Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank all of my colleagues for the way the debate was conducted. I especially thank those who voted for the conference report. We are missing a number of Senators, and we hope for their speedy recovery, Senator Kennedy and Senator Rockefeller. We also very much appreciate the extraordinary work of staffs on both sides. I again thank the ranking member of the committee for his continuing courtesy and professionalism.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all time under morning business be yielded back and the Senate now begin consideration of the conference report on the budget.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Swine Flu Epidemic: The Public Health and Medical Response'' on Wednesday, April 29, 2009. The hearing will commence at 3 p.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Swine Flu: Coordinating the Federal Response.''

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations'' on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 2 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 29, 2009. The Committee will meet in room 562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Restoring Fairness to Federal Sentencing: Addressing the Crack-Powder Disparity'' on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``The Federal Government's Role in Empowering Americans to Make Informed Financial Decisions.''

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, March 29, 2009 from 2 p.m.-4 p.m. in Dirksen 106 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, Senator Stabenow would like to speak.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, would the Senator accept a voice vote on his motion because we would be prepared to support him?

Mr. CONRAD. The Senator is very gracious.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, let me indicate, because of the good nature and the graciousness of the Senator, this is an amendment that we will try to preserve in conference. byrd rule

Mr. CONRAD. Yes

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, at this moment, I ask unanimous consent that next Senator Grassley be accorded 14 minutes; that Senator Boxer follow him for 10 minutes. How much time would Senator Wyden request ?

Mr. CONRAD. And 10 minutes to Senator Wyden.

