have up to 10 hours of debate before taking a final passage vote. also possible debate on the legislative vehicle for the iran nuclear agreement review act. minority leader harry reid has called the majority leader mitch mcconnell to file cloture on that bill. and now to live coverage of u.s. senate here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. oh sovereign lord, you alone are god. thank you for another day to do your biddings. lord you have given each of us the same number of hours and minutes to serve you and humankind.

teach us to seize each opportunity we have to live for your glory. deliver us from anxieties about yesterday, today, and tomorrow. strengthen our lawmakers in their work. give them understanding and courage to act on their convictions. when they are tempted to doubt increase their faith. guide their lives by your unfolding providence, enabling them to use the gift of time to work so that peace will rule in our world.

we pray in your sovereign name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our beloved flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: today not only will congress pass a budget for the first time in six years, it will pass a balanced budget for the first time in recent memory. this is something many americans have been waiting a long time to see. it's something they deserve. and it's just the latest example of a new congress that's back to work, back to work on behalf of americans who work hard and expect washington to do the same. no budget will ever be perfect but this is a budget that sensibly addresses the concerns of many different members. it reflects honest compromise of many different members with many, many priorities. it includes additional resources and flexibility for national defense. it reduces spending. and it balances without raising taxes. that's especially impressive when you consider the type of budget the white house proposed, one that never balanced, ever,

but still tried to raise taxes by nearly $2 trillion. that white house budget was so unserious, that only a single member of the president's party could be persuaded to publicly support it here in the senate. perhaps that's because it proposed to double down on the failed policies of the past: more overspending, more debt, more taxes and hardly any reform. so the white house fantasy budget may have made the left happy, but the new congress believed the american people deserved better. we offered a budget that is more than just balance it's also oriented toward growth. according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, the budget we'll approve today contains ideas that could boost jobs and grow our economy. it would embrace the energy revolution and provide for more environmentally responsible innovation. it would repeal unfair taxes

like those on obamacare and set the table for more comprehensive reform of our outdated tax code. and because this budget is about embracing the future, it also gives us the tools to leave obamacare's broken promises and higher costs where they belong: in the past, in favor of a fresh start with the opportunity for real health reform. this budget is also about protecting the vulnerable. it aims to responsibly improve and modernize programs like medicare so they'll continue to be there when americans need them. after all we know that failing to make commonsense improvements to save these types of programs today would mean allowing draconian cuts to fall on the vulnerable in the years to come. the balanced budget before us went through the normal committee process. members of both parties debated it vigorously on the floor. they offered more amendments than just about anyone can count. and then a conference committee

met to work out the differences between the version of this balanced budget passed by the house and the one we passed here in the senate. that's the way the process is supposed to work. that's the way congress is supposed to function. the budget reflects a lot of hard work from a lot of individuals. i'd particularly like to thank chairman mike enzi and his counterpart in the house chairman tom price and everyone on the house committee for their tireless efforts to agree on a framework that can pass. the balanced budget they produced won't solve every challenge, but it is a measure that will move us further down the path of positive reform. it's a budget that aims to make government more efficient more effective and more accountable to the middle class. and it's a reminder that the new republican majority is getting congress back to work for the american people. now, mr. president on one other matter once the budget is approved we'll continue our

work on the bipartisan iran bill. then it's my hope to turn to another bipartisan measure the bipartisan congressional trade priorities and accountability act, t.p.a. this bill would enhance congress's role in the trade process while ensuring president s of either party have the necessary tools to secure strong enforceable trade agreements for american workers. here's why that's important without this bipartisan legislation, american workers and farmers including from my home state of kentucky, will not be able to reap the rewards of selling more made in america goods to places like europe and the pacific. this is a bill we should all want to support so it won't surprise you to hear that this bill has substantial bipartisan support. it even passed the finance committee on an overwhelming vote of 20-6. 20-6. but of course we've heard of an attempt to stand in the way of an effort to pass this

bipartisan legislation. we've heard of anotherrest to make a -- another effort to make a partisan stand against a bipartisan accomplishment that would help grow opportunities for our constituents. so yes some may oppose allowing american workers to compete and win in new markets. some may not be all that excited about selling more products stamped "made in america" to places like europe and the pacific. but the reality is the american people deserve more opportunities, not more special interest roadblocks. that's why i plan, with the support of members of both parties, to turn to the bipartisan congressional trade priorities and accountability act once we finish the iran bill. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: the history of cinco

de mayo is one of large area that is unfamiliar to most americans, but to mexican americans, it's very familiar. it's a shame we don't know more about it, because the story of cinco de mayo is one of inspiration. it's the tale of a small forest, small military forecast that was vastly -- small military forest that was vastly outnumbered. it was 153 years ago a small force found itself unnumbered two to one by the french. the outmatched soldiers refused to give up. they couldn't. the future was not in their makeup because the future of mexico rested on their shoulders. a unbelievably in spite of insurmountable odds the mexican army refused to give up. that's why we celebrate cinco de mayo today not just mexican culture and history but also the

resilient spirit that refuses to capitulate. our united states is better off because of that spirit engendered by millions of mexican americans indeed the entire latino community. it is that same spirit that today injects new life into our communities. as that same spirit possessed by generations of mexican americans that has fueled economies and the vibrancy of communities throughout the southwest. it is that same spirit that empowers latino students to push themselves to new heights academically. it is that same indomitable spirit that inspires mexican americans to defend our country in the front lines of the world. hispanic heritage in this country has never been stronger. now it falls upon us as members of congress to support mexican americans and the greater latino community to reach the promise of the american dream. we can do that by investing in working american families. not by kicking families off their health insurance as my

friend the republican leader, said this budget is balanced in name only and really you can keep talking about how balanced something is. and if it's unbalanced, it's still unbalanced. but, i mean, they want to repeal obamacare, 16.5 million people, and on and on and all the things that are good in that legislation that so changed america. or in this budget, they want to strip children's financial aid to go to college. or by cutting job training programs. and on and on with what they want to do in this budget. talk about this great meeting that took place to come up with this final bill conference, that conference, mr. president took about ten minutes. it was no -- they knew what they wanted to do, and they did it very quickly. the republican budget is unfair. it's unbalanced, unwise, and as

some said it's immoral. as we celebrate cinco de mayo today i hope we remember the unrelenting mexican spirit that prevailed on the battlefield 150 years ago. more importantly i hope we'll recognize that same spirit is among us today in the homes of mexican americans across america. mr. president, on another matter. the senate has a lot to do before we recess for memorial day. we need to finish the corker-cardin iran legislation. we need to wrap up work on the budget resolution. in addition to those two important pieces of legislation there's other pressing needs. surface transportation expires mr. president, while we're on recess. the highway trust fund runs out of money and the authorization for the federal highway program expires later this month. 63,500 bridges are structurally inefficient and more than 63,000

roads are in disrepair. without reliable funding our highways and bridges will only get worse and that is an understatement. six states already are delaying or canceling important transportation projects because of questions over future funding. arkansas delaware, georgia mississippi, tennessee wyoming. the chairman of the judiciary committee, the senior senator from vermont said today that in vermont, this tiny state area-wise and population wise -- about 600,000 people in it -- their construction time frame is very very narrow. they can't do construction during most of the year. they need to plan way ahead of time and they can't do that if there's nothing to plan. states need certainty from washington that they'll receive their highway dollars before construction leaders put shovels on the ground.

nevada needs that certainty. the prison in nevada welcomes visitors annually and yet nevada has 47.3 billion in statewide transportation needs and that's just one state. we must ensure that our highway system has the necessary funds to address pressing needs and they're not there. transportation would be the first easy place to find agreement in congress. but, mr. president it's hard to comprehend but the republican majority in the senate has not held a single hearing on this most important piece of legislation. not a single hearing. nothing. we want to work with republicans to address our nation's crumbling infrastructure. we understand the importance of transportation investments and working families across the country. yet, stunningly, republicans have effectively put our

nation's transportation system on the back burner. and hearing the republican leader's statement this morning i guess that's going to continue. prograft nation is dangerous to -- procrass nation is dangerous to american drivers and hurtful to our economy. the u.s. transportation system is central to our competitiveness, how we move goods and services. it is central to our families who use our roads and bridges to go to work and school. congress should do more to support these working families and business. for every $1 billion we spend in infrastructure projects we create 47,500 jobs. without strong federal infrastructure funding the american society of civil engineers predicts that our country could lose $1 trillion in sales. that's almost 3.5 million jobs. putting critical transportation investments on the back burner is not an effective way to govern. and i would hope that we can have something before we go home for our recess done on highways.

how can we be home in good conscience and say we tried but we couldn't get it done? we also have to inform and reauthorization fisa, foreign intelligence surveillance act. it is one thing that's kept us safe the fisa provisions were expanded in the patriot act and they expire june 1. senators leahy and lee a bipartisan team of senators, have introduced a bill that would reform these important provisions so they strike the right balance between protecting our nation's security and preserving america's civil liberties. an identical bill was reported out of the house judiciary committee with a strong bipartisan vote of 25-2. the house is out this week, but i hope they take it up next week. i'm told they're going to. this is an issue that warrants our full debate and deserves the senate's attention before we leave here. we have a lot of to do and not much time. i hope senate republicans will help us move these important pieces of legislation without

allowing either one of them to lapse. that is go out of business. the presiding officer: under the previous order the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order the senate will resume consideration of the veto message to accompany s.j. res. 8 which the clerk will report. the clerk: veto message to accompany s.j. res. 8 a joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, united states code, and so forth. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: mr. president, i move to proceed to the conference report to accompany s. con res. 11, the budget resolution and ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. the question is on the motion to proceed. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? if not the ayes are 53, the nays are 44. the motion to proceed is agreed to. pursuant to section 305-c of the congressional budget act there will now be up to 10 hours of debate equally divided. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: mr. president today we have the historic opportunity to put our country on not just another course but a better course. this is because congress is poised to approve its first balanced 10-year budget since 2001. this balanced budget represents

a lean-inspect -- a lean-in moment for congress under new management. overspending plagues americans and its taxpayers. underscoring this context is critical because our nation currently faces one of the largest forecasted deficits since the end of world war ii. the joint house-senate budget agreement which produces billion-dollar surpluses in its final years would be an accomplishment unequaled since 1947. the new leadership in the united states senate is committed to getting back to work which will allow us to begin rebuilding the trust of working americans. instead of allowing political points and partisan gridlock to take precedence over responsible governing, we are once again doing the people's business. make no mistake america faces overwhelming odds as we work to steer our ship of state to more sustainable and fiscally responsible waters.

even as we take in record revenues and taxes our nation is still unable to live within its means. but as some of america's greatest leaders have previously noted these challenges are not undertaken because they're easy but because they're hard. americans who work every day to pay their taxes and provide for their families understand that it's time for the federal government to live within its means, just like they do. just imagine if these families spent and borrowed like the federal government, it would mean that a family with a median income of $52,000 would spend $61,000 a year. the family would add an additional $9,000 to the $311,000 they already would owe on their credit cards. american families know they can't live on borrowed money and neither can the federal government. this balanced budget shows these families that if they can do it,

so can we. letting the numbers speak as with any budget, it's important to let the numbers speak on how this proposal helps make america stronger and more secure. this joint senate-house congressional budget balances it is budget -- balances the budget within 10 years without raising taxes. it achieves more than $5 trillion in savings. it produces a $32 billion surplus in 2024 and a $24 billion surplus in 2025 and stays in balance. it boosts the nation's economy by more than $400 billion that additional economic growth over the next 10 years according to the congressional budget office. it's expected to grow 1.2 million additional jobs over the next 10 years again based on the congressional budget office data. this balanced budget achieves real results and allows the federal government to support

americans when it must and get out of the way when it should. let me tell you about some of the highlights of this budget agreement. the balanced budget ensures a strong national defense. it invests in our military personnel and the readiness of our armed forces in the current global threat environment. it ensures defense spending reflects the commitment of congress to keep america safe and ensure our military personnel are prepared to tackle all challenges, both at home and abroad. the balanced budget provides for repeal and replacement of obamacare. it provides for the repeal of obamacare including all of its taxes, regulations and mandates and paves the way for real health care to strengthen the doctor-patient relationships to expand choices to lower health care costs and improve access to quality, affordable, innovative health care. in other words it delivers on what the president promised but

never delivered. it focuses reconciliation instructions on the key congressional committees with jurisdiction over obamacare: the senate finance committee, the senate health, education labor and pensions committee, the house energy and commerce committee, the house education and work force committee and the house ways and means committee. mr. enzi: the balanced budget preserves medicare. it preserves medicare and protects seniors' access to health care by extending the life of medical hospital insurance trust fund. it repeals the independent payment advisory board the ipad the unelected unaccountable board of 15 bureaucrats created by the president's health care law that will make decisions on benefit cuts. it accounts for the recent enactment of legislation that addressed the medicare's program sustainable growth rate, s.g.r., or more commonly called the doc fix. the balanced budget supports

stronger economic growth. it boosts u.s. economic growth and private-sector job creation by balancing the budget, reducing the debt and putting a halt to government overspending to reduce the cost of work and investment. as well as the costs of starting and growing a business. it expands the nation's economy by more than $400 billion over the next 10 years according to the congressional budget office under the old way of doing the accounting. it provides an estimated 1.2 million jobs for the u.s. economy by 2025 based on data provided by the congressional budget office in its traditional ways of evaluating. it boosts the nation's gross national product by 1.4% per person after accounting for inflation by 2025, according to the congressional budget office. note, this boost in economic growth will all come from the private sector.

government spending does not contribute to its growth. and as my fellow budget committee members and businessman, senator purdue notes, expanding government does not help grow the economy. the balanced budget improves accountability and effectiveness of government. it's important to note that a balanced budget will help make our government more efficient effective and accountable. if government programs are not delivers results, they should be improved. and if they're not needed, they ought to be eliminated. this agreement between the senate and house will help congress prioritize and demand results from our government programs. there is no doubt that this will be challenging for every single member of congress but i believe we're up to the task because the american people are counting on us. this budget agreement improves transparency efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of the federal government by cutting waste eliminating

redundancies and enacting regulatory reform and there's plenty of that out there that we have not looked at yet. it calls for modernizing medicaid by increasing state flexibility and protecting those most in need of assistance. it improves honest and responsible accounting practices as part of the federal budget process by ensuring that fair value accounting estimates are used which provide a more honest accounting method. this is in addition to the honest dynamic scoring method that more accurately tells us what legislation will cost hardworking taxpayers. it improves the administration and coordination of benefits and it increases employment opportunities for disabled workers. this budget also calls on congress to pass a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. that point's especially important because we must show taxpayers that congress is committed to a balanced budget, to not overspending, to make our

government more effective. but we are running out of time. currently lawmakers in 27 states have passed applications for a convention to approve a balanced budget amendment and new applications in nine other states are close behind. 34 would cause us to have a constitutional convention to balance the budget. if just seven of those nine states approve moving forward on the balanced budget issue it would bring the total number of applications to 34 states and that would mean the two-thirds requirement under article 5 of the constitution would force congress to take action. now, the other side often says they cut the federal deficit in half during the president's term in office but using the word "deficit" i think is meant to be confusing. people think that he reduced the debt by one-half. actually the president has increased the nation's debt

dramatically. what we are talking about when we say "deficit" is the amount of overspending the amount that we spend compared to what we bring in. yes, that's deficit but it's overspending, and if we call it "overspending" it won't be confused with bringing down the national debt, which isn't even touched. and which under the president's budget only gets worse. in the president's most recent budget released earlier this year the president proposed a plan that never balances and includes huge spending increases it also includes a $2.1 trillion tax increase. that's $2,100 billion of tax increases. while it adds $8.5 trillion $8,500 billion to the national debt. the senate recently voted on his budget and they rejected it 99-1. there's no question that

balancing a budget is a daunting task. last year our nation overspent by $468 billion, which if left unchecked, is set to rise to a thousand billion dollars. we're in control of $1,100 billion in discretionary spending and this year we will spend $468 billion more than we take in. i want to repeat that. we're only in control of $1,100 billion in discretionary spending, and this year we'll spend $468 billion more than we take in. this is an unsustainable financial path, and if congress did what every american family has to do -- live within our means -- we'd have to cut our annual discretionary spending in half. that would be a 50% cut. this is because we spend 1 1/2 times what we take in on the items that we can make decisions on. no family or state government can do that for very long r. but

the federal government does -- for very long. but the federal government does it every year. our budget's not perfect but it is a start. it provides congress and the nation with a fiscal blueprint that challenges lawmakers to examine dollar we spend. this is crucial because we currently spend over $230 billion in interest on our debt every year and that's at an interest rate of 1.7%. the congressional budget office tells us that everyone percentage point that our interest rates rise will increase america's overspending by $1,745 billion over the next 10 years. we have a looming debt of $18 $18 trillion, on its way to $27 trillion. if our interest rates were to rise to 5%, which is an historical norm we will have to spend almost $700 billion

annually out of the $1,100 billion we get to make decisions on to pay the interest on our debt. this would be cat catastrophic for our -- this would be catastrophic for our nation's economy. it's vital we address this situation now while we still have some choices. to provide a clear picture of our dire our nation's fiscal outlook is, if we were forced to balance the budget in quun year year -- in one year, we'd have to eliminate most of our defense spending, most of our highway spending and most of our education spending. this drastic 50% cut would be needed because of consistent overspending and our interest payments which are set to explode. what are the two best ways to make a difference? first, congress should look at the more than 260 programs whose authorization -- the right to spend money -- has expired. some of these government programs expired in19 -- in 1983

but we're still spending money on them every year. that means we're paying for these expired programs for more than 30 years. in some cases we spend as much as four times the spending authority that has expired. we've got to look at those programs. for the 260 programs that have expired, we are spending $293 billion a year. normally we talk about over a 10-year period. over a 10-year period, that would be $2,935 billion. eliminating those programs would almost balance the budget. now, they can't be eliminated but they should be looked at regularly. that's why we have authorizations that expire. that's so that we're forced to take a look at them. no that's so we should be forced to take a look at them. obviously we don't. we don't do that because we want the committees of jurisdiction to have a hard look at the expired authorizations and make them current.

or if there are duplications, eliminate the programs that are not needed after all. or with duplication we ought to be able to at least get rid of half of the administrative bureaucracy on it and make sure that the money gets out into the country where we promised it. now, there's a second way and the other way that we could balance the budget is to grow the economy. the congressional budget office tells us that if we were to increase the gross domestic product, the private-sector growth -- again that's not government that's just private-sector growth -- if we were to increase the private-sector growth by 1%, that would provide an additional $300 billion in additional tax revenue every year. that could balance the budget. but first we must get our overspending under control because congress is already spending more tax revenue than at any point in history. and when you take the tax revenue from the individuals and from the businesses you slow

down this growth that would provide the additional $300 billion in tax revenue every year. if we grow the economy we will expand opportunity for each and every american. now, i know in their speeches, that our friends from across the aisle will criticize us for not being done by april 15. but think of it this way. we did something in four months that they could only accomplish once in four years. that's to produce a budget. let alone a budget that actually balances. while we were in charge they often -- while they were in charge, they often didn't produce a budget by april 15 or october 1 or even january 1. in fact, they produced only one budget conference agreement in the last six years. so don't criticize us for what we're doing. so while we may have taken a few extra days we did get it done and this budget is poised to

play a vital role in helping congress get back to the work doing the people's business. and when you get it done on time, the spending committees can begin on time, and hopefully that will give the spending committees time to look at this -- this -- this duplication and the unauthorized stuff that we have. now, some point out that the president was able to get his budget out on time. well, that's true. but the last time i checked he didn't have to run it by 535 elected officials like we do. he just had to run it past one elected official -- himself. and i should mention that it's the first time in six years that he's gotten to us on time. now, we even had to have a roll call vote today to proceed to this privileged conference report. i don't understand that the senate budget committee -- i don't understand that. the senate budget committee is tasked with the responsibility of setting spending goals. congress has other committees that authorize government programs and are charged with overseeing their efficiency and effectiveness. we also have committees that allocate the exact dollars for these programs every year.

but the senate budget committee sets the spending goals. in other words we set limits and we set some enforcement. this is why passing a budget is so important for our nation. it lets the congressional policy-makers who actually allocate the dollars get to work by following our spending limits. this year we're giving them an early start and leader mcconnell is committed to allowing the senate to do its job and that means debate and votes on the 12 appropriations bills the 12 spending bills. this is an important occurrence in the senate because over the past eight years appropriation bills have been as rare as ice cubes in the desert. i'd like to thank my colleagues in both the senate and the house for all their hard work in producing a joint budget agreement that balances within 10 years, does not raise taxes strengthens our nation's defense protects our most vulnerable citizens, improves economic growth and opportunity for hardworking families, and

stops the federal government's out-of-control spending. these important steps -- and still others to come -- show congress is back working for the american people to deliver on the promise of a government that's more accountable. this suspect something each and every american expects and deserves from its leaders here in washington. and with action on our balanced budget we will deliver. thank you and i yield the floor. mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the motion to proceed having been agreed to, the chair lays before the senate the conference report to accompany s. con. res. 11. the clerk: the committee on conference on the disagreeing votes of the two houses on the amendment of the house to the concurrent resolution s. con. res. 11, setting forth the congressional budget for the united states government for fiscal year 2016 and so forth having met have agreed that the senate recede from its

disagreement to the amendment of the house and agree to the same with an amendment and the house agree to the same. signed by a majority of the conferees on the part of both houses. mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: thank you mr. president. let me thank senator enzi for his civility and his humor and i have enjoyed the process upon which we have gotten to where we are today. but i must say that anyone who takes an objective look at this republican budget can do nothing else but conclude that this is an absolute disaster for the working families of this country and in fact, one of the problems that i have had in describing the republican budget is that it is so bad is that it is so far out of touch from where the american people are

that people don't even really believe you when you talk about what is in this budget. and that's what i'm going to do in a moment. but before i do that, i think we can all agree that what a budget is about is a development of priorities to address problems. you look at what's going on in our country you assess the needs of the american people and you build a budget around those needs. so let me begin by assessing what i believe the needs of the american people are. the fundamental economic reality of today is that for the last 40 years -- not the last six years not the last 20 years the last 40 years -- the middle class of this country has been disappearing. today we have more people living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of america. and yet while that is going on, the gap between the very, very,

very rich and everybody else is growing wider and wider. today, in fact, in america we have more income and wealth inequality than any other major country on earth. you know, i know many people think that in the united kingdom, they have a queen and they have dukes and they have lords, they have all this aristocracy. clearly their distribution of wealth and income must be a lot worse than it is in the united states. that's not the case. today, compared to every other major country on earth our distribution of wealth and income is worse and it is worse in this country today than at any time since the late 1920's. mr. president, hard to believe but true. today, 99% of all new income goes to the top 1%.

since the wall street crash of 2008 99% of all new income goes to the top 1%. what that means is all over this country you've got people working not one job two jobs, three jobs, people working longer hours for lower wages and yet 99% of all of the new income generated is going to the top 1%. and in the midst of that reality, what our republican colleagues say "well hey only 99% of all new income goes to the top 1%. what can we do to make the richest people even richer?" mr. president, median family income in this country since 1999 has gone down by almost $5,000. families are struggling to put bread on the table to send

their kids to college to take care of their basic needs. but the republican budget says while the middle class is shrinking, people are struggling, what can we do to make life even harder for the working families of our country? mr. president, when we talk about unemployment in america the official unemployment rate is 5.5%. the true unemployment real unemployment however is 10.9% if you include those people who have given up looking for work and people who are working part time when they want to work full time. youth unemployment, which we never talk about is over 17%. and african-american youth unemployment is literally off of the charts. does the republican budget say how do we put the american people back to work? how do we help our young people who are desperately looking for jobs or looking for education?

quite the contrary. the republican budget cuts virtually every program out there that is designed to help working families and unemployed workers. mr. president, the typical male worker that male worker in the middle of the american economy incredibly made $783 last year than he did -- $783 less last year than he did 43 years ago. in other words the middle class country is moving. unfortunately it is moving in the wrong direction. does the republican budget say okay, we're going to raise the minimum wage so that everybody thank -- country who works 40 hours -- so that everybody in this country who works 40 hours a week can live in dignity? no it does not. in fact, it moves us in exactly the wrong direction. now, mr. president while unemployment is much too high while median family income has gone down when millions of people are working longer hours for lower wages, there is

another phenomenon taking place in this country and that is that the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. not good not pretty good -- phenomenally well. mr. president, today we live in a society where the top 1% owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. here's the chart. the top 1% owns almost as much wealth -- here's the top 1% going up. here's the bottom 90% going down. that is the reality. does the republican budget say "wow look at that extraordinary disparity in wealth and we're going to do something about it?" yeah they do do something about it. their proposals will make the rich even richer and working people even poorer.

mr. president, not only we have a situation today where as incredible as it may sound the wealthiest 14 people in this country -- the wealthiest 14 -- not 1,400 not 14,000 -- the wealthiest 14 people in this country in the last two years have seen their wealth increase by $157 billion. 14 people have seen their wealth increase by $157 billion. that is more wealth, that $157 billion than the bottom 130 million americans. and here's just a chart talking about bill gates are $12 billion. warren buffett $19 billion. larry he will son $11 billion.this is just the increase in their wealth in a two-year period. and do you know what the republican budget says to these guys? hey, $157 billion increase in your wealth in two years?

