[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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