John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Will the Senator yield for another question, if I might?

Mr. THUNE. I ask the Senator from North Dakota if he will yield for a question?

Mr. THUNE. This is an issue that is important to both his State and my State for many reasons, not the least of which is we have basically flooded 1.6 million acres of prime bottom land, some of the richest agricultural land in our States, in order to prevent flooding downstream. Then of course there were also stated other various uses of the water that would be allowed for the States that were impacted when this occurred. But I wonder if my colleague from North Dakota--he has already touched upon many of the reasons why this should not happen, but he is a former Governor of his State. I know our Governor and our attorney general have made it abundantly clear that if the corps moves forward, they intend to file a lawsuit and they will litigate this. As a former Governor, if the now-Senator from North Dakota could respond to how his State of North Dakota might act in the event this actually were implemented by the corps? It strikes me at least that this is without precedent. This is something that--the Flood Control Act was passed in 1944 and the dams were built subsequent to that. For the past 50 years our States have had access to this water and it is something that is a State right. There is no legal or statutory--there is no historical precedent for doing this. I am wondering how the former Governor of North Dakota might view this as a Governor, as to what his action might be in the event the Corps of Engineers were to move forward with this. Because it certainly would impact a lot of the industrial users, water users in the State, businesses, tribes--a lot of folks are going to be impacted if the corps moves forward with this proposal. If the Senator from North Dakota might tell me as former Governor how he might view this and what he would intend to do and what our Governor and attorney general would intend to do in the event the corps moves forward.

Mr. THUNE. Our attorney general wrote a letter and said: This proposal, whether disguised as a reallocation or surplus water, exceeds the Corps' regulatory authority and violates basic principles of federalism. It went on to lay out the reasons why they, our State, would obviously enter into litigation if it comes to that, if it is necessary in order to protect the rights of South Dakotans to the water that is rightfully theirs. I would be interested in knowing as well from the Senator from North Dakota if in fact, during the course of the last many years, his amendment would change anything, if his amendment would change anything that is happening today? In other words, today what happens if the State wants to use water in one of the mainstream dams--and there are six mainstream dams, one in Montana, a big one in North Dakota, and then we have four in South Dakota, all of which were created by the Flood Control Act or authorized. These were dams built to protect from flooding downstream and then also authorized various uses of that water. I might point out what some of those uses are. They were to be for enhanced navigation, cheap hydro power, irrigation, programs to increase public recreation facilities, municipal-industrial water supplies, and fish and wildlife populations. Those are some of the things that are stated that the water is to be used for. The Senator's amendment, which would prevent the corps from charging for this water, as I understand it, doesn't change anything, the practice as it exists today, because a water user would request an easement from the corps, and then essentially the State would have to issue the water. That is my understanding of how it works today. Does any of that change--if it is passed--as far as the amendment of the Senator from North Dakota?

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I want to welcome our other colleague from North Dakota who also has experience as a litigator in protecting the interests of her State. Perhaps she could also comment on what actions the States might take if the corps moves forward. I want to point out to my colleagues, and perhaps the Senator is already aware of this, but I am looking at some things that are proposed charges that the corps would make under this proposal, although I don't think they have stated explicitly what that might be. But it ends up being a significant amount. In fact, over the Lewis and Clark leg, which is Gavins Point--or I should say, Lewis and Clark Dam--they are talking about $174 per acre foot of yield from Lewis and Clark Lake. We are talking about businesses, individuals, tribes, and industrial users having access to water they believe--and I think we all believe--is something that was promised to them when this legislation was passed way back in the 1940s. We have essentially 70 years of precedent where it has been the case that the States have access and can rightfully use that water for those various purposes as authorized under the legislation. This would move away from that and start to impose these fees, which I think over time get to be quite excessive. I appreciate the work that has been done by the Senator from North Dakota Mr. Hoeven in terms of trying to get the CBO to evaluate this in the proper context. For a while they were talking about the scoring impact that was much larger than many of us believed it would be. Again, it is a hypothetical situation. It is not happening today. All the Senator is simply doing is saying we want to keep in place the rules of the game as they have applied to the mainstem dams for the past 50 years--70 years since the authorization in the legislation that created it, but also since the dams were built. I guess I would say to my colleagues from North Dakota, I appreciate their good work, and I would simply reiterate--as a South Dakotan, downstream from North Dakota--that our States, and all the States in the upper basin, would be dramatically impacted by this because it would be a precedent that would be entirely new. Literally, this is something we have not dealt with since we had the dams and the lakes in our States. Again, this would be at a tremendous sacrifice in terms of the amount of prime bottom land that was given up when the dams were built and the land was taken. I now defer to the former attorney general of North Dakota, Senator Heitkamp, for some observations she might have with respect to that issue.

Mr. THUNE. I would just say to both of my colleagues from North Dakota, that is an absolutely accurate observation. If we look at who is impacted--and we have the Standing Rock Tribe that is partly in North Dakota and partly in South Dakota so it crosses the State border. We have the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Coal Creek Sioux Tribe, the Yankton Tribe. We have a whole bunch of reservations as we go right down that corridor of the Missouri River that would be profoundly impacted. As we mentioned earlier, when this land was given up, when the dams were built, this was a lot of not only private land but tribal-held land which they gave up. This would directly impact the access they would have to water that is rightfully theirs. So in addition to the concerns our States have and our attorneys general have, we also have a lot of tribes that have a very vested interest in making sure this doesn't happen. That is why it is so important that our colleagues support the amendment of the Senator from North Dakota, because as was pointed out by Senator Heitkamp, this is precedent setting. If they can do this here, they may try and do it someplace else. I also think--and the point was made by both of my colleagues--this is a very practical consideration. It will cost the Federal Government and our States a lot more than what they are saying this is going to achieve in terms of revenues when this goes to court. Both the States and the Federal Government will be locked up, I would suspect, in litigation for some time. The amount of revenues that would be raised by the fees that would be imposed under the various proposals that are being advanced by the corps simply would pale in comparison to the litigation costs that would be involved. So that is a very practical consideration. I concur. I am not a lawyer, and I certainly am not a former attorney general or former Governor. I know both of my colleagues have experience with these issues. But I can tell my colleagues from talking with our Governor and our attorney general they are highly confident that legally this is a very open-and-shut situation and a case in which our State would prevail. So it seems sort of crazy in a way that we would even have to go down that trail, and I hope we can prevent it from happening by having our colleagues join us in support of this amendment.

