[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 5955-5967]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today we are going to vote on last year's 
unfinished business. We are going to vote on a continuing resolution 
that will fund the government through this fiscal year, which ends on 
September 30. The proposal we have before us in order to fund the 
government through the end of the fiscal year certainly is not perfect. 
In fact, there are many--myself included--who would like to see it make 
deeper reductions in spending. That said, we will be voting on a 
proposal that will cut spending by around $40 billion this year, and 
when you look at baseline spending over the next decade actually saves 
over $300 billion over the 10-year period.
  What strikes me about that is that it will be the first time in a 
long time that we have done something about reducing spending. That is 
not something routinely or traditionally done here. In fact, we are 
going to reverse a trend that began a long time ago but accelerated a 
couple years ago when nonnational security discretionary spending 
increased by almost 25 percent in the last 2 years.

[[Page 5956]]

  This is an important first step. Granted, it is a first step, and in 
a minute, I am going to get to the bigger issue, but it is critical 
that we send a message and signal to the American people that we have 
heard their voices loudly and clearly and we get what they want us to 
do; that is, to get spending under control, shrink the size of the 
Federal Government, to get it to live within its means, and to quit 
spending money that we do not have in Washington. That is something 
that has been happening here for a long time. It has taken on a whole 
new dimension in the last couple of years.
  As we talk about the unfinished business of last year, trying to get 
a measure in place that will fund the government through the end of the 
year, that will reduce spending by about $40 billion, we are talking 
about the smaller part of overall spending when we look at the 
macroeconomic view or pull back to what some would say to the 30,000-
ft. view and look at spending over the next decade. In fact, we had 
someone testify in the Finance Committee yesterday, the former 
Comptroller General David Walker. He put it well when he said talking 
about funding in the continuing resolution is like arguing about the 
bar tab on the Titanic. We are on a sinking ship, and we need to do 
everything we can in the short term, getting maximum amount of spending 
reduction, but then we need to pivot and start talking about the next 
big battle, and that is the battle over the 2012 budget. Ironically, we 
are just now getting to the 112th Congress's business because we are 
wrapping up the business of the 111th Congress. The Democratic 
leadership here didn't pass a budget last year or a single 
appropriations bill. As a consequence, we are voting here now on a 
continuing resolution to do last year's business to get us through the 
end of this fiscal year before we can start the work of the 2012 
budget, which is where I think the big debate will begin about how we 
get this country back on a more reasonable fiscal path.
  We have seen a couple of developments here in the last 2 weeks or so 
that bear on that debate. One is last week, when we had the 
introduction by the House Republicans of a budget plan, a 10-year 
budget plan that was very aggressive in trying to take on the issue of 
spending and debt, very aggressive in trying to put progrowth policies 
in place that would help grow the economy and create jobs and that gets 
our economy back on track in this country. That was kind of the big 
discussion last week.
  The President, I believe, felt left out of that discussion, so 
yesterday he decided to make a speech in which he would lay out his 
vision for the next decade and how we address the big challenges this 
country needs to tackle. I would describe that speech as a do-over 
because the President's first trip to the plate was really his budget, 
which he submitted a couple of months ago. That budget was 
conspicuously bereft of any effort to address the really big challenges 
facing the country. It didn't talk about how we are going to reform 
entitlements, didn't address tax reform, and it actually increased 
spending--increased taxes and increased the debt dramatically over the 
next decade. It nearly doubled the gross debt from $13 trillion or $14 
trillion to over $26 trillion, and that is using I think pretty 
optimistic economic assumptions.
  That being said, because the President didn't address any of the big 
issues in his budget and because the House Republicans put a proposal 
forward last week which would, I think he felt as if he needed to get 
in the game. So yesterday he made a stridently partisan speech in which 
he tried to put forth a plan. I would argue that speech yesterday was 
very long on politics and very short on substance. There wasn't a lot 
in there to really sink your teeth into if you are someone who believes 
seriously that we need to make reforms in entitlement programs. There 
was the usual prescription for dealing with the deficit and the debt, 
which consisted of increasing taxes. There are tax increases in here, 
tax increases in the President's proposal on small businesses--the job 
creators in our economy.
  I would point out to my colleagues that half of all small business 
income is taxed at the individual level because many small businesses 
allow the income from that business to flow through to their individual 
tax return. In fact, the number of small businesses that would be 
impacted by his proposal employ about 35 million people in our economy. 
So you are talking about raising taxes on the job creators, on the 
people who really are employing people across this country, and that 
was a key element in the President's prescription for dealing with the 
fiscal crisis this country faces.
  Another element of the President's plan was relying on this proposal 
that was part of the health care reform bill to squeeze provider 
payments under Medicare to try to wring a little more out of Medicare. 
He relies on an independent payment advisory board which would be 
empowered to go ahead and make reductions, to make cuts in provider 
payments. What is interesting about that is the health care reform bill 
last year did make some significant cuts to providers, not to reform 
Medicare but to create the new health care entitlement program, which, 
when it is fully implemented, will cost $2.5 trillion. So that is what 
the President used--any savings that were achieved in Medicare last 
year. So when he talks about now using this independent payment 
advisory board to make further reductions in provider payments, it is 
relying on the same old tried-and-true formula. I say tried and true, 
but it is actually a tried-and-failed formula that has been in place 
before.
  There is no reform in this proposal. There is nothing new or 
innovative that says: Let's figure out a way to solve this Nation's 
fiscal problems, something that actually gets at the heart of the 
problem and doesn't use the same old failed prescriptions that have 
been used in the past.
  I frankly don't know what is going to happen. If you continue to cut 
payments to physicians and to hospitals, you will find fewer and fewer 
medical providers who are going to serve Medicare and Medicaid patients 
in this country. It is as simple as that. When you lose a little on 
each transaction, on each customer or each patient you serve, you have 
to cost shift and make up for it by shifting more of the cost over to 
private payers, which continues to drive health care costs for 
everybody who is not receiving their health care from some government 
program even higher and higher. So there wasn't anything in there that 
I would suggest really gets at this problem.
  Also conspicuously absent from that speech was anything to do with 
reforming Social Security. We all know Social Security is also a 
program which ran a deficit last year. It looks as if it will be in the 
black this year but next year it starts running deficits and runs them 
well into the future. We have to make that program solvent, not just 
for the senior citizens who are benefiting from it today, those who are 
nearing retirement age, but for the next generation. The President 
decided to punt on that subject as well.
  So, as I said, the speech yesterday was long on politics, short on 
substance, and short on a meaningful discussion about how we get at and 
address and fix these enormous fiscal challenges we face.
  The other thing the President does is he uses a 12-year timeframe. We 
normally operate here on a 10-year budget window. That is what the 
House and the Senate do. It is typically what the White House does when 
it submits a budget to Congress. So he stretched that out to 12 years, 
perhaps maybe to lessen the impact of some of the few reductions he 
does make in his budget, but nevertheless it is a very different 
schedule, in terms of the proposal he makes, relative to the one that 
came forth last week from the House Republicans.
  The reason this whole debate is important is because we continue to 
spend and spend as if there is no tomorrow, and it is money we just 
flat don't have. This year, we will take in $2.2 trillion, spend $3.7 
or $3.8 trillion, and we are going to run a $1.6 trillion deficit. I 
have said this before on the floor, but it is now 1:20 in the afternoon

[[Page 5957]]

