Congressional Record, Volume 153 Issue 50 (Thursday, March 22, 2007)

[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 50 (Thursday, March 22, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3648-S3655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR
2008--Continued

Amendment No. 536

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise tonight to discuss for a few
minutes amendment No. 536, which has been filed by my colleague from
Georgia, Senator Isakson, and myself. In offering this amendment to the
budget resolution, we truly believe it is a fair amendment and puts
children first, in the way the State Children's Health Insurance
Program was intended.
When SCHIP was created in 1997, it was instituted to do exactly what
the name states: provide health care coverage to uninsured children. I
do not believe you will find anyone here who disagrees with that
purpose because it provides health insurance to hard-working families
who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy private
insurance.
There has been a lot of discussion about the long-term aspects of
that program lately, and rightfully so. However, some States are using
their SCHIP funding to cover adults, and that is not the intention of
this program. In fact, three States have more adults as enrollees than
children. There are 12 States that will spend almost $807 million of
their SCHIP money on more than 671,000 adults this year.
When we talk about children's health care, two of the components that
are critical include dental care and mental health care. That is the
specific focus of our amendment. Our proposal would eliminate States in
receiving an enhanced SCHIP matching rate for adults who are covered
under the SCHIP program. If States continue to choose to insure adults
with SCHIP funds, they will receive a lower Federal match instead of
the normal SCHIP match. We think this approach makes the most sense
because SCHIP was created to cover children.
The increased Federal match was created as an incentive for States to
cover these kids, not adults. This new lower match rate for adults will
free up funding to create a budget-neutral reserve fund to provide for
dental and mental health benefits for children. So, again, our
amendment simply says this: If States want to use their SCHIP funds to
cover adults, which is a decision States may choose to make, they will
receive the Medicaid matching rate.
We are not saying the States should not provide health insurance
coverage for adults who need it. At the same time it is important to
emphasize that SCHIP funding is for kids. Our amendment uses this
funding intended for children for two very important components of
children's health care, that being dental care and mental health.
I believe we must craft policies to ensure the greatest number of
children are provided quality health care and quality dental care. I
was extremely saddened to hear recently of a 12-year-old boy in Prince
George's County, MD, who died from a toothache and an inability to find
proper care. I do not know whether this child was on an SCHIP program
or was on Medicaid. But this is only one example of the need for
increased access to dental care for children. It is heartbreaking and
inexcusable that something as tragic as this could happen, when a
routine tooth extraction may have saved this young boy's life.
Parents know and understand that things as routine as dental care are
critically important to a child's overall health. Tooth decay remains a
prevalent, chronic disease, and is the single most common childhood
disease nationwide. It is five times as common as asthma, and,
unfortunately, minority, low-income, and geographically isolated
children suffer disproportionately from this disease. Eighty percent of
all tooth decay is found in only 25 percent of children. These are the
children the SCHIP program was created to help. We can and we must do
better for these kids. This amendment does exactly what we ought to be
doing with SCHIP, namely providing health insurance coverage for
children, not adults.
I urge my colleagues to do what is right and support this amendment.

Amendment No. 619

Mr. President, let me very quickly talk about one other amendment I
have filed. It is amendment No. 619. This particular amendment deals
with the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Grant Program, which is commonly
referred to as the Byrne/JG Program. It is an amendment which Senator
Feinstein, Senator Isakson, Senator Graham, and I have filed. The
Byrne/JG Program is the primary provider of Federal criminal justice
funding to State and local jurisdictions. The funding supports all
components of the criminal justice system from multijurisdictional drug
and gang task forces to community crime prevention programs, to
substance abuse programs, prosecution initiatives, domestic violence
programs, and information-sharing initiatives.
I will tell you that our law enforcement officials, our sheriffs, our
prosecutors, our drug court professionals, and many of our public
servants in the law enforcement arena rely on this funding to make our
communities safer. The results they get with this funding are tangible
and real.
In February of last year, the Iowa Governor's Office of Drug Control
Policy conducted a survey to obtain a clearer, quantifiable, and more
complete national picture of the Byrne/JG program's impact on drug and
criminal efforts in America. This survey focused on the 2004 grant year
and found that drug enforcement task forces funded by the Byrne/JG
program in 45 States made more than 221,000 drug arrests. The
achievements of those multijurisdictional drug enforcement task forces
are impressive.
For example, 45 States reported seizing almost 18,000 kilograms of
cocaine, with an estimated consumer street value of over $1.6 billion.
Forty States reported seizing just shy of 5,500 kilograms of
methamphetamine, with an estimated street value of $518 million.
The States participating in this survey reported the total value of
drugs seized at over $12 billion. This figure represents more than $63
dollars in seized drugs for every dollar spent on drug task forces.
This is indeed an amendment which will reinstate the level of funding
for the Byrne/JG Program to last year's level. We are not asking it to
be any higher than that. By doing that, we will allow our law
enforcement community to continue to provide the type of safety and
protection citizens all across America want.
Before I yield the floor, I wish to note several well-respected
organizations, including the National Narcotics Officers Association
Coalition, the National Sheriffs' Association, the National District
Attorneys' Association, the National Association of Drug Court
Professionals, the National Criminal Justice Association, and the
International Association of Chiefs of Police support this robust
funding for the program.
I encourage my colleagues to support amendment No. 619.
Mr. President, I ask that my entire statement be inserted into the
Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S3649]]

