[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 167 (Tuesday, October 17, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6424-S6427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2018

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the concurrent 
resolution.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 71) establishing the 
     congressional budget for the United States Government for 
     fiscal year 2018 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary 
     levels for fiscal years 2019 through 2027.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time for 
the Joint Economic Committee debate be reserved to occur from 4:30 p.m. 
until 5:45 p.m. today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the 
duration of the Senate's consideration of H. Con. Res. 71, the majority 
and Democratic managers of the concurrent resolution, while seated or 
standing at the managers' desks, be permitted to deliver floor remarks, 
retrieve, review, and edit documents, and send email and other data 
communications from text displayed on wireless personal digital 
assistant devices and tablet devices. I further ask unanimous consent 
that the use of calculators be permitted on the floor during 
consideration of the budget resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the staff be 
permitted to make technical and conforming changes to the resolution, 
if necessary, consistent with the amendments adopted during Senate 
consideration, including calculating the associated change in the net 
interest function, and incorporating the effect of such adopted 
amendments on the budgetary aggregates for Federal revenues, the amount 
by which the Federal revenues should be changed, new budget authority, 
budget outlays, deficits, public debt, and debt held by the public.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, earlier this month, the Senate Budget 
Committee took an important first step toward tax reform by approving a 
fiscal year 2018 budget resolution focused on growing America's economy 
through tax policies that put more money in the hands of hard-working 
Americans.
  This week, we take the next step as the Senate begins debating the 
budget blueprint to pursue long-overdue tax relief for families and job 
creators that will jump-start economic growth. It is

[[Page S6425]]

crucial that Congress approve this fiscal framework in order to 
eliminate the dated and stifling tax policies that are holding back 
American investment and productivity.
  As Budget Committee chairman, I am proud that Congress and the 
President are tackling these important issues. After 8 years of 
stagnant growth, it is clear our Nation needs a simpler, fairer, and 
more transparent tax system that will leave more dollars in the pockets 
of hard-working families.
  The last time Congress was able to accomplish large-scale tax reform 
was in 1986. Just think how much has changed in the country and world 
in those 31 years, including our Tax Code. America's tax laws are 
incredibly complicated and work to slow our economy and hurt American 
families. Incredibly, our current tax system actually benefits foreign-
based companies while harming U.S.-headquartered companies and 
employers. We continually ask why jobs are leaving this country. A big 
reason is the hostile tax landscape.
  The Senate budget aims to help reverse this trend by setting the 
stage for pro-growth tax reform that will lower taxes on American 
families and on job creators by a net $1.5 trillion over 10 years. By 
keeping more money in the pockets of hard-working taxpayers, these 
reforms--if done right--will boost investment, wages, and productivity 
here at home.
  Pro-growth tax reform should reward hard work, savings, and encourage 
investment. It should broaden the tax base while lowering the marginal 
tax rates, streamline our tax laws, and limit government distortion of 
market-based decisions. Our tax policy should provide for a globally 
competitive corporate tax rate and an international tax system that 
does not penalize U.S. companies.
  It is no secret that tax policies influence the everyday dollars-and-
cents decisions of individuals and small businesses. They help drive 
such decisions as to whether to work an additional hour or invest in an 
additional unit of capital. This is why economic experts note that 
potential economic growth should always be considered when talking 
about tax cuts. In fact, the Joint Committee on Taxation states ``tax 
policy can directly influence the level of labor supply, physical 
capital, human capital, and technology in an economy by changing the 
after-tax returns to certain economic activities or changing the cost 
of pursuing such activities.''
  Pro-growth reform that removes government distortions of the 
marketplace would also allow for resources to be reallocated from what 
produces the best tax outcome to what is the best economic use. This 
efficiency will lead to increased investment, growth of businesses, and 
higher economic output or gross domestic product, GDP. In fact, 
increasing GDP from private sector growth can provide additional 
dollars to the Treasury. Let me repeat that. Better tax policy will 
boost the value of everything we produce, and this will mean more 
revenue for the Federal Government.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, an increase in 
productivity of one-tenth of 1 percentage point could increase revenue 
into the Treasury by $273 billion over a 10-year period. A return to 
our historic average growth would decrease projected spending deficits 
by over $2 trillion in the 10-year window--more than enough to pay for 
the decrease in revenues assumed under static scoring conventions that 
don't account for economic growth. That is what we have to operate 
under.

