Congress Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2009--Continued

Floor Speech

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009--Continued -- (Senate - March 12, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

AMENDMENT NO. 4268

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise to speak to amendment No. 4268. This amendment would provide for a total of $200 million over the next 5 fiscal years for tribal justice and law enforcement. Specifically, this amendment would do two things in a fiscally responsible way. First, it would increase the BIA's public safety and justice account, which funds tribal law enforcement, tribal court systems, and tribal detention centers by $25 million a year for the next 5 years. Second, it would increase funding for U.S. attorneys to prosecute crimes in Indian Country by $15 million a year for the next 5 years. The need for this amendment on our Nation's reservations cannot be overstated, as the absence of basic levels of public safety is reaching a crisis point.

The statistics are startling. Nationally, studies show that one of every three Native American women will be raped in their lifetime. Crime rates on remote reservations are an average of 10 times higher than the rest of the Nation. The Department of Justice has found that American Indian women are 2 1/2 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women throughout the rest of the country.

In my home State of South Dakota, homicide rates within reservations are almost 10 times higher than those found in the rest of South Dakota. According to the BIA, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has the second highest rate of crime of all the reservations in the Nation.

In order to start to help improve public safety on our Nation's reservations, there needs to be a two-part solution. First, we have to ensure there are adequate law enforcement personnel on the reservations to respond to, to investigate, and to deter crime--something that is not currently happening. For example, again, my home State of South Dakota, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which sits on the border of North and South Dakota and occupies over 2 million acres of land, currently has only 16 commissioned police officers. That works out to no more than three officers a shift for over 2 million acres of land.

To put that in perspective, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe land is more than two times larger than the State of Rhode Island, which has 200 sworn State troopers plus additional county, city, and Federal officers. That means Rhode Island has 12 times as many State troopers as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has law enforcement officers, to police half the land.

Rhode Island also has 10 State trooper police dogs, meaning that at any given time, Rhode Island has more canine officers patrolling than Standing Rock Indian Reservation has human law enforcement officers. While there are population discrepancies between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Rhode Island, the differences between the two are still startling. My amendment addresses this need to increase the number of law enforcement officers on reservations by increasing funding for the BIA's public safety and justice account.

Second, there has to be some assurance that those who have been arrested, especially those arrested for violent crimes, are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Over the past two decades, only 30 percent of tribal land crimes referred to U.S. attorneys were prosecuted, according to Justice Department data compiled by Syracuse University. This compares with 56 percent of all other cases.

My amendment addresses this need with an increase in the BIA's Public Safety and Justice Account, which also funds tribal courts, and an increase for U.S. attorneys to prosecute crimes in Indian country.

The bottom line is that violent crime has become a serious problem on our reservations, particularly on our reservations in South Dakota, and I am determined to help reduce it. This $20 million increase in spending in fiscal year 2009 is small, less than 4/1000 of 1 percent of the total discretionary spending in fiscal year 2009 in this budget resolution, but it will have a big impact on the reservations that are truly in need.

I hope my colleagues will support this amendment so we can start restoring basic public safety to our Nation's Indian reservations.

METH HOT SPOTS BUDGET AMENDMENT

Mr. President, I would also like to speak about an amendment that I filed earlier this afternoon, amendment No. 4269.

This amendment, which would provide for a total of $99 million in COPS meth hot spots funding for fiscal year 2009.

The underlying budget resolution assumes $70 million for this program, and my amendment simply provides the additional funds needed for a total of $99 million, as authorized by the Combat Meth Act. This important program trains State and local law enforcement to investigate and lock up meth offenders.

In 2006, we passed the Combat Meth Act, which authorizes an additional $99 million per year for 5 years under the COPS Meth Hot Spots Program. During the budget debate last year, I offered a similar amendment that was accepted by unanimous consent.

Like last year, my amendment this year would simply provide, in a fiscally responsible way, the authorized $99 million for fiscal year 2009.

Meth abuse has become one of the most dangerous problems impacting small-town rural America and our Indian reservations.

As the Department of Justice's 2007 National Drug Assessment notes, Mexican criminal groups have expanded direct distribution of methamphetamine, targeting smaller communities across the Midwest as new markets.