Mr. THUNE. One final point of clarification and perhaps the Senator from North Dakota can react and comment on this as well. My understanding is, of course, that this doesn't have any impact on the master manual, the way in which the corps manages the reservoir. So the degree to which there might be concern about whether this is our water versus their water, which historically has plagued a lot of the discussions about the Missouri River--upstream-downstream interests. As the Senator from North Dakota pointed out, the water is going to get used. It is water that is either stored or used. I think it is a question of whether we are going to be charged, the users of that water are going to be charged, and that does, of course, create precedent. If that is something they can do here, the question is, What is the next State? Because this violates a principle of federalism, as pointed out by the attorney general of South Dakota in his letter to the Corps of Engineers. But I wanted to say for the record, perhaps to those who are viewing this as an upstream-downstream battle, that is not the case. This does not affect the master manual, to my knowledge, and I ask the Senator from South Dakota to react to that as well.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I recognize Hannah Mudd, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota. Hannah is a graduate of St. Vincent de Paul High School in Perryville, MO. Currently, she is attending Saint Mary's College, where she is majoring in political science and history. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Hannah for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I recognize Karina Kiewel, an intern in my Washington, DC, office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota. Karina is a graduate of Dakota Valley High School in North Sioux City, SD. Currently, she is attending the University of Kansas, where she is majoring in political science and environmental studies. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Karina for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, today I recognize Laura Hodson, an intern in my Aberdeen, SD, office, for all of the hard work she has done for me, my staff, and the State of South Dakota. Laura is a graduate of Bennett County High School in Martin, SD. Currently, she is attending Northern State University, where she is majoring in political science. She is a hard worker who has been dedicated to getting the most out of her internship experience. I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Laura for all of the fine work she has done and wish her continued success in the years to come.

Mr. THUNE

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

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, at long last today we have received the President's budget. It is several weeks actually months--overdue. It was supposed to have been out on February 4. It is generally used to steer or guide the budget debate we have in Washington, DC. In this case, it is going to be a reaction to. It is going to be an after-the- fact discussion of the budget, as the House and the Senate have both passed theirs; the Senate for the first time in 4 years and the House has passed their budget every year on time. One would wish the President's budget would serve as a bridge between the House and the Senate. In this point of the process it is so much after the fact and late in the game the President's budget has come to us. Regrettably, much of the President's budget is going to rely on the same formula the Senate Democratic budget did, which is to double down, to increase spending, significantly and substantially raise taxes, and add massive amounts to the debt. It never balances. The budget which was passed by the House of Representatives did balance. It balanced in 10 years. The budget which was passed by the Senate did not balance in 10 years. It never balanced. There was a real contrast in terms of trying to get to a balanced budget over a period of time, knowing full well it will not happen overnight. We got into a very big hole over a number of years, and it will take us a while to get out. Nevertheless, the House budget did balance in a 10-year window and 10-year timeframe. The Senate Democratic budget never balances, nor does the budget we received this morning from the President. For a lot of reasons this budget debate is important, not the least of which is it is a vision, a blueprint for the future of the country. This is true for each of the respective parties in the Congress, as well as the President, about where they wish to lead the country. I mentioned yesterday on the Senate floor I thought the basic criteria which should be used to evaluate a budget, the question which should be asked is, What will this budget do to grow the economy, create jobs, and increase the take-home pay of middle-class Americans? What can we do, in other words, in terms of a budget process here and a budget itself which actually takes us in a direction which would enable more Americans to work and enable the economy to grow and expand again. This would make these fiscal issues look much smaller by comparison. Last week we received employment data statistics which were due. The unemployment rate as a percentage actually dropped to 6.7 percent but only because another half million people quit looking for work. If we look at the real unemployment rate--which is to include the people who actually have stopped looking for work, people who are working part-time because they can't find full-time employment--the actual unemployment rate is 13.8 percent. This is 21.7 million Americans. This is how many people who are either out of work, quit looking for work, or are looking for work part-time because they simply can't find full-time employment. This is a great number of people. This is a big part of our economy. A lot of folks are out of the workforce today who couldn't find jobs. Many have actually just given up looking for jobs. What this has done, because there are so many Americans who have given up looking for jobs out of frustration, is it has lowered the labor participation rate to a rate we haven't seen, literally, since 1979. The last time the labor participation rate was at the low level we saw in the month of March, 63.3 percent, was 1979. In fact, if we had a labor participation rate which was equal to what it was when the President took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate today would not be 7.6 percent, it would be 11 percent. This is how many people have quit looking for work as a result of this slow and sluggish economy. The President's budget, one would hope, would try to answer in an affirmative way the question: Does this grow the economy? Does this create jobs? Does this increase the take-home pay of working Americans? Unfortunately, rather than growing the economy, the President's budget, instead, grows the government. Unfortunately, this is what we have seen in the budget which was passed by the Senate a couple of weeks ago. I say this simply because I think there are two very different ideas about how to solve the fiscal crisis we face. One includes expanding and growing government, raising taxes, and adding even more to the debt. One really focuses on the issue which plagues our fiscal house in Washington, DC: not that we tax too little but we spend too much. It goes after the spending problem we have in Washington, DC, the addiction to spending. We have seen this as the percentage of our economy grow consistently over the last several years since this President has been in office. The House budget recognized this and does balance in 10 years. It does it without increasing taxes. The House of Representatives actually produced a budget which balances in 10 years and doesn't raise taxes. In fact, it calls for tax reform. Many of us believe this would do wonders in terms of unleashing economic growth in this country, lowering rates, reducing rates, and broadening the base. It also takes on what really drives Federal spending, what really contributes to the debt crisis we have in this country, its runaway spending. This is true for particular areas of the budget, the areas we call mandatory spending, the part of the budget which is on autopilot. It includes entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Currently, this includes about three-fifths of all Federal spending. At the end of the 10-year window it will represent about 91 percent of all Federal spending. That is how