Budget Priorities
Floor Speech
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the American economy is struggling. We are coming out of recession--unfortunately, too slowly for most of us--but we are emerging.
I can recall the ominous days when we first learned of the terrible economic crisis facing our country. Some of us who serve in the Senate Chamber were called into a meeting with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Bernanke, and then Secretary of the Treasury Mr. Paulson, and they told us the grim news that if we didn't act and act quickly, we could see the American economy sinking lower, and perhaps even experience a global depression. It was a frightening time. It was a time before this current President came to office, and we had to act together on a bipartisan basis.
Decisions were made by many of us, trusting those in the Bush administration who told us if we didn't act and act quickly, jobs would be lost and businesses would fail and people would lose their savings, and it would be catastrophic. So we went forward with a plan that initially I thought to be flawed but the only show in town, trying to help financial institutions survive the terrible economy and to turn this situation around. We can say now that most of the money--virtually all of the money--that was invested in these financial institutions has been repaid with interest to the Federal Government, which is the right thing. And we continue to pursue those such as AIG where the government has a substantial ownership in an effort to make certain that taxpayers recoup the investment that saved a major insurance company. That is a good thing.
Meanwhile, our economy moves forward at a slow pace, but at least it continues to move forward. New unemployment numbers for Illinois were released yesterday and new Federal numbers were released this morning. Those reports show that in Illinois, in the month of January, the unemployment rate was 9 percent, down from 9.3 percent. Also, 599,400 Illinoisans are looking for work, down from 620,600 last month. Nationally, in the month of February, the unemployment rate was 8.9 percent, down from 9.0 last month, and significantly down from where it was a few months ago. Also, 13.7 million Americans are looking for work, down from 13.9 million last month. The report also shows that the economy added 192,000 new jobs.
Unfortunately, the response of Congress has not taken into consideration how fragile this economy is and how important the recovery is. We hear from the other side--from Senator McConnell this morning and others--that the biggest problem facing America today is our deficit. I would say to the Presiding Officer, who joins me in a bipartisan effort to try to deal with this deficit, we concede that point. The deficit is a major issue. But we want to take care that the way we solve the deficit issue is sensitive to the state of the economy and our need to work together to end this recession.
So that is why H.R. 1, the House Republican budget, is a bill which I can't support. It is not a good budget bill because it takes money out of key investments in our economy at a time when we need them the most. When we need to have better trained workers with skills for new jobs, the House budget on the Republican side devastates worker training programs.
Why would you do that in the midst of a recession with so many people out of work, at a time when we need more students graduating from college with diplomas and new skills and opportunities? The House Republican budget cuts the Pell grants--the amount of money given to those students from low-income families--by over $800 a year. Many young people will have to give up on education and delay it because of that. How does that help us in our recovery? It doesn't.
Equally troubling is the House Republican budget, which makes devastating cuts in areas of research and innovation. I am not saying the best jobs in America are going to be government jobs; they are not and they should not be. They are going to be private sector jobs. But time and again our private sector turns to our National Laboratories for the research on the products they need to compete in the world.
The rollout of the Chevy Volt was announced all across the Nation. General Motors was so proud. Here is an all-electric vehicle they are going to sell to America. I am glad they are doing it. It is not only environmentally responsible, but it reduces our dependence upon foreign energy.
How did General Motors--this great corporation--develop the Chevy Volt? The first stop was the Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago, where they worked with government scientists to build the battery to put in the Chevy Volt. That is important.
What is going to happen to the Argonne National Laboratory because of the House Republican budget? They will be forced to lay off one-third of their scientists, engineers, and support staff for the remainder of the year, and they will cancel up to 50 percent of their research activities, not just in new battery technology but in developing the next generation of computers. Where is the fastest computer in the world today? It is not in the U.S.A.; it is in China. We are trying to step ahead and make sure the next fastest computer that can be used to drive technology, invention, innovation, new companies, and new jobs is right here in America. Yet the House Republicans come up with devastating cuts on the national research labs such as Argonne. How can we justify it?
At the same time, they are cutting money to the National Institutes of Health. If there is one thing we all have in common, all of us--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents--it is our own vulnerability to illness and disease. That is a fact. When it happens, you want to make sure you or your loved ones are in the hands of the best doctor, the best hospital, with the best medicine and the best technology. We get that by investing in medical research.
What does the House Republican budget do? It cuts medical research. How could we possibly cut back on research for cancer, Alzheimer's, AIDS, and diabetes? How can we do that when so many Americans are afflicted and so many costs are associated with those diseases? It is so shortsighted, and it is an indication that when they came to write the budget, the House Republican leadership didn't focus thoughtfully on what we need to cut to reduce the deficit and what we need to invest in to build the economy. They put them all together and said it makes no difference. If you have government spending, it is not going to matter what it is.
Well, there are infrastructure projects--new roads, bridges, airports, and ports--that are essential for the growth of our economy.
The House Republicans stop many of those very important investments--including in Illinois, investments where we won in a national competition to modernize our rail system around Chicago, to make certain we have railroad service in parts of our State that currently don't, and to modernize and make safer the airports, highways, and that which is critically essential to our future.
I say to the Republican side, yes, the deficit is an issue. But first, understand we will never balance the budget with 15 million Americans out of work. We need to move this economy forward and tackle this budget in a responsible way, not just to cut one small part of it unmercifully but to put the entire budget on the table. That is what the deficit commission on which I served did. We need to do that in our Nation in a bipartisan fashion.
I am happy to continue to join my colleagues who will sit down and discuss this, including the Presiding Officer, Senator Warner of Virginia. There are six of us--three Republicans and three Democrats. It is the most unlikely gathering of politicians that you can imagine in one room to try to come up with a solution. We are people of good will, and we know our historic responsibility. We are working through some of the hardest issues and questions any Member of Congress can face when it comes to this issue.
If we are successful--and I underline ``if''--I hope we can move this country forward in a responsible way, putting the recession behind us and starting to get our house in order. We can no longer sustain a budget where we owe 40 cents for every dollar we spend. Whether you are on the left side of the spectrum, where I live politically, and value such things as help for education, help for the most vulnerable in America, or whether you are on the other side of the spectrum, which probably values national security issues and more investment in the military, both of us are in this together. We have to both understand there will not be enough money left for anything if we don't focus on doing this dramatic, historic job of coming up with a way to reduce our debt and our deficit.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
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