not enough. we're going to give your families a very significant tax break by ending the estate tax. mr. president, we have the situation where one family in this country the walton family which owns wal-mart, that one family owns more wealth than the bottom 42% of the american people. mr. president, given the huge disparity of wealth and income, given the fact that millions of americans today are struggling to put food on the table given the fact that working families don't know how they can afford quality child care for their kids middle-class families don't know how they are able to send their kids to college the republican budget in virtually

every instance moves us in exactly the wrong direction. mr. president, the united states of america sadly is the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right something that i believe should occur. i think health care is a right not a privilege. today we have made some gains under the affordable care act. we have more people who have health insurance than was the case a number of years ago and that's a good thing. this is what the republican budget does. mr. president, the republican budget by ending the affordable care act by cutting medicaid by over $400 billion throws 27 million americans off of health insurance. 27 million americans -- men women, kids -- off of health insurance. what happens to those people? how many of those 27 million people will die?

certainly thousands, because when they get sick they're not going to be able to go to a doctor. how many of those people will suffer because they had illnesses that could have been treated or cured but they can't go to a doctor? 27 million people off of health insurance. and you ask the republicans what happens to those people? they have no response at all. none. zero. so instead of moving us in the direction of having health care for all of our people they increase the number of uninsured by 27 million americans. mr. president, at a time when senior poverty is increasing the republican budget calls for ending medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher program. what does that mean? what the republican idea is that we give people a voucher -- i don't know that they have an exact amount for that voucher maybe $8,000, whatever -- and they say here's a check for

$8,000. and you're 85 years of age and you're struggling with cancer, here's your check for $8,000 and you go out to a private insurance company and you get the best deal you can. well you tell me, mr. president if you're 85 years of age and you're struggling with cancer or heart disease and somebody gives you a check for $8,000, you tell me what kind of private insurance you're going to be able to get? how many days will it last you in the hospital? this is an effort to undermine and destroy medicare. it is a disastrous idea. that is exactly what is in the republican proposal. mr. president, at a time when millions of disabled people are trying to survive on less than $14,000 a year the republican budget would pave the way for a massive cut to social security disability insurance. mr. president, instead of making college more affordable -- and i know that in the state of vermont, my state and i expect

in states all over this country young people are really wondering whether or not they want to go to college because they're so nervous about the debt that they will have when they come out. what is the republican response to the crisis of the lack of affordability of college? here's their response. they would cut pell grants by more than $85 billion over the next decade, which would make the cost of college education more expensive for some 8 million americans. in other words instead of addressing this crisis instead of helping make us competitive in a global economy by giving us the best educated work force what they do is move us in the wrong direction. mr. president, we are as a nation the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. now, most people don't know it because almost all of that wealth goes to a handful of people on top. but in the midst of this

extremely wealthy nation disgracefully today we have millions and millions of families who literally are worrying about how they're going to put food on the table and feed their kids tomorrow and next week. i can tell you that in the state of vermont -- and i expect in states around this country -- we have people who are working 40, 50 hours a week but because their wages are so low they don't earn enough money to buy the food they need to properly take care of their kids, feed their kids well. and those families literally go to emergency food shelters all over america. these are working people who never in their lives thought that they would have to go to an emergency food shelter. that's what they're doing all over america. and what is the republican response -- what is the republican response to hunger in america? to taking care of "the" most

basic need that we have? the republican response is massive cuts -- massive cuts -- to food stamps, to the w.i.c. program. the w.i.c. program is a program designed to make sure that low-income pregnant women have good nutrition and that their babies have good nutrition. how basic can it cut? cut that program. cut the meals on wheels programs for fragile seniors. mr. president, in the midst of throwing 27 million americans off of health insurance, in the midst of cutting $85 billion for pell grants to make it harder for our kids to go to college in the midst of making massive cuts in nutrition programs which will increase hunger and suffering in the united states of america republicans do something else that is literally remarkable -- and i know people think i'm not telling the truth;

i am. what they say is that when the rich are getting richer, when almost all new income and wealth is going to the people on top what they have decided to do for the wealthiest 6,000 families in america, the top.2% -- the top .2% of 1%, what they say to these billion air families, they say we're going to give you a massive tax break by repealing the estate tax. what we're going to do is give you a $269 billion tax breaks that goes to the top .2% of -- .2 of 1%. 99% of the top 100% of the people will not gain one nickel from the repeal of the estate tax. only goes to the wealthiest of the wealthy. but to add insult to injury while giving a huge tax break for the billionaire class what

the republican budget also says is, let's see if we can raise taxes op lower income and working-class families by allowing the expanded earned-income tax credit and child tax credit to expire. these are tax credits that go to working families and lower income families who have kids. and we added something. we made that a more generous benefit a few years ago. they're going to allow that to expire at the same time as they give a massive tax break to the wealthiest families in this country. mr. president, one of the reasons that this country -- my friend from wyoming mr. enzi, talks repeatedly about the deficit and i agree. the deficit is a problem. but he will acknowledge in the last six years under president obama, we have made significant progress in reducing the deficit, i think something by about two-thirds.

but it still remains very high, no question about it. we have an $18 trillion debt. real issue. no denying it. one of the reasons that we have a huge debt -- not the only reason but one of the reasons -- is that the united states under president bush went into war in iraq went into war in afghanistan. now, nobody knows what the end cost of that war will be by the time we take care of the last veteran 50 or 60 years from now but the best guesses are that those wars will cost us $4 trillion to $6 trillion by the time we take care of the needs of the last veteran who served in those wars. mr. president, how did we pay for those wards? how -- those wars? how did we pay for those wars? every other country that we fought presidents had the courage to say wars are expensive, we're going to raise taxes. not in this case. those wars were put on the credit card, $4 trillion to

$6 trillion and we didn't pay for it. but apparently my republican colleagues haven't learned a simple lesson -- that you can't be honest and worry about the deficit and then go to war and not pay for it. what they have done in this budget is to increase pentagon spending by another $38 billion next year and $186 billion over the next 10 years. and how is that paid for? oh it's not paid for. it goes on to the credit card. they put it all into the so-called o.c.o. account -- and this is, by the way an account that many of my conservative friends have called an accounting gimmick. so here we are. here we are mr. president at a time when this country probably faces more serious problems than at any time since the great depression. middle class is disappearing poverty much too high the gap

between the very, very, very rich and everybody else growing wider and wider real unemployment much too high young people unable to afford to go to college. and on every one of those issues the republican budget disrp exactly -- the republican budget does exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. in the year 2015, we should not be voting or bringing forth a budget which makes the billionaires even richer while cutting programs for people who are struggling. with an $18 trillion debt, we should not be increasing military spending by simply adding that money on to the deficit. so, mr. president, i would hope that people in this body, in the united states senate take a deep breath appreciate, in fact what is going on to working families in this country

and will vote "no" on this disastrous budget. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: mr. president, thank you very much. irptd i want to thank senator sanders for laying out the budget in a way that makes sense. it's a document that's supposed to reflect our values, who we are. it's supposed to be a road map for our future. and what he just said is, it's a road map to disaster. and i intend to pick up on that theme. and i want to say i know how hard it is to get a budget out. i was on the house budget committee for years, the senate, so i want to compliment senator enzi. i know it's hard to put together a coalition even in your own party. but, you know, he's right. he said, the senate's under new management and he's very excited about it and i understand that. i get it. i've been in both the majority

and the minority and i like the majority a lot better. but the bottom line is if this is the first big action of the management let's bring back the old one because in this budget, the people who benefit are the very tippy-top maybe .2%. it is unreal. it is unreal. i'm not going to stand here and just throw out barbs i'm going to give definite numbers so everybody sees what we mean. the only time we've had a balanced budget in recent history is when bill clinton was president, and democrats controlled here. and i remember it well because we didn't get one republican vote for that budget that was so critical. i remember my colleague, bob kerrey was thinking about it so hard he went to the movies and

during the movie it came to him this was the right budget, he came back and voted and it dot begun. now, that was a democratic budget that invested in the people of the united states of america. invested in their infrastructure invested in their education, invested in their health care, invested in them. invested in them. remember president clinton said put america's families first. and it worked. because we invested in our people we headed into a period of unprecedented growth, 23 million jobs created under bill clinton and the budget balanced. as soon as george w. bush took over he did enormous tax cuts to the wealthiest at the top got us into two wars, put them on a credit card, and we have been battling our way back after the worst economic downturn, if

you look at the job creation under w., it's just shocking. and now under president obama we have fought tooth and nail, we're coming back. this budget is an unmitigated disaster. let's start. at a time when 16 million people have finally been able to get health insurance thanks to the affordable care act also known as obamacare, they want to repeal this law. and throw these people out. and they will not are have health care and then what will happen? they will suffer, their families will suffer and the economy will suffer. at a time when nearly 70 million americans rely on medicaid and chip for health coverage, medicaid we know is for the working poor, chip is for children -- they want to block grant that program and while they're doing it, impose cuts of more than $1.3 trillion.

so you have to ask this question -- this isn't just a matter of putting a number on an easel. what will it mean for maternity care when half of all our births in the u.s. are financed by medicaid? half of all births in the u.s. are financed by medicaid, and they're cutting medicaid by $1.3 trillion. they'll fight for your right to be born but boy don't count on you getting any help if you wind up in a maternity ward. at a time when more than 50 million senior citizens and disabled americans are in the medicare program and baby boomers continue to age in, they propose cutting the program by $430 billion and placing the burden on the backs of seniors and privatizing that program

through vouchers. they're going to end medicare. senior citizens, you're under new management here, and they're ending medicare as we know that. as we know that great program. so after years of being the most successful program, and if you ask people on medicare if they like it, they not only like it they love it, they're ending it. and as senator sanders points out eloquently, i thought they're saying to a sick person you know, people are living longer thank god. and so let's say a person is 85 90 years old. having a hard time functioning then getting a desperate cancer on top of it. here's money. go out and find the best insurance you can. oh yeah, we know you're 90 o'here's a web site, oh, i don't have a computer. too bad.

we're under new management over here. oh great. bring back the old management. that's what i think. the old management wasn't perfect but the old management had a heart. had a soul. know why we're here. now, how's this -- in case you're not sold about how devastating this budget is, the republican budget resolution eliminates opportunities for the neediest students from preschool to college by cutting $270 billion from education and job training investments over the next decade. so while the republican leadership is pushing for free trade, free trade whatever, what's happening to training our workers? they're cut. at a time when less than half of eligible preschool aged children are able to participate in head start, half of our eligible

kids they can't get in, the republican budget cuts the program by over $4 billion, resulting in over 400,000 children losing access to head start over the next decade. i mean, tell me i'm dreaming. this is the new management. we're going to take 400,000 children over the next decade and say sorry no room for you. the door is closed. and we all know that head start is critical. we know the cost of college continues to rise. we all know it because we're alive, we have a heartbeat and a pulse and everybody alive today knows what it is. i've met people who are still paying off their student loan debt when they're on social security. that's the new reality. what do they do? they cut pell grant funding by more than a third making college less affordable for many

of the more than eight million students receiving aid. so let's say who is now in their line of fire, okay? middle class seniors little babies students, workers at a time when student loan debt has reached $1.2 trillion and students are graduating with over $28,000 in student loan debt on average the republican budget resolution eliminates the in-school interest subsidy for need-based interest programs causing the cost to increase by $4,000 for an estimated 30 until students. it isn't bad enough nor them to know people are paying off their students when they're on social security, they're increasing the cost even more instead of

working with us to decrease the cost to students. i'll tell you if every taxpayer in america is a shareholder it's time to call a meeting and change this management. now, if you're a renter, one in our renters is paying more than half their income on housing. placing them one paycheck away from homelessness. half your income. the republican budget resolution eliminates housing assistance for 450,000 families due to a 14% cut to the section 8 rental assistance program. beautiful. and at a time when 45 million people are living in poverty the republican budget cuts $800 billion from income security programs over ten years. this category includes snap

supplemental social security income from low-income seniors and people with disabilities and heating assistance for low-income families. lovely. lovely. welcome to the new management of the united states senate. now, here's the thing. this is even hard to imagine they did it. it upset them so much that the wealthiest 14 families might get hit with a little bit of a tax and i'm talking about people that are worth over $10 million, way more 20, 30 40, 50, you name it, the highest level. they give them a $3 million tax cut. and they actually raise taxes by

an average of $900 billion on 16 million low- and moderate income families by allowing expansion to the eitc and child at the time to expire so there's no expansion of that program. now, who else can we hit? maybe we can hit some of our states that are suffering from the realities of climate change like the western states that are undergoing the longest recorded drought in history. come to talk to my farmers ask them how happy they are that you are proposing dramatic cuts and have imposed them in this budget to the e.p.a., to the department of interior, to noaa the agencies best equipped to steward our precious natural resources develop a clean energy future, enforce our water laws and protect our health. but wait a minute there's a few people who are left away from

this budget knife. well if you drive a car or you drive a truck or you get on a bus, you get hit too. listen to this one. at a time when 63,500 of our bridges structurally deficient and 50% of our roads are in less than good condition, this budget cuts transportation and infrastructure investment by more than $200 billion over ten years, a cut of 40%. now, i just had a press conference a couple of weeks ago with republican business leaders and democratic workers and they have come together against this new management idea. they're looking to fund the highway trust fund. the whole fund expires this month. i haven't heard one word about

how we're going to have a multiyear funding bill. we have six states today that have stopped spending on infrastructure. now, the last i checked we're still the greatest nation in the world. tell me, how do you remain a great power if your bridges are structurally deficient, 63,500 of them, how do you remain a world power when you cannot move goods efficiently or people efficiently? i will say in all my years here i've had the best relationship on infrastructure spending with my colleague senator inhofe of oklahoma. this budget predicts a 40% decrease in infrastructure spending. so pretty much everyone, everyone who is impacted by this new management, which is all of us is getting hit hard by this budget. a budget is a reflection of who

you fight for what you believe in what your values are. and this budget will bring pain to middle-class affection to our working poor, to our children to our seniors to our students to our drought-plagued or flood-plagued areas, to the people who use their automobiles to go to work. in essence, this budget hurts the very people we should be fighting for and instead of checking with those who actually balance the budget -- balanced the budget when mr. clinton was president, they go off on an office tear which is to take away investments which is what led to the prosperity which is what led to the balanced budget which is is what led to 23 million jobs and put in place austerity. now, i gave you just a little look at some of these cuts, but guess what, america -- there is a secret here in the budget.

there's another $900 billion of cuts over the next ten years in a secret little package unspecified cuts, almost a trillion dollars worth because they don't even know where to go to cut. so if you didn't like the cuts i talk about wait till they get to the unspecified cuts. and who do you think is going to get those cuts? not the wealthy few families. it's going to be more pain for the middle class more pain for the working poor, more pain for the workers and the businesses and the transportation sector. we're not going to see cures for alzheimer's or cancer because believe me, that's not going to happen. no initiatives there.

this budget does not belong on the senate floor. this budget is too painful to be enacted. this budget ought to be redone with an eye toward balance that we achieved those years ago by making smart investments in our people, by cutting back on wasteful spending, by not bringing political vendettas to the table when already so many millions of our people have health insurance, you're going to particular take it away. you fought so hard for the chance to govern. you did. believe me. just as we're going to fight to get it back. that's what politics is. but now it's time to work together. this is a radical radical budget. this doesn't reflect any coming

together. and till he will i will tell you as soon as we wake up america that this budget hurts them, maybe we're going to have a chance to fix it. i really hope so, because our middle class can't take anymore pain. our drivers can't take anymore pain. our students can't take anymore pain. our studentsseniors can't take anymore pain. so i hope we'll have a big "no" vote against this budget. i also hope, after we have our vote that we could come together and fix some of these major problems, starting with the highway trust fund where already six of our states have stopped spending. and i can tell you this: there's already 800,000 unemployed construction workers and thousands of businesses that are suffering because we don't have a long-term solution to the highway trust fund. why don't we take care of that?

no we're going to take up some fast-track speedy trade bill that includes countries who pay their people 52 cents an hour. that's what we're going to do, we're going to rush to that. why don't we fix the problems here? why don't we fix the student loan rate so people aren't paying off student loans while they're on social security? why don't we make sure that people can afford to get educated? why don't we improve the health care system and not throw people off the ropes? let's do it the right way. let's not do it "my way or the highway" because it only is going to wind up hurting the american people. thank you very much. i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the

clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. cornyn: mr. president i'd ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i am glad i had a chance to come to the floor and listen to the distinguished ranking member and the distinguished senior senator on the budget committee and the senior senator from california talk about this budget, but i feel like it's two ships passing in the night. you know, when i see this remarkable accomplishment under the leadership of chairman enzi on the budget committee and the entire budget committee, this is a congressional budget that balances within ten years. it doesn't raise taxes. it re-prioritizes our nation's defense. it protects our most vulnerable citizens. it improves economic growth, which is literally the rising tide that lifts all boats in a growing economy, something our economy has not been doing very

well lately. and it stops the federal government's out-of-control federal spending. so this is really a remarkable accomplishment. as a matter of fact, this is the first joint ten-year balanced budget resolution since 2001. and i think what drives our friends across the aisle crazy is the fact they haven't passed a budget since 2009, and now with the new leadership here in the yaws senate in thetheunited states senate the 114th congress, we have done the basic work of governing, which is we have proposed and this afternoon we will pass a budget. so i know there are differences across the aisle. clearly, there's reasons people choose to be a democratic senator and a republican senator, but to me the differences are pretty stark. our friends across the aisle

don't think the government should have to live within its means, that we should continue to borrow money that we don't have by overspending and hand the bill to our kids and grandkids. i personally think that's a moral hazard. that's really unconscionable, to keep spending money and then to send the bill to our kids and grandkids and say "you pay it. we had a good time. good luck." our friends across the aisle think the federal government is not big enough because they want to continue to feed the beast with more of your hard-earned tax dollars so it can get bigger so it can intrude further into your individual freedoms and choices that should be left to you and your family. and then it sounds to me like the ranking member of the budget

committee, the senator from vermont, thinks that the government ought to take more of the money you earned and to give it to somebody else who didn't earn it. and then i can only conclude that our friends across the aisle think that an $18 trillion debt is not a problem and it is. when interest rates start creeping back up, as they eventually will, more and more of our tax dollars are going to be spent sending interest payments to the chinese and other holders of our sovereign debt to service that debt, and i.t. going toit's going to crowd out not only national security spending, it is going to crowd out the safety net spending. so there are real differences. but this budget, i'm proud to say, which we will pass this afternoon, thanks to the heroic

work of our budget committee is i think a real accomplishment. i guess what would be the real embarrassment is if we didn't pass a budget. but we will pass a budget. people listening at home may say, well, why are you so -- patting yourselves on the back for passing a budget? we have a budget in our business. we have a budget at home. so why is it such a big deal for the new congress to actually pass a budget? well i guess it shouldn't be a big deal. it should be something we do routinely because it is really the most basic demonstration of the ability to govern. but i guess what makes it remarkable is the fact that it hasn't happened in a long time. and so for that, i'm glad we actually have seen under the new leadership in had the is in the 114th

congress some progress. that is something that i think the american people appreciate and that all members of the senate i think have come to enjoy. the mood has changed. the ability of senators to participate in the process and actually come up with solutions has gotten so much better in just the first 100 days of the 114th congress that i think we're slowly starting to develop some momentum. we passed a bill that lets medicare beneficiaries see the doctors that they need. that's a good thing. we've also passed an important piece of legislation that provides aid to victims of human trafficking. and through the end of this week we'll continue to work our way through another important piece of legislation the iran nuclear agreement review act, which was unanimously voted out of out of

committee a few weeks ago. this is really important be, not only to the region in the middle east, but also to us and the world. this bill would guarantee that congress has an opportunity to review and potentially block any final deal with iran that president obama reaches during the so-called p-5 plus 1 negotiations. after we conclude that important consideration of that legislation, we're then going to move on to consider something else that i think will help grow the economy and help actually end up bringing more revenue into the federal treasury, help us with some of our deficits and debt and that is to pass trade promotion authority and then to take up the trans-pacific partnership trade agreement. now, my state happens to export more than any other state in the nation and our economy shows it because it creates -- just our binational trade with mexico creates about 6 million jobs, and it is a good thing to have

more markets to sell the things that our farmers grow or to sell the livestock that our ranchers raise or the manufactured goods that americans make. it's a good thing. so this bill would make sure the united states gets the best deal in pending trade agreements with countries from arab asia to south america to europe. and it would help make sure that texas products and more generally american products and industries find new markets which will in turn raise wages for hardworking families, something that we all support. but with all these other signs of progress, i think that writing and passing a budget is one of the most fundamental responsibilities we have. and while that should be pretty obvious, families across the country sit around the table each month and they do the same thing, but it is a fact that has been lost on om of many of our democratic colleagues when they

controlled the chamber. i was reminded once again when i listened to the senator from california. you know what a cut in washington d.c., is? that's not a cut in the amount of +spepbdzing spending on the current program. it is a reduction in the current increase. it begins to cut the rate of increase on spending that helps us control the deficits and hopefully take the first important step toward dealing with our long-term debt. well when we vote on this budget today it'll be the first time that both chambers have actually voted for an agreed-upon spending bill since 2009. as i said earlier the first balanced ten-year budget since 2001. that's despite four consecutive years of trillion-dollar deficits under president obama trillion-dollar deficits. those deficits, as the chairman has appropriately pointed out

add up to debt, the deficit being the dips difference between what the government brings it and what it spends. we've got a downgrade in america's credit rating by standard & poor's. so you know, it would be one thing if the president and our friends across the aisle had a good record when it comes to their budgets and their proposals, but they don't. just look at what the president has proposed. president obama has missed statutory deadlines so often that it became more notable when he actually did fulfill that responsibilitien this-- didfulfill that responsibility than when he did not. when the president's budget was voted on in 2011 it was unanimously rejected by

democrats and republicans. it didn't receive a single vote. the same was true in 2012. do you think if the president had proposed a responsible budget don't you think members of his own party would have at least voted pour for it? but in 2011 and 2012 no democratic voted for the president's budget. last year in the house of representatives, all but two members voted against the president's budget when given the chance. it went down by a resounding 413-2. that's the president's budget proposal. whatwell we saw history repeat itself in march as well. one by one nearly every member of this body came to the floor and gave a thumbs down to president obama's budget proposal. it went down 98-1. so whether it is offering a

completely irresponsible budget that's rejected by both parties or the failure to offer any budget at all our friends across the aisle are living in a glass house. and when they -- when you live in a glass house you really shouldn't throw stones. but the most important point mr. president, is the american people deserve better. we had an important election in november and it changed the majority of the united states senate. it established new management and in that last election cycle we made promises that we intend to keep, and we were elected on our promise to be different and to govern responsibly. that promise includes passing a budget that protects taxpayers and sets the nation on a path toward sound fiscal footing. well fortunately for the

american people, we are keeping our campaign pledges and this budget does reflect their confidence in the new leadership of the united states congress. this budget leaves our country with a surplus after ten years. it puts us on a path to begin to pay down our national debt. and and it does not raise taxes. by balancing the budget without tax hikes like we do in texas with our budget, we can protect taxpayers and foster an economic environment that allows jobs and opportunity to blossom. but protecting our taxpayers is not our only priority. i believe our number-one priority in the federal government is national security. and i believe congress needs to make sure that that's unmistakably clear and we do so in this budget.

the budget does also provide the military with the necessary flexibility to react to changing threats and to make additional investments as necessary in a way that does not add to overspending. not only does this send a message to our troops that they will have the support they need in order to do the job they volunteered to do but also to our families, our military families who serve as well in our all-value tier military system. -- all volunteer military system. this national security sends a message to our nation's adversaries. we know that weakness is a provocation to the bullies and the tyrants around the world. and when people like vladimir putin say the united states retreating and pulling back and not prioritizing our national security and not maintaining our

role in the world as the preeminent power, it's a provocation, it's an encouragement. we see that happening around the world as we see now a greater security threat environment than perhaps we've seen in many many years. but this budget sends a message to our adversaries around the world that america will not shrink and will not retreat from our leadership role. so mr. president, the budget under consideration was passed just a few days ago in the house of representatives because it serves the american people by providing for our national defense, balancing the budget within ten years and doesn't raise taxes something congress hasn't done for almost 15 years. and this afternoon the united states senate will keep its part of the bargain. we will keep -- follow through on our promise and we'll make clear to the american people that we're committed to getting

our fiscal house in order with this important first step. mr. president, i yield the floor. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president a budget is far more than a series of numbers on a piece of paper. a budget really is a statement of values and priorities, a statement of the kind of nation we are and the kind of nation we want to be. for many of us, these values and priorities are clear. we believe that a budget should help us move towards an economy that is built from the middle out, not from the top down. and a government that works for all of our families, not just the wealthiest few. but, mr. president the republican budget that we are here debating today would move us in the opposite direction. instead of working with us to build on the bipartisan budget deal that we struck last

congress, republicans have introduced a budget that would lock in sequestration it would hollow out defense and not defense investments and use gimmicks and games to paper over the problems. instead of putting jobs and wages and economic security first by prioritizing policies like paid sick leave that shouldn't be partisan issues, the republican budget would cut taxes for the rich and leave working families behind. instead of building on the work we've done to make health care more affordable and accessible, the republican budget would take us back to the bad old days when insurance companies called all the shots and when fewer americans had access to the care that they need. mr. president, i want to take a few minutes today to talk about each of those issues and to urge my republican friends to take a different approach, put politics aside come back to the table and work with us on a

responsible budget that puts the middle class first and will actually work for families and communities that we all represent. mr. president, the first issue i want to talk about is the automatic cuts from sequestration and the failure of this budget to address an issue democrats and republicans agree needs to be solved. i'm proud that coming out of the terrible government shutdown at the end of 2013 we were finally able to break through the gridlock and dysfunction to reach a bipartisan budget deal that prevented another government shutdown, restored investments in education in research and defense jobs, and really laid down a foundation for continued bipartisan work. that deal wasn't the budget that i would have written on my own it wasn't the one republicans would have written on their own, but it did end the lurching from crisis to crisis, it helped workers and our economy and made it clear that

there is bipartisan support for rolling back sequestration in a balanced way. our bipartisan deal was a strong step in the right direction and i was hopeful that we could work together to build on it because we know there's bipartisan support to replace sequestration in a balanced and fair way. not only did we prove that with our bipartisan budget deal, but democrats and republicans across the country have continued to come out against the senseless cuts to defense and nondefense investments. but, mr. president republicans went the opposite way with their budget this year. they were able to cut trillions of dollars on programs that support families and fight poverty, nearly a trillion dollars cut from medicare and medicaid and more than $5 trillion overall but they refused to dedicate a single penny of that rollback, the automatic cuts to education research or defense investments. to put that in perspective, we

were able to roll back sequestration for two years in the bipartisan budget act with $85 billion in savings but the republican budget won't fix the problem even for this coming year with more than 50 times that amount of savings. mr. president, instead of using just a tiny fraction of the enormous cuts this budget has in it to pay for investments that both republicans and democrats agree must be made, this budget uses a gimmick by increasing funding to appear to patch over the funding on the defense side without raising the cap on defense funding and doing nothing at all or nondefense investments like education and research and jobs or infrastructure. mr. president, we know the automatic cuts are terrible policy and we know the president has said he would veto spending bills at sequester levels. i also know there are republicans who have seen the impact of sequestration in their

states the way i've seen it in my home state of washington and i know there are republicans who look at this budget and wonder why it couldn't use some of the trillions of dollars in cuts to reinvest in american innovation or in our defense investments. so i'm hopeful that instead of continuing to kick the can down the road or relying on gimmicks that don't actually solve this problem, republicans will come back to the table and work with us to build on a bipartisan budget deal in a balanced and responsible way allow the appropriations committees to actually do their work and not wait for another crisis before they push the tea party aside and work with us to get this done. because, mr. president, instead of rehashing old ways debates and lurches toward another completely avoidable crisis, we should be working together to put in place policies that boost the economy and help working families. policies like allowing workers to earn paid sick days.

