[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 4589]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I appreciate the cooperation between Senator 
Sanders and Senator Enzi in our arriving at the point we are now. The 
Republicans have a totally different vision of what the country is and 
should be than we have, but the debate between these two good Senators 
has been civil. It has been very polite. It is the way things should 
happen around here. So I appreciate that very much.
  The Republican budget makes clear the priorities of the Republicans. 
Republicans would get two-thirds of their cuts from low-income 
Americans, but they would not plug one single loophole for corporations 
or the rich--and I mean the mega rich--not a penny. They would double 
down on harmful sequestration, which is when automatic cuts occur 
across the board. We know how disastrous this has been.
  For the 1 year it was in effect--take, for example, the National 
Institutes of Health--almost $2 billion they lost that 1 year.
  On the floor is the senior Senator from the State of Illinois. I have 
heard him speak here on the floor about what a difficult time the 
people at NIH are having because they don't have enough money to do 
basic research. The sequestration that was put upon us last time caused 
the NIH to stop their research on a universal flu vaccine. Hundreds of 
thousands of people die around the world every year, and tens of 
thousands of people die every year in the United States because of flu. 
They were close to having a universal flu vaccine that would take care 
of this.
  Sequestration is awful. It is part of the Republican budget. They are 
doubling down on this harmful sequestration on health, education, and 
even national defense.
  Talk about a gimmick. This is a doozy, what they are trying to do 
with defense, to try to pretend they are going to put $38 billion more 
in the Defense budget. But it is pretend, because even looking at the 
Republican budget, it is not possible to do. Once even the Republican 
hawks look at this, they will say: Well, maybe we are not going to get 
that $38 billion.
  So their budget has lots of gimmicks--lots of gimmicks. It has been 
written about all over the country in editorials from east to west and 
from north to south.
  Fortunately for the country, the Republican budget will not become 
law.
  Will the Chair announce the business of the day.

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