fast those programs are growing--two to three times the rate of inflation. The President's budget doesn't do anything significant or meaningful to address that crisis. It is flatout serious. Having said that, there were some what I would call incremental steps taken. I call them baby steps. The President agreed in his budget to address the issue of chained CPI, which recalculates the formula under which certain government programs are calculated. It achieves a certain level of savings over time. They assume some savings in Medicare, most of which, again, are by reducing payments to providers. We have already cut payments to providers to the point many physicians and other health care providers these days are saying they are not going to serve Medicare or Medicaid patients because we keep cutting those reimbursements. This is not the way to save and protect these programs for future generations. We must restructure or reform these programs in a way which aligns those programs with the future demographics of this country. Unfortunately, the President's budget fails on that account. In terms of the direction these various budgets are headed, the Senate's Democratic budget, because it didn't balance in 10 years, nor does the President's, both use similar assumptions about spending. If we look at the new debt which is piled up by the President's budget, he adds $8.2 trillion to the debt over the next decade. The Senate Democratic budget added $7.3 trillion to the debt over the next decade. Both have net spending increases. The spending amount over the 10-year period in both the President's budget proposal and the Senate Democratic proposal is on the order of $46.5 trillion. This is the amount of money, the amount of taxpayer money, the Federal Government would spend over the next decade under the budgets proposed by the Senate and House Democrats. The House budget, passed largely by the House Republicans, spends about $5 trillion less than that over the same time period. How does it do that? It does so by reducing the rate of growth of Federal spending. If we limit the rate of growth in Federal spending to 3.4 percent, as opposed to a 4.6-percent number in the Senate Democratic budget or the 5.2 percent-increase in mandatory spending called for in the President's budget, we may achieve significant savings over a period of time. This is not cutting government but simply slowing the rate of growth by growing government at a slower rate and moving it back into a more reasonable level. This would actually achieve $5 trillion in savings over the next decade in terms of what the Federal Government was spending. This is the way the House approached their budget. What the Senate Democrats and the President have both done is called for massive new tax increases. The only deficit reduction which will occur under the President's budget will be cut because of tax increases. He wipes out the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts which were in place as a result of sequester. He replaces those and achieves somewhere on the order of $600 billion in deficit reduction. This deficit reduction would be entirely accomplished by tax increases, raising taxes yet again after we put in place tax increases on the fiscal cliff on January 1. The President received a huge tax increase, something he had been wanting for for some time, $620 billion in new taxes. Add this to the more than $1 trillion in new taxes which are in the ObamaCare bill passed a couple of years ago and this President, on his watch, has signed into law more than $1.7 trillion in new taxes. This is not a revenue problem, this is a spending problem. What we need to be focused on is what do we need to do to rein in out-of- control Federal spending. How are we going to reform and restructure these programs in a way which protects and saves them, not only for people who depend upon them today but for those who will need them in the future. This is really the question before the House. Today we receive the President's budget. It will be the latest point at which the President has submitted a budget. Literally, it has been 100 years, let's put it that way. Around the early 1900s was the last time the President submitted a budget to this Congress at this late date. Again, having already acted in the House and Senate, I am not sure what meaning it has other than to perhaps give the President the luxury to be able to say he actually at least presented a budget. But on most of the criteria we ought to be looking at, in terms of evaluating this budget, that I mentioned earlier, it is not a serious attempt. It doesn't do anything to rein in these out-of-control programs that are growing at two to three times the rate of inflation, it has a massive tax increase, a $1 trillion tax increase on top of the $1.7 trillion in new taxes the President has already signed into law, and it adds $8.2 trillion to the debt over the next decade. So for that reason I think it fails the fundamental test of fiscal responsibility, but more important perhaps even than that, it fails to answer the question I posed earlier, which was: Does the President's budget grow the economy, does it create jobs, and does it increase take-home pay for middle-income Americans? The answer to that is simply no. When you are raising taxes consistently--raising taxes on the people who create the jobs in our economy--it makes the economy grow at a slower rate, we have more sluggish growth, which is what we have seen now for the past several years. When we are growing at 1\1/2\ to 2 percent as opposed to 3 to 4 percent, it makes a huge difference in terms of the number of people in this country who are employed, the number of jobs that are created, and, obviously, it makes a huge difference in terms of the fiscal imbalance, because when the economy is growing at a faster rate, it means more people are working and investing and, therefore, making money and paying taxes. So tax revenues go up when the economy is growing and expanding. That ought to be the goal. That ought to be our goal--not only to get those 21.7 million Americans who are out of work back to work but also to get the fiscal imbalance we face in a more manageable place. If we are going to get our fiscal house in order, we have to do those two things: We have to restrain Federal spending and we have to put policies in place that grow the economy. There is a relationship between the two. It has been well documented, well studied, well researched that when we have spending that is out of control, when we have a debt as a percentage of our GDP that exceeds a certain level, it harms economic growth. It reduces the amount the economy grows on an annual basis and, in so doing, also reduces the number of jobs created. So this is the question that should be asked. Again, when we compare or stack up the President's budget against that question--does it grow the economy, does it create jobs, does it increase the take-home pay for middle-class Americans--the answer is simply no. I would compare again the budget that was passed by both the House and Senate. In the case of the Senate, a study was done that suggested it would cost 800,000 jobs a year, again because of the tax increases that are included and the higher level of Federal spending. Simply raising taxes to fuel yet more Federal spending does nothing to grow the private economy. What we want to see is a smaller Federal economy and a bigger private economy where the real good-paying jobs are created. Clearly, this budget relies heavily--doubles down on Federal spending, adds more to the debt, doesn't achieve balance, increases taxes by $1 trillion, and takes us in absolutely the wrong direction. I hope before this is all said and done, the House of Representatives and the Senate--both of which have passed budgets and now that we have the President's budget--can somehow sit down together and figure out how we get a proposal that would actually deal with out-of-control spending and would focus on growing the economy, creating jobs, and increasing the take-home pay for middle-class Americans. That ought to be the criteria we use. I would hope before this is all said and done, people in this city would realize we don't have a taxing problem. The problem isn't that we tax too little, it is that we spend too much, and that is what needs to be addressed. I hope we can reconcile these budgets, but it will require the President to be engaged on a level he hasn't demonstrated so far. I hope he gets to what this real issue is and wants to get serious about reining in out-of-control government spending and we can make some headway yet. I have not lost hope. There were some incremental gains, some baby steps the President took in this, but it is far short of what needs to be done to get our economy back on track and get government spending back under control. