Department of Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, first, let me thank the chair of the Budget Committee, my friend and colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Murray, for her remarks and, even more, for her excellent work on putting together a terrific budget. That may be the reason our colleagues want to delay.

For 4 years, they have had a great time saying: You don't have a budget. You don't have a budget.

It was perhaps the only thing they had to say because the actual confines of their budget are so far away from what the American people want, they couldn't get into the details. After all, nobody wants to end Medicare as we know it. Nobody, as in the Ryan budget, wants to reduce taxes dramatically on the wealthiest Americans--39 percent to 25 percent--and then take away deductions for middle-class people, good deductions that make sense, such as the mortgage deduction, the charitable deduction, the retirement deduction, and the health care deduction. No, no one wants to do that. And no one wants to eat our seed corn--cut money dramatically for things such as investment in education, in infrastructure, and in scientific research--in order to cut taxes on the very wealthy or keep existing narrow loopholes open, deductions for moving businesses overseas, stuff for the oil companies. They don't want to debate that, I guess. But now we have a budget because of the leadership of the chair of the Budget Committee and the members of her committee.

By the way, this is not a small group of Democrats. It runs from our most liberal Members to our most conservative Members, all united around a budget that is fiscally responsible. It meets the Simpson-Bowles restraints, the budget targets, it invests in jobs and the economy, and it closes loopholes and preserves the middle class's ability to grow and proceed.

So we now are in this 30-hour thing. We could actually be debating a budget while those 30 hours tick by. We don't have to be sitting here doing nothing. One of our colleagues said he would like to debate the budget 2 weeks from now. Why is he putting things off? Well, I guess if I had their budget and looked at it compared to our budget, that is what I would want to do, but that is not fair and it is not right.

So I just came to the floor to join my colleague from Washington in pleading with our colleagues: Let's have a real debate on the budget. The lines are sharply drawn. Our budget and their budget contrast. Let the American people hear the debate and decide what they like. We are pretty confident they will like ours better. They no longer have the talking point that we don't have a budget. Instead, they are now preventing us from actually talking about our budget. It is not fair. It is not fair, and it doesn't really help the process.

I know there are some Members on the other side of the aisle who have some objections to the CR in certain areas. We are all hurt by the CR, by the way, I would say to my colleagues. If we want to get rid of things such as the horrible things that are happening in the air traffic towers, vote on our budget. We do not do sequestration. We undo sequestration, and it might pave the way to doing more things this year. But to sit here and let the clock tick makes no sense.

One thing I can tell my colleagues: I know my good friend Harry Reid, and we are not going to kick the budget can down the road for 2 weeks. We will be here, whether it has to be Saturday night and Monday and Tuesday. We will be here. So they may as well let us debate the budget. There is 50 hours. We can have a nice, full, open debate and then do our votes.

It is a logical request. I don't think there is any good argument against it. I haven't thought of one.

I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--we would say, Mr. Republican leader, Mr. Republicans, let's debate the budget. Tear down the wall of not debating, and let us show our budget, you show yours, and let the American people decide.

I yield the floor.

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