The Budget

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we have seen the numbers. Unemployment is at a 25-year high. Millions are worried about holding on to their jobs and their homes. With every passing day, Americans are waiting for the administration to offer its plan to fix the banking crisis that continues to paralyze our economy. Every day, it seems, the administration officials are unveiling one new plan after another on everything from education to health care. Meanwhile, the details of a banking plan to address our main problem have yet to emerge.

We need reforms in health care and education and in many other areas. But Americans want the administration to fix the economy first. Unfortunately, the budget avoids the issue entirely. It simply assumes this enormously complex problem will be fixed, and then it proposes massive taxes, spending, and borrowing to finance a massive expansion of Government. It assumes the best of times, and, as millions of Americans will attest, these are not the best of times.

Over the next few weeks, the Senate will debate the details of this budget. One thing is already certain: It spends too much, it taxes too much, and it borrows too much. This budget would be a stretch in boom times. In a time of hardship and uncertainty, it is exactly the wrong approach. The budget's $3.6 trillion price tag comes on top of a housing plan that went into effect last week that could cost a quarter of a trillion dollars, a financial bailout that could cost another $1 trillion to $2 trillion, and a stimulus bill that will cost, with interest, more than a trillion dollars. Some are now talking about yet another stimulus. The national debt is more than $10 trillion, and yesterday we passed a $410 billion Government spending bill that represented an increase in Government spending over last year of twice the rate of inflation. In just 50 days, Congress has voted to spend about $1.2 trillion between the stimulus and the omnibus. To put that into perspective, that is about $24 billion a day or about $1 billion an hour--most of it, of course, borrowed. There is simply no question that Government spending has spun out of control.

Given all this spending and debt, the cost of the budget might not seem like much to some people. But this is precisely the problem. To most people, it seems that lawmakers in Washington have lost the perspective of the taxpayer. It is long past time we started to think about the long-term sustainability of our economy, about creating jobs and opportunity for future generations. That will require hard choices. The omnibus bill avoided every one, and, unfortunately, so does the budget.

Stuart Taylor of the National Journal recently praised the President in two consecutive columns. Yet he was shocked by the President's budget. Here is what Taylor said about the budget:

``..... Not to deny that the liberal wish list in Obama's staggering $3.6 trillion budget would be wonderful if we had limitless resources,'' Mr. Taylor wrote. ``But in the real world, it could put vast areas of the economy under permanent government mismanagement, kill millions of jobs, drive investors and employers overseas, and bankrupt the nation.''

There is no question, in the midst of an economic crisis, this budget simply spends far too much. In order to pay for all this spending, the budget anticipates a number of rosy scenarios. It doesn't explain how the economic recovery will come about, it simply assumes that it will. It projects sustained growth beginning this year and continuing to grow 3.2 percent in 2010.

Let me say that again. It projects sustained growth beginning this year and continuing to grow 3.2 percent in 2010, 4 percent in 2011, and 4.6 percent in 2012. While we all hope to soon return to this growth, we cannot promise the growth we hope to have, especially when this growth is far from likely, particularly given a host of new policy proposals in the budget itself that are certain to tamp down growth even more. There is simply no question that this budget spends too much.

But even if this growth does occur, it would not be enough to support the
spending proposals. That is why the budget calls for a massive tax hike. In fact, this budget calls for the largest tax increase in history, including a new energy tax that will be charged to every single American who turns on a light switch, drives a car, or buys groceries. Unless you are living in a cave, this new energy tax will hit you like a hammer.

During the campaign, the President said his plan for an energy tax will ``cause utility rates to skyrocket.'' He was right. The new energy tax will cost every American household. I can't imagine how increasing the average

American's annual tax bill will lift us out of the worst recession in decades.

There is more. A new tax related to charitable giving would punish the very organizations Americans depend on more and more during times of distress. One study suggests that the President's new tax on charitable giving could cost U.S. charities and educational institutions up to $9 billion a year--money that will presumably be redirected to the 250,000 new Government workers the budget is expected to create. There is no question that this budget taxes too much.

Remarkably, the largest tax increase in history and a new energy tax still aren't enough to pay for all the programs this budget creates. To pay for everything else, we will have to borrow--borrow a lot. This budget calls for the highest level of borrowing ever.

Now, if there is one thing Americans have learned the hard way over the past several months, it is that spending more than you can afford has serious, sometimes tragic, consequences. Yet Government doesn't seem ready to face that reality--not when it is spending other people's money and not when it is borrowing from others to fund its policy dreams.

It is not fair to load future generations with trillions and trillions of dollars in debt at a moment when the economy is contracting, millions are losing jobs, and millions more are worried about losing homes. It is time the Government realized that it is a steward of the people's money, not the other way around, and that it has a responsibility not only to use tax dollars wisely but to make sure the institutions of Government are sustainable for generations to come.

I don't know anybody who would borrow money from people thousands of miles away for things they don't even need. Yet this is precisely what our Government is doing every single day by asking countries such as Saudi Arabia, Japan, and China to finance a colossal budget in the midst of an economic crisis.

The administration has said it intends to be bold, and I have no doubt this budget reflects their honest attempt to implement what they believe to be the best prescription for success. We appreciate that effort. We simply see it differently. A $3.6 trillion budget that spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much in a time of economic hardship may be bold, but the question is, Is it wise? Most of the people who have taken the time to study this budget have concluded it is not wise. Republicans will spend the next few weeks explaining why to the American people.

Americans want serious reforms. But in the midst of a deepening recession, they are looking at all this spending, taxing, and borrowing, and they are wondering whether, for the first time in our Nation's history, we are actually giving up on the notion that if we work hard, our children will live better lives and have greater opportunities than ourselves.

Americans are looking at this spending, taxing, and borrowing, and they are wondering whether we are reversing the order--whether we are beginning to say with our actions that we want everything now--and putting off the hard choices, once again, for future generations to make. That would be a most important question in this upcoming budget debate.

It is important, once again, to sum up the core problem with the budget we will be voting on in a few weeks: It spends too much, taxes too much, and it borrows too much.

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