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss the President's budget, which we understand will be released tomorrow. The budget comes out at a time when there is a lot of economic news floating around. The jobs report came out last week and indicated that job growth had been much slower than expected. There were about 190,000 jobs that were expected to be created, but there were only 88,000 jobs created, according to that report. Although the unemployment dropped a little to 7.6 percent--if we factor in the number of people who had quit looking for jobs, which was half a million people--we had a labor participation rate which is literally the lowest since 1979. We have to go back to Jimmy Carter's Presidency to find a time when the labor participation rate hit that low number where 63.3 percent of the people who are eligible to work are actually out looking for work. There a lot of people who have completely quit looking. We also looked at the U-6 number, which measures employment in a different way. It adds in the number of people who are no longer looking for work or who are working part time but would like to work full time. The unemployment rate for that is about 13.8 percent. This is a very sluggish, weak economy, where there are a large number of people across this country who continue to be unemployed, who continue to try and make their way without the advantage of having a job out there to pay their bills. It strikes me that as the President releases his budget, the fundamental question which should be asked in the context of the economic data I have just mentioned is what will his budget do to create jobs, grow the economy, and increase the take-home pay for middle-class Americans. To me, that seems to be the question we ought to use as we evaluate not only the President's budget but other budget proposals that have been made here in the last few weeks. When I say other budget proposals, of course, the House and Senate have both adopted budgets. The House passed their budget. They have passed their budget every year on time. The Senate, for the first time in 4 years, actually adopted a budget a couple weeks ago, and tomorrow we will finally have the President's budget, which, interestingly enough, was due on February 4. We were supposed to get the President's budget February 4. Typically, his budget would kick off the debate on the budget. It would be the starting point on which the two Houses of Congress--the House and Senate--base their budgets and gives them a little information as they move forward, but this is completely in reverse. In fact, I think this is the latest the President has released his budget since about 1920. We have to go back almost 100 years to find a time when the President has released his budget at a later date than he did this year. So his budget comes after the fact. That being said, I hope when it does become public and we begin to dig into it a little bit and look at what is in it, we will have a more definitive answer to the questions: What are we going to do to create jobs? What are we going to do to grow the economy? What are we going to do to increase the take-home pay of working Americans? To me, that is fundamentally what we ought to be focused on in light of the very abysmal jobs report from last week. What we are hearing about it--and again we will not know the final details until we see this tomorrow--is it is going to consist of a huge new tax increase. It will be another $1 trillion tax increase on top of the $1.7 trillion in tax increases that the President has already signed into law. If we go back to ObamaCare--the health care bill that passed a few years ago--it included $1 trillion in new taxes. We had the fiscal cliff deal, reached on January 1 of this year, which had $620 billion in new taxes. If we take ObamaCare, the fiscal cliff deal, and then add in some other taxes that have been imposed since the President took office, we are now over $1.7 trillion in new taxes and new revenue. So when the word came out that the President's budget was going to include another $1 trillion in new taxes on top of the $1.7 trillion already mentioned, we need to ask the questions: At what point does this do serious harm to the economy? At what point do we get to that juncture where we have so much burden, so many new taxes and new regulations imposed upon our economy, that it becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to create jobs and get the economy growing at a faster rate. In fact, what we are hearing, at least at this point, is that we have $1 trillion in new taxes, which means overall we would have a $600 billion number in terms of deficit reduction. We have been told the President's budget replaces the sequester, which had $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. If there is just $600 billion in deficit reduction, what that essentially means is that all the deficit reduction is in the form of higher taxes. We have $1 trillion in new taxes, $600 billion in deficit reduction, and we are completely replacing the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts that is currently in effect, unless, of course, as is proposed in the President's budget, at least we are told is proposed in the President's budget is going to be replaced. My point simply is this: In this country, we have a sluggish economy, chronic high unemployment, massive amounts of debt, all of which can be, if not entirely, at least partially cured and fixed by a more robust, more expansive and growing economy, growing at a more historic rate. The economic growth we have seen since this President took office, the average is .8 percent--eight-tenths of 1 percent is the average economic growth in 4 years since the President has been in office. The historic average over the past 60 years is about 3.3 percent, and that includes 11 recessions. We have been through 11 recessions in the last 60 years, and still we have an average growth rate of 3.3 percent. It is not terribly robust, but on average at least it is good enough to keep the economy chugging along, to keep throwing enough jobs out there to keep a majority--or at least keep the unemployment rate at a reasonable level and keep Americans employed. Yet in the last 4 years the average is .8 percent. Last year, we looked at 1.5 percent to 2 percent, in that neighborhood, but the fact is, until we start growing at a faster rate, we will be plagued by chronic high unemployment and we will continue to have these massive deficits year over year. As we all know, when we have a growing and expanding economy, people are working, investing, making money, and paying taxes. When the economy is growing, we get more tax revenue, and that makes the fiscal imbalances look smaller by comparison as well. The real objective we ought to have in front of us if we want to deal with the fiscal imbalance and if we want to deal with the sluggish economy out there is policies that will promote economic growth, policies that make it less expensive and less difficult for people in this country to create jobs. We should not add more taxes, not add more costs in the form of new regulations, not impose more burdens on the economy but unleash the economy and allow it to grow and allow people in the economy to create jobs. There are a number of reasons why that cannot happen. As I said, we have $1.7 trillion in new taxes that have been put on the economy since the President took office. His budget, as we are told, is going to include another $1 trillion in new taxes. We have new health care mandates that businesses--small businesses, large businesses, businesses of all sizes--are reacting to. It is something I hear more about now when I travel my State than almost anything else. When we talk to people who create the jobs, there is uncertainty about how this is going to be implemented. There are lots of delays in terms of its implementation. We are looking at significant increases in premiums across many different age groups. We heard the Senator from Wyoming, who was down here earlier, talking about the impacts of health care and what it will mean to the economy, what it will mean to people who buy their health insurance