[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 70 (Tuesday, April 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2513-S2515]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         The President's Budget

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to address President Trump's 
proposed budget for fiscal year 2018. My predecessor in this seat, my 
friend, former Vice President Joe Biden, once said to me years ago: 
Show me your budget and I will show you your values.
  One of my concerns about the proposal we have received--the initial 
slimmed-down overview proposal we have received--is that it suggests 
values that I think are quite out of line with what my home State of 
Delaware would look for me to be doing in this body, what I think 
addresses the real needs and priorities of the American people.
  Last month President Trump released an overview of his budget--what 
is called a skinny budget--and we haven't yet received a full and 
detailed budget proposal. Even though what we have received is just an 
overview, it indicates that the cuts President Trump is proposing will 
significantly weaken vital domestic programs, often with the goal of 
completely eliminating existing and valued initiatives.
  This chart gives a rough summary of all the different Federal 
agencies that would take double-digit hits in order to be able to pay 
for the significant $54 billion increase to defense spending. Targeting 
only nondefense programs that millions of Americans and Delawareans 
rely on ignores commitments made over the last couple of budget cycles 
and years, as Republicans and Democrats have worked together to ensure 
placing equal priority on defense and nondefense spending.
  Under sequestration, under the Budget Control Act, we have already 
made significant cuts to important domestic programs. After the 
difficult budgets of the last few years, in my view, we have already 
made too many cuts to some of the programs that helped build our 
Nation.
  To be clear, I am as passionate as anyone in this body about 
supporting our Armed Forces, particularly when they are in harm's way 
and particularly as we continue to conduct operations against ISIS in 
Iraq and Syria.

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But Democrats will not stand for cutting domestic programs simply to 
pay for a $54 billion military expansion that hasn't been explained or 
justified through a thorough review of what are the appropriate 
investments in defense that will respond to the challenges and threats 
we face in this world.
  To pay for that $54 billion increase in defense by cutting 
investments in education, housing, job training, and more here at home 
strikes me as the wrong set of priorities and the wrong direction. If 
anything like these proposed Trump budget cuts are enacted, I know my 
home State of Delaware would lose millions and millions of dollars for 
valuable and effective Federal programs that help my constituents each 
and every day. Trump's budget proposal would cut research and health 
programs. It would cut job-creating infrastructure programs. It would 
cut grants for higher education. It would cut housing and so much more.
  I wish to take a few minutes to focus on a few of many proposed 
budget cuts to give a sense of the impact it might have on our 
livelihood, our security, and our prosperity at home. Let me start with 
some cuts that would directly affect our national security, our safety.
  In my view, the deep cuts made in the proposed Trump budget would 
simply make us less safe. For example, the U.S. Coast Guard, which has 
a station in Delaware, would be cut by more than $1.3 billion. The 
Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, has just as high a cut. 
Ironically, even though these are the very agencies that protect our 
ports and other points of entry, Trump proposes cutting their funding 
so that a southern border wall can be built for an estimate well above 
$25 billion. This simply makes no sense. If you listen to the words of 
the Coast Guard Commandant, ADM Paul Zukunft, he warned that simply 
focusing all those resources on building a wall along the border with 
Mexico would make our ports and waterways even more appealing to 
smugglers and those who seek to bring illicit drugs or to bring people 
into the United States through unlawful entry.
  That is not all. The Trump budget would make us less safe by 
depleting Federal protection from natural disasters, starting with a 
proposed $600 million cut to FEMA State and local grants. The budget 
also proposes restructuring fees for the National Flood Insurance 
Program, which would lead to raising rates for homeowners who get flood 
insurance.
  My home State of Delaware is the lowest mean elevation State in 
America--literally the lowest lying State and ground zero for sea level 
rise. These cuts would have a significant impact on homeowners up and 
down my State, those at our seashore and those in my home community of 
Wilmington who face steadily rising flood insurance premiums.
  It is not just our safety, though, that would be impacted by the 
President's budget; it also threatens job growth and economic security. 
As a President who ran a campaign on a middle-class jobs agenda, I am 
struck that his proposed budget would endanger Americans across the 
country financially by also undermining support for development in both 
rural areas and urban areas. Take the Department of Agriculture, which 
provides critical support through the Rural Development Program. In 
Delaware, at least, Rural Development, or RDA, has played a critical 
role in supporting housing, businesses, and communities in the rural 
parts of Delmarva--Delaware and Maryland.
  The Trump budget would also eliminate the Rural Business-Cooperative 
Service, or RBS, which promotes economic development in distressed 
rural areas. That is a program which has supported things like Del Tech 
automotive technician training and architectural services for the 
Seaford Historical Society, among many other things.
  Something I am much more familiar with and more passionate about is 
the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Across the State of Delaware, 
the MEP, as it is known, has helped small and medium manufacturing 
companies to be better at taking advantage of cutting-edge technology, 
understanding how to manage their inventory, how to invest more wisely 
in new capital equipment, and how to grow and compete around the world.
  Since 2000, Delaware's Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program 
has used Federal support to help Delaware manufacturers increase sales 
by more than $120 million, helping create more than 1,600 good-paying 
jobs and finding over $100 million in cost savings in Delaware's small 
and medium manufacturers. These are great impacts for a fairly small 
program. Why that program specifically targeted at helping small and 
medium manufacturing companies would be a priority for elimination is 
beyond me.
  Cuts to other areas that impact research and energy in our economy 
also strike me as unwise and ill-considered. It is not just our economy 
and national security; Trump's budget would also threaten our 
infrastructure, our transportation, and our housing.
  As a Delawarean and someone who rides Amtrak between Wilmington and 
Washington almost every day we are in session, I know how important our 
passenger rail system is for the Northeast, as well as for connecting 
the rest of our country. Amtrak's long-distance routes are critically 
important to the Nation's economy and to sustaining passenger rail as a 
nationwide Federal service. Yet, as our competitors around the world 
are investing billions of dollars in high-speed rail and in efficient 
rail networks that connect whole countries, President Trump's proposal 
would eliminate all Federal funding for Amtrak's long-distance routes.
  Another effective Federal program that has made a difference in my 
home State in infrastructure is the so-called TIGER Program, which 
invests in a whole range of infrastructure options--highway, transit, 
rail and port--by leveraging private capital and supporting 
competitive, innovative solutions to infrastructure challenges. The 
TIGER Program has supported projects like a new regional rail 
transportation center at the University of Delaware, taking advantage 
of the former Chrysler rail yard, and the significant new growth we are 
seeing at the University of Delaware's STAR campus. This is an 
investment that will have several multiples that will leverage private 
sector benefits by promoting economic development, accessible housing, 
and multimobile transportation choices in the area.
  Many of my colleagues have similar experiences in their States about 
the impact of the TIGER Grant Program. In the last year, it had a 
demand nearly 20 times the available funding. Yet the Trump budget 
would again eliminate all Federal funding to this vital transportation 
infrastructure program that creates jobs and helps to leverage private 
sector investment.
  There are so many other programs on the chopping block, it is hard to 
even begin to touch on them: Community Development Block Grants, which 
I relied on in my previous job as county executive to provide support 
for low-income and disabled individuals to have access to high quality 
housing; the funds that support things like Meals on Wheels, that allow 
our low-income seniors to age in place rather than having to be moved 
to institutions; and many other programs through the Federal Department 
of Housing that have a positive impact in communities up and down my 
State, from Newark and Wilmington to Dover and Seaford.
  If you take the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rural water and 
wastewater loan and grant programs, these would be eliminated entirely. 
These programs are critical to ensuring that rural communities can 
access funds to support safe drinking water and sewer systems. Many 
communities in Southern Delaware rely on rural water funds to ensure 
safe drinking water supplies for the families that live there. As I 
have suggested, the list of potential cuts to programs goes on and on.
  Let me move to some impacts on the environment, briefly. The 
Chesapeake Bay is one of the world's largest estuary systems, and 
Delaware is a State that borders on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. 
Economists insist that there is nearly $1 trillion worth of economic 
value to the Chesapeake Bay watershed, yet the Trump budget cuts nearly 
half of the funding for the EPA to allow States to get grants that will 
help improve air quality, clean up contaminated waste sites, and remove 
lead from drinking water. Delaware alone would lose $3 million in these 
vital initiatives.
  There are millions of Americans who rely on many more programs listed

