Concurrent Budget Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I thank Senator Coons.

The Senate budget resolution that we have worked so hard on would, first, replace the harmful budget sequester, the effects of which are only beginning to be felt in our communities--with balanced deficit reduction. Second, it would invest in our crumbling roads, bridges, and water infrastructure. Our engineers give our infrastructure a D-plus. Clearly, we need to make that investment, and it would support continued job creation and economic growth.

Despite this sensible, balanced approach, not a single Republican supported this budget in committee. Republicans prefer to raid the programs that the middle class depends on, while protecting the rich and the well-connected.

A CBS News poll conducted last September shows that 78 percent of Americans favor continuing the current guarantee of Medicare coverage for seniors--78 percent. But the Republican budget would gut Medicare, turning it into a voucher program for those 55 and under--basically putting Medicare into a death spiral. And it would end the Medicare guarantee that has been the pillar of American retirement for half a century.

More than 3 million seniors right now save an average of $700 a year on prescriptions because we closed the dread doughnut hole. Well, the Republican budget throws them right back in the doughnut hole, forcing today's seniors to pay an additional $700 a year, on average, out of pocket.

Sixty million Americans got to college and were able to seize their dreams because of Pell grants. The Republican plan cuts Pell grants, dropping an estimated million students in this vital program. This Ryan Republican plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program is so extreme and so radical that even Republicans are speaking out against it.

Congressman David McKinley voted against the Ryan budget. He said, ``My home State of West Virginia has the highest percentage of Medicare beneficiaries in the country, and I cannot support a plan that the Congressional Budget Office has determined would nearly double out-of-pocket healthcare costs for future retirees.''

Of course, former Speaker Newt Gingrich described this plan as "right-wing social engineering.'' This Republican budget makes enormous mystery cuts in the budget. Chairman Ryan claims he can cut $900 billion of appropriated domestic spending over the next 10 years. That means border security, that means the FBI, that means medical research, that means student financial aid, that means the grants that support our efforts to combat violence against women.

Under the extreme radical Republican budget, domestic discretionary spending will fall to its lowest level as a share of GDP since we started keeping track in 1962. There were not even Pell grants in 1962. There was not even Medicare in 1962. Their future is our distant past.

Chairman Ryan would push $810 billion onto our States to shift costs to the States for Medicaid, and find another mystery $962 billion in unspecified entitlement grants. He boasts that the Republican budget repeals ObamaCare but he puts all of the savings from ObamaCare in the budget.

He cannot have it both ways. It is not even an honest budget. It is politically, mathematically, and logically unrealistic. It is not a balanced budget so much as magical thinking. Even if the unrealistic program cuts in the Republican budget could be made, the plan ignores the economic damage that would result.

We have had the austerity experience. We have had the austerity experience in Europe. The evidence is in. Deep austerity cuts in Spain, Greece and Portugal caused persistent double-digit unemployment and negative growth rates. We may be impatient with our unemployment rate, we may be impatient with our low positive growth rate, but the countries that tried what the Republicans want to do have double-digit, 26-percent unemployment rates. Their economic growth is negative. Their economies are shrinking.

The Wall Street Journal just reported that industrial production in the UK after its austerity plans has fallen to its lowest level in 22 years and the country is looking at a third recession. The Republicans who want to emulate European austerity should consider what Jeremy Warner said in the conservative Daily Telegraph.

This is a truly desperate state of affairs. ..... We seem to have the worst of all possible worlds, with nil growth, some very obvious cuts in the quantity and quality of public services, but pretty much zero progress in getting on top of the country's debts.

That should be a warning. Not only is the Ryan Republican budget's magical thinking unrealistic, it is unfair. It achieves 100 percent of its deficit reduction by cutting government programs that benefit lower and middle-income Americans, while getting nothing--not one dime--from wealthy Americans or corporations. In fact, it would cut the high-end tax rate for corporations and wealthy individuals. It adds more tax breaks for the rich and well-connected, and goes after the lower and middle-class families.

The Republican budget cuts total education and workforce training, for instance, by an estimated 47 percent. It cuts $135 billion out of the food stamp program, which helps feed the poorest Americans. At the same time, if you are making over $1 million, it offers you an average tax cut of $330,000.