no worker should have to sacrifice a day's pay or their job altogether just to take care of themselves or their sick child. but today in this country 43 million americans do not have access to paid sick days. making sure some workers have this basic worker protection will give more families much-needed economic stability and, by the way it's pro-business. access to paid sick days boosts productivity and reduces turnover two huge benefits for employers, and businesses that want to help their workers stay healthy should have a level playing field so they aren't at a disadvantage when they do the right thing. a strong bipartisan majority of senators affirmed their support for allowing workers to earn paid sick days during the budget amendment process and i was hopeful we could build on that momentum and keep working together to increase the economic security for millions of workers and families. so mr. president, i was very disappointed that the conference

report does not reflect that provision. instead of keeping our bipartisan amendment and providing paid sick days to help workers and families, this conference report instead allows for tax credits for employers that would not guarantee access to paid leave. mr. president, that is a step in the wrong direction but it doesn't have to be the last step this congress takes so i urge our colleagues to work with me to pass the healthy families act, the legislation that would move this debate beyond budget amendments and make paid sick days a reality for millions of americans. because allowing workers to earn paid sick days is one way we can ensure our workplaces are working for our families, all of our families, not just the wealthiest few. mr. president, i also want to talk about one more way this budget would be devastating for families across the country. the affordable care act was a critical step forward in our

effort to build a health care system that puts patients first, and it allows every family to get the affordable high-quality health care that they need. but the work didn't end when this law passed. far from it. families across the country are expecting us to keep working to build on this progress and continue making health care more affordable and more accessible and higher quality and that's what democrats are focused on. but, unfortunately mr. president, this republican budget would do the exact opposite. it would roll back all the progress we've made, take us back to the bad old days when insurance companies called all the shots when being a woman was a preexisting condition when far fewer families could afford to get the health care they need and, in fact, this republican approach could even mean an average tax hike of $3,200 a year on working families who would have to pay more for their care. mr. president, families are tired of republicans playing

games with their health care, so i hope my republican colleagues will listen to the millions of people across the country who have more affordable quality health care and to the vast majority of our constituents who want us to work together to solve problems, not rehash old fights. and finally drop the political games and work with us to move our health care system forward not backward for the communities that we serve. mr. president, republicans control congress, it is their job to write and pass a budget, but our constituents actually sent us here to work together, not simply to argue with each other. people across the country are expecting us to break through the gridlock once again like we were able to do last congress and deliver results for their families and the communities we represent. so i urge my colleagues to oppose this budget that would be devastating for middle-class families seniors investments in our future and the economy and i recipe hope republicans

decide to come back to the table and work with us on policies that grow the economy from the middle out not from the top down and that move us towards a government that works for all families not just the wealthiest few. thank you mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: mr. president, i want to thank senator enzi and members of the budget committee and the 2016 budget conference agreement we are currently considering in the senate. included in the budget conference family are policy provisions i believe begin to move this country in the right fiscal direction including balancing the budget within ten years without the need to raise taxes on the hardworking american taxpayer, something that the administration's budget fails to do. in addition the budget agreement

provides a pathway to repeal the failed policies of obamacare. i'm pleased the resolution does provide some relief from sequestration's devastating cuts to our national defense and the good news is that there is some relief. providing additional resources for defense through the overseas contingency operations account known at oco is a good one but it's temporary and it's a band-aid. and, again i want to thank senator enzi for the great job that he has done. but the fact is, this body and this congress is guilty, is guilty of not repealing sequestration, which is devastating our military and destroying our ability to defend this nation in these most perilous and difficult times. before the senate armed services committee on january 29, former

secretary of state henry kissinger testified -- and i quote -- "as we look around the world we encounter upheaval and conflict. the united states has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of the second world war." and what are we doing? we are slashing defense year after year after year through a thing called sequestration which was never intended to happen. that is a devastating indictment of the congress of the united states and our first priority, which is protecting this nation. general mark welch stated "we're now the smallest air force we've ever been. when we deployed operation desert storm the air force had 198 fighter squadrons fade we have 54. we're headed to 49 in the next couple of years. in 190, there were 5119 active airmen. we currently have 12 fleets of

airplanes that qualify for antique license plated in the state of virginia." in the last three years the army's active component end strength has reduced by 80,000. we have 13 less active component brigade combat teams. we have eliminated three active aviation brigades. we've slashed investments in modernization by 25%. he went ton say "the number-one thing that keeps me up at night is that if we're asked to respond to an unknown contingency i will send soldiers to that contingency not properly trained and ready. we simply are not used to doing that." admiral greemer the chief of naval operations, "due to scwefertion of 2013, our contin jncy response force that's what's on call for the united states is one-third of what it should be and what it needs to be. general joseph dunford nominated

to be chairman of the joint chiefs of staff testified "we're investing in modernization at an historically low level. we know that we must maintain at least 10% to 12% of our resources on modernization to field a ready force for tomorrow to pay for today's bills we are currently investing 7% to 8%." i asked every single one of our service chiefs and our area commanders the same question. if we don't repeal scwefertion will it put the lives of our men and women who are serving in the military in greater danger? the answer, by every single one of these uniformed leaders not the civilian leaders the uniformed leaders said, yes, we will put the lives of the men and women who are serving in the military in greater danger unless we repeal sequestration

on defense. i say to my colleagues, i say to my colleagues in the united states senate, this is not acceptable. this is not acceptable for us to ask the young men and women who are serving in our military in uniform to put -- to have their lives put in greater danger because we copped out we failed to address the issue of increasing an unsustainable deficits. we're making them pay the price. 13% of the budget is aloe caughted to defense. defense is taking 50% of the cuts. the ryan-murray agreement was something that was welcomed. we need nor ryan-mor rhode island we need the men and women who are serving as members of congress to understand that we have no greater responsibility thank the defense of this nation. i can assure my colleagues that

working with my friend, senator reed of rhode island, the ranking member of the senate armed services committee, we will reduce the waste and mismanagement, we will address acquisition, we will reform acquisition and the terrible cost overruns that plague our ability to do business in the defense business. we will be cutting the size of these huge staffs that have grown and grown and grown. we will be making significant reforms in the way that the military does business. but these reforms will not have the impact that's necessary in the short term, and that is that we are putting the lives of american soldiers, sailors marines, and airmen in greater dapping. so i come to the -- in greater danger. so i come to the floor to thank my colleague from wyoming senator enzi for the great job

he has done on the budget. but i will tell my colleagues, that we must work together in a bipartisan fashion to fix the damage that sequestration is doing. i only have one other point here that's very important. some of us have forgotten that in the days after the vietnam war the military was in terrible disaray. ronald reagan came to presidency on the slogan designee peace through strength. " we put the military back into the great condition of being the greatest force in the world. we won the cold war. right now if you look at the map of the world in 2011, and look at a map of the world today, in 2011 when we enacted sequestration, you will find that henry kissinger and george schultz and madeleine albright and brent scowcroft and every person respected on national security in this country will tell you that we are in grave

danger whether it be from isis, from iran, from aggressive behavior by the chinese. no matter what it is, there are severe crises -- no matter where it is in the world, we are in the midst of serious challenges to our national security, and that is the last place the last place we should continue to cut is on our defense and our capability to defend this nation. mr. president, i yield the floor. ms. stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: thank you mr. president. i first want to thank the distinguished senator from arizona for his leadership and echo his words that we need a bipartisan solution on this issue and hopefully we're going to be able to address it, not only supporting our men and women when they are actively in harm's way but supporting them when they come home as veterans, which i know he cares deeply about as well. which is why we need a

bipartisan balanced solution that we had before. so i thank you for your leadership. and, mr. president the reality is that this budget, any budget for the united states is about our values and our priorities. that's what it's all about as a country. and i have to say as a senior member of the budget committee i am deeply concerned about the values portrayed in this budget. i greatly respect the chairman and ranking member and thank them for their service. but when you look at this budget in total this goes opposite fangly to what the majority of the members talk about every day, because this particular budget keeps the system rigged in favor of the wealthy and the well-connected against the interests of hardworking middle-class americans. now, picture this: in this budget, if you are a family with assets of $10

million or more, you hit the jackpot. you get at least a $3 million bonus tax cut in this bill, in terms of the policies laid out in this bill. well how is it paid for? well it's paid for by everybody else 16 million hardworking americans will see a tax increase of at least $900 based on these policies. and we will see critical investments and services cut. nothing done to address jobs going overseas. not one loophole proposed to be closed. they're sending our jobs overseas. we want to create an economy and really balance the budget? let's bring those jobs home. nothing in this budget about that. you have wealth of over $10

million, it's your lucky day. $3 million in your pocket, or more. it's christmas in this budget for very wealthy multimillionaires. but if you're everybody else, you're in trouble. no focus on creating jobs. and god help you if your family has a mom or dad or grandpa or grandma that has alzheimer's disease and is in a nursing home because this budget guts nursing home care for millions of americans a lot of folks who desperately need that care. one out of five medicare dollars today goes to treat alzheimer's. this is an area that i have been deeply involved in and partnering with senator susan collins on, important pork that -- important work that needs to be done.

but if you have someone that has alzheimer's, you are out of luck in this budget. this morning i talked to a group of women who are in town for breast research -- this is the month to focus on breast research. if you care about breast cancer ruche in this budget, you are out of luck. if you want to make sure is that we are investing in cures and treatments -- we are so close and in so many areas now where american innovation and research and the best minds of the world are working on opportunities for us to solve alzheimer's and parkinson's disease and cancers and all kinds of other areas of concern. but the budget is cut for n.i.h. national institutes of health. what kind of priorities does this reflect? and on top of that, for 16.4 million people who now have affordable insurance, it is

gone. now, what's interesting about the budget, it's very creative, because all the revenue all the fees to pay for health care stays to help balance the budget. it's just the health care that goes away. so for those breast cancer patients that i talked to this morning who are now so grateful that if they need to go out and get new insurance they won't be called someone with a preexisting condition that goes away in this budget. if you have a child that's 22, 23 just graduated -- i spoke at graduation ceremonies this last weekend -- and they're on your insurance right now while they're trying to get themselves together and get at that first job, that goes away. so this budget attacks health care which by the way is not a frill. we don't control when and how we get sick or if our children get is being or our parents or

grandparents into he had agrandparents need a nursing home or what may happen in terms of medical issues in our families. but health care is directly attacked. the affordable care act gone. gutting inpatient care in nursing homes for alzheimer's patients and others. research gone. so we're hearing from our republican friends that they're making government work, but i'll tell you what. it's not working for middle-class families. it's working for you if you're mawing over $10 million a -- making over $10 million a year or have over $10 million in assets. but it's not working for you if you're holding together two or three jobs and just trying to make it for your family. now, we believe as democrats that this ought to be a middle-class budget because everybody deserves a fair shot to get ahead and have a chance to have a better future. and so for us, that means this

budget should have a major focus on creating millions of jobs by rebuilding our roads rebuilding our bridges our infrastructure, and, by the way the funding for that the authorization for the highway trust fund runs out the end of may. there's nothing in here to address that. no funding in here to address that. we're going to see all kinds of jobs that are eliminated all across the country if that fund something eliminated. so we believe in rebuilding our roads and bridges and creating millions of jobs. we stand up for social security and medicare. this budget has $430 billion in cuts in medicare, and is it doesn't say where they come from and it is proposing a structure that would actually eliminate medicare as we know it turn it into some kind of a voucher system or some other kind of system that is not guaranteed care under medicare.

we believe in protecting medicare and social security. we believe that everybody ought to have a fair chance to work hard and make it and go to college. this does nothing but increase costs for students going to college, and we believe they ought to go down so that when you leave college, you don't end up with enough debt to go out where you could have bought a house, but then you can't buy a house, as realtors in michigan have told me, because people have so much debt they can't qualify to get a loan for a house or start a new business. we as democrats want to make sure everybody has got a chance to go to college and that it's affordable. and that we're protecting social security and comir and medicare and rebuilding our roads and highways and the opportunity to invest in america. finally, we want to bring jobs home. it is insane that we still have a tax code that read wards rewards

those sometimes only on country that leave this country. they still drive on the roads and breathe the air. they don't have to pay their fair share of tax deduction because they live somewhere else. that's not fair to every taxpayer across this country every business that we have that's really an american business. and there's nothing in this budget that is done to address that. so i conclude by saying that we should resoundingly object and vote no on the priorities and the values set out in this budget. they do not reflect what is good to create a middle class and grow a middle class and create opportunity in this country. if you're one of the privileged few, hallelujah, break out the champagne after this passes but if you're the majority of americans, hold on to your seats, put on your seatbelt

because if this is in fact put into place it's going to be a rough ride for america. and our side is going to do everything humanly possible to make sure that does not happen. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i thank my great colleague from michigan for her outstanding words and leadership. she's a senior member of the budget committee she knows just what's wrong with this budget and she knows how to reach the american people in terms of revealing just that, showing just that. so i thank her. i want to thank my dear friend, senatorrer sanders fellow graduate of james madison high school in brooklyn, for his leadership on the budget committee as well. and look, in a certain sense this republican budget is a gift. to us and to the american people. because it shows their real priorities. and their priorities are so far away from what average americans

want that this budget will resound from one end of the country to the other between now and november of 2016. the budget that the house and senate republicans have put together helps the very wealthy and powerful in our country who frankly, don't need any help. this idea, cut taxes on the very wealthy and that's how it will make america a better place, how many americans actually believe that? we understand that a lot of our colleagues do. they hang out with these people i guess. but that's not what most americans think. that's for sure. the budget should reflect the economic reality right now. middle-class incomes are declining. it's harder to stay in the middle class. it's harder to reach the middle class. and a budget should help those folks who are in the middle class stay there who are trying to get to the middle class, create ladders so they

can get there. and, again, this budget seems to focus all of its attention and all its goodies on the very wealthy. the economy is getting stronger but mainly at the very high end. so we need to cut their taxes? they're hutting? and at the same time we need to raise taxes on 16 million americans who are working and making $20,000 $30,000 $40,000 a year, raise their taxes $900? how many americans would say we should cut taxes on the 4,000 wealthiest people, an average of $3 million, a cost of $260 billion over ten years and raise taxes on people making $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 a year by $900? is it 1% of america who thinks that way? maybe. but it seems our colleagues on the other side of the aisle

follow that pied piper that 1% in putting together their budget. it makes no sense. the republican budget is a document of willful ignorance. it was constructed in an ideological house of mirrors. where no one sees reality no one who put together this budget seems relet. they don't see middle-class people struggling, making it harder to pay for college? what the heck is going on here in this great america. we're trying to pass a budget, our colleagues, that says we should make it harder to pay for college. that veterans should lose food stamps. veterans. people who served us. people, i'm sure, the vast majority are looking for jobs and income. that's who veterans are. they don't want a handout. but when they're down on their

luck maybe they had injuries, maybe it was rough adjusting to family life back home again and you cut their food stamps? wow. what kind of budget is this? as i said, it's a budget in an ideological house of mirrors. cap student loan payments? 30-year-olds 40-year-olds, huge burdens of debt, they can't even buy a home. maybe they put off having kids. and this budget, our republican friends are saying eliminate programs cut programs that at least reduce some of that debt burden. wow, what world are you folks living in? it sure isn't the world of reality. it's an ideological house of mirrors. a document, a budget document of willful ignorance. you can go on and on and on with

this budget. how many families have elderly parents in nursing homes who have alzheimer's? we know that tragedy. this budget makes it harder for those people to stay in those nursing homes by kitting medicaid which many of them are on. and then these young families are going to have the burden of taking their beer parents their loved ones, back into their homes. we want that? well you say well, we got to cut somewhere. how about not giving the 4,000 richest families $260 billion over ten years and put some of the money into cancer research, put some of the money into helping veterans feed themselves put some of the money into making it easier to pay for college put some of the money into making sure we continue cancer research?

republicans are going to have to figure out a way to convince the american people that they are doing something anything, to help the middle class. so far they're striking out. now, we know there's only one bit of good news. our colleagues when they're forced to actually put real numbers to these budget numbers in the appropriations process won't be able to do it. they won't dare do it. and i hope -- this will be up 0 to our ranking member mikulski and members of the appropriation bills committee, i hope they take this budget and put it out there and let's see how many of our colleagues actually vote for it. how many of our colleagues are going to make it harder to pay for college, how many colleagues will make it harder for veterans to feed themselves when they're out of luck, how many of our colleagues are going to vote to raise the taxes on people making $30,000 $40,000, $900 a year. i doubt many. so it's a fun day for our

republican colleagues. they get to beat their ideological breast, show the hard right that they really mean it and then maybe we can go back to governing the country and helping the middle class. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. thune: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: the senate is not in a quorum call. mr. thune: mr. president, i want to speak as well today about the budget that's before the senate and i want to point out something i think the senator from new york in his comments failed to mention. that is we're actually doing a

budget. that's what's pretty historic about this. you know, a few years back i thought it would be the place where a lot of action was going to occur where we were going to be doing big, consequential things for the country so i got on the budget committee. i asked our leaders when they made committee assignments if i could serve on the budget committee. i served on the budget committee for four years. four years. and in the four years i was on the budget committee when the democrats controlled this chamber, we didn't write a budget. not a single year. it was like being on a committee that was completely irrelevant around here. for four years we didn't do a budget. and we finally now this year are passing a budget, they did do one in 2009 only so they could pass obamacare with 51 votes but the last time we actually had a budget that balances in ten years was 2001. so we're talking about something that's pretty historic. this is the first time this has

happened in 14 years. let me repeat that, mr. president. the last time that congress passed a joint ten-year balanced budget resolution was 14 years ago in 2001, the year that apple released the first i-pod. and this year the president has once again proposed a budget that never balances. not in ten years not in 25 years, not ever. and so when the other side gets up and talks about the republican budget and attacks it mr. president at least republicans in this chamber recognize the importance of having a budget and putting in place a pathway, if you will, about how we're going to get this fiscal situation in this country in a better place. and it sets out priorities. because that's what the budget process does. it says this is what we're for. and what the democrats have argued and you heard the senator

from new york just making the argument there is, you know, we're not spending enough. that this is about spending more. and what i would say mr. president, i think where the american people are they read if you want to self-middle-class wage stagnation you talk about the middle class' wages being lower and they are lower since the president took office, significantly lower you've got to get an expanding economy. the way to help people into a better place economically, to raise the incomes of people in this country is to get a growing, vibe rapt, robust, expanding economy growing at a faster rate than the anemic 1% to 2% we've seen the last few years. the way you achieve that isn't by growing government. you can't grow government, mr. president, you've got to grow the economy. when the economy is growing that's how you start seeing people in this country middle-class families benefiting. instead as i said the president

proposed a budget that never balanced and he proposed increasing spending by a staggering 65% over the next ten years. now, i don't need to tell the american people that that kind of spending is unsustainable. for too long the attitude in washington has been spend now pay later. but that only works for so long. sooner or later your spending catches up with you. six years ago when the president took office our national debt was already a massive $10.6 trillion. over the past six years our national debt has increased by $7.5 trillion, till today it's at a dangerously high $18.2 trillion. mr. president, that's the size of our economy. it's larger than our economy. it's a 1-1 ratio. that kind of the debt threatens can medicare and chairman.

admiral mike mullen told an audience -- this is a quote -- the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff the highest ranking military official in our country said "i've said many times that i believe the single biggest threat to our national security is our debt" -- end quote. now, i've heard him say that, i served on the armed services committee for six years. i heard the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff say that repeatedly in front of committees at various hearings and various times. quite a statement from the country's top-ranging military official the greatest threat to our national security is our debt. mr. president, if we keep racking up the debt the way we've been doing we're not going to be able to pay for our priorities, social security, medicare national defense infrastructure all those priorities could face huge cuts if we don't get our nation on a sound fiscal footing. republicans took control of the senate in january we were determined to get washington working again and we know one of

the most important steps in that process was passing a balanced budget resolution. republicans understand what every american family knows you can't keep racking up debt indefinitely and the solution is not to increase spending. in march we introduced a blueprint that would balance the budget in ten years and put our nation on a path to fiscal health. house republicans introduced a similar resolution and during april the two houses came together to iron out the differences in the blueprints and produce the final document we'll be voting on today. it's not a perfect document. it doesn't solve every one of our nation's problems. but at long last it gets us moving in a different direction. mr. president, in the right direction. instead of ignoring our nation's fiscal problems, republicans' budget resolutions addresses them and promotes spending restraint. under our budget blueprint by the time the window closes in

2025 our nation will be running a surplus of 24 billion dollars instead of racking up another half a trillion dollars in deficits every single year. unlike some previous budget plans our budget will continue to balance in 2026 and beyond. in addition to restraining spending republicans' budget resolution focuses on cutting waste and eliminating the inefficiency and redundancy that plague so many government programs. our also encourages honest accounting. the result will be a more efficient, effective and accountable government that works for the american people. our budget also, as i said, makes a healthy economy a priority. almost six years after the recession has ended unless of -- millions of americans are struggling. a big reason for that is the oppressive gig big-government policies of the obama administration.

our budget will help stop government from strangling the economy by limiting the growth of spending and reducing the debt which will help reduce the cost of work and investment and the cost of starting and growing a business. in fact, mr. president the congressional budget office estimates that our budget will cult in an a additional $400 billion in economic growth over the next ten years. the republican budget also will pave the way for the removal of inofficiate and ineffective government regulations that are making it difficult to hire new workers and create new opportunities and higher-paying jobs. our budget also addresses another priority of american families and that's fixing our nation's broken health care system. five years on now 0 the president's health care law has resulted in higher cost, lost health care plans reduced access to doctors and new burdens on businesses, both large and small. in fact, it's been pretty much one disaster after another.

in fact, just this week, a "usa today" headline announced "contrary to goals e.r. visits rise under obamacare." the article says, and i quote "three-quarters of emergency physicians say they've seen e.r. patients' visits surge since obamacare took effect, just the opposite of what many americans expected would happen." end quote. that's from a "usa today" article. of course, as we know, mr. president, e.r. visits are the most expensive form of health care. it's no surprise that a majority of the american people continue to oppose the law. our budget paves the way for repeal of obamacare and the introduction of real patient-centered health care reforms that will give americans more health care choices at a lore cost. -- a lower cost. finally, mr. president, our budget will start the process of putting major entitlement programs like social security and medicare on a sounder

footing going forward. right now the social security trust fund is headed toward bankruptcy. if we don't take action, social security recipients could be facing a 25% cut. medicare faces similar challenges to those faced by sfnlgt the medicare trust fund could become insolvent as early as 2021. that's just six short years away. the republicans' budget would help preserve medicare by extending the trust fund's solvency which would protect retireesretirees' budgets. mr. president, i'm proud that today republicans in congress will ensure that we have a joint balanced budget resolution for the first time in 14 years. i also want to emphasize that

that is no more than what the american people should expect. the american people, after all have to live within a budget. their government needs to $so as well. going forward, balanced budgets need to be the norm here in congress. washington has spent enough time working for its own interests. it is time to get washington working again for american families. mr. president, this budget for the first time in 14 years actually we've had a conference report that balances within ten years. as i said earlier in my time here in the senate, which hasn't been that long, but about ten years now, this is the first time, with the exception of 2009 in which we did a budget simply again so the democrats could pass obamacare through reconciliation -- this is the first time we've done a budget in the ten years that i've been

here -- well, with the exception perhaps in the first year or two when we had republicans in the majority. but it is tomb to get washington working again for the american people. it starts with passing a budget. that's why i'm proud that senator enzi and others worked hard to get us where we are and i hope that today we'll ultimately have the votes that are necessary to pass this and do something that hasn't been done around near a really long time. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate recess until 2:15 today for the weekly conference meetings and that the time during the recess count against the majority time on the budget conference report. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and

these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m. a. >> the u.s. senate gaveling out for the party caucus lunches come something to do on most tuesdays. earlier senate lawmakers voted to move forward with debate on the house-senate 2016 at the conference report which includes the provision that would overturn the 2010 health care law. final passage vote could happen sometime later today. also possible debate on the legislative vehicle for the iran's nuclear agreement review act. minority leader harry reid has called on mitch mcconnell for cloture on that bill. in campaign is today former arkansas governor mike huckabee has announced his bid for the

2016the2016 republican presidential nomination. the "washington post" writing today that challenges are formidable foe than the one won the 2008 iowa caucuses. in that race huckabee 59 a former baptist preacher struggle to expand his reach beyond evangelical voters and around out of money. polls have consistently shown he is relatively high name recognition and popularity among republicans. this time his challenge will be find a way to break through infield is likely to do -- among them are relatively fresh faces such as senator ted cruz of texas who are challenging him for the financial and political support of conservative christians. that announced the phone today commit on on our website c-span.org. >> presidential candidates often released books to introduce himself to voters. here's a look at some recent books written by declared and potential candidates for president.

