President's Budget Proposal

Floor Speech

PRESIDENT'S BUDGET PROPOSAL -- (Senate - February 05, 2008)

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the President's budget is often described as ``dead on arrival.'' In fairness to this President and others, we should look at it in a different way. This is the President's proposal for the budget for the next fiscal year. It is a fiscal year for which this President will not be here. The year begins on October 1. He will end his term in office January 20. So most of this budget will affect the next administration, the next President. This is pure speculation on his part about where America should be in the next year as the President leaves office.

The folks at the Office of Management and Budget must have worked up to the last minute, because when they posted the President's proposed budget on line yesterday, two of the first 15 words were misspelled. Far worse than misspellings, however, many of the priorities in the President's budget are misplaced. The President has proposed the first $3 trillion budget in American history; $3 trillion. Yet with all that money, the President, with his priorities, continues to cut education and health care, energy conservation and, independence, affordable housing, veterans programs, and many national priorities. Seven years ago, President Bush came to town as one of the luckiest Presidents in modern history. As some might say, using an analogy from Ann Richards in a speech she once gave to a Democratic convention, President Bush started his administration, in economic terms, on second base. Things had been done to improve America's economy and its budget, and they were given to this President to continue.

President Bush inherited the largest budget surplus in America's history. In his first budget address in 2001, he promised to use that surplus to fund our priorities, strengthen our economy, and even pay down the national debt. He said after all that was done, he would have enough money left over for tax cuts. Today, 7 years later, after President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been in the White House working with a Congress largely under Republican control, America's economy is in trouble. Federal spending during their term has increased 53 percent. Our deficit is expected to hit $410 billion this year, $407 billion next year. Instead of paying down the national debt, this President, who inherited a surplus, has piled record amounts of new debt for America and for generations to come. Under George Bush the national debt has increased by more than $3 trillion. We are going around the country, hat in hand, borrowing and begging from China, the Middle East oil states, Korea, Japan, about any other country that will pay our bills, because this President has been unable to. Now the President is demanding, nevertheless, that his tax cut ideas become permanent law.

How much would President Bush's tax cuts for wealthy people cost us if they were made permanent? Mr. President, $4.3 trillion over the next 10 years, tax cuts primarily for people who weren't even asking for them. That is not all. While the President claims to oppose tax increases, he is about to impose one of the largest tax increases in America's history on more than 25 million working middle-class families. He refuses to patch and reform the alternative minimum tax beyond next year. That is a $119 billion tax increase in 2010 alone.

The President continues to argue that we need to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan. His budget, nevertheless, cuts off funding for the troops after the spring of next year. What is that all about? The President says we have to stay the course. Senator John McCain said it could last as long as 100 years. President Bush in his budget cuts off spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the spring of next year. He hasn't told us that the war is going to end then. I certainly hope it does. But he better get his story straight.

With the economy failing and time running out on this Presidency, one might think the President would change his approach and accept new ideas. Unfortunately, he is stuck in the same old program and the same old message. Nine million more Americans are uninsured today than when President Bush took office. Half of those 9 million Americans lost their health insurance in the last 2 years. It is getting worse and at a pace most American families can't keep up with. What does the President say about that? He wants to cut the Medicare Program, a program for the elderly and the disabled. In Medicaid, he wants to make cuts, a program for those in lower income categories, many of whom have lost their jobs. He wants to cut other parts of America's health care safety net. His budget singles out health care for the heaviest cuts while continuing to provide large overpayments to many private insurance companies.

In Illinois, more than 1.5 million people depend on Medicare, more than 2 million depend on Medicaid. Under the President's budget, Illinois would receive $123 million less in Federal Medicaid funds. Stroger Hospital in the city of Chicago is a public hospital of which I think very highly. They have a very competent medical staff. They treat the poorest of the poor, not just in Chicago and Cook County but for many surrounding counties. Over half the people who come to that hospital have no way to pay for their care. At Holy Cross Hospital in Marquette Park, 25 percent of those who are treated cannot pay for anything. Yet the President says we should cut the Federal Government's reimbursement to these hospitals? It doesn't make sense. We know what is going to happen. There will be an awful lot of Americans who will have no place to turn and won't have the professional medical care which we all want for our families.

When will this administration understand that Medicare is there to help our seniors, not to line the pockets of corporations? The President should fund Medicare.

In his State of the Union Address, the President also called on Congress to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. Yet once again, this President has underfunded his own law. The Department of Education estimates the President's budget will provide $588 million in title I funding in Illinois. That is just over half the amount promised under No Child Left Behind. As a result, 120,000 Illinois children will be left without full title I services. It is one thing to ask kids to take tests to figure out whether they are making progress or falling behind. But once they need a helping hand, how can this President repeatedly refuse to come up with Federal funds to fund the very mandates he has created? The President also siphons away $300 million from public schools to pay for vouchers for private and religious schools. Those vouchers come at the expense of 48 programs, including a lot of essential programs for students such as Perkins loans that help students go to college. I am not opposed to private and religious schools. I am a product of religious school education. They have a valuable place in our society. But the first obligation of the Government is to the public education system. The President, unfortunately, is not going to meet that obligation.

