Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2010--Conference Report

Floor Speech

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010--CONFERENCE REPORT -- (Senate - April 29, 2009)

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Mrs. MURRAY. Thank you, Madam President.

Let me start by commending Chairman Conrad for his leadership of our Budget Committee and especially for the hundreds of hours he and his staff have dedicated to getting this budget done and accommodating both the priorities and concerns of so many of us in this body. Putting together a budget is never an easy process, but I believe our chairman has achieved a very good balance that will set us on a course both to reduce our deficits and invest in the areas we know will make us stronger in the future: energy, health care, and education. A budget is a statement of priorities, and ours are very clearly in this budget. We put the middle class first, and we get our country back on track by investing in our future.

There is no doubt that we have inherited great challenges at this time. We now face the worst economic crisis in generations. Since December 2007, we have lost 5.1 million jobs, including 3.3 million of those in just the past 5 months. So before we consider where we are going, I believe it is important today to talk a little bit about where we have been.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been bemoaning deficits and debt with not a moment of consideration for their own record on this issue. Back in 2001, Republicans controlled the full power of our entire Government. Under the leadership of President Bush and Republicans in Congress, record surpluses that were created under President Clinton became record deficits. Those Republican deficits grew and grew, and now today they add up to trillions of dollars in new debt that is going to be shouldered by future generations of Americans.

So it was with this perspective, which I hope our Republican friends will start to acknowledge and own up to, that we know at this point in time we have two choices: Choice 1 is to continue down the Republican deficit path--no investments in the future, a widening gap between the rich and the middle class, and more massive deficits. Choice 2 is represented by the budget we present today. It improves the economy by investing in energy and education and health care reform so that we are stronger in the future, cutting taxes to the middle class, and addressing deficits so that our children do not continue to bear the burden of bad decisions well into the future.

After 8 years of the Bush administration's very shortsighted budget and misplaced priorities, we are now working with President Obama to invest in our Nation's needs and chart a new course for America. We have chosen a new path with this budget. The American people deserve an economic plan that works for everyone in this country. Our budget makes responsible choices that will help get our economy moving again. I want to talk about a few of them. Let me start with education.

We all know that education and training are the keys to our future strengths. In this new global economy, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity, it is a requirement for success. We will not rebuild our economy and be competitive long term unless we can both create jobs and ensure that our American workers have the education and skills needed to fill those jobs.

This budget before us invests strongly in education and in training. We also place a priority on making sure American students do not fall behind as they make their way into the global marketplace. Our budget helps to retrain American workers for careers in those new high-growth and emergent green industries, such as health care or renewable energy and energy-efficient construction, so that those workers stay in the middle class.

This budget makes strong investments in early childhood education and home visiting programs to make sure that our young students are healthy and that they are ready for school. It also, importantly, invests in making sure college is affordable and accessible for more of our students. We want all of our students to achieve a postsecondary credential, whether it is through a registered apprenticeship, through a community college, or through a university. This budget helps point us in that direction.

As a nation, we have to change the way we think about preparing our young people for careers, starting with making sure education works better.

This current economic crisis has cost us dearly. Every weekend I go home to my home State of Washington, and I hear about another business that has closed or another family who cannot pay the bills. But we know that if we make changes and we make smart investments, we can move our country forward. Investing in education and investing in training is one of those smart investments.

That brings me to our next investment. As we are all aware today, energy issues are some of the most pressing facing our Nation today. Our dependence on foreign oil has left us beholden to other nations, as middle-class families pay the price at the pump. By making renewable energy a priority, we can reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy in the future and help create green jobs here at home and leave a cleaner environment for future generations. This budget does that.

On an issue that everyone knows is near and dear to my heart, I commend both the committee and President Obama for making veterans a priority in this budget process. Our men and women in uniform and their families have served and sacrificed for our Nation. After years of underfunded budgets and being overshadowed by other priorities, this budget finally does right by them. I commend my Budget chairman and our President and all of us for making sure that happens in this budget.

This budget is honest with the American people about the cost of war, not just by paying for our veterans care but by paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on budget for the first time since they started over 6 years ago.

I also note that this budget meets our commitment to nuclear waste cleanup in my State and across the country. Workers at Hanford nuclear reservation and people of that community sacrificed to help our Nation win World War II. Hanford and other sites are now still home to millions of gallons of waste, and our Government needs to live up to our promise to clean them up. This budget does that.

