[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6180]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, today not only will Congress pass a 
budget for the first time in 6 years, it will pass a balanced budget 
for the first time in recent memory. This is something many Americans 
have been waiting a long time to see. It is something they deserve, and 
it is just the latest example of a new Congress that is back to work--
back to work on behalf of Americans who work hard and expect Washington 
to do the same.
  No budget will ever be perfect, but this is a budget that sensibly 
addresses the concerns of many different Members. It reflects honest 
compromise from many different Members with many, many different 
priorities.
  It includes additional resources and flexibility for national 
defense. It reduces spending, and it balances without raising taxes. 
That is especially impressive when one considers the type of budget the 
White House proposed--one that never balanced--ever--but still tried to 
raise taxes by nearly $2 trillion.
  That White House budget was so unserious that only a single Member of 
the President's party could be persuaded to publicly support it here in 
the Senate. Perhaps that is because it proposed to double down on the 
failed policies of the past: more overspending, more debt, more taxes, 
and hardly any reform.
  So the White House fantasy budget may have made the left happy, but 
the new Congress believed the American people deserved better. We 
offered a budget that is more than just balanced; it is also oriented 
toward growth. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget 
Office, the budget we will approve today contains ideas that could 
boost jobs and grow our economy.
  It would embrace the energy revolution and provide for more 
environmentally responsible innovation. It would repeal unfair taxes, 
such as those in ObamaCare, and set the table for more comprehensive 
reform of our outdated Tax Code.
  Because this budget is about embracing the future, it also gives us 
the tools to leave ObamaCare's broken promises and higher costs where 
they belong--in the past--in favor of a fresh start with the 
opportunity for real health reform.
  This budget is also about protecting the vulnerable. It aims 
responsibly to improve and modernize programs such as Medicare, so they 
will continue to be there when Americans need them. After all, we know 
that failing to make commonsense improvements to save these types of 
programs today will mean allowing draconian cuts to fall on the 
vulnerable in the years to come.
  The balanced budget before us went through the normal committee 
process. Members of both parties debated it vigorously on the floor. 
They offered more amendments than just about anyone can count, and then 
a conference committee met to work out the differences between the 
version of this balanced budget passed by the House and the one we 
passed here in the Senate. That is the way the process is supposed to 
work. That is the way Congress is supposed to function.
  The budget reflects a lot of hard work from a lot of individuals. I 
would particularly like to thank Chairman Mike Enzi and his counterpart 
in the House, Chairman Tom Price, as well as every member of the 
conference committee, for their tireless efforts to agree on a 
framework that can pass.
  The balanced budget they produced won't solve every challenge, but it 
is a measure that will move us further down the path of positive 
reform. It is a budget that aims to make government more efficient, 
more effective, and more accountable to the middle class. And it is a 
reminder that the new Republican majority is getting Congress back to 
work for the American people.

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