t as lawmakers grapple with today's challenges give them the humility to cast their cares on you for you pose this great love for them remind them that you sustain the universe by your providential power and that nothing is too difficult for you to accomplish let not their hearts be troubled by overwhelming obstacles but may they run with patience the race that is set before them inspire their thinking strengthen their resolve and give them success in their efforts we pray in the name of him who is  present yes to seven three fours at the desk its due for a second reading the critical report as twenty seven thirty four a bill to eight families and neighborhoods facing home foreclosure and address the sub prime are starting in an hour the budget under the law that governs what we do here thirty hours of debate on this matter one of the few things in the senate that has it time certain the good news is that we have senators conrad and senator judd gregg who will be managing this they are our two experts on money within this body they work well together they disagree on a number of issues in the budget but they approach this in a gentlemanly fashion they are in my estimation two of the finest senators this bodies ever had and as far as matters relating to money they are and my years of service here in the senate really outstanding they are friends they are adversaries but they do it in a way i think that should make the senate and our country proud so that's the good news the bad news is that other than the time limit on the budget there are a lot of changes we ought to talk about needing to make and we have for years but we haven't made them which means that we come to a point where we have what is called the votes on which means the senators have an unlimited number of opportunities offer amendments and until the chair rules that it's an delatour a tactic that can go on for a long prieta times i've explained to the republican leader we have cocked it some and some length on one occasion on the telephone that we're going to finish this bill this week the question is we would like to do it on thursday it's my understanding all the presidential is will be here on thursday they'll be here on friday if we don't finish this bill on thursday i'll be here on saturday if we don't finish the bill on friday so i hope we can work toward finishing this bill some kind thursday it's my recollection that we did it last year on thursday so that's what every what we're facing and as a result of that we're going to work to see if we can have a process that's fair and gives people the opportunity to offer the amendments that they feel as feel important there are a number of issues we know i think senators reagan conrad would agree there's probably four mean issues that are going to be extremely controversial in the budget this year and we'll work toward having a time that we can complete that mr president this week mark seventy fifth anniversary of president franklin roosevelt's first fireside chat in his first fireside chat on march twelfth one thousand nine hundred three president roosevelt reassured the american people that despite the fear and uncertainty of a banking crisis and a deeply troubled economy working people are in his words average citizens would be just fine he said and i quote you must have faith you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses  and banishing fear we have provided the machinery to restore a financial system and it is up to you to his word and make it work it's your problem my friends your problem no less than mine together we cannot fail and  president roosevelt was right with president roosevelt's leadership and the grit and determination of the american people our country not only survived the great depression but embraced a new era of prosperity that success was due in no small part to present results understanding that working americans build our country and working americans were critical to our continued prosperity seven years ago president george bush inherited a budget surplus for the year of more than two hundred billion dollars result of responsible clinton administration economic policy these surpluses are projected to continue for the foreseeable future now seven years into the bush administration we find tax breaks for big business and the superwealthy of combined with the twelve billion dollars per month war in iraq and cuts to investments our workforce and infrastructure seven years in the bush administration we find that there is a budget deficit of more than four hundred billion dollars a national debt that is going to grown by some three trillion dollars in the seven years that he's been president the result of an economy that is failing millions of american families president bush said last week that he doesn't believe america is headed toward a recession you have to hunt hard to find economists that would agree with him the question is no longer are we headed for a recession but how long and how deep it will be for the second month in a row the american economy lost jobs twenty two thousand in february sixty three thousand in february who bore the worst worst of this job loss people who work in the manufacturing industry people who work in construction people who build homes it's not manufacturing lost jobs it's not construction lost jobs it's not home building lost jobs is people who work in those industries that cause these industries to be deemed as losing jobs and seven years of bush economics oil is up to an all time high today the last i looked it was over one hundred seven dollars a barrel gas prices are double what they were when the president took office and they're climbing the average gallon of gasoline american now is about three dollars and twenty cents a gallon the highest gasoline is in san francisco the lowest is and casper wyoming the cost of college is up by some sixty percent since president bush took office health kark health care costs are up eighty percent since president bush took office has anything gone down yes annual household income is down by a thousand dollars who has prospered from seven years of bush economics at parties and private meetings friends of bush the old great seal president bush's  friends and oil buddies must be telling him the county was doing great i say they're doing really well exxon for example made the highest net profit of any company in the history of the country it's no wonder the president doesn't see a recession coming because people he deals with obviously are doing just fine look at the enormous compensation packages earned by c e o s of content companies who have been failures countries countrywide citigroup merrill lynch these compensation packages were in the hundreds of millions of dollars for companies that were failing even as their and dustiest pile downward in the consumers a service suffered the middle class has not done so well they've been forgotten they've been left behind after seven years of fiscal irresponsibility consider what president bush wants to do next his budget calls for spending fifty one billion dollars turned out tax breaks more tax breaks for americans with incomes of greater than a million dollars that works out that each of these millionaires will get one hundred twenty five thousand dollars all to a fortunate few who need help the least with such generosity for those doing the best one would think the president would take care of those struggling the most that's not the case housing crisis for example the proposal we put forward mr president calls for five simple things transparency if you're going to buy a home have it so that people understand the terms of the deal very simple jack reed push that cd big money would go to local governments to buy foreclosed properties local governments are crying for these monies revenue bonds would allow the law to be changed state of revenue bonds to buy new homes you can buy foreclosed or used homes and then the loss carry forwards that is so important for the homebuilding industry the money you've made in the past could be offset with the money that has been lost in recent years and finally the bankruptcy provision that we've talked a lot about here to allow people to really to have bankruptcy court take a look at their loans and see if they can readjust the loans the president pays for his tax giveaways to the wealthy in part by proposing deep cuts to medicare and medicaid that's a fact underfunding everything from terrorism prevention to veterans education that's not just a responsible fiscal policy many believe as i met with a group of religious leaders last week that it's immoral fiscal policy this week we're posing a budget that abandons bush economics lowers taxes for the middle class creates new jobs and turns are struggling economy around this requires both immediate help and long term solutions in short our budget calls for further steps to stimulate growth and address the housing crisis set side thirty five billion dollars for measures like extending unemployment insurance bring home heating and nutrition assistance and rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges mr president everyone should know that for every bill every billion dollars we spend in developing roads bridges dams highways water systems sewer systems we create forty seven thousand five hundred high paying jobs we help families avoid losing their homes in our budget to foreclosure measure that spend blocked by republican by republican filibuster for the long term our budget calls for meaning coal investments in energy education infrastructure these investments will create jobs right americans of new tools to succeed increase productivity improve our environment and help ensure a strong and growing come to me as president these aren't just wishes or dreams we were able to accomplish that the last two years the clinton administration we were spending less money than we were taking in we were actually paying down the debt the budget we are working on this week also rejects the bush administration deep cuts in medicare medicaid and expand health care coverage would restore fiscal discipline that would maintain strong pages go rules which were in effect in the clinton years which really worked and the budget would be fully balanced in three years our bipartisan budget sets a path  stronger economic future and we can make it even stronger by passing an amendment that we offered by the distinguished chairman of the finance committee senator baucus of montana several colleagues will join in that the box a man would use projected surpluses to cut taxes on the middle class extending marriage penalty relief the child tax credit and ten percent tax bracket to men and also reforms estate tax protect small businesses family farms that includes other tax cuts as well democrats believe in cutting taxes not just for chief executive officers of these big companies not for oil men but for the middle class families who need help the most this president i've already talked about the two men that are going to manage this bill chairman conrad ranking member judd gregg they really do good work now it's up to the full senate to follow senator conrad lead and that of senator great job great to move forward and get a budget that can be the blueprint for what we do the rest of this congress i look forward to an often productive budget debate this week with a kind of steely resolve that president roosevelt showed we can put the failed bush economic policies behind us pass a fair responsible budget that makes america stronger safer and more prosperous as president just in passing let me say this i had the good fold earlier today with the head of the peace corps and his name is ron chatter wonderful man he was a spoof here not long ago by the full senate overwhelmingly the peace corps is one of the programs that is so good for this country and the world we have a little over eight thousand peace corps volunteers we should have twice as many present said a couple of years ago he was going to double the peace corps from