[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 21 (Thursday, February 10, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S637-S638]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CUTTING GOVERNMENT SPENDING

  Mr. REID. Madam President, saying you want to cut government spending 
is an easy applause line. We all want to lower the deficit. We all wish 
Americans had less debt sitting in the treasuries of other countries. 
None of us wants to leave the most difficult decisions to the next 
generation. They deserve better from us.
  But actually figuring out what and where to cut is the hard work. 
That is an entirely different story. The American people do not need to 
hear an applause line. They need us to ease the burden on our Nation's 
bottom line, and there is a fine line between doing so responsibly and 
recklessly.
  It is our job to do that hard work, to figure out what and where to 
cut, to do the math carefully and practically and with common sense. It 
is our responsibility to remember we are not just taking numbers off a 
ledger. In many cases, these proposals may mean taking workers off the 
assembly line, taking teachers out of the classroom or police officers 
off the street.
  I want to talk about taking police officers off the street. In the 
Republicans' haste to make as many cuts as possible, they have proposed 
eliminating the COPS hiring program. COPS stands for Community Oriented 
Policing Services, and it has helped put thousands and thousands of 
police officers and sheriffs on patrol around the country, about 450 of 
them in Nevada.
  Under the Republican plan, many could lose those jobs and many more 
who want to join the force will not be able to. The COPS program also 
helps our law enforcement departments afford the computers and 
communications equipment they need to do their jobs. These jobs are 
keeping us safe. So cutting COPS does not just put them at risk, it 
puts all of us at risk.
  This is not the kind of investment we gain from losing. This extreme 
plan does nothing to grow our economy or keep us competitive. It does 
not make our future more secure; it makes our neighborhoods less so. We 
have to cut responsibly. That is not the kind of cut we have talked 
about, wiping out the COPS program. We cannot support that.
  When we talk about cutting government waste and excess, this is what 
we mean, among other things. We mean eliminating handouts to oil 
companies that are already making record profits. We mean cutting 
billions in wasteful Pentagon spending to contractors such as 
Halliburton. It means stopping the government giveaways to companies 
that ship American jobs overseas. These are commonsense cuts and a good 
place to start the conversation.

[[Page S638]]

  But so far Republicans have shown no interest in meeting us halfway 
and have shown every intention of protecting their rich corporate 
friends. As this conversation continues, Democrats do not need any 
lectures from the other side on fiscal responsibility. Remember, we 
were the ones who balanced the budget during the Clinton years. We did 
it. We were accused of reducing the deficit too much. We were spending 
less money than we were taking in. Because of the work we did during 
the last of the Clinton administration, even President Bush, during his 
first year, because he got all of the largess from the Clinton 
administration, turned in a record budget surplus. But as soon as his 
policies went into effect, he changed that very quickly. In a matter of 
months, he turned a record surplus into a record deficit that we are 
fighting today.
  In conclusion, any budget debate is going to be about numbers. That 
is the way it should be. But that is not the real priority, and those 
figures should not blind us to the real story behind the numbers. Our 
goal and our charge is not to cut billions of dollars just to say we 
did it. Our task is to make our government more efficient, our economy 
healthier, and our future more secure. Our challenge is to do so in a 
way that does not put our public safety at risk or break our promise to 
seniors.
  So we need to think about what we are cutting and making sure those 
cuts are not counterproductive. We need to pay attention to the quality 
of those cuts, not just the quantity of those cuts. After all, you can 
lose a lot of weight by cutting off your arms and legs but no doctor 
would recommend it.

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