american taxpayers understand that the more we overspend the more debt we owe and the more to our children and grandchildren will have to carry. we have reversed that. every man, woman and child in this country now owes $56,000 on that debt and if left unchecked the number is expected to grow more than $75,000 per person in the next decade. .. would spend $61,000 a year. the family would add an

additional $9,000 to its credit cards despite owing a whopping $311,000 in debt. hard-working taxpayers are counting on us to set priorities and to stick to them because a balanced budget will boost our nation's economic output and help restore the promise of a government that is more effective. a balanced budget will allow americans to spend more time working hard to grow their businesses or to advance in their jobs instead of worrying about taxes and inefficient regulations. we know it won't be easy by working together we can deliver real solutions and real progress the american people want and deserve. i look forward to working with each and everyone of you in this crucial task in the days and weeks ahead. chairman price? >> i want to thank the chairman and appreciate everybody's participation. i would note that the number of senators significantly

outnumbers the number of house members but we're fine with that. we think we have equal firepower. so we're raring to go with the conference committee. after weeks of hard work the house and senate approved our respective budgets last month both which were balanced proposals. we're here to continue that work and find agreement on unified budget resolution. i want to thank our colleagues in the house and senate on their important work and they're dedication to this effort. completing a budget is one of our core legislative budgets. yet congress has gone without one for several years. i look forward to the opportunity to restore a process that insure congress is fully embracing the power of the purse and legislating in orderly manner that provides for the most transparency and accountability. that being said we know that a budget is more than a set of numbers. it is reflex of our priorities, of our vision for the future. when done in a responsible way it can provide a foundation for moving our country in the

direction of more opportunity economic growth and safer and more secure nation. so we're not here today to just make the numbers add up. we're here to make the federal government more accountable to taxpayers and to achieve real results so that american families have best chance of achieving their dreams for the future. for years failed policies coming out of washington d.c. have been holding america back. deficits remain in the hundreds of billions of dollars and set to go even higher in the years to come. for millions of americans wages are stagnant opportunity is scarce. in short, this has been the worst economic recovery in the modern era. if we were remain on our current course the future does not look much brighter. in fact the congressional budget office regularly revised down its 10-year average of economic growth projections from 3% annualized in its 2012 outlook to just 2.3% in the most recent outlook. we need to turn the page on this new normal of anemic growth and

embrace policies that will foster the growth of a healthier economy. to start, that means credible budget that balances, that reforms key programs, and eliminates waste and inefficiencies throughout the federal bureaucracy. so that taxpayer dollars are spent more wisely. we need to insure medicare an, medicaid nutrition assistance and other problems are able to deliver on promises made to the american people. they have to be solvent. they have to be targeted towards those that truly need assistance. where appropriate state and local community ought to have more freedom and flexibility to administer these programs. a balanced budget can be and ought to be achieved without raising taxes. washington does not need to take more from hard-working americans. it needs to start living within its means. i remind my colleagues every dollar taken for taxes and every dollar at that washington borrows is a dollar that can't be used to pay the rent or buy a

car or buy a home or to send a kid to college or open a business or expand a business and create jobs. instead of taking more to spend more in washington, we should reform the tax code so that it is simpler and fairer. so american job creators are not disadvantaged in the global marketplace. fundamental tax reform would contribute to a healthier economy with more opportunity. at the same time we need to rid ourselves of washington policies that are recall a harming individuals families and businesses like obamacare. that would pave the way to starting over on patient centered healthcare reform where patients families doctors are making medical decisions, not washington d.c. while we're getting rid of what doesn't work we have to adequately support that which is vital to the success and security of our nation. we must assure our military men and women have resources they need to carry out their mission and protect our country. make no mistake we must and we

can provide robust funding for our troops do so in a way fiscally responsible and reflective of the tremendous threats facing america our allies and our interests around the world. because of budget is more than just a set of numbers, because it is a vision how we achieve a stronger nation with more opportunity, we're obligated to take a hard look at the status quo and ask ourselves some very serious questions. do we want a nation, do we want to have a nation where our fellow citizens can be trapped in a web of welfare programs that discourage self-sufficiency instead shackle them to governmental dependency? do we want our nation's retires east to have a health care program going bankrupt and insolvent and without reforms will not keep its promises? do we want to continue to force low income individuals and families into medicaid program where access to care is limited and doctors are grossly

underreimbursed and therefore not able to see and treat patients. should our college students face years of crippling debt because of a government-run student program that drives up tuitions? we have to address these questions and other. after the end of the day because the answer to all of them ought to be of course not we have to figure out the right policies to leave our kids and grandkids a stronger nation. one that provides greatest amount of opportunity and greatest amount of success for the greatest number of people so that the greatest number of american dreams may be realized. doing so in a way that is fair and compassionate to all. the current policies in washington are clearly not working. they have shown they can not break the pattern ofok a growing debt and underperforming economy and too many folks just struggling to get by. the budget we will produce from these negotiations must represent and respect the american people and respect the seriousness of the challenges that we face. so that we can provide positive alternatives and real s-lutions

to achieve real results. i want to change chairman enzi and everybody for serving on committee and their hard work. i look forward to the hearing and hearing the thoughts and ideas of my colleagues here and the days to come. we have a big job ahead of us to get the country back on track. working together we'll produce a budget and pursue policies that will build a stronger, more prosperous and more secure america. thank you and i yield back. >> thank you chairman price. senator sanders. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. let me thank you and chairman price for holding this very, very important meeting. on a personal note let me thank my friend, chairman enzi, while he and i have huge philosophical differences, he has run this committee in a very civil way and cordial way. i appreciate that very, very much. i think i speak for all the members on our side saying that. mr. chairman the budget resolutions that we are debating

today are nothing less than a disaster for the working families of this country. on every important issue that we face both of the republican budgets, the house budget and the senate budget, do exactly the opposite of what needs to be done and in fact what the american people want us to do. let me just give you a few examples. america is the only major country on earth that doesn't guaranty health care to all of its people. despite the modest gains of care affordable care act 35 million americans have no health insurance and we spend almost twice as per capita on health care as do people in any other country. that is the problem. a sensible approach says okay, how do we provide health care to all of our people and do it in a cost effective way? what is the republican approach? the republican approach is to end, terminate the affordable

care act and cut in the senate some $400 billion for medicaid in the the house a lot more. what is the result? you throw 27 million people off of health insurance. they're gone. on top of the 35 million who today have no health insurance. i heard some of my colleagues say, well, not to worry. we'll come up with a better system. really? how many years? when is the system coming in you had eight years under bush. nobody in america has seen that system. but to simply throw 27 million people off of health insurance please do a study. how many of those people will die? thousands. how many will suffer? tens of thousands. you throw people off of health insurance. when you end the affordable care act, it means the 2.3 million young adults who now have insurance with their parents they're gone. it means we're going back to the days where if you had cancer or

diabetes, and you walked into an insurance office, you couldn't get insurance for those conditions because we had absurdity of denying people care with preexisting conditions. we're going pack to those days. that is health care. when i go back to vermont and i expect every member here when they go back to their district or their state and you talk to young people, what they will tell you is, it is harder and harder to afford to go to college. and, if they're lucky enough to graduate college, they're deeply in debt. we all have, staff, i have several members of my staff. i'm sure you do as well, who leave school over $100,000 in debt. talk to a young doctor. she ishundred thousand in debt. -- $300,000 in debt. what we should do is a, figure out how to make college more affordable for working families and b how we reduce student debt the interest rate what students have to pay.

what the republican budget amazingly enough is exactly the opposite. they cut $90 billion of mandatory funding from the pell grant program the major source of funding for low and moderate income young people who want to attend college. this would increase the cost of a college education for more than eight million americans. moving exactly in the wrong direction. in vermont and i expect in every state represented here we have a child care crisis. working families can not afford to send their kids to child care. the republican budget would cut head start very significantly meaning that at least 110,000 fewer young children would be able to enroll in that important project. under the republican budgets more than 1.9 million fewer students would receive academic health they need under title one program. when you get down to basics and you talk about morality, it

seems to me that the least that we can do as a nation a nation which has more income and wealth in equality than -- inequality than any other major country on earth, the nation which the wealthiest people are becoming phenomenally richer and 40 million people living in poverty, the very least we could say nobody in america would go hungry. i would hope is the least we could say in civilized democratic society. what the republican budget does is throw over 1.2 women million women, infants and children would be denied nutrition they need in the wic program a incredibly successful program that would help women and little babies. republican budget would cut food stamps more than $125 billion. mr. chairman, let me just conclude, by saying what the

republican budget also does which is again literally, one of the problems i got to be honest with you, that i have when i explain the republican budget, what people say to me, you're being partisan, you're lying you can't really be. when you tell them these things, we talk about taxes. let's talk about taxes. what the republican budget does is abolish the estate tax. who benefits from the estate tax? the top .2 of 1% of the wealthiest people in this country. fewer than 6,000 families will get a tax break of over $269 billion. has any constituent working class person, gone to any member of this committee and said, you know what i think you got to do? you need to lower taxes for families of billionaires. i have not heard anyone say that of all.

