[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 176 (Wednesday, November 14, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S14360]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            KEEPING PROMISES

  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I think we came into this year very 
hopeful in a lot of ways. The Republicans lost the majority, and in 
some ways I think that is a good thing. We lost our discipline on 
spending, and for many years our Democratic colleagues were more than 
happy to help us and even try to one-up us during the period we were in 
the majority.
  Our last act as the majority, though, was a good one. We were able to 
stop last year's omnibus bill and force Congress to move ahead under a 
continuing resolution that only had about 2,000 earmarks--wasteful 
earmarks. This year, the majority unfortunately has expanded that back 
to about 6,000, which is disappointing because we entered the year with 
a lot of promises from the new majority, a lot of hopes about things 
that would change. Our Democratic colleagues ran on cleaning up the 
culture of corruption and getting rid of a lot of wasteful earmarks.
  I, for one, wanted to help. In fact, one of the first things I did 
this year was introduce Nancy Pelosi's, Speaker Pelosi's, earmark 
transparency bill in the Senate. Unfortunately, the new majority 
decided it wasn't right the way they did it and filled it full of 
loopholes, and we have been fighting all year to try to continue to 
disclose a lot of this wasteful spending.
  Now, as I said, as we end the year, instead of the 2,000 earmarks we 
were at last year, we are going to 6,000 plus. We are also way over 
budget. The amount we have over budget this year will translate over 
the next 10 years to about $300 billion in additional spending. That is 
a lot of money for anyone to even conceive of, but just so Americans 
will know, that amount would allow us to continue the tax relief we 
have had for the last several years for another 10 years without 
spending any additional money as a government. That tax relief affects 
every American. Instead, because we haven't acted, because we haven't 
kept our promises, next year millions of Americans, middle-class 
Americans will experience a new tax that they have never experienced 
before, and a lot of them don't know it is coming.
  The disappointment, I guess, as we end this year is there are so many 
needs as a nation that we haven't acted on. Instead, we have spent the 
year with 40 resolutions on Iraq. We have tried to expand Government 
health care, holding children hostage to moving to more Government-
controlled health care. The 40 Iraq resolutions were all done holding 
our troops hostage and the funding for our troops and the weapons and 
the armament they need to succeed. We spent the year on things such as 
trying to eliminate the secret ballot for workers when folks are trying 
to unionize them. Workers have always had the freedom to vote secretly 
and not be coerced or intimidated, but we have held workers hostage 
this year.
  We have all of these new wasteful earmarks. Americans have heard 
about them, whether it is a hippie museum or monuments to different 
Members of Congress, billion-dollar parks at the expense of our 
veterans funds. We have balled that all up as we go into the end of the 
year $300 billion over budget for the next 10 years with wasteful 
earmarks, including monuments to ourselves. I think we have done 
something even worse than the wasteful spending because we have tied to 
this wasteful spending ball at the end of the year the most vulnerable 
and disadvantaged in our society. We have tied the children to it. We 
have said they need more health care. We have tied our troops to it, 
and we are holding them hostage. Instead of giving them the money they 
need over the next several months, we are tying them up and holding 
them hostage.
  Our veterans, we filled the Veterans bill with wasteful earmarks, and 
we are holding our veterans hostage. We have basically made human 
shields out of the most vulnerable Americans, and we are challenging 
Members of the Senate and Members of the House: Vote for this bill that 
is billions over budget, that contains billions of wasteful earmarks. 
You either vote for this bill or you are voting against children and 
veterans and seniors and voting against our troops. This is no way to 
run the most important Government in the world.
  So we end the year with a lot of broken promises. We have not helped 
Americans buy health insurance; in fact, we have made it harder. We 
haven't cut spending; we have raised it. We have increased the number 
of earmarks from last year. All we have done is talk. While our troops 
are succeeding in Iraq, we are trying to cut their funding. Instead of 
broken promises, we need to focus on the promises we need to keep.
  We have promised Americans since the beginning of our Constitution 
that we are going to protect them. That is our main purpose. We need to 
keep our promises to seniors because we have taken their money all 
their lives and promised them Social Security and Medicare will be 
there. We need to keep those promises. We need to keep the promise of 
making freedom work for everyone and not to use the problems in our 
society as an excuse to replace freedom with more Government, which is 
what we are in the process of doing at every turn in Washington.
  I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I hope we can end the year 
in a more bipartisan fashion and work on reducing the amount of 
spending, the wasteful earmarks, and try to focus our efforts on the 
real priorities of this country that affect real Americans and not to 
hold our people hostage to this wasteful spending. We have just another 
month or so to finish our business, and I hope we finish it with some 
honor and dignity in a way that the American people would regain some 
trust in this Senate and in this Congress.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Michigan is recognized.

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