loopholes and those that take our jobs overseas, oftentimes just on paper. it's the majority was serious about empowering all of the american workers, it would call for an increase in the minimum wage and equal pay for women. it would make sure that the affordable care act would continue for 16.4 million americans, instead of having the massive tax increase on the middle class that comes from getting rid of the tax credits. it would stop the cuts in medicare and in medicaid. mr. chairman, i do want to mention one other thing, as chair of the agriculture and nutrition committee during the 2014 farm bill. we made very tough decisions at that time, and, frankly, things i hear everybody talk about they want to do. we looked at every program. we cut over 100 different programs and authorizations. we cut billions of dollars more than what was required from sequestration. the only committee that did that.

but our farmers and ranchers need the security of this farm bill. mr. chairman, i would like to thank you for not including agriculture in the reconciliation instruction in the senate. we have about 400 different organizations, led by the american arm bureau and others, who have asked us not to include the language in the final document. we have made the cuts, more than any other committee, beyond reconciliation and unfortunately, if we open up the farm bill, everything is opened up. no mistake about this through this is not just a debate about nutrition. if we do not work with the farm bill, it will be livestock disaster and conservation as well as nutrition and rural development and other things that are absolutely critical for certainty in rural america certainly across michigan and across the country, so, mr. chairman, i look forward to working with you.

i hope this final document will recognize the work was done on a bipartisan basis. it was my great pleasure to work with chairman lucas and all of the members at the time to achieve what i think we want to do in every part of the budget, making smart cuts, consolidated that's consolidating, and having a path for economic development. we did that in agriculture and i hope that will be recognized in the final document. thank you, mr. chairman. chair: thank you. next, these. senator: thank you. i, also, want to say what a privilege it is to serve on this conference committee, and while we come across the nation and our backgrounds there he, why we are here today is an important step in governing in the way the american people expect. today's meeting is a positive step in the right direction, and for the first time in a long time, there is a real

possibility that both chambers of congress will adopt a budget resolution for a balanced budget. this budget will set the guard rails for federal spending in the upcoming year as well as a decade ahead. families in my home state of michigan understand that they need to tighten their belts and balance their budget when there is a change in household income or expenses, and that is something we need to do in washington, as well. this balanced budget will not raise taxes on the hard-working americans, and it will keep the promises that have been made to seniors while slowing the soaring national debt. from our nation's founding it took years for our government to accumulate $5 trillion in debt. by 2008, the debt had doubled and in the last seven years, it has skyrocketed to $18 trillion. divided among 320 million americans, as has been mentioned already, a child born today in

hair and $56,200 in debt. that is $225,000 for a family of four. leaving less debt to our children is vital, and if we fail to act, debt payments will crowd out spending for the bipartisan priorities of the american people, including national security, medical research, programs to protect the great lakes, and funding for our roads and bridges. our national debt is also costing us jobs, because our debt to gdp ratio is over 90% hindering economic growth and job creation. one way we can boost the slow economic recovery is tax reform, which has the potential of adding one million new private sector jobs. this budget calls for tax reform, and many americans just filed their tax returns, ending another you they had to deal with the long and complicated federal tax code. as my predecessor, chairman dave camp, who many of you served

with he was fond of saying the tax code is as big as the bible but with none of the good news. many americans do not have time to read the code's 74,000 pages, and it is estimated families and employers spend more than $150 billion trying to comply with it every year. the tax code up us to give complexities distort the decisions a couple makes when deciding to plan for retirement and leaves middle-class families hoping they have filled out their return correctly and that the irs will not audit them. for small business owners, filing quarterly estimates a better system cannot come soon enough. the federal tax code complicates the plans to expand and hire new workers. it also buries them under paperwork and pulls their time and talent away from running their businesses. the last major overhaul of the tax code was 20 nine years ago. long before the internet and cell phones became in widespread use.