today, and by tomorrow, Friday, at 1:20 in the afternoon, we will have 
added over $4 billion to the Federal debt. That is the rate at which 
the spending and debt problem is going today. We cannot continue on 
this path.
  Some people would argue--the President and some of our colleagues on 
the Democratic side--that the way you fix this is ``have a balanced 
approach'' that raises taxes, that there has to be a tax increase as a 
part of this. I don't think the American people ought to have their 
taxes raised until we demonstrate a willingness to get at the heart of 
the problem.
  The problem here in Washington is not a revenue problem, it is a 
spending problem. The numbers bear that out. If you look at the last 40 
years of American history, the average amount we spend on the Federal 
Government as a percentage of our total economy is 20.6 percent. A 
little over one-fifth of our entire economic output is spending by the 
Federal Government. This year we will spend over 25 percent of our 
total economy on the Federal Government. So we have seen the Federal 
Government, in relation to our total economy, grow by about 20 percent 
over the historical average just in the last couple of years. In the 
last 2 years of this administration, we have added almost $3.5 trillion 
to the Federal debt.
  As I said before, spending increased--non-national security, 
discretionary spending increased in the last 2 years by almost 25 
percent at a time when inflation in the overall economy was only 
growing at 2 percent. So you have the Federal Government spending at 
somewhere on the order of 10 times or more than 10 times the rate of 
inflation. You can't defend or justify that to the American people.
  The American people have a right to know we are serious about getting 
spending under control, as evidenced by the report of the Government 
Accountability Office a few weeks back where they looked at about one-
third of the overall government to determine where there was 
duplication and where there was wasteful spending. They came up with a 
number of conclusions in that report, one of which was that there are 
82 programs--82 programs--at the Federal Government that deal with 
teacher training spread across 20 agencies or so of the Federal 
Government.
  Can you believe this--56 programs that teach financial literacy. 
Imagine Washington, DC, lecturing or instructing anybody around this 
country about financial literacy, of all things, but there are 56 
programs spread across 10 different agencies or departments of 
government that deal with financial literacy. I mean, the American 
people have to be thinking, get serious.
  This is the kind of thing that outrages and frustrates the American 
people. That is why I think they want us to singularly focus on 
reducing spending and getting this debt under control not by raising 
their taxes in the middle of an economic downturn, particularly taxes 
on our small businesses that will create the jobs to get the economy 
back on track but by reducing spending. That is where this debate ought 
to be centered. Regrettably, as I said, the President, in his speech 
yesterday, immediately latched on to the idea that we need to raise 
taxes on our small businesses, on our job creators.
  Well, we are going to have the chance, after the vote today on the 
continuing resolution--assuming that it passes--and then wrapping up 
last year's unfinished business, to shift to this debate about the debt 
limit. The debt limit will be the next major issue coming along that 
will present an opportunity for both Republicans and Democrats to 
engage in a debate about how to solve this country's fiscal problems, 
starting with measures we put in place that put caps on spending.
  We have to get spending under control, and then we will have a debate 
about the 2012 budget. It is unclear to me at this point whether the 
Senate will do a budget at all. The House of Representatives clearly 
will. They passed it out of their Budget Committee, and they are going 
to vote on it today. They are going to put forward a plan that does 
reduce spending by over $6 trillion over the next 10 years, that brings 
reforms to our Tax Code, that lowers marginal income tax rates on our 
businesses and our individuals, and that hopefully will create economic 
growth and development out there and create jobs.
  It is a budget that changes the way we look at some of these 
traditional entitlement programs, insulating and protecting everybody 
who is over the age of 55. And that is the ironic thing about it, 
because our colleagues on the other side get up and immediately attack 
this proposal as cutting benefits to senior citizens. The House plan 
that was put forward does not impact anybody over the age of 55. So if 
you are retired today and drawing Medicare benefits or if you are 
nearing retirement age, under this particular proposal, you are 
unaffected. It would affect those younger than 55 who are beginning to 
look at the retirement years and wondering whether any of these 
programs are even going to be around for them. We can make those 
programs sustainable and viable for younger Americans who are willing 
to look at these things in a new way. The House budget does that.
  It makes reforms that put the patient back in charge, the consumer 
back in charge, that I think draws on the great impulses of tradition 
in this country--competition, choice, allowing people to have more 
opportunity and more flexibility to choose a plan that works for them.
  It seems, at least to me, that we have to get to a new model because 
the current model clearly doesn't work. It is an example of government 
spending that, if it perpetuates, has a $38 trillion unfunded liability 
in Medicare alone and has further unfunded liabilities in Social 
Security.
  We have a major problem in this country, and it needs to be 
addressed. It starts with the debate on the debt limit and then 
hopefully on the 2012 budget. I am glad to see the President finally 
having a proposal out there and engaging in this debate. Unfortunately, 
his vision is the wrong vision for the future of this country. But it 
is high time the American people saw us have this debate, take these 
issues on, and let's hope we can come together behind a proposal that 
will reduce spending, reduce debt, and put us more on a fiscal footing 
that is good for future generations and that gets this economy going 
and creates jobs.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, we are going to be voting sometime 
today. I am concerned about the tea party Republican assault on the 
health of American women because that is what we are going to be 
deciding. The focus on this has little to do with deficit reduction 
because better health automatically saves money. This assault is an 
attempt to change individual behavior to a standard that the tea party 
people see as proper for others exercising their own free will. It 
contains an element of unfathomable hypocrisy for those voting to kill 
Planned Parenthood.
  As Members of Congress, we all have immediate access to first-class 
health plans. We never have to think about health coverage for 
ourselves or our spouses or our children--it is all in the package. 
There is no decision to make between paying a medical bill or paying 
the rent; no decision to make between buying medicine and buying 
groceries; no decision to make between going into a hospital or going 
into bankruptcy. Yet the Republicans here are trying to take health 
care away from women, children, and families across America. They want 
to completely defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that has been 
serving women and families in America for more than 90 years.
  Today Planned Parenthood operates more than 800 centers that serve 3 
million women each and every year. For many women, Planned Parenthood 
is a critical source of medical care. To women who cannot afford 
coverage,

[[Page 5958]]

Planned Parenthood says don't worry, your health is more important.
  They do not just offer counseling on family planning, they also offer 
lifesaving breast exams and cervical cancer screenings. Look at this. 
Eighty centers nationwide serve 3 million patients each year, provide 
800,000 breast cancer screenings, provide 1 million cervical cancer 
screenings. That is so important. Cancer screenings save lives. Since 
the 1950s, cervical cancer screenings have cut mortality rates by more 
than 70 percent. Remember, treating cancer and other diseases early 
enough saves health care dollars in the long run.
  But this is not just about sound fiscal policy or better accounting. 
No. No. They want to tell women, millions of them, if you cannot afford 
it, tough luck. Tough luck. This is about the tea party Republicans 
remaking America in their own image. Their real goal is to impose their 
radical ideology on American women.
  They want to come into our homes, tell the women in our families how 
to live their lives. This issue is deeply personal to me. My wife and I 
have five daughters and eight granddaughters, and nothing is more 
important to me than their health, their well being, and their freedom 
to make choices that suit their needs.
  If we kill funding for Planned Parenthood, millions of women will 
lose access to essential care. Those tea party Republicans claim that 
will help close our deficit of dollars. But it will leave us with a 
deficit of decency. It is not just women's health the tea party 
Republicans are after, it is also health care for middle-class families 
across America.
  They want to stop the landmark health reform law dead in its tracks. 
This is the law that adds 32 million Americans on the rolls of the 
insured.
  So here is what I say to colleagues on the other side: If you do not 
want ordinary people to have affordable coverage, then show some 
sincerity and throw in the coverage you have. Be honest. Vote no, and 
tell your constituents why you are doing this, and say you mean it when 
you say no, and I am giving up my coverage to prove it. I am talking to 
Senators on the side of taking away the funding, and talking to Members 
of the House of Representatives to say no and mean no.
  The health reform law makes health care more affordable, more 
accessible, and more sustainable, and holds insurers more accountable. 
It makes medicine more affordable for seniors by closing the doughnut 
hole in the Medicare prescription drug benefit program.
  The new law also allows young adults to stay on their parents' health 
plans until age 26, and it gives small businesses tax credits to help 
them provide their employees with medical coverage. Without this law, 
insurers could once again restrict benefits, rescind coverage when 
people get sick, and refuse care to children with preexisting 
conditions. I do not think we want to return to the days when insurers 
could turn their back and turn away sick children.
  Life for me was upfront and personal when it came to my family's 
health care needs. I grew up in a working-class family in Patterson, 
NJ. My father worked in the local silk mills, and he died of cancer at 
age 43, leaving my mother a widow at age 37. Our family struggled in 
bankruptcy as my father's life ebbed away. My mother owed doctors, 
hospitals, pharmacies, money we did not have. After my service in 
Europe in the Army, because there was a government program, I was able 
to get my education through the GI bill. I joined two friends and built 
a company so successful that it is hard to imagine. It employs 45,000 
people today, operating in more than 20 countries. Three of us from 
poor families. For me the GI bill made the difference. It is government 
stepping in when it was needed, and has put 45,000 people across this 
world to work.
  That is what government is about. It is there to be helpful. This is 
not just an accounting office. It is not just a fiscal policy problem. 
Because of my success in business, I never had to worry again about 
whether I could provide health care for my family. I never forgot what 
it was like to be without health care.
  We need the health reform law, because no American should ever have 
to make sacrifices to afford health care. Americans are beginning to 
experience the benefits of this law. Why now would we want to put the 
progress on hold?
  I agree, we have serious economic problems in our country. But we are 
not going to solve them by taking health care away from American women 
and families. Do not take away this critical assistance for people who 
cannot afford the care they need. If we have fiscal problems, if we 
have debt and deficit problems, there are ways to solve them. But one 
way is not to take health care away from people who need it. It is an 
injustice, and we should not permit it.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time until 4 p.m. be 
equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, with the 
other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  (The remarks of Mr. Shelby pertaining to the introduction of S. 820 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized 
for the next 15 minutes so Senator Vitter and I can introduce a very 
important piece of legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (The remarks of Ms. Landrieu and Mr. Vitter pertaining to the 
introduction of S. 861 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements 
on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I see other colleagues on the floor, and I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, shortly, we hopefully will be voting on 
a budget agreement for this fiscal year, and that will start the 
process of the debate on the next fiscal year. What we are about to do 
is more than pass a budget agreement; we are about to define a vision 
of America. We are about to make choices now and in the coming weeks 
that will reflect our values and our principles as a people and as a 
nation.
  The real question before us, in my mind, is not simply about the 
numbers, it is about competing visions of America, whether we choose a 
vision of America where the air and water are clean, where food and 
prescription drugs are safe, where roads and bridges and transportation 
systems are modern, well maintained, and fuel prosperity for the 
future, an America that puts a premium on education and invests in jobs 
and the middle-class, an America where a mother who wakes up in the 
middle of the night with a sick child doesn't have to wonder if she can 
afford to take that child to the doctor or if her insurance will cover 
the costs, an America in which seniors have a reliable Medicare system 
they can count on, not just a voucher that doesn't even cover the cost 
of a plan in the private marketplace. That is an ugly vision of America 
we have seen before, and it is why we passed Medicare in the first 
place.
  Let's be clear. This is not about the numbers. This is not just 
simply about the details of deficit reduction. This is about two 
competing views of this Nation, one in which we embrace the concept of 
community, each of us working together for the betterment of all of 
us--all of us sharing in the burden of balancing the budget and 
reducing the deficit.
  The other is a tea party vision, in which no government is good 
government and the notion of an American community is a myth, and we 
are simply a nation of competing individuals, each of us working for 
what we can get on our own. Tea partiers see an America in which the 
burden of balancing the budget should be borne by senior citizens, 
students, and middle-class