As is the case in many States across America, farming and ranching and agricultural production is my home State's largest industry. Protecting our agricultural sector is critical to the economy, the environment, and to our quality of life. We have to make sure our rural communities are strong. We worked to make sure we have a bright future for our farm families. Production agriculture, such as Washington State's wheat farming, is a very volatile business. A workable safety net such as in the farm bill is vital to the security of our family farms. I have also long supported the Market Access Program which provides funds for our producers to promote their products overseas and expand into those important international markets. Especially in these difficult economic times, when our foreign competitors are trying to limit our market access with tariffs, the last thing we should be doing is cutting programs such as MAP that will help growers in a competitive marketplace.

I want my colleagues to know I will continue to work with everyone to make sure we find ways to support one of the staples of our economy, our agricultural community.

We all know our health care system is broken. It needs real reform. Today we have an historic opportunity to finally tackle this challenge. These investments are not luxuries. They are essential to this country's future strength. That is why we have to prioritize the health professions workforce and access to quality care in rural areas. We have to work to ensure that preventive measures are given priority so American families are not left with giant bills for expensive care down the road.

Some critics of this budget are saying now is not the time to tackle health care reform. I believe that is pretty shortsighted reasoning. There is a direct connection between our Nation's long-term prosperity and developing health care policies that stem the chronic bleeding in business and in State and national budgets. A recent editorial in the Everett Herald newspaper in my home State made this point very well. They said:

Yes, the economy is the most urgent challenge. But our broken health care system and addiction to oil threaten to become our long-term undoing.

They're all intertwined: Failing to find solutions to our long-term problems will likely stunt future economic expansions, creating longer and deeper downturns.

Health care is an important priority in this budget before us.

There has been a lot of talk over the past few weeks about the inclusion of reconciliation in this budget. Some following this debate are probably very surprised that our Republican colleagues, who were so adamant about using this procedural motion when it came to passing huge tax cuts for a very few while paying for it on the backs of many, would now be arguing against its inclusion in this budget. As I said earlier, there is a direct connection between America's long-term prosperity and improving our health care system. Today nearly 46 million Americans do not have health insurance. One in five working adults does not have good coverage today. There was a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation this month that found 6 in 10 American families put off care because of cost, and 42 percent of those people said they relied on home remedies instead of going to see a doctor.

Of course, just this week the covers of newspapers across the country are filled with photos of people wearing surgical masks. TV screens are filled with commentators talking about the possibility of a new strain of flu crippling the country and our economy. I can't think of a better time to be talking about the need to insure all Americans, to focus on prevention, and to make absolutely certain that when there is the possibility of a public health crisis, no one puts off medical care because they don't have the means to pay for it. But in order to do all that, we have to work together.

Democrats would strongly prefer to address health care in a bipartisan manner and by going through the regular legislative process. It is our full intent to do just that. Democrats believe all Americans deserve high quality health care that reduces our costs, makes care more affordable, and creates jobs in the health care sector. We believe in protecting existing coverage when it is good, improving it when it is not, and guaranteeing health care for the millions of Americans who have none. We know the only way for our economy to fully recover is by making this critical investment in health care today. We are committed to working with Republicans to do that. But they have to demonstrate a sincere interest in legislating, because the stakes are too high and the cost of inaction is too great for us not to move forward. As long as Republicans want to be at the table, they have a seat. We welcome them. This is simply too important an issue not to have their voices. But it is also too important an issue to stall using partisan tactics. We have to address this crisis. We intend to move forward this year.

I urge all colleagues to stop debating the process and, instead, join the conversation about how we move forward on this issue that is so critical to America's families today and to our Nation's future economic strength.

America has paid dearly for the Bush administration's failure to invest in our Nation. We all know that. We don't have to tell the American people. They wake up to it every day: rising health care costs, pink slips, crumbling infrastructure, bills and mortgages they can't afford to pay. We tried it the other way for 8 years. It is time to invest in America again. It is time to give the middle class a break. It is time for honesty, and it is time to make bold decisions. This budget invests in our future and begins to get us back on track.

I thank our chairman who is now in the Chamber and tell him I appreciate the tremendous work he and his staff and so many people did to make sure we now have a budget before us that begins to get America back on track.

I yield the floor.

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, if I may respond to the chairman of our committee, I appreciate his thanks and praise. But our colleagues should know, no one has spent more time and energy, not just for a few months but for a very long time, to make sure we have a responsible budget we can all be proud of to vote on today. I again thank him and his staff for their tremendous leadership, in calls late at night, when I am out on the west coast, and I know it is even later for him. I appreciate the tremendous amount of work he does, both policywise and making sure we keep the right fiscal balance. There is no one who is stronger in our caucus talking about how important it is to make sure we look at not just what we do today in terms of this budget but how we to do it in the future. Keeping that balance between spending and deficit is at the forefront of his mind. We would not be here today without him. I thank him.

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