in this global economy other nations have built their tax systems for the 21st century and our job creators are being left at a competitive disadvantage. it is time for a better tax code that is simpler and fairer. more americans will move up the economic ladder is the federal government makes it easier for families to pay their taxes and for entrepreneurs to have certainty of their costs. again, this is the first time in a long time that a budget conference committee on me to pass a balanced budget. this budget will boost the slow-growing economy, create jobs raise wages, and build a more prosperous america. this budget addresses our country's fiscal problems in a responsible way and puts our nation on a brighter path for our children and our grandchildren. thank you, and i yield back. chairman: thank you. i see that senator graham will not be here, so next will be senator whitehouse. senator whitehouse? senator whitehouse: thank you

chairman. it has been an interesting week last week in the senate. i just completed last week a bipartisan markup on a contentious issue in the health committee, with the result there of a 22-zero bipartisan vote on a new elementary and secondary education act. we have just witnessed a unanimous bipartisan result in the senate committee on foreign relations on another difficult and contentious question. we have before us conference, the bipartisan and bicameral record of the ryan-murray negotiations. we even in a bipartisan and bicameral way just resolved the annoying annual ritual of the doc fix, so my partisanship -- so bipartisanship is possible

but apparently not in the budget committee. this budget has been a bipartisan ramrod. even today's formality is not even a token. when i have said my piece here this morning, we are all done. republicans can ram their budget through, so they will ram their budget through, and that is fact. the problem is this has made the budget process ridiculous. nobody cares. virtually nobody came to our hearings and markups. nobody cares about the result. appropriations now have to pass the senate by 60 votes so even the 60 vote budget point of order is meaningless, which is not surprising since unlike those other legislative successes, none of the hard work of accommodation and compromise went into this audit. the partisan ramrod of an effort

has produced a foreseeable result. a budget so bad that if it were applied to actual appropriated accounts, i doubt even most republicans would vote for it. if republicans did actually apply this budget, once the american people got a good look at its extremism and its favoritism, i suspect it would put a quick and to the republican majorities. what will happen instead is that our republican friends will ask president obama to deal them out by negotiating them out of this dreadful hole they have dug for themselves. if it were not for the price regular families would have to pay, it would almost be worth letting republicans have to apply this budget just to educate the american people. the hawks will say this is strong medicine but necessary to avoid fiscal catastrophe. no one should believe it.

in fact, the hawks themselves don't believe it. it is a foil for attacking programs like medicare and pell grant and food stamps. there is a test that proves what i say. look at all the federal benefits that help the rich and powerful. those benefits tend to come through the tax code. indeed almost as much revenue floras out the back door of the tax code in loopholes, favored rates, and deductions than actually gets collected by the government and spent. name one special interest tax benefit that was reduced to address the deficit. big oil gets massive and completely unnecessary tax benefits. do we ask them to sacrifice one dime towards this terrible deficit? not one dime.

hedge fund billionaires pay lower federal tax rate than truck drivers and brick masons. do we ask them to sacrifice one dime toward this supposedly terrible deficit? not one dime. even private jets get special benefits in the tax code. do we ask the private jet set to contribute anything? not a dime. many american corporations hide revenue overseas or use other tricks and loopholes so they don't they taxes. in some cases, big corporations pay literally zero corporate income tax. did be close one corporate tax loophole in this budget? not a one. in fact, the house just voted to add $300 billion to the deficit i billing up the long-suffering top 0.2% wealthiest american families from having to pay any

estate tax. republicans have threatened to use a gimmick to load up the defense contractors in some cases even beyond what the military is asking for, and there is a verbal edge it dimitrov -- budget gimmick that will allow them to raise the opposite in fast-track reconciliation bills. why, it people are sincere about reducing the deficit would republicans need to put in a special budget gimmick to let them increase the deficit? the truth is that republican concern about the deficit in cap rates around wealth and power. it is big talk until they get near the rich, and until they get near the powerful, and then it is like this budget, a big nothing in terms of budget savings. bias and injustice. i don't see any remedy for it in this ramrod process, but i hope that when we get to appropriations and actually

funding the country, we will come to a more sensible middle ground. thank you. chairman: thank you. next will be senator portman who is not here, then senator warner, who is not here, then senator toomey, who is not here, then senator merkley, who is not here. senator johnson. and then senator ayotte. senator johnson: i would like to commend senator and the and senator price for their hard work on this. this is a where moment. it should not be, but it is. i guess i would rather take the position of the glass half-full as opposed to the glass half-empty as senator whitehouse said. he mentioned a number of areas of bipartisanship, and that is a good thing, and quite honestly in the senate markup, there are a lot of agreements. five of them are amendments i offered.