I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am delighted to come to the floor and
join in support of the amendment offered by Senator Chambliss and
myself with regard to the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
The State Children's Health Insurance Program was begun in 1997. At
that particular time I was chairman of the board of education in the
State of Georgia. I applauded the Federal Government for providing this
asset and this benefit to our States.
For the benefit of those who aren't familiar, the SCHIP program is a
Medicaid Program, but unlike Medicaid today, it is a block grant, it is
not an entitlement. Specific funds are block-granted to the States for
the purpose of providing affordable health insurance to children in
poverty.
That is the way the program began. As years have gone by, States have
chosen to elect to ask for waivers from Washington to expand the
coverage beyond children. Meritoriously, some States have asked to
cover pregnant mothers in poverty under the SCHIP program. I would be
the first person to tell you that is an appropriate appropriation of
funds and the intent of the bill.
However, other States have chosen to add adults who do not have
children to coverage under SCHIP, the result of which has compromised
the program and taken money that was intended to go to children and
sent it to adults.
By way of example, my State of Georgia runs out of SCHIP money this
month. We do not provide any SCHIP benefits to anybody who is not a
child. Our eligibility threshold is 235 percent of poverty. So it is
exactly as prescribed originally. But because we are a growth State and
in addition took on the children from Katrina, we have run out of money
early, because we had an increase in the number of people in our State
using and taking advantage of SCHIP.
There are other States that have used their money up by adults
consuming it under this program. What Senator Chambliss and I have done
is simply said this: If you are going to include adults in the
Children's Health Insurance Program, which is a Medicaid program, then
the reimbursement to those States by the Federal Government for the
cost for children ought to be the enhanced amount which Congress passed
in 1997, which is about 70 percent of the cost. But if you are going to
include adults, that match ought to be the 63-percent Medicaid match,
not the enhanced match that was put in to attract people in the first
place to provide children's health insurance. Then you take that
differential and you put it into a reserve fund, and offer States the
opportunity to enhance their children's health insurance by including
dental and/or mental health benefits.
We know from our experience with young children in poverty that early
prevention of dental disease and good dental health provides a lifetime
for those children of healthy teeth, a lifetime of absence of dental
disease, and a saving of untold millions of dollars in this country.
So what Senator Chambliss and I have brought to the floor is very
simply this premise: If you pass a State Children's Health Insurance
Program, shouldn't it go to the benefit of children's health? If you
decide to include adults, why should the Medicaid match be any greater
than it is for adults anyway? And if you create additional funds by
making this differentiation, should not those funds go to the two areas
which are most important in terms of children's health, dental and
mental health?
I submit this is a thoughtful amendment. It is affordable because it
is budget neutral. It takes the SCHIP program back to where it was
intended, for children. It does not punish a State that includes adults
under the Medicaid program, but it requires them to go back to the
regular Medicaid match, not the enhanced match that was created for
children's health insurance.
If we adopt this amendment, more children will have healthier lives
and children in poverty will continue to get the benefit of a wise and
beneficial program this Congress passed in 1997.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer for
staying here late this evening. I hope anyone who is not watching this
is watching the KU-Southern Illinois game on right now, which is quite
a barn burner going on.
I have an amendment I want to talk about, because we are going to go
into the long voting session tomorrow and will not have a great deal of
time to talk about it then. But it is an important amendment. It is an
important amendment for the budget. It is an important amendment for
the long-term process.
A lot of my colleagues will be very familiar with the BRAC process,
the Base Realignment and Closure Commission process. It was enacted at
least a dozen years ago, probably a little more than that. It is a
process by which we have a commission look at military bases. They
consider the military bases, consider whether they are useful where
they are currently located, if it would be better for them to be
realigned, if it is better for a base to be closed and that money put
somewhere else.
It has been a very effective process for us to be able to take
spending and put it in higher priority areas, whereas historically if
you tried to eliminate a military base, it was virtually impossible to
do, because you would go at the military base in a particular State,
and it would not matter how old the base had been or whether it was out
of position, the Members of that State would defend it.
We were rarely able to close a military base. So we enacted the BRAC
process. That process created a commission, and they looked at all the
military establishments. It then said that these 65, 125, 233 bases
should be closed. We have higher priorities for this money. The process
is chopped off on by the President, and then it comes to Congress, one
vote up or down, agree, disagree, deal or no deal. By that means, we
have realigned over $40 billion in annual appropriations, total
appropriations on military bases. It has been a very good process to
eliminate wasteful Federal spending in places where it is not needed.
We need that process for the rest of Government. We spend about $2.9
trillion on an annual basis. We have not found effective ways to
eliminate wasteful Federal spending.
I have yet to find somebody running for public office at the Federal
level--or any level, for that matter--who says they are for wasteful
government spending or they are for duplicative government spending. If
everybody is saying they are against it and they are against waste,
fraud, and abuse and they keep looking for that line in the budget to
wipe it out, here is a realistic way we can deal with that, take that
BRAC process and apply to it the rest of Government.
What could it yield? Let me give some examples using this quick
report card. Regularly, the Government puts out a report card on the
effectiveness of our own Government spending programs, whether they are
hitting their targets or not. They score them. You can look here at a
few of agencies. For the State Department, they reviewed 40 programs
for this OMB report card. They score them for effectiveness in what the
program was targeted for. They were at a median score of 77.93 percent.
I gave them the letter grade of a C-plus, based on the regular report
card system. Here you can see the Department of Education, HUD, EPA.
For the Department of Education, 74 programs were scored. They had a
median score of 44.5, which I gave a letter score of an F. That is what
my kids would get. That is what I would give if I were teaching,
saying: This is not an effective Government program. Why is it we can't
go in and find some of these education programs that are not being
effective and eliminate them? It is because the system is built to
spend.
There is an old maxim that Ronald Reagan used that there is nothing
so

