The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the Senate section on pages S4044-S4075 on March 20, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will now resume consideration of S. Con. Res. 23, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 23) setting forth the congressional budget for the U.S. Government for fiscal year 2004 and including the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal year 2003 and for fiscal years 2005 through 2013.
Pending:
Kyl modified amendment No. 288, to provide financial security to family farm and small business owners by ending the unfair practice of taxing someone at death.
Dorgan amendment No. 294, to provide a meaningful prescription drug benefit in Medicare that is available to all beneficiaries.
Rockefeller amendment No. 275, to express the sense of the Senate concerning State fiscal relief.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I would like the attention of the majority leader, if I could, before he leaves the floor, to say to him nobody is suggesting we walk away from our responsibility to do the budget. But the fact is, that does not have to be done today or tomorrow. We have plenty of time before the budget deadline is reached. That is not until the middle of April.
When we talk about responsibility here, we have no higher responsibility than the defense of this Nation. I tell you, the thing that is on the minds of my constituents, the thing that is on the minds of virtually every American, is not the budget resolution. The thing that is on the minds of the American people today is the fact that we have a quarter of a million troops engaged in a battle that is incredibly consequential to this Nation. I wish to register my strong disagreement with business as usual in the Senate when we are at war.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, let me respond and say there is a difference, I believe, in that I believe we express strong support for our troops, for our Commander in Chief especially; that we can do that and at the same time carry on our responsibility. It is a difference in approach. I guess that is why the last Congress, under other leadership, failed to pass a budget. Look where it got us--where the first 40 days of this particular Congress, we had to clean up a process which was left because of that same prioritization, that a budget is not important. We believe that a budget is important, that it prioritizes the needs of defense, of health care, of education. Thus, under this leadership, we are going to proceed with the budget. We are going to pass that budget resolution. We are not going to delay. Now I am beginning to sense a little bit that we want to delay the budget, put it off a week, a month, a year, or maybe into the next Congress. It is simply not going to happen. We are going to proceed. We have 14\1/2\ hours on this budget. We are not going to pay respect to the fact that some people say the budget is just not important now. We believe that budget is important.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, there is no suggestion from this Senator that the budget is not important. I believe it is critically important. Harking back to last year has no relevance to this moment. We are at war, and to spend time in the Senate today on something other than that strikes me as wholly inappropriate.
We are not talking about not getting to the budget. Nobody wants a budget resolution, I think, any more than this Senator. I have spent my entire career in the Senate on the Budget Committee. I want a budget resolution. We are at war and here we are talking about pay-go.
Virtually every American is rivetted on what is happening to this Nation on the brink of conflict. In fact, we are beyond the brink. It started last night. Our President addressed the Nation at 10:15 last night.
I hope there is a reconsideration because this Senator is going to be extraordinarily disappointed in this Chamber if we are conducting business as usual while this Nation is going to war.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
Mr. CONRAD. I yield time to Senator Reid.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, my concern is this: First, understand, I was the first Democrat to break ranks with the majority at that time to support the first President Bush. I voted this time to support President Bush. I have said good things about the President. I have done my very best to work this budget resolution through.
But I would say to my friend and anyone who is listening--the majority leader has left--it appears to me--and I want the Senator from North Dakota to listen to this--it appears to me that maybe there is a rush to go through the budget because maybe people are going to start asking questions about how much this war is costing. There is not a single penny in this budget that deals with the war, not a penny. Do you think that might be one reason for rushing through this budget? Don't you think we should know the cost of the war?
I will bet right now they have prepared, at the White House, a supplemental emergency appropriations bill for tens of billions of dollars. I have heard it is $100 billion. Yet we are marching through with the tax cuts to satisfy the wealthy of this country. That is what this budget thing is all about. That is why we are going to work Fridays and Saturdays. I am happy to work Friday and Saturday. I will put my credentials up against anyone as far as moving legislation, including this budget bill. But I ask a question to the ranking member of the Budget Committee: Is there one dollar in this budget that reflects the cost of the war that is going on as we speak?
Before I came here, I watched on television an aircraft carrier. Planes were being catapulted off it, then dropping bombs. Do we know how much that costs? Do we know how much the reconstruction of Iraq is going to cost? Is there a penny in this budget that reflects that?
Mr. CONRAD. The Senator asked the question. There is no money. As the Senator knows, there is no money in this budget for the conflict. There is no money in this budget for the occupation. There is no money in this budget for the reconstruction. There is no money in this budget for humanitarian assistance.
But I think there is a larger question. That is, our troops are now engaged. For us to conduct business as usual here just strikes me as totally and wholly inappropriate.
I am the ranking member of the Budget Committee. I have been there my entire time in the Senate. I am in my 17th year. For us not to be discussing our Nation at war has the priorities all wrong. Yes, the budget is important. Yes, we ought to do a budget resolution. But we have lots of time to accomplish that. We can do that next week. We completed most of the debate on the budget already, but, unfortunately, a big chunk is missing.
If we want to talk about supporting the troops in the field, we ought to do it tangibly by putting dollars in the budget. There aren't any.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CONRAD. I yield.
Mr. REID. Is the Senator telling me and anyone within the sound of my voice that in this huge budget that is now before the Senate, that has tax cuts over $1 trillion over the next 10 years, for the war in Iraq that is now going on there is not a penny of money for the war in this budget?
Mr. CONRAD. There is not a penny. We have been told the reason there is not a penny is that when the budget was done, operations had not commenced. Well, operations have commenced. The President spoke to the Nation last night and made clear that we are at war.
I hope cooler heads are going to prevail. We need to think very carefully about what we do as an institution when we have a quarter of a million Americans' lives on the line.
What should be the discussion in this Chamber? Should it be the pay-
go provisions of the budget? Should it be the reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution? Or should it be the question of war and peace? Should it be the question of supporting our troops in the field? Should it be a question of sending a clear message that our country is united behind our forces, no matter what our positions were on the wisdom of engaging in this conflict? That ought to be the priority we discuss.
I must say I think this is an extraordinary moment, that the suggestion is we just have business as usual in the Senate. I find it totally and wholly inappropriate.
Mr. REID. Could I ask the ranking member of the committee another question? The Senator has stated on at least two occasions this morning that there is not 5 cents in this budget to support the troops for the war that is going on in Iraq. Now we have heard statements for months about we are there to free the Iraqi people, and that we are going to supply food and medicine and everything else necessary to take care of the reconstruction of the country of Iraq. The Senator has heard those questions, has he not?
Mr. CONRAD. Yes.
Mr. REID. Would it not seem to the Senator, as it does to me, that in preparation for reconstructing Iraq there must be some budget numbers floating around down at the White House someplace? Would you think that is a fair statement?
Mr. CONRAD. We know there are. We know there are estimates of $65 to
$95 billion.
Mr. REID. Is there one penny in this budget dealing with the reconstruction of Iraq?
Mr. CONRAD. No, there is nothing for reconstruction. There is nothing for the conflict. There is nothing for any part of it.
Let me say this for the Senator, if I could. We have been told a budget request will come next week for that. That is fine. It just seems to me it ought to be part of the budget. It is an odd circumstance to do a budget but leave a big part of the expenditures out of that budget. But what strikes me even more dramatically, much more dramatically than that, is we are not discussing our troops in the field. We are not discussing the fact we have gone to war.
Now, goodness, the budget is important, but it is not the thing that is on the minds of the American people this morning. What is on the minds of the American people this morning is this Chamber sending a signal of support for our forces. They have been ordered to go into harm's way. We have an obligation to send a signal that we back them. Whatever our position is on the wisdom of this course, that is not the point at the moment. The point at the moment ought to be we support our forces in the field. That ought to be the discussion that is going on in this Chamber, not a discussion of pay-go or reconciliation. That is not to say we don't go to the budget quickly and in a timely way. Absolutely. But goodness--
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield.
Mr. CONRAD. Yes.
Mr. REID. The Senator from Nevada has the largest military airplane fighter training facility for the Air Force in the world, Nellis Air Force Base, with 10,000 people stationed there. I have been there. I have talked to the commanding general of this large force. Hundreds and hundreds of people have left Nellis for the Middle East. People have trained there. They have families in Nevada. Their kids go to school in Nevada. Fallon, 400 miles away, is a very large naval air training center, Fallon Naval Air Station. And there it is the same thing--Top Gun is there. Hundreds and hundreds of people from Fallon are now in the Middle East. That aircraft carrier I watched before I came in here--I can almost guarantee you those people taking off in those airplanes were trained at Fallon. They also have children going to school in Churchill County. They also have wives and husbands who are there waiting for their return.
In addition to that, we have a very large ammunition depot at Hawthorne and it has gotten real busy because they are bringing ammunition out of there, hauling it to the Middle East. In addition to that, we have large Guard and Reserve components. We have over 1,000 Guard and Reserve people who have been called up and are gone. Their families are gone. Some of them don't know how they are going to make the rental payments, their house payments. What I hear from the Senator from North Dakota is that maybe the Senator from Nevada sometime during the day should give a speech talking about the people in Nevada who have sacrificed to protect my freedom, my family's freedom. Is that what the Senator is saying?
Mr. CONRAD. I think if we would look back in the history of this Chamber, when America goes to war, the Senate turns its attention to that fact, that confrontation, and sends a signal of our support for the troops in the field. That is just the most basic, I would say, of values, that that is what we should be talking about. That is what we should be discussing, and the budget we can talk about later. We can talk about it tomorrow or the next day. But today we ought to be talking about what is going on, what is on the minds of the American people.
I urge my colleagues--I know the leader indicated we would go to a resolution at some point today. That is fine. I would just hope we would go to morning business so people could have a chance to discuss their feelings about our troops in the field.
The Senator has indicated he has large bases in his State. I have large bases in mine. Minot Air Force Base, home to our B-52s, one of just two B-52 bases in the country, Grand Forks Air Force Base, one of the three core tanker bases for the United States, those are the places that are providing the air bridge to Iraq half a world away. We have thousands of troops engaged from North Dakota. We have large components of our National Guard which have been called up as well.
I tell you, I just don't feel comfortable, honestly, talking about the budget on this day at this moment.
Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator yield?
Mr. CONRAD. The Senator from New York is here. He has an amendment that is relevant to the question, the matter of homeland security. I will yield--how much time does the Senator seek?
Mr. SCHUMER. I would say 30 minutes.
Mr. CONRAD. I yield 30 minutes to the Senator from New York.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York is recognized for 30 minutes.
Amendment No. 299
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, before I begin, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside and I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and it is so ordered. The clerk will report the amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New York [Mr. Schumer], for himself and others, proposes an amendment numbered 299.
Mr. SCHUMER. I ask unanimous consent the amendment be considered as read.
Mr. NICKLES. I object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. REID. Yes.
Mr. NICKLES. I object.
Mr. REID. I say to my friend, he has been told not to offer the amendment.
Mr. SCHUMER. I could not hear the Senator.
Mr. REID. There was no one from the majority on the floor when the Senator offered his amendment.
Mr. NICKLES. For the information of my colleague from New York, we would be happy to have----
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, for the information of our colleague, it takes unanimous consent. We have amendments that are pending, so we have to set those amendments aside. We wish to review amendments before we do that. I am happy to have my colleague from New York begin discussing his amendment. We will review the amendment at some point. I am sure we will be happy to have the amendment sent to the desk--just not yet.
Mr. SCHUMER. Then I would imagine that we just--the chairman of the Budget Committee was off the floor. We had gotten unanimous consent to put this amendment forward. I take it we should just speak on the amendment.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I do not believe the amendment should be pending.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment has been laid down.
Mr. NICKLES. I ask unanimous consent the amendment be withdrawn.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. NICKLES. I say to my colleague from New York again, just to make sure we understand, we are trying to respect each other as far as management of the bill. I will be happy to work with the Senator on the amendment. I thank my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ensign). The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Chair. This amendment is relevant, of course, to our new circumstances since last night, but I would just want to address my colleagues in the Senate on the circumstances of last night for a few minutes before getting to the amendment, because the President spoke to the American people. He said hostilities are commenced.
I would just leave three thoughts as we begin on the era of this war. First is a prayer.
First, Mr. President, as I listened to the chaplain from St. Joseph's give the prayer and we said the pledge, I think every one of us who was here felt a renewed depth and meaning to both the prayer and the pledge, given the times we are in.
I would like to just add my prayer. My prayer is a simple one: It is that our military action is swift and decisive, with a minimum of casualties, both military and civilian. And my prayer, of course, goes to the soldiers, first and foremost, who are now in the Iraqi theater. They are continuing a grand American tradition, a tradition where civilians have laid down their jobs and then defended this country when the Commander in Chief thought they should.
I have been to several of the debarkation ceremonies at Fort Drum and Canandaigua, on Long Island, as soldiers have boarded planes to go over to the Middle East. Because so many of our soldiers are now reservists and Army National Guard, they are a little older. They are every bit as trained and seasoned as the enlisted men and women, and I know our generals have complete confidence in them, as I do.
But you see them with their families--not only with their parents, whom we have always seen with our soldiers, but in much greater frequency with their husbands and wives and their children. And we know the butterflies that are in all the stomachs as they prepare to leave. I look in their faces as they leave, and I am humbled and proud of them. My prayers are with them. We all pray for them.
Again, we pray that the military action is swift and decisive and there be very few casualties, both military and civilian. The military, of course, I have spoken of. But I pray there are few civilian casualties. The war we are waging is not a war against the Iraqi people. It is a war aimed at the leadership of Iraq. The average Iraqi citizens--a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a child, a son or a daughter--have the same loves and cares and worries in many ways that all the rest of the citizens of the world have. We pray that the number of casualties among the civilians is small.
So that is the prayer of which the guest Chaplain from St. Peter's reminded me.
Then we said the pledge to the flag. Our flag is a flag of unity. Now is the time for unity, for all of us to back our soldiers. There have been many different views held, with great passion, on what we should do in Iraq; there is no question about that. Every one of us here, on both sides of the aisle, might have scripted things differently. I, for one, have said I hoped we could get more international support. But if every one of us just said, ``Only our plan, or nothing,'' we would be paralyzed. I believe Saddam Hussein has to be disarmed and removed from power. That is why I supported the President in his resolution. Now I believe is a time for unity. Now is a time for us to be backing up our troops. Now is a time that the President becomes Commander in Chief and that unity is called for.
I just add one caveat: Freedom is what we are fighting for. Not everyone will feel the call for unity that I think is incumbent upon all of us in this body as leaders of this country, and some will continue to dissent. I hope we respect that dissent. In my State, there are many people whose views are heartfelt. They are different from mine. They are different from yours. They are probably different from the views of most of us in this Chamber. And the right to dissent is what we are fighting for. It is part of this tradition. I hope we are mindful of that, as well.
Then one other thought. As I said, I pray that the military action is swift and decisive and that our victory comes quickly. Let us hope we can sow a wise peace in Iraq as well. Let us hope there can be a democratic Iraq despite the fact there are so many ethnic divisions. Let us hope we can bring democracy to the Middle East, a place starved for freedom, a place starved for individual choice, a place starved for prosperity.
Let us hope the people of the Middle East, the Iraqi people, like everyone else, want to bring stability and a good life to them and their families. The beauty of a democracy is that you can strive to help your family and help yourself and at the same time you help the whole country. Unfortunately, the peoples of the Middle East--many of them--have not been fed a diet of food, clothing, and shelter but have been fed a diet of propaganda and hatred, which dictators often use to feed their people when they cannot provide a system of freedom, democratically and economically, that provides food. Let's hope that can change as well.
So, Mr. President, we are in a new era. I realized this in my city from the time 9/11 happened. I put this flag on, on 9/12, in memory of all those who were then missing and the thousands who proved to be lost, gone. I met their families. I just met with some yesterday. I know the holes in their hearts, the sadness, frustration, and anger they feel. But we cannot forget them. We cannot forget what happened.
I will wear this flag, God willing, this very one, every day for the rest of my life to think of them, to remind me that whatever our views here are, we have to do something to stop the scourge of terrorism, which will grow and grow and grow if we do nothing.
Now, on to the amendment I would like to discuss, I realize it is not pending before us, but it is a relevant amendment. I, like my colleague from North Dakota, like my colleague from Nevada, hope we will have a full discussion about supporting our troops and the impending war. I have had an opportunity to express some of my views. I have limited them because I know the leadership wants to move forward, at least at this point, with this amendment. But this amendment at least has some relevance.
The amendment is one that deals with homeland security. It is an amendment that deals, in my judgment at least, with an unfulfilled need in the budget, the need to protect our homeland.
The whole world has changed since 9/11. We know that. We all have different views, again, as to how we ought to adapt to that change, but we cannot just ignore it. I think that is clear. History teaches us that.
One of the things we have to learn and adjust to do is protect our homeland. You cannot win the war on terror, in my opinion, with just an offense; you need a defense. Like any good sports team, like, say, the Syracuse Orangemen, who are playing in the NCAA, you need a good offense and a good defense.
There has been a great deal of focus on the offense. I do not think there has been enough focus on the defense because terrorists, unfortunately, are going to be with us for a while. The new technology that has blessed our lives and changed our country, that has created a lot of the prosperity we have seen in the last few decades, has an evil underside, and that is that small groups of bad people can use that technology to do huge damage in our homeland, damage we never imagined could be done until 2 years ago. That fact is going to be with us not just for 2 or 3 years, it is going to be with us for decades. And even if, God willing, we were to get rid of al-Qaida, and get rid of Saddam and his cronies who lead Iraq right now, there will be new terrorists who will come up.
We have to protect our homeland. The odds are we will not be able to catch up to every new terrorist group that starts. The sad fact is, you can be in a cave anywhere in this world and if you have a wireless connection to the Internet, you can learn a whole lot about America. Then even a small group united together can do real damage here. So we have to look at every one of our weak pressure points and tighten them up.
You can't just be content to fight a war overseas. To preserve and to protect our country, we must protect it at home. We have to try to think ahead of the terrorists. We have to try to think where they will hit us so that we can prevent that from happening. The list is a long one. There are probably places that no one has even thought of that we are weak in and where we need protection. But we have to do it.
I make one other point. We can't delay. It is a huge undertaking. That is true. The terrorists will look to our weaknesses. That is true. If we strengthen air security, they will look to rail. If we strengthen rail security, they will look to ports. If we deal with bioterrorism, they will look at cyber-terrorism. Because of the information revolution, they have access to everything about America. It is all on the Internet. We will not stop the Internet. So we have to tighten up, and tightening up costs money.
This budget does not acknowledge that reality. That is the fundamental problem. I am honored and privileged to introduce this amendment with my colleague from New York, as well as the help of the ranking member of the Budget Committee, Senator Conrad, our minority leader Senator Daschle, Senator Lieberman, and Senator Byrd. A large number of our Democratic caucus participated in crafting it.
This budget resolution is the first step, but we are going to continue to fight on the supplemental appropriation that comes up and throughout the year because we believe homeland security is an imperative for America. We believe we have to do something about it, and we can't wait. The horrible feeling that so many of us had on September 12, mostly for the loss and the danger and damage, but also it already came into our minds, what if we had done this, what if we had done that? As we learned more, there were lots more what ifs that were asked. We don't want a second terrorist incident to occur and we are saying ``what if'' again. This amendment is intended to make the likelihood of those what ifs much lower. It is an attempt to diminish it.
Let me explain what the amendment does. It provides an additional $88 billion for fiscal years 2003 to 2013 for homeland security over and above the current proposed 2004 budget, including $5 billion in the immediate 2003 funding for first responders, port, border, and transportation security. That is a limited amount of money, but remember we only have half a year left. We don't want to waste money. We want it spent wisely. We thought this was about the maximum amount in this fiscal year, where everything is just getting started up in homeland security, that people could use.
For 2004, the proposed budget would spend about $380 billion on defense--I support that, I support our troops--but we are only spending
$37.7 billion on homeland security. We can do better than that. We should do better. I hope this amendment will be a bipartisan one in that regard. It is fully offset, and it provides a little deficit reduction as well.
Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. SCHUMER. I am happy to yield to my colleague for the purpose of a question.
Mr. NICKLES. How much of an increase did you have in 2004? I heard
$88 billion over the life of the bill.
Mr. SCHUMER. In 2003, it is $5 billion. In 2004, it is approximately 6.5.
Mr. NICKLES. I have no objection to my colleague sending the amendment to the desk.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be sent to the desk.
Mr. NICKLES. To further clarify for all of our colleagues, we wish to review amendments. That was the problem. I appreciate the cooperation of my colleague.
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my friend from Oklahoma. I know that is what he wanted to do. We had brought it to the desk, and I had asked unanimous consent because I thought they had seen it and approved it. I appreciate that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from New York [Mr. Schumer], for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Feingold, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Bingaman, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Kennedy, and Mr. Lautenberg, proposes an amendment numbered 299.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To provide immediate assistance to meet pressing homeland security needs by providing funding in 2003 for first responders, port security, bioterrorism preparedness and prevention, border security and transit security, the FBI; to restore the elimination of funding of the COPS program, firefighter equipment grants, Byrne Grants and Local Law enforcement grants; to provide a sustained commitment of resources for homeland security needs without reducing funding to other key domestic law enforcement and public safety priorities; and to reduce the deficit)
On page 3 line 9, increase the amount by $3,643,000,000.
On page 3 line 10, increase the amount by $8,681,000,000.
On page 3 line 11, increase the amount by $13,500,000,000.
On page 3 line 12, increase the amount by $14,996,000,000.
On page 3 line 13, increase the amount by $15,892,000,000.
On page 3 line 14, increase the amount by $16,602,000,000.
On page 3 line 15, increase the amount by $16,769,000,000.
On page 3 line 16, increase the amount by $16,853,000,000.
On page 3 line 17, increase the amount by $16,993,000,000.
On page 3 line 18, increase the amount by $17,268,000,000.
On page 3 line 19, increase the amount by $17,314,000,000.
On page 3 line 23, increase the amount by $3,643,000,000.
On page 4 line 1, increase the amount by $8,681,000,000.
On page 4 line 2, increase the amount by $13,500,000,000.
On page 4 line 3, increase the amount by $14,996,000,000.
On page 4 line 4, increase the amount by $15,892,000,000.
On page 4 line 5, increase the amount by $16,602,000,000.
On page 4 line 6, increase the amount by $16,769,000,000.
On page 4 line 7, increase the amount by $16,853,000,000.
On page 4 line 8, increase the amount by $16,993,000,000.
On page 4 line 9, increase the amount by $17,268,000,000.
On page 4 line 10, increase the amount by $17,314,000,000.
On page 4 line 14, increase the amount by $4,987,000,000.
On page 4 line 15, increase the amount by $6,395,000,000.
On page 4 line 16, increase the amount by $8,189,000,000.
On page 4 line 17, increase the amount by $7,316,000,000.
On page 4 line 18, increase the amount by $7,902,000,000.
On page 4 line 19, increase the amount by $6,425,000,000.
On page 4 line 20, increase the amount by $5,927,000,000.
On page 4 line 21, increase the amount by $5,498,000,000.
On page 4 line 22, increase the amount by $5,090,000,000.
On page 4 line 23, increase the amount by $4,344,000,000.
On page 4 line 24, increase the amount by $3,480,000,000.
On page 5 line 4, increase the amount by $1,809,000,000.