in the individual marketplace, people who acquire it through their employer. Obviously, there are people who might be forced into exchanges. There is just a tremendous cloud of uncertainty which hangs over our economy right now. Much of it is due to government policy generated in Washington, DC. Many of those policies come back to the budget. What is the vision we have for the future of this country? The budget is a vision statement, as has been stated by Vice President Biden in the past. It sort of lays out a policy framework for the two parties and their respective ideas about how to grow the American economy, how to get people back to work, how to improve the standard of living and the quality of life and the take-home pay for middle-class Americans. Again, that is what I would argue the budget discussion we have should be focused on. It strikes me as somewhat unusual and ironic that the President, after getting $1.7 trillion in new taxes since he took office, would submit a budget that is several months late, filled with new tax increases, and would put even more burdens on an already fragile economy. Yet that is what we are hearing is going to be in his budget. There are some other things which I would hope he will include in that budget. We are told he is going to propose a modest and what I think is a bipartisan entitlement reform known as chained CPI that would change the calculation in some ways and would be more reflective of cost and the economy when it comes to calculating benefits for certain programs. But it is a small change in terms of what the dimensions of the problem are. In fact, if we are going to do anything serious and meaningful to deal with the runaway spending and debt, we have to--in a structural way--reform these programs on the mandatory side of the budget that are growing at two to three times the rate of inflation and are unsustainable. If we look at what drives Federal spending today, it is mandatory spending, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--programs that are sort of on autopilot, if you will, in the Federal budget that today represent somewhere on the order of about three-fifths of all Federal spending. But according to the Congressional Budget Office, 10 years from now it will represent 91 percent of Federal spending if we continue on the path we are on today. That is completely unsustainable. That means we have 9 percent of all Federal revenue available to fund national security, fund nondefense discretionary spending, and to pay interest on the debt. That is a future we cannot comprehend. I think what it points out is we need to deal with these programs in a way that reforms them, that saves them, that protects them not only for generations of Americans today who depend upon them but also for future generations of Americans. On the current trajectory, on the current path, we simply cannot do that, and we have to make changes and reform these programs. So it would seem the President, in his budget, would contemplate what he might do, proposals he might make to address that. Again, we will not know for sure until we see it tomorrow, but my understanding is there will be very little in terms of consequential, meaningful change, meaningful reforms and restructuring of programs that will actually get us on a more sustainable fiscal path. I have to say the connection when we talk about policies--and I could go into a lot of different policy areas that I think drive up the cost of doing business in this country, one of which I already mentioned; that is, the new health care entitlement program that imposes lots of new requirements and mandates on employers as well as on individuals and is filled with $1 trillion in new taxes. But there are other areas of our economy as well. If we look at the power of energy in this country and what it could do to unleash jobs to help get our economy growing at a faster rate, we see we have enormous opportunity out there in that sector of our economy. We obviously have enormous opportunity if we are willing to take on our Tax Code. Our Tax Code is enormously complicated, complex beyond the comprehension of most Americans, which is why in many cases they have to turn it over to a professional tax preparer. But I believe it is fair to say if we could reform our Tax Code in a way that broadens that base and does away with a lot of the loopholes and the special interest provisions--the exclusions, deductions, et cetera, in the Tax Code today--broadens that tax base, lowers the rates--we could unleash a period of economic growth unlike anything we have seen in a long period of time. If we go back to the last time this was done in 1986, we know we saw a long period of economic growth because people--there was a lot of pent-up uncertainty and there is today, I might add, as well--and there is a lot of capital sitting on the sidelines that could be deployed and a lot of jobs, frankly, and opportunities we are losing to global competitors because our tax rates are, frankly, just not competitive in the global marketplace. So I would argue that reforming our Tax Code would be enormously helpful if we are serious about growing the economy and creating jobs. That too is an area where I hope the President will engage. So far we have not heard from him on that except to say in terms of the corporate tax rate he would be willing to work with us on tax reform that would be deficit neutral. But if we look at what is coming out of his administration, these proposals, and the budget we will see tomorrow, most of it involves raising taxes--closing loopholes, perhaps, but doing it to generate new revenue to fund new Federal spending, not to reduce rates and to generate economic growth. Economic growth ought to be the goal in tax reform. It ought to be progrowth tax reform, and it would take us a long way toward that goal of getting this economy back on track and unleashing the economic growth we all want to see. But I have to say it is also important, if we are going to get the economy growing again, that we get Federal spending under control. There is a lot of research out there, a lot of study that has been done that has looked at the relationship between high levels of debt as a percentage of our economy, GDP, and high levels of spending as a percentage of our GDP and how that impacts or translates into economic growth and jobs. The studies suggest that when our debt to GDP reaches a certain level--and ours exceeds that by 90 percent according to one of the studies--that it costs 1 point to 1.5 points of economic growth every single year. In this country that is about 1 million jobs. So as long as we continue to have a debt to GDP that exceeds 90 percent--ours is now about 104, 105 percent of GDP--we are in dangerous territory when it comes to the fragile nature of our economy and what it means to our ability to grow in the long term as we project out into the future. If we look at many of the European nations that are strangled with high debtloads right now, a tremendous amount of leverage, we can see what is happening in their economies. How have they tried to cure that in most cases? They try to raise taxes, which makes the problem even worse because that slows economic growth. So what we need to be looking at in terms of a budget is one that takes on what is driving Federal spending over the long term--the mandatory part of the budget--reforms and restructures programs in a way that saves and protects them; that doesn't in any way impact people who are drawing benefits today but makes those programs more sustainable for future generations of Americans. We need a budget that brings the debt-to-GDP and the spending-to-GDP levels down to a more historic norm that are consistent with what we have seen over our Nation's history as opposed to what we are looking at today, which are extraordinarily high levels of debt and extraordinarily high levels of spending as a percentage of GDP. We ought to think about what we can be doing in terms of reforming the Tax Code and streamlining regulations to lessen the burden and the tremendous weight we put on our small businesses and our job creators. Those are the types of things we ought to be looking at in terms of policy. That is what the budget ought to be focused on, getting spending under control, getting it back down to a more reasonable level and a more historic norm. But until we do that, my fear is we are going to continue to see chronic unemployment, a lot of people leaving the workforce, and labor participation