Concurrent Resolution On The Budget, Fiscal Year 2016 -- Conference Report

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I wish to speak as well about the budget that is before the Senate. I want to point out something I believe the Senator from New York failed to mention in his comments. We are actually doing a budget. That is what is pretty historic about this.

A few years back, I got on the Budget Committee because I thought it would be the place where a lot of action was going to occur and where we were going to be doing big, consequential things for the country. I asked our leaders, when they made committee assignments, if I could serve on the Budget Committee. I served on the Budget Committee for 4 years. In the 4 years I was on the Budget Committee, when the Democrats controlled this Chamber, we did not write a budget--not a single year. It was like being on a committee that was completely irrelevant around here. We did not do a budget for 4 years. This year, we are finally going to pass a budget. They only did do one in 2009 so they could pass ObamaCare with 51 votes.

The last time we actually had a 10-year balanced budget was in 2001. So we are talking about something that is pretty historic. This is the first time this has happened in 14 years. I will repeat that. The last time Congress passed a joint 10-year balanced budget resolution was 14 years ago, in 2001--the year Apple released the first iPod.

This year, the President has, once again, proposed a budget that never balances--not in 10 years, not in 25 years, not ever. When the other side gets up and talks about the Republican budget and attacks it, at least Republicans in this Chamber recognize the importance of having a budget and putting in place a pathway, if you will, for how we are going to get the fiscal situation of this country in a better place, and it sets out our priorities because that is really what the budget process does. It says this is what we are for.

What the Democrats argue--and we heard the Senator from New York making the argument--is that we are not spending enough and that this is about spending more. I believe the American people realize that if we want to solve middle-class wage stagnation--they talk about the middle-class wages being lower, and they are lower. They have been significantly lower since this President took office. As I was saying, if we want to solve middle-class wage stagnation, we have to have an expanding economy.

The way to help people into a better place economically and to raise the income of people in this country is to get a growing, vibrant, robust, expanding economy that is growing at a faster rate than the anemic 1- to 2-percent growth we have seen in the last few years. The way we achieve that is not by growing the government. It is not about growing the government. We have to grow the economy. When the economy is growing, that is when we start to see people in this country, middle-class income families, benefit.

As I said, the President proposed a budget that never balanced, and he proposed increasing spending by a staggering 65 percent over the next 10 years. I don't need to tell the American people that kind of spending is unsustainable. For too long the attitude in Washington has been to spend now, pay later. That only works for so long. Sooner or later your spending catches up with you.

Six years ago, when the President took office, our national debt was already a massive $10.6 trillion. Over the past 6 years, during the President's administration, our national debt has increased by more than $7.5 trillion, and today it is at a dangerously high $18.2 trillion. That is the size of our economy. In fact, that is larger than our economy. That is a 1-to-1 ratio. That kind of debt slows economic growth, threatens government programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, and jeopardizes our Nation's future.

In 2011, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, the highest ranking military official in our country, said, ``I've said many times that I believe the single, biggest threat to our national security is our debt.'' I have heard him say that. I served on the Armed Services Committee for 6 years. I heard the chairman of the Joint Chiefs say that repeatedly in front of committees at various hearings and at various times. That is quite a statement from the country's top-ranking military official: the greatest threat to our national security is our debt.

If we keep racking up our debt the way we have been doing, we will not be able to pay for our priorities, such as Social Security, Medicare, national defense, and infrastructure. All of those priorities could face huge cuts if we don't get our Nation on a sound fiscal footing.

When the Republicans took control of the Senate in January, we were determined to get Washington working again. We knew that one of the most important steps in that process was passing a balanced budget resolution. Republicans understand what every American family knows; that you cannot keep racking up debt indefinitely and that the solution to being in debt is not to increase spending.

In March, we introduced a budget blueprint that would balance the budget in 10 years and put our Nation on a path to fiscal health. House Republicans introduced a similar balanced budget resolution. During the month of April, the two Houses came together to iron out the differences in our blueprints and produced the final document that we will be voting on today.