On page 5 line 5, increase the amount by $4,210,000,000.
On page 5 line 6, increase the amount by $6,298,000,000.
On page 5 line 7 increase the amount by $6,610,000,000.
On page 5 line 8, increase the amount by $6,577,000,000.
On page 5 line 9, increase the amount by $6,410,000,000.
On page 5 line 10, increase the amount by $5,932,000,000.
On page 5 line 11, increase the amount by $5,382,000,000.
On page 5 line 12, increase the amount by $4,827,000,000.
On page 5 line 13, increase the amount by $4,302,000,000.
On page 5 line 14, increase the amount by $3,618,000,000.
On page 5 line 17, increase the amount by $1,834,000,000.
On page 5 line 18, increase the amount by $4,471,000,000.
On page 5 line 19, increase the amount by $7,202,000,000.
On page 5 line 20, increase the amount by $8,386,000,000.
On page 5 line 21, increase the amount by $9,315,000,000.
On page 5 line 22, increase the amount by $10,192,000,000.
On page 5 line 23, increase the amount by $10,837,000,000.
On page 5 line 24, increase the amount by $11,471,000,000.
On page 5 line 25, increase the amount by $12,166,000,000.
On page 6 line 1, increase the amount by $12,966,000,000.
On page 6 line 2, increase the amount by $13,696,000,000.
On page 6 line 5, decrease the amount by $1,834,000,000.
On page 6 line 6, decrease the amount by $6,306,000,000.
On page 6 line 7, decrease the amount by $13,508,000,000.
On page 6 line 8, decrease the amount by $21,894,000,000.
On page 6 line 8, decrease the amount by $31,209,000,000.
On page 6 line 10, decrease the amount by $41,401,000,000.
On page 6 line 11, decrease the amount by $52,238,000,000.
On page 6 line 12, decrease the amount by $63,708,000,000.
On page 6 line 13, decrease the amount by $75,874,000,000.
On page 6 line 14, decrease the amount by $88,840,000,000.
On page 6 line 15, decrease the amount by $102,536,000,000.
On page 6 line 18, decrease the amount by $1,834,000,000.
On page 6 line 19, decrease the amount by $6,306,000,000.
On page 6 line 20, decrease the amount by $13,508,000,000.
On page 6 line 21, decrease the amount by $21,894,000,000.
On page 6 line 22, decrease the amount by $31,209,000,000.
On page 6 line 23, decrease the amount by $41,401,000,000.
On page 6 line 24, decrease the amount by $52,238,000,000.
On page 6 line 25, decrease the amount by $63,708,000,000.
On page 7 line 1, decrease the amount by $75,874,000,000.
On page 7 line 2, decrease the amount by $88,840,000,000.
On page 7 line 3, decrease the amount by $102,536,000,000.
On page 21 line 19, increase the amount by $550,000,000.
On page 21 line 20, increase the amount by $139,000,000.
On page 21 line 23, increase the amount by $1,125,000,000.
On page 21 line 24, increase the amount by $631,000,000.
On page 22 line 2, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 22 line 3, increase the amount by $1,182,000,000.
On page 22 line 6, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 22 line 7, increase the amount by $1,426,000,000.
On page 22 line 10, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 22 line 11, increase the amount by $1,529,000,000.
On page 22 line 14, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 22 line 15, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 22 line 18, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 22 line 19, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 22 line 22, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 22 line 23, increase the amount by $1,550,000,000.
On page 23 line 2, increase the amount by $1,600,000,000.
On page 23 line 3, increase the amount by $1,579,000,000.
On page 23 line 6, increase the amount by $1,650,000,000.
On page 23 line 7, increase the amount by $1,662,000,000.
On page 23 line 10, increase the amount by $1,575,000,000.
On page 23 line 11, increase the amount by $1,624,000,000.
On page 23 line 15, increase the amount by $3,500,000,000.
On page 23 line 16, increase the amount by $1,225,000,000.
On page 23 line 19, increase the amount by $3,262,000,000.
On page 23 line 20, increase the amount by $2,841,000,000.
On page 23 line 23, increase the amount by $4,712,000,000.
On page 23 line 24, increase the amount by $3,790,000,000.
On page 24 line 2, increase the amount by $4,251,000,000.
On page 24 line 3, increase the amount by $3,922,000,000.
On page 24 line 6, increase the amount by $4,490,000,000.
On page 24 line 7, increase the amount by $4,017,000,000.
On page 24 line 10, increase the amount by $4,330,000,000.
On page 24 line 11, increase the amount by $4,347,000,000.
On page 24 line 14, increase the amount by $4,372,000,000.
On page 24 line 15, increase the amount by $4,411,000,000.
On page 24 line 18, increase the amount by $4,515,000,000.
On page 24 line 19, increase the amount by $4,435,000,000.
On page 24 line 22, increase the amount by $4,659,000,000.
On page 24 line 23, increase the amount by $4,457,000,000.
On page 25 line 2, increase the amount by $4,503,000,000.
On page 25 line 3, increase the amount by $4,530,000,000.
On page 25 line 6, increase the amount by $4,548,000,000.
On page 25 line 7, increase the amount by $4,578,000,000.
On page 27 line 7, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 27 line 8, increase the amount by $110,000,000.
On page 27 line 11, increase the amount by $800,000,000.
On page 27 line 12, increase the amount by $366,000,000.
On page 27 line 15, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 27 line 16, increase the amount by $589,000,000.
On page 27 line 19, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 27 line 20, increase the amount by $605,000,000.
On page 27 line 23, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 27 line 24, increase the amount by $515,000,000.
On page 28 line 2, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 3, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 6, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 7, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 10, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 11, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 14, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 15, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 18, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 19, increase the amount by $500,000,000.
On page 28 line 22, increase the amount by $400,000,000.
On page 28 line 23, increase the amount by $478,000,000.
On page 36 line 11, increase the amount by $450,000,000.
On page 36 line 12, increase the amount by $348,000,000.
On page 36 line 15, increase the amount by $1,339,000,000.
On page 36 line 16, increase the amount by $503,000,000.
On page 36 line 19, increase the amount by $1,880,000,000.
On page 36 line 20, increase the amount by $1,190,000,000.
On page 36 line 23, increase the amount by $1,902,000,000.
On page 36 line 24, increase the amount by $1,544,000,000.
On page 37 line 2, increase the amount by $1,921,000,000.
On page 37 line 3, increase the amount by $1,885,000,000.
On page 37 line 6, increase the amount by $1,936,000,000.
On page 37 line 7, increase the amount by $1,904,000,000.
On page 37 line 10, increase the amount by $1,957,000,000.
On page 37 line 11, increase the amount by $1,923,000,000.
On page 37 line 14, increase the amount by $1,978,000,000.
On page 37 line 15, increase the amount by $1,942,000,000.
On page 37 line 18, increase the amount by $2,001,000,000.
On page 37 line 19, increase the amount by $1,961,000,000.
On page 37 line 22, increase the amount by $2,024,000,000.
On page 37 line 23, increase the amount by $1,983,000,000.
On page 38 line 2, increase the amount by $1,996,000,000.
On page 38 line 3, increase the amount by $1,977,000,000.
On page 40 line 2, decrease the amount by $13,000,000.
On page 40 line 3, decrease the amount by $13,000,000.
On page 40 line 6, decrease the amount by $131,000,000.
On page 40 line 7, decrease the amount by $131,000,000.
On page 40 line 10, decrease the amount by $453,000,000.
On page 40 line 11, decrease the amount by $453,000,000.
On page 40 line 14, decrease the amount by $887,000,000.
On page 40 line 15, decrease the amount by $887,000,000.
On page 40 line 18, decrease the amount by $1,369,000,000.
On page 40 line 19, decrease the amount by $1,369,000,000.
On page 40 line 22, decrease the amount by $1,891,000,000.
On page 40 line 23, decrease the amount by $1,891,000,000.
On page 41 line 2, decrease the amount by $2,452,000,000.
On page 41 line 3, decrease the amount by $2,452,000,000.
On page 41 line 6, decrease the amount by $3,045,000,000.
On page 41 line 7, decrease the amount by $3,045,000,000.
On page 41 line 10, decrease the amount by $3,670,000,000.
On page 41 line 11, decrease the amount by $3,670,000,000.
On page 41 line 14, decrease the amount by $4,333,000,000.
On page 41 line 15, decrease the amount by $4,333,000,000.
On page 41 line 18, decrease the amount by $5,039,000,000.
On page 41 line 19, decrease the amount by $5,039,000,000.
On page 46 line 20, increase the amount by $5,000,000,000.
On page 46 line 21, increase the amount by $1,822,000,000.
On page 47 line 5, increase the amount by $6,526,000,000.
On page 47 line 6, increase the amount by $4,341,000,000.
On page 47 line 14, increase the amount by $8,642,000,000.
On page 47 line 15, increase the amount by $6,750,000,000.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the first part of this amendment deals with homeland security. The additional homeland security requirements on every one of our localities are enormous. Just yesterday, the mayor of my city, Mayor Bloomberg, and Secretary Tom Ridge announced that the administration would be seeking additional funding for homeland security in the next supplemental budget. That is a great first step. I hope there are sufficient resources to deal with the problem, particularly with the first responders who are definitely suffering.
Since September 11, the Congress has worked with the administration in a bipartisan fashion in many ways. I hope this homeland security issue can become a bipartisan one as well. But it does involve spending the dollars necessary. Words alone will not bring the homeland security that our people need.
Let's first go to first responders. I know in New York City, first responders are stretched as far as they can be. Like most other places, we have fiscal problems. So the number, for instance, of police officers is 4,000 lower than it was before. Many other agencies have fewer people working. In all instances, our police, firefighters, being the patriotic people they are, have a high proportion in the reserves, so we are losing people going overseas to fight for us. At the same time, there are huge new responsibilities. For instance, the many bridges and tunnels of New York City, the many buildings, houses of worship have to be guarded more carefully. That takes a huge expense. That is during normal times. In addition to all of those expenses, our police chief, Commissioner Kelly, set up something, with Mayor Bloomberg, called Operation Atlas to deal with wartime. It is another
$5 million a week. The mayor wisely said that he was not going to cut back on security if we didn't get Federal help for it, but it is stretching the people of our city and the first responders of our city. That is true with the brave firefighters. That is true with other first responders. It is true with the hospital staff who have to prepare for, God forbid, a bioterrorist attack. Everywhere we look, there are new needs. It is not just in New York City.
I have an article from yesterday's Rochester Democratic Chronicle, the leading paper in Rochester. It talks about Rochester. It is a middle-size city. It has about 230,000 people in the city, close to a million in the greater metropolitan area--800,000. The city has its own burdens, as does every city. It is on Lake Ontario, which is pretty much unguarded. It is near the Canadian border. It is a little bit east of Lackawanna, which is near Buffalo, where the cell was found.
I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Rochester Area Prepares for War by Tightening Security
(By Michael Wentzel)
The approach of war and a new plan to protect the nation from terrorist attacks means increased surveillance and awareness in the Rochester area.
With tight security already in place, some said no operational changes would occur following the launch Tuesday of Operation Liberty Shield, the Department of Homeland Security's new defense plan.
But there were additional patrols and checks at the Greater Rochester International Airport. Monroe County will expand water supply inspections. Department of Homeland Security officials began asking more questions at Canadian border crossings.
``We're following the directive of the government to elevate our awareness levels,'' said Mark Cavanaugh, University of Rochester's director of environmental health and safety. ``We're prepared, and we're telling our people to be prepared.''
airport
One of the few visible signs locally of tougher security--roadblocks on the terminal access road at the Greater Rochester International Airport--went up about 4:45 p.m. Tuesday. Security guards will conduct spot checks of vehicles, looking for signs of a terrorist threat, said David Bassett, the federal security director at the airport.
Travelers may also notice more deputies and bomb-sniffing dogs in the terminal and passenger screeners who are more attentive.
Airport director Terrance Slaybaugh said air travelers still need to arrive at least 75 minutes early to clear security at the airport.
Slaybaugh said the county has opted to use Pinkerton security guards, not sheriff's deputies, at the roadblocks because of ``man-power, staffing availability, cost.'' A deputy is to be stationed with the guards while roadblocks are active, he said.
water border
Dick Metzger, Monroe County Water Authority's director of production, said security patrols, water supply inspections and water quality sampling will increase.
``We're taking all kinds of efforts to make sure the water quality is proper and the quantity is always going to be there,'' Metzger said.
The city has a plan to protect reservoirs if there is an increased security threat, said Edward Doherty, city commissioner of environmental sciences. Doherty declined to reveal the details for security reasons.
``Obviously it's something we have to be concerned about, but we don't really see it as a high-level risk,'' Doherty said.
Officials at City Hall reported no changes in security measures. Monroe County officials also reported no obvious changes in security at their facilities. The county emergency operations center, which might be used to respond to a terrorist threat, has not been activated.
The Department of Homeland Security increased surveillance and monitoring of checkpoints along the New York-Canadian border Tuesday.
As a result, customs and border protection officers will ask more questions of travelers wishing to enter the country, said Janet Rapaport, spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. And more agents will patrol the border between major points of entry, she said.
ginna, kodak
No new measures were announced at the Ginna nuclear power plant, where security forces have been on heightened alert since Sept. 11, 2001.
``If any changes are recommended by (federal) agencies, we will take appropriate action,'' the plant's owner, Rochester Gas and Electric Corp., said in a statement.
Eastman Kodak Co., manufactures chemicals at Kodak Park for a variety of uses in photography, radiology and imaging-related businesses. The company ``is not at liberty'' to discuss security, spokesman Jim Blamphin said, but Kodak has done a complete review and update of all crisis management plans.
food supply
Concerns about a terrorist attack on agriculture has been around since Sept. 11, 2001.
Wyoming County Sheriff Ronald Ely said deputies are still taking more care to patrol around dairy farms in the wake of milk tampering problems over the past two years.
Wayne County Sheriff Richard Pisciotti said patrols are also on alert after the theft of liquid fertilizer from various New York state farms.
Francois Lachance, manager at Star of the West Milling Co. in Churchville, said there is a greater awareness of nonemployees on company property.
Trucks have always been specially sealed before they leave the plant.
UR's researchers who use radioactive materials have been reminded that security is more important now than ever, said Andrew Karam, the university's radiation safety officer. UR has locked more areas and restricted use of keys.
federal building
U.S. Marshal Peter Lawrence, whose office is in charge of safe-guarding the Kenneth B. Keating Federal Building on State Street, said nothing new was planned as of Tuesday.
Lawrence said there was nothing in the new security environment that would cause officials to impede lawful, peaceful demonstrations at the federal building, scene of anti-war protests.
city schools
City school principals Tuesday will meet with school staff to inform them of new security measures and let them know what measures will be taken if the alert is bumped higher.
At the current level, all planned field trips must be reapproved, surveillance is increased, security at after-school activities is increased and principals are required to stay on campus throughout the day.
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Chair. Madam President, this article talks about what Rochester has to do. It talks about the airport and how they need new security and are dealing with new security at the airport. It talks about the border.
Again, Rochester is on the border. There is Lake Ontario, but like many cities in the Northeast and Middle West, it shares a border or is close to a border with Canada. It talks about some miles east of Rochester is the Ginna Nuclear Power Plant. It has to be protected. We cannot leave it open the way it was before.
Kodak, the largest employer in Rochester, uses huge amounts of chemicals that are flammable. Rochester is doing what it can to protect Kodak.
The food supply: We have a lot of farming areas in that part of our State, very prosperous, very fertile farms. People are worried, our authorities are worried about the food supply and food tampering. So they are looking at that area.
The Federal building, which houses some judges and other offices and law enforcement, has to be guarded. The State of my friend from Oklahoma was hit several years ago. We cannot leave our Federal buildings unguarded. We learned our lesson.
City schools: This is just the city government.
We then have the hospitals. We have everything the private sector is doing. This scenario in Rochester is a typical city. It could be any city repeated anywhere in our country.
What help is Rochester getting for all these extra burdens? Rochester is getting virtually no extra help. We know one of three things will happen, none of them good. Either the city, because it does not have the money, will not do everything it can for security--that is the least good choice; security must come first--or other services will be undersupplied and no help.
If you are a citizen in New York City, Rochester, Buffalo, or any other place, you certainly do not want to be made safer from terrorists but be made less safe from the criminals. If you are a citizen, you want to make sure your firefighters know how to deal with terrorism--
biological or chemical, God forbid, if it should come--but you do not want to be made less safe from the scourge of fire. That is the second choice.
The third choice is the city does both and then has to raise the property tax, which God knows is high enough.
It seems to me if there were ever a Federal responsibility, it is here for our first responders.
What do we propose to do in this amendment? We propose to support our first responders throughout the country in a measured but important way. The bill provides $35 billion over the proposed budget plan's funding level for the fiscal years 2003 to 2013 to provide first responder grants to States and localities to be used for hiring, for equipping, for training first responders, as well as covering related overtime costs.
The amendment includes an additional $3.5 billion for first responder grants for fiscal year 2003 to ensure that cities and States can get needed funds immediately.
On September 11, 2001, we know these first responders in New York City and elsewhere put their lives on the line to serve their country, just as our Armed Forces do. It is a different way, but they are brave and need help, and we should be backing them up just as we back up our soldiers.
Next, in terms of first responders, we restore the cuts to law enforcement and to firefighters. The State and local law enforcement agencies deserve an increased commitment from the Federal Government, and this amendment restores $10 billion in cuts to State and local law enforcement and fire programs. The COPS Program, which is so important in bringing about security, is restored. The fire program--I see my colleague from Connecticut on the floor. He was instrumental in bringing up the fire program. That is vital. Byrne grants, that is part of this amendment. All of the Byrne grants are restored, and other areas.
I know there will be individual amendments on this issue. My colleague from New York and I are offering individual amendments on different parts of these issues that will be debated and voted on later. But this amendment has it all in one package. If my colleagues are for helping first responders throughout the country, this amendment is important. We do not just deal with personnel. We deal with equipment. Our police, fire, and emergency workers need new equipment. They have to guard, just as the soldiers do, against biological and chemical weaponry.
Again, the local cupboard is bare. The cities, the States do not have money to do this. Are we going to delay the safety of our citizens for several years, or is the Federal Government going to step up to the plate in terms of its responsibility?
Again, I am delighted that Secretary Ridge announced that the supplemental appropriations will contain new dollars, but how many? Is it enough? Is it similar to this amendment which, as I said, will be drawn tightly but mindful of real needs?
The amendment increases the much needed funding for firefighters, hiring, and equipment, including the FIRE and SAFER Acts, by providing
$11 billion over 10 years. So on first responders, this bill is carefully drawn but does the job. It is certainly adequate, and it is what we need. It is a very fine first start.
I hope we will not repeat the mistake of either not funding these programs or funding them in a small way, mainly by taking money out of existing programs which does not make it any easier for our police departments, our fire departments, or anybody else.
There are other areas that need help in terms of homeland security as well. Our first responders are extremely important, and they get the majority of the money that we have proposed here, but there are lots of Federal responsibilities as well.
Port security, for instance, is an issue that I have become very concerned about and interested in. How could terrorists strike? As I mentioned earlier, they can strike in a myriad of ways, and they are going to look at our weak pressure points. One thing they could do is smuggle something in a ship, in a container that comes by our ports: the worst case scenario, a nuclear bomb.
I have talked long about that dreadful possibility and what we can do about it. My friend from South Carolina, Senator Hollings, has been a leader on this issue in terms of making sure we know what is in the containers and that someone cannot sneak something in. I have been fighting for nuclear detection devices that could be attached to every crane that loads or unloads a container. We need both.
Again, we are underfunding port security rather dramatically. The amendment does these two things on port security, as well as several other things. As we know, in the Budget Act we cannot lay out the specifics but we know it will go a long way.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 30 minutes.
Mr. SCHUMER. I ask for an additional 10 minutes from my colleague.
Mr. CONRAD. I yield an additional 10 minutes to the Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my friend from North Dakota.
So we have an additional $500 million in 2003, an additional $625 million in 2004, and we total $7.8 billion over the 10-year period that we are adding things on.
Right now, only 2 percent of the cargo containers are screened. Not every container is going to be screened. We know some of them are more suspicious than others. But most experts say it has to go up along with our ability to both track containers that come in and then secure them so nobody can come in after we know what is in the container, if it loads, say, in Rotterdam, and then someone sneaks something else in--to make sure that does not happen.
Another issue is rail and transit security. Many of our cities have large tunnels in which terrorists could do some dastardly actions. Our own Penn Station in New York City is a classic example. It is almost a mile of tunnel with no egress, poor ventilation, thousands of people on commuter trains during rush hour going in or going out, from the whole northeast area, not just from New York. We have to do something about that.
We have to do more to deal with truck security. Again, a method of choice of terrorists has been to take hazardous material, place it on a truck and then explode it. Of all places, Brazil has a good system using GPS and assigned routes. They can tell immediately if a truck goes off track, if it is a hazardous material truck. We do not do that. The Brazilians, by the way, have saved money by implementing this because the number of stolen trucks has greatly decreased.
The bottom line is that there are many other places in transportation security that is not air and that is not rail, where we have to be more secure. This amendment proposes a $5 billion increase for the TSA's budget to start doing these things.
Those of us from Washington State to Maine who share the border with Canada know how unguarded it is. We have been proud of our unguarded border. The Canadian Government does its best to cooperate, but we do not have close to the number of personnel and detection devices that are needed to make the northern border secure. The southern border needs help as well, but not close to the amount that the northern border does. The number of personnel in my State, which shares several hundred miles of border with Canada, is small and not enough.
We have to do more. The detection devices that have worked rather successfully on the southern border are not installed. Then border security needs other help because of commerce that cities such as Buffalo and Detroit and Seattle-Tacoma have with Canada. We need all kinds of new computer systems so we can check trucks quickly. We want to have both commerce and security, and we can if we provide the dollars.
If the dollars are not provided, you are either going to have weak security or you are going to have to go the old route and try to inspect so many trucks that the traffic is backed up at the border for hours, the economy suffers, and the number of jobs decline. So we have to do that as well.
The amendment provides $8.2 billion over 10 years for border security, $450 million in this remaining 6 months of the fiscal year.
The FBI, that is another place where homeland security matters. The FBI was in poor shape in terms of counterterrorism before 9/11. It is trying to move quickly, but it needs more help.
The computer system is still almost laughable. I have had lengthy discussions with Director Mueller. They are trying their best, they are working hard, but we should not have money be a barrier to them doing what they need to do.
Intelligence gathering, we are rearranging those agencies and restructuring them to make the synapse between domestic and foreign intelligence less of a barrier. That is a great idea. It takes dollars. While the leadership says the FBI has all the money they need, go talk to the people in the ranks, they do not think so. So we add an additional billion dollars in funding for the FBI to hire new personnel, particularly analysts and translators, and upgrade critical infrastructure.
Bioterrorism, this is a place where we have made some progress but not enough. Aside from the money our first responders need in terms of local government, in terms of hospitals--we are asking so many hospitals to do the job in terms of bioterrorism. I do not have a problem with that. I do not think there has to be a new Federal agency, but it takes dollars to store the vaccines; to do the training about how to administer the various programs; to do the training, how to spot the illnesses. With bioterrorism, we know early detection is vital. The amendment provides $5.7 billion for bioterrorism initiatives to improve the public health sector's ability to prepare for disasters and local governments' ability to cover the cost.