[[Page 5959]]

families, while protecting subsidies to big oil companies and giving 
even more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.
  We see an America of shared prosperity and shared responsibility that 
reduces the deficit and balances the budget, knowing that millionaires 
and billionaires can be just as patriotic and willing to pay their fair 
share as a soldier in Afghanistan whose family is living on an Army 
paycheck.
  Our friends on the other side tell us tax cuts for millionaires and 
billionaires create jobs and benefit middle-class families. They told 
us, when we passed the Bush tax cuts a little over a decade ago, it 
would create millions of jobs for every American, and what happened? 
Jobs were eliminated or sent overseas, and the wage gap increased. This 
tax policy may benefit some, but it doesn't create jobs and it doesn't 
reduce our deficit.
  For some reason, we seem to think the wealthiest Americans are 
clamoring for more tax cuts, but I find no basis in fact for that. I 
have spoken to many CEOs and leading corporate executives in my State 
and around the country, and never have I heard a word about how badly 
they need another tax cut. I believe the wealthiest Americans are as 
patriotic as any one of us and are willing to step up to the plate and 
pay their fair share if we simply ask them to support a rational tax 
reform program that emphasizes shared fiscal responsibility and shared 
prosperity.
  In my view, tax cuts for millionaires are nothing more than a 
political sleight of hand, a smoke-and-mirrors vision of America, in 
which there is no shared responsibility, no sense of community but a 
misguided belief that only if the rich had more money, the elderly, the 
sick, the poor, the middle-class families struggling to make ends meet, 
the disabled child on Medicaid who needs round-the-clock care, we would 
somehow be better off.
  We have been there before, and it hasn't worked. It is a smoke-and-
mirror vision of America to believe that if there were no environmental 
protections, that polluters would protect our air and keep the water 
clean and safe because it is the right thing to do. Again, we have seen 
that vision of America, and it came in a poisonous cloud of smog that 
lingered over America's cities, which is why Richard Nixon, a 
Republican President, created the Environmental Protection Agency in 
the first place.
  If we are serious about reducing the deficit, we at least should be 
looking, for example, at subsidies for big oil. The top five oil 
companies earned nearly $1 trillion--$1 trillion--over the last decade. 
Passing my bill to repeal oil subsidies would save taxpayers $33 
billion over the next 10 years. We can safely assume oil profits will 
be much greater in the decade to come with higher oil prices, but let's 
assume that the top five oil companies only get another $1 trillion in 
profits over the next decade. Taking back $33 billion in government 
handouts would only shave about 3 percent of those profits. Let's not 
forget that much of these profits are in Federal waters and on Federal 
lands, so they are making these profits on America's own soil.
  If we were serious about reducing the deficit, we would also be 
seriously looking, for example, at big oil subsidies and tax breaks. 
According to the data, the cost of exploration, development, and 
production of natural oil and gas in the United States averaged about 
$33.76 per barrel of oil. Oil is trading at $107 a barrel. That means 
big oil companies are enjoying a profit of over $750 per barrel of oil 
they extract. Why in the world would they ever need subsidies from the 
U.S. taxpayer in such conditions?
  No, handing out money and reducing regulatory burdens on big oil 
companies and on the wealthiest Americans is not about balancing the 
budget or reducing the deficit; it is about a vision of America that 
favors the rich and would rather dismantle Medicare, cut Social 
Security, cut Medicaid for seniors, and the poorest among us in nursing 
homes who have no other place to go, rather than to solve our long-term 
deficit problems.
  I am deeply disturbed at what is being proposed as we move forward in 
the next debate of the next fiscal year and the so-called push for 
balancing the budget by shifting $4 trillion from the promise of 
America to protect this Nation and to create prosperity for its people, 
to the wealthiest Americans in a tax cut that actually does absolutely 
nothing to solve the deficit problem. I am disturbed when I see those 
on the other side lining up to resist any compromise, any effort for a 
reasonable chance at a workable solution.
  Before the President was even done speaking yesterday, the tea party 
and many Republicans had already made up their minds that there was 
nothing to talk about, no room for compromise; that there is no other 
view than their own.
  When I first arrived in the other body, we may have had very clear 
and fundamental differences, but we understood we were there to govern. 
Now our Republican colleagues seem to have stopped governing in order 
to score political points and hope they can win an election. The 
extreme wing of the Republican Party is driving the legislative process 
and the Republican Party to the darkest reaches of the political 
spectrum, fundamentally threatening the very notion of democracy. They 
want what they want, and they want it all. They will accept nothing 
less than everything. But let's not forget it was Republican policies 
that got us here in the first place.
  It wasn't long ago, not long after the last Republican government 
shutdown during another Democratic administration, when we had budget 
surpluses--surpluses--as far as the eye could see. The day Bill Clinton 
left office, he handed President Bush a $236 billion surplus, with a 
projected surplus of $5.6 trillion over the next 10 years. When the 
Bush administration left office and President Obama was sworn in after 
8 years of Republican economic policies that they are espousing, again, 
including tax cuts to the wealthiest, two wars waged unpaid for, 
turning a blind eye to the excesses of Wall Street--the new President 
faced an economy that was at the abyss of a new depression. The 
Republicans had turned a $236 billion budget surplus into a $1.3 
trillion budget deficit and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion over 
the next decade.
  Now they want to give more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, 
losing $700 billion on the revenue side over the next 10 years by 
extending the Bush tax cuts and trillions more by slashing tax rates 
for corporations and millionaires without offsetting tax expenditures. 
Those making more than $1 million a year would see tax cuts of $125,000 
each from the tax cuts and tens of thousands of dollars more from the 
proposed tax cuts, while people in my State would lose $34 billion in 
health benefits and 400,000 New Jerseyans end up without health 
coverage at all. They want to shift the balance to millionaires and 
billionaires while making Draconian cuts to make up for the deficits 
they create--cuts that do not reflect our values as a people and as a 
nation.
  So let me conclude by saying we all agree we must do more to rein in 
spending and get back to the kind of surpluses Democrats created in the 
1990s, but we can only get there through a reasonable framework that 
emphasizes shared prosperity and shared fiscal responsibility to 
achieve our common goal. The way we get there is through negotiation 
and compromise, not from smoke and mirrors, not through trickle-down 
theories that have not worked, and strictly adhering to an ideological 
political agenda that fundamentally starts the clock all over again on 
the battles for basic American protections that were fought and won in 
the last century.
  Let's not go back. Let's protect American values and keep America 
moving forward and working. As I have said, you show me your budget and 
I will show you your values.
  The Republican vision of this Nation, as defined in H.R. 1, does not 
represent this Senator's values. It is not the fulfillment of the 
American promise, idea and ideal, and I do not believe it is who we are 
as a people and what we want our Nation to represent.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.