for time as we pass out some handouts year, because i'm going to do some thing the little unusual in this budget conference, and i am going to start looking at some numbers and, the congressman mentioned that we have difficult choices. and we really want to solve problems as opposed to just demagogue issues, and the way you saw problems is there is a first step you have to take. you have to admit you have one. you have to define it. and i realize our budget process is really a 10 year budget window, but that is not the problem. the proper definition is we have a 30 year demographic problem, and on a bipartisan basis, this congress has made promises to all kinds of americans, and we have not arranged to pay for them. i think the proper way of looking at our problem, the proper definition, to enable americans to electively admit we have it, and there were

amendments that were passed on a bipartisan races. i hope those get adopted by this conference. to provide the information to the american people, so i would just do with the first page on my hand out here. this is the 30 year projected deficit according to the discus scenario. and i have done it by decade, so you see the first decade, about $8 trillion of projected deficits, the second decade $31 trillion, and then over 80 trillion dollars for a whopping total of over 100 trillion dollars, and that is massive, and i put just for perspective the entire asset base is $110 trillion. just in case you are thinking this is just pie-in-the-sky and way to large, i realize these projections, there is a range, and i do not have time to go through all of that, but the white house had a projection, the cbo had a baseline, and i am

showing you the cbo fiscal scenario, but take a look at the percentages of gdp spending as a relationship to the 20 year average. you can argue that these projections are still low and it comes to defense spending and other programs. being old line on the percentage gdp chart, you can see the if this comes true, our debt to do gdp ratio will be 224%. that is a problem. a quick show of the defense spending as a percentage of gdp, i hear all of the time about defense spending. it is the funding of these wars that are causing these deficits. historically, we are still at a pretty low rate. we need to actually look at the facts. we need to look at the figures. to saul problems come we have to look at the truth as opposed to demagoguery. and then this was an amendment we did passed by unanimous consent, and truthfully, i believe it was some members on

the democratic side, and when i was looking for democratic sponsors, we compromise. and cbo hopefully will start putting this in a document. in one page, we can pretty well lay out the situation for america, and senator warren and others wanted to make sure we put tax and expenditures, so we will include tax and expenditures. so i would just direct my colleague's attention to a statement that shows outlays revenue, deficits. you see the first to to view columns are social security and medicare, and i actually direct you to the second page, which is the 30 year alton fiscal scenario put onto one page. you will see social security will pay out about $15 trillion more in benefits than it takes

in payroll tax. that is a problem. this is about $50 trillion of that 30 year deficit. the remaining problem is $71 trillion in interest payments. so, again, on one page, we show where we are spending our money. we show where we are getting our income and we show where the deficits are really occurring. it kind of directs the activity, so i hope that this budget conference adopts that amendment, so we actually start showing the american people the truth. we show that we lay off the reality, is that is what you have to do. to solve a problem, you have to first admit you have one. chairman: senator a, followed by senator kaine and others.

senator: i am very pleased to be here with the members of this committee, and since i joined the senate, this is the first time in many years that we of had an opportunity that we of passed a joint budget resolution that will help guide spending for the next fiscal year. this is the first step is we get our nation's fiscal house in order, and too long, really, we have waited to get this done and it is a basic thing we need to do for the american people in governing this country. when i was elected in 2010, the national debt was nearly $14 trillion, and one of the reasons i ran for the u.s. senate, i am the mother of a seven euro and a 10-year-old, and i firmly believe if we do not start taking the steps we need, it is not just about my children but

about what kind of future we are to leave for them going for. now, our debt exceeds $18 trillion. if we do not take action, we are projected to reach 27 trillion dollars. the mandatory spending, the piece of the pie that includes many important in thailand programs that many of our seniors and others are relying on, they are not only going to become unsustainable and go bankrupt so we are not going to fulfill those promises, but also the growth in that piece of the budget was squeeze out important discretionary spending priorities on defense, infrastructure, education, medical research. we must address these important issues, and i hope this is a beginning step to taking on the fiscal problems that we need to preserve our nation.