Finally, threat assessment and critical infrastructure assessment, the amendment provides a billion dollars so we can know what we are doing and we can stay ahead of other potential weak pressure points that we do not know about now. Critical infrastructure such as chemical plants and nuclear powerplants and water infrastructure, they need to be protected. We are not sure even how to do it. We have had no blueprint and it is being done differently in different States, with varying degrees of success. The Federal Government has to be more involved. So we provide a billion dollars to conduct an assessment of the relative threat levels in coordination with intelligence and to begin to prepare to protect these areas.
Here, our first responder money will play in because it will not be Federal people who do this. It will be local people. But they need to know what to do.
I will have more to say later, but this is a basic outline of our proposal. There is large help for first responders, $38 billion over 10 years, an immediate shot in the arm in 2003 and then large funding levels in 2004; help in the other areas where we need help.
We have not covered everything, but we have covered a lot. As we work through the appropriations process, we will hope to refine them.
In conclusion, I ask my colleagues to look at this amendment. I ask them to ask themselves if we have done enough on homeland security. I ask them to answer the infamous ``what if'' question. How many of us want to be here the morning after, God forbid, another attack on our homeland and say, what if? This amendment prevents that what if. It goes a long way to preventing that what if. I hope it will receive broad and bipartisan support.
I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is not a sufficient second.
Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor.
Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I yield 20 minutes to the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton.
Mrs. CLINTON. I thank the ranking member on the Budget Committee, and I thank my colleague and partner from New York for the Herculean effort he has undertaken on behalf of the cause of homeland security. Senator Schumer and I, of course, have been personally impacted by the need for enhanced security in a very horrific way because of the events of September 11 and the ongoing threats posed to New York City and other communities throughout our State where terrorist cells are under surveillance and finally discovered in Lackawanna, NY, where people are arrested in Syracuse, NY, for their likely connections with the funding of organizations that support terrorism. I don't think it is a coincidence or an accident that the two Senators from New York would be standing here in the Senate advocating as strongly as we can for the Schumer-Clinton homeland security amendment to this budget.
Before my words of support to the specifics that the amendment contains, I am somewhat concerned that as we meet here today, our men and women are in harm's way in the Persian Gulf. I believe we should be suspending action on the budget. We should be focusing in this Chamber, as families and citizens across America are focusing on their television sets, on the Internet, on what is by far the most important issue confronting us: the execution of this war. We hope it will be a decisive and overwhelmingly successful effort accomplished as quickly as possible, with a minimum loss of life. I know the thoughts and prayers of all of us go out to those wearing the military uniform of our Nation and their families, their loved ones, who are praying for them.
I certainly, like all my colleagues, have had the great and high privilege of meeting and being with these young men and women. They are by far the best prepared, equipped, and motivated military in the history of the world. We are all very proud of their skill, their training, and their courage. We should not only continue to do everything possible to support them at this time, but it would be appropriate for us to suspend action on the budget, especially, I must add, because I don't know that we are fully able to debate and pass a budget at this moment in history.
It seems quite odd to me, while we are commenced upon a war, we have no funding for that war in this budget. We have no money for the proposed reconstruction of Iraq that has been discussed in the administration. We have no money for whatever other consequences--
intended or unintended--that might flow from the action begun last evening.
Unfortunately, history will judge us harshly, because we are moving forward on parallel tracks to debate and vote on a budget that does not take account of the most overwhelming challenge we are facing. What is wrong with this picture? It makes absolutely no sense. I am stunned that we are, on the one hand, holding our hearts and our breath while we listen and see what is happening thousands of miles away that will have a direct effect not just on the lives of our brave men and women in the military who are fighting this battle, but will have a direct effect on every single American--that we are making decisions without having the information. We are being asked to vote on a budget that does not even pay for this war.
I find this truly unbelievable. But that is the choice of this leadership, and therefore we have to go along as though this were business as usual. Let's just get up and debate a budget that does not even pay for the war that is going on now. I am sorry, I find that hard to explain to myself, and I find it impossible to explain to my constituents.
Then I pick up the Wall Street Journal, and there is an article, apparently sourced from people within the administration, that contracts are being let for the reconstruction of Iraq, and in it--I am sure Americans would be interested to hear--our Government is to guarantee health care to Iraqis. We are going to guarantee good schools to Iraqi schoolchildren. We are going to build highways. We are going to build powerplants. I don't know that any of us would argue with that noble goal, but we are letting contracts, as we speak, for American businesses to undertake this contracting work.
When are we going to provide for every American? It is certainly not in this budget we are debating. When are we going to provide good schools and the facilities our children deserve? It is not in this budget we are debating. When are we going to make sure we have our transportation needs met in our country, in every part of our country? It is not in this budget we are debating.
Madam President, there are a lot of unanswered questions that deserve an answer. But one of those has to do with this amendment that is currently before the Senate. If you look at this budget, not only are we not even attempting to fund the war, but we do not adequately fund the second front of the war; namely, the threat of terrorism right here on our shores.
We have to cover the costs of this war, and we should be honest about it. There are choices to be made. Apparently this body, under its current leadership, wants to avoid those choices. They do not want the American people to know that coming down the road in a couple of days, or a week at most, there is going to be a supplemental to pay for the war. Will it be $65 billion, $95 billion? We do not know. It is going to come to the Senate, and of course we will debate it, but why aren't we being honest with ourselves and with the rest of America? Put the costs of this war in this budget.
The choices we are asking Senators to make are going to have a direct impact on the choices Americans can make. We already know this budget is hurtling us into deficits as far as the eye can see. I have never seen such fiscal irresponsibility passed on to the backs of our children. The young people, 18, 19, 20-year-old soldiers over there fighting for us, are the ones who will pay for this irresponsibility. I find that absolutely unbelievable.
There are a lot of questions to be asked and answered, but certainly among our priorities, if we intend to go forward with this budget which does not account for the war, which does not make the hard choices that Americans have to live with, then certainly we had better make sure we are funding homeland security because the one thing all of the security experts agree on is that, yes, we will win, but we will also reap the whirlwind. There will be additional terrorist activities here at home and on Americans around the world, and we have to be prepared.
These homeland security costs should be not only included but increased because right now they are being borne by cities and counties and States that are in deficit themselves. They do not have any revenues. The economy is flat. There is no money coming in. They are laying off firefighters. They are closing police stations.
Our hospitals are wondering whether they are going to be able to continue to take in the ambulances that come to the emergency entrance or whether they are going to have to divert them because their funding is under so much pressure.
Yesterday my colleague and I, Senator Schumer, met with the mayor of New York. Everybody knows there is not any better prepared city in the world than New York and everybody knows there is not any city under more stress and more potential for terrorism than New York. God bless our firefighters and our police officers and our emergency workers. They are on 12-hour shifts on, 12-hour shifts off. Every time the threat level increases in America as a whole, it goes up even higher in New York.
The operation that New York City has put into effect to try to prevent terrorism, called Operation Atlas, is spending $5 million a week. We are already cutting $2.5 billion out of the New York City budget. We are going to have to cut even more, according to the mayor. But what choice do we have? New York is a global city, not only an American city. It is where the United Nations is. It is where so much else happens. Our mayor and our police and fire and other emergency workers are doing a tremendous job, but we cannot continue to shoulder these costs on our own.
Our national security and our homeland security needs should be in this budget. We should be putting into this budget the cost of the war in the Persian Gulf and the cost of defending ourselves in New York and across America.
If we are going forward, business as usual, with a very unusual budget that does not fairly lay out the costs and the choices before the American people, then the very least we can do is, in a bipartisan way, resoundingly pass the Schumer-Clinton amendment. This amendment restores cuts to important traditional first responder programs. It sets aside $8 billion for each of the next 10 years. And it does something that is desperately needed in this budget when it comes to homeland security: It does not take money away from existing law enforcement and firefighting programs and move it over into another category and say, guess what, we have now provided homeland security. That is the oldest shell game in the world.
This budget cuts the COPS Program, cuts the local law enforcement block grant, cuts the Byrne memorial program, cuts the FIRE Act, cuts the SAFER Act. I don't think we in good conscience can cut the programs that keep the police on the street, the firefighters in the firehouse to do what they have to do every day, and then turn around and, with their additional responsibilities, claim we have given them the resources for these new burdens and challenges. These resources must come in addition to and not at the expense of these other critically necessary law enforcement and firefighting programs.
As we go through this and look at the specific programs, we have tried to increase the programs that keep the operations going day to day and to provide the additional funding that is necessary. Let me give one example.
In fiscal year 2002, Congress appropriated $360 million for the FIRE Act. The FIRE Act is a program that assists fire departments in protecting local communities. Those communities may use it for training, equipment, and additional staffing. It has been a Godsend to both professional and volunteer fire departments across New York and across America.
As to the $360 million appropriated, there are more than $2 billion in requests from fire departments for this funding--six times the amount appropriated. Yet the proposed budget provides only $500 million for the FIRE Act for fiscal year 2004. The Schumer-Clinton amendment would add $250 million, so we could at least try a little harder to meet the legitimate requests of fire departments.
Currently, two-thirds of our Nation's fire departments do not even meet the standards for adequate staffing. I don't think this Congress would ever allow our Army to engage in a war with two-thirds of its divisions understaffed. Incredibly, that is exactly what we are asking our firefighters to do.
This amendment also provides additional funding for bioterrorism preparedness and prevention. The budget provides a mere $400 million for these critical needs. Even with the funding that we offered last year under the leadership of Senators Kennedy and Frist, that is not enough. Many local and State public health departments do not have the facilities or the equipment to perform routine surveillance or epidemiological investigation, or do the lab work to identify any kind of foreign matter. At the same time, we have loaded the burden of the smallpox vaccination effort on top of everything else public health departments are supposed to be doing, again without adequate funding.
I asked at several counties in my State, what are the tradeoffs? That is what happens at the local community. We can have this debate and pretend there are no tradeoffs, that we are not going to pay for the law, that we are going to cut funding for local law enforcement and firefighters and let somebody else worry about it. We will be the Senate that cuts taxes so they have to be raised at the local level or else local communities have to do without essential services.
I asked about the tradeoffs in one county, Onondaga County, where Syracuse is. In order to deal with the smallpox vaccination challenge, they have had to go out and cut all their other programs. They had to cut the Maternal and Child Health Program; they had to cut the women's health examination program; they had to cut the regular examinations and screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer; they have had to cut pediatric dental visits and preschool and early intervention family services.
Nobody is saying we do not want to be prepared in the horrific event of a smallpox terrorist attack, but don't we also want to take care of our maternal child and health needs? Our children's dental needs? Why are we putting ourselves into making these false choices?
I will tell you why. Because the other side is intent upon this huge tax cut no matter what the war costs, no matter what homeland security needs are, no matter what the choices are. I have to say I am no great historian, but I think history will look back on this moment and will, if not shaking its head and scratching its chin, certainly wonder how on Earth, at a time of an international crisis for America's leadership, we would unilaterally decide to drive our economy and this Government into the deficit ditch.
That is for my friends on the other side of the aisle to answer. I don't have an answer. I find it unbelievable that it is even a question we have to be addressing at this moment in time.
There is much to be done that would at least try to interject some common sense, some reality into this budget. But under any objective assessment of where we stand in the world right now, this budget should be a nonstarter. It should be withdrawn from the floor. Every one of us should be saying: My goodness, we have higher obligations. How can we keep faith with those young men and women who are on the front lines for us? How can we keep faith with those young men and women who are on the front lines at home for us? How can we continue to provide the quality of life and economic opportunity that is expected in our country?
We are in danger of being the first generation of Americans to leave our children worse off than we were. Mark my words, no generation of Americans has ever done that. We are about to do that. We are about to load onto the backs of our children and those lucky enough to have grandchildren the unknowable costs of military actions that may be necessary to protect our freedoms; the unknowable costs of ongoing security to protect us here at home; and the very certain costs of providing quality, affordable health care and quality education and decent transportation--to say nothing of keeping faith with Social Security and Medicare.
This is a very solemn moment, and it is not only solemn because of what is happening in the Persian Gulf; it is solemn because of the extraordinary commitment of this Senate leadership to take action that will not stand the test of time.
But, if we go forward on this budget, I hope we will, in a bipartisan way, not only increase our homeland security amount, but I will be offering a domestic defense fund based on nearly 18 months of work. It would go into the Department of Homeland Security to get money directly to first responders, to put money directly to places of high threat such as New York and Washington, and money into a flexible fund that can be drawn down by communities.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 20 minutes.
Mrs. CLINTON. I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North Dakota yield?
Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield an additional 5 minutes to the Senator from New York.
Mrs. CLINTON. I thank the Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. President, this domestic defense fund would lift the budget cap for fiscal year 2003 when we finally do get the supplemental that I am sure will be presented to us in the very near future. And it would send a clear message that we are not going to wait on this budget to get money out to our first responders to relieve the necessary costs of our local communities; we are going to try to get that money out when it is needed. Operation Atlas is going on right now in New York City. Operation Liberty Shield is going on right now in America. We can't wait until the end of the year for the ordinary budget process to work to get money out, to make us safer, to give the tools to defend us to our firefighters and our police officers.
This is a solemn time. Not only are my heartfelt feelings and prayers going out to those brave young men and women, but in good conscience I want to be sure we are doing what we should be doing. And with all respect, I don't think we should be doing business as usual. I do not think we should be considering a budget that is as devoid of reality as is this one. That sends a terrible message that here we are making flowery speeches, talking about our prayers and our best wishes for our men and women in uniform, and decimating--decimating--our ability to respond to the inevitable, unpredictable consequences of the action we have commenced. We owe more to the next generation. I hope we will decide to put aside previously existing ideological and partisan positions and come together in this Senate, as we are coming together in this country, on behalf of the military and on behalf of the country they are fighting to defend.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to say that I am proud to be a cosponsor of this vital amendment for more homeland security funding being introduced by Senator Schumer. And I come to talk about the necessity of making hard choices.
I know this administration can make hard choices. I know it because in taking military action against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, that is precisely what the President has done made a difficult but necessary decision for the sake of America's security.
Unfortunately, I don't see the same willingness to make hard choices here at home, particularly when it comes to our budget and our economy. On Sunday, I saw Vice President Cheney on Meet the Press and he said something that stuck in my mind. The Vice President was asked why his administration wouldn't reconsider the unaffordable, unfair, and unfocused tax cuts that it pushed through in 2001, not to mention the new tax cuts called for this year, when we have so many other national needs: the cost of military action against Iraq, the cost of rebuilding the Nation after war, the cost of investing in homeland security, just to name three.
His response was telling. He said that Presidents don't have the luxury of doing only one thing at a time, that this administration has many ``balls in the air,'' and that President Bush must tend to the economy even as he works to defend our national security.
I agree with the Vice President on the premise--but could not disagree more strongly on the implication. Yes, Presidents must do more than one thing at a time, and our best Presidents always have. President Lincoln did. President Roosevelt did. President Kennedy did. But by putting the tax cut, which is itself an ineffective prescription for our economic woes, before every other priority, this administration isn't multitasking. It's unitasking. It's sacrificing every other critical mission and priority to one ideological pet project--
unfocused, unfair, and irresponsible tax cuts.
As a result, our national cupboard has been raided. We have no resources left to shore up Social Security, pay down the debt, provide our seniors with the prescription drug benefit they need, or invest in the landmark education reform plan we promised our teachers and students. No money left to make smart investments and strategic tax cuts to spur growth. Not even enough money left to pay for homeland security, even though right here at home we are under unprecedented attack from an aggressive, unpredictable, and undeterrable new enemy against which we remain dangerously vulnerable.
The casual question, which might not sound fit for the Senate floor, is: ``What gives?''
And the unacceptable answer is: ``Nothing gives.'' Tax cuts that help a select few Americans, tax cuts designed before September 11th, before the prospect of an expensive military action against Iraq and an expensive peace to follow, before Americans started losing jobs in the hundreds of thousands, trump everything else. No, with all these needs and demands, the President will hold onto his tax cut, come hell or high water.
Mr. President, that is worse than a failure of arithmetic, as President Clinton called it. It is a failure of understanding. A failure of principle. A failure of priorities.
Sadly, this administration has taken to believing that everything in its economic policy is absolute. Everything is extreme. There is no room left for learning. No room for pragmatic adjustment. No room for the critical needs of the American people. Today I want to discuss some of those needs--our urgent domestic defense priorities and how they can and must be paid for in this budget.
Mr. President, America has the greatest military in the world, and that is because we have paid for it. Over the last half century, we have worked together across party lines and every other division to invest in our Armed Forces and the men and women who dedicate their lives to the common defense. We are truly, to recall President Kennedy, willing to pay any price and bear any burden to deter and defeat foreign threats.
If we want the best domestic defenses, we will have to pay for them, too. But consider this. In its budget proposal for next year, the administration recommended a $19 billion increase in defense spending--
an increase I support. But in the very same budget proposal, the administration only called for $300 million more than they expected spending this year on our homeland defenses, which are far less prepared to protect our people today than the Pentagon is.
This amendment would begin to correct that shortsighted shortfall. In the fiscal year 2003 budget, it would provide $5 billion above current levels in funding for our first responders, for port security, for bioterrorism preparedness, and for border security. I am supporting more funding both as part of this resolution and in the supplemental when it comes before the Senate--particularly for our first responders.
In fiscal year 2004, Senator Schumer's amendment would provide $6.5 billion over the President's proposal for police, firefighters, and public health professionals, port security, bioterrorism preparedness, border security, transportation security, critical infrastructure protection, and more. All told, this amendment would invest $88 billion in the urgent domestic defense improvements we need to make between now and 2013--a long-term vision of rising to meet and beat these threats, not shrink from them.
Independently, last month I called for an increased homeland security investment in next year's budget of $16 billion over the President's proposal, which is what I have concluded is necessary to begin doing all this vital work. So I see this amendment not as a complete number, but as significant progress in the right direction.
Let me talk now about a few of the urgent needs that this amendment will help address.
First, first responders. Just this Monday, I attended the legislative conference of the International Association of Firefighters, and I must say that, though these brave men and women are always ready to take on a challenge and rise to meet danger, our firefighters, police officers, and other first responders are tired. They are tired of lacking the resources to hire new people, get advanced training, and buy state-of-
the-art technology, all of which are urgently needed to fight terrorism.
Can't we come together now and get this done?
Mr. President, it is downright irresponsible that the President's budget for next year would provide no new money for first responders. The President's proposal would make the same total $3.5 billion investment next year as was made this year. And even that is deceptive, because at the same time the budget would slash other funding for local law enforcement and emergency preparedness.
This amendment would restore COPS and other local law enforcement programs in fiscal year 2004. It would provide the money for training, equipment, and qualified personnel. And it would call for $5 billion in funding this year--in an fiscal year 2003 supplemental the bulk of which would go to our first responders.
There is a real crisis out there. We need to help our police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and other first responders meet it.
I believe the investment we make in our first responders needs to start by passing the SAFER Act, sponsored by my dear friends Senators Dodd and Warner which I am proud to cosponsor. That bill would provide more than $7.5 billion over 7 years so our communities can hire the firefighters they need. It is critical, it is bipartisan, and it should pass. This budget amendment we are discussing today would provide a good start in fiscal year 2004 for the bill.
But that is just a beginning. First responders need advanced training, specifically in detecting and protecting against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. This amendment will provide more of the resources they need to get them that training.
First responders need better equipment. On September 11th, the New Jersey State Police grew so frustrated at their inability to contact New York City authorities that they had to take a boat across the Hudson River and find a police commander at Ground Zero. And as we know, New York City firefighters tragically lost their lives because their communications equipment was not what it needed to be. This amendment will provide the resources to start to get first responders all over the country the communications equipment they need to prevent similar problems from occurring when they face emergencies.
This amendment gives our local first responders--who are also our first preventers of terrorist attacks--more of the resources they urgently need to guard against terrorism.
As we work to strengthen our local first responders' capabilities, we need to dramatically improve transportation security nationwide. The type of attack we suffered on September 11th was, of course, of a very particular and unexpected nature. In its wake, improving the security of air travel has received substantial attention and substantial funding. And we have made serious progress in the skies.
But just as terrorists constantly change their means and mode of attack, the TSA must broaden its scope of defense--and rapidly. But under the President's proposal and this budget resolution, TSA's appropriation is actually decreased for next year--which will make it difficult to keep pace with their current responsibilities, much less take on new ones. This amendment would give the agency critical resources so that TSA could begin expanding its focus to other critical transportation security needs including roads, rails, bridges, tunnels, and subways.
Let me give you another example--port security. Homeland security experts widely acknowledge that our ports are among the most vulnerable points in our homeland defenses. About 7 million containers arrive at these ports each year, but a tiny percentage are searched. Any one could become a vehicle to smuggle in a dangerous weapon, or even terrorists themselves.
Again, this costs money to fix. The Coast Guard has estimated that it will take $4.4 billion to improve basic physical security at the Nation's ports, starting with close to $1 billion the first year.
Yet the administration's budget proposal provided no new money in port security grants--and this budget resolution largely ignores the physical security of our ports. In an effort to jumpstart these vital improvements, I have called for $1.2 billion in port security grants for fiscal year 2004. This amendment will start moving us toward that goal.
We must also invest more to permanently protect our critical infrastructure--our financial, transportation and communications networks, our energy systems and water supplies, chemical plants and hazardous materials, emergency services and public health systems. Eighty-five percent of these networks and facilities are under the control of the private sector. Though plenty of lip service has been given to this priority by the Department of Homeland Security, actual progress has been exceedingly slow. That's largely a question of leadership, but it's happened in part because the financial commitment has not been forthcoming.
This can't wait. That is why this week I have sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Ridge outlining a series of urgent questions I believe he and his Department must answer so that we can begin seeing results, and better protecting our Nation's nervous system, its circulatory system, its respiratory system, and all its vital organs without delay.
Finally, let me address one other crucial area of investment which receives vastly too little funding in this budget resolution--
protecting ourselves against biological attack.
Some of the most chilling scenarios posed by homeland security experts are those that envision the use of diseases as weapons. We are depending on our public health network to help prepare for, protect against, and if necessary respond to such assaults. Yet in this budget, our health providers aren't being provided anywhere near adequate resources to do the job as well as they must do it. This amendment will provide a critical infusion to start improving these capabilities.
On the floor today I have only mentioned a discrete set of the gaps we must close to protect the American people. There are many more, and still more gaps we have yet to identify are likely to rear their heads in the months to come.
We are at war against terrorism. Let's not frustrate and condemn to failure those whose job it is to protect us--many of whom risk their lives--by failing to provide them the resources they need to meet and beat the threats.
Whether our protectors work for the Department of Homeland Security or for the local fire department, they deserve not only our gratitude and our respect. They deserve the ability to rise to this challenge, the resources and the tools to do the job. We depend upon them for our safety. Surely they should be able to depend upon us for support.
Let's put the safety of us all before the wallets of the few. Let's invest in our homeland defense.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ensign). The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I need.
I do feel the need to make comments that when I got up this morning I had no idea I would need to make. I have listened to the debate in the Chamber this morning, and I think there are some corrections that need to be made for my colleagues and the people of America. We have made it sound as if we are debating an emergency supplemental budget. We are not. We are debating the regular budget of the United States of America for the next year, the year that begins October 1, 2004--not yesterday, not today, October 1, 2004. We have been working on this all year because it is the regular budget. It is not the emergency supplemental budget. This is our regular work.
