[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 26 (Monday, February 12, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1813-S1814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF AMERICA

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today I wish to talk about the economic 
future of our country.
  The economic future of our country is bleak. During the last 3 years 
of the Clinton administration, this Federal Government was spending 
less money than it was taking in. We actually retired the national debt 
by half a trillion dollars. Since President Clinton left office, we 
have had the highest deficits in the history of our country. The Bush 
budgets have been recordbreakers but in the wrong way. We are $3 
trillion in new debt in the last 6 years. We have doubled the amount of 
money we owe China and Japan, and we owe money--to Saudi Arabia, 
Singapore, on and on--to other countries. We even had to borrow money 
from Mexico in recent years.
  Senator Conrad has indicated--and I have spent hours with him. I have 
spent hours with him and Judd Gregg talking about what we can do for 
the long-term economic future of this country. I had hopes and 
anticipation, but then these hopes were washed away. As Vice President 
Cheney says, we are doing nothing to change revenues in any way. It is 
a one-way street, this administration--all for the rich, nothing for 
the poor, and in between the poor and the rich, the middle class is 
being squeezed. The rich are getting richer, far richer, and the poor 
are getting poorer.
  I am disappointed--and that is an understatement--in the budget we 
received recently from the President. It is like Iraq: He refuses to 
reverse course. The budget is the same, more of the same.
  Let's see why we should be concerned about this budget. It wasn't 
long ago that Vice President Cheney insisted that deficits don't 
matter. I was speaking today to a publisher of a large newspaper--owns 
newspapers all over the country--and he and I lamented that we always 
thought Republicans were for fiscal conservatism, fiscal integrity. 
That is gone. No one believes anymore that they care--red ink as far as 
you can see. And, as Vice President Cheney insisted, deficits don't 
matter. But he is wrong. I know he and many on the other side of the 
aisle obviously believe deficits don't matter. The Republicans 
obviously believe this. Senate Republicans and House Republicans may 
believe that but a lot fewer now than before November 6 because 
Republicans all over the country believe deficits do matter. They do 
believe in fiscal integrity, that you pay your bills, you don't spend 
money you don't have.
  We Democrats agree with mainstream Republicans across the country.

[[Page S1814]]

We believe in fiscal responsibility because history proves that it 
works, and we are convinced that massive deficits allowed to continue 
will undermine growth and weaken America's future. It is no different 
from your own personal bank accounts, how you take care of your home, 
your family. Sure, there may come times when you have to borrow money, 
but you need to pay it back. You can't have deficit-spending as far as 
the eye can see. How has the Republican Party gotten off on allowing 
these huge deficits to keep building?
  The administration's budget it just gave us shows they are still 
trapped in an outdated and discredited ideology. Rather than accepting 
the need for discipline, President Bush's budget continues to reject 
the strong pay-as-you-go rules. What does this mean, pay-as-you-go? 
This is the rule we had in the Clinton years. What it means is that if 
you are going to lower taxes, you have to figure out a way to pay for 
it. If you are going to have a new spending program, you have to have a 
way to pay for it. You just can't borrow money, which is what has 
happened under President Bush. Pay-as-you-go rules during the Clinton 
years promoted fiscal responsibility.

