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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, before my friend and colleague from Illinois sits down, I have a question. I am going to speak on hate crimes, but that will be after the Senator from Vermont, who is waiting.

I would like to ask the Senator from Illinois a question. We, the Democrats, have a reputation of, well, tax and spend, tax and spend. But just seeing my colleague from Massachusetts here, I realized that in the two major bills we have just done--and my friend from Illinois has mentioned one on higher education and one on children's health--A, we have paid for them. Unlike what has been done on the other side, say, with the prescription drug program, we paid for them. We are being fiscally responsible. And we didn't pay for them by hurting average folks in terms of their taxes. The tobacco tax, which the Senator from Massachusetts just mentioned, and on the college tuition, we are paying for that by making the banks pay a little more. Not a nickel of taxpayer money is coming for that.

So I ask my colleague, how would he compare the record of the new majority on fiscal responsibility compared to the old majority?

Mr. DURBIN. My colleague and friend from New York has served in both the House and Senate, and he knows that often promises are made on important things we do. But we have kept our promise that we would have a pay-as-you-go plan. As we came up with new ideas for legislation, we paid for them--much different from what we saw around here as we were driven deeply into debt under the leadership of the other party.

The war in Iraq is a classic example. This President continues to wage this war and asks for money without any tax or cut in spending. He just adds to the deficit of this country--a deficit which, unfortunately, is out of control and makes us beholden, mortgaged, to some of the largest countries in the world.

So I would say we have kept our promise. It is a pay-as-you-go promise.

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