rates that are at historic lows. We are going to continue to see a sluggish economy that continues to stumble along at 1.5, 2 percent annual growth. We are going to continue to see take-home pay levels go down for ordinary, working-class, middle-class Americans who are out there trying to pay their bills, trying to take care of their everyday expenses and perhaps put a little bit aside for their retirement or for their children's education. Those are hard decisions that Americans are making at their kitchen tables every single day. These are kitchen table issues; they are pocketbook issues. They are the kinds of decisions that American families have to contend with. They don't have the luxury the Federal Government has of being able to go out and borrow. Of course, today, of every dollar we spend in Washington, DC, 40 cents is borrowed. So we continue to borrow like there is no tomorrow. We continue to pile up massive amounts of debt, put it on the backs of our children and grandchildren, hand them the bill or the credit card overcharges we are making today. That is wrong. It is inconsistent with everything that has made this Nation great. Part of our Nation's heritage is we have been a country that has understood the idea that one generation sacrifices so the next generation can have a higher standard of living and a better quality of life. That is something that is very true in my part of the country in the Midwest, in South Dakota. My grandfather and great uncle are among those who came in 1906, didn't speak English, learned the language, worked hard building a railroad, and later were able to save enough money to buy a small merchandising store and continued in their pursuit of the American dream. That is what I think has characterized generations of Americans like them since, up until today. Today we are at a point in American history where if we don't get our fiscal house in order, if we don't deal with these imbalances that have gone on now for decades, we are going to relegate, if you will, future generations of Americans--our kids and grandkids--to a lower standard of living and a lower quality of life than what we have enjoyed. That is why the President's budget, as much as it is late, is so important, because it really does set that tone. It really does tell us what that vision for the future of this country is. If we don't have a leader in the White House who can lay out in a systematic way what he wants to do to address the economic data--the statistics I mentioned earlier, the high unemployment, the underemployment--we consistently see these economic numbers come out from one month to the next. When there is a little improvement, we get all excited about that, and the next month it takes another tumble. We find more and more people who are just leaving the workforce, and the labor participation rate is at a historically low level since 1979, and we haven't seen it down 63.3 percent, which is what it was for the month of March. If we are going to do something about that, we are going to have to have people who are going to demonstrate the political courage that is necessary to confront these big challenges and big decisions, and that means people in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. But awfully important to all of this is the President of the United States. There is only one person in this country, among 307 billion Americans, who can sign a bill into law. There is only one person in this country who has the bully pulpit and the capability to rally people in the Congress and people around the country as well as around great causes. I can't think of a greater cause today than doing something to deal with runaway spending and a debt that is hurting our economy, that is enslaving future generations of Americans to a lower standard of living and a lower quality of life. Those are issues that need to be addressed. The President's budget tomorrow could go a long way toward addressing that. I am afraid it is going to be a missed opportunity if what we hear about it is actually true. We hear it doesn't address the long-term drivers of spending and debt, it raises taxes $1 trillion, and it does $600 billion of deficit reduction but all in the form of higher taxes. That is not going to solve our problem. We cannot raise taxes enough to deal with what plagues our country in terms of our fiscal imbalances. What plagues us is the fact that we spend too much, not that we tax too little; that we have a slow rate of growth in our economy, so slow we are not generating the number of jobs and the amount of investment that will get the economy growing and taking off again, but also improve the fiscal picture for our country's future. So I hope I am wrong about this. We will see tomorrow if everybody will be pleasantly surprised and the President will take on the big issues and do away with more taxes and more spending and more regulations and more costs for businesses that are trying to create jobs. But I think that would be the triumph of hope over experience. So far what we have seen out of this administration is that very formula: more spending, more taxes, more cost to small businesses to create jobs, and higher cost from regulations. They have been consistent on that. That is not the way to get the economy growing and expanding again. We believe we ought to be not growing the government but growing the economy. Frankly, if all of us in the Senate looked at every bill that comes before us in terms of what will it do to create jobs, what will it do to grow the economy, what will it do to increase the take-home pay for middle-class Americans, we would probably get a lot higher quality legislation, legislation that produces solutions for the American people, which is something we are not doing today. Madam President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I appreciate the effort being made by the Senator from Virginia. He is moving in the right direction. We do need to get rid of this once and for all. I would be happy to accept his amendment by voice if he would be willing to do that. But I think it is important to have a vote on eliminating the death tax. The death tax is a punitive tax. It hits farmers and ranchers squarely in the face at a time when they are trying to pass on their farm or ranch operation to the next generation of Americans. By the way, the amendment I will offer is a deficit-neutral reserve fund; it would be offset. The point the Senator from Virginia made about it not being offset is not accurate. The way we would approach this, it would have to be offset, but it is time that we put a stake in the heart of the death tax and end it once and for all.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this amendment will create a deficit- neutral reserve fund to completely--completely--eliminate the Federal estate tax burden that is facing America's family farmers and small businesses. There are lots of reasons to support elimination of this destructive and inefficient tax, but for me the issue comes down to being able to tell the farmers and ranchers I represent that I am doing everything I can to make sure they can pass on their family farm to the next generation without a double tax imposed from Washington, DC. Behind me is a chart. This is data selected from the latest Agriculture Department report on farmland values. Farmers in the States represented on this chart truly are land rich and cash poor. These farmers literally have to sell off land or spend large sums in financial planning solely because of the estate tax--all of that to bring in less than one-half of 1 percent of all Federal revenue. Next year the estate tax will generate $15 billion--that is all-- relative to all the harm that it causes to farms, ranches, and small businesses in this country. It is time to end this tax. It is time to put a stake through the heart of this tax. I ask my colleagues to support the repeal with this amendment.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I yield back our time so our colleagues have an opportunity to use the term ``balanced'' a few more times before this debate concludes. I yield the floor. Children's Budget

Mr. THUNE. If I might, I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Budget Committee for yielding, and I will pose a question to the Senator, if I might. I heard Senator Sessions say earlier and put up a chart which suggested that the term ``balanced'' had been used 191 times by the other side in the course of this debate. Is that correct?

