[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 178 (Friday, November 16, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14601-S14602]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              BUDGET FACTS

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I come to the floor to respond to remarks 
made yesterday by the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee. I 
must say, sometimes my friends on the other side of the aisle amaze me 
on the question of fiscal policy. Because after nearly 7 years of 
rubberstamping the Bush administration's completely failed fiscal 
policy, they are so anxious to distract attention from what they did, 
they now want to besmirch what we have done. We are not going to let 
them do that.
  I have enormous respect for my colleague. He and I work together on 
the Budget Committee. I like him. I respect him. But it is not his 
right to rewrite history. The fact is, when they were in charge, as 
recently as last year, they couldn't even get a budget. They had no 
budget for the United States. They did not produce a budget, even 
though they controlled the House of Representatives, the White House, 
and the Senate. They did not produce a budget for our country. In fact, 
3 of the last 5 years they didn't produce a budget for this country.
  Facts are facts. Not only did they not produce a budget, they did not 
finish work on 10 of the 12 appropriations bills for last year. They 
are now complaining we have not completed this year's work. One reason 
is, we had to start out by doing virtually all of last year's work 
before we could get started on this year's work. That is a fact.
  The larger reality is that Democrats not only produced a budget, they 
produced a budget that will balance the books over 5 years. That is not 
according to my numbers or the Senate Budget Committee's numbers. That 
is according to the Congressional Budget Office that is nonpartisan. 
They are the ones who have the responsibility to make these judgments. 
They say our budget will balance over 5 years. The President never has 
produced a budget that would balance. In fact, none of his budgets come 
even close. In fact, he has run up record deficits and record debt and 
put America in a deep hole. Our friends on the other side supported 
every one of his misguided efforts. Facts are facts.

  Let's look at the record of our colleagues. For nearly 7 years, our 
friends on the other side of the aisle voted lock, stock, and barrel to 
support the President's failed fiscal policy. The result is record 
debt, and the explosion in Federal debt comes at the worst possible 
time, just before the retirement of the baby boom generation. That has 
been their policy. That is their record. We on the Democratic side are 
working feverishly to change this failed course.
  Let's be clear. Under the President's policies, the $5.6 trillion 
projected surplus he inherited has been completely wiped out. Worse 
than that, the President's policies have driven us deep into deficit, 
as this chart shows. This is the record. This isn't a projection. This 
is what has happened under the President's policies. He inherited a 
surplus, in fact, a surplus so large that for 2 years we were able to 
stop what had gone on for 20 years, raiding Social Security to pay 
other bills. For 2 years under the Clinton administration, that bad 
habit was stopped. Instead of using Social Security money to pay other 
bills, we were able to actually pay down debt. That is a fact. That is 
not an imagining. That is not a political claim. That is historic fact.
  Here is the record of our friends on the other side. Here is what 
happened to spending they controlled. Make no mistake, they controlled 
it completely. They controlled the House of Representatives, the 
Senate, and the White House. Here is what happened to spending. It went 
from $1.9 trillion a year to $2.7 trillion a year on their watch. And 
they accuse us of being big spenders? Excuse me? This is their record. 
This is what they did. They ran up the spending in the country by 50 
percent. But it didn't end there. Here is what they did on the revenue 
side. On the revenue side, real revenues have been stagnant during the 
entire time of this administration. They will show you a very different 
chart. They will show you not real revenues, which are adjusted for 
inflation; they will show you a chart that only looks at the last 3 
years, and they will do it not adjusted for inflation. So the last 3 
years they will show a big increase in revenue. But we all know that is 
not an apples-to-apples comparison, and we all know that neglects to 
point out what has happened over the whole period of their control.
  Over the whole period of their control, there has been virtually no 
increase in the real revenues, the inflation-adjusted revenues of the 
country. They have been flat, as this chart shows.
  What is the result? If you dramatically increase spending and revenue 
is flat, what happens? The debt explodes. That is precisely what has 
happened with our colleagues on the other side in control. They walked 
in here with a debt at the end of the first year of the President's 
tenure at $5.8 trillion. We don't hold them responsible for the first 
year, because they are working on the budget of the previous President. 
But look what has happened to the debt. They have run it up $3 trillion 
in these last 6 years. They have run up the debt to a fare-thee-well. 
And increasingly, it is foreign-held debt. That is, we are increasingly 
dependent on the kindness of strangers to finance this incredible 
borrowing binge our colleagues on the other side have taken this 
country on.
  When they came into office, we had a trillion dollars of U.S. debt 
held abroad. That is now over $2 trillion. They have more than doubled 
foreign holdings of U.S. debt in this short period of time from 2001 to 
2007.
  They then go after the spending that is in our budget. Let me be 
clear. We pay for our spending. We balance the books in 5 years. If you 
look at total spending, there is virtually no difference between what 
the President proposed and what we proposed. The difference is seven-
tenths of 1 percent.
  Where did we propose spending some additional money?
  We proposed not to spend more money in Iraq. We proposed to spend 
more money right here at home on critical domestic priorities, in three 
areas: No. 1, aid to our veterans and their health care; No. 2, 
children's health care; and, No. 3, education.
  Those are the priorities of the American people. Those are the 
priorities that will make a significant difference to our country over 
time: more money for education so people can go to college, so they can 
come out with less debt, so parents can afford to help their kids get 
the best education they can; more money for veterans health care to 
keep the promise that was made to veterans when we sent them in harm's 
way; more money for children's health care so we begin to cover 
children with health insurance. That is a good investment because if 
you are able to help a child lead a healthier life, that is an 
investment that pays off over a lifetime.
  But more than that, Democrats adopted a rule that we call pay-go. 
What pay-go says is simply this: If you want more tax cuts or more 
mandatory spending, you can do it, but you can only do it if you pay 
for it. In the Senate we adopted the rule that new mandatory spending 
and tax cuts must be offset, must be paid for, or that you get a 
supermajority.
  Now let me be clear: Pay-go is working. My colleague on the other 
side