Why are we doing our regular work? We are doing our regular work because we are expecting America to do its regular work today. Everyone would like to be listening to the radio or the television or picking up the latest news, however they possibly can, but for most of America that is not possible because they are doing their job. They are making America work. They are making sure that the planes are flying, the trains are moving, the trucks are going, the manufacturing is happening.
Why is that important? Because those are the jobs that are providing the materials to keep America safe. Those are the people doing the jobs that help us live our everyday lives and to fight a war. America is not supposed to stop working today. We are not supposed to stop working today. We will do an emergency supplemental budget. I have heard the people here say we should be working on that this minute. How many people here know how long that war is going to go on? By tomorrow we will have a better idea. By Monday we will have an even better idea.
Now, somebody said there is not a penny in this budget for this war. Maybe there should have been a penny in the last budget for this war--
the budget that never got done on this floor. That budget should have considered this war.
Well, instead we went ahead and we did an appropriation. But we didn't do the appropriation last October 1 when the statute says we are supposed to have it done. We did not do that until the end of January. We did not get the conference done until February. And the President was not able to sign the bill until February 20. That is when we got last year's work done because we did not do our regular work on the time schedule that we are required--required by statute--to do. The statute says we will finish this budget by April 15. That does not just mean the debate in this Chamber, that means the conference committee and the final approval by April 15. Who knows how long that will take. But we need to do our regular work just as we expect everybody else in this country to do their regular work. It is essential to the operation of this great country.
We will get an emergency supplemental budget. An emergency supplemental budget is different from this budget. This budget is a 10-
year budget. We are trying to anticipate the needs of the country for 10 years and put a little plan out there so that we can plan for 10 years. An emergency supplemental bill is for an emergency that is happening at the time of the debate of the emergency. It is supposed to cover it to the best of our ability at that time.
Now, we do not do very well in our budgeting process. We got to spend a lot of time last year getting on corporations in this country for bad accounting. Well, I am the only accountant in the Senate, and I do not think the corporations are the only ones that should have been embarrassed. When I look at this budgeting process, I am delighted I got to be on the Budget Committee this year. I have had comments on the budget before, and there are some changes that need to be made. They can't be made until we do the regular work of passing this regular budget, but there are things on which we need to be working.
Usually budgets are divided into categories. They are not just one type of a budget. There is usually a capital budget, where you plan for the buildings, the maintenance, and the replacement. We do not do that. We do everything as though it were a one-time cost. But that is another topic for another time.
I have talked a lot in this Chamber about the need to reduce the national debt. We do have a national debt, a scary national debt that was scarier before; it will be scarier yet to come. We can see that from what we know about the dollars. But it is important for us--and both sides agree--that we need to balance the budget as soon as we can and we need to pay down the national debt as soon as we can to have better security in this country.
One of the difficulties when we debated the balanced budget constitutional amendment 6 years ago when I first got here--it was the first debate I was in. People will recall that we did not pass a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, that we lost that by one vote. There were some provisions in there for emergencies. This would be one of those emergencies.
But when we are paying down the national debt, it can be done in a rather simple manner if we start with a small amount, plan it into the budget, and then when we reduce that national debt by that amount, just like you make a house payment--and this needs to be done over a 30-year period just like a house payment--when you make that payment, you do not spend the interest you saved.
You add that interest to the payment and make the payment bigger. Then you can start, as with a house payment, with a relatively small amount, and wind up with making a big payment in the end. It is pretty difficult. I would like to have some charts to show that.
But when I have talked about that, and the fact that we could pay off the national debt in a 30-year period, I have also mentioned there are emergencies. Emergencies would work just like a house loan as well. Emergencies would be that second mortgage you have to take out every once in a while. It would not be a 30-year loan plan; it would have to be a short-loan plan, but it would have to be taken care of, too.
On our budgeting, I want to talk about emergencies because another pet peeve of mine with emergencies is, we know in this country every year there will be about $6 billion spent on emergencies. Some of them are drought, some of them are tornadoes. There are lots of different kinds of disasters that happen in this country.
We do not know where disasters will happen. We cannot prevent disasters from happening. But we know those disasters are going to cost about $6 billion. It is something we ought to build into the budget. I am hoping I can sell 51 people on doing that.
War is different. It isn't something we know will happen each and every year. It is something that happens once in a while. We would prefer if it never happened.
There were comments that in this budget there isn't a dime for this war. I have explained why there isn't. But I do want to point out to the people of America, when we sent those troops over there, we sent them with supplies, we sent them with ammunition, we sent them with arms. That is the best equipped army we have ever had in the field in the history of the United States. You cannot send them there without paying for it. So getting them there, having them equipped, having them in a war is included in what we have done.
Now, how long it lasts, and what happens afterwards, we are going to get a supplemental budget on that. But we are not going to get the supplemental budget today. Hopefully, they will hold off a day or two, at least, to see what kind of a war we have over there. Daily, the ability to predict will be better, the ability to predict the expense will be better. That is why we do emergency supplemental budgets.
We just had an amendment that was offered that deals with homeland security and some additional expenses on that. We started putting that in as a specific item this year. We have been doing homeland security for the history of the country, but because of September 11, that became ever more critical and we needed to have a department for homeland security. We escalated homeland security to the point of having its own department with its own security.
Now, for those of my colleagues, or anyone else who might be listening, you will recall we spent an awful lot of time, last year, talking about the need for homeland security. And it got delayed and it got delayed and it got filibustered and it got delayed. And now the side that delayed it is trying to look as if they are the prime homeland security folks. It is not fair.
We can try and outspend each other to try to show we are more dedicated to homeland security than the other side. I think the way the debate has gone in the past shows how that works.
We do have a department for homeland security. The Department of Homeland Security has said what moneys they think are needed. That is in the package. As the alerts change, we may get supplementary requests on homeland security. We will have to respond to those. Hopefully, they will not get built into the budget as an every-year expense, just like war.
One of the reasons we budget for war through an emergency supplemental budget is because we do not want it built into the base. We do not want the American people to anticipate we are going to have war every year, and it is going to be the same cost. That is not good budgeting. The regular budget has the regular items in it that you do on a regular basis. It isn't a war budget. Wars are not done on a regular basis in a regular way for a regular expense, and hopefully they never will.
Now, on homeland security, there were some comments about the need to do more for the cities and the counties and the States. I want to do more for the cities and the counties and the States.
I used to be a mayor. I was the mayor of a boomtown in Wyoming that just about quadrupled in size while I was mayor. There were a lot of things that had to be taken care of, additional sewer, water, streets, basic things, increasing the fire department, increasing the police department. I did not do that on my own. The community did not do it on its own. It had help. It had help from the bottom to the State.
The Feds did not get into it much. That is because every expense in this country is not a Federal expense. Some of the expenses are a local expense. The benefits go to the people at the local level. The people at the local level understand those benefits better. They provide for them, for the most part, themselves. I kind of object to us giving people the impression that we do that.
I know the cities and the counties and the States are hurting out there. We want to work with them to make things as easy as possible. But that should not make the budget the prime spot for bailing everything out. Yes, we have a responsibility. Yes, we need to take care of it. But we talk about these things as though the Federal Government were the prime supplier of everything.
Education is the most important thing after defense. But education is one of those areas where we try to make it look like we do a lot, and like we could do a lot more. And we can. But we used to provide about 7 percent of the money. I think we are up to about 8.6 percent now of the money that is spent for schools. It is really the people paying the taxes to their schools who get the schools. And we add a little bit to it. A lot of it is some new programs we think are pretty fancy and sound good, and we think they will help education.
But with that 8.6 percent that we provide for education, we force more than 50 percent of the paperwork. We keep them so busy doing paperwork, they cannot do the job of working with the kids they ought to be doing.
Now, we tried to change that in the No Child Left Behind legislation. I think we made a good start on it. There is more that we can do. There is more that we will do at the Federal level. But I wish we would not give everybody the impression that the Federal Government provides everything because it leads them to expecting the Federal Government to provide everything, when, in fact, they ought to be giving themselves more credit for the job they are doing. And looking around their community--I don't care how big of a city you are in, I don't care if you are in New York City--there is still a community, the people you know around you.
I think one of the things that happened with September 11 is that sense of community increased. People suddenly became more interested in their neighbors and helping their neighbors.
There is a tremendous amount that can be done with community. That is where it starts. We are beginning to get the impression that the Federal Government prints the money so the Federal Government can provide all of the money that is necessary. We could, if we wanted to, go broke. So we have to solve the problems at all levels and not immediately escalate every cost to a Federal cost.
The final thing that has been brought up a number of times over the last day, and particularly today, is the economic package the President has suggested. There have been comments that we should not be doing an economic package. Of course, they don't like to call it an economic package. There are no ideas for stimulus coming from the people calling it a tax cut. They don't want to talk about the economic package right now.
Let me tell you what the budget process is. The budget process is where we say what the goals are for the next year for the regular operation of the country--not the emergency, not the war, the regular operation. One of the things we have said is that the economy is down. We need to do whatever we can to boost that economy. It is one of the things we have to worry about. It is one of the things we in Congress have to worry about.
How do you go about doing that? Well, one of the things is to do a budget. A budget is not a vote on the economic package. The budget is the vote on the possibilities we have for the next year. It sets down rules that govern how we will pass legislation the rest of this year. I don't want anybody to get the impression that we are passing an economic package this week. We need to pass the budget so the consideration of an economic package can go on. We need to pass that. But the real debate on the economic package comes when the economic package comes up.
If we chip away at it here and chip away at it there and put it into other things that we think are our priorities, then we have limited the possibilities for a solid economic plan for America. Most of that tactic is designed to get to the rhetoric that the tax cut will go to the rich.
It is a plan to get jobs, and jobs will go to everybody--not just new jobs, but keeping the job they have now. That is really the biggest concern people have. Those who have a job want to make sure they keep it. Those who do not want to make sure they have one.
That is what we want to do with an economic plan. We are trying to figure out the best possible economic plan we can put together. The President has said it needs to be $726 billion. I think we have $698 billion in the package, but that is an upper limit, not an actual package, not the final result. What we need to do is pass the regular budget so we can do the regular authorization work and the regular debate so we can get to appropriations by October 1. That is how long of a timeframe we are working on.
Why do we need to work on it now? Why should we, like the rest of America, keep working today? Because we have a job to do that includes this budget, a whole bunch of authorization bills, and then finally 13 appropriations bills. Now 13 appropriations bills normally take us 1 to 2 weeks per bill. So you can see if we are going to have that done by what the statute says, October 1, what the administration is relying on of October 1, we need to be meeting a timeframe right now. Statutorily it says this has to be done by April 15. That is just the budget part. That isn't where we even get to what the dollars per specific item are.
Last year we didn't have a budget. That kept us from getting the authorizations done. That kept us from getting the appropriations done timely. We didn't get them voted on until the end of July. We didn't get them conferenced until February, and we did not get them signed until February 20, which was very shortly after the conference was done. That is the earliest the President could sign them, February 20. People are talking about how No Child Left Behind doesn't have enough money. Well, how would they know whether they have enough money or not? None of it was released until February 20.
We cannot get in that position again. This Budget Committee is determined to make sure we will get it done in a timely manner and that as soon as there is a supplemental budget--and I do hope it is a couple of days into this so there is a better indication of how long it is going to take, what it is going to cost, how much damage has been done over there--then we will seriously look at that supplemental bill. But in the meantime, like the rest of America, I hope we will keep on doing our regular work while they do their regular work, so America and the war can be successful.
I yield the floor and retain the remainder of the time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, having been delegated authority by Senator Conrad, I yield 20 minutes off the amendment to the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me respond to a few of the things said this morning and also talk generally about the budget resolution. This budget resolution has been called an economic package, something focusing on jobs. In fact, this budget resolution doesn't add up. It cannot possibly be serious in its attempt to address what is happening and what is wrong in this country.
Let me use one chart to show what kind of a resolution we have before us. Skyrocketing deficits as far as the eye can see, a virtual ocean of red ink as far as the eye can see. I want to ask a question with respect to a budget proposal that comes to the floor at this moment in our history that says our major priority is a long-term permanent tax cut, and the most significant part of that priority is to exempt dividends from taxation. The implication of that, of course, is to say, in terms of our values, let's decide to keep taxing work but exempt investment. So let's tax work but exempt investment. I don't understand that.
But I especially don't understand it when there is a single U.S. soldier in the mountains of Afghanistan or a single U.S. soldier in the sands in Iraq, that we in this country would not say we are prepared to spend whatever is necessary of our tax dollars to support those soldiers. We must do our part.
Yesterday I was in a hearing in the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The Chief of Staff of the Army was testifying, along with the Secretary of the Army. I was asking the various questions my friend and colleague from Wyoming just discussed. What are some of these things going to cost. I fully understand we don't know exactly what is going to happen with respect to Iraq and what that will cost. I don't understand why there are not in this budget provisions to pay for the war on terrorism.
We know that is an ongoing war that began a couple years ago, and it is going to go on for a long while. And you know that the Defense Department is now taking money out of its other accounts in order to cover its costs for a war on terrorism. They know that war will continue in the next fiscal year. But they won't request money for it at this point in the budget before us.
We know that American presence will continue in Afghanistan in the next fiscal year. But the request for money for that will not be in this budget.
You can make a pretty decent case that we don't know what it is going to cost with respect to Iraq.
You cannot make a case that the war on terrorism and the efforts in Afghanistan should not be part of this budget. Of course they should. I understand that sometime--I think it is anticipated in the next 24 hours--we are going to receive a supplemental budget request--I am told it is somewhere in the neighborhood of between $70 billion and $100 billion--asking for that amount of additional money. We are told, although that has been put together in the Department of Defense and elsewhere, they do not intend to show it to us in Congress until we finish our discussions about the Federal budget.
I do not understand that. People keep saying this place should be run like a business. Is this the way you run a business? If a board of directors is making critical financial decisions about the company and you say, Oh, by the way, there is another very big piece out there, $60 billion to $70 billion to $100 billion, but we are not going to tell you what it is, we are not going to send it to you until you have actually completed your budget for next year, that is preposterous. Everyone knows that. It does not make any sense.
We have an economic plan in this country that is just not working. Mr. President, 2.5 million people have lost their jobs in the last couple of years. Our economy is sputtering. What used to be a strong, vibrant, growing economy is now an economy that is sputtering, not doing well at all, with people losing their jobs and budget surpluses turned to budget deficits.
It does not matter that we should spend time here talking about who did what. What matters is we should spend time talking about how do we fix what is wrong and how do we put our country back on track. And on the edge of war with Iraq, we are told in this budget document today, tomorrow, and this weekend apparently, that the highest priority is for us to enact very large permanent tax cuts, the most significant part of which is an exemption for taxes on dividends.
I, for the life of me, do not understand that. Is that doing our part in a national emergency? Is that doing our part? Is that a message to the American soldiers: You go risk your lives, but we will not support you with our tax dollars? What we will do is spend money and charge it, and you come back, having risked your life, and you also inherit the burden of paying the taxes to support it because we would not do it. That is not fair. That is not right. That is not doing our part.
Again, as long as there are soldiers in Afghanistan or soldiers going into Iraq, we ought not be doing this. We ought to put together a budget that adds up.
I just came from a hearing this morning, I say to my colleague from Wyoming, on appropriations for the Forest Service. Does my colleague know what they did to the Forest Service? We had massive problems with forest fires all around the country last year. They are deciding to cut the number of firefighters by much more than one-half. Does anybody think that is justifiable? Of course it is not justifiable. It is gimmicks and games. We do not have any intention of cutting the number of firefighters who fight forest fires in half.
When those fires rage across this country in America's forests, as they have in the last several years, we have a proposal to cut the number of firefighters in the Forest Service in half? I do not understand that. Are Mr. Daniels and those at the OMB with these tiny little pencils and microscopic eyeglasses not able to think at all? Are they the ones everyone says know the cost of everything and the value of nothing? Where on Earth is the value system in proposals such as this? I just do not understand it.
This country, at this moment, owes it to the men and women who are prepared to wage war for America to be honest as we approach these budgets. This budget is not an appropriate budget at all. We have an economy that is in desperate trouble and soldiers about to fight, and we are telling them: Oh, by the way, it is our intention to spend money we do not have on things we do not need and charge you the balance, and, by the way, we have the biggest amount of expenditure that is coming up, but we won't tell anybody what it is because we want to wait until we get the budget done, and then we will get a $100 billion bill and let you gnash your teeth over that. By the way, a fair amount of that should have been in this budget for the next fiscal year, but we do not want to tell you what that cost is either because in the next fiscal year we will give you another surprise and ask you to pass that on an emergency basis.
That is no way to budget. It is no way to run a business and no way to run a Government, and everybody understands it.
Because my colleague mentioned the No Child Left Behind Act, I cannot help but respond to that issue with respect to budgeting, expenditures, and cost. The basic notion of the President's proposal of no child left behind is accountability. Schools should be accountable for that which they spend to educate America's children. I agree with that. But we passed legislation saying no child left behind with the implied comments of everyone, including the President, that they would fund that which was necessary to make it work. The No Child Left Behind Act was enacted, but the President left the funding behind.
I introduced legislation in the Congress to say there ought to be a moratorium on the deadlines in that legislation until two things happen: One, we have the funding to make that work; and, two, until we see the implementation of that with the flexibility that is necessary, so that we do not have the same template put over a rural school in a small town in Wyoming and North Dakota as is put over a school in an inner city that has different needs. I will give an example.
If you have a great teacher--I mean a great teacher--teaching in his or her minor, who has taught in it for 12 years, does a terrific job, teaches children very well, do we really believe we ought to tell that school district that does not have the money, by the way, that it must hire a teacher in their major to replace a teacher who teaches very well in that teacher's minor and is producing students who are well educated? Is that what we want? Or do we want basic flexibility? I think we want basic flexibility.
I came from a school with 4 grades, 40 kids, and I graduated in a high school class of 9. If someone came to that high school and said every class taught needs to be taught by the teacher in the teacher's major, that school district does not have anywhere near the capability to make that happen. So we need to make that work, but it will not work with respect to this kind of budget dealing with education. The needs are not meeting the implied promises given when we passed that legislation.
Let me mention a couple of other issues with respect to the economy. I wish, and all Americans wish, this economy were growing, and growing rapidly, expanding so jobs and opportunities would exist for all Americans. That, regrettably, has not been the case.
About 2 years ago, the President proposed a $1.7 trillion tax cut, and some of us said: Things are good, times are good, we see big budget surpluses in the Federal Government, but we ought to be a bit conservative. Maybe we ought not jump to have permanent tax cuts of
$1.7 trillion over the 10-year period. Maybe what we ought to do is be a bit more conservative and do it incrementally. They said: No, the President wants it this way and had the votes to make it happen. So we did.
What happened after that vote was taken and we had this permanent large tax cut? The first thing that happened was we discovered we were in a recession and less revenue was coming into the Federal Government. Second, on September 11, we had a devastating terrorist attack against our country. Then we had the most significant corporate scandals in a long time. At the same time we were fighting a war against terrorism, the stock market collapsed and the tech bubble burst. All of these came to the same intersection at the same time, dramatically affecting this country's economy.
What was intended to be large budget surpluses in our future became very large budget deficits that are growing and growing worse. What is the response to that, even as we have additional foreign policy challenges, a war with Iraq, very serious problems in North Korea, and a continued war with respect to terrorism and dramatic new needs with respect to homeland security? What is the response? The response by the majority party and the President is to bring the budget to the floor of the Senate and say none of that matters; what matters is we have more large permanent tax cuts. That is not doing our part for national security. It is not doing our part, in my judgment, to support our soldiers.
We would be wise to put together a budget that adds up, one that works, one that invests in the future, and one that says to the American soldiers: You are not the only ones fighting this war. This country is behind you, and we are doing our part.
We are not going to send you off to battle and then bring you home to pay the bill. That ought to be our responsibility. This budget resolution is wrong and everyone knows it.
We are going to have a whole series of votes on choices because, after all, budgets are simply a series of choices. Let me describe, for example, one other choice.
I am going to offer an amendment relating to our country's trade deficit. We not only have the largest budget deficits in history at this moment, we also have the largest trade deficit in history--$470 billion in 2002.
Every single day, seven days a week, nearly $1.5 billion more in goods are brought into this country than we ship out. Think of that.
One can make a case on the budget deficit that perhaps that is a deficit we owe to ourselves. One cannot make that case with the trade deficit. That is a deficit we owe to other countries and one that we will inevitably repay with a lower standard of living unless we resolve these trade issues.
We now have a $103 billion trade deficit with China. So you would think that our government has a good number of people working to address that huge deficit. Guess again. We have just 19 people in the Market Access and Compliance Section at the Department of Commerce, whose job it is to pry open these foreign markets in China that are closed to U.S. producers. We have a $103 billion trade deficit with China, and we have 19 people working on it. We have a $70 billion trade deficit with Japan. It has been that way every year as long as we can remember. We have 10 people working down at Market Access and Compliance trying to pry open markets in Japan.
We have a thirteen billion dollar deficit with Korea. We have two and three-fourths people--that is what they say, two and three-fourths, working to deal with trade barriers to U.S. products in the Korean market. I do not know how one gets three-fourths of a person. I guess when you are dealing with trade, the laws of nature don't apply.
With Europe, we have an $82 billion trade deficit, and only 15 people working on that.
Despite our debate about budgets and all of the mantra and chanting that goes on about economic growth, our country is not going to do well unless we straighten out this trade mess. The manufacturing sector cannot be decimated in the strongest economy on Earth without serious consequences in the long term. Jobs cannot be shipped overseas, as well as factories, and a dismantling of the manufacturing sector, which is exactly what is happening in our country, without having very substantial problems.
The reason I mention all this is I am going to offer an amendment that adds money to Market Access and Compliance, which says: Let us address the trade issues by demanding, by requiring, and by having the people to fight for the open markets overseas for our producers. We do not do that. We are weak-kneed in this country. We lack backbone and spine to deal with these trade issues.
I will give you a couple of examples. We had trade negotiators negotiate with China. This is an example of a bad agreement. Our trade negotiators negotiated with China and they agreed that after a phase-in of some years, China would be allowed to impose tariffs on U.S. automobiles sold in China 10 times the amount of tariffs that we would impose on any Chinese automobiles sold in the United States. Think of that. Our negotiators agreed to that. I think that is nuts.
How about Korea? Anybody know how many cars we sent to Korea last year? The United States of America shipped 2,800 cars to the country of Korea. How many Korean cars were shipped to the United States? Over 600,000 cars came from Korea to the United States. We shipped 2,800 back. Want to know why? Is it because Koreans do not want to drive American cars? Absolutely not. It is because the Korean Government does not want American cars, so we have one-way trade and that means our jobs are gone and there is this decimation of our manufacturing capacity. It has to stop.
I am going to offer an amendment, and we are going to see if people care about the issue of trade and supporting America's manufacturers. We are going to see who wants to stop this nonsense of shipping jobs overseas so that 14-year-olds can work 14 hours a day and get paid 14 cents an hour so that U.S. workers are told you have to compete with that, and if you cannot compete with it in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, or Fargo, then those jobs are going to be gone permanently. That is not fair trade.