seven thousand and fourteen thousand that hasn't happened yet as increased it by a few hundred and that's very very important from nevada we have twenty two peace corps volunteers out of the eight thousand there are from all over the world as i've been at the good fortune being able to travel as a representative our country around the world for the last several decades every place i go i visit with peace corps volunteers because there is no group of individuals that do more for our country and setting good high quality standards then the peace corps volunteers they do great work i'm very proud of them they have these peace corps volunteers when they're interviewed they're not democrats republicans they're americans and they do great public service they are true public servants and are very proud of the work that they have done and will continue to do throughout the world on behalf of the republican leader misread the last week friends on the other side pulled back the curtain on their budget proposal and taxpayers all across america groaned it really wasn't very pretty and democrats proposed to increase discretionary spending above the one trillion dollar mark for the first time ever and a paper that they want to increase taxes by a lot of the largest tax hike in history the timing of course could not be worse at a time when americans are seeing record gas prices falling home values and higher health care intuition caution the other side sees higher taxes and more spending rather than offer a plan to address the concerns of the day they offer a plan to make those calls harder to meet inside the limits of a family budget at a time time of heightened economic worry our friends plan for  america is for families to keep less of their money and insist the government spends more and the effect of all this on us families would be crushing under the democratic budget the average american family would see their annual tax bill go up twenty three hundred dollars a year nearly twenty million changers would see their taxes go up more than two thousand dollars a year and eight million low income workers would be added to the at a time of increased economic concern democrats want the average american family to have twenty three hundred dollars less for the family budget under their plan that's enough money to pay for an entire year's worth of gas for two cars it's about what the average american family with two kids spend on health care in nine months it's also enough to buy eight months worth of groceries the average american family would suffer a lot under this plan consider a family in that's just start to think about college for a new baby if that family took the twenty three hundred dollars that democrats are asking for in new taxes and invested it each year in a tax free college savings account they'd have nearly seventy five thousand dollars for college by the time that child was ready to attend school this budget is not the answer americans have been looking for it's a cliche when faced with a challenge democrats always answer with a simple three word response tax and spend and this year is certainly no different american families and their children of the one who will lose out under this tax and spend plan democrats promise to pay for everything but make families pay instead they promise middle class tax relief last year but did nothing to enact a promise to reduce the debt but increased it and said and they promised to address long term entitlement spending but only make the problem worse with higher taxes and more spending over the last twenty five years republican economic policies of lifted tens of millions of working families and to the middle class we did it through lower taxes control spending and keeping our defenses strong democrats know these policies work that's why as we began this congress many democrats assured voters they would not raise taxes on working class and middle class voters well this budget certainly fell short of that mark a proposed tax hike the democrats sent down last week is four times bigger than the one in one nine hundred ninety three that even president clinton said was too big for americans and ultimately even for him  democrats think the american people will accept this one because they think americans want to see the gains of the last six years washed away by a budget that reinstates every tax we've lowered or repealed over that period budget week is always a clarifying time of the year on capitol hill and what the other side's budget clear once again is that our friends on the other side are more concerned about growing the size and scope of washington spending while we want to grow the family's budget at a time of great economic uncertainty americans expect more from government than a one point two trillion dollar tax hike and billions of dollars in their spending this budget spends more than seven hundred seventy five billion dollars from the social security surplus it increases gross debt by more than two trillion dollars it increases the deficit by almost four hundred billion dollars and it completely ignores the question of where we are going to get the money to pay for sixty six trillion dollars in promised entitlement this despite the fact that the democratic chairman the budget committee a committee has explicitly said we need to reform entitlement programs and republicans  year to fight tax increases and to rein in spending we stuck by that pledge last year in these difficult economic times we will certainly stick by this year with this budget democrats want to spend more from washington and raise your taxes to pay subject i rushed today to honor the life of a soldier who gave his life in defense of his country corporal gary brandt coleman of pikeville kentucky perished on november the twenty first two thousand and three in balad iraq when his the ickle overturned mid trace during combat operations he was twenty four years old the memorial service for corporal coleman was so large it filled the auditorium of his album mater piko high school brant as he was known had been a local hero for his prowess on the football field he became an even greater hero by stepping forward in time of war friends family members and fellow soldiers  one after another on the effect brett had head on their lives when it was over brown's father gary kain coleman said i was proud that brett had made that type of an impact on so many people but i would rather for him to be here for his bravery in uniform corporal coleman received many medals awards and decorations including the army achievement medal the army commendation medal the purple heart and the bronze star medal brant was born in pikeville and he's from kentucky and spent the majority of his life in that area from a young age he was not afraid to speak his min claws and teeth they needed a small boy to come to their aid stop that right now the whole circus audience laughed at brent's display of compassion and of bravery bred love sports and grew up playing t ball baseball and football want to unbranded his cousin ben were both twelve years old bran showed ben how to hold the football close to his chest then took the ball and ran tackled him i guess ben was holding the ball a little too tightly it broke his shoulder and is really brett and his brother jason to the super bowl every year brent's favorite team is the detroit lions and its star running back barry sanders was his role model brant area and wherever the big game was and stay for the weekend they never missed a superbowl football is more than just a game to watch for brett it was his passion and he excelled at it at school brett was an all county running back for the pipe will panthers he was named player of the year at the start of the senior year in one thousand nine hundred six and he's still the leading rusher and score in the school's history the kentucky high school athletic association recognizes brown for holding these records eight overall in career yards rushing tenth overall in career touchdowns and eleventh overall and career points scored brown was idolized by the students and their parents says eddie coleman he was a local hero before he was the real hero with so much talent came an appropriate nickname branch teammates called him rock because he could find a hole and plow right through it but his from a local television station shows earned yet another nickname stumpy i guess because i'm short and fat a great grinning brant said to a t v reporter he didn't elaborate confidences father gary tells us it was someone with compassion always trying to do good always trying to do the right thing and he had a competitive personality everyone around him could see brant was special and that did not change when brant joined the army after attending marshall university in huntington west virginia for two years enlisted on july eleventh two thousand and one and underwent basic training at the united states army armor center at fort knox in kentucky he graduated basic in a top overall represent assigned a company b first battalion sixty eight armor regiment fourth infantry division based out of fort carson colorado upon graduating basic training i told his family i know i can make it on my own branch of service to his country as a way stationed in colorado springs brett met a special woman there and brett and kirsten became husband and wife they married in march three weeks before brant deployed to iraq a star running back and tank commander who had already acquired a few nicknames some picked up another from his fellow soldiers hollywood i will let staff sergeant jason gallegos who serve with brett explain why they called him hollywood weighed about one hundred seventy five pounds staff sergeant the lego says his body was short of stature but he was pure muscle with about maybe eight to nine percent body fat he looked like an action figure a poster child of what a united states soldier looks like the reason behind the nickname was because corporal coleman worked out hard every day for two to three hours then whenever he got the opportunity would go outside our bunker  to the sun and just as p t shorts placed mirrors around him put on a shade and throw on some music and tan it was like he was a movie star brant was well liked by his fellow soldiers and not just because of funny stories like these he was liked and respected because he always gave his best and encouraged others to do the same he would always volunteer for the tough missions staff sergeant glasgow says be smart and be aggressive he would say because he felt if you're passive then you're not only in danger yourself but also your fellow soldiers it was there for anybody no matter what platoon what day of the week or what time of the day at br funeral his sergeant told the coleman family brant was twenty four and they get a lot of eighteen year olds brant would always volunteer to take the young ones places to protect them he served his country you never complained it was made for the military physically and mentally brent's father gary says he said he had a job to do mr brett and i had the honor of meeting gary coleman in two thousand and five and i presented him with an  flown over this capital neither that flag nor the words we say here today can make up for what the coleman family has lost but they are the very least we can do to honor brent's memory we're thinking today of branch loved ones including his wife kiersten his mother janie atkins johnson his father gary kane coleman is brother jason barron coleman his grandmother ruby coleman damron and many other family members and friends mr president today march tenth is branch birthday it's a day to celebrate bryant's life and i thought an appropriate day for me to speak on how he lived and what  lived for the coleman family who've lost a husband brother and son i want to say this corporal gary brant coleman left this world a hero and on behalf of a grateful nation the u s senate hon his life of sacrifice and service the previous order the leadership time is reserved under the previous order the senate