>> the senate returned to the team yemen to continue debate on the 2016 house-senate budget plan. for more on that plan a conversation from this morning's "washington journal." >> host: robert bixby is

executive director of the concord coalition who joins us to help us analyze the house and senate budget resolution passed by the house late last week. this is expected to take an initial vote and take that up to date the first robert bixby for those who are not familiar what is the concord coalition? >> guest: it's a nonpartisan organization that focuses on the federal budget and advocates fiscal responsibility it was founded by paul tsongas and warren rudman one republican and one democratic senator back in 1992. >> host: with that goal in mind what you think about the budget plan that is being pushed by republican, promises to balance the budget in 10 years? is this something the concord coalition can get behind? >> guest: i think the goal is a good one of trying to get back to a balanced budget at some point over the next 10 years as i think is a reasonable goal. i think, i think the path laid

out for getting there's probably not realistic but i think the goal is good and what happens now is we will see if the implementation can take place. >> host: explained the republicans look to achieve that balance in this budget plan. >> guest: it's all on spending cuts. there's some very deep spending cuts, and some of them are not probably going to happen. for example, the biggest one is the repeal of the president affordable care act. obviously, were that to be done he would veto that so that probably not going to happen. some of the presumed savings in the domestic appropriations, the nondefense appropriations probably a little bit steeper than is likely to pass. and then there's some other cuts in other entitlement programs

mandatory spending. they are very, very deep. but the budget does show is that it tries to save about $5 trillion over 10 years and that's not what you need to get back to a balance. it path i don't think is terribly realistic but it shows a difficult it would be to get that level of savings host that you mention some highlights balances the budget in 10 years, $5 trillion in spending cuts. it sticks to the $1 trillion sequestration budget in 2016 and boost the department of defense budget by adding money to the overseas contingency operations on all aspects of the republican budget that was passed by the house last week. that's going to be taken up by the senate this week but first come to this budget resolution likely to get past? it doesn't get signed by the president come it doesn't have the force of law so explain why this is important.

>> guest: it is important but that's an important point that you make about the budget resolution. it's the first step in the process and probably the easiest one because it doesn't require the president's signature and it does require congress to set up have it would achieve these goals. intercepts outnumbers. so it's a broad framework and in congress and then takes this framework and tries to pass appropriations bills. they have to past 12 appropriations bills during the course of the year to keep the government funded. and so is set out what the spending totals should be for the appropriations bill. and to the budget resolution is also important because it the so-called points of order, it sets the numbers at which point the border can be triggered. if the budget, if the bill exceeds the budget resolution up to be subject to point of order and contain certain procedural goals and enforcement mechanisms

as well post it will be influencing the actual appropriations process for the rest of the year. >> guest: correct. it also contains something called reconciliation which is a special procedure which gives a bill fasttrak basically, through the senate. it doesn't have much application in the house but in the senate, if you have a reconciliation bill is not subject to a filibuster. but it quickly. and so and it applies to mandatory spending or revenues. it should be used to cut the deficit although there's a per provision in in the budget resolution of issue that would allow it to be used for increasing the deficit. but anyway reconciliation bill is a favorite thing that gets fast-track authority. and this budget resolution

congress has said that the reconciliation process should be used only for repeal of the affordable care act. which is a little bit disappointing because they would probably need reconciliation to pass some of the other very ambitious spending cuts that they would like to do or tax reform and using it for repeal of the aca which isn't what happened anyway because the president is going to sign it kind of gives away an important enforcement tool house of representatives go ahead. >> guest: a couple of things about the budget resolution, get a, to keep in mind. i would call them gimmicks or kind of close to gimmicks. what is, he mentioned it before and that's the oco overseas contingency operations. basically what they want to do is keep the defense cap in law but exceeded. the way they can do that is by

putting money into this overseas contingency operations account which is not subject to the cap but is supposed to be used just for war spending but it is used basically for basic defense spending. it's pretty much a gimmick. the other thing is the budget resolution assumes the government is going to collect a whole lot of revenue which is congress does not want to collect. so those little bit of inconsistency there in that the revenue totals and the budget resolution did not reflect the policies that this congress has pursued, and so there's a gap there. >> host: would talk about republican budget resolution that's been a big topic of conversation on capitol hill both last week this week as well with the sinister and take it up today. bob litt bixby is against from the concord coalition. it is concord coalition.org. you can join in a conversation together question or comment about the budget resolution in this debate. democrats can call -- on

deadline for independents zach from arlington, texas. zach, good morning. you were on with bob bixby. >> caller: i was just going to ask basically whenever you the budget like that everything is going under, you know, as for international spending and domestic spending and growing our infrastructure and everything like that, why is everything comes into play as to what -- instead of what we can grow by that definition? whenever united corporation it's somewhat easy to say you can have competitive effort. i think it is much cheaper. whenever it comes to the domestic budget it's like, you know, we can do this but we have to cut back on this.

it's not we can do cheaper by doing things differently this way. it just seems to me always whenever we try and get a budget it's not we can do it differently and still achieve the same results, but it's always we have to cut something else. why is it realistic to get something else instead we have to keep growing the ceiling so to speak? post dispatch are concerned with just the republican budget our budgets that you are hearing proposed by democrats as well? >> caller: actually it's in both. as an independent i've watched both democrats and republicans over the years so it's in both budgets. it's the same way with every budget over the past, you know 15 years. >> host: thanks for the question. bob bixby tractor i think there's a couple of good points there. government doesn't look enough at doing things better. they look they look at budget totals and not review programs

to do what's called oversight. one of the things we have abdicated over the years is to do biennial budgeting and see if you could appropriate the money in one year and oversight in the second year to see if the programs are actually working. one way to do things to save money is to do things better for more cheaply as you point out. the other point i would say is that it is important to try to find offsets if you're going to spend more in one area, you do want to find cuts in some other area or raise revenue. is part of that can be done through a more efficient administration of a particular program, if you can find the savings that way that's fine. .. how does your coalition feel about investment that may

not have specific offsets? are you in favor of always finding them? guest: i think there is a distinction to be made between money that is consumption and money that is investment. the federal budget does not have a specifically designated investment budget. maybe that is something to look into. i think within a balance, you don't need to have a balanced budget every year. you don't want one and a time of recession. there are times when it's appropriate to have a deficit. host: should it take a decade to get back to a balanced budget? guest: it's going to take some time. that is have the whole is. you would not want to do it that quickly.

the goal of getting back in 10 years a lot of people don't focus on. the appropriations bills are determined one year at a time. congress can deal with those. those really aren't the problem. they're only about a third of the budge. most of the budget, about two-thirds of it, is mandatory spending, social security, medicare medicaid, interest on the debt. the major entitlement programs, the ones i just mentioned grow every year because the population is getting older there are more beneficiaries and health care tends to be an expensive thing to consume. so those programs if you look at the dynamics in the budget that's what's growing. so the discretionary programs even defense really shrinks as a percentage of the economy and our budgetary challenge is really the growth of the entitlement programs basically the ones having to do with health care and retirement on aging. and so when you talk about trying to get back to a balanced

budget, every year that part of the budget is growing, growing growing on autopilot, so it becomes more difficult. you know, you're always bumping up against that headwind. so it's not a simple matter of looking at the appropriations bills every year and saying, you know, we can get back to a balance by just getting tough on cracking down on this that or the other thing. if we ignore the entitlement programs and net interest on the debt -- >> host: do you think this congress is going to ignore that? do you think they'll address it this time around? >> guest: i don't think there's going to be any big addressing of that. i think the next opportunity for that is probably going to be with the first budget of the next president. and that's why we're spending a lot of time in iowa and new hampshire with our friends at the campaign to fix the debt to hope that the presidential candidates will talk about in this issue as well. so we're doing a project called first budget for that very purpose.

here in, you know, for the upcoming year i think they're probably going to focus on the appropriations bills. i think it's going to be difficult to pass those. if they pass them at level that the republicans have recommended, the president has said he will veto them. so for those who enjoy government shutdowns, it could be that something like that will happen again this year, and that -- but that might force a negotiation of some sort. >> host: let's go back to the phones daniel's waiting in hastings michigan. lines for democrats. daniel, good morning. >> caller: good morning thanks for taking my call. got a question on the budget submitted by the republicans. it calls for the elimination of obamacare. and i was wondering why they're including the savings from it in their budget. thank you. i'll take my question off the air. >> host: why they're including the savings. >> guest: well, that's -- i mean they're including the

savings from repealing obamacare in the budget, the $5 trillion worth of savings includes that because that's what they want to do and that's their budget, and that's their plan. >> host: does that budget factor in the cost of a replacement plan? >> guest: no. it just, it says that, you know, it assumes that the gross spending in obamacare would be repealed which is the exchange subsidies and the medicaid expansion primarily. like i said before, one of the curiosities of this budget is that it assumes that the revenue increases of obamacare would remain. even though it says they will repeal them. >> host: let's go to dan in st. petersburg florida. line for independents. dan, good morning. >> caller: yes, good morning. as far as finance reform it just seems that a simple solution would be to make all contributions regardless of size anonymous.

that would take away all the questions about propriety and who owes what to who. and i don't understand why people aren't talking about that. the other thing is i would give all politicians polygraph exams, and that'll take away problem of whether they're telling the truth or not. you know, most federal employees each on the lower -- even on the lower scale have to take a lie detector test, so why shouldn't people in elected office do so also? >> host: talking about campaign finance reform. not really the topic we're discussing this morning in the budgets. >> guest: no. >> host: if the system went to publicly-funded campaigns, any idea how much that would cost and how that would impact the budget? >> guest: i have no idea. [laughter] i would hope that the public -- if we went to public financing it wouldn't cost as much -- we wouldn't use taxpayers' money to the extent that you get private

donations, because that's quite expensive, indeed. but i have no recommendations in that regard. >> host: bob bixby is executive director of the concord coalition. he's with us for about the next 25 minutes or so if you want to talk about this budget that was voted on in the house late last week scheduled to be taken up in the senate today. ask your questions or comments, phone numbers are on the screen. one issue i wanted to bring up is how this budge relates to that -- budget relate toss that debt limit conversation and the ongoing concerns about surpassing the debt limit. >> guest: well, it leaves that unaddressed. and we'll have to confront the debt limit again probably in the fall september october. technically speaking, we're at the debt limit right now. the treasury department is doing the extraordinary measures, as they call it, to keep us under the debt limit, but that will run out after a while.

so yeah, we're going to have to deal with the debt limit and that could well be a part of a deal at end of the year. i mean, i suspect that, you know because the appropriations levels are so different than the president would want and the democrats would seek to approve, you know, i think that there is probably going to be some sort of a negotiation at the end of the year that would involve somewhat higher spending, a little bit above the caps made up for by cuts, perhaps in some mandatory spending or some tax loophole closures. and i imagine that that deal would include raising the debt limit because there seems to be a consensus on capitol hill that the debt limit has become something of an embarrassment in the sense that it really is not a very effective way to control debt. it doesn't control debt. it can do more harm than it does good. so i think it confuses the public, and i think we need a better mechanism of -- i think we need a better debt limit than the one we have now.

>> host: charleston, south carolina is next. perry, you're on with bob bixby. >> caller: good morning. one of things about the project everybody expects the money to be spent in the same year. suggest that they do the capital spending classified as capital in continuing programs and then with the new programs. the capital usually take five or six years to complete. but the new programs i agree with this guest that you should do a review on those. but then new programs have to be justified and see if they are replacing a program that's already in existence. is it really new? >> host: perry in favor of the approach that you recommend. >> guest: well i think there should be some more oversight

and, you know, because there is a, there is a difference between just consumption spending and capital expenditures that would be more of an investment. and perhaps there should be some way of reflecting that in the budget. >> host: how often does congress kill a program that's not working well? >> guest: very rarely. i mean, it's just -- there is a proliferation. the government accountability office gao does a great job every year of putting out a report that talks about duplicative programs and very rarely is any action taken on them. you know, it's part of the political process. people like to create programs and don't like to defund programs once they've been created. so you get a proliferation of programs. and that is a problem, but we shouldn't, we shouldn't leave people with the impression that that is the major problem in the budget. it is a problem that needs to be addressed, but the -- we talk about an unsustainable budget

which is basically what we have now, it is driven by health care costs and the aging of the population. >> host: murfreesboro, tennessee, is up next. david, line for democrats, you're on with bob bixby. david, you with us? might have stepped away. we'll go to carol, boca raton, florida. line for independents. carol -- >> caller: yes. >> host: you've got to turn down your tv, otherwise we're not going to be able to hear you. >> caller: okay. my question to you is the affordability health care act, i just googled it, it is $1.27 trillion by 2025. can we actually afford this? and by the way, is there anybody who's running who agrees with the flat tax or the fair tax? those are my two questions. thank you so much for taking my call. i'm a nervous wreck. i've never called before. thank you so much, bye. >> host: you did a great job in boca raton. bob bixby.

>> guest: the affordable care act, referred to as obamacare just so we know what we're talking about, is what -- this figure that you cited is correct, that is for the spending for the exchange subsidies. there's a lot more to the affordable care act. there's actually more spending through medicaid expansion but there's also in the affordable care act cuts to medicare and tax increases. so when you put them all together, it was designed to be deficit neutral. it's higher spending and higher taxes, but it was intended to be revenue -- to be deficit neutral. so a repeal would have to be scored somehow to see, you know, full repeal would have to have

you'd take out the revenue increases as well as the spending cuts spending increases, and you may well come out with a deficit-neutral result even if you repealed it. >> host: let's go to johnny in cleveland, ohio, line for independents. john you're up next on the washington journal. >> caller: two part question. what happened to the budge of ryan pat murphy and ryan of house, what happened that? that was fiction. this is worse than that. there's a double count of medicare, and they always use the word revenue neutral this neutral, that neutral. once you touch it -- like colin powell said, if you break it, you own the china. supreme court is going to decide on obamacare. they call it dynamic scoring. i would call it fiction. i'd like to nominate that for the best fiction in the world. what do you think on the double count of the medicare money,

what do you think of the oco account beyond what he asked for, president obama asked for? how can they get away with this thing? founding fathers would be rolling over in the graves. >> host: john in cleveland ohio. lots of questions. maybe start with planing what the ryan-murphy deal was that he referenced. >> guest: yes. the ryan-murray deal was a couple of years ago paul ryan, the chairman of the house budget committee at that time and senator patty murray -- did i say paul ryan was senate -- house budget committee. and patty murray was the chairman of the senate budget committee, and they reached an agreement to the slightly raise the domestic and defense caps that we have on spending and found some offsets in mandatory spending and some, a very small amount of revenue i think,

through a loophole closure or something. anyway -- or fees. i think they were called fees instead of taxes. [laughter] at any rate, that got past the crisis. it really wasn't a big deal, but it was a bipartisan agreement that got them past a shutdown, and so i think that the same thing might happen this year. as the caller suggested, the ryan-murray deal was not a big deal if you're thinking about what we need to do long term to get our budget on a sustainable track. it did get them through the night. and, you know i suspect we're probably head inside that direction again this year. >> host: speaker boehner referencing the ryan-murray deal, perhaps giving hope to some folks who want to raise their sequester limits again. >> guest: yeah, i think that's -- the caps that are in place are very, very tight. they apply to a particular part of the budget which is so-called domestic discretionary spending. it's the appropriations bills,

education, transportation, health care, you know, the non-medicare medicaid stuff. and yeah, i think there's some sentiment on both sides of the aisle that some of those caps are ooh tight and that they might want to come up on them a bit, but they would want to find savings someplace up because the caps were put in place to help reduce the deficit. >> host: would you be okay with raising those caps this year or next? >> guest: if they were to find some offsetting savings. someplace else in the budget or revenue raisers from tax reform. we've always been in favor of some sort of a quote-unquote grand bargain but i'd take a mini grand bargain or something like that. the problem right now is congress is taking actions that make the deficit worse. they did pass a bipartisan so-called doc fix which cured a

little glitch in the law that it's a hong story, but. >> host: we've talked about it on "the washington journal" quite a bit. >> guest: bottom line, they increased the projected deficit by 140 billion over ten years. the house has been passing tax cut bills that repeal the estate tax and other things that would reduce revenues. so the actions that have been taken have been things that would increase the deficit. so what we would advocate is a bipartisan agreement about things that would reduce the deficit. >> host: we've got about 15 minutes left with bob bixby of the concord coalition. if you have questions or comments about this budget resolution that was in the house last week, in the senate this week phone numbers again democrats, 202-748-8000, republicans, 202-748-8001, independents 202-748-802.

alex is in pompano beach florida. good morning alex. >> caller: yes, good morning. a simple question. why have not the bush tax cuts been repealed in 2010? i know back then they were delayed. they are needed, they were unnecessary tax kutz each back in those -- cuts even back in those days. most of those credits that went back into the economy really went to the corporations companies like ge. what did they do? they spent 90% of that investment in china. the other 10% in stock buybacks and ditto for many of the other corporations. in other words, these tax cuts, they don't bring the money back into our country. thank you. bye. >> guest: the bush tax cuts were made permanent a couple of years

ago. you might recall there was something called the fiscal cliff. and part of the part of the deal at that point was to make most of bush tax cuts permanent except for the tax cuts for the people at the very top. so the ones that you presumably were most concerned about were allowed to expire. and that's the end of the bush tax cuts. most of them were made permanent. for the upper -- i forget what the cutoff was, but for the upper echelon, they were allowed to expire. >> host: quick question, we've mentioned that the house voted on this last week, the senate beginning to take up the budget resolution today do the house and senate approaches to this differ at all? >> guest: not substantially. i mean, they were pretty

similar, to reaching agreement between the house and senate wasn't all that difficult. they had some differences in their approach to the defense spending and that sort of thing but they kind of worked it out. the real tension on, you know, on defense spending is do you want to raise the caps, do you want to keep the caps or how much do you want to avoid the caps by putting it into the overseas contingency operation? >> host: carmen in naperville, illinois. line for independents. carmen, good morning. >> caller: good morning. a couple of questions regarding the budget and social security. what is the difference between the revenues and the expenditure s for social security, and why don't they just eliminate the cap to resolve everything? >> guest: that's an interesting question. the social security, you know, has a dedicated payroll tax, as

you suggest it has a cap a certain level of income. i believe it's around $118,000 now, somewhere in that area. and as we baby boomers are reaching our retirement years social security is going up in costs and the expenditures for social security now exceed the revenue coming in from the payroll tax and that is projected to persist ever more. and that is, that does create a problem for the rest of the budget because the gap is made up through general revenues. at some point the social security trust fund, which is basically credits given to the social security system from past surpluses, will run out around 2033 or so. so the system is already running a cash deficit which has a budgetary consequence. by the way the disability

portion of social security the social security retirement and social security disability is projected to -- it's already running a cash deficit. it is projected to run out of/fund authority before the next -- slush fund authority before the next president takes office at the end of 2016. so that is a very, very important issue for this congress, not something that they can put off. they're going to have to do something about that. one of the potential remedies is to raise the cap and thus, bring in more money and there are a lot of bipartisan plans that would do something to trim benefits not necessarily right away but things like gradually raising eligibility age or making the benefit formula more progressive, particular particularly at the top end. so there are ways that you could do both bring in more revenue and scale back the projected

expenditures. something like that will have to happen before too long. >> host: several callers waiting to chat with you. lou is one of them greenville tennessee. line for democrats. lou, good morning. >> caller: good morning gentlemen. my question kind of went along with the caller before the last one, the bush tax cuts. my second question is why in the world do we continue to allow the wealthiest of the wealthy to keep offshoring their money? and also i can probably explain in real simple terms why the social security, you know, budget is kind of going away, it's because all of our jobs have been shipped overseas. people aren't working here. they're not getting paychecks to pay in social security. does it take a freaking brain to figure this one out? i don't think so.

and i don't think the wealthiest of the wealthy are paying their fair share. i mean, what prevents me with my piddly little bit, i'm retired, i don't have a whole lot of money, but a little bit, from offshoring my money? i mean how do you do that? >> guest: let me take the social security question again since we had discussion about that. i think really the problem there is simple demographics. i mean, you have -- this has been forecast for a long time by the social security trustees and, you know, so it's not a matter of the economy has changed or jobs have gone offshore or incomes haven't kept up. i mean those can be a factor, but it's really the dominant factor in simply the aging of the population, many more beneficiaries and the tax pay --

payroll tax not being sufficient. but that's been projected. i've been doing it for 20 years it was forecast back then that -- >> host: concord coalition on offshoring and her concerns about that. >> guest: we don't have a position on that. >> host: gene is up next, line for republicans. gene, you're on with bob bixby. >> caller: good morning, gentlemen. i have a couple of questions. one is i'm wondering how they look at the quantitative easing that's gone on in the last couple of years. i know how it affects the savings, i'm just wanting his general comment. and then if you could explain to the people why the deficit is twice what it's been in all the previous years, what makes up those moneys? god bless you and thank you. >> host: mr. bixby.

>> guest: thank you. i do fiscal policy more than monetary policy, and quantitative easing is a monetary policy issue. you know, i would say that that's one of the tools that the fed had at its disposal to try to avoid an even deeper recession than we had and a crisis atmosphere. it's certainly a legitimate tactic and, you know did it go too far whether it should end now is really not something that i feel that i have the expertise to comment on. on the other part about the deficit, it's actually been coming down. it did go way up over a trillion dollars and stayed there for four years -- >> host: this might be a good time for a quick explainer.