[[Page S3650]]

permanent as a temporary Government program. Once in place, they seem
to sustain themselves. They get a support group around them, and then
the specific controls over the general. If it is a program that
somebody in Vermont wants to maintain or Kansas wants to maintain, even
though maybe its effectiveness is very low, we defend it because it is
for our States. That is the specific. If the general interest would say
this should be eliminated, let's change the system so they can save
money. We can do so using the military base-closing process and use
that money for higher priority needs.
I want to eliminate deaths by cancer in 10 years. This is going to
take a real research effort and focus. To do so, we spend $2.9 trillion
in the budget now. We have enough money, but it is not in the right
places. Let's use this system to reduce and eliminate wasteful spending
and then be able to target higher priority areas.
This is a program which both Republicans and Democrats, in whatever
philosophical position you may put yourself, would say is a good idea.
This is something which is bipartisan, nonpartisan, and it is for good
governance and good government. It changes the system because the
system is built to spend. It is built to spend almost perennially. It
needs to be adjusted.
I want to quote from former President Clinton's adviser Paul
Weinstein, of the Progressive Policy Institute, who testified before
the Senate about this approach:

Our organization has believed that the best way to achieve
comprehensive reform in the executive branch is to combine
the commission function with a mechanism to require Congress
to vote on its recommendations. Senator Brownback's CARFA
[Commission on Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies]
legislation would provide this type of commission.

Here again, we have to realize the difficulties of this system. The
strength of the system is spending money. The strength of the system is
not saving money. Change it to combine both a commission and a
requirement for legislative action.
Under the CARFA proposal, once every 4 years an agency would be
reviewed for recommendations being made on whether eliminations should
be made in that agency. It would then be put together in a package and
sent to the President to either agree or disagree. It would then go to
the Congress for the Congress to look at, as we do the BRAC process
now. It would then be required to be voted upon with a limited time
period for debate without amendment. You look at it, and then you get a
chance to look at the overall practices and the package, and then you
can say I agree, vote yes, I disagree, vote no, deal or no deal. This
is a process which has worked.
I submit to my colleagues, both sides of the aisle, all persuasions,
we have a lot of high-priority needs. We don't have the money focused
in the high-priority areas. Too often, it is focused on things that we
are maintaining from the past that maybe have less saliency today but
still have a protection group around them, and we haven't found a way
to eliminate them or get in and do it. Here is a way to do it, and it
doesn't favor one side's program or the other's. It says: We are going
to have this in a bipartisan commission, and we are going to change the
process so we can save the money. Then that money will be used for
higher needs.
This is an effective way for us to move forward. I urge my
colleagues, when we get a chance to vote on my amendment, to look at
this and say: That is something which I want to endorse, something I
want to support, because it is going to allow us to more effectively
spend the Federal money. One of the things people tell me that drives
them the most crazy about Federal spending is wasteful Federal
spending. Here is a way. We redesign the system to get at it. I urge my
colleagues to support it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The senior Senator from Ohio is
recognized.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to share with the Senate my
concerns and frustrations with S. Con. Res. 21, the fiscal year 2008
budget resolution, and to discuss two amendments I will offer tomorrow
to try to improve the resolution.
Frankly, the resolution before this body ignores the dire state of
our financial future and uses smoke and mirrors to mask our long-term
fiscal challenges. I have come to the Senate floor numerous times over
the past 8 years to express my concern that the Federal Government
continues to spend more money than it brings in and that this Congress
is running a credit card for today's needs and shamelessly leaving the
bill for future generations. We all know this recklessness threatens
our economic stability, our competitiveness in the global marketplace,
and our future way of life.
Since I arrived in the Senate, the national debt has increased from
$5.6 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is an increase of more than 50
percent in 8 years. This amounts to $29,000 of debt for every American.
Can my colleagues believe that? What is of even more concern, however,
is that 55 percent of the privately owned national debt is held by
foreign creditors, including the Chinese Government. That is up from 35
percent only 6 years ago. Yet these numbers, which represent our past
behavior, pale in comparison with the budget problems looming in our
future as the baby boom generation begins to retire over 9 months from
now.
Forty years ago, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid accounted
for 3 percent of our GDP. Today, they are up to 9 percent. In another
40 years, they will be up to 18 percent, equal to total Federal
revenues and crowding out all other spending. In other words, all of
the money the Federal Government spends currently will be used up for
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. There won't be any money for
anything else.
Looking forward, we face a long-term fiscal imbalance of $55
trillion. That is hard to even grasp, but it translates into $440,000
of future Government debt for every American household, up from a mere
$175,000 only 6 years ago. This is all documented. If we listen to
David Walker, who is the Comptroller General, he is going all over the
country--he was in my State in Cincinnati for a fiscal wake-up--working
with the Concord Coalition to let Americans know. He is like the Paul
Revere out there telling Americans we better be concerned about this. I
remember Ross Perot, who ran for the President of the United States,
and all of his charts. His charts looked like nothing compared to the
charts we would use to show how bad things are.
Imposing a crushing debt burden such as this on future generations at
the same time they are going to have to compete with rising powers such
as China and India is unacceptable. All of us have a responsibility to
try to guarantee that they enjoy the same standard of living and
quality of life we have enjoyed, if not better. This young page here in
front of me--I am worried about him. What kind of a life is he going to
have? What kind of an opportunity is he going to have in terms of his
standard of living and quality of life? We are concerned about him.
What kind of a legacy are we going to leave him? What about my seven
grandchildren? What kind of a world are they going to live in? That is
why the chairman of the Budget Committee and I have spoken over the
past few years about the growing debt and the impact it will have on
future generations.
Yet we are here today with the majority's budget resolution that
increases the national debt by $2.4 trillion over the next 5 years.
That is assuming Congress doesn't take advantage of all of the
loopholes that are in the budget. We are back at square one. Neither
Republicans nor Democrats have offered a budget that even comes close
to reestablishing our fiscal sanity. The administration's budget is
unrealistic, and the Democratic budget is even worse.
I am going to vote against the Democratic budget. If this were the
Republican budget, I would vote against that budget, too. Both of them.
Once again, we have pulled the wool over our own eyes. That is what is
going on.
Some of my colleagues, especially my new colleagues, may wonder why I
take such offense at the budget. Unfortunately I am a product of my
experiences. The Bible says the Lord never gives you a challenge you
cannot overcome. Well, he has tested me before, and he is testing all
of us right now.
As mayor of Cleveland, I inherited the first city in the country to
go bankrupt since the Great Depression. We made cuts, we raised taxes,
and we

