Kent Conrad

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I would like to first address the matter of Roxana Saberi, a young woman from our home State. Roxana Saberi is someone I know. She has interviewed me many times. Roxana is a journalist, and a very good one. She is somebody who had parents with Iranian tradition and legacy in their family. She went to Iran to learn more about her own legacy, her own inheritance. She was always impressed by what she had learned about the Iranian people. She is someone who loves the Iranian people and respects their culture. She is someone who was there in a role as a reporter, providing reports to National Public Radio as well as British Broadcasting. So it was with amazement that we heard of these charges, as Senator Dorgan outlined correctly, first being told she was jailed because she had bought a bottle of wine, then told she had filed reports without a proper authorization, and then the stunning news that she was being charged with espionage and put through a 1-day trial in which she was not able to speak in her own defense. These are circumstances which require us to speak out and to ask the judicial system in Iran to provide a swift appeal and allow Roxana to come home. She was sentenced Saturday to 8 years in prison. Her family reports that while she is not being mistreated, she is somebody who is vulnerable. This has been very difficult for her. So we ask the Iranian authorities to give her a swift appeal and allow her to return to the United States. Roxana is someone I know well. She is a warm, loving person, somebody who is well regarded as a journalist in my home State, someone about whom I think anyone who would meet her would say: Here is someone who is proud of her heritage, proud of the history of the Iranian culture, and somebody who loves the Iranian people. I was encouraged that President Ahmadinejad has indicated that he would like to see the court provide justice and that he has asked them to take up the appeal swiftly and to give Roxana and her defense all of the opportunities anyone should be able to expect if they are charged with such serious crimes. I make my own personal appeal here on the floor of the Senate this evening. Roxana is somebody, as I have said, I know well. She is a terrific reporter, has interviewed me many times. There is no question in my mind that Roxana was in Iran for the purpose of preparing a book on the people of Iran and to do reports to NPR, British Broadcasting, and even to outlets back home. I hope the Iranian authorities will think very carefully about how they are seen on the world stage based on how they treat this young reporter. Like all of us in public life, we are judged by what we do. We are held accountable. I hope the Iranian authorities are thinking very carefully about how they will be seen in this matter. I plead with them to release Roxana and to permit her to come home. She is a North Dakotan. She is someone of whom we are very proud. She is a reporter. She deserves to be released.

Mr. CONRAD

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 Monday, April 20, 2009, at 5:30 p.m.

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, it is my intention to vote for this amendment. I ask the Senator from South Carolina, would the Senator from South Carolina, in a moment of comity and weakness, be willing to accept a voice vote?

Mr. CONRAD. I thought that might be the answer. All right. My intention is to vote for the amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, that takes us to Reid amendment No. 730, and the leader is here. Senator Reid.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana to discuss her amendment, not to call it up but to discuss her amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. That is what I just did.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Coburn amendment No. 892 and Coburn amendment No. 893 be accepted.