  In addition to the Senate Budget's key role in reforming the Tax 
Code, it is also a serious fiscal plan. If Congress and the 
administration can adhere to this blueprint, we will be taking steps to 
get our fiscal house in order with a combination of restrained 
spending, reduced tax burdens, and a growing economy.
  The Senate Budget Committee has put together a responsible budget 
that provides a path to creating a more effective, efficient, and 
accountable government for hard-working taxpayers. To accomplish this 
goal, the budget proposes $5.1 trillion in savings over the next 10 
years, while investing in a strong national defense, providing for the 
care of our most vulnerable citizens, and not touching Social Security.
  From the start, this budget was focused on achieving on-budget 
balance by the end of the 10-year budget window. By 2026, the 
resolution--with ensuing economic growth from tax reform and an 
improved regulatory landscape--will generate a $79 billion on-budget 
surplus. This surplus would rise to $197 billion by 2027.
  In addition to the fiscal reforms proposed by this resolution, it 
also continues efforts to respond to concerns about the broken budget 
process. This budget promotes curtailing budget gimmicks, increasing 
honesty and accuracy by government scorekeepers, and ending the ``spend 
now, pay later'' mentality of Washington.
  It is also important to note the thorough and robust committee 
process that produced this Senate budget resolution. More than 150 
amendments from both sides were filed, and 29 were voted on during our 
daylong markup process. This budget reflects bipartisan input and 
includes five amendments that were accepted from Democratic members of 
the committee.
  The next step for tax reform will build on the Budget Committee's 
open and transparent committee process. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell 
and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch have promised that 
tax reform legislation will also move through the committee process. In 
other words, any speculation people have heard about where the tax is, 
is not right because it has a process to go through. This will provide 
Finance Committee members the opportunity to offer amendments before 
the full Senate considers the legislation. So we will consider it in 
committee and then on the floor. Once the bill moves to the Senate 
floor, every Member will be able to offer amendments before voting on 
the measure.
  This budget serves as a framework to expand economic opportunity for 
each and every American. It reflects our belief in the American 
entrepreneurial spirit and that by allowing American families and small 
businesses to keep more of their hard-earned dollars, they will 
innovate and invest money in ways that will grow our economy. We 
believe our Nation's best days--and those of its citizens--are ahead of 
us.
  The time to act is now. If we don't change course, our Nation will 
continue to experience the sluggish economic growth of the last decade. 
I urge my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to support America's 
hard-working families and employers and help put our Nation on a better 
course. Approving this budget focused on pro-growth tax reform does 
just that.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of the 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be permitted 
to complete my remarks before the Senate recesses.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I know that budgets are not particularly 
sexy and exciting discussions. A lot of people wonder about a trillion 
here and a hundred billion there and what it all means. It means a lot. 
What it means is that if this horrific Republican budget is 
implemented, it will mean an enormous amount of pain for tens of 
millions of working-class, middle-class, and lower income people in 
this country. That is what this budget means.
  After failing to pass a so-called healthcare bill that would throw up 
to 32 million Americans off of the health insurance they currently 
have--a bill that was widely opposed by the American people--Donald 
Trump and the Republican leadership are back again. While I totally 
disagree with what they are trying to do, I do appreciate their 
temerity. They are not giving up in terms of trying to protect the 
interests of the billionaire class against the vast majority of the 
American people.
  The Republicans are now pushing one of the most destructive and 
unfair budget and tax proposals in the modern history of the United 
States--a plan that would do incalculable harm to tens of millions of 
working families, our children, the sick, the elderly, and the poor. 
The Republican budget we are debating on the floor of the Senate this 
week is the Robin Hood principle in reverse. Robin Hood took from the 
rich and gave to the poor. What this budget does is take from working 
people, the middle class, the elderly, and the poor