For the kind of money the Ryan Republican budget wants to give to the rich and the well-connected, they have to come after the middle class. Chairman Ryan's tax cut would require $5.5 trillion in new revenue. To cover that pricetag, President Clinton revealed the hard truth. I will quote President Bill Clinton:

..... they'll have to eliminate so many deductions, like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving, that middle-class families will see their tax bills go up.

That is the promise of the Ryan Republican budget--middle-class families will see their tax bills go up. We do not. We take 7 percent out of that, which means we can focus on the corporate tax spending, we can focus on the high-end deductions, on the carried interest exception, so we do not have to go after the middle-class tax cuts.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Let me close by reading one thing. We have just welcomed a new Pope. The Conference of Catholic Bishops had this to say about the Ryan budget last year:

Congress faces a difficult task to balance needs and resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices. Just solutions, however, must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs. The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.

I yield the floor.

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SEC. 3__. DEFICIT-NEUTRAL RESERVE FUND RELATING TO ENSURING THAT ALL REVENUE FROM A FEE ON CARBON POLLUTION IS RETURNED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the Senate may revise the allocations of a committee or committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this resolution for one or more bills, joint resolutions, amendments, amendments between the Houses, motions, or conference reports relating to the establishment of a fee on carbon pollution, provided that--

(1) all revenue from such fee is returned to the American people in the form of Federal deficit reduction, reduced Federal tax rates, cost savings, or other direct benefits; and

(2) such legislation would not increase the deficit over either the period of the total of fiscal years 2013 through 2018 or the period of the total of fiscal years 2013 through 2023.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President and colleagues, we have a new Pope, Pope Francis, who said last week that our relation with God's creation is not very good right now. God's creation runs by laws--the laws of nature, the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry--and God gave us the power of reason to understand those laws. But they are not negotiable. They are not subject to amendment or repeal. And the arrogance of our thinking that they are is an offense to His creation.

We can ignore obvious facts, we can ignore the essentially unanimous science, we can ignore our generals and admirals, we can ignore the insurance industry's warnings, but we ignore carbon pollution at our peril, and we have subsidized it long enough. It is past time to wake up from our sleepwalking. This vote is a test. Whether we pass or fail is a measure of us.

I urge that we support this amendment that will allow us to put a price on carbon and protect the American people.

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SEC. __X. POINT OF ORDER AGAINST LEGISLATION THAT WOULD CREATE A TAX OR FEE ON CARBON EMISSIONS.

(a) Point of Order.--It shall not be in order in the Senate to consider any bill, joint resolution, motion, amendment, or conference report that--

(1) would result in revenues that would be greater than the level of revenues set forth for the first fiscal year or the total of that fiscal year and the ensuing fiscal years under the concurrent resolution on the budget then in effect for which allocations are provided under section 302(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974; and

(2) for any year covered by such resolution, includes a Federal tax or fee imposed on carbon emissions from any product or entity that is a direct or indirect source of the emissions.

(b) Waiver and Appeal.--

(1) WAIVER.--Subsection (a) may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by an affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.

(2) APPEAL.--An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised under subsection (a).

Mr. BLUNT. This amendment would protect consumers from energy price spikes and workers from significant job loss by providing a point of order against a carbon tax or a fee on carbon emissions.

Energy-intensive jobs are the first to go when you utility prices get uncompetitive. Your ability to compete in the world marketplace, the price of American-made goods, what families pay at the pump, what they pay for heating and cooling, what they pay for every American product they make would be impacted by a carbon tax.

I urge the support of this amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

Mrs. MURRAY. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, except perhaps in Congress, and in the boardrooms of ExxonMobil, it is no longer credible to deny what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and to our oceans. We aid and abet that harm by subsidizing carbon, distorting the market, by violating the rule that the cost of a product should be in its price. Nonrepealable laws of nature, laws of physics, laws of chemistry are at work. History's judgment will be harsh if we continue to fail in respecting those laws.

I urge a "no'' vote and yield back to the Senator from Washington.

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