[[Page S3651]]

righted the ship. When I took the helm as Governor of Ohio, I inherited
a $1.5 billion budget shortfall that can only be described as a
financial crisis. During the first biennial budget, we had to make four
rounds of cuts. These were dire economic times which required honesty,
leadership, and management. I was forced to make a lot of hard choices.
We had to reform our tax policy, scale back spending, and target our
resources to the people who needed them the most. We worked harder and
smarter, and we succeeded at doing more with less. In fact, my years as
Governor represent the lowest rate of growth in State spending in 30
years.
Here in Washington, it seems as if no one is willing to make the
tough choices. I cannot understand it. Too many Members won't do
anything if it doesn't bolster their side politically or fit into a 10-
second sound bite. Instead, both parties are using gimmicks to cover up
the state of our Nation's long-term fiscal health.
Let me offer some examples. The administration released its fiscal
2008 budget request in early February and projected a deficit of $239
billion. This number is the deficit left over after spending every
dollar of Social Security surplus. But the Social Security surplus must
be reserved for future retirees. As far as I know, you can't spend the
money twice, but Congress keeps pretending that it can. If you remove
the Social Security surplus from the equation, that $239 billion
deficit they are talking about almost doubles to $451 billion. If you
use the accrual way of figuring it, it is about $640 billion.
The administration goes further to achieve its surplus by assuming
nonsecurity discretionary spending will peak in 2007 and go down every
year after that. So we are reducing our deficit by eating our seed
corn. That is a real problem today.
What we have to understand is that only one-sixth of the budget is
nondefense discretionary. All of the hits are being made against that
one-sixth to try to balance the budget. We are ignoring so many things
this country ought to be doing.
Furthermore, the administration calculates the security-related
discretionary spending will peak in 2008, and that supplemental
spending for military operations will end after 2009. Give me a break.
We are going to end that in 2009? We are going to be over in Iraq and
Afghanistan for a long period of time. But the President just increased
the number of troops going to Iraq by more than 21,000. These estimates
are not based on reality. Why don't we tell the American people the
truth? Let's tell them the truth.
Meanwhile, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are using
tricks that even are more egregious. The majority's budget allows for a
dramatic increase in entitlement spending through the use of more than
20 reserve funds. They are not included in the overall budget totals.
They simply conceal what they intend to spend and it gives the
appearance of a more responsible budget.
The majority's budget hides increases in discretionary spending
through the use of seven cap adjustments. Appropriations for seven
favored programs and agencies will not count toward the budget limit.
Just like that, poof, and they are gone.
Furthermore, the majority's budget allows for unlimited emergency
spending. I think we all understand that on occasion we have natural
disasters or unanticipated crises, such as Hurricane Katrina, that
require emergency resources. For this reason, we cannot estimate all of
our emergency spending in the budget. But a great deal of the spending
that is currently designated as ``emergency'' is actually quite regular
and predictable.
For example, every year we spend emergency funds on drought relief.
This is difficult for me to understand: If we spend it every year, why
can't we account for it in our budget? This is why we ought to have a
rainy day fund such as I had when I was Governor that set aside
designated funds for legitimate natural disasters so the ``emergency''
label is not abused for otherwise anticipated events.
My friend from New Hampshire, Senator Gregg, created a rainy day fund
with a fixed dollar limit in last year's budget resolution, and I
thought: That is a great idea. But the new majority has already
eliminated that fund from the budget and has created an open-ended
source of emergency spending that is not subject to any financial
limitations.
There is one trick after another in this budget resolution. We are
already raiding the Social Security trust fund and a bunch of smaller
trust funds to make our bottom line look rosier than it is. This budget
exacerbates a problem the Budget Committee chairman himself and I have
spoken out against for a great many years.
I have a great deal of respect for the Democratic chairman of the
Budget Committee. I think he is one of the most responsible guys, but
he has also got to do his thing in terms of the politics of this
Senate. In fact, in the last Congress, the Budget Committee chairman
and I introduced legislation that would invest the Social Security
surplus in non-Federal bonds to prevent the surplus from being used to
fund other Government spending. We plan to reintroduce this bill again.
In other words, what we are saying is we are going to take the money
that is now being used to fund the budget and instead of borrowing it
from trust funds--Social Security--we are going to take the Social
Security funds and put them in a non-U.S. account--municipal bonds--so
they will accrue interest; and when the time comes that we will need to
use that money, there will be something there besides an IOU from the
Federal Government that says: We are going to take care of it.
The bill would require the Government issue more Treasuries to the
public in order to pay for other spending instead of borrowing from
Social Security. What we basically are going to say to the American
public is: We are borrowing all these funds from Social Security, all
the other trust funds, and we are going to put that aside, and we are
going to borrow that money from the public so you know how much
borrowing is going on. We are not going to mask this thing, as we have
done for so many years.
We thought, finally our children and grandchildren will have a clear
picture of how fiscally irresponsible we are. But today the Budget
Committee chairman is relying on the very same gimmick--borrowing from
the Social Security trust fund--to claim a balance in 2012.
What about taxes? The majority's budget claims that $400 billion in
revenue will be collected from ``closing the `tax gap' ''--in other
words, collecting more of the taxes that are currently owed but not
paid. Yet the President's proposal to collect just 2 percent of this
$400 billion caused small businesses to howl in protest that the new
administrative and compliance burdens would overwhelm them.
In other words, it is easy to talk about closing the tax gap, but
from a political point of view, it is not going to be very easy. We
should do that. There is no question about it. I talked to Charles
Rossotti, who was the former head of the Internal Revenue Service. He
said with more filings and more people in the Internal Revenue Service,
we should be able to pick up another $50 billion. That is a realistic
way of looking at it. But just to say: $400 billion; we are going to
come up with it somehow; close the tax gap, and it is all going to be
there--voila.