the budget that was passed includes a number of priorities in terms of the state of new hampshire. one of them i think is one we all share, which is the implementation of the veterans choice card. i think this was very important. we thought what happened to our veterans was shameful. it continues to be shameful, and we gave people a private choice option so they did not have to wait in line for care, and yet the obama administration wanted to shift funding for the veterans choice card, saying that this was not being adequately used. well i can tell you in my state of new hampshire, it is not being adequately used because veterans are not being informed of their rights, and they are not getting the response they do and exercising their right with the veteran choice card, so i hope this days in the budget. while there are important differences, both budgets help to greet a fiscally responsible blueprint for the nation. both budgets balance in 10

years, provide our best opportunity to address obama care, preserve entitlement programs, and don't raise taxes. i contrast, the president's budget did not balance and raise taxes by $2 trillion. now, one of the issues that is important to me, i serve on the armed forces committee, i voted against the budget control act because i felt it did not help in addressing the federal spending, and i am concerned and continue to be concerned about the harmful cuts that could jeopardize our ability to defend the nation. during the budget markup, i along with senator graham included an amendment to include more funding for our overseas contingency operations account by $38 billion. i hope this remains in this jew. the reason that i did that is because if you look at where we are -- i hope this remains in this budget. the reason i did it is because

if you look at where we are with the diminishment we are facing to our military and its readiness, the number one responsibility of this government is to protect our national security, and i am glad that the house to this measure, as well, and i hope it gets included in the final budget, but this doesn't address the long-term issue we have with sequestration, and i hope that we can work across the isle to address that and really take on the big picture and make sure we can defend the nation and also continue to prioritize things like medical research that are important to the country, but today, we take an important step moving forward in this conference. i hope we pass a joint budget resolution in this committee and that we can finally bring some certainty to a washington budget process that has been anything but certain and has been broken for far too long. adding back to regular order will require leadership, and i

appreciate the leadership from both of our chairman. we can eliminate waste and ensure that we have a budget that starts to rebuild the taxpayer trust and i am glad we are doing that today, and i hope that going forward we can work to ensure that not only my children but all of our children have a brighter future, but i know if we continue to burden them with that, that is not possible, so i hope we can all work to get the budget passed and show the american people this is an important first step in getting our fiscal house in order. chairman: thank you. senator? senator: thank you, mr. chair, and fellow conferees. this year is a good year. i am a fan, having been a mayor and a person doing a lot of budgets. it was submitted in time, and both houses enacted it.

i wanted to take a selfie also because in 2013, both houses acted on time, but when the democrats in the senate tried to start a conference, the conference was resisted by handful of the minority in the senate for months. would not allow us to start a conference. that led to the shutdown of government, the absence of a budget, and it was only after the government of the greatest nation in the world had to shutdown that we were able to get back to the conference table and try to find a deal. i hope we will try to find a serious deal, a serious deal. one of the challenges that people have with the congress is behind blown rhetoric and our self-importance is often really at odds with our actions. to say that a budget balances when you keep all the revenue from obama care but repeal obama care, that is not serious. to say that a budget balances

when you count all of the revenue from the estate tax but then vote to repeal it, it is not serious. it is not seriously balanced, and it also demonstrates a lack of seriousness about the deficit at all. so i hope we find a serious deal. the last congress found a serious deal, ultimately after the government was shut down. we sat down at the table with the chairman ryan coming up with a serious deal, where each side had to give a little bit where we didn't embraced be foolish sequester cuts that were going to hobble the nation's defense and/nondefense programs. i hope we will find a serious deal that will not rely on the situation. this would involve a form of ryan-murray .2, that would relieve the arbitrarily low budget caps that are hurting us.

sure, we pass the sequester and a budget caps in the summer of 2011. we have got north korean cyber attacks. we have got a bellicose vladimir putin. we have got a war against isil, and we are going to take this about budget caps with the world is throwing curveballs at us every day? i hope we find a serious deal if we're going to be serious about it. we just can't look at spending programs without looking attacks -- looking at tax. real quick here is where tax expenditures are as a part of our budget right now. 5.1 percent of gdp right now is spent on major health care programs other than social security. that number has gone up. 4.9% of gdp is being spent on social security. that is going up. 3.3 percent is being spent on nondefense discretionary. that is going down. 3.2, that is going down.