Any budget that we pass is going to be irrelevant in the context of this country's economic problems if it does not address the basic trade imbalance of $470 billion in one year.
Thirty years ago, we had a $3 billion trade deficit in one quarter, and it was considered a crisis. These days we cannot get anybody to look at this. But countless people are impacted by it; the people who woke up this morning who did not have to dress for work because their jobs are gone. They had to tell their family: I am a hard worker, I do good work, but my manufacturing plant was moved overseas and I no longer have a job.
Millions of people have experienced that, and they are told by too many in this Congress and too many others who fight for bad trade policies that they have to compete in circumstances where fair competition does not exist.
So I am going to offer an amendment with respect to market access and compliance, saying if we have a $470 billion trade deficit, we ought to have a lot of folks prying open these foreign markets, and dealing with unfair trade practices.
The fact is, we hardly have anybody working on it. There are a bunch of people going off making goofy agreements on behalf of this country, selling out American farmers and selling out manufacturers because they do not care very much, and then when the agreement is done, even if it is a bad agreement, if there is some ability to enforce it, we do not have anybody who wants to enforce it anyway.
I ask for 5 additional minutes by unanimous consent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used his 20 minutes.
Mr. REID. By the authority of the ranking member, Senator Lautenberg is to be recognized for up to 20 minutes, time off the resolution. Senator Nickles does not want the amendment offered. It takes unanimous consent to just speak about the amendment.
Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 5 additional minutes.
Mr. REID. That would be fine, but I would like the Senator from New Jersey, who has waited some time to be recognized--Senator Enzi, the Senator is going to be recognized for 5 more minutes, followed by Senator Lautenberg to be recognized for up to 20 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will probably not use all the 5 minutes. I know my colleague wishes to speak.
There are so many other issues of choices, especially bad choices, with respect to these budget resolutions we are discussing.
The budget resolution brought to us from the committee has large, biting, permanent budget deficits. It includes very large tax cuts. At a time when we are asking this country to sacrifice, especially with its sons and daughters, at a time when we are sending America's sons and daughters to war, this Congress is saying we will have our sons and daughters make tough choices, but we will not make tough choices. It is not the fair thing to do. I do not want those soldiers to come back to bear the burden of the costs of a war we would not cover.
A little over a year ago, I was in Afghanistan. I recall visiting on the edge of Afghanistan an old Soviet airbase. I believe it was called Kanabad. At that Soviet airbase, we had soldiers. At that point, there were still a lot of activities in Afghanistan when we fought the Taliban and kicked the Taliban out of Afghanistan. We were then searching for al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. When I visited that base and spoke to the soldiers, the men and women living in a tent city were walking around in mud up to their ankles, snow, conditions that were not good, but I could see the pride in their eyes. They understood why they were there. They understood what they were doing for their country, and they were proud of it, and this country is proud of them.
They are still in Afghanistan. Fortunately, the fighting does not present itself these days so much in Afghanistan. We have been remarkably successful in Afghanistan and hopefully we will restore the new government under Mr. Karzai. The fact is, we still have troops in Afghanistan. We are prepared to move troops into Iraq. Some are perhaps there, others perhaps in a day or so. It seems to me our obligation to those, especially the mostly young men and women who have been taken from this country, away from their families, and who said, ``let me serve, I will go,'' who are risking their lives for this country, our obligation is to be talking about the realities of what this country faces. To say to those soldiers the sacrifice is not only yours, it is a national sacrifice.
When someone asks, What do you do for the war, you say I get a dividend tax exemption? We had Warren Buffett come to the Congress a week and a half ago. He is the second richest man in the world. He said: If you provide a tax exemption for dividends, which is in this resolution, I will actually benefit to the tune of about $400 million a year. He said: But it won't make any sense for the country. It will not help the economy and I don't support it.
Why on Earth would we be doing this when we ought to be supporting our troops? When the troops are doing their part, in my judgment, we must do ours. We should support them with our tax dollars, even as they support us with their lives. That is what these discussions are about.
The reason I decided to speak about this, my colleague said we do not have any idea what any of this costs. Nonsense. We all know better than that. Of course we know what it will cost. We do not know the details. We know what the war against terrorism has cost.
I was told yesterday by the Department of the Army in an open hearing that amount of money to prosecute the war against terrorism has been taken out of the regular accounts because they have not been provided for and they will be in an emergency supplemental, but the war on terrorism is not a temporary event and it ought to be part of the regular budget. We know what is going to happen in Afghanistan. We will have troops there. We know what that will cost. It ought to be part of this budget and planning. We know it will cost some money; it already has in Iraq. But the administration is deliberately at this point deciding not to allow anyone to see those numbers and they will not discuss them until we pass this budget.
Why? I think we understand why. It will be a very big number. It is something we ought to be considering here, in my judgment.
I asked the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Shinseki, about it yesterday. I didn't press him because he got in very hot water a couple weeks ago. The published reports were that there were people in the Pentagon who wanted heads to roll because General Shinseki answered the question, What is this going to cost? He got in real trouble.
It seems to me we ought to deal with all the facts and come up with a budget that adds up and works.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from New Jersey is recognized for 20 minutes.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an amendment I plan to offer when the opportunity presents itself. My amendment establishes a reserve fund for national and homeland security. My amendment is cosponsored by Senators Conrad and Schumer as well.
This budget reminds me of a movie I saw some time ago, not intending to present any humor, but it is precise in what it says: ``Show Me The Money.'' Everyone understood immediately what they were talking about. Here we are, searching for the money to pay for our defense needs and the war with Iraq. It is nowhere to be found.
I was the ranking member of the Budget Committee for several years. There is one thing you learned on that committee, simply wishing for money does not make it appear. This must come as a shock to people who in their regular lives try to set money aside for future expenses such as mortgages or tuition or rent or real estate taxes. We all have to budget for our critical needs.
The war with Iraq has started. We see the pictures of our troops and you wonder how they put up with the heat and the dust, the threat to their lives, the ominous presence, perhaps, of chemicals or biological weapons. There is plenty to think about. But for God's sake, we ought to think here about how we provide the money to prosecute that war. It has to sound strange to people listening to what is said in the Senate this morning.
We have an obligation to tell the American people how much and where the money is going to come from to finance the war and to finance our domestic security needs. At critical moments in history such as this, we ought to be truthful with the American people about what it is we are doing.
The truth is, this budget does not provide the funding to prosecute our war with Iraq. It is a simple equation. We are shortchanging national security spending and the costs of the war in order to protect a tax break, largely for the wealthiest.
I want people to understand. We are going to prosecute the war, and we are going to do it fully, but we ought to tell the truth to the American people about how we are going to pay for it. The money to pay for this war is not provided in any place we look. It is a tax cut that people understand is going to the wealthiest among us. I want everyone to know the money that would be used to prosecute this war is going to go to another priority; that is, a tax cut for the wealthiest. A tax cut that, as we heard from the Senator from North Dakota, a tax cut people with wealth typically do not need, and I can tell you most of them do not want it when they recognize it comes from the very foundation of our strength in this country.
The Senate GOP plan ignores the cost of war. We are going to look at a supplemental, which is in addition to the budget, that was not planned for. But with less than a wink of an eye, everyone knows the war otherwise will not be prosecuted out of the funds available for the Defense Department. That is what we are looking at. From $60 billion to
$95 billion is expected to be requested in a supplemental plan. The present Senate budget plan does not provide for any of it.
My friends in the business world are people who run big companies, some of them little companies, but they run organizations and they know how important it is to fund your critical needs.
My amendment corrects a major problem with this budget. My colleagues may not realize that the Senate Republican budget resolution actually cuts defense spending by $103 billion below the President's request.
We have heard a great deal of talk about patriotism from the other side of the aisle. We have even seen it raised in the ugliest of fashions, in an election where a triple amputee who lost his limbs in Vietnam was accused of lacking patriotism and lost the election. Imagine, a triple amputee, a man left with one arm, the legs are gone, one arm is gone, and he is accused of being unpatriotic. Language flows loosely around here at times.
We have heard a lot about putting national security and homeland first above all, and at times when the defense budget was being prepared it was suggested if you challenged it, if you voiced some concern about it, if you questioned the tactic being used, there was an implied criticism that you were not being loyal, that you might be like the French. Talk is loose here.
I served in another war, a long time ago, and they used to have a slogan ``loose lips sink ships.'' Boy, we would not have a lot of ships afloat here.
When you examine the details of this budget, it is apparent that it is tax cuts for the rich that have the highest priority. In fact, this budget cuts national security funding in order to provide those tax cuts to the wealthy.
I had a business career before I came here. Thank goodness for the American opportunity, we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. We were three poor kids from working-class families in Patterson, NJ. The company did very well. Today a company that we started employs 40,000 people.
Mr. President, it is obvious that a company with that kind of growth, that kind of success, produced some wealth for the founders. It did. And I can tell you I do not want a tax cut for myself and I don't think people in my position ought to have tax cuts right now. America has been good enough to us that we do not need the tax cut. We need a strong country. We need a harmonious population where people know they are being treated fairly and that we are not putting everything else aside so we can give a tax cut to people who neither need it and in most cases don't want it.
There are sleight of hand maneuvers in this budget. If you look at the years 2004 through 2008, the Republican budget projects defense spending at the level requested by the President. But in the last 5 years of the budget window, from 2009 through 2013, the Republican budget resolution actually cuts $103 billion below the levels CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, estimates would be required just to maintain defense spending in real terms at the level the President proposed. During those latter 5 years, where is that missing $103 billion going? The answer is--I don't want to be repetitive, but this is so hard to understand, so impossible to conceive that we have to say it a lot because it does not get through. But maybe, just maybe, the American people will hear this clearly enough to say:
Hey, listen, I have heard some pretty good presentations this morning.
I am discounting mine. I am talking about others here.
They keep talking about this tax cut for the wealthy.
That is what we are talking about, Mr. and Mrs. American citizen. That is what we are talking about. The tax cut in this bill over 10 years will cost this country $1.4 trillion.
Are we cutting defense for this tax cut? Whom does that help? Let's look at the facts about the President's tax proposal. Almost half of all tax filers, 49 percent of them, would receive tax cuts of less than
$100. That doesn't do much for people's standard of living.
The average tax cut for the bottom 80 percent of tax filers would be
$226. That is the average tax cut. By contrast, the top 1 percent of tax filers would receive an average tax cut of $24,100. But those who are at the tippy top, with incomes of more than $1 million, would get tax cuts averaging $90,200. That could make a difference in one's standard of living, but not for those folks, they are already living at that scale. That is why I call it skewed towards the wealthy.
As for another part of the tax cut proposal, the dividend tax cut, nearly 70 percent of the benefits would flow to the top 5 percent of our tax filers, and the top 1 percent would receive 46 percent of the benefits--1 percent would receive 46 percent of the benefits, nearly half of the benefit to the top 1 percent.
So the priorities are quite clear: Tax cuts for the wealthy first; national security, when it comes to the money, further down the list. That is just plain wrong.
There is a reason it is being handled that way. I do not suggest lack of patriotism, lack of loyalty, lack of conviction on this war. I just know that in the planning, in the machinations that go toward developing the budget, what happens is someone says: Hey, guys, do you know what happens? If we don't get that tax cut in the total package, we are not going to get it. It is just not going to happen. It's a lot easier to get money for the war, a lot easier to get money for our defense, homeland defense needs. We can get that in supplementals or other places. A tax cut, we had better get that now, while we can.
The President laid out his request for accomplishing these goals. But what did the Senate Republican budget do? It sacrificed funding for national security in order to provide tax cuts for the rich, as I explained. The process took over. To make matters worse, this budget ignores the fact that we have gone to war. Every one of us is glued to the news, whether it is the papers or television or radio or whatever it is; we want to know what is happening with our troops. We worry. We heard about a Black Hawk helicopter that went down. I know I must speak for everybody. We are holding our breath until we learn that those who were carried in that helicopter were rescued.
The White House has told the press that it will happen, that we are going to need the money. Again, I used to be ranking member of the Budget Committee, so I know my colleagues on that committee read the newspaper.
The administration is about to send up a war supplemental request to us of between $60 and $95 billion. It is not in the budget, it is supplemental. It is extra. You can make the case pretty easily. It is one thing to make the case because of the need. It is another thing to make the case because you want to put the funds that are available in a lot of rich persons' pockets.
This war and its aftermath will cost a lot of money. Estimates are that the reconstruction of Iraq could cost $30 billion over 10 years. Every year of Iraqi occupation could cost between $17 billion and $46 billion. As far as this budget is concerned, apparently it doesn't see any of it happening. So we ignore the war in the budget, we cut national security spending. Why? Simply because it seems, in the eyes of the administration, the most important agenda is to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans at the cost of other priorities.
My amendment makes it clear that tax cuts should not take priority over every other need. My amendment restores the 2009 through 2013 national security cuts in the budget resolution. The amendment moves
$103 billion in budget authority and $88 billion in outlays into a reserve fund for national security and homeland security. To offset the cost of this critical reserve fund, my amendment simply goes to the tax cut and reduces it by $88 billion during the same period, so we can take that cash from the tax cut--again, most of it going to the wealthiest--and put it into the most vital need we have right now, and that is to make sure that every penny we can put together to make sure our people in the field, those who are fighting, know we will do everything we must by way of financing to make sure they have every tool available, they have all the protections they need. That is where to put the money.
We are faced with a clear choice. My amendment says our Nation's national security is far more important than tax cuts for the wealthy. I hope when we have a chance to present the amendment, my colleagues will support voting for national and homeland security by voting for the amendment.
In the war I fought in a long time ago, we used to talk to the public about what they had to do to prosecute the war, to provide for our defenses.
This poster shows its age by the way the characters are drawn. It says: ``BUY WAR BONDS.'' I think they were $25 at their least price. It said: Everybody has to kick in. Everybody has to do their share. Do what you can to help us conduct ourselves in our defense as proudly, as forcefully, as we can. That is what it is about.
And here we are ashamed to ask the richest among us to sacrifice their $90,000 on a $1 million income? Wait, make more money. Warren Buffet addressed a group of Senators the other day, and he said: I love paying taxes because every time I pay taxes, it means there is more money left in my pocket. Pretty simple. And that is how we ought to face our responsibilities now: Tell the truth to the American people, I say to my colleagues on the other side. Tell the truth about how you plan to use the money that otherwise would currently be available to prosecute the war.
Maybe we would not even have to do a supplemental. There are times when we are mystified by the arguments presented on one side or the other. I am sure that happens with our Republican friends when it is a Democratic proposal. The fact is, these figures that are generated here have been reviewed by the distinguished committees of people who study budgets as a professional thing, as an organizational commitment. They tell us: Look, all you have to do is look at the lines, look at the years.
Right now, everything looks OK. Get out to about 2007, and you see what happens. The President's budget is one thing; in the Senate GOP plan--that is, the budgeteer's, the majority's plan in the Budget Committee--they have something else. They show they cannot meet the President's number.
The tragedy of this kind of a debate is that we have to confront one another. I believe this is a time when the last thing on the list of priorities ought to be tax cuts going largely to the wealthiest among us.
Let's stand up and do what is right. Let's send all that we have right now: commit it, reserve it, make it such that it cannot be touched anyplace else.
I hope when we have a chance to review the amendment, we will see the thought has prevailed that says: Hey, they could be right on this one. Let's send it all into our defense needs which are so heavy right now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham of South Carolina). Who yields time?
The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Arkansas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mrs. LINCOLN. I thank my colleague.
Mr. President, as the daughter of a veteran and the granddaughter of two grandfathers who served in the war, and the mother of two small boys, I want to say how proud I am of the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces in this great country, those who go to the front lines to defend the freedoms and the conveniences we enjoy here every day.
They have done a tremendous job, and they continue to do a tremendous job. I want them to all know that our thoughts and prayers and, more importantly, our pride is with each and every one of them as they perform a mission on our behalf.
I also rise today on behalf of the men and women who serve our Nation as members of the National Guard and Reserves, who are out there today, as well, defending our rights and our freedoms.
I am going to discuss an amendment that I will offer, when the time becomes appropriate, with Senator Landrieu, with a tremendous amount of help and background from many other Senators who have worked on this issue, particularly Senator Leahy--an amendment that will bring members of the National Guard and Reserve into the TRICARE health care program.
Currently, Guard and Reserve families cannot enroll in the TRICARE program unless the Guard or Reserve member is activated with orders lasting over 30 days.
Our amendment would allow members of the Guard and Reserves, as well as their families, to sign up for TRICARE health care coverage at any time regardless of whether the Guard or Reserve is activated.
This amendment is paid for by reducing the size of the proposed tax cut by $20.3 billion over 10 years. Specifically, these numbers are backed up by a GAO report on this subject that was authorized by the fiscal year 2002 National Defense Authorization Act. And the study was completed in September of 2002. So we have the numbers to back up what we want to do on behalf of these incredible men and women in the National Guard and Reserves, who deserve the support of health care, as do their families.
In recent years, our Nation has increasingly looked to our volunteer reservists and guardsmen for our defense and peacekeeping needs, requiring them to leave their jobs and families in defense of our Nation.
Arkansas has sent over 2,000 Guard and Reserve members to contribute to the war on Iraq and the war on terrorism. They are among over 212,000 Guard and Reserve members who have been activated nationwide.
Given the scope of their sacrifices, I do not think it is too much to ask their fellow Americans to sacrifice as well by accepting a smaller tax cut.
Currently, over 20 percent of this Nation's Guard and Reserve soldiers lack health care coverage when they are not on active duty. That number is much greater in a State such as Arkansas where our overall numbers of uninsured are much greater than the national percentage.
In this time of increased dependence upon the members of our National Guard and Reserves, it is imperative we increase benefits for them and their families for when they are not on active duty.
I also want to acknowledge this amendment only provides funding for this program. It does not begin to detail how the extended TRICARE benefits should be structured. That test would be left up, and should be left up, to the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
I am also aware that many Senators have been working, for some time, on the details of how to structure and provide these benefits. I hope my budget amendment will complement their efforts by solely allocating the necessary budget authority to provide these benefits to our Guard and Reserve members.
I look to the leadership of Senators Leahy and DeWine and Daschle, as well as both the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, to develop the specifics of how these benefits will be provided.
I am also aware that this amendment will only provide an estimate of the cost of providing these benefits. In fact, some estimates state that providing these benefits will cost much less than this amendment would provide. I hope that is the case.
Nonetheless, this Nation's National Guard and Reserve members and their families deserve these benefits now.
I was drawn into this by a recent visit from our National Guard and Reserve units in Arkansas. A human resource officer brought to me the fact that many of these individuals--Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield another 2 minutes to the Senator from Arkansas off the resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, on a visit with our National Guard and Reserves, a human resource officer came to me and said: Do you realize that when these individuals are called up to active duty, we can't activate them because they have not had the proper medical care? These are individuals who have signed on the dotted line and said they are willing to go and defend this country. Yet in their private lives they cannot afford or have access to the appropriate health care that keeps them at a health care level that we could actually activate them when we need them.
This amendment is just the tip of the iceberg with respect to this Nation's overwhelming amount of uninsured families. Statistics show us that one in five Americans do not have any form of health coverage at all.
Congress must address the larger problem of uninsured families across this Nation, but the absolute least we can do is to provide full coverage to America's National Guard and Reserves and their families.
The time is right. And this is the right policy and the right priority for our men and women serving in the Guard and the Reserves.
Mr. President, I would also like to add Senator Pryor as a cosponsor to this amendment when we are prepared to offer it.
I say to all those Americans listening, we all must make contributions. It is not too much to ask of our fellow Americans to delay a larger tax cut in order to provide the necessary health care that these individuals need to be called up to serve.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator from North Dakota yield me 5 minutes to have a colloquy with the Senator from Arizona?
Mr. CONRAD. We can have that understanding, and then we will come back to Senator Brownback for a time he desires.
Mr. BROWNBACK. That is acceptable.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I listened to the speech of the Senator from Arkansas, talking about the men and women in the armed services. What I want to focus on for a minute is my son. One of my boys married a beautiful young woman and they have two of my grandchildren. I have gotten to know her sister Megan. Megan is a brilliant young woman, graduated Jefferson High School, which is a school for the academically talented, has more merit scholars than any high school in America. She is a graduate of MIT, another great scientific institution. This young woman is now in the gulf, an officer on a destroyer. She is trained to be the person who gives the direction to fire missiles.
Things have changed since the Vietnam war, the Korean conflict, the Second World War. Women are now heavily engaged in actions that are military in nature. When we speak of the men and women of the armed services, I can't help but focus on Megan. She is married. Her husband is getting ready to go to medical school. He is here. His wife is in harm's way in the Middle East. My conscience has been quirked by the very fine statement of the Senator from Arkansas when she referred on more than one occasion to the men and women of the armed services because the men and women of our armed services are the Megans of the world. They are standing side by side of the men doing anything that a man can do. I congratulate the Senator for the amendment she will offer and her contribution to the Senate, not only with this amendment but what she does every day.
Mrs. LINCOLN. I thank the Senator from Nevada for his comments.
It is so important for us to realize that these men and women in the Reserves and the National Guard are leaving their families. They are leaving their careers, their jobs. The least we can do is provide for them the ability to provide for their families the kind of health care they need.
One of the most outrageous stories I heard was from our reservists in Arkansas who said: We had to spend unbelievable amounts of money just to get these individuals up to the health care level where we could actually activate them. These are people who have offered themselves and have pledged that they would leave their families, they would leave what they have worked their entire lives to build to go and defend our country. There is absolutely no reason that we cannot provide for them the ability to provide for their families and for themselves the health care they need to be ready when the time comes and we call on them.
I thank the Senator from Nevada. For all of my colleagues listening to this debate, I do not think it is too much to ask for the rest of Americans of what we can do for those being called on more and more to serve this country. That is the National Guard and the Reserves.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Kansas to introduce an amendment.
Amendment No. 282
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I want to propose an amendment at the desk. I ask unanimous consent that the pending business be set aside so I may introduce an amendment.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I would be constrained to object at this point because what we are doing is allowing Members to speak on their amendments on both sides but not actually present their amendments at this point. That has been what we have been doing back and forth all day today, as Members have come and spoken on their amendments but not actually sent them to the desk, with the exception of Senator Schumer who had an amendment on homeland security. So I am contrained to object at this point. The Senator is completely able to go ahead and make his presentation. I would have to object at this point.
Mr. ENZI. It was my understanding that we were going to go back and forth on the introduction. It was our turn to have an introduction of an amendment. That is why we did that. We will wait for the introduction.
Mr. CONRAD. We are trying to go back and forth with respect to speakers and with respect to the opportunity to address amendments, but not formally enter them at this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. BROWNBACK. I hope once we are able to present the amendment that it will be accepted. We have floated it by both sides and it has been vetted as well. I hope it will be accepted.
I will be sending an amendment to the desk that will express the sense of Senate that a commission be established to provide a real means of addressing and eliminating Government waste in domestic agencies and programs within agencies. The Federal Government needs such a commission. We don't need one like the ones we have had in the past that don't have any teeth to them, that simply report but there is never a vote taken on what the commission puts forward. This one will be different in that respect. Indeed, at a time of economic uncertainty and of war, it is imperative that the Government demonstrate real fiscal responsibility and accountability in Federal spending. Whether it is corporate America or the U.S. Government, fiscal accountability is paramount.