When it comes to homeland security, again the President refuses to put money in the COPS Program, the single most practical and effective way to provide men and women in uniform so they are there when we need them. This year he slashes funding for State and local law enforcement assistance, such as the COPS Program and the Byrne grants.

On energy and global warming, the President's budget is, unfortunately, unresponsive to the real national and global emergency we face. Record high oil prices are harming the economy, record emissions and pollution threatening our globe and its climate. We ought to be investing aggressively in developing renewable energy options. Instead, the President's budget proposes a 7-percent reduction in solar energy research, a 27-percent reduction in energy efficiency programs, and a 79-percent cut in weatherization programs to help families trying to keep their homes warm and cool. The President's budget cuts LIHEAP by 22 percent. As a result, 15,000 Illinois families would lose assistance.

It also proposes to eliminate what was once the centerpiece of coal energy research in America, the FutureGen plant in Mattoon, IL. This is one near and dear to my heart. For 5 years, I worked with a bipartisan delegation--Congressman Tim Johnson, Republican of Illinois, Senator Obama, and others--to win this plant for our State. Governor Blagojevich, local officials, everybody pitched in. We were announced to be the winners in the middle of December. Last week the Secretary of Energy pulled the plug and said: We are not going to fund this project. How can this President walk away from a zero-emission coal energy plant that has been something he has bragged about for so many years?

The subprime mortgage crisis has plunged America into our worst housing crisis, some experts say, since the Great Depression.

Two million families are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure over the next 2 years. There is a dramatic need for affordable housing all across America, from big cities to small rural communities.

Yet the President wants to slash or even eliminate programs that help rural communities build affordable housing and help families own their own homes, like the multi-family housing direct loans, self-help housing grants and single family housing direct loans.

The President also wants to eliminate the HOPE IV program, which helps cities restore public housing, and the section 108 loan program, which helps families rehab their homes.

The President's budget cuts community development block grants by $650 million. Illinois would lose $40 million for police officers, improved street lighting and sewer lines, upgrading low income housing, reconstructing problem roadways and operating substance abuse programs and homeless shelters.

Amtrak is vitally important to Illinois and all of America. Unfortunately, the President and his administration are once again attempting to privatize and eventually eliminate Amtrak rail service.

The President's budget cuts the Airport Improvement Program funding by $764 million.

Illinois would lose $25 million, threatening a critical source of funding for new runway construction at O'Hare, and improvements at airports such as Waukegan, Marion, Peoria, Springfield and many other Illinois airports.

Once again the President has refused to include funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his budget. After 6 years of fighting, this administration continues to skirt the rules and avoid accountability and openness.

Continuing to fund the war through supplemental funding is one way the administration tries to mask the full cost of these wars. Another way is by underfunding veterans health and other services our veterans have earned and need.

The President is requesting $41.2 billion for the VA health care system--$1.6 billion below the independent budget's recommendation.

His budget shortfalls mean that there will likely be little relief for Illinois's nearly 70,000 veterans, who must still wait for an average of nearly 5 months to have their disability claims processed.

More than 76,000 farm families in Illinois produce crops and livestock that feed families all over the world.

Agriculture research is vitally important to Illinois farm families and to our national economy. The President's budget would cut agriculture research by $330 million, which could jeopardize promising research at the ARS lab in Peoria and the University of Illinois extension services.

In addition, the President proposes sharp cuts in rural broadband programs, rural housing, and rural business development.

In Illinois, which receives the second-highest total of USDA rural development assistance in the Nation, the President's cuts would all but eliminate popular grant programs that support innovative rural businesses, community facilities, and broadband networks.

President Bush is proposing the largest cut to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in its 40-year history--a 56-percent reduction in funding.

America's 1,100 public radio and TV stations are an indispensible source of education, information for enrichment. The President's cuts would cripple them.

Illinois's 30 public radio stations would lose at least $6.5 million in total support and lose all of their digital transition funding and culture for sources, civic education, and special local content to communities.

Finally, in foreign affairs, the President's budget cuts the U.S. contribution to the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria by $341 million--funds that could provide lifesaving AIDS drugs for 37,500 more people, treat more than 272,000 people for TB, and provide more than 2.1 million bed nets to prevent for malaria.

As the world's wealthiest and most powerful Nation, our actions encourage other donor nations to step up and devote additional resources to fight the global AIDS pandemic. Keeping our commitments to the global AIDS fight can help to restore goodwill for America in Africa and around the world.

Someone at the White House corrected those misspelled words in the first draft of the President's budget. It is up to Congress to replace the misplaced priorities in the President's plan and agree on a budget plan that meets the needs of America's families and businesses and communities and puts our economy back on the right track.

I yield the floor.

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