will proceed to a period of morning business until three pm with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each and with the time equally divided in control between the two leaders or their designees as president of washington thank you mr president in the last several days we have learned some surprising things about the air force's decision to award a forty billion dollar contract to the european company airbus and the air force wants airbus which is headquartered in toulouse france to supply our next generation of aerial refueling tankers it chose air bus over the american company boeing which has been making those tankers for the last fifty years now i've made it clear over the past several days that i think that this decision is shortsighted and it's dangerous but today even more questions have been raised about the process the air force followed to make this decision so i want to take the opportunity this afternoon to walk through the impact i believe that the air force's decision will have because i think we need to take a good hard look at whether we f members of the senate think this contract should be finalized first mr president we need to be very cautious about any decision that awards the right to build a critical part of our military air technology to a company that is controlled by foreign governments what happens if that government disagrees with us on foreign policy what if it decides it wants to slow down our military capacity do we want another country to have that kind of control now the air force of course did not take that into consideration they said they didn't have to i think this case is a perfect example of how misc guided that idea is airbus is owned by europe paean aeronautics defense and space companies which in turn is controlled by several nations among them are countries that haven't always agreed with the united states on foreign policy they include russia which has a five percent stake and the united arab emirates which controls seven and a half percent of eads now eads has already demonstrated that it is willing to bend the rules if it can help the company make money i've talked extensively on the floor about their attempts to sell military helicopters and planes to iran and venezuela but now we are opening the doors to a key piece of our military defense to them mr president america's global military strength is built on our ability to use our military might anywhere in the world at a moment's notice aerial tankers are the linchpin of our air power because they allow the united states air force to stretch across the globe and tell now the technology that powered these critical planes rested in the hands of boeing and its american workforce who've been building them for more than fifty years and until now are tankers have been built by manufacturers designers and engineers who are bound by law from selling technology to countries that sponsor terrorism but as a result of this contract we are allowing eads to take over a cornerstone of our military technology our actually paying them to do it in fact i argue that decision was a forty billion dollar investment in the military research budget of eaves and airbus now the air force has said it wasn't their responsibility to take our security or our industry and account well i say to my colleagues congress must we must be more forward looking than that secondly mr president i question why the air force was not required to take the economic impact into consideration when it awarded this contract if boeing had of won this contract it would have created forty four thousand united states jobs but it's far from clear what kind of investment airbus and its partner north grumman plan to make your in the united states hard connelly's hurting we're nearing a recession if we aren't already there families across the country are struggling to get by in part because their factory jobs have been moved overseas workers across this country are frustrated they're angry and at a time like this their government is saying they want to take their max american tax dollars their tax dollars and give that money to a foreign company to build planes for our military this president we have more reason for concern because for decades europe provided subsidies their subsidies to prop up airbus and means airbus they have said is a job program that has led to tens of thousands of layoffs here in the united states and eads has made little secret of its desire to dismantle the american aerospace industry our government in fact is concerned enough about these practices that we now have a w t o case against the e u over this yet here we are last week the government awarded airbus this forty billion contract anyway mr president that should give us a great deal of  because eads is already looking to build on the toehold that contract that contract gives them in the aerospace industry in fact a report in a leading french news service today says the executive president of  air bus wants to build on the company's success with the tanker contract and proposed to the ebor eads board's quote to take over projects in the fields of fancy security our services unquote and he said quote one of them at least should be in the united states and quote that brings me to my final point today this afternoon to this afternoon mr president why didn't the air force consider these obvious questions about national security and about economic well the los angeles times today suggested the answer they report on the front page of their paper today that eads and its partner northrop grumman may have played a role in narrowing the scope of what the air force looked at in fact the times reports that northrop executives ensured that the air force one and ask the competitors how government subsidies would help pay for in the design and development of the tanker the subject of a very w t o dispute that i just mentioned and according to that article northrop made threats in order to shape the criteria the air force followed the times reports and i quote northrop threatened at one point to pull out of the competition if the air force didn't change the way the aircraft would be evaluated unquote so mr president did the air force pull a bait and switch with this contract did it unfairly change the process to benefit eads as president i believe there are many serious questions about the selection process as united states senators it is our job to consider the future of our national security and our defense i believe we need open and honest answers to those questions before this contract is finalized in fact i think we ought to demand the answers our economy and our aerospace industry are suffering and letter from missouri mr president i rise today to talk about three issues that i think are vitally important for our national security first there's this matter of terrorist surveillance and our national security this body pas the bipartisan pi's act bill overwhelmingly more than two to one several days before the protect america act was to expire the director of national intelligence has told us how important this bill is because without it intelligence gaps likely will reopen putting the safety of our our america those of us in the united states and our troops on the battlefield at risk yet the house speaker refuses to allow a vote on the senate's bill even though a majority of house members support its passage you know if you vote that means something if you win you win if you lose you lose but the leadership in the house apparently thinks those rules just don't apply to debate even though the speaker failed to pass a twenty one day extension of the existing law in our own body the leadership has acted as though the p a deadline was extended and there's been no action so what's the house going to do this week well the speaker has signaled that the house will vote on overriding the president's veto of the two thousand and eight intelligence authorization bill even though she knows there are not enough votes to override a vote by because apparently the house leadership as decided it's more important to make a political statement about interrogation techniques and to give the intelligence communities the tools  needs to conduct surveillance of foreign intelligence the i c the intelligence community needs these tools and authorities that are provided in the bill we passed they're working tired tireless lead to protect us from real and constant terrorist threats and they should not have to wait any longer for the house to pass that measure secondly let me talk about korea briefly i just came from a  appropriations defense subcommittee hearing with general bell our commanding general in korea he told us at a not just a brave new wind but a typhoon has blown through south korea and the previous government that was in many ways anti american was totally willing to accommodate north korea and all of its efforts which included building missiles and nuclear weapons  economy make any actions with north korea reciprocal and improve our alliance with the united states position a candidate who came in second agreed with him on these issues the previous leadership candidate got single digits the most important things we can do to increase crease our trade and our military assistance to south korea south korea is already our largest export for military equipment and they live in a very dangerous part of the rear of the world they're right next door to china and borders are close to bordering on russia just across the straits from japan and they are potentially and they have been and they will be our most important ally but you know something we have given a higher foreign military sales status to three former soviet union states and five countries from the warsaw pact none of which are as good friends as south korea is i have filed a bill s eight hundred forty six the us republican korea defense cooperation improvement act of two thousand and seven that would give them the status of nato plus three so we could continue and expand on our vital defense trade with them he says this is his top priority where aready cooperating with them there's new cooperation there's an opportunity to build an even stronger ally in the region to help keep that region say a peaceful and secure secondarily for korea we also need to approve the u s korea free trade agreement free trade is one of the best ways we have of assuring other countries get the development they need they get develop the friendship we have and they improve our economy and their korea u s trade agreement would give lower tariff barriers and get rid of many of the tariff barriers kids agriculture and machine goods and high tech goods good from going in to to south korea we need to do that but politically there are political objections and that brings me to the third important point colombia colombia has pending with the united states a u s colombia free trade agreement now as i've just said trade and commercial ties are one of the most effective arrows in our quiver of smart power in colombia it's an affirmation of our support to our friends colombia is our strongest ally in an increasingly left leaning continent another area where there are they are our best friends in a dangerous area the president of colombia your rebate is found itself surrounded by states determined to undermine colombia's burgeoning democracy the states around them provide safe haven to insurgent terrorist groups allowing them freedom to maneuver in border areas and they even provide monetary support for their drug and treat terror activities against president government in colombia now if we are serious as we must be about maintaining peace security and stability in latin america central the northern part of latin america we must work with them free trade will not only expand our economic and strict commercial ties but it will strengthen the critical cultural ties and strategic allowances these will lead to a more peaceful and stable world at a time when america's image is suffering a in the world and our economy as home