In fact, the Greater Cleveland Partnership and the Council of Smaller
Enterprises, which represent small business in northeast Ohio, describe
the administration's tax gap proposals--by the way, this is not a
Democratic proposal; this is the administration's tax gap proposals--as
``an unreasonable tracking and reporting burden for small business.''
And that is just for 2 percent of the revenue the majority claims it
can raise by going after small businesses. We should try to collect
money that is owed, but if it were that easy--as my friend from Iowa
Senator Grassley suggests--we would have found the money to fix the AMT
years ago.
But, sadly, these gimmicks are not the worst part of the budget. What
is more disturbing about this resolution is what is not included. The
majority did not designate one dime in Social Security, Medicare, or
Medicaid savings to help slow the impending entitlement tidal wave
heading our way--not one dime. Entitlement spending threatens to flood
our budget and soak up every Federal dollar, as I mentioned

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earlier, leaving no revenue for education, the environment,
infrastructure, or scientific research. The majority's budget ignores
this problem.
In fact, this budget does worse than ignore the problem. It will pile
billions of dollars in new entitlement spending on top of the existing
problem. It is so obvious that this budget resolution simply satisfies
a political agenda. It is a public relations campaign that the majority
is using to avoid telling the American people the truth. I am accusing
them of that, and I have to say the same thing for my side of the
aisle. We are both guilty. All of our hands are dirty.
To add to insult, since Republicans switched to 5-year budgets a few
years ago, Democrats have repeatedly called for 10-year budgets because
5-year budgets hide our long-term problems. In other words, the other
side of the aisle kept complaining: You are using 5-year budgets
because if you use 10, the American people are going to find out how
much money you are spending. So we went to the 5-year budget. We want
to hide that figure about the next 5 years. If the Democrats wanted to
do it this time, I would have said: Do the 10-year budget. Let the
American people know what the truth is about how much money this budget
is going to cost.
For example, the CBO currently projects that total outlays for
Medicare and Medicaid will more than double--more than double--by 2017,
increasing by 124 percent. This is roughly two times as much as the
economy is expected to grow during the same period. A 5-year forecast
hides this explosion in entitlement liabilities. Tell the truth--
transparency. Let the American people know what the score is.
Yet, here we are, with Democrats in control of both Chambers, and
they are trying to pass a 5-year budget that continues to cover up the
gathering fiscal storm looming on our horizon. Shame on us. Shame on
them. They are playing the game we played starting in 2004, after
promising to do better.
I take our Nation's fiscal health very seriously. I am concerned
there is a lack of transparency in this budget. There are gaping
loopholes the majority can exploit to cause spending and deficits to
rise much higher than the budget resolution claims. In an attempt to
close some of these loopholes, tomorrow I am going to offer two
amendments.
First, we need to reform our Nation's entitlement programs. I have
been begging on my knees trying to get the White House to take on the
responsibility of reforming our Tax Code--we need it; it is overdue--to
take on entitlements, to reach out to Republicans and Democrats and
say: The time has come. Let's put everything on the table. Let's reform
our Tax Code. Let's do something about entitlements. The fact is,
silence--silence. I have to tell you, if we do not do this, then our
children and grandchildren are going to drown--they are going to
drown--in a sea of debt.
I am concerned, however, that if we reform entitlements and save
billions of dollars, Congress might grab those savings and spend some
of them on other programs instead of paying down the debt. So what I am
saying is, I am hoping--and I know the chairman of the Budget
Committee, the Senator from North Dakota, has said he wants entitlement
spending reform--I am hoping we get it. All this amendment says is: If
we do get entitlement spending reform, it is going to be used to pay
down the debt and not fund other entitlements.
I previously introduced legislation called the SAFE Commission Act
that would guarantee a fast-track, comprehensive approach to reforming
our Nation's tax, entitlement, and budget systems. If the 110th
Congress enacts entitlement reform, either by way of legislation or as
a result of another bipartisan effort, we must use those savings to
reduce the deficit and, as I say, pay down the debt and not on
entitlement spending.