tax expenditures 8.1% of our gdp is being spent on tax expenditures now, and that is going up, but when we talk about where we are going to find savings, we ignore that part of the balance sheet, that part of the income statement. we ought to do this with an examination of tax expenditure like everything else. the senate budget has an amendment in it that had bipartisan support, and if we are point to be serious, we have to. and finally, let me say this. the notion in both budgets and certainly stated by a number of folks around the table today that we are going to repeal the affordable care act is just not serious. it is not serious. 16.4 million americans, 16.4 million people. we are just going to take away their health insurance. that is the combined population

of wyoming, where my chair represents, of the district of colombia, of vermont, where my ranking member represents, of north dakota, of alaska, of south dakota, of delaware, of montana, of rhode island, of road hampshire, of maine, of hawaii, of idaho, of nebraska, of west virginia, 14 states plus the district of columbia, and we are singly are just going to kick all of those people off health insurance? i know they have said they're going to find a replacement. we have waited for years for republicans to put a replacement on the table. there is nothing put on the table, so we to keep the taxes taken from these people, and we are going to kick 60 million people 14 states and the district of columbia off of health care, it's not serious. let's be serious. thank you. chairman: thank you. senator wicker is not here, the

next would be senator king, followed by senator corker followed by senator oldman, followed by senator purdue. senator king? senator king: thank you. ok. mr. chair, i start with a premise that i think all of us share, and that is that we have a debt problem. you have a serious debt problem, and it is series for several reasons. the interest rates. 100 $20 billion a year of expenditures, and that is not counting the social security debt. if you include that it is $170 billion a year. we have a principal problem. we have all talked about it. our children are going to have to repay it. it is not right. it is not ethical, and it is getting deeper. and we have nothing for emergency. we have used up all. we have no money if there is a national security emergency or a

natural emergency. i am in total agreement with the chair and many members of this committee, so the question is, how do we deal with it? we have got a serious deficit problem, how do we deal with that? what is to cut expenditures, the other is to raise revenues, and the third is to have growth in the economy. that is how we got to a balanced budget in the late 1990's. it was not because of cuts or necessarily new revenues. it was because the economy was growing at such a high rate that it produced enough revenue that gave us a balanced budget for a couple of years. the problem i have with the two w budget set have been passed on the house and senate is that they focus on them only -- on only one aspect. we have had a worldwide experience, a worldwide experiment over the past six or seven years with austerity, with cutting as the solution to budget deficits, and it has been an abject failure. we have the imperial evidence.

i like senator johnson's search for evidence. you can look anywhere in the world, and people have tried to cut their way out opposite -- often the deficit gets worse. i think cuts are part of the answer, but i do not think they are all the answer. a friend of mine in maine says there is rarely a silver bullet but there is often silver rock shot. there are multiple solutions not just one solution. this idea that spending is out of control and when we had a balanced budget, it is at the lowest level in 50 years. the idea that it is all about spending on pell grants or student loans or even defense just isn't true. in fact, defense is at the lowest levels as a percentage of gdp in 75 years, so focusing all

of our attention on this one part of the budget is missing the big target, which is demographics and health care. that is what is driving the growth in the budget and focusing all of our attention on the domestic discretionary and defense section. the discretionary section is like bombing brazil after pearl harbor. it is a vigorous response, but it is not aimed at the right target. so i think they talked very specifically about tax expenditures and more money leaks out of the tax code than it collects. and the last time he had a balanced budget, it was 19.2,

20, 18.8. that suggests that to balance the budget realistically, there has to be a higher level of revenues. why? not because he went to go crazy and spend a lot of money on new programs, but because health care, at least until recently, has been growing at a very high rate, six, and because of the demographics of all of the baby boomers, of whom i am one, about to retire. given the demographic changes we have to have more revenues, or the entire function of the federal government will be eased out. all you have to do is take those graphs out 20 more years or so and nothing is left of defense or pell grants or any other discretionary expenditures. the final and most importantly to solve this is through economic growth. austerity is not an economic stimulant. it takes investment. the two single greatest economic projects in the operating history of the united states

were the g.i. bill after world war ii and the interstate highway system. both were investments. both cost money. both require revenues in order to pay for them. and that is what the economy that we have been writing on since the 1950's and 60's. and this is madness. this is where economic growth comes from. so i agree with the senator. and i think there are ways we can do it, but you cannot just put blinders on and say you put blinders on when we have that many people per day becoming eligible for medicare, and that is the box we are in. and i think we have a real opportunity.

