Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2005-Continued

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005-CONTINUED

Mr. DURBIN. If it is all right with the Senator from Michigan, I will take 15 minutes, and if there is no objection, I ask unanimous consent that the floor then be yielded to the junior Senator from Michigan.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is an important debate because it is a debate about promises that have been made and promises that have not been kept. Many Members can recall President Bush, when he came to office, said he had a plan for putting America's economy back on its feet.

Now, understand, when President Bush took office we had gone through a period of amazing economic expansion in the United States. Under the 8 years of the previous administration we had created some 27 million new jobs in America. We can remember the feeling of exhilaration and excitement as this economy charged forward. Silicon Valley was leading our technology and our economy, and people across the board were finding their retirement plans and savings were growing to historic levels. There was a great feeling of optimism, creation of more jobs than at any time in our history, lower inflation, a situation where we had more new businesses created than we had seen in any comparable period, and more for women and minorities. It was a dramatic period of economic expansion. It was a period when there was real confidence we were doing the right thing.

Some of that is within the control of the President and some of it is not. Giving credit to the previous administration, I believe President Clinton made an important early decision. When he came to office, he decided his party, the Democratic Party, would do something that surprised many observers. He said, we will seriously and honestly address the deficit.

We remember the deficit. Under President Ronald Reagan and President George Bush 1, we had amassed annual deficits and a national debt emerging from them of record proportion. In fact, there was more debt in that period of time than any time since the beginning of the United States of America. The debts just kept on coming.

In came President Clinton who said: We can do better; but in order to do better, we have to do two things. One, we have to cut spending. Second, we will have to impose some new taxes. There were tax cuts for sure in the package, and I voted for it, but he said those are the things that have to be done. If they are done, President Clinton said in 1993, I believe it will be a signal to the business community in America that the U.S. Government will get its house in order. We will stop running these massive annual deficits. We will stop accumulating this national debt. We will be more responsible. President Clinton brought that proposal to Congress. I was serving in the House at the time. It passed the House of Representatives by one vote, without a single Republican Congressman voting for it. Then it came to the Senate where a vote was cast again on President Clinton's plan to get the economy back on its feet, and what happened here? A tie vote broken by then-Vice President Al Gore, all Democratic votes again, passing the Clinton plan.

Members of the Republican Party came to the floor during the debate and predicted if President Clinton had his way, if his plan were enacted, we would lose jobs, move into a recession, and find our economy permanently damaged. Those speeches were coming at us like rapid fire out of a gun from the other side of the aisle. They did not provide one single vote for the Clinton plan to put this economy on its feet. Fortunately, it passed and, in passing, set us on course for the great economic expansion which I just explained.

Now look where we are today. The first thing to do is to consider where President Bush was when he came to office. This chart is an indication of the deficits in surplus in the United States. Under President Reagan we can see the first deficit he ran into was in the range of $79 billion. Then the annual deficit increased to about $153 billion. In other words, we were overspending that much each year.

Then under President Bush's father, the annual $153 billion deficit grew to $290 billion. That was money we were spending we did not have. We were increasing the mortgage of the United States of America every single year under President Reagan and President Bush's father.

Then came President Clinton and he said, as I described earlier, we need to do the responsible thing. We need to cut spending and we need to increase taxes on those who can afford to pay. As a result, we see the deficit line go from a high of $290 billion under President Bush's father and the annual deficit start plummeting under President Clinton until 1997 when we will start running surpluses. Who would have guessed, after all those years, 12 or 13 years of straight deficits, we started running surpluses in America.

What did a surplus mean? It meant we were putting money into the Social Security fund instead of borrowing it. Why is that important? Because we have a horde of Americans, called baby boomers-and I am just outside that class-who will show up for Social Security and Medicare soon. We said, let's get Social Security and Medicare stronger. We know they are coming. That is what President Clinton did. Because of his decisions, we reached the maximum point in his administration where we had an annual surplus of $236 billion, generating more money than we were spending. What a change. What a dramatic change over this period under President Reagan, President Bush's father, and President Clinton.

Then look what happened when President Bush came into office. He came into office with an economy that was starting to show some recession, it is a natural thing, and came up with a plan for America which called for the most substantial tax cuts in our history, with a substantial part of them going to the highest income, wealthiest Americans. President Bush and his adherents in the House and Senate insisted if you just give a tax break to the wealthiest people in America, they will save it and spend it and invest it in a way that will turn the American economy around.