[[Page 5960]]


  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, it is amazing to me to be lectured to and 
hear about how awful the tea party is from folks who have never been to 
a tea party to hear what the tea party represents. Come on down. Bring 
your Huey Long rhetoric that there will be a chicken in every pot and a 
windmill in every backyard. Bring it down to the tea party and let's 
have a discussion. Bring it out to the public.
  We hear from those who want to lecture the tea party about cutting 
spending. Who among these folks has voted against an appropriations 
bill? We haven't even seen one this year. We didn't see a budget. We 
are spending $2 trillion that we don't have, and they are here blaming 
it on the tea party.
  Who is in charge here? It is not the tea party. Blame it on us. Give 
us an appropriations bill. Give us a budget. Do something constructive 
to fix the fiscal problems we have up here.
  They say compromise is the ideal. They tell the tea party: You need 
to compromise. But do you know what the compromise is? They want to 
raise taxes. The debt commission wants to raise taxes. The President 
wants to raise taxes. That is what they are talking about.
  Yesterday, the President said he is going to cut $4 trillion. Well, 
try to read what is going on here. He said he was going to spend $46 
trillion a month ago in his budget. Before we even discuss his budget, 
he is going to cut $4 trillion off the $46 trillion he is going to 
spend. These are no cuts. We will spend more this year than we spent 
last year. Forget about all the numbers, all the baselines, and forget 
about 6, 60, 30, 78, or 0, which is what the CBO scored this 
yesterday--zero in cuts. Forget about it and ask your Representatives: 
Are we going to spend more this year than last? If we are, that is not 
a cut. Ask your Representatives, ask your Senators: Will the deficit be 
more this year than last year?
  The deficit will be bigger this year. We threaten to shut down 
government over nothing because we are not cutting spending in any 
serious way. They want to blame it on the tea party because in their 
secret caucus meetings they have done a poll that says the tea party 
could be the villain. Call them ``extreme,'' call them all ``tea 
partiers,'' say the tea party has ``taken over'' the Republican Party.
  Do you know what the tea party believes in? Good government. We 
believe in balancing the budget, in reducing spending. We have plans to 
fix Social Security. We introduced a plan yesterday. If the other side 
is serious about fixing entitlements, we have a plan. Come to us and 
work with us, but don't just come down here and call us names.
  Before you send any more money to Washington, ask your 
representatives whether they are spending your money wisely. Mr. 
President, $100 billion in the budget last year is unaccounted for. We 
don't know where it was spent or we think it was improperly spent--$100 
billion. In our senatorial offices we get several million dollars. Some 
of us want to be frugal with that and send some back to the Treasury. 
We plan on sending several hundred thousand dollars back. We want to 
know where the money goes. We are still not certain. We have been 
asking for months.
  Some people say that money is kept in some fund for 3 years and may 
go back. Other people told us that the leadership spends that money. We 
don't have a definitive answer for even trying to save a couple hundred 
thousand dollars of your money that we have control of.
  The Pentagon spends a lot of money. Are they spending the money 
wisely? You don't know because we cannot audit them. Why? Because the 
Pentagon tells us that they are too big to audit. You heard about the 
companies saying they are too big to fail. The government now tells you 
they are too big to be audited. We got a partial audit of the Federal 
Reserve, and we got some information from that.
  We are now fighting the war against Qadhafi. Last month, we were 
giving him money. We gave him some foreign aid, and we helped to bail 
out his national bank. The national banks in those countries are the 
leaders' piggy bank. Half of it is probably spirited off to secret 
accounts in Switzerland. The U.S. taxpayer bailed out Qadhafi's bank, 
and now we are bombing it.
  The budget bill that we are talking about has now been scored by the 
CBO and will cut almost nothing--maybe a couple hundred million 
dollars. It will increase defense spending by $8 billion and cut 
spending by $8 billion. The net is about zero. Our deficit this year 
will be bigger than last year. Our overall spending will be bigger this 
year than last year.
  We are not yet serious in Washington. We have not yet recognized the 
severity, the enormity, and the significance of how big this deficit 
is. This deficit is going to have serious repercussions. The Chinese 
have bought over $1 trillion of our debt, and the Japanese, nearly a 
trillion.
  The Japanese have suffered an enormous national disaster. The 
question is, Will they continue to buy our debt or can they?
  The other question is, How long can a government continue to exist 
that spends more than it brings in? On the other side, they want to 
blame the tea party or the Republicans or the rich people. Do you know 
what. Both parties are responsible--Republicans, Democrats, Senators, 
Congressmen, the President--everybody up here is responsible. It is not 
one party or the other.
  When Republicans were in charge, they ran up the deficit. Now the 
Democrats are in charge, and the main difference is that they are doing 
it faster. The Republicans weren't doing a good job either during our 
time in power.
  We have to understand that the people can do things; not everything 
has to be done up here. The States can do things. We have to believe 
once again in the American dream. Believing in the American dream is 
not standing on the floor and castigating rich people. What is great 
about our country is that any among us--any of our kids--can become 
rich people if they work hard, go to school, and achieve. We live in a 
mobile society, and that is what the American dream is about. We got 
away from Europe because all the land was owned and stifled by the 
nobility. We came here where there was plenty of land and opportunity, 
and the American dream is believing in that.
  The interesting thing is, when they try to soak the rich--this old 
Huey Long stuff--it is actually failing with the American people 
because many of us believe that our kids could gain great wealth or 
great success. We still believe in the American dream. If they want to 
castigate that and say forget about it and say what we need is just 
more government, they need to explain to people why they don't believe 
in capitalism, in the American dream, and why they don't believe in the 
greatness of America.
  I still believe in America. I want to get government out of the way. 
I think we cannot have an America that succeeds until we are able to do 
something about our debt crisis. I fear that no one up here--or very 
few here--on either side recognizes the severity and imminence of this 
problem. My hope is that before a crisis occurs in our country we will 
begin to seriously discuss balancing our budget and have plans to do so 
and seriously cut spending.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I understand there are other colleagues 
on the Senate floor. I want to speak for a few minutes as chair of the 
Homeland Security Appropriations Committee and express my views about 
the vote we are going to cast in a few hours relative to that 
committee.
  To Senator Paul, I say respectfully--and it is going to be a lively 
debate--that to a hungry family, a chicken in the pot looks pretty good 
every now and then, and there are literally millions of children, 
sadly, in this country today who go home from school and open the 
refrigerator or look on the stove, and they can't find a drumstick 
anywhere. That is what this debate is about.
  No. 2, I used to love to hear President Clinton say that one of our 
jobs here was to create more millionaires. I belong to the DLC, and I 
am proud of it--the Democratic Leadership Council. We believe in 
creating opportunity that

[[Page 5961]]

comes along with responsibility and creating paths forward to 
prosperity.
  Most people I represent--including tea party people--don't believe 
companies such as GE--one of the biggest companies in the world--should 
get away with paying no taxes. I guess the Senator from Kentucky thinks 
that is a good idea. We don't.
  I also think most people I represent--including the tea party--think 
people who make over $1 million a year--not millionaires or people who 
make $250,000 a year, but people who make over $1 million a year--could 
pay a little more so that we could afford either early childhood 
education or early health care in an effective and efficient way 
because people know--tea party people and others--what a smart 
investment that is. This is going to be a very interesting debate. I 
look forward to it.
  I rise as chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations 
Subcommittee to discuss the full-year continuing resolution that the 
Senate will take up today. For weeks, the press swirled about a 
possible government shutdown. Almost all of the attention was on who 
would be blamed if the government shut down. That has been averted for 
the time being.
  However, far too little attention has been focused on the 
consequences of the funding cuts that were proposed by the House. With 
some officials in Washington slashing budgets, terrorists continue to 
seek ways to do harm to this Nation. Terrorists do not care about 
``spending top lines'' and ``CHIMPS.'' What the terrorists care about 
is finding our vulnerabilities and exploiting them to do harm to 
Americans, to target our military, and to damage our economy.
  In the State of the Union earlier this year, the President stated 
that al-Qaida and its affiliates continue to plan attacks against us. 
He is stating the truth. He stressed that extremists are trying to 
inspire acts of violence by those already within our borders. According 
to the Attorney General, in the last 2 years, 126 individuals have been 
indicted for terrorist-related activities, including 50 United States 
citizens. Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano has said that the 
threat of a terrorist attack is as high as it has been since 9/11.
  Recent events have served to highlight the complicated dynamics of 
this situation. The Fort Hood shooting happened, at the hands of a U.S. 
citizen. The New York City subway bombing attempt happened, at the 
hands of a legal resident alien. The Times Square bombing attempt 
happened, precipitated by a naturalized citizen. But we also continue 
to face threats from abroad. The 2009 Christmas day bombing attempt and 
the October 2010 air cargo bombing attempt happened. We face 
increasingly sophisticated daily cyber attacks from countries and 
hackers that desire to do us harm. Violence in Mexico is at 
unprecedented levels and there are concerns that the violence will 
spread across the border.
  In addition to these threats, the Department of Homeland Security 
also must prepare for and respond to natural disasters. The earthquake 
and tsunami in Japan and our memories of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita 
remind us of our need to be prepared for a catastrophic disaster.
  The Homeland Security title of the full-year continuing resolution 
contains a 2-percent cut in funding. I am particularly concerned about 
the treatment of funding for FEMA disaster recovery efforts. We are 
currently facing a shortfall of at least $1.2 billion this year and $3 
billion next year in the disaster relief fund. These shortfalls are the 
result of past catastrophic disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, 
Gustav, and Ike, the Midwest floods of 2008, and the Tennessee floods 
of 2010. At the insistence of the House, an additional $1 billion was 
provided on a non-emergency basis to meet the fiscal year 2011 
shortfall. As a result of having to absorb the additional $1 billion 
within the DHS base budget, we were forced to cut necessary investments 
in our security, cuts of over 4 percent.
  It makes no sense to cut programs that prepare, prevent, and help us 
respond to future disasters to pay the costs of past catastrophic 
disasters. Yet when you compare the full-year continuing resolution to 
the Omnibus bill that we tried to bring to the floor in December, we 
lost funding for 175 canine teams for explosives detection. Despite the 
increasing threat of homegrown terrorism, we lost $810 million to equip 
and train first responders. We lost funding for 1,300 handheld 
radiation detectors and funding for five Coast Guard boats and for 140 
foot icebreakers. We lost funding for urban search and rescue teams and 
funds to deploy the latest technology for blocking cyber attacks on 
sensitive Federal computer systems.
  In the past, on a bipartisan basis, we have funded the costs of 
catastrophic disasters as an emergency. In fact, $110 billion out of 
$128 billion appropriated for the FEMA disaster relief fund has been 
appropriated as an emergency. We simply cannot responsibly secure the 
homeland and prepare for future disasters if we are forced to absorb 
the costs of past catastrophic disasters.
  Mr. President, I am pleased to say that we were successful in 
negotiations with the House in eliminating some of the most harmful 
cuts contained in H.R. 1. The bill no longer contains what I considered 
irresponsible cuts for the Coast Guard, for Customs and Border 
Protection, for immigration enforcement efforts, for the Transportation 
Security Administration, and for cyber security. But, the bill that 
will be put before the Senate today does not provide resources that are 
commensurate with the threat that we face. I believe this view is 
shared by a large majority of independent observers. I will vote for 
this bill but urge caution as we proceed to fiscal year 2012.
  I remind my colleagues that it is essential that we make decisions on 
how to secure the homeland with the latest information on the threats 
that we face, not based on arbitrary spending top lines that were 
produced during the campaign. As we look ahead to drafting the Homeland 
Security appropriations bill for the fiscal year that begins in 
October, it is time to get off the campaign trail and work together on 
a path forward for a more secure homeland.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, we have a vote today on a measure to 
continue spending for the Federal Government for the next couple 
months. It amounts to nearly $40 billion in cuts. That is a good start. 
I think most Americans would agree with that. But it is only a start. 
We should now work together across party lines to bring down our long-
term debt in a responsible way that protects middle-income families 
and, of course, as well the most vulnerable in society.
  We do have substantial cuts in this bill today. In fact, there are 
record cuts for what we know as discretionary funding.
  At the same time, though, we have to get down to the more difficult 
business of reducing deficit and debt and that work is ahead of us. As 
we do that, we have to make sure we are protecting middle-income 
families and those who are vulnerable.
  This is a good start, but we should remember what families are going 
through right now, families all across the country, where one member of 
that family--sometimes more--has lost their job. In Pennsylvania, for 
example, we have over 500,000 people out of work. Fortunately, that 
number has come down since last summer. Last summer, it was approaching 
600,000; now it is about 511,000. But we need to bring that number 
down.
  As families are making decisions, they have to make some difficult 
choices, especially those who lost a job, a home or sometimes both but 
even families who are not living through the horrific crisis of 
unemployment and joblessness, even families where one or two members of 
that family are working. Those families, as well, have to make 
difficult choices. That is the way we should approach this, as a family 
or at least to do our best to imitate what families have to do every 
day of the week and to make those difficult choices.
  We are facing a deficit and debt set of facts and a challenge we have 
never

