Making Further Emergency Supplemental Appropriations

MAKING FURTHER EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS -- (Senate - September 08, 2005)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I was led to believe that I had 5 minutes. I don't know if time is controlled?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes 50 seconds.

Mr. DURBIN. Close enough.

Mr. President, we estimate the cost of Hurricane Katrina could reach $150 billion. Some Senators speculate even more. We are passing a second supplemental appropriations bill which I assume will pass unanimously: $51.8 billion on top of $10.5 billion last week and no end in sight. This is an enormous responsibility, a responsibility that challenges us in terms of our Nation's budget priorities.

Hurricane Katrina has redrawn the map of the gulf coast. It has also redrawn the budget in Washington. When we reached an agreement earlier this year on a budget, it was a much different environment. We did not anticipate the staggering expenses of Hurricane Katrina. Some did not anticipate the continuing costs of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which should never be forgotten. We included in that budget resolution a proposal for $70 billion in tax cuts, the first time in the history of the United States of America we suggested we would make tax cuts in the midst of a war. Usually, a President calls on the Nation to sacrifice during a war, to understand that we each have to give a little to help our troops overseas. This administration suggested the opposite. For the most well off in America, we proposed cutting their taxes in the midst of a war and in the face of the largest deficits in the history of the United States of America.

That was before hurricane Katrina. The world has changed. The deficit for this year has been estimated to be $331 billion. Can we add $70 billion to that in tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America? Even worse, the estimated cumulative deficit over the next 10 years has been estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be $2.1 trillion. This is before Katrina--before the tax cuts. Can we afford to add $70 billion in tax cuts, primarily for the wealthiest people in America, to that astounding historic deficit? We cannot. I think most right-thinking people on both sides of the aisle now realize that.

Let's be clear. The wrong way to attempt to shrink this deficit would be to cut $35 billion in domestic spending, including $10 billion in cuts in Medicaid, the health insurance program for those who are homeless now because of Katrina and the most disadvantaged in America.

At a time when Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other Gulf States are struggling to help these people in need, and other States such as my own State of Illinois and so many others are reaching out to help them; at a time when public health challenges are reaching epidemic proportions; at a time when States are struggling on their own to meet their budget responsibility, we cannot cut $10 billion in Medicaid payments to the States.

Thousands of people who did not evacuate New Orleans before the storm couldn't leave the city simply because they couldn't afford to leave. As my colleague, Senator Obama, said so often, they couldn't fill up the SUV with $100 of gas, put in the bottled water and head out with a credit card to a hotel in some other State to wait it out. That was impossible.

They faced the reality of poverty and the reality of disaster. We have to face the reality of our budget. Our budget tells us that we cannot cut in Homeland Security, we cannot cut in FEMA, we certainly can't cut the safety net that so many Americans rely on.

The Homeland Security Department needs more resources than ever, particularly for FEMA, and to restore the confidence in America that this agency is truly prepared for the next disaster, whatever it happens to be--whether it is a natural disaster, God forbid, or a terrorist disaster. Our confidence has been shaken in the Department of Homeland Security. We believed that we were safe, and in a few hours we learned, with the disaster on the Gulf Coast, that in many ways we are not.

We couldn't keep the flood waters out of New Orleans once that hurricane had turned. But can we tell America that we are prepared to keep the next flood, the next hurricane, the next disaster from creating what is a shameful situation now facing us across America?

This storm should compel us to reexamine our priorities. A budget document represents a set of moral choices not just fiscal choices. For the past 5 years, we have chosen wealthy persons over working Americans, pharmaceutical companies over seniors, oil companies over the environment, and defense contractors over veterans. It is time to change those priorities.

I will vote for this money. I believe all Senators will probably vote for this money to help our victims. But let us be honest about the realities, the budget challenges we face. Let us understand that a tax holiday for the wealthiest people in America is not appropriate--not this week, not next week, and not any time this year, as we face the reality of a war in Iraq, which continues to claim lives every single day, and this catastrophe of Katrina, which is going to test our moral fiber.

I yield the floor.

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