President Bush carried the day. I didn't vote for it. Some of my Democratic colleagues did. He passed not one but two major tax cuts.

Now look what happened as a result of President Bush's economic policy over the last 3 years and 3 months. Look at this line. We have gone from a $236 billion surplus under President Clinton to a $477 billion deficit we are facing today-an abject failure of President Bush's economic policy.

Every year we continue to give tax cuts we cannot afford to pay for, and we continue to spend money we do not have. How in the world can the Federal Government do that? How can we consistently act like a bankrupt nation and get by with it? Well, the answer is, we reach into the Social Security trust fund.

This trust fund is created every single minute of every day by every worker in America. As they go to work and earn their wage, the Federal Government takes about 7 or 8 percent of it from the employee, the same amount from the employer, and says: We are putting that away for Social Security, so when you are ready to retire it will be there.

All that money accumulates and grows. We pay the current Social Security recipients, and we save the balance for the future. That balance grows. The way we sustain a deficit is by reaching into that Social Security trust fund and spending it, leaving IOUs behind.

The vote that was just taken, for those who are following it, was very basic. It said: Stop reaching into the Social Security trust fund to increase tax cuts for America or to increase mandatory spending. You saw what happened. The vote went down resoundingly. I guess my colleagues are being very honest about this. They know we have deficits we cannot handle, and they know you cannot sustain those deficits without reaching into the Social Security trust fund and taking the money out, and they are perfectly willing to keep doing that. In fact, they are willing to increase the tax cuts at a time when we are in deep deficit and have to rely on the Social Security trust fund to save it.

So what do we have here? We have such a dramatic reversal in such a short period of time. President George W. Bush's economic policy has failed miserably. This red line on this chart, this dramatic increase in our annual debt is a clear indication.

Now take a look at some other economic indicators. There are those who argue the economy is growing; good signs are on the horizon; a reason for optimism. Well, what happened last Friday? Last Friday we had a report from the Department of Commerce about the number of jobs created last month in our economy. The report said 21,000 new jobs were created. Cause for celebration? Hardly. All 21,000 new jobs were created by State and local governments; no net increase in jobs in the private sector in businesses. Businesses are not creating new jobs. The Bush economic policy has failed in that regard as well-21,000 new jobs, all with State and local governments. We need to create about 125,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with the new entries into the workforce, people who are now looking for jobs for the first time. We are not even keeping up with the new entries.

We have an incredible thing happening. Over 400,000 Americans have stopped looking. They have been on unemployment for so long they have given up. They are not even looking any longer. They are not being counted. The number of unemployed people in this economy, unfortunately, is growing dramatically.

Again, the Bush economic policy has failed, with record deficits, higher than any time in our history. Unfortunately, this President has presided over the loss of more jobs during his administration than any President in the history of the United States since President Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression.

Those are the realities of the failed Bush economic policy, and the budget before us today is proof positive of the fact that is likely to continue.

The Bush administration has not been realistic when it comes to job projections. Take a look at this chart. The black line at the bottom shows the actual job situation, how many jobs we have had in America. These red lines that come shooting off, suggesting many more jobs are going to be created, are all predictions by President Bush's administration. The economic reports of 2002, 2003, and 2004 said recovery was on the way, around the corner, and millions-literally millions-of jobs will be created. Each and every time they have been wrong. Their policy has been wrong.

Just several weeks ago, a gentleman by the name of Gregory Mankiw, who is the head of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, sent this Congress a report, signed by President George W. Bush, that took a look at the job situation. Incredibly, Mr. Mankiw reported to us that in fact the outsourcing of jobs, the sending of American jobs overseas, Mr. Mankiw says, is a good thing. It is healthy for us to see American jobs leave our shores to India and China and other countries around the world.

His argument-I suppose among some economists this is credible-was that now jobs that did not used to be "tradeable," in his words, are tradeable. Call center jobs-the next time you get a call at home from somebody who wants you to take a credit card or change a phone service, ask them from where they are calling. I started asking recently. My last two callers were calling from India.