[[Page 5962]]

faced in the Nation's history, and we have to be responsive to that. I 
spent a decade in State government in Pennsylvania as the auditor 
general of the State and, in the last 2 years in that decade, as 
treasurer. I know a lot about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, how to 
identify it, how to cut it out, and how to make change. That is why I 
was so heartened by what I saw in a GAO report last month.
  On March 1, the GAO released a report entitled ``Opportunities to 
Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, 
and Enhance Revenue.'' It should serve as one measure, but it should 
serve as a how-to guide to reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in 
government. It is all there.
  Here are some of the highlights. The report identified numerous areas 
of the Federal budget where unnecessary duplication, overlap or 
fragmentation exist. By some estimates, addressing these redundancies 
could save more than $100 billion and potentially as much as $200 
billion. It is not going to reduce the deficit by as much as we need to 
reduce it, but that, as well, is a very good start, a good place to 
look. We need to take a hard look at reports such as that and take 
action.
  I voted to support an amendment last week that would require the 
Office of Management and Budget to immediately cut at least $5 billion 
in wasteful and duplicative spending in government programs. I was 
happy to see that pass the Senate. This is another step, a first step, 
and a good start, in addition to what we are doing today by cutting 
almost $40 billion. But we have to cut spending in a way that is smart. 
We have to cut spending in a way that is smart enough to realize that 
those decisions have to contribute to economic growth to keep the 
economy in a State such as Pennsylvania and a country such as America 
growing. We have to continue to grow as we cut, and we have to continue 
to create jobs as we cut. We cannot do one and not the other.
  The Federal budget should also reflect not just our national 
priorities but our values as well. This holds true in the budget we are 
about to debate, the 2012 budget. Unfortunately, what Republican 
Members in the House have proposed for the upcoming fiscal year puts 
the entire burden of reducing the deficit on older citizens, students, 
and middle-income families. That does not sound like a family to me. 
That does not sound like working together, coming together on a plan, 
everyone trying to sacrifice, everyone trying to pitch in. It sounds as 
if we are placing the burden on members of the family who should not 
bear the whole burden.
  The Republican plan would end Medicare as we know it. It is as simple 
as that. It would end Medicare as we know it. In Pennsylvania, that 
means 2.2 million people who are Medicare beneficiaries would be 
directly and adversely impacted. These are not just numbers and 
statistics. It happens to be 2.2 million people. But who are they? They 
are people who fought our wars. They are people who worked in our 
factories. They are people who built this economy over many 
generations. They are people who took care of our children, taught our 
children, cared for our children. These are people who gave all of us 
life and love, and we are going to come in with a Medicare scheme to 
just put the burden on them and say we have done deficit reduction? I 
do not think that is what a family does, and I do not think that is 
what America has done or will ever do.
  We worked hard to reduce out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries under 
the affordable care act. The Republican House plan will double--
double--out-of-pocket expenses, according to the Congressional Budget 
Office. The Republican plan does nothing to reduce health costs or 
reform the health care delivery system. It does nothing at all to do 
that. What it does is shift costs to older citizens and people with 
disabilities.
  The GOP plan in the House targets health care spending. Here is what 
it does: It cuts over $770 billion out of Medicaid by converting it to 
a block grant program. What does that mean? It means that those who are 
supposed to be able to rely on the good services provided in Medicaid 
have to shoulder the burden. Medicaid provides health care to the most 
vulnerable people in our society. Older citizens living in nursing 
homes, in many instances, millions of them rely on Medicaid, not always 
just Medicare. Children, tens of millions--I think the number right now 
is about 27 million to be exact--27 million people rely on Medicaid and 
people with disabilities.
  As we look to reform our budget and to reduce the deficit and debt as 
we must, we should not take steps that will harm children by some of 
the proposals we see for Medicaid.
  About one-third of rural children in America are beneficiaries of 
Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. We should remember 
that when we are thinking about what Medicaid is.
  By every measure, Medicaid is both cost-effective and an essential 
lifeline for our children. Many people know about the early periodic 
screening, diagnosis, and treatment provisions within Medicaid. It is 
the gold standard for how poor children get their health care.
  Thank goodness, we have had that in place all these decades. But we 
have people now who want to eliminate that basic gold standard in 
health care.
  We have a long way to go. We have a lot of work to do. We have much 
work to do on the deficit and debt, and we have to get to that. We 
still have to reduce spending. We did reduce it by a record amount in 
the bill we are voting on today. But as we do this, just as families 
have to come together and share burdens and cut costs, we have to 
remember our approach should be similar to any American family. 
Unfortunately, there are some people around here who do not seem to 
understand that, that we need to approach this as a family approaches 
it and not place all the burden on the vulnerable--on children, older 
citizens, and those who sometimes do not have a voice in Washington.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, in a few minutes, we are going to be voting 
on the continuing resolution which our House colleagues are voting on 
literally as we speak. I wish to address that briefly, but I must 
comment on one of the things my colleague from Pennsylvania said.
  He is critical of the Ryan budget but does not appear to have read 
the Ryan budget because I know he would not deliberately 
mischaracterize it. He is wrong in several respects, and I will cite 
one example. He said the Ryan budget will end Medicare as we know it 
and that millions of seniors will be directly affected. That is simply 
not true, unless we count someone as a senior who is 53 or 54 years 
old. The Ryan budget does not affect anyone above the age of 54 with 
respect to Medicare. It says, if you have Medicare and you are 55 or 
older, nothing changes for you. All we do is provide premium support 
for those age 54 and below.
  It is simply incorrect to say millions of seniors would be directly 
affected by the Ryan budget with respect to their Medicare coverage.
  Let me go back to the point of our discussion right now. As I said, 
we will be voting very soon on the continuing resolution. This is the 
final continuing resolution, we can finally say, for the fiscal year 
2011, that funds the government for the rest of this fiscal year. It 
does mark the end of a long and hard-fought process. I am pleased we 
have been able to cut billions of dollars from the Federal Government 
and avoid a government shutdown.
  It is true $38 billion in spending cuts represents a tiny fraction of 
the Federal budget, and it is less than many of us would have liked. 
But those who have been critical of the deal, saying it does not go far 
enough, should keep three points in mind.
  First of all, our fiscal problems were not created in a day and will 
not be solved in one budget. It is a good start. It is like the weight 
I put on. It took me a long time to add the 10 or 12 extra pounds, and 
I am not going to get them off overnight. It will take me time to get 
them off.

