[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 47 (Wednesday, March 18, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3336-S3338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               The Budget

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, today I wish to talk about this 
administration's proposed budget. I believe the President's proposed 
budget fails the American people. It fails small businesses, and it 
fails our economic future.
  To me, this budget spends too much on bailouts and on wasteful 
Government programs. It raises the cost of energy, and it costs 
American jobs.
  The spending in this budget is so massive that independent estimates 
say they are going to need another quarter million people--250,000 more 
Federal Washington bureaucratic workers--just to spend all the money.
  Middle-class families and small businesses all across this country 
are taking notice. These are the people who are making the financial 
sacrifices every day to pay for these huge Government expenses. Yet 
Washington continues to spend trillions in taxpayers' dollars on 
bailouts and big Government programs.
  This budget spends too much, it taxes too much, and it borrows too 
much.
  This budget contains the largest tax increase in the history of our 
country. We need to help American industry promote growth and create 
jobs. I will tell you that raising taxes makes matters worse, 
especially in an economic downturn.

[[Page S3337]]

  The President's plan takes money from small businesses and families 
in my home State of Wyoming. The President's budget will devastate the 
small businesses of America. The budget even limits itemized deductions 
for people who give money to charities. This effectively raises our 
Nation's top tax rate to 42 percent.
  Our Treasury Secretary Geithner says the proposed changes in the tax 
rates would apply to only 2 or 3 percent of small business owners. But 
the reality is, those tax increases are going to hit hardest those 
small businesses which create the most jobs in our Nation.
  Small businesses created a majority of new jobs in America over the 
last 10 years. Small businesses are responsible for 70 percent of the 
job creation in this Nation.
  These jobs are being created by businesses similar to those that are 
now threatened by the administration's proposed tax increases. When we 
consider that the administration talks about a goal of job creation, 
why is this administration proposing a budget with costly tax hikes on 
those very engines that create the jobs in this Nation?
  They say: We are going to delay the tax increases until 2010. That 
doesn't make those tax increases hurt any less. Small business owners 
plan ahead. They plan well in advance. They will not hire someone today 
if they know they are going to be forced to lay that person off in less 
than 2 years.
  I want to talk a little bit about electric bills.
  Electric bills and the cost of everything manufactured in America is 
going to skyrocket under this proposed budget. Under the Obama budget, 
gasoline prices are likely to go up as much as 145 percent.
  The President from Duke Energy says the plan could increase energy 
prices for American households by as much as 40 percent.
  People need to know under this plan, anything that emits carbon is 
going to be more expensive. This means the plastics we use, the cars we 
drive, the homes we heat--they are all going to be more expensive. 
Every time you flip the light switch, you are going to be paying much 
more.
  The very building blocks of our Nation will be dramatically taxed. 
American families will experience a dramatic shift down the economic 
ladder.
  Folks who are struggling to get by in my home State of Wyoming and 
all across America will fall through the cracks in this budget. It is 
wrong. It is time this administration leveled with the American people 
about the hidden details in this budget plan.
  The President is proposing we spend scarce resources transferring 
income rather than promoting growth.
  According to the President's climate proposal, taxes on carbon are 
projected to total over $78 billion in 2012 and at least $646 billion 
over the next 10 years. Of that money, he proposes to spend $1 out of 
every $5--only $1 of every $5--on clean energy technologies. The other 
$4 of every $5 are going to go to bigger Government programs.
  According to the President's budget document, his climate change 
proposal is more expensive than the $646 billion he has suggested. He 
is hiding the true cost to the economy of his cap-and-trade scheme.
  The President is also abandoning what I call 24-hour power. Under his 
cap-and-trade scheme, that is power that runs the factories and 
American homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is the power we need 
when renewable energy is not there--when the Sun is not shining or the 
wind is not blowing. We need all the energy. We need the coal. We need 
the nuclear. We need the natural gas. We need the hydropower. All are 
proven and affordable energy solutions. Those are the kinds of things 
that will help keep electric bills low.
  If you eliminate these, you are automatically taxing all Americans 
with high energy bills--that is what you are doing--and that means 
making the cost of running a business more expensive. That means 
heating homes all across America will be much more expensive.
  They have done some estimates, and they have estimated that the 
President's new energy tax will cost every household in America an 
additional $250--not each year but $250 each month.
  Frankly, that is a tax increase that most American people cannot 
afford, and, frankly, I don't understand why the President is asking 
them to pay it.
  In reality, the President's cap-and-trade scheme is another bailout, 
a trillion-dollar climate bailout.
  This budget spends too much, it taxes too much, and it borrows too 
much.
  This budget costs too much in dollars, and it costs too much in jobs. 
This budget hurts small businesses, and it hurts American families 
alike.
  This budget provides for the largest tax increase in history to fund 
a trillion-dollar climate bailout. It is unfortunate that we are aiming 
and targeting small businesses because they are the very foundation of 
job creation in this country. It is unfortunate that this is the 
starting point of the debate of how to get our economy moving again.
  The American people expect better. The American people demand better. 
The American people deserve better.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DORGAN. 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. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time remains on the Democratic 
side on the nomination for USTR?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There remains 16 minutes.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I intend to speak for 10 of the 16 
minutes. I will reserve the 6 minutes for others.
  Mr. President, we are dealing with the nomination of Mr. Kirk to be 
trade ambassador, the head of the trade office in our Government. I 
intend to support his nomination, but I wanted to come to the floor to 
take the opportunity to say that ambassador after ambassador after 
ambassador has left that trade office with large and growing trade 
deficits that I think weaken and undermine our country. And I want to 
make certain Mr. Kirk and others know what I think is the urgency to 
address these significant trade deficits.
  We are a country that is consuming 3 percent more than we produce. No 
country can do that for a very long period of time. We are buying more 
from abroad than we are selling abroad--$2 billion every single day. We 
import $2 billion every day more than we export.
  We are facing a very severe financial crisis in this country now. At 
least one of the causes of that crisis, which is never discussed by 
anybody, is an unbelievable trade deficit.
  Our merchandise trade deficit last year was $800 billion. You can 
take a look at what has happened in recent years. These red lines 
represent the deep hole of trade deficits. That is money we owe to 
other countries because we are buying more from them than we are 
selling to them.

