[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 90 (Wednesday, May 24, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S3105]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on the budget, yesterday morning the 
Trump administration released their 2018 budget. The document is 
stunning in its cruelty. It takes a sledgehammer to the middle class, 
the working poor, while lavishing tax breaks on the very wealthy.
  They may not have intended it, but the Trump budget is a compilation 
of all the broken promises this President made to working Americans. In 
his budget, President Trump has broken promise after promise after 
promise to working people without any shame, without any remorse, 
without any explanation.
  The President promised to increase infrastructure investment, but his 
budget actually cuts more money from infrastructure programs than the 
new money it puts in. The President's proposal to slash American 
infrastructure investments is a job-killing 180-degree turn away from 
his repeated promise of a $1 trillion infrastructure plan.
  President Trump's campaign promises on infrastructure are crumbling 
faster than our roads and bridges. I want to ask the Trump 
administration: How can we expect that you are going to be real about a 
trillion-dollar infrastructure plan when your budget cuts 
infrastructure dramatically--right now? Don't you think it adds up? To 
us, it does. It makes us very dubious of any attempt to do 
infrastructure by this administration. We hope we are wrong, but the 
budget is a document that tells where the real truth is in terms of 
administration beliefs. They sure as heck, by this budget, don't like 
infrastructure.
  The President has said that education is the civil rights issue of 
our time, but the Trump budget calls for over $3.2 billion in cuts to 
higher education, eliminates programs that forgive loans for public 
service jobs like teachers and doctors, and eliminates subsidized loan 
programs that help lower the cost of college. College students of 
America, look at the President's budget and see if he is on your side. 
He sure as heck isn't.
  The President said he would ``save Social Security, Medicare, and 
Medicaid without cuts. Have to do it.'' Those are his words. But the 
Trump budget slashes Social Security by $72 billion and cuts Medicaid 
by hundreds of billions, in addition to the more than $800 billion 
TrumpCare cuts took from Medicaid already in the House bill. All in 
all, it is a $1 trillion broken promise on Medicaid.
  Remember, America, Medicaid is a program that affects the poor. That 
is a good thing. But much of the money goes to help the middle class, 
elderly people in nursing homes, and families fighting opioid 
addiction. So the bottom line is this is another broken promise to the 
middle class that Trump made in the campaign.
  The budget breaks promise after promise after promise the President 
made to what he called the forgotten America, the working men and women 
of America. Well, this budget forgot the forgotten American.
  In addition, the Trump budget depends on fantasy math to make all the 
numbers work. Most budgets make assumptions, and they all stretch the 
math a little bit, but the Trump budget takes a quantum leap into a new 
dimension of budgetary fairy tale.
  Not only does the Trump budget assume unrealistic growth as a way to 
balance the budget in 10 years--no economist, liberal or conservative, 
thinks we can achieve 3 percent growth in the near term--but the Trump 
budget double counts and double dips in a way we have never seen in any 
budget before. The Trump budget includes the assumption they will pass 
``deficit-neutral tax reform.'' In order for their massive tax cut to 
be deficit-neutral, they need to assume the economy grows fast enough 
to make up for lost revenues. But at the same time, the Trump budget 
assumes that growth will pay for tax cuts and help pay down the 
deficit--both.
  Take the estate tax as an example. President Trump has proposed 
eliminating the estate tax in tax reform. Yet the Trump budget assumes 
that the government will take in more than $300 billion in estate taxes 
over the next 10 years. In other words, part of the budget says that we 
are getting rid of the estate tax, and part of the budget says that 
$300 billion the estate tax brings in is counted toward balancing the 
budget. I have never seen anything like it. If an accountant did this, 
my guess is--I don't know accounting standards in detail--they would be 
kicked out of the accounting profession.
  In short, as Benjamin Applebaum in the New York Times points out: 
``President Trump is proposing to balance the federal budget in part by 
simultaneously increasing estate taxation and eliminating estate 
taxation.''
  Let me read that again. This is a reporter for the New York Times, 
not some politician of a political party: ``President Trump is 
proposing to balance the federal budget in part by simultaneously 
increasing estate taxation and eliminating estate taxation.''
  The gall, the nerve, and the facts-be-darned attitude in this budget 
are appalling. What they said on the estate tax is a complete 
contradiction. The government cannot take in money from a tax that no 
longer exists. Where are our fiscal watchdogs on the other side of the 
aisle when they do stuff like this?
  Everyone knows Presidential budgets contain some degree of 
flexibility, but what the Trump budget does is a quantum leap that 
would make an accountant blush, if they could stay in their profession 
after doing this. The budget is a total fantasy, a deeply unserious 
proposal to Congress. Members of both parties are right to reject it, 
and I applaud many of my Republican colleagues for speaking out against 
this proposal.
  Again, what will happen--my guess--is that Democrats and Republicans 
will ignore the Trump budget because it is so harsh on the middle class 
and because it is such an accounting nightmare. We will do our own 
budget, and we will probably produce something pretty good for the 
American people, as we did in 2017--as long as Donald Trump and the 
White House stay out of it.

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