This morning we read about a small town in Virginia that is about to lose Travelocity, which is an agency which books travel for people around the world. Their jobs-several hundred in a small Virginia town-are going over to India. Mr. Mankiw says to Congress: Don't get worried. This is a good thing. This is a healthy thing. Call center jobs in America are tradeable.

Well, I do not think Mr. Mankiw is living in the real world. I defy him to take that argument to any main street in America, in Michigan, in Idaho, or in Illinois, and say to the people there what we are facing in America today is a good thing, with jobs going overseas.

How does that relate to this budget? Sadly, when we look at the job situation, you find that, as Lou Dobbs of CNN estimates, 348 companies in America are now outsourcing work overseas, either sending U.S. jobs overseas or choosing to employ cheap overseas labor instead of American workers.

The President's budget, which we have today, is so deep in red ink he has cut back on what is called domestic discretionary programs, and by doing so, he has no jobs program whatsoever. He does nothing in his budget to end tax breaks for companies that are sending jobs overseas. He does not extend unemployment insurance. During the first 6 months of 2004, that will mean an estimated 2 million unemployed workers receive neither a paycheck nor unemployment insurance. He does not provide the money for these families to keep their basics together, to pay for their mortgage and utilities and food and health insurance.

Time and again, the Republicans in the Congress have refused to offer unemployment benefits to the casualties of the Bush economic policy. Is that compassionate conservatism? I do not think so. I think he is turning his back on hard-working people who have been victimized by his failed economic policy.

Also, this budget shortchanges job retraining. Vocational and adult education programs cut by almost 25 percent, from $2.1 billion to $1.6 billion.

Mr. President, 2.5 million full-time, year-round workers live in poverty in the United States. You can talk about all the tax breaks in the world but, frankly, they never reach these folks. Pennies come to them. Thousands come to those in higher income categories.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes, if the Senator from Michigan will bear with me.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, take a look at the annual growth rate of private sector jobs under President Bush. You have to go all the way back to President Hoover to see such a low growth rate, which had a negative growth rate of over 4 percent. Under President George W. Bush, we see here something that has not happened in this country for almost 70 years: the loss of private sector jobs because of a failed economic policy.

Then when you take a look at the manufacturing jobs, that is where it is really painful. Manufacturing jobs are the best-paying jobs in Illinois and Michigan. We just had a hearing last Friday. Employees of Electrolux-was it in Greenville, MI?

Ms. STABENOW. Greenville, MI.

Mr. DURBIN. Greenville, MI, a town of about 9,000 people, if I remember correctly, and over 2,000 jobs are going to be lost.

Ms. STABENOW. Twenty-seven hundred jobs.

Mr. DURBIN. So, 2,700 jobs. I am glad Senator Stabenow reminds me. Electrolux makes Frigidaires. They are moving to Mexico. We asked them whether they sold Frigidaires in Mexico. No. They are going to sell them in the United States. More manufacturing jobs heading over the border.

Maytag, in Galesburg, IL-the stories just go on and on and on. It is not like these jobs are leaving and new, good jobs are coming. When we asked an employee of Lucent Technologies from Illinois how much he made an hour for Lucent after almost 30 years on the job, he said $27. When I asked him: What kind of job are you looking for now? He said: I am lucky to get one that pays $8 an hour with no benefits.

For the Bush administration to argue there are job replacements out there is to overlook the obvious. For certain workers there is nothing that can replace a good-paying manufacturing job in a person's lifetime. And that, unfortunately, is the sad reality.

When you look at this budget, you realize the obvious.

The money is not there for health insurance, which is critical for unemployed workers and basically for workers and businesses large and small. There is no money provided here to basically take care of the 43 million Americans who don't have health insurance. Many of them are our neighbors who get up and go to work every morning, many with children who have no health insurance protection.

This budget fails to keep the President's promise on education. President Bush came to office and said: I am an education President and for No Child Left Behind. It was passed with a bipartisan vote. Still he refuses to find the money to pay for the very program he has mandated on State and local school districts. The President's budget for No Child Left Behind falls $9.4 billion short of his promise. At a time when the President says we have to give the wealthiest in America some $45 billion in tax cuts, the President has not kept his word on No Child Left Behind.

The money is not there to deal with health insurance, nor is there money to retrain workers who have lost their jobs. That is the best we can get out of President Bush's budget. Is it any wonder people across America say: It is time for a change.

I yield the floor to the Senator from Michigan.