[[Page S6426]]

to give massive tax breaks to people who are already living in 
incredible opulence.
  Donald Trump and the Republican leadership claim that their plan 
would provide a ``big league'' tax cut for the middle class. Nothing 
could be further from the truth.
  According to the Tax Policy Center, by the end of this decade, nearly 
80 percent--underline 80 percent--of the tax benefits of the Republican 
plan would go to the top 1 percent. Even more incredibly, the top one-
tenth of 1 percent would receive some 40 percent of the tax breaks over 
a 10-year period. A tax proposal which gives 80 percent of the benefits 
to the top 1 percent and 40 percent of the benefits to the top one-
tenth of 1 percent is not a tax proposal benefiting the middle-class or 
working families of this country; it is a tax proposal designed to 
benefit the wealthiest people and the campaign contributors of the 
billionaire class.
  This budget cuts Medicaid by more than $1 trillion over a 10-year 
period. That is kind of strange. The United States of America is the 
only major country on Earth that does not guarantee healthcare to all 
people. What the American people want, in my view, is to join the rest 
of the world and understand that healthcare is a right, that we should 
not have 28 million people without any health insurance and even more 
underinsured with high deductibles and high copayments. Yet what this 
budget does, unbelievably, is throw 15 million people off of the health 
insurance they have with a trillion-dollar cut in Medicaid.
  I would hope that my friend the chairman of the Budget Committee 
might at some point during this long debate tell us what happens to 
somebody today who is struggling with cancer, with heart disease, with 
diabetes, with a life-threatening illness, who suddenly loses the 
Medicaid health insurance they have. What happens to that person? I 
would hope that some of my Republican friends would tell the American 
people what happens, because study after study tells us what will 
happen, and that is that thousands of people will lose their lives. 
They will die because they will no longer have access to the health 
insurance they had.
  Further, this budget does what Republicans have not yet attempted to 
do during the past year in their so-called healthcare legislation, and 
that is to make a $473 billion cut to Medicare. So it is not only a 
trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid, it is also a $473 billion cut to 
Medicare.
  Interestingly enough, I think many Americans will recall that during 
his campaign for President, Donald Trump told the American people that 
he would not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He said that 
over and over again. On April 18, 2015--this is just one quote of 
many--Mr. Trump said:

       Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social 
     Security, they want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it 
     on Medicaid. And we can't do that. And it's not fair to the 
     people that have been paying in for years and now all of a 
     sudden they want to be cut.