  Now, I am for trade, and plenty of it, but I insist it be fair, and I 
also believe there are mutual responsibilities of trading partners. The 
trade deficit, for example--in the $800 billion merchandise trade 
deficit we have--with China is $256 billion. Think of that: $256 
billion in a year. And we have very serious trade problems with China 
with respect to the issue of counterfeiting and piracy.
  Part of what we are producing in this country these days is 
intellectual property--computer programming and software, various types 
of music and movies, and all kinds of inventions. Our intellectual 
property is being pirated and counterfeited on street corners all 
across China. And it is not as if China doesn't know how to deal with 
that. When China held the Olympics, they knew how to deal with their 
logo. There was an Olympic logo for the Chinese Olympics which belonged 
to the Government of China. All of a sudden, that had value, and they 
decided to protect that. People started showing up on street corners in 
China selling mugs and banners with the Chinese Olympic logo, and they 
shut them down just like that. They stopped it just like that because 
that belonged to the Government of China. Well, what about all the 
intellectual property that is pirated and counterfeited and reverse-
engineered in China that is sold on their street corners in violation 
of everything, which helps result in this $256 billion trade deficit 
with China?

[[Page S3338]]

That is something our U.S. trade ambassador has to confront.
  Let me give an example--and this is just one; I could give a dozen--
of part of our problem. We have a trade deficit with South Korea. 
Ninety-eight percent of the cars on the streets of South Korea are made 
in South Korea because that is what they want. They do not want foreign 
cars in South Korea. Our country signed two separate trade deals with 
Korea in the 1990s, which supposedly meant that Korea would open up 
their auto market. Those agreements are apparently not worth the paper 
they were written on. So Korea sent us 770,000 vehicles last year--
770,000 Korean-made vehicles. Those are Korean jobs--vehicles made in 
Korea, sold in the United States. Yet we are able to sell 6,000 
American vehicles in Korea. Now, think of that: 770,000 cars coming our 
way, and we get to sell 6,000 there. Why? Because the Korean Government 
doesn't want American cars on their roads. They want one-way trade, 
which I think results in unfairness to our country, lack of jobs in our 
country, and a growing trade deficit in our country that undermines our 
economy.
  The same is true with respect to China. For example, we negotiated a 
bilateral trade agreement with China. Only much later did we learn the 
ingredients of that agreement. China is now creating a significant 
automobile export industry, and we will begin seeing Chinese cars on 
American streets in the not too distant future. They are gearing up for 
a very robust automobile export industry. Here is what our country 
agreed with in a bilateral agreement with China. We agreed that any 
American cars sold in China after a phase-in could have a 25-percent 
tariff imposed by the Chinese. Any Chinese cars sold in America would 
have a 2\1/2\-percent tariff. Think of the absurdity of that. A country 
with which we have a $200 billion trade deficit--last year, $260 
billion--and we said: It is okay for you to impose a tariff that is 10 
times higher on U.S.-made automobiles sold in your country than we will 
impose on your automobiles sold in our country. That is the kind of 
ignorance, in my judgment, and unfair trade provisions that result in 
our having an $800 billion merchandise trade deficit.
  Now, Warren Buffett has said--and Warren Buffett is a bright guy, and 
I like him, I have known him for a long while--this is unsustainable. 
You can't run these kinds of trade deficits year after year. It is 
unsustainable. Why? Because when we buy $800 billion more from other 
countries than we sell to them, it means they end up with our money or 
a debt, and that debt will be repaid with a lower standard of living in 
our country.
  My point is that the financial crisis in this country is caused by a 