With the devastating collapses we have had in corporate America, with Enron and WorldCom and others last year, we have seen what happens in the corporate world when fiscal accountability grows lax. Let's take steps now to avoid the same pitfalls at the Federal Government level. Let us ensure public trust by opening the books of Federal domestic agencies and programs within agencies, making changes and reforms where necessary, in order to ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely.
Fiscal accountability is what my amendment to the budget resolution is all about. Over the years we have established many useful measuring sticks for fiscal accountability in Federal spending. The Government Performance Result Act, GPRA, comes to mind. However, what measuring sticks such as GPRA lack is an effective means to implement their useful findings. What this resolution calls for is a commission that would incorporate the Federal Government's existing accountability measuring sticks to perform additional research of its own and provide the Congress with legislation, which we would vote on to either accept or reject as a whole, to implement its recommendations or not to accept them.
In a few days I will be reintroducing bipartisan legislation that creates such a commission. The bipartisan Commission on the Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies, CARFA Act, would fulfill what is addressed by this resolution. It is bipartisan. Senator Miller from Georgia is a cosponsor, and I hope to add a number of others on this bill in the near term.
I wish to speak for a minute about the CARFA Act. The CARFA Act provides Congress with a viable proven model to eliminate Government waste and inefficiency. It is modeled after the successful Base Realignment and Closure Commission. CARFA will incorporate the findings of past measuring sticks such as GPRA and will give them teeth. This program will focus on domestic discretionary spending. It will not be focused on military or entitlement programs. It is domestic discretionary programs. Where past commissions and reports failed in that they had no real means by which Congress could implement their findings and recommendations, CARFA will succeed.
The scope of review called for by this resolution entails domestic agencies and programs within agencies. I want to emphasize that point. Where BRAC is already in existence and has gone through several rounds in rooting out waste in the Department of Defense and consolidating resources to make them more useful, more viable, CARFA would review Federal domestic agencies and programs within agencies using a narrow set of criteria which should produce significant results and do what BRAC did, consolidating our dollars in more efficient uses in high-
priority areas.
Over the proposed commission's 2-year review, the commission focused on two particular areas.
One, duplicative: Where two or more agencies or programs are performing similar functions which can be consolidated or streamlined into a single agency or program, the commission would recommend that the agency or program be realigned. We do not need duplication within the Federal Government.
Second, wasteful or inefficient: Where the commission finds an agency or program to have wasted Federal funds by low-priority spending, it would recommend that such an agency or program be realigned or eliminated.
Three, outdated, irrelevant, or failed programs: We have those within the Federal Government. Where the commission finds that an agency or program has completed its intended purpose--I do not think we ever think about that, that a program actually completes its intended purpose, but it happens and we keep spending in the program--has become irrelevant, or has failed to meet its objectives--it was designed properly in the sense that the people at the time had the best of intentions in the design of the program, but it simply did not work to meet the needs at that time--and it would recommend the elimination of such an agency or program.
Such a commission, upon completion of its 2-year review, would submit to Congress both its recommendations for the realignment and elimination of domestic agencies and programs, and proposed legislation to implement these recommendations.
The Congress would then consider the commission's proposed legislation in an expedited manner, with input from the committees under whose jurisdiction the affected agencies or programs fall. Following the committee's comment period, the proposed legislation would be brought to the floor of each Chamber for debate and a single vote, up or down, without amendment, one vote.
If we are going to get serious about priority spending during this critical time in our Nation's history, if we want to get the most use out of every taxpayer dollar that comes to Washington, such a commission is clearly needed.
As in any bureaucracy, inefficiency or low-priority use of taxpayer dollars is often a serious threat to the credibility of an agency or a program, much less the legislative bodies that create and sustain them. We must be certain the money we spend is not just allocated in a certain way just because we have historically spent it that way.
I do not know of anything that drives my constituents more nuts than to see wasteful Federal spending or programs that have accomplished their purposes but the money is still being spent. There are people who come up to me and say: I do not mind paying my taxes, but it drives me nuts to see the money poorly spent. If I am going to work hard to earn this money, I want it to be wisely spent. Too often there are examples of that not occurring.
Priorities do change and our spending must change with them. The CARFA Act is crafted to take these changes into account. Whether one is conservative or liberal or in between, surely we can all agree that low-priority use of taxpayer dollars is an unacceptable strain on hard-
working Americans and on our economy. It is certainly no way to operate a business. Yet I feel, as do many of my colleagues, that we continually fail to get the most out of every taxpayer dollar that comes to Washington.
Let's change that. CARFA is about maximizing the benefit of all Federal funds. Funds saved through this legislation could be used to pay down the national debt or be channeled to higher congressional priorities.
It is my hope this body will agree to this amendment and then proceed to consider and enact the CARFA Act. Truly, this will provide a real tool at the service of the Federal Government to better prioritize spending and shift funds from less beneficial to more beneficial areas. All of us surely support such a move.
I believe Americans would greatly benefit from such a commission which has the real potential to help us truly root out inefficiency in the Federal Government in such a way that we can more fully realize the benefits of all Federal funds. That is the spirit of this amendment and the CARFA Act.
I urge my colleagues to join me in this effort, to vote for this amendment, to adopt it as part of the budget resolution and to show support for the CARFA Act of 2003 by becoming original cosponsors of this important legislation.
Mr. President, as we debate the budget, this is exactly what we need to be doing: Finding ways we can prioritize and make sure our spending is efficient.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Wisconsin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, as such time I am allowed to offer an amendment, I intend to offer an amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Corzine. This is an amendment I actually offered in the Budget Committee. I thought we had a good debate on it. It goes to the heart of what is happening at this moment on which so many Americans are focusing and on which so many people in the world are focusing.
This Nation has gone to war with Iraq. Our thoughts are first and foremost with the men and women who serve our country in the Armed Forces. While we debated the wisdom of going to war with Iraq, and I personally have questioned whether it is a good idea, there can be no debate or doubt about the dedication of our troops and devotion to our country or the honor they do us through their sacrifice. We all hope in earnest for a speedy victory and for the safe and quick return of those men and women.
If we fail to prepare in this budget for the fact of this war in Iraq, we will be engaging in wishful thinking. Worse, we will be failing to think at all. The notion that this budget does not provide anything for this enormous undertaking that is occurring is really troubling and really is not what you can call honest budgeting.
I will concede no one is really certain how much the war with Iraq will actually cost, but we can be certain this war will be far from free. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the President's former adviser for economic policy, Lawrence Lindsey, estimated the cost of the war would be $100 billion to $200 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office estimates, the initial deployment of troops and equipment would cost about $14 billion; the first month of combat would cost $10 billion, and then with each subsequent month of combat costing $8 billion per month. To return troops and equipment to their home bases after the war some people believe would cost $9 billion, and any postwar occupation of Iraq would cost between
$1 billion and $4 billion, Mr. President, per month--per month.
Using CBO's figures, if we make some ballpark assumptions that active military combat will last for 2\1/2\ months and that the following reconstruction and occupation would last another 2 years, we are talking about something between $69 billion and $141 billion.
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimates that the cost of combat from 1 to 6 months would be $18 billion to $85 billion, and the cost of reconstruction for 5 years would range from $25 billion to $105 billion. Adding all the potential costs identified by the center, it would lead to total cost estimates ranging on the low end from $129 billion to $683 billion on the high end.
Plainly, we are talking about a major enterprise, and obviously it is one for which we should budget.
The amendment I offer on behalf of myself and the senior Senator from New Jersey will create a reserve fund to set aside $100 billion.
That is an amount well within the range of the available estimates I was highlighting in order to fund this military action and reconstruction in Iraq. We pay for this action by reducing the amount that we would budget for cutting taxes in the period covered by the budget resolution--a simple proposition. The amount of $100 billion would be put in a reserve fund so we can honestly estimate a budget for the war in Iraq, and that would come out of the tax cut that is contemplated.
When we are conducting a war, the budget must reflect it. We cannot blithely go along as if this were a time for business as usual. We should budget responsibly for what is happening right before our eyes.
When I am able to actually offer this amendment, I will strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment. The American people will be extremely supportive, obviously, of our troops in this effort as it is conducted. What they will not understand, though, is if we pretend that this will cost nothing, that we will pass a budget in the midst of this war effort pretending that the war in Iraq will not be an expensive proposition. We owe them that. We owe them honesty at this historical and very significant moment, and we must set aside a reasonable estimate of funds to cover the cost of this enormous undertaking.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. President, I explained earlier why the emergency supplemental was not a part of the regular budget process. I want to share one paragraph from a CRS report:
Based on an examination of previous CRS reviews of funding for wars and other major military operations, it appears, with one possible exception, that Presidents have not requested and Congress has not provided funding for wars in advance of the start of operations. Rather, administrations have requested funding after operations have begun and Congress has subsequently appropriated money to meet specific documented budget requirements.
I yield the floor, reserving the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask for 30 seconds to respond to the Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. CONRAD. Yes. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, in response to the Senator's remarks, the reason these wars were not budgeted for in the past is that they were obviously not foreseen. They occurred after the budget resolution occurred. We have known about this war and the imminent reality of it for some time. We are actually seeing it undertaken as we speak, and we are doing the budget resolution right now. There simply is no hard and fast rule against being honest in budgeting. That is all we are calling for, and this is an appropriate occasion when we can and should budget for the war.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I salute the Senator from Wisconsin. I think it is absolutely bizarre that we have the budget before us and we have nothing to pay for the war in that budget. The reason given was that operations had not commenced. Well, operations have commenced. And not to set aside funds for the war makes no earthly sense. How can that possibly be defended? We are at war. We have already spent tens of billions of dollars on that conflict, and now to suggest we put our head in the sand and say there is nothing going on defies reality, defies common sense.
I very much hope the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin is adopted.
I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from the State of Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, America is at war. Our priority must be to keep America and Americans safe, both at home and abroad. I look forward to supporting a supplemental budget to pay for the war and to pay for homeland security, and I also voted to reserve the money to do that. That is why I supported the ``patriotic pause'' that said no tax cuts until we know the cost of the war.
We know Americans are fighting overseas. The U.S. military should know they have the entire Nation behind them to make sure they have the best weapons, the best strategies, and the best support for their families while they are overseas. We also stand up for what America stands for. That means strengthening the safety net for those who need it the most. That means standing up for America's families.
We also need to recognize that families are hurting. We have a weak economy. People are going into debt to put their kids through school; affordable health insurance. Some families are facing extraordinary challenges because they care for a loved one who has a chronic condition: a parent with Alzheimer's, a child with autism, a son with cerebral palsy, a spouse with multiple sclerosis.
These families struggle every day to take care of their loved ones. They face a tremendous emotional and financial burden. It is not the job of the Federal Government to help them with their emotional burden, but I believe it is the job of the United States of America to help them with their financial responsibility. For those who are giving care, I believe we should give care. I want to give help to those who practice self-help.
Therefore, I will be offering an amendment to provide a tax credit for up to $5,000 for family caregivers, or those needing care who have caregiving expenses. This would cost $3.5 billion a year. My tax credit would pay for the prescription drugs, medical bills, or medical management for juvenile diabetics, the medical bills, or other care needed if a person has someone they are caring for with Parkinson's disease. My amendment would help people with multiple chronic conditions. We are not talking about hay fever, though that is disruptive. We are talking about juvenile diabetes. We are talking about autism. We are talking about multiple sclerosis, people who are unable to perform their activities of daily living, who are severely cognitively impaired, or children with such complex medical conditions they require medical management and coordination of care.
Why is this needed? Well, in 2000, over 125 million people had chronic conditions. One in five Americans have multiple chronic conditions. Eighteen million children in this country have chronic physical, developmental, or other conditions that impede their ability to live full lives. Almost 4 million Americans have mental retardation or another severe developmental disability. If the work of family caregivers was replaced with paid services, it would cost the Federal Government close to $200 billion a year.
Family caregivers face many demands, emotional, physical, and financial stress. They have stresses with their families, with their marriage, the stress of 36-hour days. They pay the high cost of medication, physical therapy, durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs, daycare for children with special needs, and medical bills from care with specialists.
People with serious chronic conditions pay for their health care by either making gradual medical payments over time or using money from savings, mutual funds, or other assets.
Families struggle to make ends meet. Let me give an example. A woman in Potomac, MD, was caring for her husband who had a debilitating neurological disease. There was no treatment or cure. Her husband could no longer talk, walk, or feed himself. The family received no financial help. She worked full time to support his full-time home care. She herself is in her early 60s. She sure could have used that tax credit.
Or as the mother of two children in Parkville, MD, one of her children is a 4-year-old boy with autism. This family has relied on volunteers from local colleges to assist with respite care for their son. This mother has not been able to return to work because of the amount of time needed to care for her two young children. She has two masters degrees in education.
Or like the Maryland woman who cared for a parent with Alzhemer's disease who worked 25 hours per week to pay someone to care for her mother while she worked to have health insurance for herself; saw her own income go from a high of $40,000 a year to a low of $6,000 a year. A tax credit could have helped her with home health care and respite care for her mother.
I think my amendment speaks for itself, but I try to speak for the families where we need to give help to those who are practicing self-
help.
I ask unanimous consent that a list of organizations supporting this amendment be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Who supports BAM's Amendment:
Autism Society of America, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, National Organization for Rare Disorders, Easter Seals, United Cerebral Palsy Associations, Arc of the United States, National Health Council, National Council on the Aging, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Family Voices, National Respite Coalition, National Family Caregivers Association, and the National Alliance for Caregiving.
Ms. MIKULSKI. One of my first milestones in the Senate was the enactment of the Spousal Anti-Impoverishment Act to change the cruel rules of Medicaid so that families would not have to go bankrupt before Medicaid would pay for nursing home care for a spouse. The spouse living in the community could keep the family home, keep a car, and keep some income each month to live on. This has helped one million people.
But this was a down payment. Not much has been done since then except the National Family Caregiver Support Program and long-term care insurance for Federal employees. I was proud to sponsor and work on both of these important measures and a bipartisan basis to get them signed into law.
Now it is time to make the family caregivers who are the backbone of the long term care system in this country a priority in the Federal law books and the tax code.
I urge my colleagues to get behind our Nation's family caregivers and vote for this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland for her excellent amendment. We appreciate very much her presentation and the thoughtfulness and the energy that she has put into this amendment. I hope my colleagues will pay close attention to what she has offered.
Next, I am going to yield 30 minutes to the senior Senator from South Carolina. Let me say that if there was an award in this body for Mr. Fiscal Responsibility, it would be the senior Senator from South Carolina. In the time I have been in the Senate, nobody has been more serious, more dedicated to balancing budgets, to paying down debt than the Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the leader from North Dakota. He has led our Budget Committee and done an outstanding job. The kudos belong to him for fiscal responsibility, and the responsibility in the position he has as the ranking member, to try to get the group together on a consensus, which is next to impossible, but he does the job.
I have three amendments at the desk, and I understand we are not introducing amendments, so I will address hastily comments on all three.
The first, of course, is the port security amendment for $1 billion a year for 2 years. It is focused, not Pepto-Bismol homeland security of
$80 billion over 10-some years. I have talked to Senators on both sides of the aisle. They want to finance what we passed unanimously--all 100 Senators--earlier last year for port security.
Right to the point, Osama owns several vessels. His teams landed and blew up the Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. His crews were on planes flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He could just as easily have two or three crews get on an Exxon tanker going up the Delaware River to deliver a tankerful of oil, throw the captain overboard and that tanker aground, and that would close down the eastern seaboard for at least 1 year.
I could go into it, but the amendment is worked out and in detail. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the details of the amendment.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Hollings Seaport Security Amendment to the Budget Resolution
Amendment would add one billion annually, over the next two years, to the Federal Budget. The one billion will be spent as follows:
Maritime Administration (610 million):
450 million--for grants to ports and waterfront facilities to help ensure compliance with federally approved security plans.
150 million--for grants to states, local municipalities and other entities to help comply with Federal area security plans and to provide grants to responders for port security contingency response.
10 million--to be used in conjunction with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center to help develop a seaport security training curriculum to provide training to Federal and State law enforcement personnel, and to certify private security personnel working at seaports.Coast Guard (160 million):
50 million--for port security assessments.
50 million--for the establishment and operation of multi-agency task force to coordinate and evaluate maritime information in order to identify and respond to security threats.
40 million--to help implement the Automated Identification System (AIS) and other tracking systems designed to actively track and monitor vessels operating in U.S. waters.
20 million--for additional Coast Guard port security vessels.The Border and Transportation Security Directorate (230 million):
100 million--to Customs for the installation of screening equipment, and to be used to help develop new technologies to help develop and prototype screening and detection equipment at U.S. ports.
100 million--to TSA and Customs; 50 million each, to evaluate and implement cargo security programs.
30 million--for the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) to develop and implement the Transportation Worker ID Card, and to conduct criminal background checks of transportation workers who work in secure areas or who work with sensitive cargo or information.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguish Chair.
The second concerns paying for the war. At the very beginning of this session, the first week of January, I introduced a bill to pay for the war in Iraq. I read a book about the fiscal dilemmas we faced each time there was a war, and I say to my distinguished colleague from Wyoming, each time our leaders paid for the war. During the Civil War they put a tax on dividends. The party of Lincoln did that. In World War I, they went up to a 77 percent marginal tax rate to pay for that war; in World War II, a 94 percent rate; in the Korean war, 91 percent. In Vietnam--
that is when President Johnson, who has been abused in history but he is the one who wanted to pay for guns and butter--he balanced the budget, paying for both guns and butter, in 1968 to 1969. That was the last time in the history of this Congress we balanced the budget. We paid for the war in Vietnam.
Now, of course, we come to the war on Iraq. Unlike the Civil War where we had put taxes on dividends, here, there is no tomorrow; like drunken sailors, we come up to this chamber and say we are not going to pay for the war.
My particular measure on the desk is a reserve fund of $100 billion. Larry Lindsey, the President's former chief economic advisor, said the war will cost between $100 and $200 billion, but that is up to the Finance Committee to figure out. You have to put your money where your mouth is. I think a better way to pay is with new money. We cannot just forgo this program or that program. We need a value-added tax of 2 percent dedicated to paying just for that war in Iraq. It would take the IRS a solid year until they fashioned the tax and we could start collecting it. But it is a very enforceable tax. Every industrialized country has had one. We had hearings before the Finance Committee back in the 1980s about a value-added tax. We almost adopted it then.
We ought to get serious and get off the deficit bandwagon we are on now. That is what disturbs me. The Commander in Chief, the President of the United States, says in time of war we run deficits. Then, just the other day, in a speech to the nation, he said that ``Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past. War has no certainty except the certainty of sacrifice.''
The point is, we must have sacrifice; yet that is not being followed through, by any manner or means, with respect to paying for the war. Now is the time for this body to sober up and realize we are running horrendous deficits.
What we have right now is the certainty of sacrifice, for everyone except the Commander in Chief and us in Congress. What we are saying to that GI going into Iraq tonight is: We hope you don't get hurt. We hope you don't get killed because we want you to hurry back. Why? Because we are going to give you the bill. We are not going to pay for the war. The fellow who fights the war is going to have to pay for the war because we need a tax cut. We are going to Disney World. We are not going to have any sacrifice.
They are all running around here with flags on their lapels. So I put section 6 into my bill when I introduced it, which says that if members vote against it, they will be prohibited from wearing the flags in their lapels.
Now when the President leads you to deficits by saying, in time of war we can run deficits, we are playing a game. He says that so in the election next year, you can say, ``I voted for tax cuts.'' That is our dilemma.
The other side talks about the need for tax cuts so we can see economic growth and growth and growth; but my third amendment is to stop the tax cuts.
You can see in this budget before the Senate, the only growth we have is in the national debt. It goes from $6.687 trillion in fiscal year 2003, to $11.919 trillion in fiscal year 2013. It goes up, up, and away by $5.2 trillion. I was here when we did not even have a $1 trillion deficit. President Reagan started this tax cut nonsense with voodoo I, and we immediately had a recession. Dave Stockman wrote in his book
``The Triumph of Politics,'' we should have canceled the tax cut in November 1981, and we did not. He said the President did not do what he should have done.
Then we had voodoo II, the year before last, with President Bush's tax cut. On June 1, 2001, we had surpluses. Then we passed the tax cut, voodoo II, on June 8, and by July 1 we had a deficit. By September 10, 2001--one day before September 11 we had a deficit. We were in the red by $99 billion, so don't blame the deficits on September 11.
We were already in deficits, and voodoo II caused it. Now we seem to get no education in the third kick of a mule, so to speak. We are on course just for the pollsters and buying the election next year with more tax cuts. That is why I resist what some members are trying to do by cutting the tax cut down to $350 billion.
Do you know what that means to this particular Senator? I was with Phil Gramm and Warren Rudman on Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, and our particular initiative called for the reduction of the deficit each year by $35 billion. Here they want me to vote to increase the deficit each year by $35 billion for 10 years, or $350 billion.
What will happen is we will pass it in the Senate, it will get over to the conference, they will fix it, it will be back up to $700 billion-and-something. You will have the votes. You have the majority.