[[Page 5963]]

  The budget agreement begins a process that is critical to beginning 
the reduction of our deficit. The agreement will enact the largest 
nondefense spending cut in dollar terms in American history, just 
months after President Obama asked Congress for a spending freeze that 
would have provided no cuts whatsoever.
  The Wall Street Journal points out:

       Domestic discretionary spending grew by 6 percent in 2008, 
     11 percent in 2009, and 14 percent in 2010, but this year 
     will fall by 4 percent. That's no small reversal.

  I believe they are correct.
  Second, no one got everything they wanted. Some wanted more in cuts, 
some wanted less. I would have preferred we cut more, but this was the 
best deal we could get that could pass both Chambers of Congress and 
signed by the President.
  Third, this debate has altered the conversation about spending, and 
that is a good thing. As columnist William McGurn wrote Wednesday, 
during the budget negotiations, Speaker Boehner helped change the 
national debate over spending ``from `stimulus' and `investment' to 
`how much spending we need to cut'--which is why [the President] 
press[ed] the reset button'' in his speech this week on spending and 
debt. I think Mr. McGurn is correct. We have changed the fight from how 
much money we are going to spend on stimulus to how much we are going 
to cut from this and future budgets.
  Once the final 2011 budget passes, and we move on to the much larger 
discussion about the 2012 budget, we will be talking not about saving 
billions but about saving trillions of dollars. The problem, as we all 
know, is a $14 trillion debt, with a large amount of that owned by 
China and by other foreign countries. It also represents over $53 
trillion in unfunded liabilities.
  In May, our Nation is expected to hit its debt ceiling, and the 
President has asked us to increase that ceiling. Senate Republicans and 
House Republicans--and I believe many Democrats as well--have said that 
in order to raise the debt ceiling, we need to do something significant 
about the debt and about constraining future spending. The longer we 
wait, the worse the problems will get. They are exacerbated over time. 
And we are not going to raise the debt ceiling without ensuring we 
don't have to keep on doing it in the future.
  Raising taxes, as the President proposed, will not be helpful in this 
process. It is disappointing the only specific proposal the President 
laid out in his speech yesterday was, in fact, this call for higher 
taxes. Speaker Boehner has said raising taxes is a nonstarter, and I 
imagine the vast majority of Senate Republicans will take that position 
as well. Most Americans do not believe that we are undertaxed but that 
Washington has a spending problem.
  I will briefly go over a few of the better ideas our conference has 
been discussing, which I think could attract support from both sides of 
the aisle.
  First is a balanced budget amendment, which all Senate Republicans 
have cosponsored. This should not serve as a means to raise taxes but 
as a mechanism to ensure the Federal Government has to live within its 
means each year, just as most American families do.
  Second, I believe there is strong support in the Republican caucus 
for a constitutional spending limitation at 18 percent of the gross 
domestic product. Why 18 percent? Because that is roughly equal to the 
revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product over the last 40 
years. An 18-percent spending limit would stop Washington from spending 
more than it takes in each year.
  And third--and I am glad to see the Senator from Missouri in the 
Chair while I pass on this compliment--Senators Corker and McCaskill 
have sponsored the Commitment to American Prosperity Act, known as the 
CAP Act. I strongly support their legislation. It would cap both 
mandatory and discretionary spending and put all government spending on 
the table.
  Beginning in 2013, the CAP Act would establish Federal spending 
limits that would, over 10 years, reduce spending to 20.6 percent of 
the gross domestic products. That is the average of the last 40 years. 
To reduce any gamesmanship, the bill codifies the definition for 
emergency spending.
  I know some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle wish to see 
even more dramatic reductions as a part of the CAP Act. I will note the 
Corker-McCaskill proposal is responsible and mainstream and it could, 
hopefully, attract a good deal of support from both sides of the aisle.
  Over in the House of Representatives, there are also some good ideas. 
Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has been a leader on fiscal issues, 
and that Chamber will soon consider his budget plan for the next fiscal 
year. Chairman Ryan believes this blueprint could reverse Washington's 
trend of spending beyond its means and passing the debt on to our 
children and grandchildren, and I believe he is on target. His budget 
reflects the kind of difficult and politically unpopular choices 
lawmakers will need to make in order to do something about our 
unsustainable spending and debt.
  Perhaps that is why Democrat Erskine Bowles, head of the President's 
deficit commission, praised the Ryan budget as ``a serious, honest and 
straightforward approach.'' Notably, Mr. Bowles and his cochairman Alan 
Simpson said the President's budget ``doesn't go nearly far enough in 
addressing the Nation's fiscal challenges.''
  Chairman Ryan's budget would return Federal spending--specifically 
what is known as nondefense discretionary spending--to 2008 levels. 
That is the level before the massive spending unleashed by the Obama 
administration. The spending cuts proposed in Ryan's budget total $5.8 
trillion over 10 years.
  In a recent article, John Taylor, an economics professor at Stanford, 
Gary Becker, a Nobel prize winner, and George Shultz, former Secretary 
of Labor, Treasury, and State, wrote:

       Credible actions that reduce the rapid growth of Federal 
     spending and debt will raise economic growth and lower the 
     unemployment rate.

  They also said:

       Higher private investment, not more government purchases, 
     is the surest way to increase prosperity.

  Reducing government spending can increase economic productivity and 
jobs.
  President Obama has sought to stimulate the economy and create jobs 
by spending trillions of government dollars. What has that gotten us? 
Record deficits, excess borrowing--about 40 cents of every dollar the 
government now spends will have to be borrowed--and it has gotten us 
stubbornly high unemployment.
  Chairman Ryan's budget also calls for tax reform through sensible and 
growth-promoting policies. The budget contemplates a top tax rate of 25 
percent for individuals and businesses. Currently, the tax rate on 
business is 35 percent, the highest of all of the countries in the 
developed world. That rate, by the way, discourages investment, it 
discourages job creation, and it makes America an expensive place in 
which to do business. In effect, it encourages business to move their 
operations overseas, something all of us are very concerned about.
  What we need are solutions that emphasize the strength of American 
entrepreneurs and our private sector, not the government; to spur the 
economy and help put people back to work.
  In the debate ahead, I hope we can engage in serious discussions 
about how to take on our fiscal problems in a responsible way--to bring 
down the cost of government, boost our economy and promote economic 
growth. That is what Americans are looking for, and it is what our 
country needs.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I rise to make a parliamentary inquiry.
  The Senate will soon receive from the House legislation to fund the 
Federal Government for the rest of this year--H.R. 1473. Normally, 
spending bills such as this one go through the Appropriations 
Committee. Despite the fact that this spending bill the Senate will 
soon take up covers funding for the entire Federal Government, 
including all appropriations bills for the

[[Page 5964]]

