Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. President.

I rise today to speak in opposition to the Republican so-called budget. I call it a ``so-called budget'' because I do not believe even Republicans would actually pass appropriations consistent with it. It looks to me like it is just a show to keep extremists on the right happy. My guess is that practical Republicans cannot wait for President Obama to bail them out by negotiating appropriations higher.

Recently, we have seen impressive examples of committee bipartisanship. In Foreign Relations, Senator Corker brought a unanimously bipartisan Iran resolution out of the poisonous turmoil surrounding that issue. In the HELP Committee, Senator Alexander brought a unanimously bipartisan education bill out of committee on an issue that has long been contested. Even the intensely divided Environment and Public Works Committee brought out a chemical regulation bill with a strong bipartisan majority. But Budget? No chance.

Instead of working with Democrats on a real budget, Republicans produced a partisan ideological showcase. They cut programs for seniors, for low-income families, and for other vulnerable citizens and protected the wealthiest Americans from contributing even one dime in deficit reduction.

As we have seen in the past, Republicans care about deficit reduction only when it involves cutting programs for people who need help. But can they find a single tax loophole to cut? Not one.

This budget follows the Ryan budget off the cliff of shielding every single subsidy and giveaway in the Tax Code. No special interest tax loophole is too grotesque for them. Big Oil tax subsidies, special low rates for hedge fund managers, private jet depreciation, for goodness' sake--tax giveaways that amount to nothing more than taxpayer subsidies for the wealthy and well connected--this budget loves and protects them all.

Not only do the Republicans protect every tax loophole, they propose eliminating the estate tax--a tax that only affects families worth over $10 million--the top 0.2 percent. You may have heard a lot about the 1 percent. Well, this budget does even better than that. It confers a great, wonderful, fat favor on the top 0.2 percent and, at the same time, the budget will allow the taxes to increase on 13 million lower- and middle-income households--households with 25 million children. That is a $300 billion tax giveaway to that 0.2 percent--to basically 5,000-some of the wealthiest families in America. And that big gift to those 5,000-and-some wealthiest families is paired with a tax hike for millions of families who are just getting by.

And, of course, it is lower-income and middle-class families who would suffer the most from the Republican spending cuts. Medicaid, food stamps, Pell grants, and job training all get axed. They hand Medicare over to private sector vouchers and kick 16 million Americans off of health insurance plans they obtained through the Affordable Care Act.

Today, across this Capitol, breast cancer advocates are asking for our support for investment to help cure that deadly disease. This budget cuts research for breast cancer and other deadly diseases. It slashes funding for nursing homes, including those that care for seniors with Alzheimer's. It even supports a 20-percent across-the-board benefit cut for disabled Americans--a 20-percent benefit cut for disabled Americans--by doubling down on the senseless House rule that can be used to create an artificial crisis and prevent a routine Social Security fix.

As for the investments that keep our Nation competitive in an increasingly global economy, all are attacked. From scientific research to education to infrastructure, the Republicans offer a radical plan of cuts.

In a nutshell, their behavior proves that the deficit is just a pretext for them to cut programs that Republicans have always opposed--programs that create jobs, support the middle class, and offer lifelines to the most vulnerable Americans.

Even transportation infrastructure--our roads and bridges--gets whacked. Much of our highway system dates back to the 1950s, and roads and bridges across the country are in dire need of repair and replacement. This budget fails to provide any new funding for infrastructure. It does not even ensure that current funding levels will be maintained.

This matters because the current funding authorization for highway and transit projects expires at the end of the month. That will imperil construction projects and jobs just as we enter the busy summer highway construction season. There is no plan to deal with that that Republicans have announced--no bill in any committee.

In the budget, Republicans had an opportunity for a big win-win. They could have upgraded America's roads and bridges and supported millions of jobs. Ranking Member Sanders even offered an amendment that would have paid for infrastructure investments by closing some of these corporate tax loopholes. All Republicans had to do was vote yes. But corporate tax loopholes were too important, and roads and bridges did not matter. They chose to protect their cherished tax giveaways for special interests. Today the clock still ticks toward a looming highway jobs shutdown.

This will hurt a lot of States. It will particularly hurt my home State of Rhode Island. We are a historic and densely populated State. We have aging and heavily used infrastructure. Lots of our roads and bridges are in poor condition. One study found that the average motorist in Rhode Island pays an extra $637 per year for car repairs and operating costs because of potholes and bumps and other bad road conditions. It is not just Rhode Island. This is true also across the country. Nationwide, poor road conditions are estimated to cost our country more than $100 billion a year--over $500 per motorist. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives America's bridges a grade of only C-plus. It gives our roads a D.

Where is the plan to address this? Where is the plan to help the working Americans who have to spend $500 or $637 a year because we do not take care of our roads and highways? There is none.

Well, I understand that the Republicans in the Senate have been in the minority for a long time and old habits die hard. But the responsibility of a majority is to be responsible. Republicans passed up the opportunity to be responsible in their budget with highway funding. This should not be that difficult. They could start by looking at the bipartisan 6-year highway bill approved last year in the Environment and Public Works Committee. My recollection is that it was approved unanimously. That bill would have provided the certainty that our State departments of transportation need to plan for the big multiyear, job-creating projects that our years of deferred maintenance have brought due.

The extremist Republican budget under the Senate rules does not need Democratic support, and it appears that the Republicans do not even want Democratic support. Under the Senate rules, this budget will pass this Chamber. The good news about that is that the budget is merely political theater. The penalty for violating this budget is a 60-vote point of order. Nowadays it takes 60 votes to pass an appropriations bill. So in effect the penalty is a nullity. So there is really nothing to violating the budget.

The real budget will be sent to us through the Appropriations Committee, and the real numbers will be negotiated upwards, and the Republicans will be relieved of the human responsibility for what would happen if this budget were actually to guide our appropriations. That is the good news.

The bad news is that it is a missed opportunity to try to work in any kind of a bipartisan fashion. It is a missed opportunity to address issues that Americans agree on, such as maintaining our bridges and highways.

I hope very much that my friends on the other side of the aisle will begin to work with Democrats on addressing, with some semblance of bipartisanship, our constituents' needs in that regard. With funding set to expire in just a few weeks, and with no Republican plan on the horizon to address it, we should at least begin with a bipartisan conversation about a long-term highway bill.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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