Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2016 -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I have come to the floor this afternoon to
speak about our budget and how the choices we will make over the next
few days will reflect our values and priorities.

As someone who has acted as a countywide elected official writing
balanced budgets, I have long viewed them as not just a collection of
numbers and programs but also really a statement about our basic values
and a reflection of what we hold dear. We can say we believe in this or
that, but at the end of the day, our budgets tell the true story. Over
the last 2 years in this body, following the hard work and leadership
of Democratic Senators Patty Murray and Barbara Mikulski, the previous
chairs of Budget and Appropriations Committees, we have taken important
strides to stabilize our government's finances, invest in our middle
class, and protect the most vulnerable among us.

After a few really hard years, our economy has begun to heal and grow
again. We are now in the longest period of uninterrupted private sector
job growth in our Nation's history--a period in which our businesses
have created 12 million new jobs. Today, our national unemployment rate
stands at 5.5 percent, and the deficit has fallen nearly two-thirds
since the depths of the great recession. At a time when the economies
around the world are slowing down, ours remains, relatively speaking, a
global bright spot.

We need to continue on this path. We need to invest in this growth.
And in my view, it is the wrong time to hit the brakes on our economy's
resurgence.

Unfortunately, the budget proposed by Senate Republicans misses the
mark and would, I fear, reverse these gains. It denies our basic values
by balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and middle class while
cutting investments essential for our Nation's competitiveness and
future.

It relies on some budget gimmicks to actually increase defense
spending while making broad cuts elsewhere, and it uses overly rosy
predictions about growth and our debt that has time and again proven
false. It does all this while protecting tax breaks for the very
wealthiest and corporations at the expense of working families.

It is my hope that we can reach a budget that is responsible,
balanced, and fair, that takes stock of our needs today and what the
future will demand of us. So I would like to take a few minutes and
outline broadly what I think our budget priorities should be.

First, we need a budget that preserves our social safety net by
building a circle of protection around the most vulnerable among us and
protecting the promises we have made to our seniors. Part of the basic
bargain we make in this country is that when one of our neighbors falls
on truly hard times, their country offers a hand up. We need to ensure these basic
protections to health care, food, and a home are there for those of our
neighbors in deepest need. It is also part of that same bargain that
after a lifetime of work, you will be able to retire with dignity and
some security. As workers, we all pay in to Medicare and Social
Security, and we need to ensure that as future generations of Americans
grow up, raise their families, and contribute to our economy, the
benefits they have spent their lives paying into will be there for
them, just as they were for previous generations.

Yes, we should have a conversation about how to responsibly bring our
long-term health care costs under control, but we can't do it the way
this budget does, by irresponsibly shifting costs to seniors and the
poor.

For retired Delawareans, for instance, the Republican budget would
reverse an important reform in the Affordable Care Act and would raise
prescription drug costs by an average of $1,100 a year.

Second, just as we are there for each other when times are hard, we
must rebound and grow together by making specific and thoughtful
investments in our future. We need a budget that understands that
without critical investments in infrastructure, research, and science,
our economy will struggle to grow and support a strong middle class. We
need a budget that invests in our middle class and gives working
families a fair shot--an economy that is built on growth and
opportunity. These investments in growth are the basic building blocks
of our economy. They make up our economic backbone and help create an
environment for our Nation's drive and dynamism to flourish.

Growth, however, requires infrastructure. We have a roughly $3.6
trillion infrastructure debt--investments in infrastructure that are
due by 2020. Every year we put off investing in our roads, bridges,
tunnels, and ports. Every year we fall behind our competitors, and we
make it harder for our businesses to grow and create jobs. Growth also
requires investing in research and development. Our long-term
competitiveness depends on our ability to innovate faster than our
competitors. Although businesses already invest a huge amount in R,
the Federal Government plays a critical role through our national labs,
through the manufacturing extension partnership, and other grant
programs that either directly invest in or incentivize the research
that leads to innovation.

Finally, growth in our country requires ensuring that every child has
access to a quality education. It requires making it easier for
families to send their kids to college and easier for young people to
manage the costs of their college through managing student loans after
school, and it requires strengthening the real connection between the
classroom and workplace so education can be a sturdier rung to a longer
ladder of opportunity.

Throughout our history our middle class has thrived and our economy
has been strong when we made these sorts of investments in our economy
and middle class. We need a budget that continues those investments.

Finally, we need a budget that lowers our deficit responsibly, in a
way that is fair and forward-looking--not on the backs of the middle
class and poor and not done in a way that kills jobs and stifles
growth. Over the last few years we have done a lot to get our deficit
under control, using about three-quarters of spending cuts and about a
quarter of increased revenue. We have also benefitted from a steadily
growing economy which has lowered our deficit.

As we move forward, we need balanced deficit reduction that preserves
our investments in our future and our promises to each other. That will
mean raising some revenues by asking the wealthy and corporations to
pay a bit more, just as it will mean making hard choices over the long
run about the true causes of our deficits and debt.

But let's be clear. We can do this while investing in our future and
keeping our promises to our seniors, to our veterans, and to each
other. The best way to lower our deficit is to grow our economy. So we
need to invest in that growth. After all, an airplane needs an engine
to take off, even in strong headwinds.

Over the coming days we will be voting on a wide series of amendments
that will say a lot about our values and priorities. I would urge my
colleagues to keep in mind that which has always powered our economy
and will continue to into the future--an economy that gives families a
fair shot and invests in the strength and opportunity of the middle
class and those fighting to get into the middle class. That is how we
build an economy. I hope we will dedicate ourselves to a budget that
will help us do so, far into the future.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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