year, it was never even considered by the House or Senate 
Appropriations Committees.
  Snuck into this massive spending bill are legislative provisions that 
typically are not allowed by Senate rules to be included in the 
appropriations process. The Senate has a rule--rule XVI--that prohibits 
Senate legislative amendments to an appropriations bill. Despite this 
Senate rule, the spending bill the Senate will consider today includes 
provisions that are clearly legislative in nature. Specifically, I am 
referring to section 1858 of the spending bill which repeals free 
choice vouchers from the affordable care act that became law last year.
  There should be no doubt that repealing a law or part of a law is 
legislating. In this case, section 1858 repeals part of the Internal 
Revenue Code. Amending the Internal Revenue Code is general 
legislation, not the appropriation of funds. In fact, the Congressional 
Budget Office has actually determined that free choice vouchers involve 
no appropriation of funds whatsoever.
  Madam President, my parliamentary inquiry is whether repealing free 
choice vouchers in the spending bill the Senate will soon consider is 
legislating on an appropriations bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair is advised that repealing any law is 
legislative in nature, and repealing a law in an appropriations bill is 
legislating on an appropriations bill.
  Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Chair for making this very clear; that 
repealing free choice vouchers--the opportunity to come up with a 
marketplace-oriented approach for people in a health care no man's 
land--in this spending bill is clearly legislating on an appropriations 
bill and that is not the way the Senate traditionally does business.
  If this provision were brought up in the Senate, we now know it would 
be ruled out of order. It would be ruled out of order because in the 
Senate we simply do not legislate on appropriations bills. The Senate 
doesn't legislate on appropriations bills for a simple reason. Every 
Senator knows it would be open season for the special interest 
lobbyists all over this town.
  The administration and this body took a stand earlier this year 
against earmarking--something the Chair is very much aware of--and I 
wish to quote from the President's State of the Union Address. The 
President said: The American people deserve to know that special 
interests aren't larding up legislation with pet projects. Both parties 
in Congress should know this: If a bill comes to my desk with earmarks 
inside it, I will veto it.
  Madam President, I wish to have somebody explain the difference 
between letting a lobbyist slip an earmark into an appropriations bill 
and slipping legislative language into an appropriations bill that 
benefits a whole array of special interest lobbyists. It sure seems to 
have the same effect to me.
  I am not certain who proposed eliminating free choice vouchers in 
this appropriations deal. Maybe a lobbyist asked for it or maybe some 
staffer with special interest sympathies saw an opportunity to send the 
lobbyist what one lobbyist called today ``an early Easter gift.'' But 
either way, I know with 100 percent certainty this decision was not 
made with the public interest in mind. The American people are not the 
ones who benefit from eliminating free choice vouchers. The American 
people like the idea of being able to have choices for their health 
care--choices, I would point out, that are much like the ones we have 
as Members of Congress.
  The fact is this is one provision in the Patient Protection and 
Affordable Care Act that combined the thinking of colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle--Democrats who wanted to expand coverage and 
Republicans who have an interest in choice and competition. This was 
the one provision that provided a concrete path to holding down health 
care costs, and it has now been gutted by the special interests.
  Some special interests are arguing that free choice vouchers would in 
some way harm employer-based health coverage. What we know for certain 
is that for the group of people who could access a free choice voucher, 
the employer-based health system is dysfunctional. It is dysfunctional 
for them. The group of people who are covered by free choice vouchers--
folks who aren't eligible for the exchanges and folks who aren't 
eligible for subsidies--now have only two choices: coverage that is 
completely unavailable or coverage that is completely unaffordable.
  The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, at the time free choice 
vouchers was accepted, specifically talked about how this filled a gap 
in the bill. And now, with it gone, more than 300,000 Americans aren't 
going to have a path to affordable, good quality coverage. Free choice 
vouchers were needed at the time we worked on the affordable care act 
and they are even more necessary today.
  For example, the Kaiser Family Foundation, in their most recent 
analysis, has demonstrated how consistently, again and again, more 
health care costs are being shifted onto the backs of American workers. 
In their most recent analysis, they found that employee health expenses 
in the last year have gone up 14 percent, and the employee was eating 
almost all of that. Almost all of it was being shifted onto the backs 
of the workers.
  This was important today--it was important when we moved originally 
to enact the legislation. It is even more important today. The fact is, 
these individuals are only looking for another path because the system 
does not work for them. If it worked for them, we would not even have 
an issue. But as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee pointed 
out, this is a gap in the system, a gap that, had we been able to 
sustain free choice vouchers and stop the lobbyists from stripping them 
out, we would have had a way to ensure that hundreds and hundreds of 
thousands of hard-working Americans--these are folks who work at jobs--
would still be able to go to sleep at night knowing they had decent, 
good-quality, affordable coverage for themselves and their families.
  The Senate does not legislate on appropriations bills because, as the 
President said so appropriately, we should be working to rebuild 
people's faith in the institution of government. We do not slip 
legislative language into these kinds of bills that benefits a few 
special interest groups at the expense of hundreds of thousands of 
Americans. This is not the way we do business.
  Throughout 2009, I promised my constituents that I would not support 
health care reforms unless they were real reforms. This legislation 
lets special interest groups take real reform out of the health care 
law. It seems to me that, all over this town, the special interest 
groups are looking at the bill and they are saying now it is going to 
be possible, if we can just find, behind closed doors, some allies to 
take away real cost containment, real opportunities for good-quality, 
affordable coverage for people. This legislation takes real reform out 
of the health care law. Because I keep my promises, I will not support 
it.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the last 2 weeks have been very good 
weeks for this country and this Congress. We are passing a continuing 
resolution and funding the Government and not letting the government 
close makes a great deal of sense. I think that was very much to the 
better. Even more important, we now will have a significant debate, 
over the next few months, about what this country should be like over 
the next several decades. That is very important for our country. It is 
what we should be doing. I salute Congressman Ryan for laying out on 
the table a vision and Speaker Boehner for supporting it.
  I disagree with that vision, but they did have the forthrightness and 
the directness to put their views on the floor. It is a different 
vision than what America is today.

[[Page 5965]]

  I also salute President Obama. He joined the issue yesterday, 
clearly, without obfuscation, directly, and showed the many places 
where he differed with Congressman Ryan. He laid out a different vision 
as to where America should go. In a minute, I will discuss my views of 
those visions, but I wish to say this at the outset: It is very good to 
have this debate. I hope this will be a month or two in which there 
will be invective and there will be clashes, but I hope, at the end of 
the day, the debate between the Republican vision of where America 
should go and the Democratic vision--between Congressman Ryan and 
President Obama--will be one of those times when historians will look 
back and say this is a place where America, through its Congress and 
its President, chose a direction. That is, after all, why we are here.
  We have many different issues to consider, but the role of 
government, what it should do and what it should not, is probably the 
most important for the next several decades. The fact that the issue 
has been joined by Congressman Ryan on the one hand and President Obama 
on the other can only be good for America. What we will do is come to a 
conclusion, hopefully, in the next month or two. Let me give my views 
of those two visions.
  Yesterday, President Obama delivered a thoughtful, inspired speech 
about the need to rein in our out-of-control deficit. He called for a 
comprehensive approach, including cuts to defense and mandatory 
spending, and he rightfully put revenue on the table. His is a serious 
plan, one that would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 
years. As only a President can do, he powerfully framed the debate that 
will likely continue to rage, certainly for the next several months and 
probably over the next year and a half--long after we resolve the debt 
ceiling. This is a debate the American people want to have. It is a 
debate Democrats are ready and eager to engage in. It is a debate we 
believe we will win. We have the high ground.
  The House Republican plan puts the middle class last instead of 
first. It will never ever pass the Senate, and we know the American 
people will reject it as well. The debate we just concluded, the debate 
about the CR, was about spending levels. The debate ahead of us is 
about more than spending levels, it is about the role of government 
itself.
  House Republicans are not trying to balance the budget--no. They are 
trying to fundamentally alter Americans' relationship with their 
government. They believe the message of the last election was that 
Americans wanted a dramatic change, a great limitation in how much the 
Government should do. It is our view, as Democrats, that the American 
people gave us two messages. First, deal with the deficit. There is too 
much spending. I say, as a party, we ignore that message at our peril, 
but we have not ignored that message, neither in the CR nor in the 
President's proposals.
  The American people sent a second message as loudly and as strongly 
as the first; that is, grow the economy, help the middle class continue 
to have better lives, as they have over the last five decades, make 
sure there are meaningful jobs in America. I believe a budget that 
reflects the American people's view has to do both these things: reduce 
the deficit but keep that American dream brightly burning, the American 
dream that the American middle class holds, which says the odds are 
quite good that we will be doing better 10 years from today than we are 
doing now and the odds are better still that our children will do 
better than we. That is what we believe American people told us to do.
  We believe the budget revealed by Congressman Ryan and supported by 
Republicans is not what the American people want. It is a negative, 
pessimistic message. It is a message that says the great days of 
America are over and we do not believe it is what the people want. As 
we go through this debate, we shall see how that comes out. I believe 
we will prevail.
  The Republican budget unveiled last week by Chairman Ryan is, on 
closer inspection, not a serious document. The pundits and political 
handicappers may have hailed it as a bold, daring approach to the 
fiscal challenges facing our country, but a closer examination reveals 
that Ryan's budget hews exactly to his parties' orthodoxy. It does not 
gore a single Republican ox. The House Republican budget puts the 
entire burden of reducing the deficit on seniors, students, and middle-
class families. At the same time, it protects corporate welfare for oil 
companies, gives giant new tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, 
and leaves Pentagon spending almost completely untouched.
  Consider what Paul Ryan wants to do to Medicare. His plan ends 
Medicare as we know it and replaces it with a private voucher system 
that will cut benefits. Seniors would be left to fend for themselves 
with no guarantee of affordable coverage. They would have to pay 
thousands of dollars more out of their pockets.
  As this chart shows, under the current Medicare system, the average 
senior on Medicare in 2022 will contribute about 25 percent of the cost 
of their health care. But under the Ryan plan, seniors would have to 
pay 68 percent of the cost of coverage themselves according to the 
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
  That is an outrageous burden. Simply put, it would drive many seniors 
into poverty. This generation of seniors, the first generation who was 
able to say they could retire and not go to bed every night sweating 
about how they were going to pay for health care if they or their 
spouse got an illness, would be the last generation to do so under Paul 
Ryan's vision.
  In America, we have said we have bounty. And some of that bounty 
should go to those in their golden years, to those who worked hard and 
who built the country and who raised the families and fought the wars. 
They should not have to worry that they could not afford health care 
if, God forbid, a serious illness afflicted them. The Ryan budget turns 
its back on that vision.
  Republicans have been patting themselves on the back recently for 
tackling entitlement reform, but their approach is nothing more than a 
rigid, ideological quest to unravel the social safety net.
  Medicare certainly has cost issues, but a better way to protect and 
preserve Medicare for future generations is to cut out the waste and 
inefficiency that everyone knows exists, not to privatize the program. 
Our plan is simple when it comes to Medicare: Mend it, do not end it. 
In the health care reform law, we made a good downpayment on this 
effort. We began to shift Medicare in the larger health care system 
from an expensive, fee-for-service model toward a system that pays 
providers for episodes of care. The truth is, when it comes to reining 
in the cost of Medicare, the President did it first, and he did it 
better. We Democrats are willing to build off that law. We can make 
further reforms to the delivery system. It needs further reforms. And 
we will further drive down the costs. The Ryan budget reverses progress 
we have already made and in doing so reopens the doughnut hole, further 
burdening seniors' budgets.
  It is bad enough that the Ryan budget ends Medicare as we know it and 
increases costs for seniors, but just as egregious is what Ryan 
proposes to do with all the money he takes from seniors on Medicare. As 
this second chart shows and as the President said yesterday, House 
Republicans want to give millionaires a new tax cut of $200,000. To pay 
for it, it would make 33 seniors each pay $6,000 more for health care. 
What kind of vision is that? The Ryan budget uses Medicare cuts to 
reduce the tax rate on millionaires and billionaires to 25 percent from 
35 percent. That is the lowest level since 1931 when Herbert Hoover was 
President. The Ryan budget reduces taxes on the rich to the lowest 
level since 1931, the Hoover era, the era of the Great Depression.
  I have nothing against the rich. God bless them. Many of them are 
living the American dream. They are what many of us aspire to be. But 
in order to keep that dream alive and get our