meanwhile preventing of extension of benefits we put into the earned income tax credit, children's tax credit, taxes will go up for working families. lower taxes for billionaires. raise taxes for working families this budget is a budget which is so out of tune with what the american people need or want. poll after poll will tell you, virtually every idea brought into this budget is not what the american people want. so i would hope that in the remaining days and weeks that we have, we can in fact significantly revise this budget and start doing what the american people want and not just what the billionaires of this country want. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. congressman van hollen. >> thank you, chairman enzi. i want to start where senator sanders began. thank you thanking you chairman enzi and chairman price for bringing us together. i want to thank chairman price for the professional way he has

conducted the budget committee in bipartisan tradition. that being said we obviously have very sharp differences when it comes to the budge gets. we now have a house republican budget and a senate republican budget neither budget reflects priorities and values of this country. both budgets i believe are fundamentally wrong for our country and both budgets send a big message to the american people, you're going to be working even harder but you're going to be getting even less. and so, any point between two budgets, both of which are wrong for america are going to be wrong for america. and i don't know how we can salvage this. but, here's what i would say. why do i say, both budgets say work harder, get less? the good news in the country has been we've seen more and more people getting back to work.

we've seen months and months of sustained job growth. we know we're not where we want to be but we're heading in the right direction. the biggest challenge we face right now is the fact that americans are working harder than ever, but their pay is flat. their benefits are flat. compensation is frozen. so you have a situation where worker productivity has been rising rapidly for a long period of time. but that increased productivity is not translated into higher wages and benefits for most working people. the benefits of that increased productivity have gone hugely disproportionately to folks at very high-end of the income scale. and yet this republican budget actually increases the tax burden on working families. it gets rid of the increase in the child tax credit. it gets rid of the bump up in the earned income tax credit. it eliminates the affordable

care act tax credits which senator sanders says means millions of people with affordable health care will be thrown off of affordable health care. it eliminates the higher education tax deduction the college tax deduction gone. so, people are out there booing harder every day will actually face a higher tax burden under this republican budget. i will tell you who whose taxes do not go up. the folks who are already at the very top. in fact these budgets green light, they pave the way for what is known as the romney-ryan tax plan. what is that tax plan? cut the top tax rate for millionaires by 1/3. we tried that. it was called trickle-down economics. it's a great tear theory but failed in the real world. real income of folks at the top went up further everybody else was running in place and falling

behind. deficit went up. we tried that in early 2,000s. this is replay of a failed ideology. so while it green lights those tax cuts for folks at the top it is also cutting deeply into investments that have helped power our economy in the past. it cut deeply into our investment in education beginning with early education and going through k through 12, including special education. it is going to cut deeply into our investment in science and research. and innovation that have helped power our economy. why do i say that? because it cuts part of the budget we use to fund those investments by 40% below the amount we have spent as share of the economy the lowest point. so we've been keeping records since the 1950s on what share of

our economy we invest in those areas. these budgets cut that to 40% below the lowest level since we've been keeping records. so it is not rhetoric to say that this has devastating implications for those investments. it also assumes i, by the way that the transportation trust fund, will essentially go insolvent in document months. -- couple months. no solution in this budget for that problem even though it is months away. so it cuts those things. i will tell you what it doesn't cut. it doesn't cut a single special interest tax break in order to reduce the deficit. not one penny. not one penny. not a hedge fund manager loophole. not a corporate jet loophole. not one to reduce the deficit. and so, after making deep cuts in education and not cutting a single tax break to reduce the deficit, it still doesn't balance. with all respect gentlemen

this budget doesn't balance neither the senate budget nor the house budget. why? because it depends on the revenue from the affordable care act to claim balance in 10 years, when at the same time, it claims to be repealing the entire affordable care act. republican senators on this panel made that criticism themselves in the past. i'll tell you what else it doesn't do. it doesn't account for all the tax cut bills business tax cut bills that are coming to the floor of the house right now. including this past week, when we actually provided a tax cut for estates over $10 million, right? estate tax doesn't even kick in for estates of couples until you get $10 million. just last week on the floor of the house we said we're going to provide a tax cut for those 5500 families.

fewer people than you can put on a big cruise ship in the united states. that was priority at house floor. bad enough that was the priority but guess what? that $267 billion increase in the deficit, is not accounted for in the republican budget. so in addition to the affordable care act revenue that you need to balance and say you're getting rid of, in the house we're passing tax cut bills that add to the deficit which isn't factored in here. you add to that, the games being played in the war savings overseas contingency account and you've got a whole bunch of financial shenanigans going on here to claim balance and to say, i'm just going to close mr. chairman, reading from last year's republican house budget report on oco. this isn't van hollen writing this. this was from the senate house

republicans. in their report. abuse of the oco cap adjustment is a back door loophole that undermines integrity of the budget process. the budget committee will exercise its oversight responsibilities with respect to the use of oco designation in the fiscal year 2015 budget process and it will oppose increases above the levels the administration or military commanders say are needed to carry out operations unless it can be clearly demonstrated such amounts are war-related. that was a year ago. now the same budget committee is doing the same end-run they complained could happen if we follow that path. so mr. chairman with all respect, despite the fact that this budget cuts deeply into our investments in education while providing tax cuts for folks at the very top cuts in tax rates it also doesn't balance and we

put forth in the house, the house democrats an alternative which would actually provide some tax relief for working people, and would make the investments that we need to keep the country growing. by the way, yes, did close a whole lot of tax breaks that are unproductive and unnecessary for economic growth in order to achieve the goals we set forward. i thank you mr. chairman and look forward to any discussion we may have. >> thank you. we'll now turn to opening statements from the budget confereees. everyone will be recognized for up to five minutes. i would mention that senator murray was kind enough to submit hers in writing and expect several others to be willing to do that too. that will save us considerable time. the reason we have it at five minutes, is that 5:30 the senate is having a vote and so we kind of need to pack it in within

that time. so i will alternate following the speaking order shared around last week. as a reminder we're not following the early bird rule. if someone is missing when it is their turn i will keep track. once anyone who has finished speaking i will recognize anyone in the order they would have been previously recognized. with that, senator grassley. >> i commend the two chairman for your efforts throughout this process. you both succeeded in drafting responsible resolutions that garnered significant majorities of support in the respective chambers, and of course that is no small feat. there have been many times during the past six years that congress completely failed in our obligations to produce a budget. for many years in the senate there was no effort to produce a budget at all. even with our country on a fiscally unsustainable course the senate repeatedly shirked its responsibilities to producing a budget.

the american people expect their government to behave responsibly, live within our means and at the very least produce a budget. they want to us demonstrate prudence and responsibility by getting our budget to balance within 10 years, if not sooner. both budgets before us, achieve that goal. i'm glad to be here to get to work with our house colleagues and in reconciling differences. this is regular order and how the process is intended to work. there is enormous amount of cynicism among the populace about the dysfunction of washington, particularly congress. to regain the trust of the american people we can demonstrate that we can work together to confront our fiscal challenges, rather than provide a responsible budget framework the president's budget proposal ignored our fiscal challenges and instead, it was a political

messaging document. president obama's budget proposal was so bad that only one democrat voted for it when it was put up in the senate. president obama's budget would have increased taxes by nearly $2 trillion, increased spending dramatically, and added more than $7 trillion to the national debt. his budget was criticized for ignoring the drivers of our long-term debt. he was criticized for declaring that our debt problems have been solved. one expert stated, and i quote the focus on promoting investment today will do little good if our massive debt is choking investments of tomorrow end quote. overspending will harm economic growth. prosperity, and opportunity for future generations. increasing spending today, paid for by increasing debt burden on our children and grandchildren,

is a moral equivalent of selling a pig-in-a-poke. the promise of economic growth through unending deficit spending defies logic and common sense. balancing the budget will increase private investment, grow the economy stronger economic growth leads to higher incomes and wages, for american workers. a balanced budget will help keep interest rates low keeping more money in the pockets of hard-working americans and help, and then help reduce the borrowing costs of college students. a balanced budget will lead to reduced interest payments on our national debt which means resources available for important priorities rather than wasting them on interest payments. we all want to help hard-working american families and taxpayers. we should help them by providing an efficient effective

accountable federal government. we should help them by growing the economy. we should help them by demonstrating that congress, has the ability to put the federal government on a path to live within our means. deficits and debt do matter. they matter to our economy. they matter to hard-working americans. they matter to job creators. they matter to future generations of americans that will suffer from overspending and fiscal carelessness. it is time to safeguard the american dream of future generations. this is not just a fiscal issue. it is a moral issue. i hope my colleagues will recognize the responsibility we have to insure that future generations have the opportunity to achieve even greater prosperity. again, i'm glad that we finally engaged in this very important process. a process of discipline on all the committees of congress to make sure we don't go over this budget. it is time to get to work to

find sound fiscal solution to our nation's challenges. i yield. >> i thank the senator. congressman rokita. >> i thank the chairman. let me thank both chairman of our committees for their leadership to date. as a person relatively new to congress, it refreshing to see us working together. while it is tempting also to address all the contrarian issues that have been brought up before, i was recognized i'm going to limit my comment to the need to reduce our debt, and balance our budget in 10 years. . .

