[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 4, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5008-S5011]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            FISCAL YEAR 2009

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I would like to thank Chairman Conrad 
and the other members of the Budget Committee for their kind words and

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well wishes that have been directed toward me during our work on this 
the final budget resolution during my tenure in the Senate.
  As most of you know, I have worked on many budgets and numerous other 
initiatives during my 36 year career. However, important work still 
remains for the Budget Committee. If I had more time I would without a 
doubt seek to address entitlement spending. I had pledged to work with 
Chairman Conrad on his bipartisan bill and I am disappointed that we 
may not have time to take it up this year.
  This budget, like many before it, fails to address the 800 pound 
gorilla in the room, otherwise known as entitlement spending. After 
2010, spending related to the aging of the baby-boom generation will 
begin to raise the growth rate of total outlays. The annual growth rate 
of Social Security spending is expected to increase from about 4.5 
percent this year to 6.5 percent by 2017. In addition, because the cost 
of health care is likely to continue rising rapidly, spending for 
Medicare and Medicaid is projected to grow even faster--in the range of 
7 or 8 percent annually. Total outlays for Medicare and Medicaid are 
projected to more than double by 2017, increasing by 124 percent, while 
nominal GDP is projected to grow only 63 percent. The budget currently 
under consideration does not offer solutions, much less even address, 
entitlement spending or reform. I do not support this budget in its 
current form because it does not offer any meaningful solution for 
entitlement spending.
  I offer this piece of advice to my colleagues serving on the Budget 
Committee: tackle entitlement spending. The Budget Committee should 
propel itself to the forefront of this debate and use the tools that 
only this committee has at its disposal to address the number one issue 
on the minds of the American public. With true leadership, this 
committee has the potential to turn mere Senators into heroes if they 
choose to address the entitlement programs. I urge Senators to come 
together and find a solution in the near future before it is too late 
to resolve this crisis.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased an agreement has been reached 
on a budget resolution conference report. It is the duty of Congress to 
approve the Nation's fiscal blueprint, and this year's budget report 
presents a responsible plan that rightfully prioritizes job creation 
and programs to support the safety, health, and education of America's 
children.
  Our economy has long been suffering and is in need of a boost. This 
budget will help start to undo the damage caused by the 
administration's misguided fiscal policies and stave off additional 
cuts proposed by the administration that would affect important 
programs that are especially needed in this time of economic distress.
  This budget rejects the President's failed policy of paying for tax 
cuts by adding to the debt burden of our children and grandchildren. 
The fiscal year 2009 budget that President Bush sent to Congress in 
February would have us pursue the same failed priorities and policies 
that have proven so woefully wrong for Michigan and for our Nation. The 
President's proposal would dig us even deeper into the massive deficit 
ditch we are already facing. The President's proposal would provide 
even more tax cuts to the wealthiest among us, while at the same time 
it would cut funding for critical programs important to my State's 
economy and the well-being of the State of Michigan. This includes cuts 
to, among other things, health care funding, including Medicare and 
Medicaid; decreased funding for important investments in education; and 
the elimination of the Technology Innovation Program, formerly called 
the Advanced Technology Program, and the Manufacturing Extension 
Partnership, which helps small and mid-sized manufacturers compete in a 
global economy.
  We need to break from those failed policies by forgoing irresponsible 
tax cuts for the wealthiest among us and making important investments 
in America's future; we must work to put our country back on track and 
begin the long process of climbing out of this deficit ditch.
  That is why I am glad this resolution provides for a balanced budget 
by 2012. It also furthers our strong pay-go rules, which require that 
all mandatory spending and revenue provisions be deficit-neutral. It 
sets the course to fully offset a repair of the alternative minimum 
tax, which would otherwise cause nearly 20 million middle class 
taxpayers to be subject to a tax they were never intended to be 
subjected to. It also assumes middle income tax relief, including 
marriage penalty relief, the child tax credit, and the persistence of 
the 10 percent bracket.
  I am pleased that this resolution includes my proposal to establish a 
deficit-neutral reserve fund to promote American manufacturing. 
Congress needs to act to revitalize our domestic manufacturing sector. 
The administration has stood by passively while 3 million manufacturing 
jobs were lost to America.
  This resolution also seeks to close the tax loopholes costing the 
Treasury large amounts of revenue and which have shifted an unfair 
burden to middle income taxpayers. Shutting down abusive tax shelters 
and offshore tax havens are two of the major tax gap initiatives 
assumed in the budget resolution. Additionally, this budget would 
reject many of the cuts in funding proposed by the President for 
essential health care and education programs. I believe this budget 
resolution, while only a blueprint for future action, sets us on a 
course of fiscal responsibility and paves the way for important 
investments in America's future.
  I am also pleased that this conference report retains an amendment I 
co-authored which, taken together with the underlying clean energy 
reserve fund, will support extension of the current production tax 
credits for renewable electricity and biodiesel fuel, the small-
producer biodiesel tax credit, and clean renewable energy bond 
authority. It also proposes new tax credits for cellulosic ethanol and 
plug-in hybrid vehicles. I will continue to work to enact these 
necessary incentives.
  Major bipartisan efforts will be needed to make true progress on the 
long-term fiscal problems we face. But this resolution represents a 
good start by proposing an end to the financing of unaffordable tax 
cuts for the wealthiest among us, as well as funding prudent 
investments to promote the health and well-being of our children.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the fiscal 
year 2009 budget resolution conference report. As a member of the 
committee, I want to recognize Chairman Conrad and thank him personally 
for his untiring efforts to craft a blueprint that will get our 
Nation's fiscal house back in order.
  Perhaps more than at any time in our history, it is imperative that 
Congress focus seriously on our Nation's budget situation. The 
competing demands of an aging population, our current international 
commitments, growing competition in the global economy, our widening 
trade deficit, and shrinking revenues all require that we address our 
fiscal situation with urgency. Revenues are at a historic low point, 
while the demographics of the country are driving spending higher on 
needs that the private sector is ill-equipped to address. Now there is 
widespread consensus among working families that--regardless of the 
official definition--we are in a recession.
  Employment growth during this administration has averaged fewer than 
50,000 jobs a month--the lowest monthly rate for any administration 
since Dwight D. Eisenhower's and less than one-quarter the average of 
237,000 jobs per month created during the Clinton administration.
  Inflation-adjusted hourly wages have decreased by 1.3 percent since 
August 2003. Even median annual household income has decreased by 
$1,700, or 3.6 percent, after accounting for inflation. These are 
aggregate statistics, but behind each of them are millions of families 
who are falling behind as a result of inadequate investment in the 
right priorities.
  For too long, we have been moving in the wrong direction. Over the 
past 7 years, the Bush administration has sent us budgets with the 
wrong priorities. They have contained drastic cuts to education and 
health care programs. They did not provide for investment in our 
nation's public transit systems, bridges, and roads. They did not 
address energy efficiency. They ignored veterans' health care needs and 
actually attempted to make it more difficult for veterans to access the 
health

