Sheldon's Opening Statement at Markup of FY 2010 Senate Budget Resolution

Sheldon's Opening Statement at Markup of FY 2010 Senate Budget Resolution

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you very much, Chairman. Let me join my colleagues by beginning with applause for your efforts to navigate our budgetary way through the challenges that face our nation. I know that your heart is in North Dakota right now, but your leadership in this committee remains constant.

We are in times of economic peril, and the challenges we face are more difficult than ever. Millions of Americans are fighting to save their homes, to save their jobs, to save their health care. The bills pile up, and all too often at the end of the month there simply isn't enough to pay them.

Our country is in a deep hole, too, and we in Congress must therefore fight for the right priorities for the American people. The key priorities are well-known; and they are real:

We have to fix our broken and wasteful health care system before it breaks us;

We have to restore America's leading edge in the education of our people;

We have to move away from foreign and fossil fuels, toward the green economy that beckons us;

And we have to restore fiscal balance once we've climbed out of this hole.

These are key priorities, and this budget supports them.

This has not been easy for President Obama in his first eighty days. President Bush inherited multi-billion dollar projected surpluses, projected surpluses so large that they would have completely wiped out all non-government-held national debt by this very year.

The difference between the budget baseline left by President Clinton and the one left to President Obama by President Bush is an astounding $8.9 trillion, an orgy of fair weather debt, the Bush Debt.

This is what President Obama inherited -- a legacy of reckless borrowing, flawed policy, structural deficits, and bad decisions, leading to our country's present economic crisis. Lectures on fiscal responsibility ill suit the party that created this debacle.

I am pleased, Mr. Chairman, that you included a broad reserve fund to facilitate comprehensive health care reform. As you've said, we face a tsunami of health care costs coming at us - $35 trillion in Medicare liabilities alone -- which threatens to sink the ship of state. This budget begins the repair of our dysfunctional health care system so that we can begin to enjoy higher quality, lower cost health care.

On energy, the budget's reserve fund begins moving long-overdue climate change legislation forward. The planet is warming, the oceans are rising, and there is no time for delay.

Given the urgency of the threat, I would also like to see reconciliation instructions. Since a cap and trade system will generate substantial revenue, I agree with Senator Cardin that it is a good candidate for this procedure, which was intended to cut deficits.

On education, we have maintained the President's investment, from early childhood programs to middle schools to college completion initiatives, so that all of America's children have the skills they need to succeed today and in the future.

Finally, I commend President Obama for his commitment to reviewing federal spending line-by-line to cut wasteful and inefficient programs. I am confident the federal government can save money, and that will help us bring our budget into balance, or allow us to invest in the things that really matter - our health care, our energy infrastructure, our children. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you to explore potential cost efficiencies throughout the federal government through our oversight function.

Tomorrow I will offer two amendments: one, to create a reserve fund for legislation that would reduce unemployment or help the unemployed, particularly in states and localities like my state of Rhode Island, where unemployment levels are at the highest; the second, to expand the environmental reserve fund to explicitly cover legislation protecting and preserving our oceans and coastal areas - national treasures endangered by climate change. I hope all of my colleagues will support those two reserve funds.

Mr. Chairman, once again I commend you for your leadership through a most difficult process. As someone who has been through a number of reform efforts in my home state, I know that there are many things that can be done to help with costs of programs that are founded in reform, and not just cutting with axes and knives. You can't really budget those forward, and it is asking a lot to expect President Obama to be able to predict all of those in the first eighty days in his office in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

And I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to be a little bit more helpful, a little bit more thoughtful, a little bit less critical as we try to work through these. Somebody once said that the critics are the flies that keep the oxen from ploughing. Well, we all have to plough together as Americans. Thank you, Chairman.

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