but we have to do it understand what the real targets are. thank you, mr. chair. chairman: thank you. senator purdue and then senator baldwin. senator purdue: thank you. first, i want to thank you, chairman enzi and senator price for your work in the budget process. for the first time since 2002, both chambers have made it a priority to pass a budget resolution. we are now prepared to come together for the first time and resolve our differences for the first time in a number of years and have a meaningful budget. while this is an important micro step it is just that, a micro step. we still have a lot of work to do in the coming years to fix our debt crisis. we need to put together a responsible framework that eliminates the need for budget gimmick's. no more continuing resolutions

or omnibus bills. we need to have congress pass appropriation bills and return our nation to fiscal stability. passing the conference budget resolution is the first step in restoring faith for the american people that this process can work. being new to the senate and to the political process, i have an outside perspective that allows me to see our current financial position with a unique perspective. akin georgia, people are outraged. i am outraged by the financial irresponsibility of washington on both sides of the aisle. and the last six years alone this government has spent 21 point $5 trillion doing its business. of that, we have borrowers $8 trillion. ladies in general, that simply cannot continue. our skyrocketing national debt is over $18 trillion, and there is not enough urgency in washington to rain that in. worse than that, we have over 100 trillion dollars in unfunded

issues, primarily related to medicare and social security. we are already past the tipping point of this crisis. if interest rates were to go to their 30 year average, we would be paying just under $1 trillion today, twice will be allocated to military spending and equal to what we have in our total discretionary budget. that is simply unmanageable. for a generation, washington's dysfunction has created gridlock. when set as you just heard once spending cuts, and the other side once increases. neither will solve the problem. we cannot tax our way out of it, and we simply cannot cut our way out of it. to break the gridlock, we have to get serious over this coming year to get our economy growing to do the things that washington can do best to help people in the free enterprise system. yes, the free enterprise system to get this economy going. it is not going to start within the beltway. one simple point of growth in

gdp means over $3 trillion in federal tax revenue over the next 10 years. you guys want more revenue? let's grow this economy. it is anemic. it has been a anemic over the last decade. there is no reason we should be growing 2% per year. we can get back to that, combined with eliminating redundant agencies, that would go a long way to setting up our kids and grandkids for solving this crisis. further, we need to protect today's seniors and assure a brighter future for the next generation. we must save our safety net programs like social security, medicare, and others to assure these programs will still be there for the people who need them most. both social security and medicare, as we heard in recent testimony before this area committee, are already facing bankruptcy, and by around 2030 three, their trust fund will be totally depleted. not taking action right now is irresponsible and does not resolve our underlying spending problem.

right now, we have an opportunity to lead. this budget conference provides us with an open and transparent process to find lasting solutions to our fiscal challenges you i believe both the house and the senate have included both -- important reforms that i wholeheartedly embrace. we need to debate those here front and center and come to a resolution soon. again, this is just the first micro step. over the next year, calm her has to -- congress has to find a way to cut out wasteful spending allow us to balance our budget sooner, and develop a long-term debt crisis plan. merely balancing the budget is not good enough. we need to develop a long-term plan to produce a surplus each year and we can begin to pay down this out rages debt and put our nation back on a path of fiscal responsibility, and let me say this. i have heard today repeatedly that we measure our debt and the size of our government as a percentage of gdp. you know, that makes sense when you have a benchmark to which to compare.

name another $17 trillion economy where we can use that data point to make it meaningful at all. in my view, if the economy grows 10% a year, why should this federal government grow 10% a year? people want to this government to work. they want washing to be functional countable, and transparent. that is both sides. we are both guilty. there are no innocent parties when it comes to this $18 trillion in debt. this just gives us a first step opportunity towards meeting those goals and making washington work again. we have had about six years to deal with six years of fiscally responsibility and i would argue 60 years of fiscal irresponsibility. the type to stand up and do what is right is now. thank you, mr. chairman. chairman: thank you. senator baldwin, followed by senator merkley. senator baldwin: thank you. i am proud to be serving on my

second budget conference committee as a u.s. senator. the last time we were all here together in a conference room much like this one i said we need it to pass a responsible budget that invests in the middle class that strengthens our economy, and that takes a balanced approach to reducing the deficit without shortchanging our future. i believe that the murray-ryan budget deal did its very best to hold true to those important goals. however, the house and senate passed budget resolutions before us today are more partisan documents. they cut investments in the middle class, they threaten our economic recovery, and they are anything but balanced. there isn't a single tax expenditure or tax loophole that is closed in these budgets. millions of americans would lose the health insurance that they rely upon today.

