Surface Transportation Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished ranking member on the Budget Committee for engaging in this discussion, and I am anxious to hear from our colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Ayotte. She was there this morning and was able to ask questions of the witness, the panel we had in front of the Budget Committee.
I guess what struck me about listening to that discussion was just the evasiveness we had from Mr. Zients and, in fact, as the Senator from Alabama has mentioned, his failure to respond to very direct questions--not questions that are trick questions, questions that are just a matter of the facts.
I think what I was struck by too is that when he was asked about whether the administration wanted Majority Leader Reid to bring the President's budget to the floor, he could not give a direct answer, and his comments indicated that they would not be calling on the majority leader to bring the President's budget before the Senate. The other thing I was struck by is that the President's own budget chief could not confirm or verify that the President has added already about $5 trillion to the debt since taking office. Those were both things that seemed like very straightforward questions and should have been very straightforward answers.
The fact is it is very difficult for him or any other official in this administration to defend this budget. This budget is not a serious budget, and even people on the other side, people in the media have all passed judgment and basically said that this is not the kind of budget that takes on the challenges the country faces.
I would say to my colleagues that it is hard to take this seriously when they aren't serious about it, but they ought to be because these are serious times. We live in a time where we are running a $15 trillion debt. This budget would add another $11 trillion to that debt over the next 10 years. We are living in a time when we have European countries that are on the verge of fiscal collapse with regard to their economic and fiscal situations, much of which we are watching on a daily basis unfold in front of us and what that might mean for our country, and hopefully there is something instructive about that because clearly we need to be taking a page out of what is happening there and getting our house in order now.
We have made promises to the American people that we can't keep. We need to reform our entitlement programs. And that probably more than anything else was the biggest disappointment in the President's budget because it is the fourth year in a row where he has proposed a budget that doesn't do anything to address the fundamental drivers of Federal spending, and by that I mean the mandatory part of the budget; that is, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP. All of those different programs represent today, with interest on the debt, about 64 percent of all Federal spending. At the end of the 10-year period, they would represent 78 percent of all Federal spending. So this budget is a dramatic increase in the amount we are spending on various programs. That is what is driving Federal spending today, that is what will drive Federal spending into the future, and that is why a failure and a lack of leadership when it comes to the issue of entitlement reform is so disturbing, and it really is a missed opportunity.
I understand that this is an election year. Everybody says this is a campaign document, this is a political document. That does not absolve the President or us of the responsibility we have to the American people to start making some decisions around here that will get this country back on the right fiscal track.
When you propose a budget that spends literally $47 trillion over the next 10 years, which is basically what we are talking about here, then you have not done much to bend the spending curve in the right direction. So I would strongly disagree with Mr. Zients' statement today that this is a ``very tight budget''--that is how I think he described it.
We have Governors around the country who are making some tough decisions to balance their State budget. The Federal Government ought to do the same. South Dakota is a good example of that. We made some difficult decisions this last year, and as a consequence of that, our budget situation is much better this year, but it is because they had the courage to step forward and do some things that needed to be done.
The budget proposed by the President fails to rein in government spending and balance the budget. As I said, it adds $11 trillion to the national debt, which will reach--if my colleagues can believe this--nearly $26 trillion by the end of the decade under the proposal the President put forward.
I could go on, but I would say to my colleague from Alabama and to my colleague from New Hampshire that based upon what we heard this morning, I guess I don't feel very reassured that this administration gets it. The President's budget submission clearly was an example that they don't get it, and the defense of it this morning that we heard in front of the Budget Committee certainly reinforced that impression with me. But I would be interested in knowing what the Senator from New Hampshire, who was there and able to question the panelists, including the OMB Director, thought based on the testimony we heard this morning.
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of 2009--this is in the context of discussing our unsustainable budget deficits--President Obama said the following:
Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget of the next administration or the next generation.
That is exactly what he has been doing now for 4 years, literally--every budget, every year. We think, OK, maybe this year the President is going to get serious because we have serious problems and these are serious times in which we are living and we have to get the situation turned around or we are headed for certain disaster. Yet, last year, as was noted, the President's budget when it was put on the floor of the Senate did not garner a single vote here--not a single vote. It was 97 to 0. It was unanimously rejected by the Senate, Members on both sides voting against it.
