[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 64 (Wednesday, April 29, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4834-S4835]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE PRESIDENT'S FIRST 100 DAYS

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, President Obama's first 100 days in office 
make for compelling news stories, but what we should focus on is how 
the first 100 days will affect our future. This will go down in history 
as the most expensive 100 days for the American people.
  Since his inauguration, President Obama has signed into law $1.19 
trillion in new spending. That is $11.9 billion of spending for each 
day he has been in office. Those figures do not include the $3.7 
trillion budget for next year, a measure now awaiting final action on 
the Senate floor.
  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if this budget is 
passed and signed into law, by 2019, the public debt will reach 82.4 
percent of our gross domestic product. That means more new debt will be 
created under this one budget than all the combined debt created by all 
the previous 43 Presidents, all the way back to President George 
Washington.
  His own advisers acknowledge the budget will put us on an 
unsustainable course. It proposes a sweeping change of course for the 
U.S. economy that will shift the balance of power away from the private 
sector toward the Federal Government.
  It is not just the uncharted levels of spending and debt; this budget 
levies higher taxes on every household in the form of a national energy 
tax and puts taxpayers on the hook to pay for a larger and more 
intrusive Federal Government.
  In other words, this budget spends too much, taxes too much, and 
borrows too much. On spending, President Obama has made his proposed 
new spending sound more palatable by describing it as an ``investment'' 
that will pay off by saving us money down the road.
  Most of the new spending, however, is for services and programs whose 
long-term value continues to be debated. Nor is there any intention of 
cutting spending in the future. This budget does not propose one-time 
investments followed by areas of reduced spending. Instead, billions in 
new outlays will continue indefinitely, meaning the permanent 
accruement of power in Washington.
  Rolling back the Federal Government's reach in the coming years could 
prove a Sisyphean challenge. Those of us in Washington need to keep in 
mind that families and small businesses, now more than ever, make 
sacrifices and tradeoffs in their own budgets. Should Washington not do 
the same?
  This budget continues business as usual, making no hard choices about 
how to rein in out-of-control Government spending. In fact, the budget 
is so big that, according to the Heritage Foundation, a quarter of a 
million new Federal bureaucrats may be required to spend it all.
  Federal Government employees represent the largest group of new jobs 
created under this bill. In response to concerns about the spending, 
President Obama has instructed his Cabinet to cut $100 million from the 
budget in the next 90 days. Wow, $100 million. That represents just 
.003 percent of the budget. Let me put it in context. It is hard to 
imagine an Arizona family using the same math to trim its budget. A 
typical Arizona family makes $47,215 per year. Say they would like a 
budget similar to the President's. That means their budget would be 
$71,848 in the coming year. But they have to cut .003 percent. That is 
$2.05. So they still have a debt of $24,631 to put on the family credit 
card. Unsustainable.
  No family would decide to do this. It would not put them on a course 
for future prosperity. We need to cut a lot more than that .003 for 
this budget to be fiscally sustainable.
  On the matter of taxes, the President has said he will cut taxes for 
95 percent of Americans. But his budget would raise taxes by $1.4 
trillion over the next 10 years. It would implement a new $646 billion 
energy tax that will affect every American household regardless of 
income and is estimated to increase energy costs for every family by as 
much as $3,168 annually.
  It is described as a downpayment, meaning there is much more to come. 
This tax is touted as a way to curb greenhouse gas emissions. But it 
will unavoidably tax every economic activity, since almost every aspect 
of our daily lives requires energy from fossil fuels.
  I recall President Obama telling the San Francisco Chronicle that: 
``Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would 
necessarily skyrocket.''
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has used 5 minutes.
  Mr. KYL. Economic historian John Steele Gordon draws a good analogy 
to an energy tax in the April issue of Commentary magazine:
   ``If passed it will act on the economy as a whole exactly the way a 
governor acts on a steam engine, increasingly resisting any increase in 
revolutions per minute,'' Gordon writes.
  He continues:

       With the supply of licenses to emit carbon dioxide fixed, 
     the price of the permits will inevitably rise as economic 
     activity picks up. That means that any increase in overall 
     demand will increase the price of energy. . . . That will 
     damp down demand. The more the economy tries to speed up the 
     more [this tax] will work to prevent it from doing so.

  Does this sound like a good idea--especially in time of recession?
  The budget also lets some of the existing low tax rates expire, thus 
raising taxes, which also hurts our economy.
  We need to keep in mind that our economy is a complex and dynamic 
force, made up of individuals and families deciding on how much they 
want to save, spend and invest and whether to create new jobs or open 
new businesses.
  Usually, it resists policymakers' attempts to manipulate and control 
it. It is not a ball of clay that Washington can mold any way it wants 
to and expect never to encounter adverse results. There are negative 
consequences to what we do.
  We are obviously straying too far from the principle that the purpose 
of taxes is to pay for the costs of government in a way that does the 
least damage to the economy. Now we are using tax policy to 
redistribute wealth. How many activities or services can we now think 
of that the Government does not tax or is not aiming to tax?
  Finally, there is the matter of borrowing too much, the debt and the 
deficit. In 5 years this budget will double the public debt; in 10 
years it will triple the public debt. That is why we can say that just 
this one budget accumulates more debt than every President of the 
United States combined previous to now. The Congressional Budget Office 
projects that the President's budget

[[Page S4835]]

will accumulate $9.2 trillion in deficits. That would raise the debt 
held by the public to an astonishing 82.4 percent of GDP in the year 
2019.
  My colleague, Senator McCain, told us during the campaign that 
spending and deficits are two sides of the same coin; that President 
Obama's spending promises would raise deficits to unsustainable levels 
and that huge tax hikes, and not just for the wealthy, would be 
required to pay for it all. Even the President's Office of Management 
and Budget Director Peter Orszag has confirmed what Senator McCain said 
all along: These levels of spending and deficits will not be 
sustainable.
  Let me quote an editorial comment from the Washington Post recently:

       President Obama's budget plan would have the government 
     spending more than 23 percent of gross domestic product 
     throughout the second half of this decade while collecting 
     less than 19 percent of revenue.

  Is this the legacy we want to leave the next generation, 
unprecedented debt?
  On this side of the aisle the answer to that question is no. That is 
why we are concerned about the effect of the past 100 days on our 
country's future.
  And we can't forget the finance charges. By 2014, the interest on the 
national debt will be the largest single expenditure in the budget, 
more than we'll spend on education, on healthcare, on national 
security.
  This excessive borrowing also increases our dependence on creditors 
in countries such as China and Russia. Other countries now hold more 
than half of America's total publicly held debt. As Senator Bayh 
pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal column, when other 
countries hold a large amount of our debt they also have leverage to 
influence our currency, trade, and national security policies.
  All of us share the goal of getting the economy back on track. We 
need a budget that meets the test of fiscal responsibility. This budget 
does not. Moreover, it contradict's the President's campaign promises 
for a net spending reduction and no tax increases for 95 percent of 
Americans. The unprecedented amounts of spending, taxing, and borrowing 
are sure to hinder an economic recovery.
  As President Reagan said: Facts are stubborn things. We have seen 
throughout our country's history that increasing taxes and introducing 
new regulation during a recession has never led to economic growth. Why 
would this time be any different? Right now we should be working on 
growing our economy, not growing the Federal Government.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.

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