  Rather than reducing our debt, as the Democrats did under President 
Clinton, the Bush budget calls for an additional $2.5 trillion in new 
borrowing, causing our debt to balloon to almost $12 trillion. I am not 
making up these numbers. They come directly from the President's 
budget. The real numbers are even worse than those you find in the 
President's budget, which leads me to my second major concern about the 
President's budget--its refusal to be honest with the American people.
  Let's begin with the cost of the Iraq war. While the President 
continues to resist bipartisan efforts to reverse the political and 
military course in Iraq, his own budget takes a very different 
approach. In fact, the budget contains $50 billion only for the war in 
2009 and nothing thereafter. Does that mean the administration really 
wants to pull the troops out? Of course not. They want to have it both 
ways--they want the war, but they don't want to pay for it. And their 
deceptive budget isn't playing it straight. It is not being honest.
  The war costs, unfortunately, are only one example of the budgets 
deception. Their budget also uses rosy assumptions about expected 
revenues. In 2012 alone, the President assumes that revenue will be 
$155 billion more than projected by the nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office. So instead of a rosy surplus, Bush's budget would run a 
huge deficit.
  Beyond rosy assumptions, the budget also claims to reach balance by 
assuming deep future cuts in domestic priorities such as education. But 
how? Few details. Exactly which programs will be cut? No details. By 
how much? Not for sure. Few details. And who will be affected? The 
budget doesn't say. We know some.
  Perhaps even more important than its debt and deception, the Bush 
budget is simply disconnected from the needs of middle-class America. 
Too many families today are struggling with stagnating wages and rising 
prices for everything from health care to the groceries we buy. That is 
certainly true in Nevada. But instead of developing new ways to meet 
these needs, the budget offers few, if any, new ideas that would help. 
In fact, many of its cuts would make matters worse. For example, the 
budget underfunds the State Children's Health Insurance Program which 
would jeopardize existing health coverage and leave millions of 
children uninsured. Its ill-conceived health proposal would threaten 
existing private health coverage and actually drive up premiums, the 
experts say. The budget cuts $300 billion from Medicare and Medicaid 
and thus increases health care costs for many seniors. The budget cuts 
education by $2 billion, and it even cuts programs that are important 
to veterans and police officers.
  These cuts would have a major impact on many of my constituents and 
many of the Presiding Officer's constituents. Every State in the Union 
would feel the impact. There are already over 100,000 children in 
Nevada without health insurance. The Bush budget would increase that 
number. At the same time, its deep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid 
threaten about 300,000 Nevadans who rely on Medicare and 170,000 
Nevadans who depend on Medicaid.
  Unfortunately, at the same time the administration is cutting 
programs important to the middle class and the poor, they are insisting 
on spending hundreds of billions of dollars for handouts for 
multimillionaires. I know the administration generally believes that 
the very wealthy are the engine of economic growth. Democrats disagree. 
We believe the real engine of growth is a strong middle class, and we 
think it is wrong to burden middle-class taxpayers with the cost of 
massive spending for those at the top of the economic pyramid.
  Consider the President's tax breaks for people with incomes over $1 
million. They are huge--more than $150,000 a year if you make more than 
$1 million. In 2008 alone, that cost will be $50 billion. Who gets the 
$50 billion? The millionaires, Mr. President, the millionaires. Think 
about that--$50 billion. Where does it go? To the millionaires. At the 
same time he wants to cut education by $2 billion, the President wants 
to spend $50 billion on tax breaks for those with incomes over $1 
million. That is not just fiscally irresponsible and it is not just bad 
economic policy, it is wrong. It is just plain wrong.
  Unfortunately, tax breaks for multimillionaires are only one example 
of the many special interest handouts in this budget we just got.
  It contains wasteful royalties and tax breaks for oil and gas 
companies. This industry is making more money this year than ever 
before, last year it was more money than ever before, and the year 
before it was more money than ever before.
  It continues Medicare overpayments to HMOs and other managed care 
plans.
  This budget grants drilling rights to Alaskan wilderness.
  It continues tax breaks for multinational corporations that outsource 
jobs overseas, and remarkably it continues to call for the 
privatization of Social Security with the deep benefit cuts and massive 
debt.
  These discredited and outdated policies will not promote economic 
growth, they will not strengthen the middle class or make our country a 
better place. On the contrary, they will weaken our Nation and make 
middle-class life harder.
  We must do better. In coming weeks, led by our remarkable Budget 
chairman, Senator Conrad, we will work together with our colleagues to 
produce a better budget; a fiscally responsible budget based on the 
philosophy that, yes, deficits do matter; a budget that returns the 
tough pay-as-you-go discipline of the 1990s and balances the budget 
using real numbers, not pretend numbers; a budget that puts the middle 
class first and starts to address the real problems facing working 
families, such as exploding health care costs and rising tuition; a 
budget that reflects the best of our core values, American values, and 
lays the groundwork for a strong and prosperous future.
  Achieving such a budget won't be easy. Members on both sides of the 
aisle would have to work together and make some tough choices and 
compromises, and the President must be willing to rethink obsolete 
approaches and help move his party and our Nation in another direction.
  But speaking for Democrats, while we know the challenge is great, we 
are going to try. It is my hope that in the end we can finally move 
toward a new fiscal policy that combines old-fashioned values of fiscal 
discipline with the new and forward-looking approach that puts the 
middle class first.
  I ask my time not interfere with the time that has been set aside. 
Would the Presiding Officer remind me, do we have a certain period of 
time for morning business today?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there 
will be a transaction for morning business with Senators permitted to 
speak for up to 10 minutes each.
  Mr. REID. I yield the floor.

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