Specifically, my first amendment would require any savings from
legislation that slows the growth of entitlement spending by $5 billion
or more be dedicated to deficit reduction. Some of my colleagues are
asking: George, why are you worrying about this? Well, I hope we have
this problem where we have to decide what to do with these entitlement
savings we have enacted. Because, as I said earlier, the majority has
not included even one dime's worth of savings in this budget
resolution. We do nothing--not one thing--in this budget about
entitlement spending.
Second, every time we enact new entitlement spending or tax cuts,
which are financed through additional borrowing, we increase the level
of interest payments the Government has to make on its debt. I have
talked about this debt and the interest costs. These new interest costs
represent additional Government spending. Yet, CBO cost estimates
ignore the effect of these interest payments on spending and the
national debt.
In other words, we are spending money on reducing taxes--and we are
paying for it by borrowing--or we are spending money on new programs--
and we are borrowing the money--because we keep ratcheting up the debt
and we do not calculate the interest costs that are involved in either
tax reductions or the spending for these new programs.
These ballooning interest costs add up to $370 billion in 2008. Think
about this: That interest cost will be 13 percent of the budget. The
public needs to know that in addition to spending additional money on
new programs, we are paying interest on that money. I am concerned
about these growing interest costs because they are part of our
mounting national debt.
Frankly, our interest rates are low right now, but they could
skyrocket. The first couple years I was mayor of Cleveland, interest
rates at the time were 13 percent. Some Americans remember savings
passbooks that were paying 14 and 16 percent. I will never forget it
because I had the money for my children's college education in mutual
funds. I sold the mutual funds and put them in the passbook savings
because we were getting--can you imagine--we were getting 16 percent--
16 percent--on a passbook investment.
I think we need to wake up to the fact that if we get a change in the
international marketplace--as I mentioned earlier, 55 percent of our
budget is with foreign investors--if those central banks get a little
bit nervous about the United States of America--and I have talked to
Alan Greenspan about this; we could see interest rates skyrocket to 12
percent, 13 percent--that would suck up an enormous amount of money.
So the fact is, we ought to pay attention to letting people know when
we either reduce taxes, and borrow the money, or we spend money above
the budget, somebody has to pay some interest on that cost. We must
stop this charade once and for all. Both sides of the aisle have a
clear, moral obligation to improve the fiscal health of our Nation. It
starts with formulating a fair and honest budget. Yet we are being
dishonest and masking the long-term challenges that confront our
Nation.
We must deal with these problems head on and work on a bipartisan
basis to reform our tax system, control the growth of entitlement
spending, and slow this freight train that is threatening to crush our
children and grandchildren's futures.
Experts say the most important step you can take is to first admit
you have a problem. I will never forget when I was mayor of Cleveland
and came in, the easiest thing sometimes in life was just to keep the
problems in a drawer and not look at them and hope they would go away.
I found a long time ago that if you take those problems and pull them
out and deal with them, you are so much better off than if you just let
them lay around and get worse.

The question today is, Do we have the moral courage to fix it? Do we
have the moral courage? Can we do that? It is a moral issue.
I will never forget Frank Wolf. I gave a speech last year and Frank
called me and he said: I am going to put a bill in, and we are going to
set up a commission that is going to do something about tax reform and
entitlement.
He said: I have--I think he said 11 or 12 grandchildren. He said: I
thought about it. I am a fiscal conservative. He said: But you know
something. We have a moral obligation to our children. We just can't
let this thing keep going. The fact is, do we have that moral
conviction to fix it or are we too darn interested in protecting our
political hides--our political hides--to do anything? Do we have the
courage to do it? Do we have the courage?
I am 70 years old. I have seven grandchildren. I care and worry about
them.

[[Page S3653]]

My concern is what legacy am I going to leave my children and my
grandchildren. I was fortunate. We were fortunate. We had others before
us who were responsible--others, for example, who were willing to pay
for the wars that we were in. Today, in this country, let's see, it is
up to $510 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, and if we pass the
supplemental, it is going to be $610 billion. The only sacrifice that
is being made today in this country is by the families that have the
body bags returned to them. Twenty-six thousand of our men and women
who have been injured, half of them disabled for the rest of their
life, and we are not doing anything. We are not doing anything.
Last year, I said if we can't get tax reform to raise the money that
we need to take care of things, then we ought to have a temporary tax
increase to pay for our war. We should. It is the right thing to do.
But, no, we will let it go and let somebody else worry about it the
next time around--the new President.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would note as I begin how much I
appreciate Senator Voinovich and his passion for America in trying to
introduce responsibility in spending and taxes. We don't always agree
on everything, but he is a man of principle and dedication to his
country.
Mr. President, the amendment I will be asking my colleagues to
consider tomorrow deals with a growing problem that we have in America.
It has to be confronted completely before long. It is the alternative
minimum tax. This is a tax that after you figure what you owe on your
income tax return and you have taken all your deductions, you have to
calculate your taxes again and you may have to file under the
alternative minimum tax and pay more taxes. That was an idea conjured
up before I came to the Senate to capture rich people who weren't
paying enough taxes. Maybe it had some resonance to it, but it has
fallen very hard now on the middle class, and it is very dramatic.
We in this Congress have become addicted to the money the alternative
minimum tax brings in. We have decided, though, that we can't allow
millions of middle-class people to be burdened with a new and higher
tax, so we have tried to fix it. We did what was called the AMT patch--
a patch. It wasn't a complete fix, it was a Band-Aid, and it would do a
lot. Actually, it has done considerable. Without a patch next year,
about 23 million people will be subjected to the tax, but with the
patch, 17 million of those will not. They will be dropped out of AMT.
Seventeen million people will be saved from that.
I just want to say, first of all, the real solution, as everyone
knows, is tax simplification. We need to do that, but we have no real
momentum at this moment in the Congress in either House or in either
party or by the President. Those of us not on the Finance Committee
sometimes wonder why we don't have more proposals for tax
simplification, but we don't. It is going to happen sometime, sooner
rather than later.
So the patch helps. It raises the AMT exemption level, the amount of
money, the floor to which you get caught with, and that has helped
some. But the real truth that I must share with my colleagues is that
the result has not been fair. It is not a principled way to deal with
the people being caught by the alternative minimum tax.
In 2006, for example, 7.4 percent of married people with children
paid higher taxes under the AMT, while 1 percent of singles paid the
AMT. Think of that. This tax, the way it is calculated and the way it
is put together, it has fallen incredibly hard, over seven times as
hard, on married people with children as it does on single taxpayers.
Why is that so? Well, when you calculate your alternative minimum tax,
you can't use your personal exemptions. You can't use that personal
exemption of $3,400, and you can't claim your children as exemptions.
So I would first say one of the most valuable things this country has
are the parents out there, some single moms, working their hearts out
every day to raise and educate the next generation of young people who
are going to lead this country.
So the alternative minimum tax I have believed for some time has
penalized people with children. We have had a marriage penalty and now
we see with the AMT, we are actually taxing children, making it even
more expensive for young families to have children.
So I think my amendment does the right thing. It achieves a very
similar result as the patch but is more principled, more cued to what
is in the national interests, and more fair.
First, it treats children and personal exemptions correctly. You
still get your personal exemption under the AMT and exemptions for your
dependents in your household. Under this plan as I have offered it, 87
percent as many people will not have to file an AMT return as would
under the patch--almost the same, 13 percent less, but very close to
the same number. But astoundingly and importantly, it costs a lot less.
It would save in terms of tax revenue lost $82 billion over 5 years. It
would be a lot less expensive in terms of tax cost.
This $82 billion could help us contain the deficit. It could help us
fund the expiring tax cuts that have allowed us to have a low-tax
economy that has led to such terrific growth in our economy, would
provide some of the money we could use for that, and it would be good
for the economy in a way that I am afraid this unprincipled approach to
patching the AMT does not. There would be less focus on high income,
high tax States. I come from a lower tax State, a poorer State, a
poorer State with a lower average income than the average in the United
States. We are doing a lot better, and I am proud of that, but we still
are below the national average in a number of different ways. Our State
would not benefit much at all under the patch.