one of the greatest challenges of our time. that is our debt. i refuse to accept burdening future generations with tens of thousands of dollars in each as chairman enzi mentioned $56,000 each to continue paying for the immoral act assets of both living in the here and now. america's fiscal position is unsustainable. our total debt exceeds 100% of what this economy produces every year. interest payments on debt alone will send to a whopping $5.6 trillion over the next decade according to the congressional budget office. exceeding spending on national defense and the medicaid program

by 2025. some people don't find statistics concerning. we just heard from some. the status quo is fine spending money we don't have without any consequence is. and demagogue and those who are trying to solve the problem. but its value the average hoosier in my district understands they can spend more money than they have at least not for long. this is the first step in paying down the debt and that is to balance their budget. in the house budget does not budget does that. it must be a top priority because the data our economy will remain stagnant and will continue racking up the data for the children of tomorrow. a balanced budget means halting the growth in the nations that and avoiding out-of-control growth in interest payments. and is preventing future tax increases virtual security measures and preventing the loss of confidence in america's credit worthiness. balancing our budget means also

making the difficult choices has escaped many of us for too long. it takes leadership instead of continuing to spend money we don't have we must tackle are spending that consumes nearly two thirds of our federal budget as we say here today. we need to strengthen and protect medicare by reforming it before it reaches insolvency in 2030. we need to make social security reform happen. it will soon pay out more than a taking in. we need to repeal obamacare and replace it with patient centered health reform that actually works. we need to provide states with flexibility in the medicaid program so they can best meet the needs that the unique populations. the house republican budget does this. the efforts of the conference committee will help guide trillions of dollars in federal spending. in fact we are to we are not have to spend more than $43 trillion in the next 10 years now, that is a lot of money.

americans deserve to know their hard-earned property is spent wisely. as to begin the reconciliation process i'm confident we can produce accountable, positive and progrowth unified budget will put us on a path to balance. we do this in a house republican budget. if they are better workable ideas to solve the problem may not demagogue the issue is i am sure we will be happy to hear them. i look forward to working with colleagues around the table to iron out the differences trainer budgets. the american people are looking for leadership. let's tackle the challenge and has a unified balanced budget for a stronger country. with that you elected the chairman. >> thank you congressman. again, i think senator murray for submitting her comments in writing. >> thank you chairman enzi price, ranking member sanders for being a part of this conference. as mr. saunders and mr. van hollen has made clear my colleagues will speak about the

ways the budget falls short in addressing the true needs of our nation and the american people. i also want to talk about the questionable ways in which these budgets report to balance our balance. we see washington a lot on tv these days but with the fantasy evidence in these pages these budgets are a lot more like game of thrones and house of cards. the house and senate had to use some remarkably acrobatic arithmetic disapproval of the gimmicks in the creative not expire from partisan. as far as democrats are concerned, this math doesn't add up and i am far from the only one who sees it. the committee for responsible federal budget noted that the house budget uses quote, several budget gimmicks that circumvent budget discipline in the details are in some ways unrealistic. on the senate budget, they also observed that disappointingly many of the savings are

unrealistic or lack specificity. the fiscal times noted that there is a widely held belief among many federal budget watchers and republicans have to resort to budgetary smoke and mirrors to create a pathway to a balanced budget. even conservative taxpayers for common sense say this isn't budgeting its gimmickry. chief among the gimmickry assertion that there is anything was ensemble fiscally or otherwise about stripping health care from tens of millions of americans. ranking member van hollen talked about the gimmick of assuming all the revenue is mandated by the aca volume by repealing in totality the aca just as mad at. if republicans were to succeed in fulfilling the first half of their campaign pledge to repeal and replace obamacare cbo estimates it would increase our federal budget deficit by $109 billion in the first decade and cost taxpayers more than

$1 trillion in lost revenue. when they talk about the cost outside the federal budget. i know that is why we are here for. in a state of kentucky, as most people know we have had a remarkably successful couple of years in implementing the program. 520,000 kentuckians now have insurance coverage you did not have it before the aca. in my district of louisville, we've reduced the uninsured rate by 81%. more importantly is the other economic activity that the aca is responsible for. according to a deloitte analysis, over the next six years the aca and kentucky will mean $30 billion in added economic and dignity, 40,000 new jobs and $800 million positive impact on the kentucky state budget. just imagine what would happen in states like california and new york that is much larger

than kentucky. a negative impact, not just the federal level, but throughout many of the states would be absolutely disastrous. mr. van hollen also talked about the laughable growth projection based on tax cuts for the well-off and well-connected. we are now 12 and 14 members from the worst tax cuts and we have seen what has happened with those. when no trickle-down economics doesn't work and yet we are doubling down on it and we doubled down and away where we are just rebranding it. now we call it dynamic scoring which basically assumes faith based economics assumes that you cut taxes the revenues will automatically increase, even though we have a history that contradicts that. dynamic scoring would be fine if we applied it to investments would make like investments in infrastructure, investments in research investment in

education. both investments we know absolutely payoff in space for the american taxpayer. but we don't use that appeared we just used it to justify tax cuts for the people who are already wealthy. as my colleagues have mentioned and i know my colleagues get to speak will continue to mention we have a very different set of priorities. we have the prayer disabling the american people are soundly behind and we need to develop a budget and priority list for the american people that makes it possible for everyone to get ahead and not just the people already miles ahead. with that, i yield back. >> thank you. senator sessions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your fine leadership of our committee and your ability to bring people together in a positive way and i think we produced a budget that can put us on a sound path. congressman price, thank you for your leadership. i have admired your work for years and i look forward to

continuing that direction. we have not done a good job in the senate passing a budget. we passed one budget and the last 2183 days. we have the last budget -- we have had one budget since the first coming since 2009 that actually passed the senate. this is a step in the right direction. i believe it is a positive step for america and we need to continue to work at it. julie andrew saying i'm not the sound of music spoke a great economic truth. nothing comes from nothing. nothing ever could. you can't par your way to price guarantee. the money spent today is burdening our children in the future. it is irresponsible. we cannot continue on this path

and we've got to do better and we can. worse the spending has failed to produce the promise of economic growth. economic growth over the past four years has averaged 2.2%. i was about half of what the white house project today with the one they told us we could spend tax and borrow more and create prosperity. ceo, omb and the federal reserve have also overestimated the economic growth we can expect. so borrow, tax spend overregulate. those things are not going to create growth and will create revenue for the united states government. there is this week had a nice interesting article that said even the low interest rates is detrimental to growth throughout its policy. according to "the new york times" and this is relevant to my friend senator sanders

comments, we agree there is a problem out there. this is what "the new york times" recently wrote. working in america is in decline. the sheriff prime aged man of 25-54 who were not working has more than tripled since the 1960s to 16%. more recently since the turn-of-the-century come to share women without paying jobs has been rising, too. united states, one of the highest employment rate among developed nations as recently as 2000 has now fallen towards the bottom of the list close quote. there are now 65 million working age americans not working including one in four in their prime working years for four straight years more than 40 million americans have been on food stamps. one in three americans receive some means tested growth. we are now spending in the federal side about $750 billion a year on means tested or grams.

that includes medicare. these are programs designed for lower income people who we believe need additional help. i would just say the approach we have to take is what will help create jobs, higher wages, not lower wages we have been seen create prosperity and more revenue for the government, but most importantly more money for americans themselves and their families. i don't let the policies we have for the last six years will get us there and that is why we have a budget that doesn't agree. you have a different philosophy about how to approach it. our colleague to do with the wealth gap which israel. it takes money from people who've had it and give it to people who don't. that is a fool's day spirit that will never work and create the kind of healthy economy we believe in.

