The Budget

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday I noted that in the middle of the current economic crisis, the administration's budget spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much. Yesterday I focused primarily on the fact that it spends too much. This morning I wish to expand a little bit more on that issue.

As I noted yesterday, the current Congress is on a remarkable spending binge. In the first 50 days of the new administration, Congress has approved more than $1.2 trillion in spending which translates into $24 billion a day, or $1 billion every hour since Inauguration Day. The budget, which we just learned about a while back, continues that trend.

Earlier this week, Congress approved a Government spending bill that increased spending by 8 percent over last year, about double the rate of inflation. The budget proposes another spending increase over last year's budget of an additional 8 percent. A lot of people are wondering why, in the midst of a recession, when millions of Americans are losing jobs and homes, the administration is proposing to spend tax dollars as if we are in the middle of the dot.com boom.

According to the administration's budget plan, the State Department sees a 41-percent increase in spending next year--a 41-percent increase in spending at the State Department. HUD sees an 18-percent increase.

The budget also proposes a ``slush fund'' for climate policy that will be larger than the entire annual budgets at the Department of Labor, Treasury, and Interior. Let me say that again: A slush fund for climate policy that will be bigger than the budgets of the Department of Labor, Treasury, and Interior.

Americans want reform in education, health care, energy, and other areas, but they want the administration to fix the economy first. That is the first priority. At this point we seem to be getting proposals on everything but the financial crisis. That is what is crippling our economy.

This budget spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much. If we want to earn the confidence of the American people for our programs and plans, the first thing we need to do is to get this excessive spending under control.

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