ordinary 
working families deal with job and retirement insecurity and the rising 
costs of energy, health care, and education for their children.
  We can and should do better.
  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the budget 
resolution.
  A budget is about choices. It is about tradeoffs. It is about 
weighing competing priorities and conflicting objectives and figuring 
out what matters most for Americans.
  Unfortunately, the budget we have before us makes the wrong choices. 
Instead of tackling Federal deficits and rising debt, this budget 
worsens them. Instead of strengthening our schools so America can be 
competitive in a global economy, this budget weakens them. Instead of 
taking bold action against poverty as the President promised after 
Katrina, this budget cuts important services that Americans depend on.
  Budgets matter because the tradeoffs we make matter, and this budget 
makes the wrong tradeoffs. It extends tax breaks aimed at millionaires 
while doing nothing to expand opportunity for working Americans. It 
claims to be fiscally responsible while ignoring billions of dollars of 
Government spending for ongoing military operations overseas.
  At a time when we have maxed out our borrowing, this budget has us 
borrowing more. At a time when we have already cut certain programs 
beyond the level of efficiency, this budget cuts them some more. At a 
time when we have already lavished tax breaks on the wealthiest people 
and corporations, this budget lavishes even more.
  As I talk to families in Illinois--farmers and small businesspeople, 
teachers and veterans, salespeople and service workers, doctors and 
senior citizens, people prospering and those struggling at the 
margins--I see people dealing with real issues and real problems. I see 
people concerned about our national security and our domestic security. 
I see people worried about what they see and what they don't see 
happening here in Washington.
  Unfortunately, this budget that we are debating today gives Americans 
little reason to have confidence in their Government. This budget gives 
them little reason to think that their elected leaders are paying 
attention.
  Many of my Democratic colleagues and I have been offering amendments 
over the last few days. Together we are troubled by this budget and 
doing our best to ensure that it reflects at least some of America's 
cherished values. A few of my Republican colleagues have also joined us 
in trying to improve this bill.
  I was disappointed on Tuesday by the failure of the Senate to pass 
the Pay-go amendment to restore discipline to our budgeting process. 
That vote was bipartisan and very close, and I hold out hope that this 
body will soon restore budget rules that work to reduce deficits and 
restrain debt. But there are still opportunities to make this 
resolution more responsive to the needs and concerns of the people in 
Illinois.
  For example, I appreciate the willingness of Senator Gregg and 
Senator Conrad, as the managers of this bill, to accept an important 
amendment of mine that addresses the problem of homeless veterans.
  Each and every night, more than 200,000 of our Nation's veterans are 
homeless. More than 400,000 will experience homelessness over the 
course of a year. In my hometown of Chicago, as many as 38,000 veterans 
spend a night homeless over the course of a year.
  It is one the great tragedies of this Nation that brave men and women 
who risked their lives for us have no place to turn to and no place to 
call home.
  There is no single cause for homelessness among veterans. Homeless 
vets are men and women, single and married. They have served in every 
conflict since World War II. Many suffer from posttraumatic stress 
disorder or were physically and mentally battered in combat. A large 
number left the military without job skills that could be easily 
transferred to the private sector. Regardless of the cause, we know 
that there are ways to combat this crisis.
  My amendment devotes a small amount to begin addressing this problem 
by building on existing proven programs. For nearly 20 years, the 
Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program has helped get veterans off the 
streets with intensive services that are unavailable elsewhere and 
really get to the heart of the causes of homelessness.
  HVRP grant recipients provide clothing and food to help stabilize 
veterans, they provide mental health and substance abuse counseling, 
and they provide employment services and housing assistance to allow 
them to reenter society. Some HVRP programs even employ formerly 
homeless veterans to serve as counselors and role models to other 
veterans. HVRP offers specialized

[[Page S2290]]

support for veterans who are turned away from other programs. In short, 
HVRP is a cost-effective and proven way to help veterans who have no 
place else to turn.
  The budget currently flatlines spending for the HVRP at $22 million, 
which is only 44 percent of the authorized level. At this amount, we 
will only be able to serve 16,250 veterans next year.
  My amendment increases HVRP to its full authorized amount, an 
increase of $28 million. This will help us reach approximately 36,820 
homeless veterans. This is still less than 10 percent of the total 
need, but it is an important start. My amendment will also devote an 
additional $12 million to the Department of Labor to improve jobs 
services for hard-to-place veterans. This is a modest increase of 6 
percent over last year.
  Every day, we walk past men and women on street corners with 
handwritten signs like ``Homeless Veteran--Need Food.'' Sometimes we 
give a dollar, sometimes we just keep walking. These are soldiers who 
fought in World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq.
  We cannot allow the proud shoulders that have carried the weight of 
liberty to be broken by the terrible burden of homelessness and 
hopelessness. We owe our veterans more than an emergency shelter cot or 
a cardboard box beneath an overpass. We owe them a chance to enjoy the 
dignity and respect they earned fighting for our freedom.
  These men and women served us without fail when we needed them, and 
now we must do the same for them.
  I thank Senators Gregg and Conrad for accepting this amendment.
  Mr. President, I hope we can continue to improve this budget. But, 
until we have a fiscally responsible budget that makes the right 
choices for America, I owe it to the people of Illinois to reject it.
  I hope it won't be too long before this body can get serious about 
solving the real problems we face as a country and preparing for the 
new challenges and opportunities we will face in the years ahead.