Young people, ages 12-14, who live in small towns, like those across South Dakota, are 104 percent more likely to use meth than those living in large cities.

Sadly, hundreds of young children are brought up in households every year by parents who are hooked on meth. Studies show that children were present in more than 20 percent of the meth labs seized.

In addition to the costs associated with investigating, locking up, and prosecuting meth offenders, there are significant environmental clean-up costs involved.

The chemicals used to make meth are toxic, and meth producers and users often dump waste into our streams, rivers, fields, and sewage systems. Cleaning up these sites requires specialized training and costs an average of $2,000-$4,000 per site. My amendment would not only provide much-needed funding for law enforcement expenses associated with meth, but also for environmental clean-up to protect our lands and water systems from the harmful effects of this toxic drug.

I strongly urge the adoption of this amendment, so we can continue to crack down on the growing meth abuse problem in rural States like South Dakota and other states across the country.

Mr. President, I would like to speak, if I might, as well, to the broader issue of the budget resolution. There has been a lot of debate about it. We are in the 50 hours leading up to tomorrow when we have the so-called vote-arama when many of the amendments that have been filed will ultimately be voted on, but I want to make some observations about this budget because I think it is important.

I think the American people derive from this an idea about where the political parties in Washington want to take the country, what their priorities are in this budgeting process. Of course this is now a $3 trillion budget that we deal with every single year. The budget resolution is a statement of priorities. In many respects, because it is nonbinding, it doesn't have the force of law. Sometimes it seems this whole exercise would appear at times, perhaps, to the watching public, to be somewhat more symbolic than anything else. But I do think it is important in that it does set the direction, the tone, the agendas in Washington, DC. It is a statement of priorities, and it is a blueprint for how the two respective political parties in the Senate would govern the country.

If you look at where we are in terms of the economy today, and you look at where we have come from in the last 7 years, we did enact over the past several years some historic tax reductions for all Americans. Despite a recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, the collapse of the Internet bubble, these tax cuts have resulted in 52 consecutive months of job growth, the second longest period of job growth on record. Thanks to the progrowth tax policies that were put in place by previous Congresses, unemployment remains relatively low and productivity is higher than the previous three decades. Additionally, significant job growth followed the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Since 2003, nonfarm employment has increased by 8.3 million jobs, including 1.7 million new jobs last year alone.

There is a simple fact of fiscal policy: reducing taxes, reducing marginal income tax rates and capital tax gains rates puts more money back into the economy, encourages investment, and creates jobs.

On the other hand, tax increases drag the economy down and discourage job creation.

Unfortunately, on account of high energy prices and falling home values, our economy faces several short- and long-term challenges. In the fourth quarter of 2007 gross domestic product only increased by .6 percent. Payroll employment declined in January and February. Oil traded for almost $110 per barrel this week. Subprime mortgage foreclosures are at an all-time high, and the dollar is at an all-time low.

In response to these economic challenges, the budget resolution put forth by the majority in the Senate calls for a dangerous combination of larger Government bureaucracies and higher taxes. In total, the Democratic budget includes a $1.2 trillion tax increase on over 116 million families and 27 million small businesses.

Under the Democratic budget, the reduced individual tax rates are set to expire within 20 months. As millions of families prepare their taxes ahead of the April 15 deadline, I think it is important to point out that this deadline will be even more painful in future years under the Democrat budget resolution, if it is ultimately here adopted.

On January 1 of 2011, the 10-percent tax bracket would expire; the 25-percent tax bracket would increase to 28 percent; the 28-percent tax bracket would go up to 31 percent; the 33-percent tax bracket would go up to 36 percent; and the 35-percent tax bracket would increase to 39.9 percent.

On top of the increased tax rates, the increased child tax credit will expire. In other words, in the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the per-child tax credit was increased to $1,000 per child. Under this budget, if the tax cuts are allowed to expire, that would fall back down to $500. Families with children would see their tax burden increase substantially when that $1,000 tax credit is reduced to $500 after the year 2010.