>> guest: the annual sum by which the government falls short of being able to pay its bills without borrowing. it's the annual shortfall. the debt is the accumulation of all the annual shortfalls so it's, you know, that's the grand total. >> host: the deficit has been coming down, but the debt has still been increasing. >> guest: that's exactly the point. as a declining deficit when people hear the deficit is coming down, oh, that's really good. that is a good thing but it really e means that the debt is simply accumulating at a slower pace. so the debt still has been going up. and this may be what you're referring to. the debt as a percentage of our economy, is about twice what it has been, you know, historically in the post-world war ii era. and a lot of that had to do with the huge deficits that were run up in the recession. it kind of gets to your quantitative easing question in the sense that, you know with

we had a very, very abnormal situation from 2008 to just recently. when the economy goes into a deep recession as we had spending goes up and revenues go down. and so you get sometimes it's called an automatic stabilizer because lower revenues and higher government spending are thought to ease a recession. but the -- one of the side, you know consequences of that is a runup in the debt. so the trick now that the recession is over is to try to stabilize the situation stabilize the debt to gdp and gradually begin to bring it down. >> host: susan in blackstone, massachusetts, line for democrats. super, you're on with bob bixby in our last about five minutes or so of this segment. >> caller: oh, good morning. i just wanted to make a comment about how we're paying for our wars.

evidently, we're taking out loans which never i guess never happened before. we usually raised taxes. but now we're so tax shy that we're kind of getting what we pay for. also i think if we passed an immigration bill, that would help social security a bit. having more people paying into the social security and many of the immigrants have more children. also for the work. i don't know why they don't pass a comprehensive roads bill or whatever it is, transportation bill, to improve our pothole toes and our -- potholes and our failing bridges. you know, it would help a great deal. it would put people to work. and you can't cut things like education and health.

these are things that we need as americans. and they have to find a way to invest in america. >> host: susan in blackstone massachusetts. she brought up at the beginning there how we pay for our wars. have we always had an overseas contingency operation separate fund? >> guest: not always. no. this was made explicitly because of the budget caps and the decision that war spending should not be subject to an arbitrary budget cap. it does create a loophole around the regular budget cap. so i think that she raises a good point though about, you know in prior wars we have raised taxes or cut other spending to fund them, and there'd be a mix of debt and you know pay-fors. we have tended to get away from that and in more recent years

not raise taxes, even cut taxes in the face of increased military expenditures. >> host: bob bixby is with the con court coalition. want to -- concord coalition. steve from winter haven florida, line for republicans. good morning. >> caller: good morning. my suggestion is while we're going through this budget, why don't we put the american people in chapter 13 while we're dealing with the budget problem. because the chapter 13 will help people get themself back on track, at least educate themself financially. at least they'll know how to balance their checkbook and balance their bums and plus to educate -- their budgets and plus to educate people op their finances because you have to take a test afterwards once you take the test so you understand at least what's going on and get yourself back on track financially. >> host: education of the american public, something that the concord coalition pushes for. >> guest: yeah. i think that -- i mean i think we do -- we run a budget exercise that is very popular

in, you know, a lot of the members of congress like to use it as a town hall meeting for their constituents. but it's popular on campuses and with business groups. basically, it's just people sitting around at a table like this and like our callers today and we give them choices scored by congressional budget office, and they come up with their own budget plans. it's really a very useful, educating thing. so if anybody's interested in that, you can certainly contact the concord coalition. >> host: concordcoalition.org, @concordc. bob bixby is the executive director appreciate your time this morning. >> guest: thank you very much. >> the u.s. senate is set to return from their party caucus lunches. they voted this morning to move forward with the 2016 conference report. that report, by the way, includes a provision that would overturn the nation's health care law. we're expecting a vote on final passage sometime this afternoon, and you can see the senate live when they gavel back in at 2:15

eastern right here on c-span2. another political candidate announced his intention to run for president in 2016. former arkansas governor mike huckabee threw his hat into the ring this morning from hope arkansas. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. [cheers and applause] thank you. thank you! thank you. thank you! thank you. thank you. thank you very much. wow. folks, it is a long way from a

little brick represent house on 2nd street in hope arkansas, to the white house. [cheers and applause] but here in this small town called hope i was raised to believe that where a person started didn't mean that's where he had to stop is. [applause] i always believed that a kid could go from hope to higher ground. [cheers and applause] and like a lot of americans i grew up in a small town that was far are removed from the power the money and the influence that runs this country. but power and money and political influence have left a lot of americans lagging behind. they work hard, they lift heavy things and they sweat through their clothes grinding out a living. but they can't seem to get ahead or in some cases even stay even.

my own parents were like that. my dad wasn't an educated man but he was a smart man. and he and my mother didn't have a whole lot but they had honesty to the bone. and they taught my sister and me the basic lesson of life that we were to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. [applause] it was here in hope that i learned how to swim, how to ride a bike, how to read how to work and how to play fair. i learned the difference between right and wrong and i learned that god loves me as much as he loves anyone, but that he doesn't love some more than others. [applause] i learned about america. in miss mary's kindergarten as well as at brookwood elementary school, i learned the pledge of allegiance, the lord's prayer and the preamble to the

constitution. [applause] we prayed at the start of each day, and we parade again before lunch. prayed again before lunch. and i learned that this exceptional country could only be explained by the providence of almighty god. [applause] it was here in hope that i learned how to handle a firearm and a fishing pole, and i spent a lot of hours with both. i got my first bb gun at age 5. it was a daisy model 25. i've still got it. [laughter] it's in mint condition. [laughter] i learned the basic rules of gun safety, and i never thought about using a firearm to murder someone. [applause] i ran squad lines all night so we could catch cat furb that we'd freeze -- catfish that we'd

freeze and live off of for weeks. and it was here that i was baptized after accepting jesus in a vacation bible school when i was just 10 years old. [cheers and applause] i truly went from hope to higher ground. it was here that i met the girl who would become my wife of 41 years and give me three children and share what will soon be five grandchildren. [applause] now, we knew each other from elementary school, and we started dating our senior year of high school, as she shared. it was also here that i got a job at kxir radio at age 14. [applause] and that job would not only pay my way through school, but it would give me the opportunity to be mentored by haskell jones, the station manager and one of

the few republicans in the entire county. [laughter] and it was here that i became the first male in my entire family lineage to graduate from high school. [applause] at the very same campus that stands today right down on main street. and it was from here -- [cheers and applause] that i went on to college at washita baptist university, and it was also here that i first ran for elected office when i ran for student council at hope junior high school. [laughter] [applause] so it seems perfectly fitting that it would be here that i announce that i am a candidate for president of the united states of america! [cheers and applause]

[applause] >> thank you! thank you. well, i'm grad you reacted that way. it would have been a very lonely day had you been quiet. [laughter] you know, it was eight years ago that a young untested inexperienced and virtually unknown freshman senator made great speeches about hope and change. but eight years later our debt's more than doubled america's leadership in the world has completely evaporated and the country is more polarized than ever in my lifetime. 93 million americans don't have jobs. and many of them who do have seep their full-time job -- seen

their full-time job with benefits they once had become two part-time jobs with no benefits at all. we were promised hope, but it was just talk. and now we need the kind of change that really could get america from hope to higher ground. [applause] veterans who kept their promises to america and who have kept us free now wait for months for our country to keep its promise to veterans for basic health care and assistance to cope with the scars of the very wars that we sent them to fight. [applause] our veterans should be getting the first fruits of our treasury, not the leftovers. [applause] and, my friends, when i am

president, our veterans are not going to be left on the streets and in waiting rooms to rot, but they're going to be treated with the dignity that they have earned and deserve. [cheers and applause] when i meet men who have an american legion cap or one that says "veteran," i never try to fail in saying thank you for giving me my freedom. [applause] but, friend, we owe them more than a pat on the back. we need to take them from hope to higher ground. [applause] is washington is more disfunctional than ever, and it's become so beholden to the social class that it mothers the

fact that one in four american families are paying more than half of all of their income just for housing. home ownership at the lowest level in decades. and a lot of young people with heavy student debt respect likely to afford their -- aren't likely to afford their first home for a hong while. our federal policies for affordable housing aren't designed to protect families but rather, to protect bureaucrats. we've got a record number of people enrolled in government-operated health programs like food stamps and, my friend, it's not because people want to be in poverty. it's because they are part of the bottom 90% of this country of american workers whose wages have been stagnant for the past 40 years. [applause] the war on poverty hasn't ended poverty, it's prolonged it. i don't want judge the success -- i don't judge the success of how many people are on government assistance as to the success of government i

judge how many people have good jobs and don't need government assistance. [cheers and applause] and we don't create good jobs for americans by entering into unbalanced trade deals that forgo congressional scrutiny and then looking the other way as the law is ignored so that we can import low wage labor undercut american workers and drive wages lower than the dead sea. that's unacceptable. [applause] now, as the governor mentioned a moment ago, i governed in a state that was the most lopsided and partisan in the country. no republican governor had more democrats and fewer republicans. i challenged the deeply entrenched political machine that ran this state. my friend, it was tough sledding. but i learned how to govern. and i learned how to lead. and even in that environment are

we passed 94 tax cuts rebuilt our road system, saw dramatic improvements in student test scores and fought the corruption of the good old boy system so that working class people would finally be given a fair shake. [applause] and we saw family income increase by 50% during my tenure. now, there are some who propose that to save the safety nets like medicare and social security we ought to chop off the payments for the people who have faithfully had their paychecks and pockets picked by the politicians promising them that their money would be waiting for them when they were old and sick. my friend, you were forced to pay for social security and medicare for 50 years. [applause] the government grabs the money from our paychecks and says it'll be waiting for us when we turn 65. if congress wants to take away

someone's retirement, let them end their open congressional pensions, not your social security! [cheers and applause] as president i promise you will get what you paid for. because how can anyone ever trust government again if they steal from us and lie to us? it didn't help when congress took $70 billion out of medicare to pay for obamacare. [applause] and instead of helping families provide affordable coverage we pay for things we don't want don't need and can't afford. [applause] and imagine members of congress boasting they will fight to repeal obamacare and then

turning around and signing up for it. real health care reform is going to focus on prevention and cures rather than costly intervention, because hope comes from finding cures for cancer, heart disease, diabetes and alzheimer's. [applause] the same way that we once lined up at the courthouse in the '50s and took our vaccines and eradicated polio. [applause] cures, real cures could give real hope the families who hear a dreaded diagnosis and are sentenced to a slow and agonizing death. alzheimer's disease alone will cost well over $1 trillion by the year 2050. focusing on cures instead of treatment saves money, lives and families. i remember president kennedy telling us be we were going to -- that we were going to send a man to the moon and bring him home within a decade. president kennedy didn't live to see that come true, but i did.

and it made me believe that america could do anything it set its mind to. [applause] and as president as president i'd launch a cure approach to health care and save money and lives, not just a bunch of government programs. [applause] we face real threats from radical jihaddism in the form of savage groups like isis and state terrorists like iran. but we put more pressure on our ally, israel to cease building bedrooms for their families in judea and sumeria than we do on iran for building a bomb. [applause] dealing with radicals who chant "death to america" and who fund bombs and rockets to murder civilians in israel is nonsense. so when i hear our current

president say he wants christians to get off their high horse so we can make nice with radical jihadists, i wonder -- >> no! >> i wonder if he could watch a western from the '50s and be able to figure out who the good guys and the bad guys really are. [cheers and applause] as president i promise you that we will no longer merely try to contain jihaddism we will conquer it. [cheers and applause] we will deal with jihadis just as we would deal with deadly snakes, and let there be no

doubt israel will know, as will the whole world that we are their trusted friend, and the ayatollahs of iran will know -- [cheers and applause] that hell will freeze over before they get a nuclear weapon! [cheers and applause] and i commit this to you today i will never ever apologize for america. ever. [cheers and applause] we face not only the threats from terrorism, but also the threat of new kinds of dangers from a cyber war that could shut down major financial markets to threats of an electromagnet you can pulse from an exploded device that could fry the entire

electrical grilled and take this country backing to the stone age in a matter of minutes. and waiting until it happens is too late. but we've lost our way morally. we witnessed the slaughter of over 55 million babies in the name of choice, and we are now threatening the foundation of religious liberty by criminalizing christianity in demanding that we abandon biblical principles of natural marriage. [applause] many of our politicians many of our poll -- politicians have surrendered to the false god which would allow judges the power to make law as well as enforce it. upending the equality of our three branches of government, so very central to the constitution. my friends the supreme court is not the supreme being.

and they cannot overturn the laws of nature or of nature's god. [applause] government in washington is dysfunctional because it's become the roach motel -- [laughter] people go in, but they never come out. [laughter] [applause] as president, i'll fight for term limits op all three branches -- on all three branches of government. [applause] that would help return us to the founders' dream that serving the public should be a temporary duty not a lucrative career with generous pensions and paychecks that aren't available to the very people who pay for them. [applause] you know, if someone is elected to an office, then give the taxpayers what they're paying for and the job that you said you wanted. if you live off the government payroll and you want to run for

an office other than the one you've been elected to, at least have the integrity and decency to resign the one you don't want anymore and to pursue the one you've decided you'd rather have. [applause] as president, i would take seriously the telephoneth amendment. tenth amendment. i would actually abide by it. because power was never intended to be so concentrated at the federal level. our constitution was explicitly clear about keeping the federal government small so it'd be able to focus on some simple things like providing a military and securing our borders. there are some things being done at the federal level that should have been left in the hands of the states, or each better, the families. there is no constitutional authority to dictate education from the federal government. [applause]

why even have a federal d. of education? it's flunked and it needs to be expelled. [applause] education policy ought to be set by states local school boards and, best of all by the moms and dads of the children: [applause] and common sense tells us that the best government is the most local and the most limited. [applause] we've super-sized the federal bureaucracy, but we've downsized the military and left our borders open and uncontrolled. yes, we need to address the immigration issues, but not with amnesty. we need to start by taking control of our own borders. [applause] but as americans we ought to get on our knees every night and thank god we still live in a cub

that people are trying -- in a country that people are trying to break into rather than one they're trying to break out of. [applause] i'm running for president because i know there's a difference between making a speech and making government accountable to the people who have to pay for it. you can't spend money you don't have. you can't borrow money you can't afford to pay back. and the federal government ought to live by the rules that you have to live by and they should function under a balanced budget law just like i had to every year i was a governor. [cheers and applause] and i don't want to hear

politicians talk about tinkering with the tax code and making little adjustments that still let powerful washington interests pick the winners and losers. we can never create prosperity for working people never grow our economy out of the bottomless pit of debt, never be able to move america back to the greatest economy on earth if we continue to punish productivity and subsidize reckless irresponsibility. [applause] there was a man i met at a machine shop in new hampshire, and he told me how he started working a double shift to help his daughter pay for grad school. he naturally figured if he worked 16 hours he'd bring home twice the pay. he found out that the money he worked for on that second shift put him in a new tax bracket and the government got more of it than he did. it's not that our tax system is punishing the richst people in america, they can afford accountants and lawyers who will find a way to protect them.

it's the people working for wages who can't get ahead if the government penalizes them for trying to do better. [applause] as president i'll work to pass the fair tax -- [cheers and applause] which would no longer penalize people's work! [cheers and applause] we wouldn't penalize people's work, their savings investments or good stewardship. and by the way, it would be the end of big government bailouts, and most importantly we would finally rid ourselves of the biggest bully in america, the irs. [cheers and applause]

the irs would disappear and april 15th would be just another beautiful spring day. [laughter] [applause] now, the struggle for many families isn't helped when the government solution is fighting over what the minimum wage ought to be. it's a race to the bottom to figure out what the government determine cans is the least -- determines is the least you can make. we need to be promoting the maximum wage which is set by the worker who's willing to avail himself or herself of training for a job that pays a maximum amount a. [applause] we will never break the cycle of poverty by pushing people to their minimum wage only by empowering them to reach their maximum wage. that's how we take people from hope to higher ground. [cheers and applause]

this country's got to do three things to stay free; feed itself fuel itself and fight for itself. our farmers and ranchers provide food and fiber and we've got to keep them from being regulated out of business. we also have enough energy resources under our own feet that we could bring affordable energy to america and become the largest exporter so that americans prosper in developing the number and we aren't impoverished nimby paying for it when it's produced by some saudi sheikh or a russian robber-baron. and we need to be able to fight for ourselves by bringing manufacturing back to our communities where we make our own planes and tanks bullets and bombs. [cheers and applause]

the journey that begins in hope today can lead this nation to higher ground, but i cannot do it without people being my partners. many who have never been involved in politics before now. i'm going to let you in on a little secret. i never have been, and i'm not going to be the favored candidate of those in the washington to wall street corridor of power. [applause] i will be funded and fueled not by the billionaires, but by working people across america who will find out that 15 and $25-a-month contributions can talk us from hope to higher ground. [applause] now rest assured, if you want to give a million dollars -- [laughter] please, do it. [laughter] but i know most of you can't.

i'm just going to ask you to give something. in the name of your children and grandchildren. i've walked away from my own income to do this, so i'm not asking you for some sacrifice i'm not willing to make. i don't have a global foundation or a taxpayer-funded paycheck to live off of of of. i don't come from a family dynasty, but a working family. i grew up blue collar not blue blood. so i ask you to join with me today not just so i can be president, but so we can preserve this great republic, and someday so that your children and grandchildren can still go from hope to higher ground. [cheers and applause]

i still remember, i remember it well when my dad took me to the dedication of the newly-constructed -- [inaudible] just a few meals from here. it's now named for dr. lester sites, my best friend since third grade, who's here today. [cheers and applause] i was, i was 8 years old, and my dad said, son the governor's going to come dedicate this new lake, and i'm going to take you down there to hear him make a talk because, son you might live your whole life, and you may never get to meet a governor in person. [laughter] had my dad lived just four months longer, he would have seen me do more than meet a governor. he would have seen me become the 44th governor of my state. [applause]

i always wish he could have been there and maybe spent at least one night in the governor's mansion, a place he never thought he'd get close to. but i always wanted to feel that he did see that moment from the best seat in the house. [cheers and applause] and i hope that he's able to watch in january of 2017 when that bashful little kid from the orange brick rent house on 2nd street is sworn in as the 45th president of the united states! [cheers and applause] and with your help and god's we will make that journey from hope to higher ground! god bless you! thank you very much! [cheers and applause] thank you!

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♪ ♪ >> well, coming up later today more campaign 2016 coverage. former secretary of state hillary clinton will be talking about immigration issues this afternoon. she's expected to call for quote, a full and equal path to partnership when she appears in las vegas. we'll have live coverage on c-span starting at 5:45 eastern along with your phone calls. >> presidential candidates often release books to introduce themselves to voters. here's a look at some recent books written by declared and potential candidates for president. former secretary of state hillary clinton looks back on her time serving in the obama administration in "hard choices." in "american dreams," florida

senator marco rubio outlines his plan to restore economic opportunity. former arkansas governor mike huckabee gives his take on politics and culture in "god, guns, grits and gravy." and in "blue collar conservatives," potential presidential candidate rick santorum argues the republican party must focus on the working class in order to retake the white house. in "a fighting chance," massachusetts senator elizabeth warren recounts the event in her life that shaped her career as an educator and politician. wisconsin governor scott walker argues republicans must offer bold solutions to fix the country and have the courage to implement them in "unintimidated." and kentucky senator rand paul, who recently declared his candidacy, calls for smaller government and more bipartisanship in "taking a stand." for potential presidential candidates with recent books include former governor jeb bush. in "immigration wars," he and

his co-author argue for new immigration policies. in "stand for something," ohio governor john kasich calls for a return to traditional american values. former virginia senator james webb looks back on his time serving in the military and in the senate in "i heard my country calling." independent vermont senator bernie sanders recently announced his intention to seek the democratic nomination for president. his book, "the speech," is a printing of his eight-hour-long filibuster against tax cuts. and in "promises to keep," vice president joe biden looks back on his career in politics and explains his guiding principles. neurosurgeon ben carson calls for greater individual responsibility to preserve america's future in "one nation." in "fed up," former texas governor rick perry explains government has become too intrusive and must get out of the way. another politician who has expressed interest in running for president is former rhode

island governor lincoln chafee in "against the tide," he recounts his time serving as a republican in the senate. carly fiorina, former ceo of hewlett-packard, shares lessons she's learned from her difficulties and triumphs in "rising to the challenge." louisiana governor bobby jindal criticizes the obama administration and explains why conservative solutions are needed in washington in "leadership and crisis." and finally in "a time for truth," another declared presidential candidate -- texas senator ted cruz -- recounts his journey from a cuban immigrant's son to the u.s. senate. look for his book in june. >> the u.s. senate is about to return to session following their weekly party lunches. earlier today the senate voted to move forward with work on the house-senate conference report on the 2016 federal budget. it includes the repeal of the 2010 health care law. vote for final passage is set for this afternoon.

also possible today debate on the legislative vehicle for the iran nuclear agreement review act. minority leader harry reid has called on majority leader mitch mcconnell to file cloture on that bill. the u.s. senate returning in just a couple of moments. live coverage right here on c-span2.

mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: you'd ask unanimous consent that time under any quorum call be equally divided between the two sides. the presiding officer: any objection? no objection, so ordered. mr. enzi: i'd note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the

senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president may i ask unanimous consent that the pending quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you mr. president. i rise today to speak in opposition to the republican so-called budget. i call it a so-called budget because i don't believe that even republicans would actually pass appropriations consistent with it. it looks to me like it's just a show to keep extremists on the right happy. my guess is that practical republicans can't wait for president obama to bail them out by negotiating appropriations higher. recently we've seen impressive examples of committee bipartisanship. in foreign relations senator corker brought a unanimously bipartisan iran resolution out

of the poisonous turmoil surrounding that issue. in the help committee senator alexander brought a unanimously bipartisan education bill out of committee on an issue that has long been contested. even the intensely divided environment and public works committee brought out a chemical regulation bill with a strong bipartisan majority. thebut budget -- no chance. instead of working with democrats on a real budget, republicans produced a partisan i had lodge qualideological showcase. they cut programs for seniors and other vulnerable citizens and protected the wealthiest americans from contributing even one dime in deficit reduction. as we've seen in the past, republicans care about deficit

reduction only when it involves cutting programs for people who need help. but can they find a single tax loophole to cut? not a one. this budget follows the ryan budget off the cliff of shielding every single subsidy and giveaway in the tax code. no special-interest tax loophole is too grotesque for them. big oil tax subsidies special low rates for hedge fund managers private jet depreciation for goodness sake -- tax giveaways that amount to nothing more than taxpayer subsidies for the wealthy and well-connected. this budget loves and protects them all. not only do the republicans protect every tax loophole, they

propose eliminating the estate tax, a tax that only affects families worth over $10 million the top 0.2%. you may have heard a lot about the 1%? well this budget does even better than that. it confers a great wonderful fat favor on the top 0.2%. and, at the same time, the budget will allow taxes to increase on 13 million lower- and middle-income households, households with 25 million children. that's a $ $300 billion tax giveaway to that 0.2%. the wealthiest families in america. and that big gift to those 5,000-and-some wealthiest families is paired with a tax hike for millions of families

who are just getting by. and, of course, it's loafer lower- and middle-income families who would suffer the most from the tax cuts -- job training, pell grants all get axed. they hand medicare over to private-sector vouchers and kick 16 million americans off of health insurance plans they obtained through the affordable care act. today across this capitol breast cancer advocates are asking for our support for investment to help cure that deadly disease. this budget cuts research for breast cancer and other deadly diseases. it slashes funding for nursing homes, including those that care for seniors with alzheimer's. it even supports a 20%

across-the-board benefit cut for disabled americans a 20% benefit cut for disabled americans, by doubling down on the senseless house rule that can be used to create an artificial crisis and prevent a raw teen social security fix. and as for the investments that keep our nation competitive in an increasingly global economy all are attacked -- from scientific research to education to infrastructure, the republicans offer a radical plan of cuts. in a nutshell, their behavior proves that the deficit is just a pre-tex pretext for them to cut republicans plans that republicans have always opposed. even transportation infrastructure, our roads and

bridges, gets whacked. much of our highway system dates about a being to the 1950's and roads and bridges across the country are in dire need of repair and replacement. this budget fails to provide any new funding for infrastructure. it doesn't even ensure that current funding levels will be maintained. this matters because the current funding authorization for highway and transit projects expires at the end of the month. that will imperil construction projects and jobs just as we enter the busy summer highway construction season. there is no plan to deal with that that republicans have announced no bill in any committee. in the budget republicans had an opportunity here for a big win-win. they could have upgraded america's roads and bridges and supported millions of jobs.

ranking member sanders even offered an amendment that would have paid for infrastructure investments by closing closing some of these cooperate tax loopholes. all republicans had to do was vote "yes." but corporate tax loopholes were too important and roads and bridges didn't matter. they chose to protect their cherished tax giveaways for special interests. and today the clock still ticks toward a looming highway jobs shutdown. this will hurt a lot of states. it will particularly hurt my home state of rhode island. we're an historic and densely populated state. we have aging and heavily used infrastructure. lots of our roads and bridges are in poor condition. one study found that the average motorist in rhode island pays an extra $637 a year for car

repairs and operating costs because of potholes and bumps and other bad road conditions. i.t. not just rhode island. this is try true also across the country. nationwide poor road conditions are estimated to cost our country more than $100 billion a year over $500 per motorist. the american society of civil engineers gives america's bridges a grade of only c +. it gives our roads a d. and where is the plan to address this? where is the plan to help the working americans who have to spend $500 or $637 because wre don't take care of our roads and highways? there is none. well, i understand that the republicans in the senate have been in the minority for a long time. and old habits die hard. but the responsibility of a majority is to be responsible.

republicans passed up the opportunity to be responsibility in their budget with highway funding. this shouldn't be that difficult. they could start by looking at the bipartisan six-year highway bill approved last year in the environment and public works committee. my recognize electric is that it was approved unanimously. that bill would have provided the certainty that our state departments of transportation need to plan for the big multiyear job-creating projects projects that our years of deferred maintenance have brought due. the extremist republican budget under the senate rules doesn't need democratic support and it appears that the republicans don't even want democratic support. under the senate rules this budget will pass this chamber.

the good news about that is that the budget is merely political theater. the penalty for violating this budget is a 60-vote point of order. nowadays it takes 60 votes to pass an appropriations bill. so, in effect, the penalty is a nullity. so there's really nothing to violating the budget. the real budget will be sent to us through the appropriations committee, and the real numbers will be negotiated upwards and the republicans will be relieved of the human responsibility for what would happen if this budget were actually to guide our appropriations. that's the good news. the bad news is that it is a missed opportunity to try to work in any kind of a bipartisan fashion. it is a missed opportunity to address issues that americans agree on, like maintaining our bridges and highways.