is something we should be helping our friends and allies and expanding our export opportunities to create jobs here if the leadership in congress is so concerned about improving america's image abroad and helping our slumping economy then why don't we start by helping our friends we can do that by opening up markets for exports friends like colombia  than seven hundred political and military prisoners three of them are americans yet democratic colleagues through all their rhetoric seem to care more about improving our image with rogue regimes like syria and iran  helping our friends in places like colombia and korea their rejection of the free trade agreements damages our strategic alliances and says to the world the us is close for business and it does so at a time when we need to be open for business open for better ties so why in light of the economic and strategic benefits of a colombia f t a are the democrats determined to delay and deny these benefits and why do their actions more to reduce violence in colombia than any modern leader in bogota including crimes against labor unions leaders he's pushed back marxist guerrilla's of the of the fark the revolutionary armed forces of colombia and the national liberation army and he's reduced crime and substantially improved colombia security and economic situations officials to statistics show murders plummeting by as much as fifty percent and kidnappings by as much as seventy five percent today's wall street journal which i will ask to be submitted later is titled delaying and denying and they summon up like this they summon up very well quote what it is it about democrats and hugo chavez even as the venezuelan strongman was threatening war last week against colombia congress was threatening to hand him a huge strategic victory by spurning colombia's free trade overtures to the us this isn't the first time democrats have come to mr chavez's a but it would be the most destructive of venezuelan is engaged in a high stakes competition over the political and economic direction of latin america he wants t region to follow his path of ever greater state control of the economy while assisting us enemies wherever he can he's already won converts in bolivia and ecuador and he came far too close for american comfort in mexico's election last year meanwhile colombian president alviro rebate is embracing greater economic and political freedom he has bravely assisted the us fight against narco traffic now wants to link his country against narco traffickers he wants to link is country more closely to america with the free trade of corn as a strategic matter to reject colombia's and now would tell everyone in latin america that it is far more dangerous to trust americans than it is to trash this close quote well mr president continuing to deny and delay colombia t p a will be a great disadvantage to america's economy damage our reputation in colombia throughout latin america undercut a key ally and president uribe and only further in bold and anti american dictators like hugo chavez all commit lee resulting in a less secure and stable latin america mr president i call upon and i urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to let us bring up for a vote and pass a korean free trade agreement and the colombia free trade agreement not only while that benefit us economically it will strengthen the u committed to the marxism that cuba so famously demonstrated brought destruction hardship to the people of cuba these are important foreign policy matters  one leader in the majority on the other side of the body said well politically we can't do it politically we can't help those who help us politically we can't pass a bill would keep our son tree country safer by passing the pfizer bill politically we can help our ally like south korea in a very strategic position and politically we can help colombia which is fighting narco traffickers as well as the efforts by hugo chavez to spread his marxist regime and the totality of totalitarian government which  impoverished and denies rights to his citizens mr president that time to act is now i would urge my colleagues on both sides to make these matters serious concern and see if we can do the job for which we were elected to kelp keep our country safe and secure mr president i ask unanimous consent to submit for the record the article the editorial from the wall street journal of today march ten call the chavez democrats i also ask unanimous consent that concluded in the record is a similar and very compelling article in the op ed page of the washington post by jackson diehl called the guardian angel he is here he would like to speak on the budget i would give him time off the resolution and how much time is this senator speaking how much time for the center like for four budget committee chairman kent conrad for his fine work on this budget resolution it will be look it will lower taxes and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs for americans in addition i am very pleased that this budget resolution honors own nation's veterans by providing the necessary funds fall wounded warriors funding for our veterans federal budget by twenty twelve and fund programs that are critical to the health and safety of americans it provides tax relief to middle income americans honors our fighting men and women in the armed forces shows respect for our wounded and disabled veterans and ensures his continued safety and security of our nation by focusing on the real needs of americans and reviving our slowing and economy the budget resolution seeks to restore balance balance to our finances and balance to our priorities for america the budget resolution increases funding for veterans health care and children's health care it provides a substantial increase over the president's budget for education and head start it for most greater efficiency and renewable energy programs that extends middle class tax like marriage penalty relief and child credit and it brings more middle class americans into a ten percent tax bracket the budget resolution also invests  and repairing roads bridges harbors airports and schools because we recognize that our economic success depends on public infrastructure investment has noted this budget is only a first step but it is an important step to reach our goal of long term fiscal security i am prepared to join chairman conrad in this important mission to balance all budget restore our military rather than this honor all commitment to troops and veterans and enhance on national security i urge my colleagues to do the same it is time that we provide real future long children and our country thank from north dakota i want to thank the senator from why for his kind remarks i also want to thank him for the enormous contribution he made to the work of the budget committee especially with respect to funding for veterans affairs and specifically veterans health care one of the things i'm most proud about in this budget is that we are showing a three point two billion dollar increase over what the president requested for veterans health care because i think the vast majority of us recognize the extraordinary ongoing need for improvements to veterans health care our veterans have made an enormous commitment to this country and we must keep our commitment to them last year as the chair will recall of the budget contain the largest increase for veterans health care in our history and this year we have another significant increase that largely parallels the budget proposed by the veterans organizations themselves in recognition of the extraordinary need that exists mr president i'd like to be in form two and i have used forty five minutes of the form mr president we come to the floor with the budget resolution that came out of the committee last week i think it's important to set the stage in recognition of the condition the fiscal condition of the country as we present this budget we have seen a dramatic deterioration in the budget situation under this president as we all know he inherited a budget that was in surplus in fact the budget that was estimated to have a future of surplus is so large that the head of the federal reserve said that we were in danger of paying off the federal debt that's a danger i'd like to have mr president the president's then took us on a fiscal course that has produced four of the five largest deficits in our history in fact it may turn out to be five of the largest deficits in our history depending on how events unfold this year mr president we can see in the previous years we were having budget surpluses and then the president took us into deficit and deepen those deficits tell we reached record deficit in two thousand and four four hundred thirteen billion dollars and now we see those levels being challenged in this year and perhaps next as well as president the result of these massive deficit is this president has built a wall of debt that is unprecedented mr president when president bush came into office in two thousand the debt at the end of his first year we don't hold  responsible for his first year because he's working on the budget that he inherited the debt stood at five point eight trillion dollars the end of last year the debt had reached over nine trillion and by the end of two thousand and nine which will be for the eight years that he is responsible will see the debt will have risen to over ten trillion dollars this president will almost have doubled the debt of the united states in just eight years not only will he have almost doubled the debt of the country the gross debt all of the money that leo but he will also have more than doubled what we owe to foreign nations it took forty two presidents all the presidents pictured here two hundred twenty four years to run up eight trillion dollars of debt held abroad u s debt held abroad this president has more than double that amount much more than double that amount in just seven years the result of that is that we now owed japan almost six hundred billion dollars we owe china almost five hundred billion dollars we owe the united kingdom over one hundred fifty billion we owe the oil exports almost one hundred forty billion dollars and so it goes to president that is a warning sign to all of us about the fiscal condition of our country and the long term projections are sobering as well partly as a result of this tremendous build up of  the value of the dollar has shrunk rather dramatically here is the dollar against the euro and it's it's gone down forty percent since two thousand and two anybody who's traveled sees that and what they buy abroad we see it in the prices of things that are being imported we also see it in terms of the kinds of reactions we're getting in the marketplace to further american a deadness we're hearing warnings from people who are saying the united states you've got to get your fiscal house in order you can't keep running up these massive debts and deficits mr president we see that during this period of the bush administration that economic growth has lagged previous recoveries we've gone back mr president looked at all of the major recovery since world war two there have been nine previous recoveries we've averaged the economic growth during those periods and we see the average three point four percent when you are coming out of those downturns and look at what's happening here in this downturn average g d p growth is down a two and a half percent well short of what we've seen in previous economic cycles mr president and now we have a new element to consider and that is the housing slump with new home home building falling dramatically we have seen this pattern which comes from us from the census bureau in the u s department of commerce this is monthly data through january of two thousand and eight these are housing starts in millions of units and we can see that housing starts have plunged and plunged dramatically we also have word that inventories are growing and growing dramatically that foreclosures are running at a very alarming rate and