Judd Gregg

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Take it off the bill.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the staff of the Budget Committee be granted the Senate floor privileges for the duration of the consideration of the budget resolution: Amdur, Rochelle; Bailey, Stephen; Bargo, Kevin; Binzer, Peggy; Brandt, Dan; Cheung, Rock E.; Delisle, Jason; Donoghue, Samuel; Esquea, Jim; Fisher, David; Forbes, Meghan; Friesen, Katherine; Green, Vanessa; Gudes, Scott B.--Staff Director, Full Access Pass; Halvorson, Dana; Hearn, Jim; Holahan, Betsy; Isenberg, Cliff; Jones, Michael; Kermick, Andrew. Klumpner, James; Konwinski, Lisa--General Counsel, Full Access Pass; Kuehl, Sarah; Kuenle, Jason; Lewis, Kevin; Lofgren, Michael; Mashburn, John; McGuire, Denzel; Millar, Gail--General Counsel, Full Access Pass; Miller, Jim; Mittal, Seema; Morin, Jamie; Myers, David; Nagurka, Stuart; Naylor, Mary--Staff Director; Full Access Pass; Noel, Kobye; Olivero, Tara; O'Neill, Maureen; Page, Anne; Pappone, David. Parent, Allison; Pollom, Jennifer; Posner, Steven; Reese, Ann; Reidy, Cheri; Righter, John; Seymour, Lynne; Smith, Conwell; Soskin, Benjamin; Turcotte, Jeff; Vandivier, David; Weiblinger, Richard; Woodall, George; Wroe, Elizabeth.

Mr. GREGG. The context of my comments are basically directed to the issue of debt. I believe debt should be reduced. I believe the way you reduce debt is to begin by reducing the deficit, which is what the budget does. But the presentation that this budget uniquely aggravates the debt is really not viable in the context of the solutions which are being offered by the other side because none of the solutions being offered by the other side would reduce the debt, either. They are basically offering--or at least they did in committee--amendments which increase spending and increase taxes, thus taking resources which logically the other side would want to use to reduce the debt but isn't, and spending the money. In the end, that doesn't reduce the debt at all. I didn't see in the markup at all any proposals that would reduce the debt coming from the other side. We look forward to them offering a budget which accomplishes that. I would be most interested in such a budget because I do think it is important we do that. We tried to do it in our bill by reducing the deficit in half over the next 4 years, which does take money and reduce the debt because any time you reduce the deficit, you reduce the debt. You are not adding to the debt. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the use of calculators be permitted on the floor Senate during consideration of the budget resolution.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the following staff members from my staff and from Senator Conrad's staff be given all- access floor passes for the Senate floor during consideration of the budget resolution. From the Republican staff: Cheri Reidy, Denzel McGuire, Jim Hearn; from the Democratic staff: John Righter, Steven Posner, Sarah Kuehl.

Mr. GREGG. Whichever. Twelve is fine to me.

Mr. GREGG. It is only 11:25.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, we are now proceeding to the budget?

Mr. GREGG. That sounds good to me. Why don't we extend this for 15 minutes? Divide the time equally?

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 13, 2006, at 3 p.m. in closed session to receive a briefing from the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from North Dakota for working this out. It is a good start to this bill. It gives us an opportunity to get out of the box with a series of amendments, get them voted on and hopefully reduce the vote-arama at the end of the bill.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota. I agree with him and thank him for encouraging our membership to participate actively early in the debate. As he mentioned, we hope to reduce the exercise known as vote-arama so we are not here until the wee hours of Friday morning or Thursday night, and one way to do that is to get these amendments up and get them offered. What we are going to do this evening is reach an agreement for the first six amendments, which we will begin debating tomorrow in sequence, and then we will vote them tomorrow, with the vote time coming off the bill. This evening, we are going to have a vote at 5:30. I hope Members will come down between now and 5:30 and talk about the bill or talk about their amendments. Then, after the vote at 5:30, the floor will be open for Members to come forward and talk about their amendments--not to offer them at that time because we are going to set up this sequence. If Members have amendments they wish to offer, get in touch with us, and we will get them in debating order. That is the game plan at the moment. I appreciate the efforts of the Senator from North Dakota in making that happen.

Mr. GREGG. This is an amendment to make corrections to the resolution so it conforms to the resolution as ordered reported by the committee. It has been agreed to by both sides. I ask unanimous consent that it be agreed to.