lot of things, at least one of which is an unbelievable growing trade 
deficit that has gone on and festered for a long while, and no 
administration has done much about it. Oh, the last administration, I 
think the last time they took action was against Europe, and they 
announced with big fanfare that they were going to impose tariffs on 
Roquefort cheese, truffles, and goose liver. That will scare the devil 
out of some country--Roquefort cheese, truffles, and goose liver. We 
not only negotiate bad trade agreements, but then we fail to enforce 
them. And when we do enforce them, we don't enforce them with any 
vigor.
  Mr. President, I know there has been discussion in the last couple of 
days about trade with Mexico. Mexico had a $66 billion surplus--or we a 
deficit with them--last year. We have had a nearly \1/2\ trillion 
dollar trade deficit with Mexico in the last 10 years alone, and Mexico 
is accusing us of unfair trade? I am sorry. We have a \1/2\ trillion 
dollar deficit with Mexico in trade relationship in 10 years, and they 
believe we are unfair?
  The recent action by Mexico against the United States is due to the 
fact that a large bipartisan majority of both Chambers of Congress 
objected to a Mexican long-haul trucking pilot program that the Bush 
Administration wanted to establish. The inspector general of the 
Transportation Department had said that in Mexico there is no central 
repository of drivers' records, no central repository of accident 
reports, and no central repository of vehicle inspections. We don't 
have an equivalent system. Well, there is nothing in a trade agreement 
that requires us to diminish safety on our roads. When we have 
equivalent systems or when we have conditions in both countries that 
are equivalent, you will hear no complaint from me about any pilot 
program of this type, but that is not the case today.
  Just as an aside, at a hearing I held last year, we were told that 
one of the rules for the cross-border trucking program was that the 
drivers who were coming in with the big trucks were going to be 
required to be fluent in English. One way they would determine whether 
they were fluent in English is they would hold up a highway sign, such 
as a stop sign, to the driver and ask him: What is this sign? And if 
the driver replied, ``Alto,'' which means ``stop'' in Spanish, they 
would declare that driver fluent in English. Look, this made no sense 
at all. Let's make sure we protect the safety on America's roads. I 
have no problem with cross-border trucking as soon as we have 
equivalent standards. That is not now the case.
  But my larger point with Mexico, as with other countries, is that we 
have a large and growing trade deficit--$66 billion last year with 
Mexico; \1/2\ trillion dollars in 10 years. This country can't continue 
that. We have to have fair trade with other countries and fair trade 
agreements. And when we do, it seems to me we should be aggressive in 
trying to sell worldwide. We are good at this. We can prevail. We don't 
have to have an $800 billion deficit that threatens our country's 
economy. No one talks about it much, but the fact is, this enormous 
deficit undermines the strength of the American economy. It sucks jobs 
out of our country and moves them overseas in search of cheap labor. We 
can do better than that.
  I intend to support Ron Kirk. I think he will be a good choice. 
However, I hope this trade ambassador understands that while our 
country stands for trade and our country stands for open markets, we 
ought to, for a change, also stand for fair trade agreements and we 
ought to stand for balance in trade and get rid of an $800 billion-a-
year deficit in which we end up owing other countries a substantial 
amount of our future. It makes no sense to me.
  So I am for trade, and plenty of it, but let's try to get it right 
for a change, to strengthen this country and put this country on the 
right track.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COBURN. 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. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all 
time on the Kirk nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that H.R. 146 be 
the pending business.

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