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Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

Date: April 23, 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Government Budget and Spending


CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 -- (Senate - April 23, 2009)

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, the Senator from New Hampshire has offered an amendment to the conference report that we not double the debt from the time President Obama took office through the end of 2019. Our budget does not go through 2019. It would not double the debt through 2014. The debt when President Obama took office was about $10 trillion. So this amendment is not necessary. I urge a no vote.

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this motion would instruct that the budget be altered so that there would be level funding for 2 years during the time that we are now spending an additional $800 billion in the economy as part of the stimulus package.

We ought to be able to keep the baseline budget level for 2 years, and then finish out the 5-year budget at 1 percent growth. We have doubled the national debt through this budget--we will do so in 5 years--and triple it in 10.

Interest on the debt today is $170 billion over the President's 10-year budget. At the 10th year, it would be $800 billion in interest alone, dwarfing our education budget of $100 billion, dwarfing the highway budget of $140 billion.

This is the right approach to show some discipline on the baseline budget at a time we are surging the discretionary spending through the stimulus package.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, the amendment that is before us will freeze spending, nondefense and nonveterans funding, for 2 years and limit the growth of nondefense and nonveterans funding to 1 percent annually for fiscal 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Now, I would remind all of us, we are in an economic crisis in this country. The investments we make in this budget that is before us are important for education, for health care, for energy, and for the other priorities that on which this country has asked us to move forward.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on the motion before us so that we can have the flexibility to deal with these critical issues before us today.

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