I ask unanimous consent to have ``budget realities'' printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
HOLLINGS' BUDGET REALITIES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annual
U.S. budget Borrowed trust Unified Actual deficit increases in
Pres. and year (outlays) (in funds deficit with without trust National debt spending for
billions) (billions) trust funds funds (billions) interest
(billions) (billions) (billions)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Truman:
1947................................................ 34.5 -9.9 4.0 +13.9 257.1
1948................................................ 29.8 6.7 11.8 +5.1 252.0
1949................................................ 38.8 1.2 0.6 -0.6 252.6
1950................................................ 42.6 1.2 -3.1 -4.3 256.9
1951................................................ 45.5 4.5 6.1 +1.6 255.3
1952................................................ 67.7 2.3 -1.5 -3.8 259.1
Eisenhower:
1953................................................ 76.1 0.4 -6.5 -6.9 266.0
1954................................................ 70.9 3.6 -1.2 -4.8 270.8
1955................................................ 68.4 0.6 -3.0 -3.6 274.4
1956................................................ 70.6 2.2 3.9 +1.7 272.7
1957................................................ 76.6 3.0 3.4 +0.4 272.3
1958................................................ 82.4 4.6 -2.8 -7.4 279.7
1959................................................ 92.1 -5.0 -12.8 -7.8 287.5
1960................................................ 92.2 3.3 0.3 -3.0 290.5
Kennedy:
1961................................................ 97.7 -1.2 -3.3 -2.1 292.6
1962................................................ 106.8 3.2 -7.1 -10.3 302.9 9.1
Johnson:
1963................................................ 111.3 2.6 -4.8 -7.4 310.3 9.9
1964................................................ 118.5 -0.1 -5.9 -5.8 316.1 10.7
1965................................................ 118.2 4.8 -1.4 -6.2 322.3 11.3
1966................................................ 134.5 2.5 -3.7 -6.2 328.5 12.0
1967................................................ 157.5 3.3 -8.6 -11.9 340.4 13.4
1968................................................ 178.1 3.1 -25.2 -28.3 368.7 14.6
Nixon:
1969................................................ 183.6 0.3 3.2 +2.9 365.8 16.6
1970................................................ 195.6 12.3 -2.8 -15.1 380.9 19.3
1971................................................ 210.2 4.3 -23.0 -27.3 408.2 21.0
1972................................................ 230.7 4.3 -23.4 -27.7 435.9 21.8
1973................................................ 245.7 15.5 -14.9 -30.4 466.3 24.2
1974................................................ 269.4 11.5 -6.1 -17.6 483.9 29.3
Ford:
1975................................................ 332.3 4.8 -53.2 -58.0 541.9 32.7
1976................................................ 371.8 13.4 -73.7 -87.1 629.0 37.1
Carter:
1977................................................ 409.2 23.7 -53.7 -77.4 706.4 41.9
1978................................................ 458.7 11.0 -59.2 -70.2 776.6 48.7
1979................................................ 504.0 12.2 -40.7 -52.9 829.5 59.9
1980................................................ 590.9 5.8 -73.8 -79.6 909.1 74.8
Reagan:
1981................................................ 678.2 6.7 -79.0 -85.7 994.8 95.5
1982................................................ 745.8 14.5 -128.0 -142.5 1,137.3 117.2
1983................................................ 808.4 26.6 -207.8 -234.4 1,371.7 128.7
1984................................................ 851.9 7.6 -185.4 -193.0 1,564.7 153.9
1985................................................ 946.4 40.5 -212.3 -252.8 1,817.5 178.9
1986................................................ 990.5 81.9 -221.2 -303.1 2,120.6 190.3
1987................................................ 1,004.1 75.7 -149.8 -225.5 2,346.1 195.3
1988................................................ 1,064.5 100.0 -155.2 -255.2 2,601.3 214.1
Bush:
1989................................................ 1,143.7 114.2 -152.5 -266.7 2,868.3 240.9
1990................................................ 1,253.2 117.4 -221.2 -338.6 3,206.6 264.7
1991................................................ 1,324.4 122.5 -269.4 -391.9 3,598.5 285.5
1992................................................ 1,381.7 113.2 -290.4 -403.6 4,002.1 292.3
Clinton:
1993................................................ 1,409.5 94.2 -255.1 -349.3 4,351.4 292.5
1994................................................ 1,461.9 89.0 -203.3 -292.3 4,643.7 296.3
1995................................................ 1,515.8 113.3 -164.0 -277.2 4,921.0 332.4
1996................................................ 1,560.6 153.4 -107.5 -260.9 5,181.9 344.0
1997................................................ 1,601.3 165.8 -22.0 -187.8 5,369.7 355.8
1998................................................ 1,652.6 178.2 69.2 -109.0 5,478.7 363.8
1999................................................ 1,703.0 251.8 124.4 -127.4 5,606.1 353.5
2000................................................ 1,789.0 258.9 236.2 -22.7 5,628.8 362.0
Bush:
2001................................................ 1,863.9 268.2 127.1 -141.1 5,769.9 359.5
2002................................................ 2,011.0 270.7 -157.8 -428.5 6,198.4 332.5
2003................................................ 2,137.0 222.6 246.0 468.6 6,667.0 323.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--Historical Tables, Budget of the U.S. Government; Beginning in 1962, CBO's The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2004-2013, January 2003.
Mr. HOLLINGS. If you take the years from 1945, from President Truman down through President Ford, 30 years, to 1975, you will find the aggregate total of all deficits at $358 billion. That is for 30 years, six Presidents, the cost of World War II, the cost of Korea, the cost of Vietnam. All throughout that and all the deficits, it was only $358 billion. Last year the deficit was, in 1 year, $428 billion. Here in my hand is the President's budget. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the last page in here, page 332.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
TABLE S-14.--FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FINANCING AND DEBT
[In billions of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimates
Function 2002 -----------------------------------------------------------------
actual 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Debt outstanding, end of year:
Gross Federal debt:
Debt issued by Treasury.... 6,171 6,725 7,294 7,811 8,327 8,832 9,363
Debt issued by other 27 27 27 26 26 26 25
agencies..................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total, gross Federal debt 6,198 6,752 7,321 7,837 8,353 8,858 9,388
Held by:
Debt held by Government 2,658 2,874 3,155 3,451 3,751 4,061 4,385
accounts..................
Debt held by the public.... 3,540 3,878 4,166 4,387 4,603 4,797 5,003
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HOLLINGS. On page 332, the President projects we will have a deficit next year of $569 billion. He says this year we will end up with a $554 billion deficit. That $554 billion doesn't include the $100 billion for Iraq. So you can see we are up around $600 or $700 billion.
I used to say Strom Thurmond and I are home free. But I think my newest distinguished colleague from South Carolina will have to pay for it. I will not have to pay for it. I am not worried about it, and everything else like that. We can retire, get our pension, go on home and be quiet. But you cannot do it in good conscience when you come to Government to do the job of the people, and they trust you, they want you to look out for the needs of the country, not the needs of the campaign. That is what we are all engaged in here.
People are giving up their lives for us, for what we believe in, for what we legislate, and for the command we give them to go to war. We ought at least to pay for the war on the one hand. And we ought to ensure the peace economically for our children and grandchildren, not by tax cuts, but somehow, somewhere, to pay for these budgets.
I would like to get Government on a pay-as-you-go basis. I remember when Alan Greenspan went down with a team to President Clinton and he said you are going to have to raise taxes. In 1993 we raised taxes. We cut the spending and we raised taxes on Social Security, we raised taxes on gasoline, we raised taxes on the highest bracket. And we had 8 years of the finest and strongest economy.
Now we come here and want to sell the idea of tax cuts are going to give growth. We know that with $428 billion and $554 billion in deficits, that's really almost a trillion dollars in stimulus, and that is without the cost of the war. What gives here?
We have to sober up and get off this deficit barleycorn we are drinking like drunken sailors around here, like there is no tomorrow, like we don't have to pay for the war. There is no sacrifice for us.
We go to the schoolchildren in America and we say there is one thing certain about war, it is sacrifice. But then we come up with the pollsters and say we have to get reelected so we want to go ahead next year to say we cut taxes.
So there we are. I am not for that $350 billion compromise or whatever it is. I admire the people who are trying to work out the compromise, but that is totally misleading to the American people, that somehow the burden is too great on estate taxes. We have had people come here, George Soros, Bill Gates, and the others come who are paying the estate taxes. They come and say don't worry about it. That is not really too big a burden.
With respect to dividends, in the market in New York there is a dichotomy, a difference up there with respect to whether or not we ought to lift the taxes on dividends. But if they would talk about seniors, they would say senior are double taxed on their Social Security. I pay the tax on Social Security and when I receive the benefit, I pay the tax on that Social Security benefit. That is double taxation. Eighty percent of seniors in America depend for the major part of their income on Social Security. So if it's seniors we have in mind we want to look out for, then look out for, not the rich seniors, but the poor seniors, 80 percent of the seniors, because they are not in that top bracket that is worried about estate taxes and everything else of that kind.
I really appreciate the distinguished Senator from North Dakota yielding me this time. I wanted to be able, in a deliberate fashion talk about these amendments, because when we get to that 1 minute a side rule I will not be able to.
I have a very judicious amendment on port security, where we would just fund it for 2 years. We voted 100 to nothing, all Republicans and all Democrats, with respect to port security.
I think we ought to pay for the war. We are not raising the taxes here and we are not telling them how to do it in the Finance Committee. The Budget Committee can't do that. But we can do the amount. And I think we ought not to have any more tax cuts.
I yield the remainder of my time to the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, with my gratitude. I appreciate it very much.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bunning). The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. I thank the senior Senator from South Carolina for his leadership. One of the people who inspired me to run for the Senate was the Senator from South Carolina. I don't think I have ever told the Senator that. But when the Senator from South Carolina was running for President of the United States, our former Governor, Bill Guy, endorsed Senator Hollings.
Mr. HOLLINGS. My friend.
Mr. CONRAD. Bill Guy was a very close friend of my family and somebody who has been a mentor to me in public service.
Bill Guy was a balanced budget Democrat. He believed in balanced budgets and he believed in fiscal responsibility. He was proud to stand with the Senator from South Carolina during that time of dramatically rising deficits. To him it was a threat to the economic security of the country and he thought the Senator from South Carolina had the best plan.
I think if anybody looks back objectively at that time, one will see in fact the Senator from South Carolina did have the best plan. If it had been adopted at the time we would have avoided much of the debt now facing the country.
Mr. HOLLINGS. If the distinguished Senator will yield, I really am grateful to him. The truth is, more than a balanced budget, we need balanced Senators. The distinguished Senator from North Dakota is just that. He has that even temper in how he approached it, and therefore has been far more effective because I have been wailing and crying without effect for years. But I will continue on, trying my best, thank you very much.
Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Senator. And I can only say, I have been completely ineffective at stopping what I think is a rush to deficits and debt and, ultimately, decline.
I believe it is profoundly wrong--profoundly wrong--to run up these budget deficits. Unfortunately, the budget that the President of the United States sent to us and the budget that has come out of the committee will dramatically increase our budget deficits.
As the Senator has indicated, we are going to have a deficit, if the President's budget is adopted, of over $500 billion this year and will never have a budget deficit below $400 billion any year for the rest of this decade under the budget the President sent us. Under the budget that has come out of the committee, we will never have a deficit under
$300 billion.
On this chart is the President's budget. One can see we have red ink as far as the eye can see, over $500 billion this year, over $400 billion in every year for the rest of this decade.
Here is what happens to the gross Federal debt. The gross Federal debt is going to go from $6 trillion, in 2002, and is going to reach
$12 trillion by the end of this budget period. That is the consequence of the President's budget.
What I think should sober us all is that the cost of the President's tax cuts explodes at exactly the time the cost to the Federal Government of the retirement of the baby boom generation explodes--
deficits and debt.
These are not my projections. These are official reports of the Congressional Budget Office and the President's own budget documents.
Here is the President's own budget document as shown right here. This is the long-term outlook if the President's policies are adopted. It shows that we are in the sweet spot now. This is where we are now. And although these are record deficits, the biggest in dollar terms we have ever had, if we adopt his policies, it is going to get much worse because, as I indicated, the cost of his tax cuts explodes at the very time the cost of the retirement of the baby boom generation explodes.
That is not a projection. We know baby boomers have been born. They are alive today. They are eligible for Social Security and Medicare. There are going to be 77 million of them--about double the number we have eligible today. That is what we face as a consequence of this budget. I think it will be a significant mistake.
I want to, for a moment, discuss an amendment I will be offering for our colleagues to deal with the promise the Federal Government made on IDEA; that is, the Individuals With Disabilities Act. We made a promise to local governments that the Federal Government would fund 40 percent of the cost. It was a promise we have never kept. As a result, property taxes are higher in every jurisdiction of America.
I will offer an amendment to keep the promise of IDEA, and to pay for it, and to pay for it by reducing the tax cuts that are part of this legislation.
The legislation before us has $1.4 trillion in tax cuts. The associated interest costs another almost $300 billion. So the total cost of this tax cut, in this measure, is $1.7 trillion. The legislation I will offer to keep the promise on IDEA is a fraction of that, a small fraction of that--around $70 billion over the next 10 years.
The Federal Government made a promise, when the legislation was adopted, that we would fund 40 percent of the cost. My colleagues know that we are only doing about half as much as we promised.
What does that mean? That means the local districts get stuck with the bill. That means pressure is put on local property taxes. In my own State, now the annual property tax is about 2.5 percent of the value of the property. That is a very burdensome tax. In part, it is a result of our not keeping a promise and shoving the burden off on local school districts. That is not something we should do. If we make a commitment, we ought to keep it.
I am going to give our colleagues a chance to keep the promise that was made on IDEA, and to fund it out of the tax cut. We are still operating under an agreement in which we are discussing amendments but not sending them to the desk at this point. We will do that at an appropriate time. But I wanted to alert my colleagues that I am going to offer an amendment on IDEA. I am going to offer it in a way that is paid for. I am going to offer it in a way that is not at the top end of the range, by any means. It is going to have a cost of between $70 and
$80 billion over 10 years. We will pay for it by reducing the $1.4 trillion tax cut.
A budget is about choices. A budget is about priorities. I believe that ought to be a priority for this body and for this country. I believe we ought to keep the promise that was made to local school districts when the legislation was passed. I believe we ought to rejigger the priorities of the budget resolution that is before us, reduce the size of the tax cut, keep the promise of IDEA, and take pressure off local property taxes because that is exactly where the burden is borne when the Federal Government does not keep its promise.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes off the resolution to the Senator from Alabama.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I share Senator Conrad's desire that we do more for IDEA. Under President Bush, we have done more than ever. We also need reform of IDEA. If we listen to our teachers, principals, and school people, they will tell us that the Federal laws are driving them crazy, undermining their ability to discipline. We need some reform at the same time we put in some additional money. We have a chance to do that this year.
What I want to express my concern about is this manufactured issue about the supplemental and that we cannot proceed with our budget without knowing what the supplemental is going to be. We have a budget law that says we have to have this done by April 15. We cannot sit around here and wait forever.
I would just like to remind everybody how we got here.
Last fall, in this body and the House--we voted 77 to 23 in this Senate to authorize the President of the United States to use force, if he deemed fit, to protect the security of the United States.
After great care and every option being pursued, the President has concluded that we should use force. I am not aware that a single one of those 77 Senators wishes to change their vote.
I also note that at that time the Democrats controlled this body. And at that time, while we voted to authorize the President to act, we debated the cost. We talked about the cost a great deal. People had all kinds of ideas about the cost. And when we voted to authorize him to act, we knew there would be a cost.
We also knew our budget was not in balance and the effect of the war would be to exacerbate the debt that we had. Nobody had any doubt about that. Nobody has any doubt about that today.
In the Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member, we voted to proceed with an authorization bill. We will have an authorization bill that sets our spending criteria for next year, with a limit that we pass here. We are going to have a nice increase in the baseline for defense next year, with far greater increases than ever occurred under President Clinton and the Democratic leadership here. Suggesting we are not doing enough for defense--we are having a nice, solid, significant increase. I wish it could be more. In our circumstances, it is the best we can do.
So we know we are going to fund the budget. We are going to fund this war. And we know how we are going to do it; and that is, by a supplemental.
Now, for example, Turkey is still waffling around, to some degree, about whether or not we can come through there in pursuing this war.
There are a lot of uncertainties out there. It is not fair to expect that the President can walk in here today and give us an accurate total about how much this war is going to cost. We certainly ought not to fail to meet our April 15 deadline of passing a budget based on that objection. We are going to fund this war, and we should fund this war completely. We are going to do it by a supplemental. Everybody knows it. It is nothing more than a delaying tactic for them to claim that we should not proceed with the budget until the supplemental is done.
In fact, who knows, we could have a supplemental even after the war is over, but we probably need it sooner so we can make sure our funding stream continues apace.
Historically, we have never budgeted the cost of a war. The Congressional Research Service has done a report. They report:
Presidents have not requested and Congress has not approved funding for wars in advance of the start of operations. Rather, administrations have requested funding after the operations have begun, and Congress has subsequently appropriated money to meet the specific documented budgetary requirements.
It goes on to say:
Congress has provided the executive branch with considerable flexibility in financing military operations in advance of specific congressional action on appropriations.
So this is just an excuse. This is just a political gimmick that we know is going on. We know this supplemental is going to be significant. We have known that from the very beginning. I don't believe we ought to be deterred from completing our statutorily required duty, and that is to produce a budget waiting on this issue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Who yields time?
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Who yields time?
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, a little later this afternoon we will consider a resolution supporting the men and women in uniform waging the war with Iraq. Many Members will come and express their sentiments. It is appropriate, and this is the right moment to do it. When the first shot is fired, the political debate should start to take a back seat to our solidarity and commitment to standing behind these men and women who have their lives on the line. We hope this conflict is short lived, that it is successful, and that they come home safe with their mission accomplished. Our thoughts and prayers are not only with them but with the innocent people of Iraq, many of whom have been victims of the terrorism of Saddam Hussein and his repressive regime.
There is another part of this conflict that needs to be addressed. We will also stand with the President, with the administration to provide the money that is necessary to wage the war. There is no doubt about that. This Congress will vote to give the men and women the resources they need to come home safely and quickly. Of course, the question posed to us is, How will you pay for it?
It is ironic that we are debating a budget resolution today that contains zero for the war in Iraq. I am sure many people are puzzled when they step back and reflect. We have known the troop buildup was expensive. We know the war itself is expensive, perhaps the cost of occupation afterwards. Why don't we budget for this? Why don't we plan for it? Some have said: We don't appropriate money for possibilities. We appropriate money for real needs.
This is a real need. We have to be honest. We have allies in this effort, primarily Great Britain, but there aren't many countries, if any, coming forward with troops in the field or money to pay for the cost of this undertaking. That is why I come today in support of an amendment which will be offered later by Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. It is an important amendment because basically what Senator Feingold is saying is, over the next 10 years we will be setting aside
$10 billion a year to pay for the cost of the war in Iraq; $100 billion is not an unreasonable pricetag. The lowest pricetag we have had for the war is about $26 billion, and the most expensive is way beyond Senator Feingold's suggested amendment.
I am not suggesting we won't appropriate this money; we will. But we should at this point do not only the patriotic thing but the responsible thing and set aside the money we will need to pay for the war.
If we don't, I can tell you what is going to happen. It is going to go into a tax cut proposed by the President for the wealthiest people in this country. What is more important, that we meet our obligation to our men and women in uniform not just with rhetoric but with a pledge of money to pay for the resources they need to win or that we provide a tax cut for the wealthiest people in America? That should not even be a choice at this moment.
We have to remember we are spending about $700 million a month right now on the war on terrorism. I commend the efforts of the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens, during the Clinton administration to have the Defense Department budget for ongoing contingencies such as the conflict in Bosnia and the no-fly zones in Iraq. These were ongoing conflicts with expected costs that were not budgeted, and the Senator from Alaska insisted on honest budgeting. That is what the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold, is insisting today.
The administration may send up a supplemental appropriation bill as early as next week. That really begs the question, Why does the White House refuse to send up estimates of the cost of the war this week and insist that we pass this budget resolution without one penny for the war in Iraq?
To a lot of people who are watching the debate, this may seem like some procedural hassle over accounting techniques. It is more. If we don't set aside the funds for the war in Iraq, those funds will come out of programs for education and health care and critical domestic needs. I will support the amendment by the Senator from Wisconsin, but I hope all those who stand in solidarity with America's troops in Iraq will also stand in solidarity when it comes to honest budgeting to pay for the cost of the war so that our men and women in uniform can be successful and come home safely and as quickly as possible.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from North Dakota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, would the Senator mind if Senator Brownback sent his amendment to the desk? He was ready to offer the amendment last night and did not. He has already spoken on the amendment. We agreed to allow Senator Schumer to send his amendment to the desk. Can we send his amendment to the desk?
Mr. CONRAD. I would if we can get agreement to send Senator Feingold's amendment as well.
Mr. NICKLES. I have not looked at it. Let me look at his amendment.
Mr. CONRAD. Why don't we do that, and if we can get agreement on that, we will be happy to agree to Senator Brownback sending his amendment to the desk as well.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, Senator Brownback has an amendment. I believe it is at the desk. I ask unanimous consent we set aside the pending amendment for consideration of the Brownback amendment, and following that, I ask consent to set aside the Brownback amendment to have the Feingold amendment be considered.
Mr. CONRAD. Reserving the right to object, what will that do to the sequence of votes? We would not want the Schumer amendment to lose its position; that we would vote on that prior to the Brownback amendment.
Mr. NICKLES. That is correct. There is also a Cochran amendment that will be offered as an alternative to the Schumer amendment. I would like to have that voted on adjacent to the Schumer amendment, but we have not sent that to the desk yet. The Schumer amendment is in the queue. This would put the Brownback amendment in the queue, and it would also put the Feingold amendment in the queue.
At some point, I will be asking consent for Senator Cochran's amendment, and I will ask consent to have it considered adjacent to the Schumer amendment.
Mr. CONRAD. Fair enough.
Mr. NICKLES. For the time being, I am asking consent for the Brownback amendment to be considered and then the Feingold amendment. I understand from the Parliamentarian he has two amendments. I am not sure which one the Senator requested to be sent to the desk.
Mr. CONRAD. It would be the amendment which Senator Feingold discussed, which is the amendment for a $100 billion war reserve fund so that the war is paid for and the resources are available in this budget.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 282
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the Brownback amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Brownback], for himself, Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Santorum, and Mr. Cornyn, proposes an amendment numbered 282.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate that a commission be established to review the efficiency of Federal agencies)
On page 79, after line 22, add the following:
SEC. 308. FEDERAL AGENCY REVIEW COMMISSION.
It is the sense of the Senate that a commission should be established to review Federal domestic agencies, and programs within such agencies, with the express purpose of providing Congress with recommendations, and legislation to implement those recommendations, to realign or eliminate government agencies and programs that are duplicative, wasteful, inefficient, outdated, or irrelevant, or have failed to accomplish their intended purpose.
Amendment No. 270
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will now report the Feingold amendment.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Feingold], for himself and Mr. Corzine, proposes an amendment numbered 270.
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
(Purpose: to set aside a reserve fund for possible military action and reconsturction in Iraq)
(a) Federal Revenues.--
(1) On page 3, line 10, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(2) On page 3, line 11, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(3) On page 3, line 12, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(4) On page 3, line 13, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(5) On page 3, line 14, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(6) On page 3, line 15, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(7) On page 3, line 16, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(8) On page 3, line 17, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(9) On page 3, line 18, increase the amount by $10 billion; and
(10) On page 3, line 19, increase the amount by $10 billion.
(b) Amounts by Which Revenues Should Be Changed.--
(1) On page 4, line 1, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(2) On page 4, line 2, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(3) On page 4, line 3, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(4) On page 4, line 4, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(5) On page 4, line 5, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(6) On page 4, line 6, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(7) On page 4, line 7, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(8) On page 4, line 8, increase the amount by $10 billion;
(9) On page 4, line 9, increase the amount by $10 billion; and
(10) On page 4, line 10, increase the amount by $10 billion.
(c) New budget Authority.--
(1) On page 4, line 15, decrease the amount by
$181,000,000;
(2) On page 4, line 16, decrease the amount by
$713,000,000;
(3) On page 4, line 17, decrease the amount by
$1,329,000,000;
(4) On page 4, line 18, decrease the amount by
$1,973,000,000;
(5) On page 4, line 19, decrease the amount by
$2,627,000,000;
(6) On page 4, line 20, decrease the amount by
$3,320,000,000;
(7) On page 4, line 21, decrease the amount by
$4,052,000,000;
(8) On page 4, line 22, decrease the amount by
$4,816,000,000;
(9) On page 4, line 23, decrease the amount by
$5,619,000,000; and
(10) On page 4, line 24, decrease the amount by
$6,465,000,000.
(d) Budget Outlays.--
(1) On page 5, line 5, decrease the amount by $181,000,000;
(2) On page 5, line 6, decrease the amount by $713,000,000;
(3) On page 5, line 7, decrease the amount by
$1,329,000,000;
(4) On page 5, line 8, decrease the amount by
$1,973,000,000;
(5) On page 5, line 9, decrease the amount by
$2,627,000,000;
(6) On page 5, line 10, decrease the amount by
$3,320,000,000;
(7) On page 5, line 11, decrease the amount by
$4,052,000,000;
(8) On page 5, line 12, decrease the amount by
$4,816,000,000;
(9) On page 5, line 13, decrease the amount by
$5,619,000,000; and
(10) On page 5, line 14, decrease the amount by
$6,465,000,000.