This year one would think, OK, the situation has gotten much worse. Our fiscal situation has deteriorated even more. The amount of debt we have racked up is continuing to accumulate. We thought perhaps this year we would see a budget that actually did address these problems, but, no, we have a budget that is filled with more spending, more debt, and higher taxes at a time literally when we need to be tackling spending, we need to be taking on saving Social Security and Medicare for the next generation, and doing something to create economic growth and get jobs created for American workers.
What is disappointing is not just the fact that the spending and debt situation is out of control but also the impact it has on the economy. The Senator from Alabama knows full well, because we both have studied this subject, that when we look at the research that has been done with regard to the impact of spending on debt and economic job creation, when we achieve a certain level or arrive at a certain level of debt as a percentage of the economy--90 percent is the threshold and it costs about a percentage point of economic growth every year, which means fewer jobs, and in this case about a million fewer jobs, in our economy. So the high, sustained levels, chronic high levels of debt and spending are directly impacting our economy's ability to get out of this cycle we are in and to start growing and expanding again and creating jobs.
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Mr. THUNE. I think it is very clear. I think if you look at, as the Senator said, the debt as a percent of GDP--now over 100 percent; think about that--this is the highest level of debt, highest level of spending as a percentage of our GDP that we have seen literally since the end of World War II. We have not seen anything that rivals it. We have seen now 4 years in a row where we have run trillion-dollar-plus deficits, and we have added, as was said earlier, nearly $5 trillion to the debt since this President took office. But when you get that kind of debt level sustained over time, it does have a direct impact on jobs and the economy, and I believe we are paying a price for that right now. You can look at what is happening, obviously, with the high levels of debt and the impact it is having on countries in Europe.
So this whole idea with the President producing his budget and not taking that issue on, not doing anything substantial or meaningful with regard to spending or debt, and then adding to it, and making matters even worse, raising taxes by almost $2 trillion--it seems like a most natural instinct. It is just in their DNA. Everything has to be about raising taxes. And, clearly, that is not the solution. We all know that. In fact, we need to create policies that will be conducive to economic growth and job creation in this country.
Raising taxes on investment, which is what this budget does--by the way, it would raise capital gains tax rates from 15 percent to 20 percent right away, and then if you are hit by the Buffett rule, it would go up to 30 percent. It would raise the dividend tax rates from 15 percent to up over 39 percent--almost triple the tax on dividends in this country, which, incidentally, have already been taxed at the corporate business level. So you are talking about almost tripling the tax rate that Americans are going to have to pay on investment income. Then you look at the ObamaCare taxes that would kick in, the 3.8 percent on investment income, you add that and you start getting to a marginal income tax rate that is up in the 43, 44-percent range. It is very hard to argue that can be anything but awful when it comes to jobs.
The entire budget--from the failure to address spending and debt, the failure to take on saving Social Security and Medicare by reforming our entitlement programs; and it seems as though the constant reliance on taxes is their answer to everything--could not be a worse budget for the American people. It could not be a worse budget for the economy. It could not be a worse budget for jobs. And it certainly could not be a worse budget for seniors, as we continue to watch Medicare and Social Security cascade further and further toward bankruptcy. It is a bust as far as I am concerned. I think that is why people on both sides and people in the media and the American people get it.
It is time for this administration to get serious because these are serious times. When you are going to do big things, you need Presidential leadership. There are 100 Senators, 435 Members of the House of Representatives, 535 of us in all. There is only one President, one person who can sign a bill into law, one person who can engage the American public and the Congress in a way that will help us solve these big problems and tackle the challenges we face as a Nation right now. This budget does none of that.
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Mr. THUNE. If the Senator would yield on that point, in closing, I do think there will be a vote probably at some point. The House is going to pass a budget. We know that. I suspect what will happen is what happened last year. If the Senate fails to produce, if the Democratic majority does not produce a budget here, we will end up voting on the House budget, perhaps on the President's budget. But the regrettable thing about all that is we are not doing our job as Senators. It has been over 1,000 days now, and this will be the fourth year in a row in which this body has not adopted a budget. What we have gotten from the President, of course, is not a serious one. All they want to do is get out and demagog and attack people who are serious about solving this problem.
Last year, as was the case with the House-passed budget, when it came over here, it was routinely attacked and demagoged. But nothing was ever put forward that would represent an alternative because they do not want to deal with these issues. It is unfortunate for the American people.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. THUNE. We yield our time.
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