Mr. THUNE. That may be an incomplete count, but nevertheless the Senator and his staff counted 191 times where the word ``balanced'' has been used. As the Senator from Alabama very fittingly pointed out, there is nothing balanced about this budget. In fact, this budget doesn't balance in 10 years; it doesn't ever balance. The other thing I would suggest to my colleague from Alabama is that in the course of the debate, it has become clear to me--and I think clear to anybody who has been observing this--that the so-called balanced approach they advocate is anything but balanced. We have a $1.5 trillion tax increase. We have a spending increase that is at 62 percent over the course of the next decade--a net spending increase notwithstanding their assertions that somehow this is a reduction in spending. The whole idea that this is ``a balanced approach'' strikes me as a big charade. I think that is what this entire budget is. That is why all the editorial pages across the country, including those from newspapers that are not considered the least bit conservative--many of us in the Chamber who are on this side of the aisle expect most of the newspapers around the country and their editorial pages to attack Republicans and Republican budgets--have absolutely eviscerated in their editorial comments the budget that has been put forth by the Senate Democrats. I think it is simply because it is anything but balanced. When they used the word ``balanced'' 191 times on the floor of the Senate with regard to this debate, if we think about the ``balanced approach'' they talk about--even when we were dealing with the fiscal cliff, they talked about a balanced approach, but there was no balance there. It was all tax increases. There was a $620 billion tax increase. Over the course of the President's first term, we got a $1 trillion tax increase with ObamaCare. If we add those together with some other tax increases that have been added on, we are at $1.7 trillion in new taxes--or new revenues, as they say. We want balance. Well, we have $1.7 trillion in new revenue already, and then they are talking about another $1.5 trillion in taxes. Really? Where is the balance in that? This is all about raising taxes and growing government at the expense of the economy. I say to my colleague from Alabama, we are going to vote on an amendment pretty soon by the Senator from New Hampshire, Ms. Ayotte, that raises a point of order against any tax increase that would occur until the unemployment rates gets back down to 5.5 percent, which is what the President and White House said in 2009 would be the unemployment rate by now without the stimulus. It is hard to imagine that after spending $1 trillion that was borrowed from our children and grandchildren to ``stimulate the economy'' and still having an unemployment rate that hovers around 8 percent, they would be talking about yet more taxes when we know that raising taxes does nothing but hurt the economy and hurt job growth. If the real goal is to get deficits and debt under control--my colleague from Alabama shares my view--the best way to do that is to expand the economy. We need to have people working again, investing, and paying taxes. We don't need less revenue, we need more revenue in order to have a growing economy. That is what we should have before us. This budget does the opposite. It adds $7.3 trillion to the Federal debt and raises $1.5 trillion in new taxes on top of the $1.7 trillion tax increases we have already seen in the last 4 years under this administration. This is a completely wrongheaded approach, which is why it is not just the Republicans in this Chamber who are saying that, it is the so-called independent folks out there in the media who say it on their editorial pages. They are calling it what it is. It is a charade. There is nothing about this exercise we are going through here on the Senate floor this week that will solve the Nation's fiscal problems or get people back to work or get this economy growing again. I say that in terms of a budget. The budget is supposed to confront harsh realities, and it is supposed to set a vision and blueprint and pathway for the future. If this is their pathway--ignoring the problems and sweeping them under the carpet--as far as the long-term structural challenges we face with regard to Social Security and Medicare, this does nothing to protect those programs. It does nothing. There is no reform in here. There is not anything in here that prolongs the programs that people rely on today that are headed toward bankruptcy. At the end of this decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that is going to represent 91 percent of all Federal spending. Think about that--91 percent of all Federal spending will be composed of mandatory programs. Only 9 percent of the entire budget will be left over to pay interest on the debt, national security, and all the other discretionary things the government funds. This budget does nothing to address the long-term structural fiscal imbalances that face this country. Yet it relies on the same old tried- and-failed policy: Well, let's just raise taxes a little more. It will be a tax increase on the rich because Lord knows we are the defenders of the middle class. Let me tell the middle class in this country, they cannot raise taxes enough on the rich to do all the things they want to do in the form of growing government and increasing spending. This is going to hit and penetrate middle-income Americans. Middle-class families are going to get hit with higher taxes because the appetite to spend on the other side is endless. It just goes on and on and on, and we are not doing anything to address that. We have a spending problem in this country, not a revenue problem or a tax problem. It isn't that we spend too little or that we tax too little, it is that we spend too much, and that is what we need to address in this budget. That is where this budget falls terribly short. It is an incredible disappointment to finally--after 4 years--have a budget on the floor of the Senate that is inadequate to the future of America and relies on the same old failed policy that raises taxes and hurts economic growth and hurts job creation. We are still hovering at 8 percent unemployment. In the last 4 years, we have added $6 trillion to the Federal debt. We have a sluggish economy that is growing at 1.5 to 2 percent, and for the 4-year average it has been less than 4 percent. The 60-year historical average is 3.3 percent economic growth. If we got back to the normal economic growth pattern average over the last 60 years, these fiscal challenges we face would be so much smaller by comparison simply because a growing economy helps address all of these problems we are talking about today. Unfortunately, the budget we have before us doesn't focus on growing the economy; rather, it focuses on growing the government, and that is where it falls so miserably short. It is really unfortunate that is the vote we are going to have today. Many of the amendments we are going to vote on are an attempt to improve it. I hope that the Ayotte amendment will pass and that the tax increases included in this budget--that the point of order will be approved and will deny any tax increase until we get the unemployment rate back down to 5.5 percent. That is where it should be. If we have a growing economy, it would be closer to that number. I support the good efforts of my colleague from Alabama. He has been here on the floor for many, many hours over the last couple of days doing yeoman's work by pointing out the shortcomings in this budget that we are considering before the Senate. The Senator from Alabama has laid out a very different vision for how we can solve these problems. It is really ironic. I am sure this is-- The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The minority time has expired.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I rise today along with my colleague from Missouri, Senator Blunt, to offer a couple of amendments that have been filed and that I hope we get an opportunity to vote on before this process concludes. If you look at the base Democratic budget that has been put before us, it has large tax increases in it; in fact, up to $1.5 trillion in new taxes. What we would attempt to do is to ensure that those taxes, higher taxes, do not come by eliminating or capping the Federal tax deduction for charitable giving. We have tens of millions of Americans mired in poverty, and government budgets are more constrained than ever before and what fills that gap is the charitable giving. It is the generosity of people around this country who keep organizations going that are providing these essential and basic functions for many Americans. In fact, in 2011, Americans gave nearly $300 billion to support charitable causes. This generosity not only helps to feed the hungry and clothe the needy, it has a real budgetary impact because this is an instance where the private sector is fulfilling a need that would otherwise have to be met by government spending. Unfortunately, as we know, the White House has proposed limiting the value of itemized deductions for those earning above $200,000 for singles, and $250,000 for married couples to 28 percent. Previous estimates were that this proposal would reduce charitable donations by up to $5.6 billion a year. As the Charitable Giving Coalition has recently stated, that amounts to more than the annual budgets of the Red Cross, Goodwill, YMCA, Habitat for Humanity, the Boys and Girls Clubs, Catholic Charities, and the American Cancer Society combined. But even this impact understates the degree to which charitable