under the house republican budget resolution, over 873,000 wisconsin seniors would be kicked off traditional medicare and forced into a voucher program. almost 90,000 wisconsin seniors would pay more for prescription drugs next year because the resolution would reopen the so-called doughnut hole. the economic recovery we have worked so hard for would be destroyed. they would lose access to retraining programs. the dream of a college degree would become that much further out of reach for 117,000 wisconsin students as more than 90 billion intel grant funding is cut over the next decade.

one thing republicans at democrats should agree on is the need to pass a budget that grows our economy from the middle class instead of brooding the rules in favor of special interests. we should be able to find agreement that what america needs is a middle-class budget that gives everyone a fair shot to get ahead and to build a stronger future for themselves and their families. these budget proposals miss another opportunity for all of us. unfortunately, they will not help our budget -- economy rise and most importantly, they will not help hard-working middle-class americans rice. i thank you for this opportunity. senator merkley: thank you very

much, mr. chair. as i compare the two versions of the budget from the house and senate come i was asking myself the same question as when we deliberated on the senate's version. is this a budget that will work for working americans? or is it a budget designed for powerful, special interests? you see, there has been a lot of rhetoric on both sides of the aisle about helping the middle class and fighting for workers but a budget document puts down real numbers, concepts, and we can see if it is just rhetoric or a vision for expanding and strengthening the middle class. i am disappointed neither the senate or house budget meets the test of fighting to make this country work better for working americans and both the house and senate budget and a parallel fashion are designed to help the powerful special interests.

so many sectors, so many parts of our community will be affected in a negative way with this vision. our seniors will be either affected by the house version or the senate version. our infrastructure is assailed in both budgets. women infrastructure deficit, a highway trust fund running out of money, and both budgets failed to create good paying jobs in a strong economy in the future. this budget fails our children. it cuts the head start on the house side and on the senate, sec was station and additional cuts perhaps as many as 620,000 children who would have had an opportunity to get a fair start in life want get that start. it certainly felt our children

when it comes to doors and opportunities for higher education. pell grants are an essential component for our families that are struggling. they open those doors for our children for higher education. and yet, here we have it -- to budgets that/pell grants. we have in specified cuts that most estimated magically impact the snap program and the house side with more do you dealt in specifying hundred $25 billion in cuts for the hungry. like my colleague from wisconsin, i searched for those efforts to ask sacrifice of those best off in our economy. we all understand the programs for the best off are put in the tax code so as to be protected year from year.

they certainly can be identified in the budget process. yet we see not a single dollar. take the acts to be hungry and the seniors and the children and the consumers by trying to of this rate the independence of the watchdogs against predatory practices so, in the financial marketplace. take the acts -- axe to all of those but not one dollar asked from those will off. -- well-off. i gave it a failing grade for all of these factors. the house budget does know better. we sit here as a conference committee, have the choice of choosing or fighting the mid-distance between two filling visions or engaging in a bipartisan discussion to address the significant education deficit in america

infrastructure deficit in america, inequality in america. to address the shortcoming and good paying jobs in america. that is the path we should take. chairman: thank you. that concludes the presentations. i particularly want to thank the house members for their patience and participation and for staying under the five minutes. i think -- thank the senators for staying under six minutes or the most part. [laughter] mr. chairman: statements can be submitted by the close of business tomorrow. with all of the statements conclude, this meeting of the conference committee on the 2015 fiscal budget revolution that resolution is recessed.