i respect my colleagues but i don't agree with the solution they might have for this problem we face. we need to be sure to remember that we can't measure success or how much we spend on poverty. it's time to measure success by how many people we lift out of poverty. mr. chairman, thank you for your work. i look forward to working with you. i will express right now i did not approve and i oppose the doc fix that was on page four. that was wrong especially at the time we are doing a balanced budget. i am worried about the size and the way defense monies have been dealt with. we simply have to think our way through an way to do a better job of helping with the defense crisis we face. it is more dangerous today than

it was in 2011 when we passed the budget control act. mr. chairman, chris. my time is up to you >> congressmen diaz-balart followed by senator wyden and congressman moore. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i actually want to follow-up with what what senator sessions will just mention. he is right here at the world is a much more dangerous place. at a vegas venice dangerous since the late 70s. you also mentioned how this is a rare occasion. as a matter of fact this is so rare that the one the senate passes the budget, the house passes the budget it would have reached a protocol at the beginning of this thing. it's a really rare occasion. i have to congratulate chairman enzi for doing the job the american people sent us to do. secondly just a reminder to all

of us is senator sessions mentioned, look, our safety the security and safety of the american people is our biggest responsibility of the federal government. today our nation and our allies and nation and around the world are being threatened by various radical islamic terrorists whether it's an emboldened russia, bold in china, emboldened castro, honolulu. our enemies around the world seem to be bold so they must provide for a strong national defense and requires funding of our troops training, for our readiness, for our intelligence capabilities, it better. again, i know that all of us understand that and all of us understand from potentially our

greatest responsibility. the world is not as we would like to appear at the world is as it is. with that, mr. chairman, i thank you both gentlemen for your leadership. i look forward to working on and we have some work to do with some of the differences. but as senator sessions said before, this is a huge step in the right direction. this is not happen in a long time. i look forward to passing a joint budget. i yelled back mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator wyden. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you and chairman price of whom i've enjoyed working with in the past and i think colleagues still have that opportunity. the reason i feel so strongly about that is in the senate as part of the budget debate i was able to win 73 votes for tax reform being built around tax relief for middle-class america.

middle-class americans who have had stagnant wages for years and years. 73 colleagues voted for making bipartisan tax reform. i know we can do it and i look forward to working with my colleagues of that objective. when i look at the budget the overall budget my sense is they just don't pass over all in the provision on middle-class tax relief in the senate hearing you don't pass the fairness for america's middle class. they won't do enough to help oregonians for people across this country. it won't do enough to help them climb the ladder of economic opportunity. i hope you will do more on a bipartisan basis. that is the measure that congress uses for every policy and debate. having said that, there are some important elements in the senate

budget that i'm going to push very hard to preserve in congress. they may be matters that are the most important here in the capital but they're a big deal at home and especially in the west. i think my partner in particular, senator crapo has been a terrific leader on these issues because one of the things we are facing in the west and is a premier concern, especially this summer is that that the fires are getting better. they're getting more damaging than we need to change our priorities here in washington to do more to prevent them from breaking out in the first place. i also believe we have come to look at services in rural areas in a fresh way in making for example the program that i mentioned senator crapo and i have put so much time in in the

land and water conservation fund. when you get out and about in the rural community, my statement across the west, leaders will tell you funding for these programs is like savings. the fire truck, ambulance, renovating the school, kickstarting a development project. these are vital to the maintenance and creation of healthy rural communities and rural economies and in the senate the amendment that i offered to link these three programs together for the first time, secure rural schools, land and water conservation plans pay minimal taxes, wanted code 18-4. i got a significantly more bipartisan vote and saying maybe we can come up with some and called active forest management and even though it spent the september industry, we will do that anyway.

there is a better alternative and it is bipartisan. finally i want to mention several other concerns i have with respect to the budget. i don't think the budget is doing enough in the area of infrastructure. this is an opportunity to be bipartisan. we did that programs that build america bonds. in a college education more affordable. on the health care front i am especially troubled about the pain it will cause for those on medicare and the reduction in medicaid. these are programs that serve people already walking on an economic tight rope and i consider that a mistake. i will close on an out eaten out going into a little more about the question of how attacks are warm should be built around the middle class. the amendment that i offered to buy 73 of those rewards hard work, make college more acceptable and makes things a

little bit easier. if you are a parent with several children, maybe even more you are struggling to get by. i'm very hopeful. i say this in wrapping up and i am looking forward to working with both of you not just on this budget, but the days ahead on a host of these issues. must build on bipartisanship in the senate. we were able to do that within amendment is that the tax reform we know is going to be a challenging debate in the years ahead. what should be in dispute is that we'll build it around tax relief for middle-class families. i think both of our chairs and look forward to working with you. >> thank you. congressman moore. >> thank you so much for yielding. i do want to join my other colleagues in thanking the house and the senate chairman for calling this conference together and acknowledging all of the distinguished conference

committee. i have been on the house budget committee for four years, for over four years. i just am not accustomed. i have not been all this time become accustomed to how we in this democracy can continue to attempt to balance the budget by doubling down on a failed economic theory of just providing more and more tax benefit to the wealthiest 1% of americans. while literally throwing bottles at the port under the bus because i know on a bipartisan basis people don't have that much regard for the poor. we are doing it to displaced workers, to working moms at the expense of our infrastructure

the disabled children who can't work veterans transitioning back into our community, our debt ridden students who are trying to take care of us in our elder years. our elderly is just amazing to me that 69% of the majorities budget cuts come from low income people from lottery income programs in both the house and senate. it does say that the expensive stuff they used to be bipartisan like wrote construction and taking care of our roads and bridges. and so i just think what we are doing is dangerous. they will drive millions more into poverty. as an example, i absolutely agree it by this map cards -- snap cards in this budget.

the so-called budget without asking to provide one single time is just outrageous. as gina gallant chair of the federal reserve recently said and i quote, and extent of continuing increase in inequality in the united states greatly concerns me. it is no secret the past few decades of widening the inequality can be summed up by significant income in the world gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority. i think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history among the high-value american tradition placed on equality of opportunity. so why oppose bistro cone and budget cuts. but there is one thing i want to commend the senate on senators and a bipartisan basis including

both of my senators from wisconsin establish the deficit neutral reserve fund to allow workers to earn paid sick leave. i think that is a real good starting point for helping our economy and helping working americans. families without paid sick leave suffer tremendously an average 3.5 days at a loss equivalent to month's worth of groceries. paid sick leave is good for the economy and is good for our society. families have to make agonizing choices particularly women when they don't have that time. they are more likely to use emergency room care and given a standstill we are having over health care, we can ill afford for uncompensated care adding to the 1.3 million emergency room visits that we have. i don't think we can afford an extra $1.1 billion.

just let me end by saying i will try and deal with our deficit and to have a balanced budget but i am so sorry to see that we are willing to do this at the expense of our day. in 1928 when our nation went into the first oppression, we had inequality greater than it had ever been. 2008 when we saw the great recession in our country again, inequality greater than it had ever been. caution, my colleagues. i yield back. >> thank you. next is senator crapo followed by congressman black followed by senator stabenow. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i also want to join us to join

us with commend it to you and representative price for coming together and frankly getting us to the point where we are going to for the first time in years, have a budget in this congress. those in the senate on the senate budget committee have heard me in the past expressed my disappointment in our budgeting process because we never seem to get to year two. we always make a hard decision in the years to make either no decisions in the early years were very weak ones. i've complained a lot that we have to start getting ourselves to year two, three four five and six of the budget vote over. not only have not only having recently gotten gotten into a problem with your two, we haven't even gotten into year one. now chairman, you are helping us get there in your making tough decisions in year one and i commend you for that and appreciate you for doing that. we must deal with our national

debt. senator sessions indicated one of his constituents told him in a town meeting that you can't borrow your way to prosperity. i see that differently. we can't spend our way into prosperity with borrowed money and that's exactly what the history of this congress has been for too many years now. this budget starts to solve the problem. doesn't all that perfectly but starts us down the road of addressing the difficult question. we do have a 10 year window in this budget. interest on the national debt i believe is the fastest growing element of the budget and from the numbers i've seen, interest on the national debt will exceed all discretionary -- nondefense discretionary spending within about five years and will exceed our entire national defense budget within about seven or eight years. that i hope helps people understand the urgency of the need to not only adopt a budget

but to adopt a budget a mandate that we must adopt a budget that helps make some of these tough decisions about how we need to move forward. remarkably many of those who are attacking the budget put forward by the senate and house are attacking them because they don't raise taxes as if your philosophy is that spending was the solution for our country, for our economy and for a budget. well, it is not. i want to say i commend the chairman for not formally resisting the urge to just raise taxes once again but go in even stronger and more significant step in giving us the opportunity to contemplate reforming our tax code is giving our economy the opportunity to grow. if you look at our current tax code you'd be hard-pressed to come up with one that is more unfair more complex more