It is not a perfect document. It does not solve every one of our Nation's problems, but at long last it gets us moving in a different direction--in the right direction. Instead of ignoring our Nation's fiscal problems, the Republicans' budget resolution addresses them and promotes spending restraint.

Under our budget blueprint, by the time the 10-year budget closes in 2025, our Nation will be running a surplus of $24 billion instead of racking up another $1.5 trillion in deficits every single year. Unlike some budget plans, our budget will continue to balance in 2026 and beyond.

In addition to restraining spending, the Republicans' budget resolution focuses on cutting waste and eliminating the inefficiency and redundancy that plagues so many government programs. Our budget also puts in place reforms that will encourage honest accounting. The result of these provisions will be a more efficient, effective, and accountable government that works for the American people.

Our budget also, as I said, makes a healthy economy a priority. Almost 6 years after the recession has ended, millions of Americans are still struggling and opportunities for advancement are still few and far between. A big reason for that is the oppressive, big-government policies and deficit spending of the Obama administration. Our budget will help stop government from strangling the economy by limiting the growth of spending and reducing the debt, which will help reduce the cost of work and investment and the cost of starting and growing a business. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that our budget will result in an additional $400 billion in economic growth over the next 10 years.

The Republicans' budget will also pave the way for the removal of inefficient and ineffective government regulations that are making it difficult for many businesses to hire new workers and create new opportunities and higher paying jobs.

Our budget also addresses another priority of American families, and that is fixing our Nation's broken health care system. Now 5 years on, the President's health care law has resulted in higher costs, lost health care plans, reduced access to doctors, and new burdens on businesses, both large and small. In fact, it has been pretty much one disaster after another.

Just this week, a USA TODAY headline announced that ``contrary to goals, ER visits rise under ObamaCare.'' The article says: ``Three-quarters of emergency physicians say they've seen ER patient visits surge since ObamaCare took effect--just the opposite of what many Americans expected would happen.'' That is from the USA TODAY article. Of course, as we know, ER visits are our most expensive form of health care.

It is no surprise that the majority of the American people continue to oppose the law. Our budget paves the way for a repeal of ObamaCare and the introduction of real, patient-centered

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health care reforms that will give Americans more health care choices at a lower cost.
Finally, our budget will start the process of putting major entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare on a sounder footing going forward. Right now, the Social Security trust fund is headed toward bankruptcy. If we don't take action, Social Security recipients could be facing a 25-percent cut in benefits by the year 2033. Medicare faces similar challenges to those faced by Social Security. Under the worst-case scenario, the Medicare trust fund could become insolvent by as early as 2021. That is just 6 short years away. The Republican budget would help preserve Medicare by extending the trust fund's solvency for an additional 5 years, which would protect retirees' benefits while giving policymakers additional time to ensure that this program provides support to seniors for decades to come.

I am proud that today the Republicans in Congress will ensure that we have a joint balanced budget resolution for the first time in 14 years, but I also wish to emphasize that is no more than what the American people should expect. The American people, after all, have to live within a budget; their government needs to do so as well.

Going forward, balanced budgets need to be the norm here in Congress. Washington has spent enough time working for its own interests. It is time to get Washington working again for American families.

This is the first time in 14 years that we have actually had a budget resolution and a conference report that balance within 10 years. As I said earlier, during my time here in the Senate, which hasn't been that long but about 10 years now, this is the first time--with the exception of 2009, in which we did a budget simply so the Democrats could pass ObamaCare through reconciliation--this is the first time we have done a budget that passed both chambers in the 10 years I have been here, with the exception perhaps of the first few years.

It is time to get Washington working again for the American people. It starts with passing the budget. That is why I am proud that Senator Enzi and others worked hard to get us where we are. I hope today we will ultimately have the votes necessary to pass this and do something which hasn't been done around here in a very long time but which is really essential for the good of the American people in this country.

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