i hope very much that my friends on the other side of the aisle will begin to work with democrats on addressing with some semblance of bipartisanship our constituents' needs in that regard. with funding set to expire in just a few weeks and with no republican plan on the horizon to address it, we should at least begin with a bipartisan conversation about a long-term highway bill. i thank the chair and i yield the floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. portman: mr. president i rise today as we're talking about the budget and i want to talk a little about that being a member of the budget committee and someone very concerned about the fiscal direction of our country. i'd also like to talk a little about a trip i just took to israel. over the last weekend i was in israel meeting with president netanyahu, the knesset the deputy minister of foreign intelligence and others and part of what i want to talk about in

the budget relates to that. this budget is the first time we've had in six years to have a congressional budget. six years. during that six years, by the way, i think there's been $8 trillion added to the national debt. during that six years there has not been adequate oversight of the departments and agencies of government in part because there hasn't been a budget and without a budget it's very difficult to go through the appropriations process which means that not only has spending been high, more money being spent than coming in in terms of revenues year after year to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars but also by haven't had the ability to have the appropriate checks and balances, oversight of the departments and agencies you get through the appropriations process. after six years it's about time to my constituents when i say we're going to do a budget the first time in six years they say what took you so long? why is it that i got the to have a budget in my family and my

business and our community and in the county and the state and congress can't get its act together? so we are this afternoon i believe going to pass this budget and it does provide this framework for going forward. now, what is that framework? well it's a balanced budget over ten years. although it's the first time that congress has come together in six years to have a budget, it's actually the time since 2001 there has been a budget that gets to balance that's presented and passed by this congress. so that's important. earlier one of my colleagues was talking about everything that's cut in this budget. actually those decisions will be made by the appropriations committee -- appropriations committees and that's appropriate. they are the committees that are responsible for spending every dime. congress has that responsibility. they're the ones who should look at the priorities, should decide which program is working, which one is not working, which would get more money, which one should get less money reformed and changed. that's the process here we're

now beginning to undertake and it's exactly what we're hired to do. is it an easy vote? no. yet i think you'll see this afternoon that we will get the necessary 51 votes to pass this budget and begin to move the country forward. it on believe balances in ten years, it does so without raising taxes it does it in a way that strengthens medicare, protects social security supports a healthier and stronger economy we need in this country. we just had the economic growth numbers come occupant for the first quarter and boy they're disappointing, .2%. we just had weak numbers in terms of the jobs numbers last month. we've got to do better. and we can and should do better. part of it comes from better policies here in washington, d.c. policies that encourage people to get out there work hard, take a risk, let people know if they do play by the rules and work hard, they can get made and there's so much more than we can do with tax reform and regulatory relief and coming up with smart ways to deal with

health care and that's what this budget does, by the way. it also improves the efficiency, accountability of government. this is very important. it has a particular provision i feel strongly about as the presiding officer knows who has done a great job of shepherding this through the process as chairman of the budget committee, is to ensure we can have the information on the floor of the senate to decide what's the best tax reform to pursue because we'll now have not just what's called the static analysis but also an analysis that takes into account the fact that tax policy does change people's behavior. we all know that. everyone knows that. but we haven't had that information until now. this macroeconomic scoring of a tax provision will make it more likely to come up with good tax reform that will help give this economy the shot in the arm it needs to get every get moving. i'm pleased we're finally going to move forward on a budget. it's discouraging it took this long, six years but with the new republican majority we've

committed to do this and i'm very pleased that this afternoon we're going to finally see for the hardworking taxpayers that i represent the opportunity to actually have a budget around here and to get individual appropriations bills done. one other part of the budget that relates to the trip that i just took is our defense spending. the budget helps provide more avenues for increasing defense where needed. and in this dangerous world in which we live, we do have to ensure that we have a strong defense that's up to the challenges we face. i just returned from a trip to israel where i had very productive meetings with prim minister netanyahu with the secretaries, the ministers of intelligence a deputy foreign minister other israeli officials as well as our ambassador over there and his team. the reason for going to israel was the same as with previous visits to learn firsthand from those on the ground about the

best way forward in a very volatile and dangerous region of the world to show support for our steadfast ally, israel and finally report back to my ohio constituents and to the senate as we face these challenging issues we've got in the region. i saw when i was there again how since its independence in 1948 the people of israel not have not only learned how to survive, how to make do in sometimes very unforgiving tragic even natural environment, but have also learned how to thrive. they boast the region's most dynamic economy now. it's also the region's most vibrant democracy with an open society, promotes the values of freedom, tolerance and equality. it's a small population, they have very little land and few natural resources and they're faced with aggression from all sides. but throughout its history israel has faced its challenges through i would say both the power of the head and the

heart, knowledge innovation, grit and determination to build and defend the world's one and only jewish state and the one democracy in the region. it's against this general backcrop i wanted to talk to the prime minister and other ministers about important topics we face here in the senate. one is the ongoing nuclear talks and how to prevent iran from developing a nuclear weapon as well as how to address iran's current aggression all throughout the region. second, i wanted to talk to them about the insidious campaign going on around the world. it's a campaign to delegitimize israel through boycotts, divestments, sanctions. i've been involved in this for years, 10 years ago i worked as trade representative, i joined senator ben cardin in not empt to have an amendment through the trade bill to tell our trading partners you cannot divest and

sanction israel if you want to do business with us. third i want to daubing about the myriad challenges die stabilizing the region wright now, isis, the immediate challenges israel faces with the terrorist it's the of hezbollah and lebanon and now in syria. finally i want to talk about the israeli-palestinian dialogue, the opportunity for peace and a two-state solution. of all these threats i suppose israel's greatest threat lies in iran. iran has been described as a regime that is the number-one state sponsor of terrorism in the world. let's remember that. remember who we're dealing with. this has been true since 1984 when they put iran on the terrorist list. i think only four on it, one is cuba that i'm sure the administration would like to remove from that list. so this is a small list of countries. according to the administration the iranian regime is able to reduce enough

material for a nuclear weapon in sometime between three months and a year depending on which testimony you hear from the administration. they also acknowledge that it supports terrorist groups, hezbollah, funds other shiite militias as it seeks regional dominance in iraq. we've seen it in yemen recently but also in syria and else elsewhere. they also have supported a sunni group, hamas as they lob rockets into israel, many of the rockets have been provided apparently through iran. of course, we should not forget this behavior comes from a regime that has pledged to annihilate -- and i quote -- "destroy wipe israel off the map" -- end quote. like many of my colleagues, i have concerns about the nuclear weapon framework. given the importance of this issue i feel strongly that congress should play a role here in analyzing any agreement and approving or disapproving it.

our negotiating objective in my view should be an enforceable agreement. one that actually has concrete and verifiable steps to prevent iran from developing nuclear weapons capability. for years the international community demanded that iran disdismantle its nuclear program by halting all enrichment activity. if you look at the u.n. resolutions, pretty strong language. from what we know, it appears the so-called framework -- framework agreement is a great distance from that. i hope that can be improved. we're looking at a model of an agreement that aims to freeze the nuclear program but somehow doesn't dismantle it. i would have preferred the dismantlement model and with the sanctions we put in place i'd hoped it was doable. given israel's expertise and focus i wanted to learn why the israelis think the framework is inadequate and whether it could be turned into a better agreement.

there are many important questions that remain and sadly, only a few have have satisfactory answers in the framework agreement. the u.s. and iranian texts appear to differ. if you hear from them, they say one thing we say another. i returned from this trip continuing my focus on perhaps what is the most important issue of all which is the sanctions relief. the u.s. congress put these sanctions in place, encouraging the administration, if we give the iranian regime sanctions relief on day one before they've kept their word on any deal when will be contributing a cash windfall to iran's ongoing efforts to further destabilize an ongoing list of countries. think about it. syria, yemen and lebanon and so on. whether it's sanctions relief or releasing frozen oil revenues from banks all over the world if that becomes something that

iranians can use that kind of financial relief, it would be a step to fuel war not peace. so these are the right areas to focus on when it comes to iran, not just for israel's sake, of course but for the sake of peace and stability in the region and for our sake, our national security. and the world's sake. i'm hopeful we can pass the iran nuclear agreement review act and safeguard congress' role. i'm hopeful we can move to a bipartisan consensus here on the floor of the senate about what constitutes a good deal. i believe that consensus could provide a measuring stick to determine what kind of agreement would produce a lasting peace and also provide the administration some leverage, give them some leverage to be able to negotiate a more effective agreement by having that debate here on the floor of the senate. the attacks oins rail don't always come from missiles or other violent means. increasingly opponents of israel are using economic

weapons to target israel. the boycott divestment and sanctions movement is an effort to undermine israel's sovereigntained isolate it from the region. senator carper and i offered the act. it says the united states will leverage trade to stop efforts to de-legitimatize israel. having just been there some of these b.d.s. efforts actually harm the palestinians in the west bank who i think some of these efforts are mepts efforts are meant to help. our legislation discourages our trading partners from engaging in this economic discrimination. i have a seen how it works. i know trade can be effective. we did this with amman when i was in the u.s. trade representatives office. same with bahrain. both agreements ends up removing the boycotts with israel.

i saw it with saudi arabia when i negotiated their asession to the w.t.o. i'm proud that the cardin-portman amendment was one of the amendments to pass out of the finance committee with when we took un-the trade promotion authority bill. in my meetings with dang shapiro, my meetings with the israeli national security officials and my discussions with the prime minister, i gained some additional insights and how b.d.s. actually works in practice and came home more resolved than ever to work in a bipartisan way to ensure that we don't have this discrimination and painfully obvious double standard which is rail. for instance, it only advocates isolation and penalties on israel not other countries over territorial disputes, turning a blind eye really to other territorial disputes around the world. finally, i talked to officials at length about the general turmoil in the middle east and israel's relationship with its neighbors. this deteriorating regional

security environment includes egypt's battle against hamas and radicals in sinai the brutal role in syria hezbollah fighters in lebanon threats and challenges to our ally jordan, and the israeli dialogue. i return from my trip with my concerns reinforced over the threats to the region but i also return with hope because whether i was touching the ancient stones of the western wall, walking the stations of the cross in the old city amidst the old city market, standing amidst the worshipers in the church of the holy sepulchre i saw a remarkable phenomenon up close. a small but determined country that carries within its borders the ancient wisdom of our great face, the cutting-edge innovations and the can-do spirit of israel. all of this combines to bring me

back to this floor with a greater resolve to meet these challenges we talked about today for our own national security but also for that of our steadfast ally israel. mr. president, i yield back my time. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: what is the business pending before the senate? the presiding officer: the conference report for s. con. res. 11, with ten hours of debate equally divided. mr. durbin: on the budget? the presiding officer: on the budget. mr. durbin: thank you mr. president. i and i hope hope that some of these comments i make are not taken personally. thank you for all the work you've put into the budget and thank you for your friendship and cooperation on so many different issues. a budget is like a blueprint. it really says what we want to do and spend in the next fiscal year which starts october 1.

as a result of passing a budget, we send a message to the spending committees and tell them how much to spend in given areas. the budget tries to spell out not only the amounts but also the policies that we are to follow when we pass these spending bills. and so it's really pretty small document by federal standards but it really packs a lot of power when it comes to what we're going to be doing for the next several months. and budgets make choices just like our family budgets make a choice. can we afford a new car? is it time to move? can we remodel the kitchen? can we pay for the kids to go college? these are family budget decisions that are made that really impact the lives of members of the family. and just as those decisions impact lives so does this in a large way. for over 300 million americans. sadly, from my perspective -- and i have great respect for the senator from wyoming who served serve

-- who servessate as senate budget committee chairman, this budget has the wrong priorities. let me tell you why. many times you're going to hear speeches given on the floor of the senate that the government should not pick winners and losers. i've heard that so many times. and it basically says let us leave it to the free market forces and other forces. government shouldn't pick winners and losers. this budget being offered to the united states senate picks winners and losers and we can almost identify those winners by name. because what this budget does is to eliminate the federal estate tax. now, the federal estate tax this in this circumstance -- changes that are called for will result in tax breaks for the wealthiest people in america roughly 4,000 people a year will be spared if

their estates are worth more than $10 million from paying the estate tax. for these individuals who are that wealthy it means a $3 million tax break. and when you add it up over a ten-year period of time, 4,000 people per year, it comes out to $268 billion. so for the wealthiest people in america, they are declared the winners in the senate republican budget. who are the losers? the losers are 16 million americans who will find that they don't have the benefits of the employment -- eitc tax credit as well as child tax credit that has been proposed. we cut back for 16 million americans tax credits which they can use to build and sustain their families in order to give tax breaks to 4,000 people a year who have an estate

worth more than $10 million. now, we haven't ignored the estate tax. in fact, we substantially reformed it, re-indexed it. we've made a lot of changes to t but the republican budget said, we haven't gone far enough. we still have 4,000 people who are so rich they're going to pay the tax and this budget says it's time for that to end. i think they're wrong. and in order to deal with reducing the budget deficit let me tell you where this republican budget turns. all of us are aware of the fact that student loan debt now is the largest debt in america other than mortgage debt. there is more student loan debt in america than credit card debt. think about that for a second. millions of students are deep in debt and carrying that debt for year after year because higher education at colleges and universities costs so much. middle-income families can't afford to pay it, they haven't saved enough, so the kids and sometimes the family has to

borrow the money to get it done. what does this budget do for those students, student borrowers? first, it reduces the amount of money available in pell grants. pell grants are grants -- not loans, grants given to low-income students at colleges and universities. that's money the students don't have to borrow. h. becausebecause they come from low-income families. well in this building we have bill, we have a 31% cut. 8 million americans depended on pell grant funding in this current school year. they will find that there's less money available in grants even though they're from low-income families to go to college. so what's the alternative? don't go to college or borrow more money. so the republican approach to the student loan debt crisis is to decrease the grants and increase the debt of future

students. that isn't all. there is a provision which says, if you borrow money to go to college/universities from the federal government, then your repayment from those government loans is going to be at least sensitive to your situation in life. in other words you won't have to pay more than 10% of your income each year to pay off the student loan. they eliminate it. it basically means these students are going to are to pay -- going to have to pay higher amounts of their earnings on the student loans that they borrow. is it a problem? it is a big problem. it's a problem for those fresh out of college and university who want to start their lives. how are they going to start that are lives and take the job they want and still pay off the student loans? students are making decisions now about where they go to work and what they do with their lives because of the debt that they carry with them out of colleges and universities. and the republican budget before us today makes it more difficult for those students, reducing the

pell grants, increasing the pay-back cost on student loans. and then they do something else for students, too. the affordable care act which some call obamacare the affordable care act said, if you graduate from college, you can stay under your parents' health insurance planning until age 26. is that important? boy, it was in our family. i can remember when my daughter graduated from college. i said, jennifer, do you have health insurance? i don't need any. i feel fine. really? now my daughter and other kids can stay under their parents' health insurance plan. what does the republican budget do about that? it abolishes the affordable care act. it abolishes that protection for families to keep their kids on their health insurance plan. how can that help families and kids coming fresh out of college? a lot of kids out of college are not finding jobs right away.

they're doing internships working part-time. they can't afford health insurance. but they're under their family plan now because of obamacare. not according to the republican budget. they want to get rid of it. that isn't all. when you take a look at eliminating the affordable care act, at this point we have 16 million americans who have the benefit of health insurance because of obamacare. and they eliminate it over a period of time -- and we believe that number will grow to 27 million americans who because of the republican budget would not have the opportunity for health insurance. they cut back on medicaid eligibility. medicaid of course is health insurance forbe those in low-income -- for those in low-income situations. what happens to these people? i wonder if the budget committee sat down and took a look and said well, what's going to happen if people lose their health insurance 27 million americans? it would be naive to say they just won't get sick. we know they will. it'll go back to the old days.

in the old days sick people with no health insurance still showed up at the hospital. the hospital took care of them. the doctors took care of them. they were charity patients. who paid for their care? all of us with health insurance. i don't want to go back to the old days. i don't think america wants to. but this republican budget does. it eliminates the affordable care act. i travel around illinois and chicago, honored to represent it. and i go to community health centers. they're popping up all over, in rural areas in cities as well, in knackhoods. i want -- in neighborhoods. want to tell you how proud i am that the affordable care act creates many of these centers. i have said, if i were sick or a member of my family was sick, i'd be confident that if i walked in that center and they'd be treated to professional care. they are popping up all over the place. and elderly people now have someplace close to home to go to the clinic. those who are on medicaid, the health insurance from the

government, they can go in and be treated the same as anybody else. and what do we have in this bill when it comes to these health care clinics? this bill not only kicks 11 million people off medicaid by taking away states' rights to expand health care to lower-income residents it cuts funding for community health centers by 70%. community health centers that are now serving 23 million americans, which includes 7 million children and 250,000 veterans. how can we be better off by cutting back on the medical care in these clinics? do we think people won't get sick? of course they will. and their costs will be shifted to others, just like the bad old days that we remember when health insurance premiums were going through the roof. but that is the proposal here. and i think it is a serious mistake. mr. president, when i look at this republican budget, i wonder if the members who voted for it have really taken these ideas

back home. if they sat down with people and talked about what the impact will be when working families lose the tax credits of the eitc and child care.ñ i wonder if they've considered what the impact will be by saying they want to perpetuate breaks in the tax code which reward companies for taking jobs overseas. isn't that the last thing we should be doing? shouldn't the tax code be rewarding american companies that keep quality jobs in the united states instead of shifting your mailing address to the cayman islands or someplace in europe? i think it's pretty clear that if you want to build a strong american economy you stand by the best, most patriotic american corporations that keep people working in the united states. that's not what this budget proposal does. we can do better. i hope that we defeat this budget resolution, and i hope then we can sit down and have a bipartisan conversation about

the future of this country. i think the future of this country includes a tax code that's fair to working families. i think it rewards american companies that create jobs here in the united states. i don't think it gives 4,000 people a year, who happen to be the wealthiest people in america, a winning power ball ticket with this budget proposal we have before us. i think we want to expand the reach of health insurance not reduce it. we want fo give families a chance to be able to send their kids to college and kids not be so burdened with debt that they can't really chart their own futures. that is an optimistic positive view of a growing america. this budget resolution is not. i urge my colleagues to vote against this, or on the motion to proceed vote against this motion to proceed on this budget resolution and say to the budget committee we can do better. let's, if we're going to pick winners and losers, let's pick working families right here in america as the winners. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president i rise reluctantly against this budget resolution. i want to pick up exactly where our colleague from illinois left off with respect to the values that are really important for this debate. because as i look, mr. president, at this budget, i see opportunities missed that would bring the senate together, help us find common ground, and particularly help the middle class. you know, the reality is there are tens of millions of people in oregon and across america who day in and day out walk an economic tightrope stretching every paycheck to the last penny. they want to climb the ladder of opportunity. they want to give their kids a brighter future, and the climb is not easy.

my view is we ought to be trying to write a federal budget that makes it easier for middle class people to climb that ladder of opportunity and for those who aren't middle class to start moving up the rungs. and this legislation before us misses out on several bipartisan opportunities that i think reluctantly drive me to say that the bill is flawed because in too many instances it leaves our working families, our middle class behind. let me be specific. i offered, when the budget came up here, an amendment which stipulated that tax reform be built around the needs of our middle class. so employers who would hire workers would have an opportunity to hire more.

our workers would be able to get child care. our students would be able to get educated. and it was pretty straightforward, mr. president. it said that tax relief should be built around our middle class. and a number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said would this allow for some approaches that we'd be interested in? i said of course. chairman enzi and i both have the honor to serve on the senate finance committee so i offered one that was built around some core ideas. but my colleagues might have other approaches. so a number of republicans voted for that. it got more than 70 votes in the united states senate. but now today as we debate this legislation, we don't hear anything about tax relief for middle-class families. and as i look at the budget, it sure looks to me like given some

of the other priorities, that there's a real prospect that taxes could go up for our middle-class families, as if they're not getting hammered hard enough. so today we could be working on a budget proposal that creates new opportunity for middle-class people a proposal that includes something like what was voted on here in the senate that got more than 70 votes. not there. a second example deals with rural america. again in a lot of our rural communities there is enormous hurt and many of them feel that the policies of the federal government would pretty much turn them into some kind of economic sacrifice zone. so in the budget committee i said i think we've got an opportunity to bring together programs like the secure rural schools program the payment in lieu of taxes program and the

land and water conservation fund and we could adopt a smarter approach to fighting wildfires. and the fact is that too was bipartisan. in the budget committee mr. president, the vote was 18-4. 18-4 an overwhelming bipartisan vote for the kind of approach that i offered which would bring these programs together and put in the budget secure rural schools alongside these other programs that are a rural lifeline. now, once again a bipartisan proposal -- a bipartisan proposal that got resounding support in the senate budget committee somehow didn't make its way into the legislation we're considering today. so for communities in my home state, the message you know is,

you know, we're not really going to make your communities a priority. at a time when our communities -- and i was just in, for example rosenberg oregon southern oregon, hardworking people who would like to both get the timber harvest up and have the funds for their police and their schools and their roads and basic services, a budget that says even though in the budget committee we had something bipartisan to help those communities, gee we're really not going to follow through. we're just going to have a partisan plan, number one. and, number two we're going to basically shuffle to the side these bipartisan proposals with respect to middle-class tax relief and rural communities that in my view, could make a huge difference in the quality of life for millions of american families and of course are bipartisan. now a third area that has

concerned me about this budget is the need for supporting our programs like medicare and social security that keep millions of americans from falling through the cracks. with this budget plan, the congress ought to be protecting medicaid so that americans of very limited means can count on having access to health care. yet, the budget that's being considered today would make, in miew view, needlessly painful needlessly arbitrary cuts. and it just seems as if the budget doesn't recognize that weakening medicaid will hurt the most vulnerable families in oregon and across the country those who are trug -- struggling so hard to climb that ladder of opportunity. without medicaid coverage, those

who are vulnerable end up foregoing checkups. they end up passing on the preventive visits and in my view they're going to end up with lesser care at a higherover all costs. a -- many americans who simply pay insurance premiums through their employer. so you make those kinds of cuts today, the cuts that i've described that are arbitrary and you're going to have higher costs and more economic pain down the road. finally, millions of seniors and those with disabilities rely on medicaid to help cover what otherwise can be crushing costs. crushing costs in the long term care area. mr. president, i was crow director of the -- codirector of

the organization gray panthers for a number of years before i was elected to congress. and what i have seen over the years is nursing home costs go up, up and up, and even those families who worked hard and saved and never took that special vacation, never bought that special car end up being impoverished and those that are disabled simply would not be in a position to get l long-term care without medicaid. we know what used to happen years and years ago. there were poor farms, there were alms houses. savings ran out. pretty hard to do that with the democrat graphic revolution today, 10,000 people turning 65 every day for years and years to come. so my view is medicaid, this lifeline for the most vulnerable people a lifeline that keeps so many individuals particularly seniors, from falling into utter

destitution, should be protected rather than filleted as this budget would do. and it is one of the major reasons why i'm in opposition. i'll close mr. president, by way of saying that i've gotten over the years to know chairman enzi very well, and he is a compassionate legislator. he is a talented legislator. and my hope is, although i opposite this budget today for reasons i scrd, bipartisan opportunities missed with respect to tax relief for the middle class and the rejection of a bipartisan plan to help rural america my hope is that in the days ahead as we go to the finance committee in particular and we look at these issues, we can return to what has always been the senate at its best, which is working in a

bipartisan fashion. we can do it on tax relief. we can do it for rural america. by the way, we can do it in terms of medicare. we can protect the medicare guarantee and hold down costs. our colleague senator isakson from georgia joined me in an important piece of legislation that really starts to transform medicare into a program that better meets the needs of those who will most need it, which is those with chronic disease: cancer diabetes and stroke and heart disease. but we'd be protecting the medicare guaranty, not in effect damaging medicaid the way this budget would do. mr. president, mr. president i am going to yield the floor now and just state once again that i hope we can go back to what

makes the senate function at its best. bipartisan, we missed that opportunity thus far and i hope we'll return to it. with that, i yield the floor. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i thank the senator from objector or for his -- from oregon for his kind comments and know that as the ranking member on the finance committee that he'll be doing a lot of things to see that will things in this budget happen. and i suspect they'll happen a lot the way they are here. i would like to mention just a couple of things, though, for him to note because he mentioned the wildfire suppression. i know how passionate he and senator crapo have been on the wildfire suppression. section 38 preserves the

wildfire protection. one of the things that got me is that we have emergencies for all sorts of things. when i first got here they were $5 billion a year. now they're up to $7 billion a year. every time you're budgeting and you know something is going to happen every year, ought to be in the budget so i put in $7 billion for emergencies so that will help to provide some of the funding for the suggestion of wildfire suppression. a couple of the other paragraphs that the senator from oregon would be interested in is 4319 and 4320. we did not throw out everything. we did do some combining of ones that were very similar to make sure that in the 183 proposals that we had for reserve funds that we could come up with a few fewer that would incorporate the ideas of everyone. in some of the previous speeches it's been mentioned what we were doing to medicare.

there aren't a lot of specifics in there on medicare because again, the finance committee that senator hatch chairs and senator wyden is the ranking member on, will have to make a lot of those actual decisions. in fact, almost everything that's in the budget requires some additional action, and that additional action even has to be signed by the president. so if we're way off it's not going to happen. i'm thinking there will be a lot of bipartisan action on this. on medicare itself, all we in senate did was go the same medicare cuts the president suggested in his budget. we made one small change in that. we said those medicare cuts, that money that will be saved in medicare has to stay with medicare. that's a difference we've got with the president. when we did obamacare there was $7 h 14 billion worth of medicare spent on the other part

of the program. we could have done the doc fix back then real easily but that was spent on other places. one of the prom -- one of the promise says approximates we made -- and there ought to be changes made in medicare -- actually government ought to look at places and do it better. or if it's not working, do without it. but medicare does serve a need in this country and the money that comes from medicare ought to stay in medicare but ought to be used better places in medicare where it's more needed. so i hope people will actually take a look at the document that's here. incidentally, on that medicare proposal, the house came to the senate proposal on that one and eliminated a couple of things that they had. i'd suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. tester: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. tester: thank you mr. president. mr. president, if you look into the senate's agenda this month you're going to see right away why so in the folks are frustrated with washington. we have now been considering an iran bill for the last two weeks that has huge bipartisan support

but it's tied up with amendments designed to kill the bill. and today the house and senate republicans bring forth a budget that reflect some of the worst ideas from each chamber. back in march i raised concern that the senate budget puts the interests of a few ahead of the interests of the country and that is still true today. the majority insists on spending billions of dollars overseas and continues the fiction that this spending somehow doesn't count towards the deficit. under this budget, every penny proposed in the overseas contingency operation account -- that's $187 billion is going to be borrowed from china japan saudi arabia and others. the majority once again favors tax breaks of the wealthiest among us over plans to strengthen the middle class a middle class that has been the envy of the world. but under this blueprint the $2,500 tax credit that helps students with the cost of

tuition disappears. the benefit under the child tax credit gets smaller and american middle-class folks get squeezed. the majority continues to reward companies that ship jobs overseas instead of creating jobs right here in the united states. this budget drastically cuts and ends medicare as we know it and it opens up the door to the sale of our public lands. and, finally this budget fails to invest in basic infrastructure. in fact, it actually calls for a cut of over $200 billion in highway and transit funding over the next decade. the majority is pushing this proposal even though the highway funding -- highway bill funding expires on may 31 of 2015. and now we're nearly out of time. in less than four weeks just as millions of americans will be getting on the road to enjoy summer vacations road

construction projects around this country will come to a screeching halt. in my home state of montana the state department of transportation will delay nine projects this month due to congress' failure to pass a long-term highway bill. four projects that was scheduled to be awarded in april has been postponed to july and may be postponed indefinitely. five more that were scheduled to be awarded next week will also be delayed. if congress does another short-term extension that list will get even longer. and if we delay these projects, even by a few weeks, we could miss the entire construction season in montana a northern tier state. the snow will start falling and the potholes will get bigger. we already know that america's transportation infrastructure has been ignored for far too long. according to the american association of state highway and transportation officials, more

than half of america's major roads and bridges are rated as poor to mediocre. in montana 40% of our roads are in need of repair or will need fixing soon. when our roads have potholes or can't handle the volume of cars and trucks, safety becomes an issue. montana routinely leads the nation in highway fatalities. and thousands of road fatalities each year are the result of bad road conditions. as far as the economic impact federal highway dollars directly impacts 11,000 jobs in montana alone, not to mention the thousands of others that rely on roads for their businesses. these are jobs that cannot be outsourced. each year around $60 billion in goods is shipped over montana's 75,000 miles of roads and highways. that is true economic impact. instead of a long-term highway bill that allows states to plan and get america moving, the next item the majority leader says he's going to take up is trade promotion authority.