expensive to comply with a more anti-competitive to our own business and job growth in the united states. we need to fix it to fix it and this budget gives us an opportunity to take those steps and look at that kind of reform of the tax cut instead of defining tax reform is raising taxes on somebody else. in addition, i have to agree with my colleague senator wyden, who pointed out that i can come and help in the middle class and help develop jobs and improve wages and benefit from reforming our tax code and taking a strong stand that control and the explosive spending driving our government towards insolvency. we will be able to significantly address the kinds of problems that others criticize these budgets are bringing forward. i want to talk also about a couple of specifics in the budget in the time i have left. a couple of amendments i brought

are in the budget. one, to stop the congress from continuing to use the indian freddie fees for offsetting other spending. i hope we will keep that in the budget. another, to stop congress from robbing the crime victims fund, taking money that is not taxpayer dollars and using it to mask spending and stopping the money from being able to be used for some of the most vulnerable of the tons of domestic violence in our society. a t. i m. running out of time comes to mr. chairman i will quickly say i support the comments made by senator sessions going forward. it was a good boat but we need to offset it i hope we can continue to successfully address those issues that senator wyden race and how we do with wildfire management and how would you deal with her old rules until no funding as we move forward. mr. chairman, i commend you for

the hard work and the hard decisions you've made in bringing us to this point. >> thank you congressman black. >> thank you, congressman enzi. let me begin by saying what an honor just to serve on this important committee as we adopt a unified budget agreement. they will confront a spending problem and return us to a point of fiscal solvency here in washington. we know that the stakes are high and the challenges are vague, but we can also be encouraged by the knowledge that our house and senate passed budget already reflects many of the same core principles and that is important because as we've all heard here today and before, budgets are truly a thing of value. i am pleased the house and senate republican budget degree in 10 years. we agree that we shouldn't take more from hard-working families to feel washington's runaway spending with another tax

increase. we agree with must offer americans the layout of the harmful regulation mandates in kosovo by obamacare and we agreed budget are an optional part of our job legislator. they are a fundamental responsibility of governing. i am looking forward to working alongside my conferees from both parties in both chambers in the coming days to cast this bicameral budget agreement. through the time i hope to have a productive conversation i need to these major tenant signed respective budget documents. as a nurse for over 40 years of particular interest in discussing how our budget to my vision or a better way forward on health care. we know the president's health care law is failing to live up in some of the most basic promises. i hear that in the town hall meetings across may 19 counties. in my business with providers in

washington and in the phone calls and e-mails i receive in my office on a daily basis. the congressional budget office says obamacare will cost our economy the privilege of more than 2 million full-time jobs and once it is all said and done, those same activists tell us about 31 million americans will remain uninsured. we have to do better and that is where budget agreement repeals obamacare, allowing us to start over with real reforms that put patients in the.is in charge of health care. now washington bureaucrats. i believe it is critical that our final unified budget document being amy's provisions. so if we truly want to offer real-world health care solutions that strengthen the doctor patient relationship that let families keep more money in their pocket and protect seniors, it starts with the racing the damage of obamacare and offering a clean slate to work from.

we have the opportunities from this budget process to do exactly that. i look forward to the work ahead in iowa to thank chairman price and chairman enzi for their leadership on this effort. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. senator stabenow followed by senator moolenaar, and senator whitehouse. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we have different but it does buy a great respect for you in the process of the committee and chairman price i appreciate being here. it's great to have another michigander on the committee. it is great to see you as well. the budget process is our opportunity to have a debate about our values and priorities. that's really what it is. we should ask ourselves how do we make sure every american has a fair shot to work hard and to succeed. that is really i hope the goal

of overdue in terms of the budget. in other words, how to make sure everybody has a chance of what we've always called the american dream. to me the answer is clear. to make sure our country's better works for the middle-class and those we are working hard to get into the middle class. unfortunately, the republican budget passed by the house and senate do not do that. there is some good news in the economy and deficit. we are not hearing that much today, but there is in fact good news when the president took office we ran the biggest hole we have seen since the great depression. i know in michigan are unemployment rate at the time was 15.7%. it was a very very difficult painful time. instead of 15.7%, it is now 5.6%. that is a huge shift and two thirds of our yearly deficit has been eliminated. more to do? yes.

two thirds of our yearly deficit has been eliminated. the challenge for us i believe the challenge for the country is to make sure every american has the opportunity to succeed in this economy, to work hard and succeed with one job, not two or three. too many folks working two or three trying to hold their head above water. we need one good paying job that you can raise your family and eat. that means a middle-class budget, one that creates millions of good paying jobs, that invest in rebuilding america, i protect social security and medicare and other health care services. one that lowers the cost of college for young people say you are not coming out of college with board at that irritate to buy a big house which is what happens to too many young people. and to cut taxes for middle-class families. unfortunately, these budgets keep the system breaks for the

wealthy. these budgets don't do enough to create jobs and invest in rebuilding america. we know our economy will they go as far as their infrastructure will take a end right now the infrastructure is crumbling. we should be paying for infrastructure investments by closing corporate tax loopholes and practices like conversion to take our jobs overseas often times on paper. if the majority were serious about empowering american workers the budget would call for increasing the minimum wage and equal pay for women. it would make sure that the affordable care reps would continue for 16.4 million americans instead of having the massive tax increase on the middle-class that comes to getting rid of the tax credits. it would stop the cuts in medicare and medicaid. mr. chairman, i do want to mention one other thing as chair of the agriculture nutrition committee during 2004 at farm bill.

we made very tough decisions at that time and frankly things i hear everybody talk about they want to do. with a cadaver program. we cut over 100 different programs and authorizations. we cut billions of dollars, more than required for sequestration. the only committee that did that. our families need the certainty of this farm bill. mr. chairman, i want to thank you for not including agriculture in the reconciliation in the senate. we have 400 different organizations led by the american farm bureau matters alaska is not to include the house language in the final document. we have more than any other committee, beyond reconciliation and unfortunately if we open up the farm bill, everything is opened up. no mistake about this. this is not just a debate about nutrition.

if we open up the farm bill it will be a livestock disaster and conservation as well as nutrition and rural development and other things absolutely critical for certainty and rural america, certainly across michigan and across the country. mr. chairman i look forward to working with you. i hope the final document will recognize the work that was done on a bipartisan a safe. it is my great pleasure to work with chairman lucas and all of our members at the time to achieve what i think we want to do in every part of the budget, making smart pads consolidating having duplication and putting in place a path for economic development. we did that in agriculture and i hope that will be recognized. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. next will be congruous moolenaar followed by senator graham followed by senator whitehouse. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i want to compliment those chairs for their leadership in the process and what a privilege it is to serve on the conference committee. will we come this nation we are here today is an important step for governing in the way the american people expect. today's meeting is a positive step in the right direction and for the first time in a long time, there is a real possibility that both chambers of congress will adopt a budget resolution for a balanced budget. the budget will set the guard rails for federal spending in the upcoming year as well as decades ahead. families in my home state of michigan understand they need to tighten their belts and balance the budget when there is a change in household income or expenses. that is something we need to do in washington as well. the balanced budget will not raise taxes on hard-working americans and it will keep promises made to seniors while forwarding the historic national

debt. from our nations founding it took more than 200 years for the government to accumulate $5 trillion. that had double to 10 trillion in the last seven years skyrocketed to 18 trillion. divided among 320 million americans as mentioned already a child point today inherits $56,250 in debt. that is 225000 for a family of four. leaving less debt to our children is vital and if we fail to act and debt payments will crowd of spending for the bipartisan priorities of the american people including national security, medical research, programs to protect the great lakes in funding for roads and bridges. our national debt is also costing us jobs at their debt to gdp ratio is over 90%, hindering economic growth in job creation. one way we can boost a slow

economic recovery is tax reform. which has potential to add 1 million new jobs. this budget calls for tax reform and many americans just filed their tax returns and in another year they had to deal with the long complicated federal tax code. as my predecessor, chairman dave camp, who many of you served with, he was fond of saying the tax code is bigger than the bible with none of the good news. middle-class americans don't have time to read the code of 74,000 pages. it is estimated that individuals, employees spend more than $160 billion trying to comply with it every year. the tax code's complexity is distort the decisions a couple weeks of planning to save for retirement in the middle class families hoping they filled out their return correct way and that the irs will not audit them. for small business owners filing quarterly estimates come

a better system cannot come soon enough. the federal tax code complicates their plans to expand and hire new workers. it also buries them under paperwork and pulls their time and talents away from running their businesses. last major overhaul of the tax code was 29 years ago blondie for the internet and cell phones gave widespread use. in this global economy, other nations have built their system for the 21st century and a job creators are being left with an incredible disadvantage. it is time for a better tax code simpler and fairer. more americans than about the economic ladder of the federal government to make it easier for families to pay taxes to manage printers to a certainty of costs. this is the first time in a long time that a budget conference committee will meet to pass a balanced budget. the budget will boost the slow growing economy, create jobs, raise wages and build a more prosperous america.