[[Page 5966]]

country on firmer fiscal footing, we need a little shared sacrifice. 
Democrats want to work with Republicans to get our fiscal house in 
order, but we believe the best way to do it is to end the millionaires' 
tax break, not cut Medicare benefits.
  Let me be clear. A grand bargain on long-term deficit reduction is 
next to impossible unless we look at raising revenue. Unfortunately, 
Republican leaders are already trying to rule out revenue. If the other 
side refuses to even consider savings in the Tax Code, they will lose 
credibility with the American people. We simply cannot balance the 
budget by focusing solely on domestic discretionary spending, a narrow 
12 percent slice of the budget. Cancer research and Head Start did not 
create our current deficit problem, and we will not fix it by going 
after cancer research and Head Start.
  Thankfully, many rank-and-file Republicans seem to agree with the 
need to put revenue on the table. The Senator from Oklahoma, a true 
fiscal conservative, said a blanket defense of all tax cuts is 
profoundly misguided. My Republican friend from Nebraska said 
Republicans need to keep an open mind and keep everything on the table, 
including revenue. My Republican friend from Georgia had said that 
revenue, along with entitlement cuts, should be part of the budget 
compromise. My friend from Tennessee, with whom I work closely on the 
Rules Committee, said that tax subsidies for big oil ``may be too 
expensive.'' As you can see, many of my colleagues are prepared to 
tackle this challenge with, to use the phrase of the Republican Senator 
from Nebraska, ``an open mind.''
  The bottom line is that any budget that leaves defense and revenue 
off the table is ultimately untenable. Indeed, a dollar cut from 
defense spending reduces the deficit just as much as a dollar cut from 
domestic discretionary spending. While there is certainly waste on the 
domestic discretionary side of the budget, there is also certainly 
waste on the defense side.
  While we are certainly open to compromise, Democrats will not 
tolerate the House Republican budget assault on Medicare. It is not 
fair, it is not right, and it will never, never pass the Senate.
  I am hopeful that both parties in both Chambers of Congress will come 
together to reach a reasonable, responsible deficit deal, but in order 
to do that, Republican leaders need to take off their ideological 
straitjackets. They can start by going to the drafting room and coming 
up with a fairer, more broad-based proposal than the Ryan budget.
  In conclusion, Speaker Boehner needed Democrats to pass this year's 
budget, and he will need Democrats to pass a long-term deficit 
reduction plan as well. The sooner he abandons the tea party, the 
sooner we can have a compromise.
  We hope the coming debate will yield a sound, serious deal. That is 
our hope. That is our wish. That is what the next few months are about. 
If it doesn't, we Democrats will have to take this contrast of 
priorities into 2012. We know that in that battle, too, we will have 
the high ground.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I see my distinguished colleagues, the 
senior Senator from Hawaii and the senior Senator from Mississippi, the 
leaders of our Appropriations Committee, on the floor. I just ask if I 
may be able to continue for 2 or 3 minutes.
  Mr. INOUYE. Please.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I appreciate the extremely hard work the 
majority leader--and I have told him this--and the President--I have 
told him that--and our distinguished chairman--I have told him that--
the work they have done to get the best possible deal under extremely 
difficult circumstances.
  I now understand that with the final resolution, I will not be able 
to vote for it, as I assume others in the Vermont delegation will not. 
I am afraid that it creates an impossible bargain. It averts a 
government shutdown at the expense of our overall national interests.
  This year, Congress spent most of its time negotiating three rounds 
of deeper and deeper cuts in the current year's budget, an exercise in 
oftentimes misguided wheel-spinning which ignores the fact that 
discretionary spending is but a relative fraction of the overall budget 
while addressing some of the most pressing and urgent needs of ordinary 
Americans. Advocates paint this agreement in moral terms. I agree with 
them. Budgets are about our real priorities.
  There is so much in this budget package that is inconsistent with 
basic Vermont and American values. Drastic cuts ending hunger programs 
for low-income women and children, elimination of Vermont's 
weatherization program, and cuts to economic development programs that 
grow jobs in my State of Vermont are not my idea of prudent sacrifices. 
There is no moral credit to Congress to cut vouchers for homeless 
Vermont veterans who served their country honorably, nor does Congress 
cover itself in glory by denying first-generation Vermonters help in 
going to college because of cuts to the TRIO Program. Is there moral 
good in eliminating housing counseling for low-income families facing 
foreclosure or slashing small stipends for seniors who are on Meals on 
Wheels? The estimates of these cuts in my little State range as high as 
$150 million--a tremendous burden at a time when we face the worst time 
since the Great Depression.
  The reason we are here, as a column pointed out very well in our 
national papers yesterday, is because even though we had an agreement 
to pass an omnibus bill last December, at the last minute, those on the 
other side of the aisle who had agreed on that reneged, and of course 
we were not able to get the 60 votes necessary in the Senate.
  I had supported that omnibus budget bill even though there were 
enormous cuts in it. It would have enacted tens of billions of dollars 
in carefully drawn, reasonable reductions below the White House budget 
proposal. The distinguished Senator from Hawaii had worked very hard 
and encouraged us to make cut after cut after cut. We all agreed with 
him. I agreed with him. It was in the omnibus. And if that had passed, 
we would not be here. But because those who had agreed to support it 
changed their minds at the last minute, it killed the omnibus bill and 
it forced the Congress into a series of stopgap funding bills and now 
into a slapdash continuing resolution.
  In addition to the cuts in the omnibus bill, I also supported 
reductions of billions more, and I voted for billions of dollars in 
cuts and short-term reductions in the continuing resolutions earlier 
this year.
  Now, some who tout this round of cuts as the most important and as 
the largest cuts in discretionary spending in history are the same ones 
who pushed through hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts to 
companies that ship jobs overseas--American jobs overseas--greatly 
adding to the profits of our oil companies that are now charging us $4 
a gallon for gas and more; pushed through for multimillionaires, many 
of whom said they did not want the tax cuts--pushed it through 
nonetheless.
  The correlation between those spending cuts and those unfunded tax 
cuts is direct. It is unflattering to the proponents of both 
initiatives.
  Frankly, I am tired of being lectured on fiscal sanity from those who 
voted for an unnecessary war in Iraq, saying that is because of 9/11, 
even though, as we know from every single report that has come out, 
Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. But we spent $1 trillion, 
thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of other peoples lives 
in Iraq, and then, for the first time in the history of this country, 
instead of paying for a war, as we always have in the past, we say: Oh, 
no, we will borrow the money. And by the way, we will give you a tax 
cut too.
  So who paid for that war in Iraq? The men and women who valiantly 
fought there and their families who waited, wondering if they would 
come back alive, broken, or dead, and often were given the worst and 
grimmest news. They are the only ones who sacrificed. Everybody else 
got a tax cut, and we borrowed the money from China and

[[Page 5967]]

everywhere else to pay for a war we should have never been in, and $1 
trillion later, 10 years later, we are still spending tens of billions 
of dollars there.
  Some corporations--some others made a lot of money; we did not. And 
then we spend another 8 or 9 years that we should not have been in 
Afghanistan doing the same thing--borrowing the money for that.
  It seems that our soldiers paid a great burden, and the American 
people paid a great burden. But boy, some made out like bandits. I 
don't want any lectures from those who gave the bandits their bag of 
gold.
  I yield the floor.

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