[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 36 (Thursday, March 10, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1542-S1543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          REDUCING THE DEFICIT

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, yesterday the Senate rejected two bills 
to provide funding for the rest of this fiscal year. I voted against 
both bills, and I want to explain why and to explain what I believe is 
the only course open to us if we are to be serious about reducing the 
budget deficit.
  It was a victory for the American people when the Senate voted 
overwhelmingly to reject the spending bill sent to us by the House. 
House Republicans who tell us they want to reduce the deficit have 
proposed a cure that does little to cure our budget disease and does 
great damage to the patient in the meantime.
  The House bill proposed cuts in nondefense discretionary spending, 
and in that area alone. Simple math suggests that we cannot 
meaningfully reduce the deficit in this manner. These programs 
represent less than 15 percent of the total budget. Not surprisingly, 
then, the Republican proposal would reduce our projected budget deficit 
this year by only a token amount. As a matter of fact, it would reduce 
our budget deficit this year by less than 1 percent.
  The Republican plan fails the test of seriousness about the deficit, 
but it would have done significant damage to programs that Americans 
depend on. It would have cut more than $1 billion from Head Start. It 
would have eliminated early childhood education programs for more than 
200,000 American children. It would have cut or eliminated Pell grants 
for hundreds of thousands of college students. It would have cut $61 
million from the budget request for food inspections, despite the fact 
that thousands of Americans every year suffer from foodborne illnesses. 
It would have cut $1 billion from the Women, Infants and Children 
Program, weakening a program that helps poor families put food on the 
table. It would cut $180 million from the Securities and Exchange 
Commission budget and more than $100 million from the Commodity Futures 
Trading Commission budget. And those are the regulators. Those are the 
cops we need on the beat to make sure we oversee the financial markets 
that recently devastated our economy.
  It would have cut nearly $290 million from the Veterans' 
Administration efforts to provide better service to our veterans.
  The House budget would have cut $1 billion of funding for community 
health centers, eliminating primary care for millions of Americans.
  The proposal of the House of Representatives, which we soundly 
defeated here yesterday, would have cut $550 million from National 
Science Foundation research, another $1 billion plus from Department of 
Energy research, and almost $900 billion from our support for renewable 
energy sources and energy conservation. All of that would make us even 
more dependent than we now are on foreign oil.
  The Republican proposal from the House would have cut $2 billion from 
clean water programs, putting public health at risk, and it would have 
cut $250 million from the Great Lakes restoration efforts.
  The House proposal would have cut more than $120 million from the 
President's request and more than $350 million from the fiscal 2010 
level from border security efforts. That is the very issue--border 
security--which the Republicans, including the Speaker of the House, 
have called their No. 1 priority. Yet their budget would have cut more 
than $350 million from the 2010 level for border security.
  We need to make spending cuts, and I think all of us know that. We 
have to reduce and remove redundancy and inefficiency in the 
government, and it exists. The President has proposed cuts. We need to 
seek more cuts and we need to act. But the cuts the Republicans 
proposed aren't about increasing efficiency. Their proposal, as Senator 
Manchin pointed out yesterday, blindly hacks at the budget with no 
sense of our priorities or of our values as a country. So we wisely 
rejected that path.
  We also rejected a second proposal, and I voted against that one as 
well. I rejected it because while it avoided the

[[Page S1543]]

blind hacking at the budget in which the House Republicans engaged, it 
focused solely on cuts in nondefense discretionary spending. We had two 
choices yesterday, Draconian cuts or more targeted cuts. But those are 
not the only two choices available to us. We can choose to seriously 
address our budget deficit by acknowledging that it cannot be 
significantly reduced until we understand that increased revenue as 
well as spending cuts is part of the solution.
  How can we raise additional revenue without slowing the economy? We 
can end the excessive tax cuts for the upper income taxpayers President 
Bush put in place. We can close tax loopholes that not only drain the 
Treasury but send American jobs abroad to boot.
  The cost of the government to continue that upper bracket income tax 
cut President Bush was able to obtain is about $30 billion a year. 
Ending that $30 billion tax cut, which goes to roughly 2 percent of 
Americans at the very top--those earning more than $200,000--could 
allow us to avoid the drastic cuts in important programs I have 
mentioned, and much more besides.
  Increasing revenue makes sense not only from a deficit reduction 
perspective, it is also fair. Those at the top, incomewise, have done 
very well as a group in recent decades, while incomes for most 
Americans have stagnated. To be specific, the top 1 percent of all 
income earners has more than doubled their share of total U.S. income 
in the last few decades--from 8.2 percent in 1980 to 17.7 percent in 
2008. Meanwhile, median household income--the income of the typical 
American family--is now 5 percent lower than it was in the late 1990s. 
To eliminate programs that are critically important to working families 
while maintaining tax cuts for those whose incomes have soared would be 
a grave injustice.
  There are also other revenues we could look to if we are truly 
serious about deficit reduction. There are a number of tax loopholes we 
can close. For example, we should not continue to give corporations a 
tax deduction when they send American jobs overseas. We should not 
allow corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid U.S. taxes by 
hiding assets and income in offshore tax havens. We should not allow 
hedge fund managers to earn enormous incomes and yet pay a lower tax 
rate than their secretaries pay.
  The American people are looking to us. They are concerned about the 
size of the deficit and the effect it might have on future generations. 
But they also reject the notion that Draconian cuts--cuts that fall 
hardest on working families--are the answer. They see the wisdom and 
the fairness in making sure all Americans share in the sacrifices that 
will be required as we seek to reduce our deficit.
  We have an opportunity now to show the American people that we 
understand too. We can craft a plan now that preserves vital programs, 
that makes prioritized and necessary cuts in spending, but also a plan 
that recognizes the need for comprehensive approaches that address 
revenue as well as spending. In the coming days, we need to adopt such 
a comprehensive approach.
  Madam 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. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. FRANKEN. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Franken pertaining to the introduction of S. 555 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. FRANKEN. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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