Additionally, the marriage penalty is reinstated and the 31 million filers who report dividend income, and the 26 million filers who report capital gains income, would see taxes on their investments go up as well. That impacts, significantly, senior citizens. We have a lot of senior citizens around the country who have investments that they live on--dividend income, capitol gains income. So these particular tax increases are going to strike disproportionately harshly on those senior citizens across the country who depend on investment income.

Finally, the death tax is reinstated at pre-2001 levels. If you took a look at the 2001 levels, it allows a $1 million exemption and a maximum statutory level of taxation of 55 percent, which is one of the highest death tax rates in the world.

Ironically, under the current law, in the year 2010, the death tax would completely disappear, which has prompted a lot of people who do estate planning to suggest that, if somebody wants to be able to pass on their earnings and their lifetime of assets tax free to the next generation, it would behoove them to decease or to pass away in the year 2010. But the bad news is in 2011, if you are still around, the death tax kicks back in and it kicks in at enormously high levels: 55 percent maximum tax rate and a $1 million exemption. In a State such as mine, South Dakota, where you have a lot of farm and ranch families who are asset rich but cash poor, in many cases it causes them to liquidate their assets; in other words, to sell the farm in order to pay the IRS.

That is something that makes absolutely no sense. I hope we can avoid that happening. There is going to be an amendment offered by some of my colleagues that would reform the death tax and reform it in a way so that in 2011 we don't go back to the old law, which is incredibly restrictive in terms of the way it takes the money away from those who have accumulated it and worked hard, including a lot of hard-working farmers and ranchers in South Dakota, over the course of their lifetime putting away some of their investments and acquiring land and farm equipment and that sort of thing.

They want to pass it on to the next generation. The next generation wants to stay on the farm. But, unfortunately, in many cases, as I said, they have to sell their assets in order to pay the IRS. In total, the average family is going to see their taxes increase by approximately $2,300 per year, which is enough to buy 8 months of groceries for the average family or a year's worth of health care.

Over the past few years, there have been a lot of misconceptions about the tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003. The first misconception is that the tax cuts are too expensive and cost the Federal Government too much in terms of lost revenue. If you look at what has happened in terms of Federal receipts, Federal receipts have dramatically increased since we enacted the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. In fact, in 2000, the Federal Government raised $1.99 trillion in revenue. In 2007, after those historic tax cuts had spurred increased economic growth, the Federal Government collected an all-time record of $2.57 trillion. So, from the year 2000, where it was just a little under $2 trillion, to the year 2007, where $2.57 trillion was collected, over a half trillion dollars additional revenue is now coming into the Treasury on an annual basis as a result of the tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003.

So for somehow to believe for a moment that the Federal Government has been deprived of revenue as a result of tax rates being reduced does not at all jibe with the facts.

The first misconception, I would argue, is the one that is held around here and often used in debates around here, and is very misguided because tax rates, when they were cut, actually led not to less Government revenue but to more Government revenue, and not only that but dramatically more Government revenue.

The second misconception is tax cuts created an overly regressive tax structure that only benefits the wealthy. But if you look at recent data from the Congressional Budget Office, the effective Federal tax rate for middle-income households is the lowest it has been in the past 25 years, thanks to the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

For the bottom 20 percent of U.S. households, the total effective Federal tax rate fell by nearly a third from the year 2000 to the year 2005.

According to the Tax Foundation, approximately 30 million tax returns had no income tax liability in 2000. After enactment of the historic tax cuts, an additional 13 million returns had no income tax liability. So now there are 43 million tax returns in this country where there is no income tax liability, as I said, an increase of 13 million returns from the year 2000.

Add that to the 15 million households and individuals who do not file tax returns at all, and you have 41 percent of the U.S. population completely outside the Federal tax system as a result of the tax cuts that were enacted in 2001 and 2003.

Now, under the Democratic budget plan, millions of low-income Americans are going to be put back on those tax rolls. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will claim they are extending middle-class tax cuts by voting for the Baucus amendment.

I wish to make a couple of points about the Baucus amendment. First, we heard this very same claim last year. This is the same song that we heard last year, that the Senate is going to pass an amendment that addresses some of these, or puts back or restores some of these tax cuts.