all of this signals trouble in the economy and there are other indicators as well if we look business investment in this economic period versus what we have seen in the nine previous recoveries since world war two that business investment is lagging in this business cycle by fifty two percent that should tell us that there is something amiss in the economic policy of this administration something is not working certainly by comparison with previous business cycles the nine significant business cycles since world war two this one is showing much more weakness than the previous nine and that's also true in job creation if we look at the nine previous business cycles that's the dotted red line here this business cycle is the black line we are now nine point six million private sector jobs short of the typical business cycle going all the way back to world war two mr president there are a lot of alarm bells that are ringing here warning signs that we need to pay attention to a need to respond to a budget we've seen real median household income declined by almost two thousand dollars under president bush from forty nine thousand one hundred sixty three dollars in two thousand two thousand and six the last year for which we have complete statistics down to forty eight thousand dollars mr president these numbers cry out for response and the first way that we respond here is in a budget because the budget sets the policy priorities for the coming year and we've attempted to do that in this budget by emphasizing strengthening the economy and creating jobs by doing the following investing in energy education and infrastructure those are the top three priorities here that help strengthen the economy invest in energy why to reduce our dependence on foreign oil we are now spending a billion dollars a day buying foreign oil how much better off would our country be how much under w economy be if we were generating our own energy rather than importing it from around the world so part of this budget is designed to reduce our dependence on foreign energy and to strengthen our education and our job training because of we're not the best educated best trained we're not going to command the strongest economy for very long and also to build our infrastructure we all remember the incredible sights of thirty five w bridge collapsing last year i think we all recognize that our airports are rail lines our highways bridges need serious investment if we're going to be competitive globally we also need to expand health coverage for our children provide tax cuts for the middle class and restore fiscal responsibility by balancing the budget in four years and maintaining balance in the film mr president we also want to make america safer by supporting the troops by providing for veterans health care and by protecting the homeland  rejecting the president's cuts in law enforcement for example he eliminates the cops program cuts first responders grants by seventy eight percent we don't think that makes sense and we reject those cuts in this budget mr president we now anticipate that economic growth is going to slow sharply in this year we can see it all runs more job layoffs announced today dramatic slowing of the economy economists today saying that they believe that our country is already in recession and of course we won't know for several months but it has all the appearance of a reduction in economic growth congressional budget office is forecasting for this year economic growth of only one point six percent down from the two and a half percent in two thousand and seven to two point six percent in two thousand and six and by the way these were already weak economic growth numbers two thousand and six was weak two thousand and seven was weak and see below is expecting even weaker growth in two thousand and eight so in this budget resolution we provide for a second stimulus package we have already had one stimulus package to try to increase aggregate demand in the economy to give a lift we believe it is prudent to provide the room in the budget for a second stimulus package some thirty five billion dollars of standby authority so that if this economy does continue to shed jobs and to weaken that we are prepared to respond prepared to respond in these ways housing relief we have legislation on the floor now to provide relief for what's happening in the housing market that packages a sixteen or seventeen billion dollars package could be accommodated in this thirty five billion dollars of standby stimulus relief also we may need extend unemployment insurance and provide for additional funding for food stamps or perhaps state fiscal relief we know twenty one of the states are in growing increasingly difficult financial straits so we may need to extend some relief to them this budget also provides room for additional funding for low income heating assistance the wic program the w children's feeding program and or infrastructure spending in two thousand and eight when we did the last stimulus program mr president we ask the agencies of the government do they have construction projects that are ready to go that are the engineering has been done the designs been done the land acquisition is finished all they need is money to begin construction begin hiring people and they told us yes they do have projects like that and so we have provided for taking up some of those projects as part of a stimulus package why because we know in road building and highway construction bridge bridge construction that for every billion dollars there are about forty five thousand jobs created and mr president we think it is very important that that stand by authority be ready to go if indeed this economy weakens further we also provide for tax relief in this budget resolution the alternative minimum tax if something is not done will affect twenty million more american families this year the alternative minimum tax so we provide one and additional years relief from that levy we also provide the energy tax incentives necessary to reduce our dependence on foreign oil education tax incentives to make college more affordable for american families we provide the stimulus package that i have previously described some of the provisions they help the housing industry our tax  provisions they would fit in that thirty five billion dollars package for example extending net operating loss provisions to home building companies so they aren't buffeted by further write downs of their assets at the worst possible time and of course the important tax extenders those permanent provisions that are about to expire the provide for the research and development credit the wind energy credit and the like those are provided for in this budget resolution as well and the first amendment that will be offered to this budget will be to extend the middle class tax provisions previously enacted those provisions are about to expire and we want to extend them those are marriage penalty relief the child tax credit and the ten percent bracket there is room in this budget to extend the mall in still balance the budget in four years there's also room in this budget for a state tax reform along the lines of what we advocated last year as you know we face this unusual situation where the exemption per person three and a half million dollars next year the year after there will be no estate tax in two thousand and ten in two thousand and eleven the estate tax comes back with only a million dollar per person exemption and we provide to a continuation of the three and a half million dollar exemption per person and have that indexed for inflation mr president there's not an american family that doesn't know what is happening to gas prices i was just talking to my staff this morning about what they're experiencing one of my staff who was caught up in a horrendous traffic jam yesterday coming from baltimore took two and a half hours to get here it filled up cost three dollars and eighteen cents a gallon i'd filled up the other day and it was over three dollars and twenty cents a gallon there are some projections now that gas is going to go to four dollars a gallon look what's happening just since two thousand and one when gas was less than a dollar fifty it's more than doubled in just those seven years and we see it continuing to jump i'm told the oil prices today were also rising on world markets there were some speculation that oil might reach one hundred seven dollars a barrel today and world markets so to address this continuing problem of energy dependence we are proposing in this budget to invest in energy to create green jobs to reduce our dependence on foreign energy to strengthen our economy and to help with high home heating costs we have to do that a package of energy tax incentives over thirteen billion dollars three and a half billion dollars over the president's budget in discretionary funding for energy and an energy reserve fund for investing in clean energy and the environment we all know that there are global climate change initiatives coming before congress if any of those are adopted we're going to need a reserve fund like this to prepare for it education is also a great challenge to us we see from the national science foundation this is a chart that compares what's happening to bachelor's degrees in engineering in the thousands in the china versus what's happening here and you can see we're pretty well fla the oh i'd say that's about the seventy five thousand engineers a year being produced look what's happened in china china is now up to a rate of producing more than three hundred fifty thousand engineers a year that should serve as another alarm to us because we know that engineering is critical to economic growth and if you're producing many more engineers you're laying the foundation for stronger economic growth in the years ahead i chose that is just one example we know there are many others where we face global competition for doing the best job of educating our young people and so this budget resolution invest in education it does it to generate economic growth and jobs to prepare the workforce to compete in the global economy and to make college more affordable and to improve student achievement we seek to do that but by providing some thirteen billion dollars in education tax cuts some five point seven billion dollars in funding over the president's budget and discretionary money for the department of education and head start and a two billion dollar education reserve fund for school construction and higher ed reauthorization but it doesn't end with energy and education mr president it also extends to the challenges in infrastructure we all remember this very striking picture from last year when the bridge on thirty five w collapsed between minneapolis and st paul that is a bridge i traveled over many times when my i wife was in medical school at the university of minnesota and i think all of us our hearts went out to those people can you imagine the horror of driving home from work and having the bridge fall out from under you and we know there were lives lost and people injured that should not happen that should not happen anywhere in america shouldn't happen anywhere in the world and mr president we know that there are deficiencies in the infrastructure funding for highways for bridges for airports for rail all of those are going to have to be strengthened and improved and this budget begins the process begins the process by reserving creating a reserve fund to allow for major infrastructure legislation we had a group of the country's business leaders come to us and tell us they have a plan that they think could generate a multiplier effect in terms of matching public sector investment with private sector investment to build infrastructure in this country we've created a really reserve fund to allow for adoption of such legislation if the committees of jurisdiction proceed and if they pay for it if they provide offsets for it we also provide three point nine billion dollars more than the president for key discretionary