Mr. GREGG. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GREGG. Thank you, Senator Crapo. I agree with your comments about the importance of these resources, and I applaud your leadership in this area. While the President's request for these accounts is lower than many would like, I believe that during the appropriations process, Congress will try to remedy this problem. As you know, historically, the President tends to request lower funding levels for these accounts, and Congress usually pluses them up through the appropriations process, often quite significantly. For example, in 2004, 2005, and 2006, Congress provided considerably more for the Clean Water SRF Program than the President requested, +492 million, +291 million, and +$157 million, respectively. As Congress works to finalize the fiscal year 2007 budget resolution, I will continue to work with you on these issues. Additionally, in my role as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I will certainly be cognizant of the funding needs for SRF Programs.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the vote scheduled for 5:30 today the Senate resume consideration of the budget resolution for debate only this evening; provided further that when the Senate resumes debate on the resolution on Tuesday, the Senate begin consideration of the following amendments in the order listed below under the listed times for debate: Conrad amendment, the Conrad- Feingold amendment on pay-go for an hour, equally divided; the Talent amendment on defense for an hour, equally divided; the Kennedy amendment on education for an hour, equally divided; the Chafee amendment on IDEA special education, an hour equally divided; the Byrd amendment on veterans, equally divided; the Akaka veterans amendment, equally divided. I further ask consent the votes occur in relationship to the amendments beginning at approximately 3 p.m. on Tuesday, with no second-degree amendments in order prior to the votes in relationship to the amendments. I ask consent that the vote time consumed under this agreement count equally against the resolution.

Mr. GREGG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I may have already asked, but let me renew this unanimous consent request that for the duration of the budget debate, when there is a quorum call, the time be deemed to be running against both sides equally.