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system we promised our troops. And they neglected the programs that 
help working families thrive, including child care, housing, community 
development, and job training. Recent Congresses supported those 
budgets, and exacerbated the fiscal crisis by enacting irresponsible 
tax cuts that America could not afford--tax cuts that overwhelmingly 
benefitted the wealthiest Americans, while providing very little help 
for working families. Last year, under new leadership in Congress, we 
passed a budget that began to change course. This budget continues that 
effort, and I am pleased to support it.
  This conference agreement targets tax relief where it is most 
needed--at working families. This includes an extension of the child 
care tax credit, marriage penalty relief, and the 10 percent individual 
income tax bracket.
  Equally important, this budget resolution is fiscally responsible. It 
will return us to a balanced budget, with a surplus of $22 billion in 
2012 and $10 billion in 2013.
  Even as crucial domestic programs have suffered under this 
administration, the Nation's debt has increased from $5.8 trillion at 
the end of President Bush's first year in office to in excess of $9 
trillion.
  If we fail to change course, we will leave our children and 
grandchildren an insurmountable legacy of debt. The fiscal policies of 
this current administration have erased the $5.6 trillion surplus that 
was projected in 2000 and replaced it with a projected deficit of 
nearly $4 trillion over the next 10 years.
  The borrowing necessitated by deficit spending has jeopardized our 
economic position in the world, and it has clouded the outlook for 
generations of Americans to come. We have had to turn to foreign 
governments to borrow money. Our foreign-held debt has increased by 
more than 100 percent during this administration. In fact, in just one 
year, the total has increased from $2.1 trillion to $2.5 trillion. 
According to the Treasury Department, as of March 2008, the United 
States now owes more than $600 billion to Japan, nearly $500 billion to 
China, more than $200 billion to the United Kingdom We owe $150 billion 
to oil exporting nations, up from $112 billion last year. These levels 
of foreign-held debt threaten our independence as a nation, and they 
are unsustainable.
  That is why it is so important that we make the difficult budget 
choices that can return us to a balanced budget, and that this 
resolution contain tools needed to get there, including pay-go.
  This resolution calls for $3.1 trillion in spending for the next 
fiscal year. It rejects the President's cuts to entitlement programs, 
and it funds domestic discretionary programs at $21 billion above his 
budget request. This means that we can begin to make much needed 
improvements in the programs that help build our nation.
  The many important areas that this budget addresses are particularly 
crucial in these difficult economic times for America's families. We 
provide for a reserve fund that will improve access to affordable 
housing for working families, we add $40 million for emergency food 
assistance and we improve unemployment compensation.
  In health care, I want to mention two specific areas. This budget 
makes room for critically needed increases in health research funding. 
The National Institutes of Health is headquartered in Maryland, and its 
grants fund research in my state and across the nation. Unfortunately, 
this is the sixth year in a row that NIH has been essentially flat-
funded. I have the privilege of meeting often with biomedical 
researchers from my home state. They are working to find treatments and 
cures for our most challenging diseases--cancer, diabetes, arthritis, 
ALS, and others.
  During the period when Congress doubled NIH funding--between 1998 and 
2003--researchers' chances of securing NIH funding for a worthwhile 
grant proposal was one in four. Since 2003, their chances have dwindled 
to one in eleven. Undergraduate and graduate students alike are 
beginning to question their career choices and wonder if there is a 
future for them in biomedical research. With medical research inflation 
at nearly 3.5 percent, we must increase the agency's funding by at 
least that amount in order to break even. To make progress in the fight 
against disease, we must increase our spending substantially. I am 
pleased that our resolution rejects the President's planned cuts for 
this critical agency and makes room for additional funding.
  This budget resolution also makes room for improvements to pediatric 
dental care. I have come to the floor of the Senate on several 
occasions to talk about a 12-year-old named Deamonte Driver. He lived 
just 6 miles from here in Prince George's County, MD. The Driver 
family, like many other families across the country, lacked dental 