Let me show my colleagues this chart. This is a rather astounding
chart. These are the percentage of taxpayers who paid the AMT by State
in 2005. In my home State of Alabama, it was 0.8, eight-tenths of 1
percent. Less than 1 percent paid any AMT. But in New York, with a good
bit higher average income, 6 percent paid--6 percent of the people paid
it. The numbers are high in other States. Mississippi is low at .9, and
the Dakotas are .8 and .6. Indiana is 1.0; West Virginia, .9. The lower
income States are not going to benefit as much under the kind of patch
we are talking about. Most of the benefits of the patch will be
transferred to only a few States for a lot of different reasons. One is
because they have higher taxes which cannot be deducted under the AMT.
So I would say what we need to do is to do better. By having the
exemptions allowable under the AMT calculation, we would benefit people
more fairly around the country, although not a complete fairness. It is
still going to be a tax that dramatically shifts benefits to higher
income, higher tax States. There is no doubt about that. But this is at
least a step in the right direction, and it helps real people. My
excellent staff person, Dr. Andrew Barrett, talks about a professor he
knows, Christopher Wolfe, who has 10 children. He is getting whacked by
the AMT.
I think a person who is pouring his heart and soul into raising a
large family and trying to do the right thing by them should not lose
their tax exemptions and have to pay a higher tax than somebody who
didn't have that.
I hope we can have a good vote on this tomorrow. I think it is the
right thing. As we go forward, we are going to have to talk about this
more. The more I study it, the more convinced I am that this is not a
good way to handle tax policy in America, this AMT.
I ask unanimous consent that Senator Orrin Hatch be listed as a
cosponsor on that legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will sum up. I am a member of the
Budget Committee. One of the things you see as you watch these budgets
go through here and we discuss them and debate them and it sounds like
a lot of politics and hot air and partisanship. But the real truth is
that a budget is a defining instrument for a party. A budget tells what
your priorities are, what direction you want to take the country in. I
am not sure we have ever had a budget since I have been here--well,
maybe a few in the beginning but certainly not in the last several
years of my tenure--that was passed on anything other

[[Page S3654]]

than a party-line vote, at least in the Budget Committee.
Once again, the budget that came out of this Budget Committee, now
that we have a Democratic majority, passed with all Democratic votes
and no Republican votes. Last year, the budget that passed out was
passed by all Republican votes and opposed by all Democrats. But they
were in the minority at that time. I used to think, well, why can't we
just get together and work these things out. Perhaps we can at some
point. Perhaps we will have a break in this cycle. But right now, it
seems that the budget defines us and our differences. What is it we
agree on? What is it we disagree on? Where do we want to take the
country? And where does somebody else not want to go?
Let me mention a few things about this budget. It is a spending
budget. The President proposed a rather substantial increase in
discretionary spending; but our Democratic colleagues passed a budget
that adds $18 billion more in nondefense discretionary spending than
the President asked for. It brought it up to a total increase in
nondefense discretionary spending of over 6 percent--I think it is 6.1-
percent growth in spending.
Well, what is the cost of living? What is the CPI, the inflation
rate? It is about 2.3 percent. So this budget increase, in a time of
war, in a time when entitlements are raging out of control, is not a
frugal budget; it is a spending budget. You should not be spending
almost three times the inflation rate if you want to have any kind of
responsibility in spending. We don't have to spend three times the rate
of inflation to keep the country from collapsing. The country is not
going to collapse if we had a flat budget or if we cut 3, 4, 5 percent,
if you want to know the truth. The Republic will still be standing.
But, no, we have to fund these programs, these ideas, and these
visions that utilize money and runs up the total. So they have shoved
through a budget that increases it substantially. Last year, we passed,
on a party-line vote, a proposal that would have contained, by about 1
or 2 percent over 5 years, the growth in entitlement spending. Senator
Judd Gregg worked this in. He believed in it passionately. He believed
we could now, early on, before we reach a fiscal disaster in the
future, control some of these spending programs. He had a modest cut in
the growth--growth only--of Medicare. I think it was like 45 percent
growth to 46 percent growth. How about that? Do you think we can
sustain that? It got to the floor and all of the Democrats opposed it
and several Republicans opposed it, and it failed. We could not even
contain the growth by 1 percent.
So all last year, in this last election, my Democratic friends, were
out railing at President Bush for spending wildly. They claimed that
Republicans were irresponsible on spending, and here they go coming
back with this budget. Did it have any effort or did it display any
movement whatsoever to contain the growth of entitlement spending?
Zero. It didn't attempt to confront that issue. I think that is a
mistake. We have had a lot of complaints that we have to do something,
but when it came down to the time to produce a budget, over the
objection of Senator Gregg and others, they had no interest in that.
Well, what about taxes? We didn't have any savings on the spending
side. We had an increase on spending. What about taxes? They say this
is not a raising-taxes budget, that it doesn't raise taxes, don't worry
about that. We have not voted to raise taxes. Let me tell you what they
did do. They created a system and a mechanism--or at least the majority
did when they passed this budget--that is going to put us in a position
where we are going to raise taxes, and I am going to explain it to you
as simply as I possibly can. The budget adds four points of order. A
point of order calls for a supermajority vote to carry out some act.
They said you cannot have tax cuts unless several things occur, and the
only way you can have those tax cuts, if those things don't occur, is
override a budget point of order, and that takes 60 votes, not 50. So
what about the existing tax cuts--the capital gains reductions, the
marriage penalty elimination, the dividends reduction? What about
reducing the tax rate for the lowest income workers who pay Federal
taxes by 33 percent, from 15 to 10 percent?
Well, they came up with a proposal that says you cannot even extend
those tax cuts that have been in place for a number of years and begin
to expire in the next couple of years. Those cannot be extended without
being able to overcome the budget points of order. To do so, the most
logical thing is to cut spending. So if you cut spending enough to pay
for a tax reduction, a tax reduction that is already in place--and some
have been in place for over 5 years--if you don't cut spending
sufficient to ``pay for the lost revenue,'' according to these
estimates, then you cannot undo it without 60 votes.