this will open the door for trade deals that the american public hasn't been allowed to see. while many in washington see trade promotion as the key to ensuring america's long-term economic viability we need to make sure that the investments are made right here at home smart investments. after all, how are farmers in montana going to get their crops to asia if they can't get them down the road to the nearest grain elevator? our infrastructure affects every industry. take, for instance, montana's outdoor economy. millions of people come to montana each year to hunt and to fish and to hike and enjoy montana's great outdoors. from glacier and yellowstone national parks to areas of our forested and public lands montana's outdoors bring $6 billion in each year and support some 60,000 jobs. passing a highway bill will increase folks' ability to access these outdoor places.

but states which oversee these construction projects cannot wait until the end of the month to find out if congress is going to do its job. many of them are already pumping the brakes on projects until we step up and pass a highway infrastructure bill. in the university district in missoula an important resurfacing project was scheduled to start next week after classes got out but thanks to congressional inaction on the highway bill, that project will start no earlier than the third week in july, maybe not at all. what's that mean? it means the project likely will not be done before students return and traffic in that university district increases exponentially. the montana department of transportation has already announced it will push back the start-up date three months for a bridge replacement in sanders county. with one in five bridges being in desperate need of repair, delays on projects like this are irresponsible and only add to

the backlog. the need to act could not be more clear. while everyone knows we need a long-term solution, the american people have come to expect the worst from congress. shortsighted stopgap measures that won't give businesses or working families the certainty that they need and deserve. the house ways and means committee and the senate finance committee have put forth no solutions to this date. they're anxious to move the trade legislation that seems all too reminiscent of past trade deals, long on promises, short on jobs yet they will not produce a long-term highway bill that we know creates jobs here in america. we must pass a long-term highway bill and one that's paid for. but instead of working together on a long-term plan, congress seems resigned to passing another short-term patch. this is shortsighted and will have negative consequences for folks across this country. the question i have for my colleagues is, when did passing

a highway bill become political? when did basic investments in our nation's infrastructure become this difficult? this is a no-brainer. now we have folks in congress who think that roads build themselves. we have folks here in congress who illegally swipe the credit card when it comes to investments in the middle east but the same members of congress won't even open up a wallet to fill a pothole next to a school in this country. china will spend more than $400 billion on transportation infrastructure this year. that is eight times more than the united states will spend on the highway trust fund. how do we expect to compete in a global economy if we're not willing to make the investment? infrastructure investments are investments in our economy and they are investments in the future and if we can pass a long-term bill it will pay for itself by giving businesses the certainty they need to grow, create jobs, and build the kind of economy our kids and

grandkids deserve. mr. president, the clock is ticking. but the senate is focused on the wrong priorities. it's time to refocus while making smart investments in our economy and being honest with the american people in our budgets. right now we're doing neither. mr. president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: mr. president i come to the floor today to voice my opposition to this budget. since being elected to the senate i've always stressed the importance of responsibly addressing our country's fiscal challenges. we've had bipartisan agreements before when we faceed fiscal challenges at the end of 2013 we actually passed the bipartisan murray-ryan budget agreement which then led to the passage of the omnibus spending bill and i was part of the group of 14 during the shutdown that came

together for an idea, for a fix that allowed us to get to those budgets, seven democrats seven republicans. we also saw some major bipartisan work on the farm bill the water resources development act, the working work force investment act and the child block grant program as well as we know recently the sustainable growth medicare rate. but today that is not what this budget is about. and that's one of my major focuses today and by say as a result of some of the bipartisan work that's been done in the past as in 2009 we've seen the deficit as a percentage of g.d.p. we've seen it drop to under 3%. in this economic recovery, we have seen 61 straight months of private-sector job growth and added over 12 million private-sector jobs. unemployment is at 5.5% nationally and 3.7% in my home

state of minnesota. the unemployment rate went down faster in 2014 than it has in any year since 1994. so with this economy not just stabilize but finally starting to show some ensigns of improvement, not everything we need not with everyone sharing in its growth, we know that, but we are no longer governing from crisis. we are finally goofing from opportunity, opportunity for the people of this country opportunity to compete in this global economy and my problem with this budget is it doesn't give us that opportunity. this budget would make drastic cuts to the things we need to seize this opportunity in the global economy things like student loans things like transportation heating assistance just to name a few. according to the congressional budget office, the deficit as i said is projected to drop to 2.8% of g.d.p. in 2015, a cut of nearly two-thirds. i get this -- yet this budget

would cut many of the programs that would help our moil families our seniors and those working hard to make ends meet. we've heard about a lot of cuts in programs but i want to focus on three key areas that i believe that we need to invest in today so we can seize this opportunity where we finally have a stable economy and our country can grow and compete. the first is infrastructure. the second is investing in kids. and the third is research. one of the best ways to boost our economy and create good-paying jobs is through investing in infrastructure. for far too long we have neglected the roads and the bridges and the mass transit that millions of americans rely on every day. according to the federal highway administration, more than 24% of the nation's 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. according to the american society of civil engineers 2013 report card, the u.s. scores a

d-plus on the overall condition of our infrastructure. compared with other countries we're falling behind. china and india are spending respectively 9% and 8% of g.d.p. on infrastructure. how much are we committing? just 2%. the effects of this shortsighted strategy are increasingly clear. no one knows that better than my home state of minnesota when in 2007 a major bridge, an eight-lane highway went crashing into the mississippi river, 13 people died, dozens were injured, dozens of cars submerged in the water and sasse i said a bridge shouldn't fall down in the middle of america especially not an eight-lane highway, a bridge that is one of the most traveled in our state, especially not a bridge that is eight blocks from my house, a bridge my family goes over every day when we want to go anywhere in our state. rush hour in the heart of a major metropolitan area. when you have something like that happen in a state you understand the importance of

investing in infrastructure and the last thing update to see are more cuts. whether it's roads bridges rail airports or waterways the need to rebuild our infrastructure is critical to reclaiming our country's competitive edge. we want to get goods to market, how do we do it, with roads with bridges with rail, with locks and dams, we do it with airports. yet this budget would cut it would cut transportation and infrastructure by more than $200 billion over the next decade a cut of 40%. that is simply unacceptable. education funding something so important to me in my life my grampa worked 1,500 feet underground in the mines never graduated from high school, literally spent his life working put hissing his money in a coffee can to send my dad to community college my dad went on to the university of minnesota, two public institutions. that's what education is about. yet we see cuts to education

cuts to pell grants in this bill. the individuals with disabilities act provides critical funding to help offset education costs for states and local areas that are providing services to kids with disabilities. we're talking about our most vulnerable kids here. yet this budget would cut federal education funding by 2% in 2017 and 9% in 2025. idea funding that funding so critical for kids with disabilities would be cut by more than $15 million per year in minnesota and more than $950 million nationally. our kids deserve better than that. medical research, no one knows that better than minnesota home of the mayo clinic, the university of minnesota yet what do we see with this budget? the cuts would be a devastating $8 billion decrease at the national institutes of health over the neck decade. simply unacceptable. cutting investment in medical innovation for cures that could

solve alzheimer's for cures that could cure childhood diabetes for cures and for research that could help people with autism, cutting investment in medical innovation is not a path that we can afford to take. as newt gingrich said in an op-ed this month investing in health research is both a moral and a financial issue. the n.i.h. is a beacon of hope for people across the nation and in my home state of anyone. juts -- minnesota. look at alzheimer's. right now close to 5.2 million americans are living in with alzheimer's including nearly 100,000 minnesotans and these numbers will grow dramatically in the coming years with the aging of the baby boomer generation. and we know there's good research being done through the human genome project the work being done at mayo, where even if we can catch it earlier so doctors are able to figure out exactly what works and what doesn't work, if you don't catch it early how are you going to do the research to figure out what works and

doesn't work if you wait too long? those are some of the groundbreaking work being done right now. that's why i've worked with senator durbin on legislation to boost n.i.h. funding in contrast to this budget, the american cures act that i'm a cosponsor of would reverse the trend of declining federal investment in medical research and fuel the next generation of biomedical discoveries by providing a 5% annual increase at the n.i.h. and other key federal research agencies. we need to see this as an investment. we know how expensive alzheimer's is, the heartbreaking stories of families where a family member gets glimes and yet we cannot -- glimes and yet we cannot back away from the research going on, things like resist medicine, targeted treatments helping patients live healthier lives. in conclusion, this budget would make cuts to infrastructure at a time when we need to invest and rebuild.

this budge would -- budget would slow the process of biomedical research and innovation. we have an opportunity now in this country through the work of so many businesses and workers across the country, we have been able to stabilize this economy. people in our country did not give up. now is the opportunity to seize opportunities. and seizing opportunities means really taking back our place in america as a preeminent researcher as the country that you go to when you want to cure diseases. we can't do that by moving backwards, if we're going to cut the funding for our roads and bridges we can't afford to have another i-35-w bridge collapse. i urge my colleagues to work together on a smarter budget, a budget that actually allows this country, america to seize the opportunity before us so we can compete in this global economy. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i rise today to

discuss the budget that is before the senate, this combined house-senate republican budget. in evaluating this budget proposal my core question has been is this a budget that works for working america? or is this a budget designed for powerful special interests and for those best off in our society? a budget isn't just about the numbers, it's about the vision that it has for america. over 70 years ago president franklin roosevelt in his 1944 state of the union laid out a vision, an economic bill of rights proclaiming -- and i quote -- "in our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. the right to a useful and remunerative job. the right to earn enough and provide adequate food. the right of every family to a

decent home. the right to adequate medical care. the right to adequate protection for the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment. and the right to a good education. and he closed with these words -- all of these rights spell security. advance ago budget that advances these economic rights for all americans is my top priority. that means a budget must create good-paying jobs, improve access to quality affordable education, ensure retirement security for our seniors and lower the tax burden on working families. the american people share these priorities. they want a plan, a budget, a vision for our nation that builds a foundation for middle-class families to thrive. two months ago i stood on the

senate floor to review the budget proposed as the senate republican budget. in category after category, that budget earned a failing grade. unfortunately, i'm here today to say that the plan that has come out of the conference committee from the house republicans and the senate republicans is even worse. it constitutes an egregious assault on working americans. it slashes investments in infrastructure and in education failing to close tax loopholes attacking financial reform. it's fundamentally misaligned with the values of working americans. it's poised to move our nation in exactly the wrong direction. more tax breaks and corporate well fair forwewill fairswelfare andmillionaires and more pain and

suffering for the middle class. more pain and suffering for working families and for the most vulnerable. the g.o.p. is continuing to play games with americans' health care coverage, claiming we can grow our economy by cutting health care for seniors and children and the poorest in our society. the senate g.o.p. budget wiped out coverage under the affordable care act -- of the affordable care act and this budget continues to wreak havoc. it will immediately eliminate health insurance coverage for 16.4 million americans and swell the ranks of the uninsured by 23 million individuals within a single year. it will deny millions of young adults the right to stay on their parents' health insurance plan until the age of 26. it will deprive 130 million americans with preexisting conditions the right to purchase affordable health insurance if they lose their jobs or

otherwise lose their health insurance. these numbers are appalling. it puts our seniors back at risk of bankruptcy from unaffordable prescriptions because it wipes out the a.c.a.'s effort to fill in the medicare part-d doughnut hole. in 2014 alone seniors saved $4.8 billion on prescription drugs and 39 million seniors will be forced to pay more for preventive services under this budget. the g.o.p. budget takes seniors back to the bad old days where the doughnut hole would force more than 9.4 million seniors and persons with disabilities to pay billions more out of pocket for prescription drugs. at a time when senior poverty is on the rise, shouldn't we be focused on helping our seniors retire with security and with

dignity? instead, the new plan cuts medicare deeply -- $430 billion over ten years. it cuts medicaid by at least $400 billion jeopardizing nursing home care for the most vulnerable senior americans. it calls for ending medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher plan. and finally it paves the way for fast-track consideration as a way to repeal the affordable care act through reconciliation. when you total up these factors look at the assault on seniors. more for prescription drugs less for nursing home care and medicaid medicare -- $430 billion cut; medicare voucherized. we find a wipeout of the annual wewellness checks and preventive

services mike mammograms -- like mammograms and prostate cancer screenings. this turns it into insecurity. it turns dignity into indignity. this is an unacceptable assault on our seniors. it is also an assault on our children and on education. both democrats and republicans agree that we want a chance for our children to get ahead to pursue their dreams. shouldn't the budget tell our children that education is a priority? the republican plan makes new cuts to head start that would kick 400,000 children off the program over a ten inform ten-year period, 400,000 empty head start chairs across america. this picture is from an event that i held at oregon's whittaker school, and the cuts to the senate republican plan to head start would meaning 15 empty chairs just at this one

location. but now we're talking about a budget that wipes out an opportunity for 400,000 children from struggling families to get a head start through head start. the conference report doesn't just hit early childhood education. it also fails our children in regards to opening the doors of opportunity for higher education education. college costs are soaring so it makes sense to strengthen pell grant funding but this republican budget slashes pell grant funding by about a third. picture one out of every three of our children who use a pell grant to get through the doors of college the doors of opportunity unfortunately having that opportunity taken away. this budget cuts the program by $90 billion over ten years

makes college out of reach for so many when we should be going the other direction. and that's not all. it also increases student loan debt by an average of $4,000 for an estimated 30 million students making our children of struggling families pay more for basic need-based student loans. mr. president, i believe in opportunity. i believe in the american dream. i believe that higher education is one of the best pathways to the middle class. we cannot -- we must not adopt a budget designed to slam the doors of opportunity shut on millions of our children. and there's more to be concerned about. one of the keystone keys to prosperity is infrastructure. my colleague from minnesota was just illuminating many of the problems in that area. why shouldn't a budget

prioritize improving our nation's infrastructure, dams, pridges, and rail systems? we have a huge infrastructure deficit. our highway trust fund is running out of money. right now europe is investing 5% of its g.d.p. in infrastructure and the united states, less than 2%. we're vastly under- investing and this budget continues and aggravates that under-investment hurting the creation of good-paying jobs now and doing enormous damage to the economy of the future. our parents did far better for us funding a massive infusion of funds for infrastructure that strengthened the system and strengthened our economy of today. shouldn't we do the same for the next generation? and then we can turn to food security. 40 million hungry americans throughout the country. so in the healthiest nation on ernls, shouldn't our budget ensure that families can put

food on the table? this republican budget says "no." it supports taking massive cuts to programs that provide critical assistance to low-income families. this plan eliminates nutrition assistance for 1 moi.2 million women, infants and children who rerely on the w.i.c. program. this budget would cut $660 billion over ten years for programs that support low-income families including massive unspecified cuts to food stamps. with this budget, my republican colleagues are telling the parents of children and in financially challenged families, let them go hungry, and that's just wrong. since this budget cuts food and pell grants and infrastructure and health care, since it does so much damage to working families shouldn't it ask for some small sacrifice from those best off? apparently not.

this republican budget takes from the most vulnerable and gives it to the wealthiest families in america. this republican budget provides a quarter trillion -- and yes that's trillion with a "t" -- trillion-dollar tax break for the wealthiest .2% of americans. while increasing the tails taxes on 13 million working families with 25 million children by diminishing the earned-income tax credit and the child care tax credit -- the child tax credit, affecting families who earn just a modest amount. average household income of just $22,000. i cannot conceive of any economic or moral argument that justifies taking money out of the pockets of struggling families from pell grants to head start to food on the table and giving it away to the already wealthiest americans.

perhaps one of my colleagues who is voting for this budget would like to explain why taking from the poor to give more to the single-wealthiest families in america is justified because it is not. it is not justified. despite the fact that our richest families already pay less in their marginal tax than working families pay this republican budget wants to give more away to them from the american treasury and do it by taking food and education opportunities out of the reach of our struggling families. this budget removes two amendments that were originally adopted in the senate budget. senator murray's amendment that would have allowed americans to earn paid sick leave supported by 61 senators including 15 republicans but eviscerated in this budget. the second introduced by senator schatz would have ensured that

all legal legally married shesm would have benefits. wiped out in this joint house-senate republican budget. so this budget takes away from hardworking middle-class americans, from struggling americans who are often working two to three minimum-wage jobs and gives away to the wealthy and well-connected, not asking them for one slim dime, not one egregious tax loophole closed. it gives them preferred tax cuts returning millions of dollars to the wealthiest families. so is this a budget that works for working americans or is it a budget for the best off? i think it's clear from the topics i've covered, this is a budget for the best off at the expense of everyone else in america, in every possible way

that provides a foundation. if we return to the vision laid out by franklin roosevelt in 1944 of the self-evident economic truths, of a right to a good job to earn enough for adequate food, to a decent home, to adequate medical care and protection from the economic fears of old anal, age sickness accident and unemployment, this budget fails every test and should be defeated. thank you mr. president. a senator: mr. president i rise today to honor montana's thousands of small businesses. mr. daines: during national small business week, we recognize all of the hardworking montana men and women who took the risk to start a small business. these men and women have spent countless, sleepsless nights working to create jobs and grow

their business in a state that they love and that he call home. before being elected to congress i spent nearly three decades in the private sector and i know firsthand that there's no better place to live and work than in montana. i also know that our small businesses are critical to montana's economy and our state's future. according to the small business administration, small businesses represent more than 97% of all montana employers. in turn, employing more than 68% of montana's private-sector labor force. i'm excited to say there are a lot of small business success stories in montana. we have countless business leaders and entrepreneurs working to drive our state's economic growth and helping us lead the way in a variety of industries from tourism and agriculture to technology and resource development. look no further than bozeman

where advanced technology designs is helping to build up montana's high-tech sector. their team is compriseds of 15 montana state university engineers and together they've designed more than 70% of the l.e.d. signs in times square, from the nbc "today" show to the disney store." i've also had a tour to tour a trailer manufacturing facility in bonoir, montana. they just won the 2015 award. it recognizes their achievements in export sales profits in jobs while encouraging other montana's businesses to find new markets foyer their goods. -- for their goods. this is an exciting time to do business home in montana. from our growing technology

sector to diverse natural resources there is a lot of opportunity to create jobs and grow businesses in montana. unfortunately, the federal government's out-of-touch policies and bureaucracyic overreach continue to prevent montana's small businesses from reaching their full potential. too many montana businesses face regulatory burdens that hinder innovation and block opportunities for growth. our tax code is too complex and serves as yet another barrier to prosperity. and obamacare's burdensome and costly mandates are forcing millions of dollars in new fees and compliance costs upon montana's small businesses. in turn, forcing our job creators to downsize, to reduce employee hours or close their doors altogether. when i drive around in montana i've yet to hear a small business owner ask for more regulations and higher taxes. we need commonsense policies that encourage montana's job

creators to innovate and to grow. we need solutions to lift these regulatory barriers, reduce tax burdens and create long-term certainty for hardworking montanans. i've longed said that the best solutions don't come from bureaucrats in washington, d.c. they come from main street montana and our state's hardworking business and community leaders because in montana, we understand that jobs come from small business, not big government. and that's why we need to reduce the red tape that is holding our small businesses back and work towards commonsense regulations that don't place unnecessary burdens on montana families and montana small businesses. we do need comprehensive tax reform that's fair, that's simpler, that promotes economic opportunity and works for all montanans and we need to repeal and replace obamacare with montana-driven solutions that put patients, that put their

doctors at the center of the health care equation and don't place these job-killing burdens on our small businesses. instead of hindering our small businesses, we should reward them the flexibility with freedom that they need to thrive and empower them with the tools they need to create jobs. that starts with educating montana's future leaders and ensuring students have the tools they need to succeed in their future careers. it's no secret that for many recent college grads finding a job in today's economy is harder than ever. this is especially true in montana where students are often forced to leave our state to find good-paying and long-lasting careers. it has been said our top three exports. our grain our cattle and our children. as we work to increase our exports, we need to ensure our students have the skills they need to get ahead and find jobs at home. from montana's tribal colleges to the new voa carriage schools

to the jake javits school, montana's educational schools are leading in helping our students. when small businesses succeed our economy thrives. we need to continue to find ways to encourage investment, entrepreneurship and innovation in our state and all across our nation. our country was founded on the principles of hard work and entrepreneurism. iem proud -- i'm proud that montana is leading the way in economic innovation. during this national small business week i encourage all my fellow montanans to shop small and join me in supporting montana's small businesses and thanking them for the important role they hold in our state not just this week, but every week.

thank you and i yield back the remainder of my time. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. today for the first time in six years congress will pass a budget and we're passing a budget that actually balances. this fulfills another basic responsibility of governing and an important promise that republicans made to the american people. in advance of this vote, mr. president, i would like to take a moment to applaud budget chairman mike enzi for his leadership on this issue. because of his strong work, our balanced budget will help grow our economy reduce the debt, repeal obamacare and rein in washington overreach. our balanced budget proves that the senate is fully working again on behalf of the american people. and now mr. president i'd like to talk about another issue that is also important to americans across the country something i hear about as i travel the state of wyoming and heard about this weekend.

mr. president, last week the democratic leader came to the floor of the senate and he said some very interesting things about the president's health care law. he said that obamacare is a smashing success. that was last week. well on monday we had this headline in the "wall street journal." "u.s. emergency room visits keep climbing. people on medicaid turn to hospital care when doctors' access is limited new survey suggests." i mean, it is just interesting to take a look at this large story about the number of visits that keep cliej to emergency rooms -- that keep climbing to emergency rooms in spite of what the president promised. the article goes on to say emergency room visits continue to climb in the second year of the affordable care act contradicting, contradicting the law's supporters who predicted a

decline in traffic as more people gained access to doctors and other health care providers. this is according to a survey by the american college of emergency physicians, and they should know. they are the ones in the emergency room treating patients. the group says that people who the health care law pushed on to medicaid -- pushed on to medicaid -- are having trouble getting appointments or even finding a doctor to take care of them because it's someone who doesn't take their new coverage. does the democrat minority leader think that that's a smashing success? this is a survey of over 2,000 emergency room doctors. 75% of them said that they have seen increases in emergency room patients since the year 2014. only one out of 20 doctors said they have seen a decrease. the article quotes one doctor, dr. howard mell saying there was

a grand theory, he said, of how the law would reduce e.r. visits. a grand theory, yes, it was. he said, well, guess what? it didn't happen. he said visits are going up despite the law and in a lot of cases, he said, because of the law. now, that's according to one emergency room doctor who sees the results of the obama health care law every day in the emergency room where he takes care of patients. you know, this really shouldn't surprise anyone. we've seen the warning signs coming now for awhile. back in december the department of health and human services found that more than half of the health care providers listed -- half listed as taking medicaid patients. well people couldn't schedule an appointment with them, and they're even listed with health and human services as taking care of medicaid patients. so this is only of the doctors who actually care for medicaid patients in the first place and we know that about half of

doctors won't see medicaid patients at all because the reimbursement is so low for taking care of them. for more than a quarter of the doctors, the wait time for a patient to actually get an appointment, more than a month. does the democratic leader think that that's a smashing success? waiting more than a month to see a doctor? last year almost half of doctors said that they had seen an increase in emergency room visits. now we see it's much higher. now, some supporters of the law last year said that wasn't important. they said don't worry. they said the numbers will drop off after the first year as more people got primary care physicians. well it hasn't happened, and it's actually gotten worse. about half of the e.r. doctors show an increase in the first year of obamacare coverage, 75% saw an increase this year, the second year. it's not getting better. it continues to get worse to the point that "usa today" had an

article, article may 4 -- yesterday -- page 1 "e.r. visits surge despite obamacare." "e.r. visits surge despite obamacare. three-quarters of emergency room doctors say they are seeing e.r. visits surge since obamacare took effect, just the opposite of what many americans expected would happen." well it's not what many americans expected would happen. look what the president said would happen. back in 2009 when the president was trying to pass the law president obama said this. he said "if everybody's got coverage, if everybody's got coverage, then they're not going to go to the emergency room for treatment." well, that was one of the biggest reasons that the law required everyone in america to have insurance coverage. remember that's the mandate. it's called the individual mandate that remains extremely unpopular today. the president kept saying it

over the years. he said it early on. he said it during the debates. he said it after the law had been passed. he continues to hold this position in spite of the fact that 75% of emergency room doctors, 2,000 who actually work in emergency rooms are saying it is not true, mr. president. the e.r.'s are going more and more crowded. you see what happens when an e.r. gets more crowded. the wait time goes up. the mortality rate for patients trying to get treated there goes up because of the health care law. in 2013, the president told one group of people, he said it means that all the providers around here, instead of having to take in folks in the emergency room, they suddenly have customers who have insurance. well the president's statements continue to fly in the face of reality. according to the people who really know what's going on, the medical coverage is not keeping people out of emergency rooms. it has become crystal clear that coverage does not equal care.

