Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. In part, the question of the Byrd rule violation here would turn on the question of whether this scored; is that correct?

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. CONRAD. I thank the Chair.

Mr. CONRAD. I want to make clear to my colleagues, what I hear happening and what I think colleagues may think just happened may be two very different things. As I understand it, the Parliamentarian has not made a ruling or a determination on this matter at this moment.

Mr. CONRAD. Has the Parliamentarian made an actual ruling with respect to the Byrd rule?

Mr. CONRAD. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. CONRAD. That is not correct. There is no ban on second-degree amendments. This second-degree amendment specifically provided for it.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. CONRAD. I am happy to yield.

Mr. CONRAD. Let me say that the problem, my counsel informs me, is other provisions could affect this one and I cannot agree to waive all budget points of order throughout the whole process on this amendment. We can conclude debate on this issue right now, and we are not going to vote on it until later. So maybe there is time to work through this. I want to make it clear. I have been informed by counsel I could not agree to a waiver at this point.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. I will not. What has been added to the debt of this country will weigh us down for years to come, and this is debt added by our friends on this side of the aisle. Every dollar of spending that has occurred has been spending that they voted for, that they supported. I now yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Michigan off the amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. CONRAD. There is no merit to that chart. There just isn't.

Mr. CONRAD. I have the floor now, Senator. Let's be factual here. That chart is a complete concoction. That is all there is to it. That takes amendments that were offered for 1 year, multiplies them by 5, doesn't count the offsets. In the budget resolution, we offset our amendments. We paid for them. That is an offset. When you pay for things around here, that is an offset. I know that is a new idea around here, but that is what we are offering in our amendment, pay-go. We say, you can have new tax cuts. The Senator from Iowa says, we are going to kill all the tax cuts. No, we are saying if you want more tax cuts, you have to pay for it. If you want more spending, you have to pay for it. That is what pay-go is about. That is what Democrats have offered in this fight. We have offered the pay-go amendment. It used to be in place. We used to have it. We used to have that authority. We used to have that budget discipline. If you want to have new tax cuts, pay for them. If you want new spending, pay for it. In addition to the fact that I listed 10 amendments that were offset that don't show up on their chart as offset, that chart is false on every single one of those amendments. In addition to that, they have taken 1-year appropriations amendments and multiplied them into 5-year amendments. Please, those weren't our amendments. Those are a concoction of what our amendments were. I hate to say this, but our friends have lost sight of the fact that they are in control. These deficits and debt didn't skyrocket under our watch. Our friends control the White House. They control the Senate. They control the House of Representatives. They have since 2000. And the debt of the country has gone up from $5.7 trillion to $7.9 trillion. And under the budget that is being considered--and this legislation is part of that package--it is going to go up to $11 trillion. They have raised the debt of this country in 6 years by almost $6 trillion. It wasn't Democratic spending because your side has been in control. Every dime of this spending occurred on your watch. Every dime of this increase in debt is your responsibility. These have been your budgets. These have been your plans. These are your deficits and your debt. You have stacked it up on the American people. I repeat: It took 42 Presidents, 224 years to run up a trillion dollars of external debt, debt held by foreign countries, foreign investors. This President has exceeded it, exceeded a trillion dollars of additional external debt, debt held by foreigners. This President exceeded it in 4 years.

Mr. CONRAD. No.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the very able Senator from Oklahoma has asked me for a list of the amendments that were offered on the Democratic side that were offset. He asked me to name one.

Mr. CONRAD. Yes, from that list. I won't name one. I will name 10. The Bingaman amendment on education, completely and totally offset; the Stabenow amendment on first responders, completely and totally offset; the Byrd amendment on Amtrak, completely offset; the Akaka amendment on veterans, completely offset; the Harkin amendment on education, completely offset; the Kennedy amendment on education, completely offset; the Dayton amendment on IDEA, completely offset; the Dorgan amendment on tribal programs, completely paid for; the Biden amendment on COPS, completely paid for; the Byrd amendment on transit highway, completely paid for, offset. That chart is a total and complete concoction and fabrication. These are budget resolution matters I have talked about where the combined effect of Democratic amendments was to reduce the deficit $57 billion because they were offset. In addition, what that chart does is, it takes on appropriations bills amendments that were offered for 1 year, and our friends on this chart have multiplied them into 5-year amendments. They weren't 5-year amendments. They were 1-year amendments. Appropriations bills are for 1 year, not for 5 years. They have taken them and multiplied them by 5. That is false. Beyond that, those amendments were not offered as a package. They were offered individually. So they would offer an amendment. The amendment was defeated. The money was still available for a different amendment. To then add them up and multiply it by 5 and forget about the offsets and put out a chart here on the Senate floor that suggests that is a fair representation is way beyond the pale.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I continue to yield to the Senator from Arkansas for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request and also for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request that we go to her amendment, that her amendment be before the body.

Mr. CONRAD. I would.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, this matter before us, just to remind people after this interruption we have had, is about the so-called reconciliation project. It is part of the budget agreement that was reached earlier this year. On our side, we do not believe this has anything to do with deficit reduction. As we see it, this budget increases the deficit dramatically, and expands the debt. In fact, under the 5 years of the terms of this budget agreement, the debt will increase by more than $3 trillion--$3 trillion. That is not my calculation; that is the calculation of those who have prepared this budget. So to be talking about deficit reduction here, I think, is utterly misleading. Now, it is true the matter before us at the moment--and I call it ``chapter 1'' of reconciliation. ``Chapter 1'' is called deficit reduction. That is because it slices spending by some $35 billion over the next 5 years. During the same time, the debt is going to go up by $3 trillion. But what is to come next week is the second chapter. The ``chapter 2'' is to reduce revenues by $70 billion. If you put the two together, the deficit is going to go up. But ``chapter 3'' is to increase the debt of the United States by $781 billion--$781 billion. If you couple that with the debt increases that have already occurred under this administration's watch, they will have increased the debt of the country, in just 5 years, by $3 trillion. In the next 5 years, under this budget agreement, they are going to increase the debt another $3 trillion. In this very short period of time, they will have accounted for half of all of the debt accumulated by this country over 228 years. That is truly stunning. Now, the next amendment on this side is offered by Senator Lincoln, and I yield such time as she may use for that purpose.

Mr. CONRAD. No objection on this side. That is exactly what we worked out, and the chairman states it very well. And we may be able to slip in another amendment later today. That is the order we have contemplated at this point and the unanimous consent request is entirely in order.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I do want to, for the record, indicate we have had a number of requests that we move to delay the offering of this amendment. I will not do that. Senator Enzi has been a very responsible member of the committee. He has every right to offer his amendment. The fact is, if he were delayed at this point, he could offer his amendment later. So those who are seeking to delay might force him into the vote-a-thon, but I believe Senator Enzi, who has been a fully responsible member of the committee, deserves his opportunity to offer this amendment, and I will not object.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment and to call up my amendment on pay-go, which is at the desk.

Mr. CONRAD. That is correct.