the budget addresses our country's fiscal problems in a responsible way and puts our nation on a brighter path for our children and grandchildren. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. senator graham is not here. next to be senator whitehouse followed by senator portman and senator warner. senator whitehouse. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it has been an interesting week last week in the senate. i just completed last week a bipartisan markup on a contentious issue in the health committee, with the result air of a 22-0 bipartisan vote on a new elementary and secondary education act. we have just witnessed a unanimous bipartisan result in the senate committee on foreign relations on another difficult and contentious question. we have before us as a

conference the bipartisan and bicameral record of the iranian murray negotiations. we and a bipartisan and bicameral way just resolved the annoying annual ritual of the dock six years of bipartisanship and progress are possible. but apparently not in the budget committee. this budget effort has been been a partisan ramrod. even today's formality is not even a token effort of bipartisanship. we are all dead. republicans can brand their budget through, so they will run on trade brand their budget through and that is that. the problem is this has made the budget process ridiculous. nobody cares. virtually nobody came to her hearing to market. nobody cares about the result. appropriations now have to pass

the senate by 60 votes or so even the 60-vote budget point of order is meaningless. which is not surprising since unlike the legislative successes none of the hard work of accommodation and compromise went into this budget. the partisan ramrod of an effort has produced a foreseeable old. a budget so bad that if they were applied to actual appropriated accounts, i doubt even most republicans would go for it. if republicans did apply the budget once the american people got a good look at its extremism and favoritism i suspect he would put a quick into the republican majorities. what will happen instead is that our republican friends will ask president obama to bail them out by negotiating them out of this

dreadful hole they've dug for themselves. if it weren't for the price regular families would have to pay, it would almost be worth letting republicans have to apply this budget just to educate the american people. they will say this is strong medicine, but necessary to avoid future catastrophe. no one should believe it. in fact they themselves don't believe it. it is a foil for attacking programs like medicare and pell grants and food stands. there is a test that proves what i say. look at all the federal benefit that helps the rich and the powerful. those benefits tend to come through the tax code. indeed, almost as much revenue flows out the back door of the tax code and loopholes, favored rate deductions that actually

gets elected by the government and spend. name one special-interest tax benefit reduced to address the deficit. big oil gets massive and completely unnecessary tax benefits. do we ask them to sacrifice one dime towards a terrible deficit? not one dime. hedge fund billionaires pay lower federal tax rate than truck drivers and brick masons. we ask them to sacrifice one dime towards the supposedly terrible deficit? not one dime. even in private jets get special tax benefits in the tax code. do we ask the private jets that to contribute anything? not a dime. many american corporations hide revenue overseas or use other tricks and loopholes that they don't pay tax base.

in some cases big corporations pay literally zero federal corporate income tax. to a close one and this budget? not one. indeed, the house just voted to add $300 billion to the deficit. by bailing out the long-suffering top 0.2% wealthiest american families who pay any estate tax can the republicans are threatened to use the oco gimmick to load up the defense contractors and some cases beyond what the military is asking for and there is a verbal budget can make the republicans have plugged into the budget that will allow them to raise the deficit in fast-track reconciliation bills. why if people are sincere about reducing the deficit would republicans put in a special gimmick to that and increase the deficit. the truth is republicans concerned about the deficit evaporates around wealth and power.

it is big talk until they get near the rich and until they get near the powerful and bend it is like this budget a big nothing in terms of deficit savings. the budget is a stark display at the bias and injustice and i don't see any remedy for it in this ramrod process, but i hope when we get to appropriations and funding the country we will come to a more sensible middle ground. thank you. >> thank you. next would be senator portman who is not here and senator warner was not here and senator merkley who is not here. senator johnson. and then senator ayotte. >> i would also like to commend chairman enzi and chairman price for their hard work on this. this is a rare moment. it shouldn't be, but it is. i really take the position of

the glass half full as to the class path empty as senator whitehouse said. he mentioned a number of areas of bipartisanship breaking out in the senate as a good thing. the senate's market of the budget has an awful lot of areas of agreement. either them or amendments offered. as we pass out some handouts here i am going to do some unusual in this budget conference opening statement. i will start looking at the numbers. congressman rokita and should the fact that we have fiscal choices and we really want to solve problems as opposed to just demagogue issues. the way you solve problems as there is a first step you have today. you have to admit you have one. you have to properly define it. the budget process is really centered around a 10 year budget window. that is not the problem. it is a problem, but it isn't the problem.

we have a 30 year demographic problem in on a bipartisan basis, the congress had made promises to all kinds of americans. we can't honor all those promises not with dollars budget. the proper way of looking at our problem, the property definition to enable america to collect, we haven't. i hope the amendments we offered him a bipartisan basis than our budget process, i hope those get adopted by this conference to provide the information to the american people, to find the problem. the first page of the handout here is the 30 year projected deficit according to cbo's fiscal scenario. i have done it by decade. the first decade about $8 trillion in projected deficits. the second decade $31 trillion. third decade $88 trillion for a whopping total of 137 in deficit.

from perspective the entire asset on america today is $110 trillion. just in case this is pie-in-the-sky and way too large, i realize these projections, there is a range and i don't have time to go throughout the grass, but the white house has had projected and we have our own projection. i am showing you the cbo fiscal scenario. take a look at the percentages of gdp spent in its relationship to the last 20 year average. you could argue these projections are still low when it comes to defense spending and other programs. if you look at the gala line on the percentage of gdp chart, you can see the ultimate fiscal scenario by cbo comes true our jet to gdp ratio would be 234%. that is the problem. want to picture the defense spending as a percent of gdp. funding of the war causing this massive deficits. historically we are still at a

pretty low rate. defense spending as a release to gdp. we need to look at the facts and figures. we have to understand the truth as opposed to demagoguery. the last point, and this is another amendment that passed by unanimous consent and truthfully i believe that with the numbers on the democratic side. i think it was senator kaine and senator warner when i was looking for democrat sponsors, we compromise. i have this one patient can statement that really lays it out. the cbo rather than this foreign state documents, and one page we can pretty well laid out the financial system of america so it is understandable and senator warner and senator kaine wanted to make sure we put tax expenditures. we will include tax expenditures. that is vital information we should look at to solve these problems. i would just my colleagues attention to a one-year income

statement that shows outlays revenue, deficit. the collins you see the first two columns as social security and medicare. i actually direct you to the second page which is the 30 year ultimate fiscal scenario put into one page. you will save social security over the next 30 years will pay $15 trillion more than it takes for the payroll tax. that is a problem. medicare will pay out $35 trillion more and an assist for the next 30 years. that's about $50 trillion of the $127 trillion. the remaining problem is $71 trillion of interest payment. on one page, we show where we spend our money. we show where we get our income and we show where the deficits are really occurring to director activities. i hope the budget conference adopts the amendment so we start

showing the american people the truth. we lay out the reality. you have to first admit we've got one. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. next would be senator baldwin and after that, senator ayotte followed by senator kaine and senator richter. >> thank you chairman enzi. thank you, chairman price. i am pleased to be here with the members of the committee. since i joined the senate, this is the first time in many years we have had the opportunity to pass a joint senate house budget resolution that will help guide spending decisions for the next fiscal year. this is an important first step as we work to get our nation's fiscal house in order and too long we have waded to get this done and it is a basic thing we need to do for the american people in governing this country. when i was the lack in 2010 the

national debt was nearly $14,000,000,000,000.1 of the reasons i ran for the united states senate if i am the mother of a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old and i firmly believe that if we don't start taking the steps that need to be taken to get our fiscal house in order it is not just about my children. it is about all of our children and what future we are going to lead for them going forward. now we are in position where a debt exceeds over $18 trillion. if we don't take action where project to to reach $27 trillion over the next decade and according to cbo's long-term outlook if we continue on our current course over the next 25 years, the mandatory spending the pieces of pie that includes many important entitlement programs that many of our seniors and others are relying on, they are not only going to become unsustainable and go bankrupt so we are not going to

fulfill those promises, but also the growth in that piece of the budget will squeeze out important discretionary spending priorities on defense infrastructure, education, medical research. ..

they are not getting the response that they should do in exercising their rights under the veterans choice card so i hope this stays in this budget. while there are important differences between house and senate passed budget, both make tough choices to create a fiscally responsible in print for the nation, both of balance in 10 years, provider best opportunity to address obamacare, reserve retirement programs and don't raise taxes. by contrast the president's budget never balanced and raise taxes by $2 trillion. one of the issues that's important to me i served on the armed services committee, i voted against the budget control act because i think it failed to address the big picture problems we have in terms of addressing our federal spending. i'm concerned and continue to be concerned about the harmful cuts that could jeopardize our ability to defend the nation to drink the senate's budget markup i am on what senator graham include an amendment to include

more funding for our overseas contingency operations account by $38 billion per i hope this remains in this budget. the reason that i did that is because if you look at where we are with the threat we face from cases, with the threats we are facing around the world right now and with the diminishment that we are facing to our military and its readiness the number one responsibility of this government is to protect our national security. i'm glad the house to this measure as well and hope it gets included in the final budget. but this doesn't address the long-term issue we have with sequestration and i hope that we can work across the aisle to address that and would take on the big picture problem facing the nation and ensure that we can defend the nation and also continue to prioritize things like medical research that important for the country. but today we take an important step moving forward in this

conference. i hope we pass a joint budget resolution in this committee and we can finally bring some certainty to washington budget process that has been anything but certain and as been broken for far too long. getting back to regular order is going to require leadership. i appreciate the leadership from both of our chairman. working together we can reduce waste and inefficiency in government. we can ensure that we have a budget that starts to rebuild taxpayers trust and i'm glad we are doing that today. i hope that going forward we can work to ensure that not only my children but all of our children have a brighter future in this country but i know if we continue to burden them with a debt that's not possible. i hope we can all work together to get this budget passed and to the american people that this is an important first step in getting our fiscal house in order. thank you. >> thank you. mix of the senator kaine.