coverage. At one point, his family had Medicaid, but they lost it when 
they moved into a shelter, and their paperwork fell through the cracks. 
When advocates for the family tried to help, it took more than 20 calls 
just to find a dentist who would treat him.
  Deamonte began to complain of headaches in January 2007. An 
evaluation at Children's Hospital found that he had an abscessed tooth, 
but the condition was advanced and he needed emergency brain surgery. 
He later experienced seizures and a second operation. Even though he 
received additional treatment and appeared to be recovering, medical 
intervention had come too late. Deamonte passed away on Sunday, 
February 25, 2007. At the end, the total cost of his treatment exceeded 
a quarter of a million dollars--more than 3,000 times the $80 it would 
have cost for a tooth extraction.
  There is no excuse for us, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, to 
watch a child die for lack of access to basic dental care. It is 
difficult to find dentists to treat low-income children for two 
reasons. First, because there is a shortage of pediatric dentists--only 
4.3 percent of dental school graduates in 2001 reported pediatric 
dentistry as their specialty of choice; and second, because the 
reimbursement from public programs such as Medicaid and SCHIP is low.
  Our budget rejects the President's cuts to dental training programs, 
and it is my hope that we will continue to work to increase the number 
of pediatric dentists and improve reimbursement for public programs. 
But there are thousands more children, like Deamonte's brothers who 
also need dental care--who cannot wait for us to recruit and train more 
dentists. I thank both Senator Whitehouse, who joined me in offering an 
amendment in committee to address this issue, and the members of the 
Budget Committee who unanimously supported it. My amendment would 
establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund in the budget for legislation 
to improve access for low-income children who are in either Medicaid, 
SCHIP, or are uninsured. As a result, this budget will allow Congress 
to fund legislation to improve oral health care and more appropriately 
reimburse the providers who are willing to treat low-income children. 
These are the offices, clinics, and dental schools whose doors are open 
to underserved patients, but whose ability to treat large numbers is 
compromised by inadequate payments.
  This budget also funds critical investments in homeland security. The 
President's budget reduced funding for important first responder 
programs, including the SAFER--Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency 
Response--grant program. The SAFER grant program directly funds fire 
departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations to help 
them increase the number of trained, frontline firefighters. This 
budget rejects those cuts and will give firefighters needed resources 
to protect our communities.
  I am proud that this resolution also addresses another issue that is 
critically important for Maryland. It calls for pay parity between 
civilian and military employees. With tens of thousands of Federal 
employees in Maryland, I have witnessed the additional burdens placed 
on our civil servants, particularly since the 2001 terrorist attacks on 
our Nation. These dedicated employees are called upon to assume greater 
risks with lower comparable pay to private sector wages. In addition, 
many Federal agencies now face a human capital crisis, with thousands 
of our most experienced employees eligible to retire in the next few 
years. Pay parity is necessary if we will be able to recruit and retain 
a quality Federal workforce, and this budget provides for it.

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  Finally, I also note that this budget supports our veterans. We 
rightly reject the President's misguided proposals to increase 
enrollment fees and copayments for veterans' health care services. We 
increase funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs so that we can 
improve VA health care facilities and improve access to rehabilitation, 
mental health services, traumatic brain injury services, and speed the 
processing time for disability claims.
  Again, I thank Chairman Conrad for his leadership in helping to bring 
forth this agreement. As he has said previously, it truly marks a new 
path forward for our country. I urged my colleagues to support it.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COCHRAN. 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. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent------
  Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator withhold for one moment?
  Mr. COCHRAN. I am happy to withhold for my friend from North Dakota.

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