Mr. GREGG. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I join in the desire of the Senator from North Dakota to move forward in a bipartisan way. We could start by approving this budget in a bipartisan way. But independent of that, I agree, we--and we have talked about this; actually I think we are the only two people talking about this, but we have talked about trying to develop a framework where we could actually address this issue. But that is a global settlement. I would like to see it done. It is going to have to address Medicare. It is going to have to address Medicaid. It is going to have to address Social Security. It is going to have to address revenues. And it needs to be done sooner rather than later. But it is such a large idea that it is not going to occur this week. This week, what is going to occur, hopefully, is a step forward in the exercise of disciplining ourselves through budget processing, setting out a blueprint which defines where the Federal Government is going to spend money, how it is going to spend money, and constrains the Federal Government, especially on the discretionary side of the ledger. I would like to have constrained the Federal Government a little bit in its rate of growth on the entitlement side of the ledger, but that is not possible, primarily because I get no votes from the other side of the aisle. The Senator from North Dakota has made a point of talking about economic statistics relative to what the Bush administration and the Republican leadership have done relative to this economy. His structure and definition of this is, it is sort of dire, this economy. Well, that is hard to accept on its face. This is not a dire economy. In fact, it is a fairly robust economy that has gone through very significant growth now for 5 years. We have had 17 consecutive quarters of expansion of this economy. That is big, 17 consecutive quarters. We came out of one of the most difficult times, from an economic standpoint, in the history of this country, probably the most difficult time in the postdepression period, when we had the largest bubble in history, the Internet bubble collapse, and when we were attacked and America was at war and found the essence of our economy--Wall Street--basically destroyed in the World Trade attack. So they were double blows to our economy, and yet we have responded as a government the right way. We cut taxes. We gave people an incentive to go out there and be productive and create jobs. The response has been that people have gone out, risked their capital, taken risks, been entrepreneurs, created small business, and created jobs. We have had 17 consecutive quarters of expansion of this economy, which is a lot of growth. We had a 3.5-percent rate of growth in 2005. That is higher, as an average, than the 20-year average of the prior 20 years. We are growing at a rate faster than the average over the last 20 years. Just last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced we created 243,000 new jobs. That is a huge jump in new jobs when you put it in the context of the fact that for 30 straight months we have been creating new jobs in this economy. Literally, 5 million new jobs have been created in this economy since 2003. It is a result, in large part, of the economic engine created by giving people the right to be investors and entrepreneurs and capitalists and market-oriented, taking risks and creating jobs--5 million new jobs. Do you know how many jobs that is? That is more jobs than was created in Japan and Europe combined. I would point out that Japan and Europe combined have a population which is about half, again, larger than the United States. So we have had 17 quarters of consecutive growth. We have had 3.5 percent GDP growth, which is above the economic average for the last 20 years. We have had 5 million new jobs created. Just last month, we added 243,000 jobs. Those are pretty good numbers. Let's put it in the context of the Bush administration versus the Clinton administration. Real disposable income--which is basically the essence of what you really look at when you are talking about how people's lives are getting better or worse--has increased $1,905 since President Bush has been in office, which has been for about 5 years, 4\1/2\ years. Under President Clinton, what was the increase? For the last term of his office, the last 4 years when he was in office, during this period, when we were going through this economic bubble, real disposable income only went up $1,500. So this President has exceeded the rate of growth, in real disposable income, of the Clinton final 4 years, for which we hear so much about what a great job President Clinton did on the economy. And except for the fact he did not control the bubble, the fact is, the economy did pretty well during his administration. Real hourly compensation has gone up 8.9 percent during this same period, whereas if you compare it to President Clinton's second term, real hourly wage growth went up only three-tenths of 1 percent. The rate of growth of a person's actual wages has jumped dramatically in comparison to the Bush years versus the last 4 years of President Clinton. This is true economic growth. It is hard to deny that. You can deny it, you can be pessimistic about it, but the fact is the economy is doing very well, especially in the context of the fact that we are fighting a war on terrorism in the middle of all this, which has been a fairly significant stress on our economy, and that we had the largest natural disaster in the history of our Nation--exceeding even the San Francisco earthquake of 1906--in the Katrina and Rita storms in the Gulf States which essentially wiped out one of the great engines of our economy, the Gulf States, especially in the area of energy production. Still the economy grows. In fact, interest rates--I remember the Senator from North Dakota making a statement, I think it was last year, maybe the year before, saying that interest rates were going to have to go up because the Federal Government was crowding out borrowing--haven't gone up. Interest rates continue basically to be affordable in the context of historical interest rates. Yes, they are off a historic low, but they are still well below what is the historic mean for interest rates. So the economy is not only not dire, it is rather robust. It is robust in large part because of the fact that we made the right decisions at the beginning of this administration on the issue of tax policy. We gave people an incentive to be productive, an incentive to invest, to take risks, all of which translates into jobs, and jobs translate into more revenue for the Federal Government. We have gone through the charts of how much the revenue to the Federal Government is jumping as a result of this economic activity. It is a consistent statement made by the Senator from North Dakota that the economy is terrible, but I don't think it is a correct statement. Furthermore, this budget is obviously not a magic wand. It doesn't have the capacity to say: Eliminate the debt or eliminate the growth of the debt as we fight this war and we face issues of financial pressure. But without this budget, the debt will be significantly larger. In fact, as has been said before, spending will go up if the Democratic proposals that came out of committee are allowed to pass. Taxes will also go up because they propose tax increases. But that will have no impact on the debt. That is a wash, according to their representation. They spend $120 billion, and they raise taxes $125 billion or something like that, so they may have gotten $5 billion over 5 years back for deficit reduction. We usually underestimate the spending in those programs and we usually overestimate the revenue, especially when you are talking about loophole closing. That definitely usually overestimates revenue. So I suspect we would have found the debt would have increased, too. But giving them the benefit of the doubt, there is no initiative here on the floor--and there was no initiative in committee--which significantly addresses the debt other than the budget that is before us which puts a hard freeze on nondefense discretionary spending. That addresses the debt. That means that next year you will add less to the deficit than you would have if you didn't have that hard freeze. It is not a big number in the context of the overall issue, but it is a big number by New Hampshire standards. It represents billions of dollars which will not be added to the deficit and therefore not added to the debt. That is a positive. I yield the floor.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to PFC Matthew Lee Bertolino of Hampsted, NH, for his service and supreme sacrifice for his country. Matthew, a 2003 graduate of Pinkerton Academy, Derry, New Hampshire, entered the Marine Corps through the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program on September 30, 2004. He started his initial training on January 26, 2005, at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, SC. Upon completion of his training he became an infantry marine with an 0351 assaultman specialty. His awards include the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and Expert Rifleman Medal. Tragically, on February 9, 2006, this courageous young marine, only 20 years of age, died as a result of a nonhostile accident while operating as part of a combat patrol near Jalalabad, Afghanistan. At the time Private First Class Bertolino was serving with A Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force which was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom--Afghanistan. Patriots from the State of New Hampshire have served our Nation with honor and distinction from Bunker Hill to Afghanistan--and Matthew served in that fine tradition. Daniel Webster said: God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. Matthew was one of those proud and dedicated volunteers who chose to serve our Nation, and guard our precious liberty, and for that we will always owe our sincere gratitude. Family, friends, and fellow marines will no longer be able to enjoy the company of PFC Matthew Lee Bertolino. Yet memories of this young patriot will last forever with those who were fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to know him. He realized a calling for a higher service and chose to employ his considerable talents in the service of his country. He understood that the freedoms and opportunities provided by this Nation need continuous defense and that they are among the most precious gifts he can give to his family and loved ones. We honor Matthew for the dedication he has shown to his family and our Nation. Because of his efforts, the liberty of this country is made more secure.

Mr. GREGG

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that as time is running during morning business, the next hour and half also be running against the budget bill.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that during the period of morning business it be deemed the clock is running on the budget bill, and the time will be charged equally.

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I understand that will be equally divided.