not only is obamacare coverage not delivering care, in many cases the system to provide the coverage isn't even working. there was an article last friday in "the washington post." the headline was "nearly half of obamacare exchanges are struggling over their future." it says "nearly half of the 17 insurance marketplaces set up by the states and the district of columbia under president obama's health laws are struggling financially. does the minority leader think that that's a smashing success? according to the article many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surge in costs especially from technology and expensive consumer call centers and tepid enrolling numbers. it talks about problems in minnesota minnesota in vermont in rhode island, and in colorado. in oregon, the exchange has failed to spectacularly that the state had to shut it down

entirely. "the washington post" says states have already received nearly $5 billion in federal grants to establish the online marketplaces. that's $5 billion that hardworking american taxpayers had to pay to set up these exchanges, and half of these exchanges, in spite of all that taxpayer money are now struggling financially. this article quotes one expert, sabrina corlette, professor at georgetown university. this is what she said. she said a lot of people are going to want to know what happened to all of those taxpayer dollars. that's what a lot of senators want to know. it's exactly what senators on this side of the aisle have been asking for quite awhile now. what happened to all of that hard-earned taxpayer money? how much of that $5 billion was wasted?

the states with these failing exchanges are now looking at raising taxes raising fees on everybody else's insurance plans. so in half of the states the exchanges where people are supposed to sign up for coverage are failing. billions of taxpayer dollars wasted and states are looking at charging people even more. that's the president's solution for health care in america. for people who do get coverage and want to see a doctor, they may have to wait for more than a month. or they may end up going to the emergency room along with millions of other people since obamacare's mandates began. does the minority leader who came to the floor last week calling this health care law a smashing success does he really think that it's a smashing success? this isn't what the american people wanted from health care reform. the people knew what they

wanted, and they wanted something very simple. they wanted the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs. obamacare has failed on every one of these things. it's not a smashing success. it's time for us to finally give americans the health care that they were asking for all along. thank you mr. president. i yield the floor. mrs. warren: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mrs. warren: thank you mr. president. mr. president, a budget is about building for the future. it's about what our businesses and families need to grow and prosper. our kids need access to good, affordable education. our workers need good wages and good benefits. our businesses and our workers need transit roads bridges that are safe enough, strong enough and fast enough to get us to work and to keep goods and services moving.

ms. warren: our workers need good jobs here in america jobs built on 21st century innovation and technology. and everyone needs to know that we're in this together, that we won't kick people to the ground, that we need -- that we will help those who need it most including seniors, children and families struggling to make ends meet. that's how we build a strong future. the republicans have a different vision of how to build a future. the republican budget plan will make the rich richer and the powerful more powerful while leaving our kids, our college students our seniors our workers and our families to fall further and further behind. the people of massachusetts didn't send me here to do what i can to help the richest of the rich. they sent me here to work for them. so i want to talk about what this republican budget will mean to the people of our state. assuming it is applied proportionately, the republican budget could cut mandatory

transportation funding by 40% over the next decade. that is significantly fewer dollars to repair and improve our highways and to help keep our buses and trains moving in massachusetts. so if you already think we have a crumbling infrastructure, if you're already worried about old buses and whether the "t" can struggle through another winter, remember that republicans want to slash funds for transportation by 40%. with these cuts, our crumbling infrastructure will crumble even faster. and these cuts will also cost jobs. economists estimate that this republican budget could mean 56,000 fewer jobs in massachusetts alone. this budget also takes aim at our kids. over the next decade, it could eliminate head start for 400,000 children across this country

cutting the program by more than $4 billion. little kids are under attack and so are big kids. the republican budget could also make college more expensive for the 131,000 massachusetts students who receive pell grants and cuts in the student loan interest rate? forget it. the republican budget keeps sucking down billions of dollars in profits off student loans. the republican budget cuts puts massachusetts residents' health at risk, especially the health of our seniors. today the affordable care act saves seniors billions of dollars on prescription drugs. you know, the day when seniors had to choose between filling a prescription and paying the rent? they're over. but under the republican budget, almost 80,000 seniors in massachusetts could pay an average of $920 more per year

for prescription drugs. and it gets worse. about 900,000 seniors in massachusetts could lose free preventive medicare health services and about 26,000 massachusetts nursing homes residents who rely on medicaid could face cuts to their care and an uncertain future. and what about medical research and the technologies for the future the kinds of work that we're proud to do in massachusetts? for over 10 years congress has decimated medical research funding, reduce the buying power of the national institutes of health by nearly 25% and choking off support for projects that could lead to the next major breakthrough breakthroughs against cancer, heart disease a.l.s. diabetes, autism. and with people living longer and long and more and more families desperate for a breakthrough on alzheimer's

what's the republican solution? cut the n.i.h. budget.cut medical research. in fact, compared with the president's budget, the republican budget could mean 1,400 fewer n.i.h. grants a year. the republican budget also cuts $600 billion from income security programs like nutrition assistance potentially jeopardizing food stamps for thousands of massachusetts families that depend on this program to put food on the table. and just to turn the knife a little deeper for families in massachusetts. the republican fund being -- funding for heating assistance pr funding that helped -- funding that helped 183,000 massachusetts families stay warm in the winter. we know who this budget would hurt -- millions of middle-class families in massachusetts and

all over this country who are busting their tails to try to make ends meet. it would hurt people who work hard and play by the ruled but who are seeing sliewnt he have siewnt slip away. way -- seeing opportunity slip away. why? why inflict so much damage on hardworking american people, on students and seniors on kids and construction workers? why cut back on support for researchers trying to cure alzheimer's or for college kids trying to get an he education? why? one against once again is that the republicans want to give billions of dollars in text cuts to the wealthiest americans and they expect everyone else to pay for it. the republicans have planned $269 billion in tax cuts that could go to just a few thousands of the richest families. that's not irresponsible. it is just plain wrong.

a budget is about values. the republicans' values are on display here. this budget is about making sure that a tilted playing field tilts even further and everyone else gets left further and further behind.those aren't american families. we believe and we have always believed in opportunity. we believe that everyone should have a fighting chance to built a better life for themselves and their children. mr. president, we weren't sent just to help the rich get richer. it's time to stand up for the values that build a strong middle clat and we can start by building down this terrible -- middle class and we can start by building down this terrible republican budget. mr. president, i suggest the --

oh i yield. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: mr. president, i rise today to speak about the unrest that we have seen especially in baltimore in the last week, and to a lesser extent in several other cities around the country including in the city of philadelphia in my state of pennsylvania. there's been, of course, no shortage of discussions on this matter. going back to the last year to the protests in ferguson, missouri and those involving several other flash points involving law enforcement officials. we have in one way or another landed on a bit of a national conversation about police practices. and that's a good conversation. i think we should have that. i, for instance, think we should seriously consider body cameras for use by police officers.

i think this conversation is closely related to some other things that we need to be talking about as well. problems at you urban plesh that have a november colleges and deserve our attention and action. for instance, i think we can and should be talking about how we can create better jobs and better economic growth, a better economic climate in our cities, especially our big cities. we need to talk about how we can wring -- bring down a terribly high rate of poverty in our big cities. we need to talk about our schools which have been letting down too many especially poor families in our big cities. of we ought to talk about family structure because we know that a breakdown of families contributes to all sorts of social pathologies from involvement to gangs and drug use and drug diel, and

criminality in jernt and , of course guns itself. we can talk about guns, too. and i'm proud of the work i've done across the aisle to make it more difficult for people who are not meant to have them, criminals and people with mental illness. these are all things we should be talking about in this great debate mr. president. and we should be taking about this in the senate and in state and local bodies across the country. but, mr. president, i think there's also something in this discussion that we should be willing to talk about something that hasn't gotten enough conversation about potential police and it's if -- it's something that came to me for some time. i'm going to talk about baltimore and i'm going to keep thipping about there for the next weeks and months because i think it's part of a national

discussion. my concern specifically is the broag -- brought scapegoating of american police officers in this country. let me be clear about one central point. if a police officer acts unprofessionally acts outside the bounds of ethical standards or break the law then but all means that police officer has to be held accountable and punished for his or her transition. that's no security whatsoever for unlawful plits contact. that absolutely -- unlawful police conflict. that absolutely cannot be tolerated, not one little bit. and i'll be clear about yoar point. it's true that there are real and horrible cases of police misconduct. no one's that i know is trying to deep it or keep it under the rug or pretend it doesn't happen. it does happen and it should never be tolerated. but let's also keep this in my per active.

there are doctors who break the law. there aren't accountants who break the law and laws who braij the law. there are government officials who break the law. the fact is, there are bad amateurs in every line of walk, every walk of life and that's true of plits as well. but if you listen to many of the polit kale i can today you'd think that there's some sort of epidemic of crimes perpetrated by the police. and that, mr. president i can assure you is not true. so in my years in public light of i've spent a lot of time with police officers. i've gone into know with them. i've listened to your turn and list the to them. i've pended the charitable fund fund-raisers that they've help. if pie and large i don't fully he have had any group in our

sought where more dedicated professionals than policemen and police women across our country. far from the help dickly through some slaim to be option thereon just the opposite is true the overwhelming majority of police are lonest men and women -- are honest men and women. they have very high ethical standards, they don't have a racist bone in our body. our police officer have an indent difficult and dangerous job to do. and it's important as well. our communities, let's face it, we all depend upon the police. and that's more more -- more in urban areas than any place else in the country. so we need to have a conversation about bad mrs. practices bit we have to do a jiet journal of proceedings the vat mament jort of -- and the vast majority of people

working across our country. now, unfortunately the scenes we witnessed in baltimore last week really certainly work against the kind of gratitude that we ought to -- [no audio] our law enforcement community. i'm not talking about what happened to freddie gray. mr. gray absolutely deserves justice. if the police in the gray case committed case, then they must be punish, i we don't question that in the lies. but what happened last week in baltimore was not bnl on freddie gray. in scenes reminiscent of last week inering in son last week in baltimore we saw a great american city dissolve into utter lawlessness. we saw riots that destroyed a senior citizen c -- citizen center a c.v.s. drugstore. we saw dozens of injuries, including injuries to over 90

police officers. we had a curfew imposed and the national guard called in to restore order assist though there were some kind of war zone. we even had major league baseball cancel two games and conduct one game where no fans were permitted to attend. they played before an empty stadium. how is that allowed to happen in a great american city? some people excuse this lawlessness and point to the difficult underlying conditions in the local community. but let's ask ourselves who gets hurt the most by these riots? we know. it's the very poor people from these communities. who now have no senior center to go to, they can't go to c.v.s. to get their prescription filled or to pick up necessities for their kids. and, of course there's this big red flashing neon sign

telling businesses large and small that could provide jobs and economic activity there to stay away. so where did the police come in on this? well president obama called the looters and rioters in baltimore thugs, and president obama has gotten some criticism for that. well i just would use an objective, indispute rabble term. these people are criminals. it's a serious crime to set a fire to a car or a building. it's a serious crime to throw a rock or a bottle at a police officer, assault and battery is a serious crime. it's a serious crime to engage in looting. and people who commit those acts are criminals. and they should be arrested and they should be charged and they should be prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law. but in order for that to happen, we need the police.

we need them to be actively engaged. the baltimore police officers have reported that they were ordered to stand down last week as the city was being destroyed. that's pretty tough to take, especially i assume, for the law-abiding baltimore citizens who need that police protection. instead of standing down in the face of wanton criminal acts, the police need to be allowed to do their job. they should make arrests, they should restore order. there should never be another american city that looks the way baltimore did last week. now, when six police officers were charged in friday in the death of freddie gray, there were celebrations on the streets in baltimore. and, madam president at a certain level that's completely understandable. whatever mr. gray did on that day, the day that he was arrested he certainly didn't

deserve to die. and his death cries out for answers. we need to have answers to these questions and in the passions of last week i understand why people cheered appearance -- the appearance that the criminal justice system was standing up for mr. gray. i totally understand that. but let me ask a question. what happens if these accused police officers are found not to have broken the law? what if one of them or several -- or even if all of them are found not to have violated the law? what happens then? will we see baltimore and maybe other cities erupt in flames once more? that's already what appears to be forecast in some quarters. and what about those six individual police officers? we know what happens if they're found guilty. if they're found guilty, they're going to jail for a long time and that will be appropriate. but what happens if they're

found innocent? in the ferguson, missouri case a grand jury found there was no reason to believe a crime had been committed by the accused officer, darren wilson. the u.s. justice department did an investigation and they decided not to bring civil rights charges against officer wilson. so officer wilson was found to have committed no wrongdoing, neither by the local grand jury nor by the civil rights division of the united states justice department. but what happened to officer wilson? has anybody asked that question? what happened to officer wilson? well he faced multiple death threats, ended up having to leave his job on the police force, the one job he's always wanted and he loved to do, he ended up having to move out of his home and go somewhere else and he's only 28 years old. now, the accused police officers in baltimore have life stories, too. one of them is sergeant alicia white.

she is a 30-year-old african-american woman who joined the baltimore police force five years ago. she is engaged to be married a local baltimore minister who knows officer white described her this way -- quote -- "she wanted to be a police officer because she is a christian and wants to be a good role model for young black women and she wanted to be that good cop in the community and bridge the gap between the police and the neighborhoods." of the six arrested officers, three are african-americans three are white. and none of this means that any of these officers necessarily acted appropriately or right in this case. it's quite possible that they didn't and if so, the court system our legal judicial system will determine that. what i'm simply trying to point out is that these police officers have human faces they're human beings, and these officers are going to be through hell whether they deserve to or

not. their lives will never be the same whether they are guilty or innocent. there will be many people in the community who shun them even if they're found to have done nothing wrong. what message does that send to all the tens of thousands of police officers all across america who risk their lives every day to protect their communities from criminals? unfortunately, it says there are a lot of people out there who are looking to misplace a lot of social problems we face in our country on the backs of the police. it says they might not be allowed to do their jobs when their communities most need them to do their jobs. it says that one day should they find themselves accused of wrongdoing there might be a public mob that clamors for their conviction and threatens to burn down the city if the legal system finds them innocent.

madam president, that is a sad state of affairs. i'm not defending the officers in the gray case. i don't know whether they are guilty or innocent. i expect the legal system to determine that. but that's not really my point. my point is that while there are some police officers who act terribly and that must be stopped, there's no epidemic of police criminality in this country. we should absolutely discuss and act upon the issues that surround police and community relations, by all means. and we need to acknowledge the critical role the police play in keeping our communities safe, and the overwhelming majority of police who conduct themselves honorably day in and day out. madam president, the next time there's a demonstration about police conduct, i hope it's a demonstration to thank the police for their dedication, their hard work, and their courage.

that's a demonstration i'll be honored to join. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you madam president. we're here debating choices. they happen to be choices about our budget, about the future of our nation that will be determined by choices we make about how to invest. that is the key concept at stake in this really momentous moment as we consider choices for how to invest in middle-class financial security and all that goes along with it -- job creation infrastructure, clean energy research, all of those choices are critical to

the future of our nation and we will make did you everrous choices if we adopt -- disastrous choices if we adopt the budget that has come to us from the conference report for fiscal year 2016 because it fails to understand the need for investment in our future. we're in danger of leaving a lesser america an america for the first time in our history will reflect a lesser nation left to our children and their grandchildren. all generations before us determined that they would sacrifice, that they would give back and pay forward. and yet now sadly in fact, tragically we are in -- we endanger their future by failing in those investment decisions. the conference agreement would cut trillions of dollars to domestic programs without

seeking revenue. in fact, it relies on gimmicks that undermine its integrity a significant gimmick, for example, of counting $2 trillion in tax revenue from the affordable care act while at the same time repealing that law. it relies on trillions of dollars in supposed savings without detailing how those savings will be accomplished. at the very least we owe a measure of integrity to the american people. we can disagree about choices but at least we should be honest about how revenue is supposed to match the spending that we allocate. the proposal before us would, in fact repeal the affordable care act which has already allowed more than 16 million americans to obtain health insurance, access preventive services, and save money on

their premiums. it would cut more than a trillion dollars from medicaid, reversing the expansion that has provided health insurance to millions of americans. too many americans are still struggling and yet this budget would cut funding for job training and employment services. it would eliminate the manufacturing extension partnership which provides vital support for small manufacturers in connecticut and across the country. time and again we've learned that education is the key to a brighter future for our children and yet tragically, this budget would cut funding across the spectrum of american education from universal pre kindergarten which would be slashed, to college

affordability where loan programs would be decimated. in fact, instead of making college more affordable, this budget decimates two critical programs that would help future students pay back loans. remember the average student debt in this country is in the tens of thousands of dollars. in connecticut it's about $30,000, conservatively estimated. this budget would increase student loan payments for millions of borrowers and it would slash pell grants. increase the cost of loans cut the amount of grants available that enable students to avoid borrowing. in fact, it would cut the pell grant program by nearly 30% and eliminate other important federal subsidies. these moneys are not spending, they're investments in our future.

the futures of those students whose hopes and dreams will be constrained and undercut and killed but also the future of our capacity to manufacture and compete around the globe because what we have, more than any other nation, is really smart skilled people. that's why companies are coming back to this nation after outsourcing. one of these programs, the pay as you earn program caps monthly student loan levels at a level proportionate to their earns and forgives debt after 20 years of repayment. but the republican budget would require cuts to this program in a way that could increase required monthly payment increases of more than 50% to some borrowers and it paves the way for eliminating the public service loan forgiveness

program, which assists students with debt payments for those who go into public service professions such as teaching, firefighting policing. this program ought to be especially close to our heart because we purport to be engaged in public service. and to provide role models for young people who engage in public service. i'm particularly concerned about this program's impact on our railroads, roads bridges airports. we know those facilities as infrastructure. the magic word around here, "infrastructure." in fact, we had a hearing just this morning in the commerce committee on the importance of fully funded long-term investments in our nation's highway transit and rail systems. we heard temperature from the public and private sector about how -- testimony from the

public and private sector about how important it is for american competitiveness, american businesses to compete in the world. and yet through this budget, we will not only sanctions, we will encourage, and enable an inadequate investment in infrastructure. the budget kfns report conference report before us would tut funding for highways and mass transit by 40% over the next decade. there may be no more important fact to know about this budget. and so i regret, but i will vote against this budget because i would have wished, like many of my colleagues, that we could reach a bipartisan measure that will embody the best in america not encourage a retreat from our public obligation. in fact, i think america is ready to invest, ready to give

back and to pay forward. and, in fact, i believe that our wealthiest americans are ready to do more and approve closing closing closing loopholes and ending subsidies not making blanket cuts to vital programs not cutting taxes for millionaires as this budget would create a pathway to do, not forcing another 12 million middle-class families and students to pay for college by ending the american opportunity tax credit or adding $1,100 more in burdens to them, and not forcing 16 million middle-class families to pay a $90 -- $900 tax hike in ending the expansions of the earned-income tax credit and child tax credit.

i think our most fortunate americans are ready to pay forward and do more and invest and, in fact, make more sacrifices, which is the way this budget ought to be arranged. and it isn't even a matter of sacrifices on the part of anyone. it's ending the subsidies for outsourcing to ensure that everyone pay their fair share without those hidden tax breaks and subsidies that can be closed. i hope we can do better than this. i urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the budget conference report. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. mr. sanders: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: thank you, madam president. a budget is a vision for the

future and it appears pretty clearly that the two sides have very different visions as to what our country should be and the direction in which we should move. at a time of unprecedented and grotesque income and wealth inequality where 99% of all new income is going to the top 1% my republican colleagues say that what we need to do is to give a massive tax break to the 5,000 wealthiest families in america, the top .2% $269 billion tax break over a ten-year period. that is not what the american people believe. what they believe is that at a time when the rich and large corporations are doing phenomenally well and when we have a large deficit and when we

have massive unmet needs in this country, that maybe just maybe it is time to ask the wealthy and large corporations to start paying their fair share of taxes, not giving them more tax breaks, which is exactly what this republican budget does. madam president at a time when the united states is the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people and with 35 million americans today having no health insurance, and when even more are underinsured, large co-payments, high premiums, what the republican budget does, unbelievably -- unbelievably -- simply throw 27 million americans off of health insurance. what happens to them? what happens when the affordable care act is ended, which is what their budget does, and 16 million people lose their health insurance? what happens when another 11

million people lose their health insurance because of $440 billion cuts in medicaid? what happens to these 27 million americans? how many of them will die? and clearly many thousands will die. people who are sick will not be able to go to the doctor. people who are sick will get sicker and suffer. 27 million people thrown off of health insurance is beyond being unconscionable and yet that is what is in the republican budget. madam president you're a neighbor of mine in new hampshire, and i know that in new hampshire -- i've been there recently -- and in vermont young people are wondering about how they're going to be able to afford to go to college and what kind of student debts they incur when they leave college. our issue is to work together to make sure that every young person in this country who has the ability and the desire and the willingness to go to college

should be able to go to college regardless of his or her income. that's what we need to do in a competitive global economy. we used to have the highest percentage of college graduates in the world. today we are in 12th place. that is not where we should be if we want to compete globally in this difficult world economy. what is the republican solution? the republican solution is to make a bad situation much worse. $90 billion cut over a ten-year period in mandatory pell grant funding, pell grants being the major source of funding for low- and moderate-income young people in order to get help to go to college. doing exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. madam president, we are the wealthiest country in the history of the world but the

problem we're having is that almost all of that wealth is going to a handful of people on the top. and today we have more people living in poverty than almost any time in the modern history of america we. we have seen somescriptions some -- some descriptions of that in the tragedy we've seen recently in baltimore, where kids don't have enough to eat. i really, honestly, without being too rhetorical, i just don't understand how when families are struggling to feed their kids, when everybody understands that hunger is a real problem in this country how anybody could vote for a budget which makes huge cuts in food stamps, in the w.i.c. program, and in other nutrition programs for families who are struggling to feed their families. that is not what this country is supposed to be about. and then, on top of all of that

on top of cutting health care -- 27 million people thrown off of health insurance cutting education, harder for kids to go to college harder for families to put their kids into head start, harder for poor people to feed their kids, on top of all that my republican colleagues say that a major priority in this country is to give $269 billion in tax breaks to the top .2%? does anybody -- anybody -- outside of this chamber think that this makes any sense at all? does anybody outside of here think that those are american priorities? billionaires do not need another tax break. they're doing just great. they're doing fine. and then, to add insult to injury the republican budget allows to expire the additional benefits we put into the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit, which in

effect means a tax increase for over 10 million working families. raising taxes on low-income workers, lower taxes on billionaires. those are not the priorities of the american people. madam president i hope very much that we will reject this budget. i would yield the floor. mr. flake: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. flake: the senate will soon adopt the conference report for s. con. res. 11, the budget resolution. i supported the budget resolution when we support debated it in march. but i was disappointed to see one difference between the budget resolution passed by the senate this year and the conference report that we'll be voting on later today. the senate's budget resolution contained language that would have created a point of order against any legislation that

designated more in so-called o.c.o. or overseas contingency operations funding than the president requested in fy 2016. the conference report that we will soon consider does not contain that provision. this would have allowed those of us who object to off--- in the a fairs budget to at least raise the issue on various appropriations bills and other measures that we consider in this body. and this is an that issue needs to be raised especially in light of the state department's use of such funding. it is bad enough that the administration has been requesting o.c.o. funding to avoid making the tough choices for its underlying budget since 2012 but members of congress, we have become enablers consistently appropriating more o.c.o. funds than the

administration has asked for. in 2014, the administration requested $2.3 billion for o.c.o. funding. done appropriated $6.5 billion. for 2015, the administration requested $7.8 billion in o.c.o. funding for international affairs. congress appropriated $9.26 billion. that figure does not include the $2.5 billion appropriated to address the ebola crisis. we appropriated that separately as emergency funding. while emergency funding and o.c.o. are different designations the practicing effect is the same. this is funding that is not subject to spending caps. this year the administration has requested $7 billion in o.c.o. funding for international affairs. secretary kerry said in 12013 that "o.c.o. funding supports the efforts of the department in managing -- in meeting the extraordinary demands of

operating the frontline states of -- operating in the frontline states of iraq, afghanistan and pakistan and to a limited extent in other fragile regions." this year's o.c.o. requests includes funding for those countries, plus syria jordan and the ukraine. some of my colleagues have concerns that the defense department will be shortchanged under the spending caps, and we've worked to increase o.c.o. funding spending in 2016 beyond the 57% -- i'm so, the $57 billion requested by the president to $96 billion in total. but that $96 billion can be use the for anything that the administration and congress both designate as being in support of -- quote -- "overseas contin yency operations." it also enables departments that acquire o.c.o. designations to avoid having to make the tough funding decisions in their underlying budgets.

i'm disappointed that the conference report that we'll consider today does not contain a point of order that would have at least enabled those of us who share the concerns of those -- these concerns i've raised today and to take some rotes on it. i also understand that passing a budget is an important step to getting back to regular order and allowing congress to carry out one of its primary responsibilities establishing a budget for the federal government. by passing this budget, congress will be able to start considering appropriations bills and other related budget legislation. it is congress' job to exercise oversight and prioritize with how federal dollars are to be spent. in addition, passing a budget also initiates the reconciliation process for the committees and house and the senate that oversee the affordable care act. as i've said earlier, i will support this conference report, but i would be remiss not to voice my concern over the removal of the o.c.o.-related point of order and the systemic