  That is Donald Trump running for President.
  Well, I would say to President Trump: That is what you told the 
American people during your campaign, and now I hope you will tell your 
Republican friends right here in the Senate that they should respect 
the campaign promises you ran on and that if they pass a budget that 
cuts Medicare or Medicaid, you will veto that legislation.
  I hope the President has the integrity to do that. I don't think he 
will, but I hope he does that.
  Poll after poll tells us that the overwhelming majority of the 
American people do not want Congress to cut Medicare or Medicaid. In 
fact, I think in this country today, if you ask people what their 
deepest concerns are, they are concerned about jobs, and they are 
concerned about income. I think even more so they are concerned about 
the healthcare they have, how much it costs, and whether they are going 
to have it tomorrow.
  Poll after poll tells us that the American people do not want 
Congress to cut Medicare--which, by the way, is the most popular health 
insurance program in this country--and they don't want to see Medicaid 
cut either because they know, among other things, that about two-thirds 
of nursing home dollars come from Medicaid. So if you have a mom or a 
dad dealing with Alzheimer's or some other terrible illness in a 
nursing home and massive cuts to Medicaid are made, what is going to 
happen to your parent who is in a nursing home? People know that. They 
do not want to cut Medicare and Medicaid.
  A recent Pew Foundation poll finds that 85 percent of Republicans and 
94 percent of Democrats want to either maintain or increase funding for 
Medicare.
  Sixty percent of Americans oppose slashing Medicaid, according to a 
recent Quinnipiac poll.
  A recent Wall Street Journal and NBC poll finds that only 12 percent 
of the American people believe the wealthy should receive a tax cut, 
while 62 percent believe the wealthiest people in our country should 
pay more in taxes.
  You have the American people saying: Don't cut Medicare. Don't cut 
Medicaid. Don't give tax breaks to billionaires. In fact, ask them to 
pay more in taxes. That, by and large, is where the American people are 
coming from, whether Democrats, Republicans, or Independents.
  Then the question arises: Why is the Republican leadership bringing 
forward a budget that does the exact opposite of what the American 
people want? The answer to that question, I am sorry to say, is not 
complicated. It has everything to do with a corrupt campaign finance 
system that allows billionaires and the wealthiest people in this 
country to exert their influence over the political process. 
Increasingly, it is not the ordinary American middle-class worker the 
Congress listens to, but it is wealthy campaign contributors. Today, we 
have a corrupt campaign finance system that enables multibillionaires, 
along with some of the most powerful CEOs in America, to contribute 
many hundreds of millions of dollars to the political process.
  Many of us believe that the concept of democracy is one person, one 
vote. You get a vote, and I get a vote. Sometimes you win; sometimes 
you lose. The majority wins. That is what we teach the children in the 
fifth grade and sixth grade: One person, one vote, majority wins.
  Unfortunately, as a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme 
Court decision, the American campaign finance system has been totally 
corrupted. We now have a situation where billionaire families can spend 
unlimited sums of money to help elect candidates who protect their 
interests, and not only can they spend that money, that is exactly what 
they are doing.
  There was a very interesting article in the Boston Globe just the 
other day, October 14. This is what the article says. The headline is: 
``The Koch brothers (and their friends) want President Trump's tax cut. 
Very badly.''
  This is what the article says--but first, I should say a word about 
the Koch brothers. Not everyone knows who they are. The Koch brothers 
are the second wealthiest family in America. They are struggling to 
catch up to the Waltons. They are not quite there. They are worth only 
$90 billion. They are struggling, but they are getting by, I am happy 
to tell you. With that $90 billion, what they are doing, along with a 
few of their friends, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars every 
campaign cycle to elect people, in this case Republicans, who support 
their agenda. This is what the article says:

       The message from the billionaire-led Koch network of donors 
     to President Trump and the Republican Congress it helped to 
     shape couldn't be more clear: Pass a tax overhaul, or else.
       As the donors mixed and mingled for a policy summit at the 
     St. Regis hotel in midtown Manhattan last week, just a block 
     south from Trump Tower, it came up again. And again. And 
     again.
       ``It's the most significant federal effort we've ever taken 
     on,'' said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for 
     Prosperity, a Koch-aligned group with offices in 36 States. 
     ``The stakes for the Republicans, I've never seen them this 
     high.''
       Many in the Koch network, a vast group of libertarian-
     leaning nonprofits and advocacy and political organizations, 
     described the upcoming legislative push for a tax overhaul as 
     an inflection point in modern political history, a do-or-die 
     moment that would define whether their efforts over the years 
     will pay off or not. The network leaders plan to dedicate 
     much of their two-year $400 million politics and policy 
     budget to the effort--though they wouldn't give an exact 
     number.

  That is $400 million in the next two years to pass this piece of 
legislation.