Mr. CONRAD. No objection.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I thank Senator Coburn for his courtesy and say he has set a very good example for other Members, a very good example.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I am going to respond briefly to the Republican leader and then we will go to the McCain amendment. First of all, I have just listened to remarks that are an attempt to rewrite history. Trying to put this deficit and this debt at the door of our new President is simply misplaced. He inherited a debt that was doubled over the last 8 years, and most of my friends on the other side were silent sentinels as that debt grew and grew and grew. Most of them said nothing; worse, they supported the policies that created that doubling of the debt. Beyond that, they tripled foreign holdings of U.S. debt and left the country in the worst recession since the Great Depression. This President inherited a crisis in the financial markets, a crisis in housing, a fiscal crisis, and two wars. The budget that is before us is not as described by the Republican leader. The budget before us reduces the deficit by two-thirds over the 5 years of its term. In fact, as a share of GDP--which most economists say ought to be the measuring point because it excludes inflation--we reduce the deficit by three-quarters, all while maintaining the President's key priorities of reducing our dependence on foreign energy. That is not just a Presidential priority, that is an American priority. If we are going to be strong in the future, we have to dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign energy. On education, there is a focus on excellence in education. If we are not the best educated, we are not going to be the strongest country in the world very long. The prospect of major health care reform, which is provided for in this budget, is the 800-pound gorilla. We are now spending $1 of every $6 in this country on health care. If we stay on the current trend, we will spend more than $1 of every $3 in this country on health care. That is utterly unsustainable. They describe the budget of the President as having all these tax increases. I would remind my colleagues that when the Congressional Budget Office scores the President's budget, they say there is $2.2 trillion in tax cuts. If they look at the budget I have offered, which is a 5-year budget instead of a 10-year budget, it has $825 billion in tax cuts on a net basis. As I say, all while cutting the deficit in half, which was the President's goal. In the President's budget and the budget I have offered, we cut it by two-thirds. Now, on spending. Well, on spending, the hard fact is, the budget I have offered reduces deficits and debt by $608 billion compared to the President's budget, on a 5-year comparison to a 5-year comparison. We reduce it by $608 billion in the budget that is before us. And on spending, we increase domestic spending, on average, by 2\1/2\ percent a year. Believe me, I have heard lots of criticism from the left with respect to the fact that is not enough. But when you lose $2.3 trillion in revenue because of the new CBO forecast, we felt it was necessary to make adjustments in the President's budget while maintaining his priorities. Now, in terms of middle-class tax relief, which is contained in this budget, let me be clear that all the provisions from 2001 and 2003 are included in this budget. The 10-percent bracket, the child tax credit, the marriage penalty relief, the education incentives--all of it--is in this budget and an extension for the full 5 years. In addition, the President's Make Work Pay provision was previously provided for in the stimulus package for 2 years, and we provide the ability to extend that, if there are offsets. In addition, we have provided for alternative minimum tax reform, fully funded for 3 years. No other budgets in the last 5 years have done it for that long. It has always been a year-by-year fix. On estate tax reform, we take the provisions from 2009 and extend them for 2010--a $3.5 million exemption per person, $7 million per family. Instead of going back to $1 million in 2011, we continue that $3.5 million exclusion per person, $7 million per couple, adjusted for inflation. We also provide for the business tax provisions and the extenders fully paid for. That is a total of almost a trillion dollars of tax relief, offset by certain loophole closers to go after these abusive tax shelters--these offshore tax havens. We have the spectacle now of companies buying European sewer systems, not because they are in the sewer business but in order to depreciate them on their books for U.S. tax purposes. That is outrageous--United States companies buying European sewer systems so they can write them off on their books here, and then they lease them back to the European cities that built them in the first place. The guys who came up with these scams didn't limit themselves to sewer systems. They are doing the same thing with public buildings and city halls. We have companies that have bought city halls in Europe in order to depreciate them on their books in the United States and then lease the city halls back to the European countries that built them in the first place. Is that acceptable? I don't think so. The President in his budget and we in our budget say: Enough of that. Let's shut down these abusive tax shelters. Let's shut down these offshore tax havens, which our Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations tells us is costing us $100 billion a year. If anybody wonders about it, read the Stanford saga. Mr. Stanford was running these offshore tax havens; running billions of dollars through these offshore tax havens. Why? Why are they sending their money down to the Cayman Islands? Is it because they think the banks down there are more secure? Oh, no. They are sending their money down there to dodge the tax liability in the United States. That is the basis upon which Mr. Stanford sold his services. On a net basis, our budget has $825 billion in tax cuts. Again, on spending, domestic spending increased at an average rate of 2\1/2\ percent a year. That is pretty tough. In our proposal, in the budget before the body, there is no energy tax. There is none contained here. This reference to a national sales tax on energy, it is not in this budget proposal. It is not there. We have a reserve fund that permits the committees of jurisdiction to come up with a way of reducing our dependence on foreign energy. We have the ability for the committees of jurisdiction to write climate change legislation. But there is no endorsement of any specific plan in this budget around climate change that has been posited by others. I wish to make clear that this budget is responsible, it controls spending, it reduces the deficit by two-thirds, it extends the middle-class tax cuts, and it adopts the President's priorities of reducing our dependence on foreign energy, putting a focus on excellence in education and providing the possibility of major health care reform. Those are the priorities of the American people, and they are contained in our budget. Our budget has made significant adjustments from the President's. Again, over 5 years, we have reduced the deficit and debt in the President's proposal by $608 billion.

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

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, how much time remains under my control?

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, how much time is under the control of Senator McCain?

Mr. CONRAD. I ask unanimous consent that the debate on the McCain amendment appear all as one piece in the Record. I think that will be better for those reading this at some point in the future, if someone does care to read it in the future. It will be better if we keep the McCain debate all together as one.