[[Page S14602]]

calls it ``Swiss-cheese-go,'' as a way of deriding the new discipline 
that they refused to follow.
  We used to have pay-go, and you can see--it is very interesting--the 
difference. This chart goes back to 1990. You can see that red ink back 
in the early 1990s. Then things started to get better when a strong 
pay-go rule was put in effect, as shown right here on the chart. The 
result was that, coupled with other steps, every year the deficit was 
reduced. In fact, we got into a situation in which we had a surplus. 
Then our friends took over after the 2000 election, and look what has 
happened since: They immediately weakened pay-go. It is one of the 
first things they did. Look what has happened since: They immediately 
frittered away the surplus that had been built up, with great 
difficulty, and plunged us back into deficit.
  Now we have restored pay-go, and we are moving in the other 
direction. We are finally moving out of deficit.
  Let me be clear that pay-go is working. What is the evidence? Here is 
the evidence. The Senate pay-go ``scorecard'' has a positive balance of 
$670 million over the next 11 years. That means the legislation we have 
passed thus far has, in fact, been paid for. You would not have a 
positive balance on the pay-go scorecard unless the legislation that is 
passed has been paid for. These are facts. These are not political 
claims. These are not the assertions that were made on the other side 
without the backing of fact. These are facts.
  No. 2, every bill coming out of conference committee this year has 
been paid for--or more than paid for. My colleague calls it ``Swiss-
cheese-go''? No. This is pay-go, properly applied, getting real 
results, requiring that things be offset--something they never bothered 
to do.
  Pay-go also has a significant deterrent effect, preventing many 
costly bills from ever being offered.

       Interestingly enough, my colleague on the other side, in 
     his previous service as head of the Budget Committee, said 
     this. He had a different view of pay-go back then. I am 
     quoting him from back in 2002, 5 years ago. He said this:
       The second budget discipline, which is pay-go, essentially 
     says if you are going to add a new entitlement program or you 
     are going to cut taxes during a period, especially of 
     deficits, you must offset that event so that it becomes a 
     budget-neutral event that also lapses. . . .

  He went on to say:

       If we do not do this--

  In other words, if we do not have pay-go--

     if we do not put back in place caps and pay-go mechanisms, we 
     will have no budget discipline in this Congress, and, as a 
     result, we will dramatically aggravate the deficit which, of 
     course, impacts a lot of important issues, but especially 
     impacts Social Security.

  That is what he said 5 years ago. He was right then. He now 
contradicts himself and, unfortunately, the record bears out his 
previous position. Because when he weakened pay-go--and his side 
weakened pay-go--what was the result? Exactly what he predicted 5 years 
ago. The deficit has exploded, the debt has exploded--all while they 
controlled the fiscal direction of the country. He was right then. He 
should have stayed with that position. The country would have been in 
far better shape.
  Now he made a series of arguments in his assault on pay-go, 
suggesting that it is ``Swiss-cheese-go.'' Let me indicate we do not 
have to take my word for it on the question of what has happened under 
pay-go with the legislation that is passed. We can look to the 
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, because what we find is that 
his argument is full of holes. It is not pay-go that is ``Swiss-cheese-
go.'' It is his own argument that is full of holes.
  Here is what the Congressional Budget Office says: On the SCHIP 
reauthorization--that is children's health care--the overall effect of 
that legislation led to a savings of $207 million; on the higher 
education bill that he criticized, the combined effect of that 
legislation was a savings of $752 million. In other words, the 
legislation was paid for, plus additional savings were created so that 
the cost was completely offset. It did not add a dime to the deficit or 
debt. In fact, it had savings.
  As to the immigration bill that never passed the Senate, it had, when 
it went down, large unified savings--over $20 billion over 10 years. 
The farm bill shows savings of $102 million, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office.
  So these four bills cover virtually all of the phony claims--phony 
claims--made by the other side with respect to pay-go.
  Again, you do not have to take my word for it. This is an official 
document from the Congressional Budget Office. The Senator on the other 
side, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, attacked the 
children's health insurance bill, saying it was not paid for. Wrong. 
The Congressional Budget Office says not only was it paid for, but that 
it had savings of $207 million.
  The College Cost Reduction Act of 2007--he said it was not paid for. 
Wrong. According to the Congressional Budget Office, over 10 years, it 
saves $3.6 billion.
  The Immigration Reform Act. He has again said it was not paid for. 
According to the Congressional Budget Office, he is wrong again. Over 
10 years, it would have unified savings of over $25 billion.
  The Food and Energy Act of 2007 he says is not paid for. The 
Congressional Budget Office says he is wrong again, that it saves $102 
million.

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