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This comes from a family, the Koch brothers, who are pretty upfront 
about what they believe. They do not want to cut Social Security or 
Medicare and Medicaid. They will take that, but that is really not 
their goal. They want to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, 
and virtually every other Federal program that provides help to the 
working families of this country.
  By the way, just in passing, if the estate tax, which is part of the 
Republican budget, is repealed, we might want to mention that the Koch 
brothers' family would see a benefit of some $30 billion. If your 
family is going to get a $30 billion benefit, then putting a few 
hundred million dollars into seeing that legislation passed is not a 
difficult idea.
  This budget makes clear who the Republicans in Congress are listening 
to, and it is not the middle class or the working families who do not 
want to see Medicare cut or Medicaid cut and who certainly do not want 
to see a $1.9 trillion tax break for the top 1 percent. I am afraid 
that my Republican colleagues are listening to their top campaign 
contributors who have told the Republican Party, in no uncertain terms, 
that if they do not get their tax cuts, they will stop providing the 
Republicans with hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign 
contributions. How sad is that?
  Think about the incredibly brave Americans who have fought for 
democracy over the years. Some of them never return from the 
battlefields where they have fought for an American democracy that 
makes us a country where people rule. Abraham Lincoln reminded us that 
we are a ``government of the people, by the people, for the people,'' 
not a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the 
billionaires.
  Let's be clear about something else. The entire economic theory that 
Senate Republicans and President Trump have embraced with this budget 
is called trickle-down economics. That is what it is. You give tax 
breaks to billionaires and large corporations, and the benefits trickle 
down. They improve the economy. This whole theory is a fraud, and when 
applied, it has been an abysmal failure.
  Since Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush slashed taxes on the wealthy 
and deregulated Wall Street, trillions of dollars in wealth have been 
redistributed from the middle class and working families to a handful 
of millionaires and billionaires. Today, we have more wealth and income 
inequality than at any time since the 1920s. Today, the top one-tenth 
of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. This 
budget would make a bad situation even worse by widening that gap with 
its trillions in cuts to social programs and gifts to the top 1 
percent.
  The Republican budget we are debating today would make horrific cuts 
to the needs of working families. Let me give you a few examples. This 
budget would give the wealthiest family in America, the Walton family 
of Walmart, a tax cut of up to $52 billion. Does anyone in their right 
mind think that the wealthiest family in this country needs a tax break 
of up to $52 billion? They do that by repealing the estate tax.
  At the same time, however, if you are a low-income senior citizen--
and we have too many of them in the State of Vermont--trying to figure 
out how to keep warm in a cold winter, you and 700,000 other senior 
citizens and families might not be able to keep your home warm in the 
winter because of a cut of about $4 billion to the Low Income Home 
Energy Assistance Program.
  This budget says that if you are the second wealthiest family in 
America, the Koch brothers, your family will see a tax break of up to 
$33 billion. But if you are a working class kid right now in high 
school in Vermont or in Texas or in Wyoming and you are scratching your 
head as to how you can afford to go to college and, in your 
computations, you are looking at what a Pell grant might mean to you, 
this budget would cut over $100 billion in Pell grants and other 
financial assistance programs.
  This budget gives members of the Trump family a tax cut of up to $4 
billion. But if you are a low-income, pregnant woman, you and over a 
million other new moms, babies, and toddlers may not be able to get the 
nutrition you need, thanks to a $6.5 billion cut to the Women, Infants, 
and Children Program, the so-called WIC Program.
  At a time when millions of working-class families all across this 
country are paying 40 percent or 50 percent or more for the housing 
they need, this budget eliminates housing assistance for more than a 
million families due to a cut of about $37 billion to the Section 8 
rental assistance program and other housing programs.
  At a time when the cost of childcare has skyrocketed, which is a very 
serious problem in my State, the Republican budget eliminates Head 
Start services for 25,000 children each and every year by cutting this 
program by some $3 billion.
  In total, the Republican budget would cut more than $5 trillion from 
education, healthcare, affordable housing, childcare, transportation, 
and other programs that working people desperately need over the next 
decade.
  What is alarming is that despite this incredible giveaway for the 
billionaire class, the Koch brothers and their network say that it is 
not enough. They want more. Let us be very clear that their eventual 
goal--not today, not tomorrow, but their eventual goal is to see that 
programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are completely 
eliminated.
  Let me conclude by saying that this budget is not a budget for the 
people of Texas. It is not a budget for the people of Vermont or the 
people of Wyoming or the people of the United States of America. This 
is a budget for the billionaire class, which today is already doing 
phenomenally well. This is a budget for campaign contributors whose 
greed has no end, who provide millions of dollars to candidates who 
represent their interests.
  This is a budget that must be opposed by the American people. I urge 
the American people to tell their Members of the Senate to vote no on 
this budget.
  With that, I yield the floor.

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