transportation accounts in two thousand and nine and we provide another six and a half billion dollars to fully fun highways fully fund trance it increased funding for airport improvement and fund ready to go infra structure projects those are projects that are ready to be built they only lack the money and we also fix the highway trust fund shortfall that exists i think that's roughly one point four billion dollars that needs to be dealt with well not only do we have challenges and opportunities in education in energy and infrastructure but we also have it in health care we can see the number of uninsured children in our country has jumped by seven hundred thousand just in the year two thousand and six we went from eight point seven million uninsured children to nine point four million and so this budget seeks to make wise in careful investments there to improve health care to expand coverage to increase health research and to promote food and drug safety we do that by again providing for a reserve fund that will allow the thirty five billion children's health insurance compromise that was adopted last year but vetoed by the president once again proceed this year we also provide four point five four billion dollars four point four billion dollars over the president's budget  funding for health and a reserve fund to address the cut in medicare physician payments and make other improvements to medicare and mr president we know that the doctors of the country are scheduled for a very sharp cut in medicare payments i think that is rejected here virtually universally but we've got to do something about it and we've provided a reserve fund to address that so later this year congress will be able to a the budget resolution also provides three point two billion dollars above the president for our veterans we know that veterans funding in the president's budget is forty four point nine billion dollars we have provided for eight point two billion dollars in funding for our veterans this is focused on veterans health care primarily in terms of its increases because we all recognize that's an area in which we simply must do better if we are going to compete keep the commitment that was made to our veterans in terms of war funding and defense funding we matched the president's request he's asked for two point nine trillion dollars over the next five years and we matched that amount in this budget two point nine trillion dollars the budget also provides two point three billion dollars more than the president's budget for law enforcement and first responders mr president this is an area that i find utterly inexplicable in the president's budget president bush sent this congress a budget that eliminates the cops program eliminates it and has cut it he eliminates the cops program is put one hundred thousand police officers on the street in this country put over two hundred fifty of police officers on the street in my state of north dakota why the president would eliminate the cops program eludes me he has also proposed cutting the first responder grants that's for emergency medical personnel that's for our firefighters and our other first responders he's proposed cutting their grants seventy eight percent we have rejected those cuts in this budget at a cost of two point three billion dollars spread and while we have restored funding in certain key priority areas and made targeted better investments in reducing our energy dependence and promoting education in building our infrastructure we have also sought to be fiscally responsible by balancing the budget by the fourth year and maintaining balance in the film mr president these are the numbers that are in a budget resolution but this is before we extend the middle class tax cuts and when we extend the middle class tax cuts these numbers will drop dramatically but we will still be sir sir plus we will still be balancing balancing by two thousand and twelve by the fourth year and be maintaining balance in the film but we do think it is critically important to extend the middle class tax cuts and to reform the estate tax which in a previous legislation is left in a chaotic state i think would be a fair way to say it we also under this budget resolution bring down the debt as a share of gross domestic product each and every year again this is before the amendment to extend the middle class tax cuts but you'll see the same pattern after we extend the middle class tax cuts the debt as a share of p going down each and every year of the five years because we think that's critically important for the long term economic health of the country this is a comparison of spending under the resolution and the president's budget the red line is the president's spending line the green line is ours you can see there's very little difference that is a difference of two point two percent in overall spending over the five years so we do have some additional spending to meet these priorities in education and energy and infrastructure and reducing the cuts the president proposed for law enforcement  ether as a sion and other priorities spending as a share of g d p under the resolution goes down each and every year from twenty point eight percent of g d p in two thousand and nine to nineteen percent of g d p in two thousand and thirteen applying the spending discipline that i think is necessary that i think most of us would say is necessary if we're going to address these problems of deficit and debt the first thing we've got to do is bring down the deficit then this budget seeks to do that we also for this year for two thousand and nine this shows the overall spending difference for this year i've showed a spending comparison for the five years showing that we're spending two point two percent more but i think it's also important to look at two thousand and nine the first year of this five year budget  overall spending we're spending one percent more than the president one percent more some say well you shouldn't spend more than the president that but the problem is he had cuts that i don't think are broadly embraced by the american people i don't think they think we should eliminate the cops program i don't think they think we should eliminate weather as a show i don't think they believe that we should cut the grants to first responders or emergency medical personnel by seventy eight percent i don't think the american people think that we should fail to invest in reducing our dependence on foreign energy i don't think that's what the american people want i don't think they believe we should continue to dramatically under fun infrastructure that leads to bridges and collapsing in our country so we have spent more money than the president in total for two thousand and nine one percent more and that one percent will go to those high priority areas of energy and education for structure and revenue on the revenue side this is the comparison when the middle class tax cuts are extended we will have two point six percent more revenue then in the president's budget two point six percent more revenue than is in the president's budget and this shows that difference revenues in the president's budget are fifteen point two trillion over the five years in our budget fifteen point six trillion dollars a two point six percent difference because we have more revenue of course we have the ability to fund in those high priority areas but still balance the budget in the fourth year and maintain balance in the fifth corner of the congressional budget office now the president's budget does balance in the fourth year but then promptly falls back out of balance in the fifth year our budget not only balances by the fourth year but stays in balance in the fip now this is where we get into the question of well how do you come up with two point six percent more revenue than the president has i believe you can come up with two point six percent more revenue than the president has by looking at three areas the tax gap that is the difference between what's owed and what's paid internal revenue service tells us that for two thousand and one the tax gap was over three hundred billion dollars that is the vast majority of us pay what we owe but some don't and before we ask for a tax increase from anyone i think we ought to go to those who aren't paying what they owe now that's the first thing we ought to do before we ask for a tax increase from anyone but it's not just the tax gap it is also these offshore tax havens that are proliferating and that are costing us lots of money this is a report from the permanent subcommittee on investigations from february of last year this is what they said experts have estimated that the total lost of the treasury from offshore tax evasion alone approaches one hundred billion dollars a year including forty to seventy billion from individuals another thirty billion from corporations in again engaging in offshore tax evasion abusive tax shelters at tens of billions of dollars more mr president shame on us for allowing this kind of abuse to occur let me say  there have been some in this chamber who have made a serious effort to close this kind of scam down and i would be the first to recognize the ranking member of the finance committee senator grassley of iowa who has been very serious about going after not only abusive tax shelters but offshore tax havens here's an example of what's going on this is a little five story building in the cayman islands called odland house nice little building twelve thousand seven hundred forty eight companies call it home twelve thousand seven hundred forty eight companies say they're doing business out of this little five story building i have said this is the most efficient building in the world can you imagine having twelve thousand companies conducting build business out of that little building course they're not conducting business they're the only business they're conducting is monkey business because what they're doing is cheating all the of us that pay our taxes they're engaged in very very ambitious tax scams and tax schemes to avoid paying what they owe in this country and here's  a picture that was in the boston globe of a building was put up the boston globe story this is a building this is also in the cayman islands where shell companies allowed  r to avoid medicare and social security deductions this story says kellogg brown and root the nation's top arac were contractor and intel last year a subsidiary of halliburton has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal medicare and social security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies in this tropical tax haven mr president what they were doing is hiring people paid for by american taxpayers hiring them for contracts and they were running them through the shell operations down in the cayman islands and by doing it they were avoiding paying their medicare and social security taxes to this country saved hundreds of millions of dollars according this story in the boston globe from just mart six of this month is just days ago this story appeared they point out more than twenty one thousand people working for k b r in iraq including ten thousand americans are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm studded boulevard here in the caribbean neither company has an office or a phone number in the cayman islands they don't even have a phone number they don't even have a real office what they've got is a scam mr president this is the kind of scam we ought to shut down here's the building a very nice building on the fourth floor of this building apparently the twenty one thousand people are supposedly employed at least for the purposes of records now it doesn't stop there this is a story from just late last month the new york times us among countries investigating tax evasion this aiding taxes through investments in lichtenstein and they have the deputy director of the center for tax policy and administration at the o e c d saying lichtenstein is the tip of the iceberg mr president indeed it is the tip of the iceberg