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here--AmeriCorps, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, 
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the African Development 
Foundation, and many more--all eliminated in this budget in order to 
prioritize a focus on our military and defense.
  I don't think the President understands that we cannot maintain our 
status as a global leader with defense and military alone. We need to 
ensure that a complementary strength exists in our development and 
diplomacy programs, which are less than one-tenth of our spending on 
national defense.
  I recently had the opportunity to see the impact that USAID and our 
programs to assist the hungry and needy around the world can make in 
stabilizing fragile states and preventing them from becoming failed 
states. We spent less than one percent of the Federal budget on these 
sorts of programs. They provide a critical connection to parts of the 
world where a positive understanding of America and our values would be 
a good thing.
  The international affairs budget, which includes needed funding for 
USAID, the State Department, and other related programs, would be cut 
by one-third under the Trump budget--a 29 percent cut to the State 
Department alone.
  If history is any indicator, the last 70 years show these investments 
in diplomacy and development are critical. Foreign assistance is not 
charity. It serves a humanitarian purpose, but it also makes us 
stronger by promoting American values around the world, building 
coalitions that isolate our adversaries, and helping make tens of 
millions less susceptible to terrorism and to extremism around the 
world.
  This is a false choice between significantly increasing our defense 
spending and the need to sustain our investments in diplomacy and 
development. I hope my colleagues and constituents will take time to 
think about the many different Federal programs that I have briefly 
discussed in these remarks about the proposed budget and all the 
different ways that these Federal programs have invested in our quality 
of life, in our national security, and our economic prosperity. Many of 
them are scheduled for elimination under this budget.
  As I have heard both Republicans and Democrats say in press 
interviews and on this floor: No President's budget is adopted without 
change. It is my hope that this budget will be set aside and that the 
folks who represent our States here will begin anew the process of 
building an appropriations path forward that actually protects our 
country, protects our livelihood, and invests significantly in 
sustaining and saving the very best of these programs that have 
benefited my home State and my constituents for so very long.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.