[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 23348]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                IRAQ SECURITY AND STABILIZATION FUND ACT

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I have joined with Senators Biden, 
Kerry and Corzine to introduce legislation that will provide us with 
the necessary financial footing to appropriately execute our 
obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  In 1998, following nearly 30 years of deficits and a 17-fold increase 
in Federal debt from $365.8 billion to $6.4 trillion, bipartisan 
cooperation brought the budget back into balance once again. For the 
first time in more than a generation, some of the funds which would 
have gone to pay interest on the debt were instead spent actually 
paying down the debt.
  Now, deficits and interest costs are growing once again. Net interest 
payments on the Federal debt will increase sharply, from approximately 
$170 billion in 2003 to more than $300 billion by 2012.
  We face a host of new challenges, particularly the war on terror, the 
war in Iraq, and the threat of North Korea. This has necessarily led to 
a shift in government spending toward improving our defense and 
homeland security capabilities. Yet many of the challenges predating 
September 11 are still with us: improving education, updating 
infrastructure, and preparing for the retirement of the baby-boom 
generation, which will severely strain the Social Security and Medicare 
trust funds.
  The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the Federal deficit for 
fiscal year 2004 will top $500 billion. A portion of every dollar we 
spend from this day forward until the end of September 2004 will be 
borrowed money--money that our children and grandchildren will have to 
repay.
  It is no secret that if citizens wish to receive services or 
undertake activities as a Nation, they have the right to levy a tax 
upon themselves to achieve those ends. We have somehow lost this sense 
of obligation and have concluded that providing for our national 
defense or for the education of children requires no more than charging 
the costs to a government credit card. This must stop.
  We are spending our way into economic oblivion. The President has 
decided that the best way to reelection is to cut taxes and leave 
spending alone. He refuses to make the tough decisions. So, with my 
colleagues in the Senate, I will help him. If the President wishes to 
engage our troops in Iraq, a decision that I agreed with and continue 
to support, then he must agree to pay for it.
  By seeking a modest increase in the tax rate that affects those 
making more than $310,000 in taxable income we can pay for the 
President's most recent supplemental request. This bill generates 
precisely $87 billion--enough to cover a portion of the cost of the war 
in Iraq and an even smaller part of our obligation in Afghanistan.
  This bill is a first step toward putting our fiscal house in order. 
It would pay for the President's supplemental spending request and it 
does not revoke the 2001 reduction in the top income tax rate. Nor 
would it affect any other element of the 2001 tax package. It would 
merely temporarily raise the marginal income tax rate on the richest in 
our society. These individuals would continue to benefit from the other 
aspects of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, many of which predominantly 
accrued to them.
  Nearly a decade ago, thanks to the commitment of Senators from both 
parties and all ideological persuasions, we were able to put in motion 
a successful plan to balance the Federal budget, and laid the 
groundwork for an unprecedented period of economic growth and 
prosperity.
  I believe this bill moves us back to this path and represents our 
understanding that we have an obligation as a society to raise money 
from time to time to pay for those activities we deem important to our 
national well-being.

                          ____________________