because this time kind of scam is going on down in the cayman islands going on in going on another tax haven places but it's also happening with abusive tax shelters last year i showed pictures of european sewer systems european source systems and people might oh what's a european source system got to do with revenue in the united states turns out it's got a lot to do it because it turns out u s companies are buying u s or sewer systems later on in this debate i'll show a picture of one of those i may not be the most welcome picture on the floor a european source of them but nonetheless this is part of a an incredible scam that's going on in which u companies buy european sewer systems write them off on their books in the united states for tax purposes leeson back to the european says cities that built them in the first place mr president that shouldn't be allowed that's not fair to the rest of us who pay what we  them last year the president when we went after some of these scams the president threatened to veto said that that would be a tax increase i guess it would be a tax increase on those are getting away with not paying what they fairly oh but i don't consider a tax increase to make people all what they already pay i don't consider it a tax increase to shut down a tax scam i don't consider it a tax increase to shut down these abusive tax shelters we tried to kind of fi economic substance bert prohibiting transactions with no economic rationale done soley to evade taxes we tried to shut down schemes to lease foreign subway and sewer systems and depreciate assets we tried to end to furlough vosh or compensation by hedge fund managers trying to evade current taxation we tried to expand broker information reporting we tried to tax people use expatriation to evade taxes and over and over the presence said no no i have to veto because i be a tax increase i think the president's got it entirely wrong entirely wrong those are not tax increases those are just making those folks pay with the rest of us are already paying in this budget we provide a number of enforcement mechanisms to try to help restore some fiscal discipline we have discretionary caps for two thousand and eight and two thousand and ni we maintain a strong pay go rule we have a point of order against long term deficit increases we allow reconciliation for deficit reduction only and we have a point of order against mandatory spending on an appropriations bill for president these are important and forstmann mechanisms that ought to be part of any budget resolution they're part of ours and i hope they are adopted by my colleagues and finally this budget resolution also has provisions addressing our long term challenges because more daunting than any of our short term problems is where this is all headed where this is all we can pare bills now that's before the baby boomers retire what's going to happen then what's going to happen to the commitments that have been made in social security and medicare what's going to happen with this tremendous imbalance between the spending and the revenues and so we have offered these three elements as part of an approach understanding that the larger the larger plan to deal with our fiscal problems is going to going to have to come in some some sort of special process a process that senator gregg and i have offered our colleagues to create a task force with sixteen members eight democrats  republicans and ask them to come back with a plan of how to deal with these long term imbalance but in this resolution we have comparative effectiveness reserve fund in a capitalist meant to deal with health care because one of the things we know is that lots of different health mode allergies are being used across the country to address illness and some of them work and some don't we've got to know which ones work second we have program integrity initiatives to crack down on waste fraud and abuse and so security and medicare in fact i just got elected a letter from the secretary of health secretary leavitt thanking us for the program integrity funds that we have included so that he can can continue his important investigations to shut down these medicare fraud operations that he found in florida and other parts of the country last year that he's continuing to crack down and he found a circumstance in which you go to the strip malls and they have half of the obvious is in the strip malls are front organizations collecting medicare payments and you go to the door nobody is there during the day during a work time they're just billing mills they're sending out medicare bills goodness knows of any services actually being extended or not but these are scams that are operating that need to be shut down we also have long term deficit increases a point of order against long term deficit increases which is i think very important to any strategy to contain burgeoning deficits and debt mr president with that i will yield before i do i want to ask our colleagues for their cooperation this is going to be an especially challenging budget the numbers are very close on the two sides we have two presidential candidates on this side they have a presidential candidate on the other side we know that they may not be here for all of the deliberations that means we're going to have to coordinate and cooperate we also have a member on our side who is ill and that means we're going to have an especial special challenge getting the budget done this year but we must do it we must get it done and i'm going to be asking for all of our colleagues cooperation as we proceed without a yield the floor spoke about his budget and first senator gregg the ranking member of the senate budget committee i would like to start this debate on the republican side since we're  budget resolution senator gregg would usually open debate for our side of the aisle he wanted to take the lead today but has necessary conflict in the schedule the ask me to substitute and i'm pleased to do soul so senator gregg will be here tomorrow to give what is normally the opening statement by the senior member of the budget committee on the republican side mr president i'm going to first talk about the process and recent history of the senate budget resolutions almost all of the revenue side of the budget is finance committee jurisdiction most of the spending side of the budget is also finance committee jurisdiction for those of us who sit on the finance committee we meet that we need to pay very careful attention to the budget chairman conrad along with senators whiten of oregon and senator stabenow of michigan are also finance committee democrats this senator along with senators bonding cr our finance committee republicans when i was finance chairman for the periods of part of the year two thousand and one and all the years two thousand and three through two thousand and six there was coordination regarding the fiscal resources of and physically man on the finance committee that coronation or kurd with respect to revenue levels spending levels and reconciliation instruct did we always agree over those years the answer is no did we compromise when we had disagreements the answer was most often yes we did have some different priorities but we worked through those differences during this committee's budget process we came up with compromises that largely held together i might add mr president those compromises and the levels regarding revenue spending and reconciliation instructions were in sync with the administration my point is that we hazed out the fiscal differences here in the budget committee and on the floor the committee and forty bait amendment votes both pro and con made a very real difference the product of that process the budget resolution that we will vote on as a last of both probably this week the product made a real difference mr president those budget resolutions oh not perfect provided me while i was chairman of the finance committee with a budget with resources to deal with the policy demands on the finance committee most often i use these resources to guide the finance committee usually in a bipartisan manner to deal with short term mid term and even long term problems last year was different after the people spoke in the november two thousand and six elections control of the senate changed from republican to democrat and the budget process not the process but the budget resolution basically a democratic resolution this year we see some repetition of last year's dramatically different but fiscal pass as with the rest of the budget committee republicans i learned about this resolution for the first time when the chairman of the budget committee put the markup document before the committee committee democrats were consulted extensively along with the democratic caucus most of the republicans knowledge prior to markup was derives from what we read in the press i don't say this to be critical of the democratic leadership it is unfortunate and perhaps necessary that budgets are usually partisan documents so i would say with all due respect to the chairman the chairman's mark was developed exclusively by democrats in a partisan fashion republicans during committee markup use that markup to educate ourselves others on the other side and the public we ask questions i pursued questions about how this budget deals with the resources and demands that fall on senator baucus and me in our respective roles as chairman and ranking member of the finance committee we offered a relatively small number of amendments most were defeated some accept and on reforming farm program payment limits i'm pleased to say that senator allard so amendment prevailed on a roll call vote that amendment improve this resolution though not enough to gain the support of senator allard this senator or any other republic before i discuss the substance of the budget i want to start off by complimenting the chairman of the committee and his staff they conducted the markup in a professional manner the democratic and republican members have sharp well intentioned reasons for coming down in different places on the budget resolution we were able to the debate those differences in full and very fair manner and i know that if senator gregg were here speaking today he would make these points as well so mr president we are at the senate floor stage of the budget process what i'd like to do is step back and take a look and as step back at the budget from three vantage points it's kind of like we farmers do before planting season we look at the condition of the soil and prospects of the various crops the first vantage point will be looking at what the budget purports to do from this angle i'm going to look at what the democratic leadership says the budget is designed to do and whether those purposes make sense from a fiscal standpoint the second vantage point will be looking at how well the budget carries out its stated purpose the third vantage point will be looking at what the reconciliation would mean for the senate and i will address the reconciliation in a separate speech later and i believe that i'll wait till tomorrow to do let's start off with the first question what does the democratic leadership say this budget is the zine to do and then after stating what they say it does we need to look at the fiscal consequences of that policy the budgets proponents claim that it is all about fiscal responsibility there are two basic parts to the federal ledger the revenue part and the spending part if we spend more than we take in then the treasury sells more debt this is been the pattern of much of the post world war two period if we spend less than we take can then treasury buys back that when we look at this budget over the short term it contains a material increase in spending over the next fiscal year that spending rises by nine percent over last year's spending now how many americans got a nine percent rates how many american families raise their discretionary household expenditure by nine percent on the spending side of the ledger spending they end goes up and