>> thank you, mr. chairman into fellow conferees. issue is a good year and a couple of ways. i'm a regular order fan having been a mayor and cabinet but a lot of budgets. the white house admitted the budget on time issue that both houses acted on time on the budget this year. we are a little bit late on the conference but like representative diaz-balart i want to take a self become too. because in 2013 both houses acted on time but with the democrats in the senate tried to start a conference the conference was resisted by a handful of the minority in the senate for months. would allow us to start a conference. that led to the shutdown of government, the absence of a budget and it was only after the government of the greatest nation in the world had to shut down that were able to get back to a conference table and try to find a deal. i hope we will try to find a serious deal, a serious deal. one of the challenges that

people have with congress is the high blown rhetoric and our self-importance will at odds with our actions. to say that a budget balances when you keep all the revenue from obamacare but review of obamacare, it's not serious. to say that a budget balances when you count all the revenue from the estate tax but then vote to repeal it, it's not serious. it's not seriously balanced and it also demonstrates a lack of seriousness about the deficit at all. so i hope we will find a serious deal. the last congress found a serious deal ultimately after the government was shut down come we sat down at a table, and chairwoman murray and chairman ryan came up with a serious deal what each side had to give a little bit, where we didn't embrace the foolishness of classic cuts that would hobble

the nation's defense and slash nondefense programs. i hope we will find a serious deal that will not -- i think a serious deal to challenge our chairs and our rankings would involve a form of ryan murray part two, that would really be arbitrarily low budget gaps that are hurting us. sure we passed the question in the budget gaps in some of 2011. since then we have ebola, north korean cyberattacks, a bellicose apartmentof vladimir putin come at war against isolate. what recorded strictly vote was taken august 2011 about budget gaps when the world was throwing curve balls at us everyday? everyday? i hope we will fight a just deal to lift these caps if we're going to be serious about it. we can't just look at spending programs without looking at tax expenditures. i applaud senator johnson's work to put on the table for us to look at. real quick here's what tax expenditures are as a part of our budget right now.

5.1% of gdp right now is spent on major health care programs other than social security. that number is going up. 4.9% of gdp is being spent on social security. that's going up. 3.3 is being spent on non-defense discretionary. that's going down. 3.2 on defense. that's going to the tax expenditures? 8.1% of our gdp is being spent on tax expenditures and that's going up. but when we talk about when the going to try to find savings we ignored that part of the balance sheet, that part of the income statement. if we are going to find sequester program we have to do it with an examination of tax expenditure like everything else. the senate budget has an amendment that has bipartisan support to suggest we should do that if we are going to be serious, if we are going to be serious we have to. and, finally let me just say this. the notion in both budgets and

certainly stated by number of folks around the table today that we're going to repeal the affordable care act, it's just not serious. it's not serious. 16.4 million americans, 16.4 million people which is going to take away their health insurance. that is the combined population of wyoming where my chair represents, the district of columbia, a vermont where my ranking member represents come of north dakota alaska, of south dakota delaware, montana rhode island and new hampshire maine, of hawaii idaho, of nebraska, west virginia. 14 states plus the district of columbia and then we're saying we're just going to kick all of those people off health insurance? i know they said we will find a replacement. we waited for years for republicans to put a replacement on the table. there's not been one put on the

table so we are keep the taxes were taken from these people and kick 16.4 million people 14 states and the district of columbia off health care. it's not serious. let's be serious. thank you. >> thank you. senator wicker is not here so next will be senator king followed by senator corker followed by senator baldwin followed by senator perdue. senator king. >> thank you mr. speaker. mr. guerre camacho with a premise i think all of us share in that we have a that's probably this country. we have insisted that problem and in this series was over. the interest rate risk. 1% increase in interest rates because $120 billion a year of expenditures and that's not counting the social security debt if you include that gets $170 billion a year.

with the principal problem we've all talked about it or our children will have to repay it. it's not right, unethical and the problem is getting deeper. third we have no margin for an emergency. we've used up our slack if he will. we have no margin if there's a national security emergency or an economic emergency. we cannot continue to just ignore this problem. i am in total agreement with the chair and many members of this committee. so the question is how do we deal with it? we've got a serious deficit problem, how do we deal with the? one is to cut expenditures, the other is to increase revenues and third is to grow the economy in order to create more revenues through a growth in the economy. that was how we got to a balanced budget in the late '90s. it wasn't because of cuts or necessarily new revenue. it was because the economy was growing at such a way to produce additional revenues which gave us a balanced budget for a couple of years. the problem i have with the two

budgets that been passed in house and senate is the focus on only one aspect of the problem. that is they only focus on cuts. we've had a worldwide experience experience, experiment over the past six or seven years with austerity come with cutting as the solution to budget deficits and it's been an abject failure. we have the empirical evidence unlike senator johnson's search for evidence. you can look anyone in the world and people that have tried to cut out of this problem they become has gotten worse and often the deficit itself gets worse. so i don't think i think cuts are part of the antibody don't think they are all the answer. a friend of mine often says there's rarely a silver bullet. there's often silver buckshot. there are multiple solutions not just one solution. this idea that spending is out of control, discretionary spending right now as a percentage of gdp with the exception of those two years at

the end of the '90s when we had a balanced budget are at the lowest level in 50 years. the idea that it's all about spending on pell grants or student loans or even defense just isn't true. in fact, defenses at the lowest level as a percentage of gdp and 75 years. so focusing all of our attention on this one part of the budget is missing a big target which is demographics and health care. that's what's driving the growth in the budget. and focusing all of our attention on the domestic discretionary antidefense section to the discretionary section is like bombing brazil after pearl harbor. it's a figures response but it is not aimed at the right target. so revenues, senator kaine i think talk very specifically about tax expenditures which are

now more than actual expenditures. tax expenditures come more money leaks out of the tax code than it collects in terms of the size of the current budget. 50 average of revenues in this country come 17.4% of gdp. the last time with a balanced budget in the late '90s it was 19.2, 19-point to come 20 and 2020. in order to balance the budget realistically there has to be a higher level of revenues. why? not because want to go crazy and spent a lot of money on new programs but because health care at least until very recently has been growing at a very high rate from 6% a year roughly and because of the demographics of all the baby boomers of whom i am one about to retire. given the demographic changes we have to have more revenues, or the entire function of the federal government would be squeezed out of college got to do is take those graphs out 20 more years or so and nothing is left of defense or pell grants

or any other discretionary expenditures. the final and most important way to solve this problem is to economic growth. experience of the last 10 years has proven austerity is not an economic stimulant or it takes investment. but to single greatest economic developments projects in history of the united states with the g.i. bill after world war ii and interstate highway system. both were investments. both cost money. both required revenues in order to pay for them and that's what built the economy that we've been writing on since the '50s and '60s. in this budget we're going to cut expenditures for r&d for education can for job training? that's madness. that's where economic growth comes from. so i agree with senator kaine. we've with senator kaine. we got the final out of this but it isn't just one path and i would love to work with you guys on this and i think there are ways that we can do it but you

can't just put blinders on and say no more revenues ever when you've got 10,000 people a day become eligible for medicare. that's an unbelievable number and that's the box we're in. so mr. churchill i welcome the opportunity to work with my colleagues on this but i think we have a real opportunity but we got to to realistically, understand what the real targets are, and it's not necessary the discretionary part of this budget which was the only part that we are focused upon. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator perdue and then senator baldwin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first i'd like to thank both you, chairman enzi and you chairman price for your perseverance and leadership in very difficult time in this budget process. for the first time since 2002 both james and make a priority priority to pass a budget resolution. we are now prepared to come together and resolve our differences for the first time