Mr. CONRAD. I would always be happy to give Senator Grassley time off mine.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, before we begin the debate on appointing conferees on the budget resolution, will the Parliamentarian inform us of the parliamentary status on the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, floor staff informs me they are working on an agreement that will allow us to go to the consideration of the conferees. At this point, we will open the discussion but will not turn to it. I will use this time to make my statement so that we are efficiently using the time of the Senate. I remind my colleagues that some of the key elements in the Senate- passed budget resolution we will soon be taking to conference. The budget needs to be considered in the context of the very tough hand we have been dealt. This administration and this Congress have inherited a mess of truly staggering proportions. If we start with the deficit outlook, we can see that the previous administration inherited surpluses that they rapidly turned into record deficits, and then record deficits of a proportion that stagger the imagination. I don't think anybody could have anticipated we would have deficits approaching $2 trillion in a year. We also saw in the previous administration a dramatic increase in the Federal debt--a more than doubling of the Federal debt in the period that the previous administration was responsible for. The Obama administration inherited record deficits, a doubling of the debt, the worst recession since the Great Depression, financial market and housing crises unparalleled since the 1930s, and nearly 4 million jobs lost in the last 6 months alone. On top of it all, we have ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I often think what it must be like to be President Obama, who wakes up every morning with this heavy responsibility on his shoulders. In our caucus today, we had the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Chairman Bernanke. I told him that I believe when the history of this period is written, he will go down as one of its heroes--somebody who helped rescue us from what could have been a financial collapse, not only here but around the country. In the budget resolution that passed the Senate, which we will be taking to conference, we have tried to preserve the major priorities of the President: reducing our dependence on foreign energy; a focus on excellence in education; fundamental health care reform, because that is the 800-pound gorilla that can swamp the fiscal boat of the country; middle-class tax cuts; and cutting the deficit in half over the term of the budget. The budget we produced reduced the deficit by more than half over the next 5 years. We have reduced the deficit by two-thirds. I am proud of that fact. We reached 3 percent of GDP a little less than that--which all of the economists say is essential to stabilizing the debt. At the same time, we have adhered to the President's intentions to make certain strategic investments--one of the most important in energy--to reduce our dependence on foreign energy, because that is an imperative for this country, a strategic imperative, a financial imperative, and a national security imperative. The budget resolution that went through the Senate reduces our dependence on foreign energy, creates green jobs, preserves the environment, and helps with high home energy costs. It does it in the following ways: one, a reserve fund to accommodate legislation to invest in clean energy and address global climate change; second, providing the President's level of discretionary funding for the DOE; third, building on the economic recovery package to provide investments in renewable energy, efficiency, and conservation, as well as low carbon coal technology, and modernizing the electric grid. I thank Chairman Leahy once again for his incredible courtesy and graciousness in allowing us to interrupt his very important legislation so we can go to this matter of naming conferees, because we are under a tight deadline there. I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for his incredible graciousness. We also, in this budget, preserve the President's priority of a focus on excellence in education. If we are not the best educated, we are not going to be the most powerful country in the world for very long. So we adopt the priority of investments in education to generate economic growth and jobs, to prepare our workforce to compete in the global economy, to make college more affordable, and to improve student achievement. We do it, again, in three ways: a higher education reserve fund to facilitate the President's student aid increase; by extending the simplified college tax credit, providing up to $2,500 a year in tax credit--that is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in your tax liability; and, finally, by providing the President's requested level of $5,550 for Pell grants and fully funding his education priorities, such as early education. When I am asked about the President's budget, I give it very high marks because I think it has the priorities exactly right--reducing our dependence on foreign energy, excellence in education, and health care reform, all in the context of dramatically reducing the deficit. So on health care, the budget resolution that previously passed the Senate, which we will take to the conference committee, bends the health care cost curve, reducing costs long term, improves health care outcomes, expands coverage, increases research, and promotes food and drug safety. Again, we do it in three different and very specific ways: No. 1, a reserve fund to accommodate the President's initiative to fundamentally reform the health care system. As many have said, we have a sickness system, not a wellness system. We have to make a transition. We also have a reserve fund to address Medicare physician payments, because we know that the doctors across the country who serve Medicare- eligible patients are due for major deep cuts--cuts of more than 10 percent. We are not going to let that happen. Third, it continues investment in key health care programs, such as the NIH and the FDA. Not only have we preserved the President's key investment priorities, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, moving toward excellence in education, health care reform, but we also preserve his fourth key priority of cutting the deficit dramatically. In the budget resolution that previously passed the Senate, we reduce the deficit by two-thirds by 2014--that is in dollar terms we reduced it by two-thirds. Most economists say you ought to evaluate it as a percentage of the gross domestic product, that that is the best way to see what you are accomplishing. If we look at it in those terms, we are reducing the deficit by more than three-quarters, from 12.2 percent of GDP in 2009 down to less than 3 percent of GDP out in 2014. I am especially proud of that trajectory on the deficit, because I think it is absolutely critical. I would be the first to say we need to do even more in the second 5 years, but this is a 5-year budget. The reason it is a 5-year budget is that, of the 34 budgets that Congress has done since the Budget Act was instituted, 30 of those 34 times we have done a 5-year budget. Why? Because the forecasts beyond 5 years are murky, at best, highly unreliable. So we have stuck to a 5-year budget, as has traditionally been the case. With respect to the revenue side of the equation in this budget, the Congressional Budget Office, in looking at what we have done, would conclude that as a total, compared to current law, the budget resolution that passed the Senate reduces taxes. Let me emphasize that, because some want to put all the emphasis on the tax increases in this package; but if you take the tax increases and the tax reductions and put it all together, and you look at a net result, you find that we are cutting taxes over the 5 years by $825 billion. That is because we have extended the middle-class tax relief that is from the 2001 and 2003 acts, the 10-percent bracket, the childcare tax credit, the marriage penalty relief, and the education incentives. All of that is in this bill. We also provide alternative minimum tax reform relief for 3 years to prevent 24 million people from being swept up in the alternative minimum tax. We also have estate tax reform, $3.5 million an individual, $7 million a couple, indexed for inflation. That means 99.8 percent of estates in this country will pay zero; 99.8 percent of estates will pay zero. We also have business tax provisions and the traditional tax extenders, such as the research credit, that are included in this budget, for a total of tax relief of $958 billion. On the other side of the equation, we have loophole closures, such as codifying economic substance and international tax enforcement to go after these offshore tax havens, these abusive tax shelters. We raise $133 billion for a net tax reduction of $825 billion over the 5 years of this budget. On the spending side of the house, domestic discretionary spending, again as a percentage of the gross domestic product--and the reason, of course, economists say that is what you should focus on rather than the dollar amounts is that this takes account of inflation. It gives a more fair comparison year by year. We hear all this talk that this is a big spending budget. No, it is not. This budget reduces domestic discretionary spending as a percentage of gross domestic product from 4.3 percent in 2010 down to 3.2 percent in 2014. We are taking domestic discretionary spending down to one of its lowest levels in the last 50 years. In fact, nondefense discretionary spending increases under this budget resolution an average 2.5 percent. In addition, we have a series of budget enforcement tools that are in this resolution: discretionary caps for 2009 and 2010. Some have said we ought to have discretionary caps for 2011 too. Well, why? Well, why? We are going to be back here a year from now. We have discretionary caps for 2009 and 2010. Why do we need them for 2011, when we are going to be right back here, same place, same time 1 year from now? We also maintain a strong pay-go rule. We provide a point of order against long-term deficit increases; a point of order against short- term deficit increases; we allow reconciliation for deficit reduction only in the resolution out of the Senate; and we provide a point of order against mandatory spending on an appropriations bill. Let me address, very briefly, this last provision because what we found was some of our colleagues have gotten increasingly clever about finding new ways to spend money. We found they were increasing mandatory spending on appropriations bills. Mandatory spending is typically not done on an appropriations bill, as the Chair well knows. Appropriations bills are designed to deal with discretionary spending, not mandatory spending. Mandatory spending is things such as Social Security and Medicare, certain farm supports. Those are mandatory spending items. We found some of our colleagues have gotten very clever and started to increase mandatory spending on appropriations bills. We have created a point of order to try to short circuit that bad practice. The budget resolution also attempts to address our long-term fiscal challenges. Let me be very clear. My colleague will momentarily speak, and he will be highly critical of the budget resolution for not more fully addressing our long-term challenges. It may surprise listeners to hear me say that I agree with him. If there is a place this budget can be fairly criticized, it is that it does not do enough long term. I think we do a pretty good job in the first 5 years. But beyond that--this is only a 5-year budget--but beyond that, much more needs to be done. The ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, Senator Gregg, and I have a proposal that I believe needs to be pursued. It is to have a task force given the responsibility to come up with a plan to get us back on a sounder, long-term fiscal track and to come to Congress for an assured vote if 12 of the 16 members of that group could agree. Nonetheless, there are three important elements of this budget resolution that deal with our long-term fiscal circumstance. No. 1 is the health reform reserve fund. That, after all, is the biggest threat to our long-term fiscal security and stability. No. 2 is we have program integrity initiatives to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse. We have five in this budget, and they are very important--Medicare, Social Security, defense, and others as well. I hope very much that these are pursued in the conference committee. No. 3 is we have a long-term deficit increase point of order to require a 60-vote point of order against moves to increase long-term deficits. Finally, let me say that on this question of the long term, the President has been very clear. At the fiscal responsibility summit on February 23, the President said this: Now, I want to be very clear. While we are making important progress towards fiscal responsibility this year, in this budget, this is just the beginning. In the coming years, we'll be forced to make more tough choices, and do much more to address our long-term challenges. The President got it exactly right with that statement. We are going to have to do much more. But this budget is a good and responsible beginning. Mr. President, with that, I will yield the floor. Let me say, momentarily we will have a unanimous consent request before us. I do not yet have it in my hands. I will say this before we begin this debate. This is an institution with Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. On the Budget Committee, we have all three represented. I am chairman of the committee representing the Democratic Party. Senator Gregg is the ranking Republican. Senator Gregg is someone with whom we have strenuous debates and disagreements. You will see that in the coming hours. But I wish to make very clear that I have high regard for Senator Gregg. He is motivated by patriotism, by love of country, and by a fundamental understanding that we are on an unsustainable track, that we have to be much more serious about our long-term buildup of deficits and debt. He has not just talked about it, he has been prepared to act. I wish to recognize him for his commitment to something I also believe in. I think it is abundantly clear we cannot stay on our current course. It is a course that will lead us to a much diminished standard of living for the future. While I believe this budget is a good beginning, I do not assert that this in any way solves our long- term problem. It does not. But it is a beginning, an important beginning, and we need to do more. I also thank Senator Gregg for his unfailing courtesy and professionalism, not only in our public debates but in the workings of the Budget Committee. He has assembled a first-rate and professional staff. We have worked together well to do the business of the committee and the business of the country. I thank Senator Gregg, once again, for all he has done to allow the budget resolution to be fully debated, fully discussed, to have our differences aired publicly and privately but also to do it in an air of civility and respect, something I certainly feel toward him.