We passed an amendment on the budget resolution last year, a similar Baucus amendment, as part of the fiscal year 2008 budget resolution. But we were falsely promised action to extend selected tax cuts as part of that budget process.

Here we are a year later, the same promises are being made, and the same wall of tax increases is 1 year closer. Now, second, the Baucus amendment excludes a whole lot of tax cuts that are absolutely critical to the well-being of the middle class. Even after the $320 billion Baucus amendment, if it is adopted on the budget resolution tomorrow, Americans are still faced with one of the largest tax increases in American history.

Now, those taxpayers who are following this year's budget process are probably asking themselves: If the Democrats in Congress are going to raise taxes by $1.2 trillion, certainly they are going to bring stability and solvency to entitlement programs and reduce the Federal debt.

Unfortunately, the answer to both those questions is no. The Democratic budget does nothing to rein in out-of-control entitlement spending. Rather than enact meaningful reform, the Democratic budget resolution leaves our children and grandchildren with $66 trillion worth of unfunded Government liabilities.

The baby boom generation has already started to retire this year. And the over-65 population will nearly double by the year 2035 to 75 million people. These demographics, coupled with increasing health care costs, create a $34 trillion unfunded Medicare liability and a $4.7 trillion Social Security liability over the next 75 years.

The spiraling cost of entitlement spending is the single greatest threat to the long-term health of our economy, and under the Democratic budget, entitlement spending grows by $488 billion over 5 years. If left unchecked, entitlement spending will account for 70 percent of our Federal budget by the year 2017.

Under the Democratic budget resolution, the gross Federal debt climbs by $2 trillion by 2013. Every American child will owe an additional $27,000 to pay down the national debt on account of this budget. This debt will create an economic drag on our Nation for generations to come.

The bottom line, the budget resolution that will be voted on tomorrow, offered by the majority in the Senate, raises taxes. The largest tax increase in American history we had was back in the 1990s, when taxes went up about $250 billion under the Clinton administration.

At that time, Senator Patrick Moynihan described it as the largest tax increase in American history. This will be four times that level of tax increase. It increases spending, discretionary spending, increases mandatory spending dramatically and does nothing to curb entitlement spending to reform entitlements or reduce our Federal debt.

In the coming days, Senators are going to have several opportunities to correct the shortfalls in this budget. There are going to be a number of amendments offered tomorrow. I encourage my colleagues to take a good look at these amendments and take advantage of the opportunity they have to do what is right for the Federal budget and for hard-working taxpayers across this country and to hopefully adopt some amendments that will make this budget better.

But, in the end, I am afraid that in light of the fact that it is going to increase taxes by $1.2 trillion and increase spending and do nothing to reduce the Federal debt, this is a budget I do not think many right-thinking people in the Senate are going to be able to vote for.

I would close by noting that as you listen to the Presidential campaign this year, it has been a great experience in democracy. You have seen candidates running out there holding townhall meetings, listening to constituents. It is a wonderful example I think of our Democracy at work and in action.

But as typically happens during the course of Presidential campaigns, there are lots of promises that get made on the campaign trial. And in many cases, the other side of the story does not get told; that is, how are those programs going to be funded? How are they going to be paid for?

That is the side of the story I hope that at some point in the campaign we are going to hear, because if you add up all the new programs that were gathered together into one Cabinet-level department, these programs, posed by our colleague, the Senator from Illinois, you could call it the Department of Unfunded Campaign Promises. There are 188 new Federal programs that add up to $300 billion a year in new Federal spending--$300 billion a year. And that is only 111 programs added up. The other programs they have not been able to score yet.

But of those they have been able to attach a cost to, $300 billion a year in new spending. That would constitute the third largest Federal department in our entire Federal Government, behind only the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services.

That new department, consisting of 111 new programs, would have a larger budget than the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice combined.

To look at it another way, this new Department of Unfunded Campaign
Promises would cost more than 42 States' budgets combined. Not only do we have a budget in front of us today that leads to higher taxes, more spending, more debt, we have a lot of obligations that are being promised out there on the campaign trail.

It seems to me at least that we ought to start tomorrow by defeating this budget that takes us down the wrong path of more Government, higher taxes, and does not do the right thing for the taxpayers of this country.

I yield the floor.

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