(e) Deficits.--
(1) On page 5, line 18, increase the amount by
$10,181,000,000;
(2) On page 5, line 19, increase the amount by
$10,713,000,000;
(3) On page 5, line 20, increase the amount by
$11,329,000,000;
(4) On page 5, line 21, increase the amount by
$11,973,000,000;
(5) On page 5, line 22, increase the amount by
$12,627,000,000;
(6) On page 5, line 23, increase the amount by
$13,320,000,000;
(7) On page 5, line 24, increase the amount by
$14,052,000,000;
(8) On page 5, line 25, increase the amount by
$14,816,000,000;
(9) On page 6, line 1, increase the amount by
$15,619,000,000; and
(10) On page 6, line 2, increase the amount by
$16,465,000,000.
(f) Public Debt.--
(1) On page 6, line 6, decrease the amount by
$10,181,000,000;
(2) On page 6, line 7, decrease the amount by
$20,894,000,000;
(3) On page 6, line 8, decrease the amount by
$32,223,000,000;
(4) On page 6, line 9, decrease the amount by
$44,196,000,000;
(5) On page 6, line 10, decrease the amount by
$56,823,000,000;
(6) On page 6, line 11, decrease the amount by
$70,143,000,000;
(7) On page 6, line 12, decrease the amount by
$84,195,000,000;
(8) On page 6, line 13, decrease the amount by
$99,011,000,000;
(9) On page 6, line 14, decrease the amount by
$114,630,000,000; and
(10) On page 6, line 15, decrease the amount by
$131,095,000,000.
(g) Debt Held by the Public.--
(1) On page 6, line 19, decrease the amount by
$10,181,000,000;
(2) On page 6, line 20, decrease the amount by
$20,894,000,000;
(3) On page 6, line 21, decrease the amount by
$32,223,000,000;
(4) On page 6, line 22, decrease the amount by
$44,196,000,000;
(5) On page 6, line 23, decrease the amount by
$56,823,000,000;
(6) On page 6, line 24, decrease the amount by
$70,143,000,000;
(7) On page 6, line 25, decrease the amount by
$84,195,000,000;
(8) On page 7, line 1, decrease the amount by
$99,011,000,000;
(9) On page 7, line 2, decrease the amount by
$114,630,000,000; and
(10) On page 7, line 3, decrease the amount by
$131,095,000,000.
(h) Net Interest.--
(1) On page 40, line 6, decrease the amount by
$181,000,000;
(2) On page 40, line 7, decrease the amount by
$181,000,000;
(3) On page 40, line 10, decrease the amount by
$713,000,000;
(4) On page 40, line 11, decrease the amount by
$713,000,000;
(5) On page 40, line 14, decrease the amount by
$1,329,000,000;
(6) On page 40, line 15, decrease the amount by
$1,329,000,000;
(7) On page 40, line 18, decrease the amount by
$1,973,000,000;
(8) On page 40, line 19, decrease the amount by
$1,973,000,000;
(9) On page 40, line 22, decrease the amount by
$2,627,000,000;
(10) On page 40, line 23, decrease the amount by
$2,627,000,000;
(11) On page 41, line 2, decrease the amount by
$3,320,000,000;
(12) On page 41, line 3, decrease the amount by
$3,320,000,000;
(13) On page 41, line 6, decrease the amount by
$4,052,000,000;
(14) On page 41, line 7, decrease the amount by
$4,052,000,000;
(15) On page 41, line 10, decrease the amount by
$4,816,000,000;
(16) On page 41, line 11, decrease the amount by
$4,816,000,000;
(17) On page 41, line 14, decrease the amount by
$5,619,000,000;
(18) On page 41, line 15, decrease the amount by
$5,619,000,000;
(19) On page 41, line 18, decrease the amount by
$6,465,000,000; and
(20) On page 41, line 19, decrease the amount by
$6,465,000,000.
(i) Reconciliation in the Senate.--On page 45, line 24, decrease the amount by $100 billion.
(j) Reserve Fund.--At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. . RESERVE FUND FOR POSSIBLE MILITARY ACTION AND
RECONSTRUCTION IN IRAQ.
(a) In General.--Upon the favorable reporting of legislation by the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate making discretionary appropriations in excess of the levels assumed in this resolution for expenses for possible military action and reconstruction in Iraq in fiscal years 2003 through 2013, the Committee on the Budget of the Senate may, in consultation with the Chairman and Ranking Member of the appropriate committee, revise the level of total new budget authority and outlays, the functional totals, allocations, discretionary spending limits, and levels of deficits and debt in this resolution by up to $100 billion in budget authority and outlays.
(b) Application.--Any adjustments of allocations and aggregates made pursuant to this resolution shall--
(1) apply while that measure is under consideration;
(2) take effect upon the enactment of that measure; and
(3) be published in the Congressional Record as soon as practicable.
(c) Effect of Changed Allocations and Aggregates.--Revised allocations and aggregates resulting from these adjustments shall be considered for the purposes of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 as allocations and aggregates contained in this resolution.
(d) Budget Committee Determinations.--For purposes of this resolution--
(1) the levels of new budget authority, outlays, direct spending, new entitlement authority, revenues, deficits, and surpluses for a fiscal year or period of fiscal years shall be determined on the basis of estimates made by the Committee on the Budget of the Senate; and
(2) the Chairman of that Committee may make any other necessary adjustments to such levels to carry out this resolution.
Mr. NICKLES. Parliamentary inquiry. How much time----
Mr. CONRAD. What was that last request, if I can inquire? I missed that last request.
Mr. NICKLES. I am inquiring how much time I have left on the resolution.
Mr. CONRAD. Before that.
Mr. NICKLES. I asked that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
Mr. CONRAD. Both have been dispensed with?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Both amendments are pending.
Mr. NICKLES. We set aside the Brownback amendment, and now the Feingold amendment is the pending amendment.
Mr. President, I inquire of the Parliamentarian, how much time do I have remaining on the resolution?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Five hours and 45 minutes.
Mr. NICKLES. I yield back the remainder of my time on the resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time is yielded back.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I think it is good we have a few more amendments in the queue. I ask Senator Nickles and the staff to review the other amendments and maybe we can get those lined up. We will improve the operations if we can get those lined up. I thank the chairman for his courtesy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, first, there has now been agreement on a resolution with respect to Iraq. At least we had a caucus and there is agreement on the wording of the resolution. I hope very much we get on with that sometime soon.
I personally think it is surrealistic to be talking about other issues and not talking about Iraq. I hope when we get on to the discussion of the war with Iraq, not for the purpose of delay, because we could dispense with that discussion hopefully throughout the day and perhaps tomorrow morning go back to the budget and complete the budget by early next week, which is long in advance of when we need to finish it, but to have our country at war and not be discussing that when the resolution has now been completed strikes many of us as incongruous.
With that said, we are still on the budget. Let me go to the question of the amendment I have already announced I will send to the desk.
The amendment I will be offering is on funding IDEA. We see that in 2002 and 2003, we enacted $2.5 billion. Full funding for that period would be $24.4 billion. When we say ``full funding,'' that is not really full funding. That is funding the commitment the Federal Government made to provide 40 percent of the cost of that legislation, a commitment that we have never kept. As a result, we forced up local property taxes all across the country.
The budget that has come before us in 2002 is far short of meeting the Federal commitment in 2003 and in 2004.
The chairman of the committee has indicated they increased IDEA--and they did, that is absolutely correct--by $1 billion. That is a move in the right direction, and we applaud it. But we are still so far below what we promised when we passed the legislation. I say to my colleagues, when the Federal Government tells the States and all these local units all across the country, we are passing this legislation and as part of the bargain we will fund 40 percent of it--40 percent--and then we never come anywhere close, that is not a good way for the Federal Government to do business. That damages our credibility and it also forces local jurisdictions to raise local property taxes.
The budget we have before us on education is the smallest increase we have seen in 8 years. There are increases, absolutely; that is true. There is an increase. Our colleagues on the other side like to concentrate on those areas that have increases. They often do not say they have funded many of those increases with corresponding cuts. The overall increase is $1.1 billion, and that is by far the lowest increase for education in 8 years.
My own strong belief is education is the priority. After defending the Nation, which is our No. 1 priority--that is our No. 1 responsibility--I believe education is right at the head of the line. Maybe I believe that because I was raised by my grandparents.
My grandmother was a schoolteacher, and my grandfather, who only had an eighth grade education, had profound respect for education. Certainly my grandmother did. She drummed it into all of our heads: If you want to make the most of your opportunity in life, get the best education you can.
My grandparents were deadly serious about it. They were so serious. They were middle-income people, but they made sure they set aside funds to help every one of their grandchildren, 13 grandchildren, get an advanced degree. Not just a college degree, but every single one an advanced degree because they saw education as the way to open the door to opportunity. That is what we ought to be doing with our education funding. This budget doesn't do it. This budget puts the priority, the overwhelming priority, on tax cuts. Of the money above baseline in this budget, 74 percent is for tax cuts; 74 percent of the money above the baseline.
That is above the normal spending and the normal taxes. Seventy-four percent of the change above baseline is for tax cuts. That is the priority in this budget. I do not think that is the right priority.
I hope my colleagues will give serious consideration to this amendment. It costs $73 billion over 10 years, and it is paid for by reducing the $1.4 trillion tax cut by a like amount.
Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. CONRAD. I will yield to the Senator from Nevada. As I do, let me say how much I appreciate the partnership of the Senator from Nevada in this endeavor of working on a budget resolution. His patience and willingness to work with others to try to accomplish legislative results are legendary in the Chamber. We appreciate very much his hard work.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I want to speak while there is not a lot of activity on the Senate floor because it will become hectic. There are a few hours remaining on this resolution, and then we have the Iraq resolution, which will be forthcoming soon.
I speak for the entire Democratic caucus about our ranking member on the Budget Committee. He is a very modest man. He and I came to the Senate together. His parents were killed in an automobile accident caused by a drunk driver. He was raised by his grandparents. His parents and his grandparents must be smiling broadly now to see the contribution he has made to our country. The biggest contribution he has made is allowing the Democratic Senators with whom he has served to better understand the fiscal situation of this country at any given time.
The Senator from North Dakota is recognized as the person in the Senate who knows the numbers. He believes very strongly that deficit spending is bad, that the debt that was in existence when he came to the Senate had to be downsized, and working with the prior administration, that was accomplished. In fact, the debt was being paid down. These past months, he has also articulated so well how it is not good for the country to again have these huge deficits.
So I again say on behalf of the entire Democratic caucus how much we all appreciate the work, the guidance, and the direction the Senator from North Dakota has given us. As a result of the education I have received from him about the financial matters of this country, I better understand what is going on in the economy of this country. I extend my appreciation to the Senator for that education.
One of the areas I was totally naive about was the agricultural problems of this country. There are a number of Senators who come from agricultural States. I have learned to listen to and admire the direction I have received from other Senators on both sides of the aisle regarding agriculture, but no one has done more to educate me on issues relating to the American farmer than the Senator from North Dakota.
I have received rewards in recent years for voting with American farmers. In Nevada, we do not have a lot of agriculture. We produce quite a bit of alfalfa just simply because the growing season is so long. We grow a lot of onions. We are the largest producer of white onions in the United States, but basically our agricultural output is very small.
So for me to be part of the army to move forward to protect the family farm is something that I have learned from the Senator from North Dakota.
For these and many others reasons, while there is a little bit of down time, I want to let the Senator know how much I appreciate his friendship and his leadership on the issues of fiscal constraint, the general economy of this Nation and the world, agriculture, and so many other things on which his great mind has been able to assist me in being able to be a better Senator.
Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Senator from Nevada for his kind remarks.
I will take this moment to alert our colleagues, who may be listening back in their offices, of the circumstance we face. The other side now has yielded back all of their time. We are down to some 5 hours--might I inquire of the Chair how much time we have on this side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Five hours 9 minutes.
Mr. CONRAD. Five hours 9 minutes. I thank the Chair. So we have just over 5 hours remaining. I alert my colleagues and their staffs that if they have amendments they want to offer, this is their chance. Time is going to run out, and then we will vote on the amendments that are pending at the time until we have disposed of all of those amendments. So if people want to have a chance to debate and discuss their amendments, time is running out. This is their chance. I urge my colleagues to take advantage of that opportunity.
I yield the floor and 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. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, in these moments while we are asking colleagues to come to the floor to offer their amendments--and I understand a Senator is on his way to the floor--I also understand we may be turning to the resolution on Iraq at 2. Instead of having this time wasted, I thought I would review, from my perspective, what has happened to our budget condition over the last several years, where we are headed, and why it alarms me so much.
My colleagues will recall that 2 years ago we were told there were going to be $5.6 trillion of surpluses over the next decade. It was in that context that President Bush sent Congress a budget that had a $1.7 trillion or $1.8 trillion tax cut. He said at the time that he would only be taking 1 of every 4 surplus dollars for tax reduction, and he said he would still be able to fund a strong buildup for national defense, that he would be able to fund the priorities of education and health care, that he would be able to have a maximum paydown of the national debt, in fact he would be able to virtually eliminate the national debt, and that he would also be able to protect the trust funds of Social Security and Medicare.
Unfortunately, that proved to be overly optimistic. Many warned at that time that it was unwise to be betting on a 10-year forecast, that you cannot count on a 10-year forecast. You cannot bet the ranch on the revenue coming in as anticipated.
We all know what has happened. With the tax cut implemented at the time, with the economic slowdown, with the attack on America, with the additional tax cuts proposed by the President because now he has proposed an additional $1.6 trillion of tax cuts, and with the associated interest costs, the total cost of those tax cuts would be
$1.96 trillion. When that is put together, we are back in the deficit ditch and by over $2 trillion.
Where did the money go? Over this period, most of it went to the tax cuts, both those that had been implemented and those proposed. The second biggest chunk of the money, 27 percent, went to additional spending as a result of the attack on the country. Virtually all of this has increased defense spending and additional homeland security spending. The next biggest chunk is revenue coming in below expectations not related to the tax cut--in other words, the total revenue below what we would have had without the tax cuts and without the overestimations of revenue.
The revenue change is 64 percent, but only about two-thirds of that is from the tax cut. The other is from the models not predicting accurately what revenue would be raised for various levels of economic activity. The smallest sliver, the smallest part, is the economic downturn.
Most alarming is the long-term outlook. The long-term outlook, according to the President's own analysis, from his analytical perspectives, page 43 of his budget document, shows what happens if we implement the President's proposals for spending and tax cuts.
What one sees should alarm everyone. It shows these are the good times with respect to deficits. The deficits we are running now are record amounts. We have never had a budget deficit over $290 billion, even including Social Security, not over $370 billion. This year we will have a budget deficit of over $500 billion.
This chart shows--and again it is from the President's own analysis--
the situation will get much worse as the baby boom generation starts to retire because they will put pressure, of course, on Medicare and Social Security, programs for which they are eligible, programs on which they are counting, and we are going to have over 75 million people who are in that baby boom generation. That will double the number of people eligible for those programs.
Look what happens then. If we adopt the President's policy, his tax cuts, and his spending policy, when the baby boom generation retires, according to the President's own documents, the deficits absolutely explode.
Is this a course we should be on? I don't think so. This is a course for deficits and debt that is utterly unsustainable. This is a course that I believe, and I predict today, will lead to dramatic cuts in Medicare, in Social Security, and in virtually every other part of the Government.
I am the first to acknowledge there are items in the Government we should cut. There is waste in Government, there is fraud in Government, there is abuse in Government, no question about that. But we have been hunting waste, fraud, and abuse a long time, and we will need to continue that, and we will need to do a much better job of it because where we are headed is totally unsustainable.
If anyone doubts this will lead to massive cuts in Medicare and Social Security, look at the House budget resolution. It proposes $470 billion of cuts in mandatory programs. That is Medicare and that is Medicaid. It proposes another over $200 billion of cuts in domestic discretionary programs that are not defense related.
The course we are on is a disaster for this country, of mounting deficit, of mounting debt, right before the baby boom generation retires. And this is the sweet spot because right now the trust funds, especially the Social Security trust fund, are generating billions of dollars. This year alone there are $160 billion of surplus and we are taking every dime of it under the President's proposal and using it to pay for tax cuts and other expenses of Government.
Some people say that does not matter; the trust fund is still whole because it is being credited with the amount of money coming in. It is true, the trust fund is being credited. It is also true that the only way those pledges, those IOUs are going to be paid back, is if we have sufficient resources to do so at the time those bonds come due. That depends on the size of the economy. That depends on the strength of the economy. That depends on the economic growth we experience between now and then. This is something upon which many agree. That is a fundamental truth that our ability to redeem those obligations depends on the size of the economy, depends on how good a job we have done growing the economy in the interval.
That goes to the question, How do we best secure economic growth? This is where we have a profound difference. Many on our side believe it is best done by providing a stimulus to the economy now, and the stimulus can be either tax cuts or additional spending. Either one of them provides stimulus. There are many economic models that suggest spending is actually somewhat superior to a tax cut because all of the spending dollars go into the economy. When you do a tax cut, some of the dollars go into the economy but some are saved.
To the extent they are saved, that does not provide immediate stimulus.
Our friends on the other side believe the most effective way is tax cuts, that tax cuts will encourage greater economic activity. I say to them, on a factual basis, it is clear spending and tax cuts, either one, stimulate the economy.
All of that has to be in a context. The context is, What is the long-
term balance of revenues and expenditures? When you have an imbalance, when you are spending more than you are taking in, you run deficits. Deficits over time have a negative effect on the economy. Why? Because when you run budget deficits, the Federal Government has to borrow money. When the Federal Government borrows money, it is in competition with the private sector for borrowing money and that puts upward pressure on interest rates, especially at a time of economic growth.
We have looked at what the President calls a growth package. Not only have we looked at it but economists we respect have looked at it and they have concluded, and many of us have concluded, it does not promote growth. It will actually inhibit growth. Why? Because the tax cuts are not paid for. They are not paid for by spending reductions under the President's plan. They are paid for by borrowing the money. That means increasing the deficit, increasing the debt.
It is the dead weight of those deficits and debt that are harmful to economic growth. I say harmful, because to the extent you run budget deficits, that reduces the pool of societal savings, that reduces the pool of money available for investment, and you have to have investment to grow.
Many believe the President's plan is not a plan of economic growth, that it is a plan that will hurt economic growth because it will explode deficits and debt. That is not the only problem with the President's plan. It will force choices in the future that will require deep cuts in Medicare, in Social Security, in funding for education, in funding for law enforcement because there is no other possible outcome when, if you adopt the President's plan, you run deficits of this magnitude.
This is not Kent Conrad's chart or the Democrats' chart; this is the President's chart.
What he says is: If you adopt my policies, you never escape from deficit. And the deficits, once we get past this period when the trust funds of Social Security and Medicare are producing surpluses and those trust funds turn cash negative, which will happen in the next decade, the deficits will explode. The debt will explode and a future Congress and a future President will then face truly difficult choices.
I thank my colleagues for their patience in listening to this. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I notice the two leaders are here. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent with respect to amendment No. 294, that the names be reversed and Senator Graham of Florida appear first as the one proposing the amendment with Senator Dorgan.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Order of Business
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, the Democratic leader and I have been in discussion on a resolution in support of the President and the Armed Forces of the United States. We are now prepared to offer that resolution and allow the full Senate to express its support.
As people have watched the course of today, we are all aware that there is a lot of activity going on in Iraq as we speak and we believe it is very important that Members be given appropriate time to express that support and thus believe this resolution is a wonderful way for us to send a signal, today, of that support.
I know a number of Members will come to the floor to express that support over the next couple of hours. They will be making brief remarks. Over the course of the coming days, we will have ample opportunity to expand upon those remarks. Senators, clearly, will want to speak on the resolution, but I do want to encourage people to keep their remarks short so we can eventually get to the vote as early today as possible to express that support with the full support of the Senate.
We have talked back and forth as to whether we need specific time limits, in terms of how much time to spend on this particular resolution. We have agreed not to have strict time limits because we do want to give everybody that opportunity. But we have agreed we will have a vote on this resolution of support for our troops today. Again, it is imperative, I believe, that the Senate express its support today through this resolution.
We will resume the budget resolution following the conclusion of the resolution of support. There are about 5 hours, I believe, remaining on the budget resolution; therefore, we will finish that resolution this week and we will talk a little bit more back and forth in a few minutes about what our expectations are for later tonight and tomorrow.
I know the managers on both sides of the aisle have encouraged Members to submit their amendments. I hope Senators are listening and working with the chairman and ranking member so we can have an orderly process. Although we have all tried on both sides to avoid a vote-
athon, there is going to be a vote-athon tomorrow. But we want to have an orderly process. To do that, we want to make sure we have those amendments this afternoon so we can go through and prioritize and then be able to plan for tomorrow.
Before I formally call up the resolution, I yield to the Democratic leader for his comments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, let me simply add that it is our hope we can have a vote at about the time that the votes have been called this afternoon. We have a cluster of votes on the budget resolution that will be voted upon at around 4 o'clock. My hope would be that we could have a vote on this resolution as we have those votes as well, providing an opportunity for Senators on both sides. I assume time will be controlled by Senators Warner and Levin or their designees and that we will alternate back and forth until that time. Senators, then, would have the opportunity to continue to express themselves after these votes, either on the resolution supporting our troops or in support of amendments that will be offered during the vote-athon beginning tomorrow.
I think this is as reasonable and as prudent a way possible with which to address the challenges that we face as we close out this week. We have worked in good faith on both sides in drafting a resolution that I hope will enjoy unanimous support within the Senate. I think it deserves that depth and breadth of support. I am proud to be a cosponsor.
I think if we can accommodate the need to address the resolution, as the distinguished majority leader has suggested, if everybody keeps their remarks relatively brief, we will have ample time as the days unfold to come back and express ourselves again.
I hope to set the example. With that, I am going to yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. I thank the Democratic leader because all of us know we are trying to accomplish a lot this week. We have been able to work together in an orderly way thus far this week. It will get increasingly hectic over the next 48 hours. We have an orderly process which would mean the resolution will be introduced now. Over the next several hours we will have ample opportunity for people to make their initial remarks of support. We have a series of votes that begins at 4 o'clock today. As the distinguished Democratic leader said, our intention is to follow those votes with this vote on the resolution for support.
Following whenever that vote is--and again I encourage our colleagues to keep remarks short so we can get to that vote because that is the real signal that we send out from the Senate once we actually vote on that resolution--following that resolution we will come back to the budget and continue the excellent debate, focusing on various amendments today and tonight. We will be here late tonight. There has been time yielded back, from our side, to facilitate that process.
I think what we would like to do--it really depends on how the afternoon and night goes--is to begin the series of votes after all time is exhausted, which would be sometime late tomorrow morning. Again, I do not know exactly what the time would be like. And then it really depends on how many votes we have as part of the so-called vote-
arama. It is our intention to finish this budget this week.
As I said this morning, if it is Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, it is important, we all believe, to complete this budget this week.
That is a rough outline of how we would like to see things play over the next 48 hours.
____________________