When we passed those tax reductions, it was virtually party line,
although several Democrats, including Ben Nelson, voted with us, but
one time it was a tie vote. Another time it was one or two votes. These
were razor thin, the low fifties. By putting in a 60-vote point of
order, it is not going to be possible to extend the existing tax cuts,
the reduction of the rates, capital gains. They estimated, for example,
that capital gains reductions would cost the Treasury $5 billion. As it
turned out, capital gains, after being reduced, have resulted in
increases to the Treasury of $133 billion. If you sell a piece of
property and you have to pay 20 percent on the profit, you might not do
it. If you are thinking about selling stock and you say, wait a minute,
it has grown in value and you are going to have to pay a 20 percent tax
on that, you may say I will just hold it. At 15 percent, people say,
OK, I will pay that.
We have had an interesting time of more sales of property and assets
subject to capital gains, and we increased revenue after the tax rate
was reduced. I wish to say to you that this budget has put us in a
position that I don't see how it is possible that we can extend even
the existing tax reduction. Those tax reductions have spurred this
economy. They were enacted during a time when we had difficulties. It
is important to note that when President Bush took office, the Nasdaq,
the high-tech stock market, had fallen 50 percent. The first quarter he
took office was negative growth. In fact, the last month of President
Clinton's term was negative growth. President Bush inherited an economy
in serious trouble. Then 9/11 hit and we were in a recession. It could
have been a long one, but it turned out not to be. It bounced back
quickly, and a big reason is he reduced taxes; the economy grew and
picked up the slack and began to grow.
Two years ago, the revenue coming into the U.S. Treasury increased 15
percent over the previous year. Last year, the revenue coming in--this
is money actually in the Federal till--went up 12 percent over the 15
percent. This year, they are predicting that revenue to the Federal
Treasury will be up almost 10 percent over last year's 12 percent. That
is fabulous growth. What should we do? We ought to contain Federal
spending. We ought to keep those tax cuts in place, not to make
somebody rich, not just to let them keep more money--money that they
earned--but because it is good for our economy, because we are a free
market economy, and we are a group of people who believe in individual
responsibility--not like the Europeans, who are semi-Socialist, if not
Socialist, who deeply believe in higher taxes, more regulation, bigger
government, and more social welfare.
That is not our heritage. We have a heritage of free, responsible,
individual Americans, whose goal and ideal is to take care of
ourselves, but we will help those who need it when they need it.
I wish to say this budget defines a lot of who we are. I think it
defines a different vision for what is best for America. It has been
that way for most of the time I have been in the Senate, and it looks
like we are at it again this year.
I feel strongly we ought not to go and slide and move toward the big
government, high taxes, and social welfare system of the Europeans.
They say: Well, it has not made the taxes go up; we have a budget and
the Finance Committee can fix this and they can do whatever they want
to do. They have a lot of freedom.
But with the points of order in the budget, I submit to you that we
have a problem. I submit to you this Democratic budget that came out of
the

[[Page S3655]]

committee is similar to this torpedo on this chart.
Democrats can say they have not raised taxes yet, but they have
launched that torpedo right at this thriving, vibrant American economy.
The torpedo is named ``tax increases'' and they are on the way. That is
a fact. I don't see anything that is going to intercept that torpedo
because the vote tomorrow will put us on a road we cannot get out of.
It is going to put us in a situation where the votes will not exist to
cut taxes, and we are going to allow even existing tax reductions to
phase out, and taxes will jump, and it will amount to the largest tax
increase in American history, from what the experts tell us.
It is late. This is an important point and an important time for our
country. When we pass a budget, it doesn't do a whole lot. A budget
basically has a couple of things it does. It sets the total level of
spending. That level has been raised over what the President has asked
for. It creates a mechanism that could allow us to extend tax cuts for
less than 60 votes, or do other revenue changes for less than 60 votes.
But the budget we are passing is going to put us into a situation where
we will increase spending and we will be put on a road to increase
taxes.
I think that is a wrong direction for our Nation, and I doth protest.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.

____________________