>> c-span is pleased to present they winning in the student cam documentary competition. it it is an annual competition encourages middle and high school students to think critically about issues that affect the nation. students were asked to create a documentary based on the theme "the three branches and you" to demonstrate how one of the branches has affected them or their communities.

their entry focused on the topic of ethanol production. >> in 2007, congress passed the energy independence and security act. initiated and increasing mandate on ethanol use and transportation. each year, the epa has set the standards. it the epa is coming under pressure to lower the ethanol mandate. how has the act affected midwest communities? come to ours and we will show you. welcome to milan. if like many small midwest towns, the local economy revolves around agriculture. corn is a main crop in the milan area.

this was used as food or animal feed, but recently another option has arisen, turning the corn into ethanol fuel. >> renewable energy sources are the ones that are inexhaustible. wind currents, solar energy different kinds of plant material that we can use to create biofuels. >> how is ethanol produced? >> this is derived from the ancient technology of making news -- booze. >> it is similar to making moonshine. it is ground and then cooked with various enzymes that break down the starch and create a liquid corn mash. it's fermented and repeatedly

distilled on to -- until only the ethyl alcohol is left. >> ethanol production has skyrocketed in the past 15 years. what is responsible for this phenomenon? >> corn ethanol will be supported to different ways. one is subsidies, tax credits. the more important support is a mandate that a certain amount of ethanol has to be blended into the gasoline supply. that mandate is driving the growth. >> both farmers and the midwest have benefited immensely from the mandate. >> the ethanol impacts on corn has elevated our prices by about a quarter. >> you can't survive, we are

already below production cost an average yield. >> ethanol has brought hundreds of thousands of jobs to a downtrodden midwestern economy. >> ethanol has replaced harmful aids in gasoline. >> that compound is a serious looter. ethanol is much cleaner and it burns cleaner. >> a tablespoon of that can contaminate enough water the size of an olympic swimming pool. >> whether or not you use that crop for fuel, when you burn anything, the amount of co2 is

about the same. you look at the cornfield it is not removing any more co2. we did not produce the amount of co2 coming out. we did not take it out of the atmosphere. where is the benefit? there is none. >> when corn is compared to other sources of renewable fuel, corn has higher water pesticide, fertilizer needs. that affects the environment. this does not account for the land use for cornfields. it has drastically slowed. ethanol has reached the mandate cap. this leaves facilities like this one desolate and half will area

we focused on the corn ethanol torsion of the mandate. what about the other ethanol mandate. we talked with the environmental working group. >> plant residue like switchgrass shows promise of mean greener. the amount they have ramped up has been less in the original expected. >> in 2013, the ep mandate was for 6 million gallons. only 200,000 were produced. the benefits are incredible. >> it can reduce emissions by 60% to 100%. >> economic viability and research have been limiting

factors. how does this all fit together? >> it has raised corn prices. >> ethanol replaces harmful chemicals in gasoline. it strengthens the regional economy. >> we recommend that congress shift away from corn ethanol and afford more resources to research and development of advanced cellulite sick ethanol. this is not as viable as corn ethanol. with research and time, it will become a better green alternative. ethanol is not the fuel of the future. it's a step in the right direction.

>> to watch all the winning videos and to learn more about the competition, go to www.c-span.org and click on student cam. tell as we think about the issues the students addressed in their documentary. >> here are some of the book festivals we are covering this spring on book tv. this weekend, we will be in maryland for the annapolis book festival. in the middle of mate we will revisit maryland for coverage of the gaithersburg book festival with tom davis. then we will close out may at book spec spoke -- book expo america. in june, we are live for the chicago tribune literature fest.

that is this spring on c-span2 and book tv. >> live today, "washington journal" is next. at 10:00, the finance committee hears from the chamber of commerce ceo. at noon, the house returns for work on several bills regarding energy policy, patient access to medication, and the national peace officers memorial. coming up, linda dempsey of the manufacturers association will discuss authority given to the president to negotiate the transpacific trade deal. we will also talk about wall

street discrimination protections for the lgbt community. jennifer lawless on why young americans are turned off from politics. ♪ host: when it comes to a republican presidential candidate, the "new york times" said while it is not endorsement, they have -- republicans have expressed support for governor scott walker. hillary clinton is still in new hampshire. the hill newspaper still reporting that loretta lynch as attorney general, confirmation could come as early as thursday. the senate is supposed to take up the traffic bill today.