Mr. CONRAD. First, I thank and congratulate the Senator from Arizona for producing a budget and a budget alternative. That was not done on their side until he did it, and I commend him for it. I also commend him for producing a budget that in its overall totals is very close to the budget resolution I have advanced through the Budget Committee. In fact, if you compare Senator McCain's 5-year totals with my 5-year totals, compare his revenue to my revenue, his spending to my spending, they are 98 percent alike. In addition, the size of the deficit in 2014 is virtually the same. Mine is 2.9 percent of GDP, his is 2.8. And the debt, mine is 98.7, his is 98.3, virtually identical in 2014. So there is some commonality here, and that is something perhaps we can build on. Of course, there are differences, and differences do matter. Largely they appear in two places. The Senator from Arizona appears to reduce mandatory spending by $350 billion over 5 years. But where does he do it? Does he show savings in Medicare? No. Does he show savings in Medicaid and the health care accounts? No. Does he show savings in Social Security? No. Does he show savings in agriculture? No. He does not do it in any of those places that are the major pots of money for mandatory spending. Instead, he takes all of the $350 billion in savings in Function 920. That is the general overhead function for all of those categories. So, in effect, what he has is an across-the-board cut in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, agriculture, and that is how this budget would work. I do not know if that is the intention, but that is what would happen. In fact, excluding debt service, 85 percent of the claimed savings are from function 920, no specific savings at all. Where are the remaining 15 percent of the savings? Largely, they are in the international affairs budget. Relative to the budget resolution before us, and that is before we adopted the Kerry amendment yesterday, he reduces spending on international accounts by $44 billion over the 5 years. The Senator from Arizona assumes an increase of 1.3 percent in 2010 and less than 1 percent over the remaining 5 years. That runs counter to what the Secretary of Defense has asked of us because he has asked that we plus-up the international accounts so that things that really ought to be done in the international accounts, instead of the Defense Department accounts, be shown there. Disturbingly, next year, when we will still be recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression, the budget advanced by the Senator from Arizona would cut nondefense discretionary spending, compared to the resolution before us, by $23 billion. Those cuts would affect virtually every discretionary function, although not defense and not veterans. I commend him for holding them harmless, but that means everything else has to be cut more. That means education, the health care accounts--all of those would have to be cut. In terms of looking at a budget in a fair and balanced way, while I commend the Senator for producing a budget, it is a budget without detail, a budget without specificity, a budget that is almost ``paint your own picture.'' Because he has this $350 billion of savings in function 920, because he doesn't specify, that would have to be done across the board. That means all of these other functions--Medicare, Social Security, agriculture, all of the other mandatory accounts-- would have to take significant across-the-board cuts. I commend the Senator from Arizona for offering an alternative, but I think the difference between his plan and my plan in overall numbers is very small, but the differences that do exist matter a great deal. One other point I want to make: As with many of my GOP colleagues' amendments, the McCain amendment would create 60-vote points of order against future budget resolutions, threatening the ability to maintain the disciplines that come through the budget process. Caps on discretionary spending, allocations to committees, the supermajority points of order against excessive spending--all of that would be put at risk in the name of preventing the growth of deficits and debt. While I share the basic idea and the basic value of trying to control deficits and debt, as an unintended consequence, the cure here is worse than the disease. When the answer is to make it harder to do a budget resolution, you actually lose the disciplines we could employ in order to reduce the growth of deficits and debt. It is a curious thing, if one thinks about it. The way to prevent the growth of debt is not to do a budget or make it harder to do a budget. Unfortunately, around here one of the few things we have to discipline spending is a budget. That is where all the points of order lie when we go to the appropriations process. If it were successful, if you were able to prevent doing a budget resolution, you would then immediately go to appropriations bills and you would have no points of order, no 60-vote hurdles against excessive spending. We want to think carefully whether that is the answer. My own view is, we would be much better off doing some kind of special process where all of the major players are at the table, everything is on the table, and we have a special process to get whatever plan they develop to the floor for an actual vote. My own belief is, after 22 years of this, the only real hope for changing the underlying policies, for disciplining entitlements, for fundamental tax reform, the only way to do that is some sort of special bipartisan process where everybody is at the table, everything is on the table, and the work of that group comes to the floor for a guaranteed vote. That is the best hope we have. With that, I yield the floor and retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I inquire if the Senator from Arizona wishes to go on his amendment. Do we still have Senator Graham?

Mr. CONRAD

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the next amendment to be dealt with is Bennett amendment No. 954.

Mr. CONRAD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, Senator Lieberman is next.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Udall, I call up his amendment No. 746.

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

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Thune amendment, No. 870, be modified with the changes which are at the desk, notwithstanding adoption of the amendment.

Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, the next amendment that is in order is amendment No. 751 by Senator Vitter, if he could briefly mention the amendment. Amendment No. 751

Mr. CONRAD. I ask for the yeas and nays.