National Service Reauthorization Act--Continued

Floor Speech

NATIONAL SERVICE REAUTHORIZATION ACT--Continued -- (Senate - March 25, 2009)

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THE BUDGET

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am a member of the Budget Committee. Senator Conrad is our chairman. Senator Gregg is our ranking member. As the Senate knows, this week we will be taking up the President's proposed budget, and I want to speak for a few minutes about that subject.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to a number of students who were here because they want to make sure Congress continues to provide them an opportunity to study at our Nation's community colleges. I am a strong believer in the role of community colleges as a less expensive yet outstanding opportunity to earn a good education, but it being also a part of our workforce development and training, where industry can come in and match up a curriculum to train people to perform jobs for which they can receive well-paying salaries.

But yesterday these community college students, of course, were here to talk about the issues that are on their mind. They heard from Dr. Jill Biden and Secretary Duncan, among others. I appreciate how eager they were to learn what is going on here in Washington. Indeed, I bet there are a lot of people who would like to know what is going on here in Washington.

I encouraged them to learn about the issues and express their views. I told them that as far as I can tell, their generation will bear the consequences of the reckless spending this Congress is engaged in, in a budget that simply spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much.

Students will ultimately end up--after they finish their education and enter the workforce--paying those higher taxes under this proposed budget. This proposed budget calls for $1.4 trillion in additional net taxes over the next 10 years.

Students are trying to figure out how these higher taxes will actually impact the opportunities they will have as they enter the workforce. Some of these taxes will hit these students at the toughest time; that is, right as they enter their first job.

We know the engine of job creation in America is our small businesses. In fact, of those small businesses that employ between 10 and 500 employees--which are the principal job creators in our country--50 percent of them will experience higher tax rates because many of them are not incorporated. They are sole proprietorships. They are partnerships. They are subchapter S corporations, where the income actually flows through and is reported on an individual tax return.

So it is not true to say these will only affect the rich. Indeed, these taxes will affect the very job engine that creates the jobs we ought to be worried about retaining and indeed creating more of.

I also talked to these students about how they will feel the impact of higher energy costs on their electric bill. You may wonder what I am talking about. Well, we all care about the environment. As a matter of fact, I reject the notion of people who actually say: Well, we care about the environment, and you do not care. I think we all care about the quality of the air we breathe, the quality of the water we drink. I cannot imagine someone who does not.

These students, though, I think are understandably skeptical of the complex and unproven cap-and-trade scheme the President's budget wants to import from Europe, which will actually ultimately increase the cost of energy, including electricity. That is why some people have called it a national sales tax on energy, if, indeed, this complex and unproven cap-and-trade plan is passed as part of the President's budget.

Then there is the issue of the caps placed on charitable deductions for taxpayers who take advantage of that tax break when they contribute money to good and worthy purposes. Many community college students receive scholarships from foundations that are funded by charitable contributions. As a matter of fact, charitable giving is one of the things that is part of our Nation's great tradition of voluntarism--something Alexis de Tocqueville called ``public associations''--things you do not get paid for but things that people do because they think it is the right thing to do and they have the opportunity to do in our great country.

This budget would actually cap charitable contributions, which will actually reduce the tax incentive for individuals to contribute money to good causes such as the Tyler Junior College Foundation in Tyler, TX. The foundation is understandably concerned that raising taxes without increasing the charitable tax deduction will limit their ability to offer as many scholarships in future years.

So these tax increases will, in effect, limit the opportunities for these community college students, including folks in my State, in east Texas, in Tyler, TX.

Then there is the issue of raising taxes generally and spending. These students know Congress is already spending a whole lot of their money because it is all borrowed money.

In fact, we have spent more money since this Congress convened this year than has been spent for the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan, and in Hurricane Katrina recovery. We have done that already. And this budget calls for doubling the debt in 5 years and tripling the debt in 10 years.

These students, understandably--because they are going to be the ones we are going to look to to pay that money back or bear that tax burden--should be concerned and, indeed, they are concerned that so much money is being spent so recklessly. In fact, it is impossible for me to imagine it will be spent without huge sums of money actually being wasted.

We have already seen evidence of that. In the stimulus bill--the President said he wanted on his desk in short order, which was rushed through the Senate and through the Congress--$1.1 trillion, including the debt and interest on the debt--we found out, once we passed the next bill, which was a $410 billion Omnibus appropriations bill, that, lo and behold, Congress had actually doubly funded 122 different programs in the bill. We acted with such haste, with such little care, with such little deliberation, that we found out we doubly funded 122 programs.

Indeed, we found out in recent days that in the conference report on the stimulus bill, there was a provision stuck in the conference report that protected the bailout bonuses for the executives of AIG. Then, of course, there was the understandable uproar over that. That is what happens when a bill is printed and circulated at 11 o'clock at night, on a Thursday night, and we are required to vote on it in less than 24 hours the next day. That is not the kind of transparency, that is not the kind of accountability, that is not what will actually give people more confidence in their Government-elected officials. To the contrary. There is another provision in this omnibus bill that has essentially started a trade war with Mexico, something that causes me grave concern.

So as we consider the President's $3.6 trillion budget proposal, we should remember the lessons of the past 2 weeks: spending so much money, so quickly, can lead to unintended consequences, to say the very least, but the biggest consequence of this budget is the amount of debt we are accumulating. I have already talked about it a minute.

But, of course, we were shocked, and I think even the President and the administration were shocked, by the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan office which evaluates financial matters for Congress, which said the President's budget will actually create deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion a year for the next decade.

I mentioned the fact that it would double the debt in 5 years, triple it in 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office said the size of the national debt as a percentage of the economy will become the highest since the years after World War II.

So these students who start college this year will see their share of the national debt grow from $19,000 per student to more than $36,000 per student after graduation from a 4-year program. By 2019, their share of the debt will grow to more than $55,000 per person. Can you imagine, with the money they have to borrow to fund their education, with their credit card debt--and I do not know any student who does not have sizable credit card debt--we are going to heap $55,000 in additional debt on these students. That is a tough way to start out your life after school as you start your first job. Today's college students will ultimately have to pay back the debt, as well as the generations that succeed them. All bailouts, one way or another, will come out of their pocket.

I urge my colleagues to understand the impact on this younger generation of a budget that taxes too much, spends too much, and borrows too much. Because of our actions, the next generation will either have to raise more taxes or cut programs that are necessary or lower their standard of living.

I know from my parents, members of the ``greatest generation,'' the one thing they aspired to more than anything else was that my brother and my sister and I would have a better life, more opportunities, more freedom, a better standard of living than they did. And they were willing to sacrifice for that, and sacrifice they did. But it seems to me the sacrifices we are calling for today are all on our children and grandchildren, and none upon the present generation.

The President says he wants to make hard decisions. But I do not see any hard decisions in this budget. All I see is more borrowing, more taxing, and more spending, and that is exactly the wrong way we ought to be headed.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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