Mr. CONRAD. Can we end the debate? (Laughter.)

Mr. CONRAD. I wish that were true. I wish the Senator had been with me in the discussions over the last few days, even in our caucus on Tuesday. I yield the floor.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, let me indicate with respect to the question of reconciliation being used for cap and trade or climate change, there is no provision on the House side for that purpose. At least that is the stated intention of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. And there is no reconciliation instruction in our resolution at all for any purpose. Let me indicate I happen to agree with the Senator from Nebraska. I personally do not believe reconciliation should be used for this purpose. I must say, I am very disappointed the Republicans, when they were in a position to do so, abused reconciliation. I believe that strongly. Reconciliation was designed for one purpose and one purpose only, and that was deficit reduction. Our friends on the other side used it to dramatically cut taxes and increase the deficit. That was, to me, an absolute abuse of reconciliation. But two wrongs do not make a right, and I do not believe using reconciliation for major substantive legislation that is not fundamentally deficit reduction is an appropriate use of reconciliation. That is No. 1. No. 2, I think people will find that because reconciliation was designed for a very specific purpose, that it does not work well for the purposes of writing major substantive legislation. I will not go into all the technical reasons why that is the case, but it is the case. We will get to questions of reconciliation being used for other purposes as well. I have argued strenuously, publicly and privately, that reconciliation ought to be reserved for deficit reduction. But I do want to indicate that there is no reconciliation instruction in the resolution coming from the Senate; and in the House, the Speaker has made clear that reconciliation would not be used for climate change legislation or for cap-and-trade legislation.