Patent Reform Act of 2011
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. This morning the Republican leader came to the floor, Senator McConnell, and made some pretty strong and sweeping statements about the state of the deficit and responsibility. I would like to have a chance to respond.
Senator McConnell said for 2 years now Washington Democrats have taken fiscal recklessness to new heights. The amount of red ink Democrats plan to wrack up this year alone would exceed all the debt run up by the Federal Government since its inception through 1984.
I would like to set the record straight. Understand what the national debt of America was when President William Jefferson Clinton left office. We were running surpluses. We had not done that for decades--surpluses in the Federal Treasury.
What did we do with all this money? We put it in the Social Security trust fund. We bought more longevity and solvency for Social Security and, if you remember, the economy was never stronger.
William Jefferson Clinton left office, and at that moment in time, the national debt, the accumulated debt of America, from George Washington until he left office, $5 trillion. Remember that number, $5 trillion. Fast forward 8 years after the end of President George W. Bush--8 years later--where were we? The national debt was now $12 trillion.
Fiscal recklessness by Democrats? Under President Bush, the national debt more than doubled. Instead of leaving a surplus for President Obama, he said: Welcome to an economy that is hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of jobs lost every single month, and we anticipate next year's deficit--he told President Obama--to be $1.2 trillion. That was what President Bush handed to President Obama.
I do not mind a selective view of history. I guess we are all guilty of that, to some extent. But to ignore the fiscal mess created that more than doubled the national debt in 8 years, to ignore that we waged two wars without paying for them, to ignore that we cut taxes in the midst of a war, which is something no President in the history of the United States has ever done, is to ignore reality.
The reality is, we are here today, in the midst of this Titanic struggle, about whether we are going to continue to keep the Federal Government functioning. We are being asked whether, 2 weeks from now, we want to have security at our airports, air traffic controllers, whether we want to have Social Security checks sent out, people actually sending a check, answering questions at the Internal Revenue Service, whether we want the Securities and Exchange Commission still working on Wall Street 2 weeks from now.
We cannot lurch forward 2 weeks at a time without doing a great disservice to taxpayers of this country, as well as to the men and women who work hard for our government every single day.
What is the answer in the House of Representatives? Well, the House of Representatives says we need to cut $100 billion this year. They started at $60 billion, incidentally, and then decided that was not enough for bragging rights; let's get up to $100 billion this year.
You say: Well, out of a budget of $3.7 trillion, how big is that? Whoa. They did not look at the budget of $3.7 trillion. They looked at one 14-percent slice of the pie, domestic discretionary spending. That is it. Nothing to be taken out of the Department of Defense, nothing to be taken away in terms of tax breaks for the wealthiest corporations, the most successful corporations, nothing out of oil and gas royalties and the like--nothing out of that. We will take it all out of domestic discretionary.
So what did they take away? I looked in my State last week. I went up to Woodstock, IL. We have an office there with counselors who are bringing in unemployed people, sitting them in front of computers, with fax machines and copy machines. They are preparing resumes and trying to get back to work. These are people who want to work. They need a helping hand. This place has been successful. It places people in jobs. What would happen to that office under the House Republican budget resolution? It would close its doors--more unemployed people, more unemployment checks. Is that the answer to putting America's economy back on its feet? Is that how we are going to get 15 million Americans back to work?
How about the House Republicans' proposal to eliminate $850 a year in Pell grants. Senator Leahy knows what that is all about. These are kids from the poorest families, many of them for the first time in their family have a chance to graduate from college, but they can't make it; they don't have enough money. We give them a helping hand. The Republicans take it away. What will that do? The President of Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, told me what it will mean. It will mean that 5 percent, 1 out of every 20 students, will not finish the school year. That is what the Republican cut means. To cut job training, to cut education when we have 15 million people out of work, what are they thinking?
Not bad enough, I went to a medical school in my hometown of Springfield, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, and met with researchers. They get a few million a year to do medical research in fields of cancer therapy, dealing with heart issues, dealing with complaints of returning veterans. What do the House Republicans do? They virtually close down research for the remainder of the year, close down this medical research. Is that right? Is that what we want? Have we ever had a sick person in our family and we went to the doctor and asked: Is there anything, is there a drug, is there something experimental, a clinical trial, is there anything? Have we ever asked that question? If we did, we know this cut by House Republicans is mindless, to cut medical research at this moment in history.
Then I went to a national laboratory, the Argonne National Laboratory, on Monday. What do they do there? A lot of people can't answer that question. I learned specifically. Are Members aware of the Chevy Volt, a breakthrough automobile, all electric? Where did that battery in this automobile come from? The Argonne National Laboratory. How about the latest pharmaceutical breakthroughs? Virtually every one of them uses the advanced photon source at the Argonne National Laboratory. I met a man from Eli Lilly who was there experimenting with a new drug that can save lives. How about computers? Where is the fastest computer in the world today? I wish it was in the United States. It is in China. We are now working on the next fastest computer so we don't lose that edge. Where? At the Argonne National Laboratory. So what would the House Republican budget do to that laboratory and most every other laboratory? It would eliminate one-third of the scientists and support staff working there and cut their research by 50 percent for the rest of the year.
So what? So what if we don't move these pharmaceuticals forward to market sooner to save lives, if we don't compete with the Chinese on this computer, if we don't deal with battery technology so we don't lose that edge in the world? What will it mean? Lost jobs.
The House Republicans weren't thinking clearly. They were performing brain surgery with a hacksaw. As a result, they have cut what is essential for the future: infrastructure projects, education, research. To have the Republican leader come and tell us we have to accept that, that that is the future of America--no, it is not. Time and again, when we sit down to deal with budget challenges, whether it is in the deficit commission, on which I was honored to serve, or whether it is in past negotiations, we open the table to all Federal spending, not just 14 percent, that tiny slice of the pie.
Senator McConnell can remember--and I can, too--under President George Herbert Walker Bush and under President Clinton, we put on the table tax breaks for some of these oil companies and corporations and said: Is it worth America's future for us to give them a tax break or to use the money to reduce the deficit? That is an honest question. Mandatory spending. All these things need to be brought to the table for conversation, but that is not the position of the Republicans. They would rather see us shut down the government than to open this conversation to the entire Federal budget. They would rather see us shut down the government than fight to make sure education, training, research and innovation and infrastructure are there to build a strong American economy for the future.
I say to my friend Senator McConnell, we don't need any speeches from that side of the aisle about a national debt that more than doubled under the last Republican President. We have to work together in a bipartisan way, acknowledging the reality of history, that we all have had a hand in reaching the point we are at today, both positive and negative, and we all need to take a responsible position to move us forward.
I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source