i say fairly dramatically you would think that proponents of fiscal responsibility would be looking at spending cuts not nine percent increase it's a different story on the other side of the ledger the revenue side let me start off with one smidgen of good news on the revenue side in this budget resolution and that is that the alternative minimum tax patch expired the first day of this year and if that patch is not addressed twenty five million families most of them middle income families would pay an average of at least two thousand and am t this year the chairman reduce the revenue baseline by sixty two billion which is a revenue l extending that patch and all middle income america ims ought to thank the chairman of the budget committee and i think him on the floor here right now for that provision unfortunately four years beyond two thousand and eight paygo still applies so there is a big center hurdle building to this budget to patching the alternative minimum tax in years beyond two thousand and eight madam president mr president the rest of the current law expires or expiring tax provisions will need to be offset with other tax increases there are also several bipartisan  bills that would require offsetting tax increases under this budget that's a very large tax increase over the next fiscal year my staff calculates that tax increase to be roughly one hundred  fifty billion dollars the definition of fiscal responsibility under this budget over the fiscal year is higher spending of twenty two billion dollars and higher taxes of one hundred fifty barry is that a legitimate fiscal goal is that the notion of fiscal responsibility the american people were looking for when they turned congressional power over to the democrats in november two thousand and six did we congress misread those results did the people really want to stay increase spending and to raise taxes now that's not what i'm hearing from back home what i heard from folks across the aisle was rein in spending live within your means it seems to me that if you're going to assume the mantle of fiscal discipline you ought to treat a dollar of new tax revenue the same as a dollar of new sp and what i and what do i mean by new spending i mean spending a bug the congressional budget office baseline and what do i mean by new tax really i mean new tax policy that loses revenue i don't mean extension of existing tax policy mr president we see the same pattern over the five year period of this  over five years the tax hike and the spending increases grow exponentially on the spending side discretionary spending grows by two hundred eleven billion when you throw in the special reserve funds you can add another three hundred billion in new spending on top of that over the five years the budget assumes a dramatic tax increase at least one to ten straight in two thousand and eleven the bipartisan tax relief plans of two thousand and one will expire some folks will call these provisions the bush tax cut it is true that president bush signed both bale's i only mention two thousand and one i should have included the tax bill in two thousand and three as well so president bush signed both fails but the bipartisan compromises are curd in the finance committee in two thousand and eleven president bush will have gone from office by more than two years he will probably be hanging around his ranch in crawford texas you can call this package of tax relief for virtually every american the bush tax cuts but for the taxpayer if we let them expire it will be a big tax increase and it will be a big tax increase that will pass or will happen not pass will happen without even a vote of congress so i have a couple of charts here the chart use the analogy of a brick wall to show the ugly tax increases that americans are going to face in this chart you see a family of four that's the average american family here's a husband his wife and two children the family makes fifty thousand dollars a year in income that's right about the national media my household income today for example the census bureau stated for two thousand and six the national median household income was forty eight thousand two hundred dollars under the democratic leadership's budget this family will face a tax increase of twenty three hundred dollars per year you see the figure twenty three hundred dollars for that family of four that's a loss in their paycheck of about two hundred dollars per month if they hit on their yearly budget of twenty three hundred dollars where i'm from the midwest or any place in the country i'll bet that's still a lot of money and i have another example i have a single mom as is charge shows here the same brick wall but a different family a single mom with two kids here we have a person earning about thirty thousand dollars a year in two thousand and eleven under this budget she and her family run straight into that brick wall at brick tax wall that's a brick wall of about eleven hundred dollars per year of taxes that's almost one hundred dollars out of this family's budget when you hear folks rail against the two thousand and one and two thousand and three bipartisan tax relief plans you'll hear a lot of talk about millionaires you'll hear a lot of talk about the death tax but you won't hear the critics talk about these two families a family of four husband a wife and two so children or a single mother with two children you want to hear these critics almost all of whom voted against these two tax bills consider these two families now those on the other side will point to the baucus amendment that will be upcoming at least we've heard about the baucus amendment as the answer to the tax increases that i've pointed out isn't it ironic that my friend our chairman my partner from the two thousand  tax relief bill and several other tax relief bills is the author of this key amendment the senator from montana my friend senator baucus took a lot of heat for working with me in a bipartisan fashion in two thousand one took a lot of heat from people in his caucus quite frankly many on the other side who fought him and that and that they all were also the nine tax increase in last year's budget so they now turn to his amendment this upcoming amendment as they did last year to try and deflect the tax increase charge because there's a real char and what's in this budget if something isn't done to stop tax increases they're going happen automatically and don't let anybody tell me something can't be done about it at budget markup we were told the baucus amendment would contain enough revenue real three hundred twenty three billion to accomplish accommodate extension of several components of the bipartisan tax relief plan that goes back to two thousand and one we were told that the tam percent bracket that the marriage penalty the child tax credit and some death tax really would be covered there are pr there were provisions that were not intended to be covered the excluded provisions were lower rates for capital gains and dividends and other marginal rate reductions now some on the other side will describe this excluded group excluded from the baucus amendment as top rate tax payers and a hunter other high income people now i hope you won't believe it the facts are otherwise low income folks including millions of seniors pay no tax on their dividends or capital gains income if this budget stains even man millions of these low income taxpayers especially senior citizens will pay a ten percent rate on capital gains and could pay as high as fifteen dividends i've got a couple of charge to show how why the dividend and capital gains tax increase would be the chart that's up here now the  deals with just dividends it shows the number of taxpayers claiming dividend income nationally over twenty four million families and individuals reported dividend income twenty four million americans there's twenty four million americans that you're not going to call all of them filthy rich very few of  gonna call filthy rich and in my state of iowa for instance over don't want to ninety nine thousand families and individuals playing dividend income on their returns now there are not two hundred ninety nine thousand millionaire families or even two hundred and ninety nine thousand people in iowa that you can call filthy rich and you can see it not only for my state of iowa but you can see it for all the other states in the united states and using it for the entire united states up there nationally we're talking about over nine million families and individuals in iowa we're talking about one hundred twenty seven thousand families in the individuals when it comes to capital gains i want to emphasize i went from dividends to capital gains and the chart has changed to tell you what there is in each of the respective states on capital gains there are many many marginal rates other than the top rate that would rise if this budget stands even with a box as a member of the twenty five percent rate which for two thousand and seven starts at thirty one thousand eight hundred fifty dollars for singles and sixty three thousand seven hundred dollars for married couples would rise three points percentage points to twenty eight percent the twenty eight percent rate which for two thousand and seven starts at seventy seven thousand one hundred dollars for singles and one hundred twenty eight thousand five hundred dollars for married couples would raise  would would rise three point percentage points the thirty one percent the thirty three percent rate which for two thousand and seven starts at one hundred sixteen thousand eight hundred fifty for singles one hundred ninety eight thousand eight hundred fifty dollars for married couples would go up to thirty six percent the top rate would rise from the current thirty five percent level to thirty nine thousand and thirty nine point six percent to sum up mr president even with the baucus amanda even with the baucus amendment added to this budget there would be marginal rate increases on millions of taxpayers and not millions of millionaire tax payers those marginal rate increases that would go up whether it's the twenty eight percent to thirty one percent or the thirty three percent to thirty percent or what have you those marginal rate increases would reach taxpayers with income as low as thirty one thousand eight hundred fifty dollars for singles and sixty three thousand seven hundred dollars for married couples and these people are not filthy rich now what i just described is accurate only if the democratic leadership intends to follow the letter and spare of the baucus amendment if you look at last year's track record the house was neutered the effect of the amendment in the conference agreement they created a rube goldberg type of mechanism to impede the amanda of course after the budget conference report was agreed to and all talk of action around the amendment sees so i would put wouldn't put much stock in the follow through on the baucus amendment and things can only get worse for middle income taxpayers beyond that this budget ask a lot of the taxpaying population about one in two chance trillion dollars worth two hundred eleven billion dollars more spending on the discretionary side nothing is proposed to rein in any in title one spending if the day definition of fiscal responsibility is higher spending no one title much savings and dramatically higher taxes then this budget is fiscally responsible keep in mind that while ramping up one and two tenths korean dollars on the taxpayers the budget spends seven hundred seventy five billion of the social security surplus and grows the gross federal debt by two trillion dollars for those on our side this budget is not fiscally responsible we don't agree that the definition of fiscal responsibility is higher spending no one title my savings and dramatically higher taxes for those of us on the republican side of the aisle you can't solve all fiscal problems just on the tax side of the ledger now i'd like to go to the second part of my discussion analyze the tax side of the budget