                            vote explanation

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I regret that I was unable to vote in 
support of Senator Lieberman's amendment 3034 to the fiscal year 2007 
congressional budget resolution. It is critically important to protect 
the American people from terrorist attacks. This amendment would have 
done so by providing $8 billion in additional funds for homeland 
security. These funds would have come from restoring cuts to vital 
first responder programs in the Departments of Homeland Security and 
Justice. It also would have provided an additional $1.2 billion for 
first responders, $1.7 billion for the Coast Guard and port security, 
$150 million for chemical security, $1 billion for rail and transit 
security, $456 million for FEMA, $1 billion for health preparedness 
programs, and $752 million for aviation security.
  At the time of this vote I was meeting with a group of Montana's high 
school students from Project Close-Up. This program introduces young 
people to Washington, DC and to the U.S. Government. I believe it is 
very important to give these students the unique opportunity to meet 
with their State's Senators in person--it is a tradition I have 
maintained for years. It is unfortunate that this vote to support 
homeland security occurred at the same time as the visit. For this 
reason, I must make it clear that I firmly believe in properly funding 
homeland security. I was one of the first Senators to visit New Orleans 
and the gulf coast after Hurricane Katrina and I recognize that FEMA 
needs more funding to improve their mission and ability to properly 
respond to disasters.
  Most importantly, our first responders in Montana are the backbone of 
emergency services in our State. We are a rural State, and our police 
and fire departments and hospitals call upon them to react across many 
miles to keep Montana's citizens safe. I have always voted in favor of 
these efforts in the past and I pledge to do so in the future.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, Senator Conrad and I are fortunate to have 
an outstanding staff serving the members of the Senate Budget 
Committee. These professionals work long hours and take great pride in 
the work of the committee and the institution of the U.S. Senate.
  I would like to take just a few minutes today to single out two of 
these talented individuals who work on the majority side or Republican 
committee staff.
  David Fisher serves as our health policy director on the committee. 
As Willie Sutton said, ``You rob banks because that's where the money 
is,'' and with respect to the Federal budget, the money is in health 
care. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are three programs that 
David handles for our team, and these three programs are on a glidepath 
to consume over 20 percent of this Nation's gross domestic product in 
about 30 years. If we do not find a way to control the growth of 
spending for these programs, there simply will not be resources 
available for all other priorities, from national defense to homeland 
security to science and research.
  David came over to the Budget Committee from the Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee in 2005. David holds a master's in public 
policy degree from Georgetown University. He has held a number of key 
positions in both the Senate and the House of Representatives having 
served as both a chief of staff and legislative director.
  David is one of those rare individuals who can drill into specific 
programmatic detail and simultaneously understand the broader policy 
and political context in which programs operate. He is a perfectionist. 
David has a complete top-to-bottom understanding of medical and health 
care programs and has staffed me with distinction with such issues as 
bioterrorism, medical liability reform, and FDA drug approval. Most 
recently, he has been working tirelessly on Avian flu preparedness.
  David Fisher has earned a reputation around town, here in Congress, 
and down at the White House as an expert on health issues. Few people 
who have worked with David have not been impressed with intellect and 
dedication. I am proud to have him on my team.
  For many people, the budget resolution is just a compilation of 
accounts and dollar levels. But the budget is much more. The budget is 
a framework, a blueprint for the Federal Government and fiscal policy. 
Maybe good public policy states that policy drives budgets, but it is 
no secret that in Washington budgets often drive policy. The budget and 
our resolution have a real impact on the financial markets and economy.
  When I took over the committee, a number of people advised me to make 
sure that we employed a talented economist. We are fortunate in Dan 
Brandt to have just that.
  Dan Brandt serves as our Committee chief economist, and he also 
serves as analyst for a number of budget functions, such as what we 
call function 370 or commerce and housing credit. Dan is our expert who 
keeps on top of what the economy is doing, what is happening at the 
Federal Reserve, at the Securities and Exchange Commission, at the 
stock exchanges, and international finance. Dan is our ``go to guy'' 
for understanding the latest GDP and employment statistics, inflation, 
and other economic data. He is our expert on tax policy and works 
closely with the Finance Committee in ensuring that we are advocating 
progrowth tax policies. He works closely with the Banking Committee on 
a number of issues affecting financial institutions and the lending 
industry.
  Dan's academic background is in business administration and economics 
at the Johns Hopkins University, the American University, and the Frei 
Universitat in Berlin, Germany. Prior to joining the committee, Dan 
worked in the House of Representatives, at Solomon Smith Barney, and at 
the International Trade Administration in the U.S. Department of 
Commerce. During 2004, Dan Brandt worked on President George W. Bush's 
reelection campaign where he handled tax and economic issues.
  Dan is a workhorse for the committee. Few people could serve as a 
guide through the intricacies of economic forecasts and the budget 
rules--Dan can do both. The technical accuracy and effectiveness of his 
work products is a matter of personal pride. I have learned that he is 
a professional staff member in every sense of the word. I will conclude 
by just saying that Dan Brandt is a real credit to the Senate, and we 
are fortunate to have him here on our Budget Committee and as part of 
my team.

[[Page S2291]]

  Mr. President, we are now able to go to final passage. Before we go 
to final passage, I wish to begin by thanking Senator Conrad and his 
extraordinary staff.