in many years, having meaningful budget. while this is an important michael step it's just that, a micro step. we still of a lot of work to do over the coming years. to fix our debt crisis. we need to put together a responsible framework that eliminates the need for budget gimmicks are no more continuing resolutions, no more omnibus bills that we need a budget resolution that allows congress to pass appropriation bills and return our nation to fiscal stability. passing a conference budget resolution is the first step in restoring faith of the american people that this process can work. being new to descent into the political process, i have an outside perspective that allows reduce your current financial situation with the unique perspective. .com in georgia people are outraged. i am outraged by the financial the responsibility of washington on both sides of the aisle. in the last six years alone this federal government has spent $21.5 trillion doing its

business. of that we borrowed $8 trillion. ladies and showed that just simply cannot continue. our skyrocketing national debt is over $18 trillion. there isn't enough urgency in washington to rein that in. worse than that we have over $120 -- trillion dollars. we are past the tipping point of this fiscal crisis. if interest rates were to go to the 30th average alone about 5.5% we would be paying just under $1 trillion of interest to date complies will be allocated to our military spending an equal to what we have in our total discretionary budget that is simply unmanageable. for a generation washington's dysfunction is create gridlock. gridlock. one side want to tax increases because i once spent because. this sets up a false choice. neither one will solve the problem entirely. we cannot tax our way out of this mess and we simply can't cut our way out either.

to break the gridlock and to start solving this debt crisis with to get serious over this coming year. to get our economy going, do the things washington can do best to help people in the free enterprise system. yes, the free enterprise system to get this economy going. it's not going to start within the beltway. one simple point of growth in gdp means over $3 trillion in federal tax revenue over the next 10 years. you guys want more revenue? let's go this economy. it's in the neck it has been anemic for the last decade. there's no reason we should be growing 2% thank you. the 30th average is over 3.5%. we can get back to the. combined with eliminating redundant agencies that would go a long way to setting up our kids and grandkids for solving this debt crisis. we need to protect today's seniors and restore the promise of a brighter future for the next generation. we must save our safety net programs like social security and medicare and medicaid and others to introduce programs was to be there for the people who

need the most. both social security and medicare as we heard in recent testimony before this very committee are already facing bankruptcy today and bought about 2033 their respective trust funds will be totally depleted. not taking action right now is a responsible, sustainable and doesn't result of underlying spending problem. we have an opportunity to lead. this budget conference provides us with an open and transparent process to find lasting solutions to our school challenges. i believe both house and the senate included important budget reforms that i wholeheartedly embrace. we need to debate those here front and center and come to resolution soon. again this is just the first micro step. over the next your congress has to commit to work every day. to find a way to grow this economy, cut out wasteful spending allow us to balance our budget center, and develop a long-term debt crisis plan. merely balancing the budget is

not good enough. we need to develop a long-term plan to produce a surplus each year so we can begin to pay down this outrageous debt and put our nation back on the path to fiscal responsibility. let me say this. i forget a repeatedly we measure our debt, the size of our government as a percentage of gdp. that make sense when you have a benchmark to which to compare. name another $17 trillion economy we can use that data point to make meaningful at all. in my view, if the economy grows 10% a year, why should this federal government grew 10% major? people want this government to work. they want washington to be functional, accountable and transparent. that's both sides. there are no innocent parties when it comes to this $18 trillion in debt. this process gives us a first step opportunity toward meeting those goals and making washington work again. we've had about six weeks to do with six years of fiscal irresponsibility and i would argue indeed 60 years of fiscal

irresponsibility time to stand up and do what is right is now. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator baldwin followed by the senator merkley. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and ranking member sanders and chairman price. i am proud to be serving on my second budget conference committee as a u.s. senator. the last time we are all here together in a conference room much like this one i said that we needed to pass a responsible budget that invests in the middle class, that strengthens our economy and takes a balanced approach to reducing the deficit without shortchanging our future. i believe that the murray-ryan budget deal did its very best to hold true to those important goals. however, the house and senate passed budget resolutions before us today are more partisan documents.

they slashed investments in the middle class. they threaten our economic recovery, and they are anything but balanced. that isn't a single tax expenditure or tax loophole that is closed in these budgets. millions of americans would lose their health insurance that they rely upon today. under the house republican budget resolution over 873,000 wisconsin seniors would be kicked off traditional medicare and forced into a voucher program. almost 90,000 wisconsin seniors would pay more for prescription drugs next year because the resolution would reopen the so-called doughnut hole. the economic recovery at every day wisconsin nights have worked so hard to bring about would be threatened. in wisconsin alone over 40,000 workers would lose access to job

training and retraining programs to help them rejoin the workforce. and the dream of a college degree would become that much further out of reach for 117000 wisconsin students as more than 90 billion in pell grant funding is cut over the next decade nationwide. one thing that both republicans and democrats should be able to agree on is the need to pass a budget that grows our economy for the middle class instead of rigging the rules in favor of special interests and millionaires and billionaires. we should be able to find agreement that what america needs is a middle-class budget that gives everyone a fair shot to get ahead and to build a stronger future for themselves and their families. these budget proposals miss another opportunity for all of us. unfortunately, they will not help our budget -- our economy

rise, and most importantly they will not help hard-working middle-class americans rise. i thank you, thank you for this opportunity. >> thank you. senator merkley. >> thank you very much, mr. chair. and as i compared the two versions of the budget, house and senate i was asking myself the same question as we deliberated on the senate version of this budget. is it is a budget that will work for working americans? or is it a budget design for powerful special interests and those us off in our society? there's been a lot of rhetoric on both sides of the aisle about helping the middle class and fighting for workers, but it budget document put in real numbers, real concept, and we can see if it is just rhetoric or indeed is this a vision for

expanding and strengthening the middle class. and so i'm sorely disappointed that neither the senate nor the house budget meets the test of fighting to make this country work better for working americans. in both the house and senate budget in parallel fashion are designed to help the powerful special interests and the dust off. and so many sectors, so many parts of our community will be affected in a negative way with this vision. our seniors will be either effective by the house version of a voucherize in medicare or the senate version of $400 billion in cuts. our infrastructure is failed in both budget. we have an infrastructure deficit. we have a highway trust fund running out of money, and both budgets fail to address it to create good paying jobs that any strong economy in the future.

this budget fails our children. a. katz head start on the house side and on the senate side sequestration plus additional cuts, perhaps as many as six or 20,000 children who would've had a seat in that class or would've had an opportunity to get a fair start in life, will not get the start. it certainly fails or julie comes to doors of opportunity for higher education. pell grants are an essential component for our families that are struggling. open the doors of opportunity for our children to higher education. and yet here we have it two budgets that slash pell grants. and this budget fails our hungry. the senate side we have unspecified cuts that most would estimate dramatically affect the step program, and outside was more detailed and specifying $125 billion in cuts for the

hungry. and like my colleague from wisconsin, i searched for those efforts to ask sacrifice of those vessels are committed will understand america's all understand that programs for the best off are put into the tax code so as to be protected from year-to-year not -- they certainly can been identified in the budget process and yet we see not a single dollar, not 1 dollar. so take the extra the hungry in the seniors and the children and consumers as well by trying to eviscerate the independence of the watchdog against predatory practices so, in the financial marketplace, take the ax to all of those but not 1 dollar asked of those were best off with a powerful special interest with the programs deeply embedded in the tax code. we went to the senate budget, i gave it a failing grade for all these factors.

and the house budget does no better. so we sit here in the conference committee. we have a choice of choosing or finding common, how do i put a? than the distance between two failing patients or engaging in a bipartisan conversation to address the significant education deficit in america come to address a significant infrastruinfrastru cture deficit in america come to address the significant inequality in america, to address the shortcomings and good paying jobs in america. that is the path that we should take. thank you, mr. chairman. >> think you. and that concludes the presentation for i want to thank everybody for their participation. i particularly want to thank the house members for their patience and participation and for staying under the five minutes. some of the very substantially. i thank the senators for the most part staying under six minutes last.

statements can be submitted by the close of business tomorrow for anyone who wants to add or put in a statement. with all the statement concluded this meeting at the conference committee on the fiscal year 2016 budget resolution is hereby recessed. >> wow. that's a nice gavel. >> well done. [inaudible conversations] >> the u.s. senate about the gavel in. after about one hour of general speeches they will continue work on the human trafficking bill increasing penalties and adding fines for being convicted of trafficking.

the measure stalled over abortion provisions. bill managers say they're close to a compromise. live coverage now of the senate. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. our father in heaven, your grace continues to sustain us in times of misfortune or prosperity. we're grateful for your loving