giving could be harmed under the White House proposal because we now have a new baseline with a higher top income tax rate. A new study by the American Enterprise Institute estimates that the President's itemized limitation under the new tax rates will lower total giving by individuals by more than $9.4 billion per year. We ought to be exploring new options to expand charitable giving rather than limiting the charitable donations in order to fund higher levels of government spending. If we are going to explore any changes in the charitable deduction or any other tax provisions that we have in the Tax Code today, it ought to be in the context of progrowth revenue- neutral tax reform, not as a way to pay for higher spending, which is what these proposals would do. I hope the vote on this amendment this time around will be just as broadly bipartisan as the one I offered back in 2009, where we got 94 votes in support. The second amendment will put the Senate on record in support of eliminating the destructive Federal estate tax, better known as the death tax. That amendment I offer with the Senator from Missouri and several others of my colleagues. I have long believed the Federal estate tax is an unnecessary, counterproductive, and inefficient tax. More important, the death tax strikes many of us as not simply being bad tax policy but a policy that runs counter to the very essence of the American free market system. This is not a tax on rich fatcats, as some will claim. We already have an income tax, and it is one of the most progressive income taxes in the developed world. The death tax is different. It is a tax on success, a tax on assets that have been accumulated through a lifetime of hard work and generated from income that was already taxed when it was earned. Many of these businesses are ``land rich and cash poor,'' meaning that the value of the business is in the land and in the business assets. These businesses do not have substantial liquid assets sitting around to pay a second layer of tax that is imposed when a loved one passes way. As a result, the death tax often requires that business assets are sold simply to pay the tax. Consider South Dakota, where we have seen farmland prices increased by over 50 percent in just the past 5 years. States such as Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, and North Dakota have seen similar increases. Finally, my amendment will give farmers, ranchers, and family business owners peace of mind, and it will do so in a deficit-neutral way. When we voted on a sense-of-the-Senate to eliminate the death tax in 2002, 11 Senate Democrats supported that, including a number of Senators who are still in the Senate today. Much has changed since 2002, but I believe the death tax was a bad tax law then, and it remains so today. I hope to get a strong bipartisan vote on this as well. Before I shift to my colleague from Missouri, I simply want to say, as I have said before, that when we look at this budget process and the budget proposal put before us by the Senate Democrats, the question we ought to ask is, What does this do to promote economic growth? What does this do to create jobs? More than anything else, what we need in this country is increased economic growth. Increased economic growth will get the people who are unemployed back to work, which will increase the take-home pay of middle-class Americans. We have seen a sluggish economy, chronic high unemployment, and a massive amount of debt over the past 4 years. It is time to chart a different course, and the way to do that is to put policies in place that will encourage economic growth. A $1.5 trillion tax increase is not the way to do that, and we certainly do not want to take away the incentive people in this country have to continue to give out of the generosity of their hearts to our charitable organizations all across the country. It is also important that once and for all we get rid of the death tax, which is so punitive to people who work so hard and want to pass that on to the next generation of Americans. I am happy to yield to my colleague from Missouri, who, like me, represents a lot of farmers, ranchers, and hard-working small businesspeople for whom the tax issues are important. He will offer comments on the impact of some of these tax policies and the impact some of the budget proposals coming from the Senate Democrats would have on the State of Missouri.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the Senator from Nebraska could not have put it better. He has great experience with budgets and the people of Nebraska, who are similar to the people I represent in South Dakota. Someone else who is also from a very similar State, the State of North Dakota--he is yet another Governor who, when he came here, came here in many respects because of his record of accomplishment as a Governor. The people of North Dakota elected him by an overwhelming margin largely because he knows how important it is that a State and country live within their means and that they not spend money they do not have. The Governor, and now Senator, of North Dakota has a long and incredibly strong record when it comes to fiscal matters. Again, like me, he represents a constituency which understands very clearly what is at stake when it comes to balancing our budget and making sure we are not handing that debt down to those children and grandchildren. It is great to have here the Senator, my colleague and neighbor from North Dakota.

Mr. THUNE. We have among the Senators who serve in the Senate people who have balanced budgets and done it the old-fashioned way, the hard way, one of whom is the former Governor of the State of Nebraska, now Senator, Mike Johanns. Senator Johanns, like me, comes from the midwestern part of the country where common sense prevails and where people are not unaccustomed to having to tighten their belts a little bit during difficult times. As a consequence of that, many of those States in that part of the country are well managed, and they elect leaders who bring those types of principles to their leadership and to the way they govern among their States. So the Senator from Nebraska, Mr. Johanns, has a long record--not only as a Governor, I might add, but as a mayor. He has been an executive. He knows what it is like to make those hard decisions, and he is someone who, like me, is very concerned that we get on a more sustainable fiscal path for this country, get our fiscal house here in Washington, DC, in order, and make sure we are not bankrupting this country and saddling the next generation with massive amounts of debt. I yield to my colleague from Nebraska, Senator Johanns.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama for his eloquence in laying out what is at stake in this budget debate we are having and for also pointing out, once again, that the budget before us in the Senate doesn't balance. In a way, the speakers who have been here before on the Democratic side have been talking about another budget. They are talking about a budget that is under consideration in the other House, in the House of Representatives. They are not talking about their budget. I suspect one of the reasons they don't want to talk about their budget is it is a budget that, for all intents and purposes, will hurt economic growth, cost jobs, and lower take-home pay for middle-class Americans because it doubles down on the failed policies of the past 4 years, which have consisted of more spending, more borrowing and more taxes, and that is what this budget is about. I wish to quote something from the Washington Post editorial page in regard to the Democratic budget that is before us. Except for the part about no imminent crisis, the Senate Democratic budget recognizes none of this. They are talking about the challenges we face with regard to the fiscal crisis we are in. Partisan in tone and complacent in substance, it scores points against the Republicans and reassures the party's liberal base--but deepens these senators' commitment to an unsustainable policy agenda. In short, this document gives voters no reason to believe that Democrats have a viable plan for--or even a responsible public assessment of--the country's long-term fiscal predicament. This is their assessment of the budget debate that is going on in the Senate. The Washington Post editorial page isn't exactly a bastion of conservative thought, but note what they say about this: It is not a viable plan. It is not even a responsible public assessment of the country's long-term fiscal predicament. This is precisely what is wrong with this budget and why the Democrats who come down to the floor of the Senate aren't talking about it. They are coming down to talk about the budget that is under consideration today in the House of Representatives--which, incidentally, does actually balance in 10 years. The first motion that is under consideration in the Senate is to recommit this back to produce a balanced budget. It strikes me, at least, that I think most Americans would accept the logic, if you will--the notion, that we ought to be able to submit a balanced budget--at least a budget that balances in a 10-year period. Most Americans have to make decisions every single year. They have to figure out how they are going to go about balancing their own family budget, how to make what is coming in the door meet the expenses that they have to deal with in their daily lives. Yet the Democratic budget that is before us not only doesn't balance in 10 years, it doesn't balance ever--it doesn't balance ever. That is why this motion that is before us to recommit this budget to the Senate Budget Committee and to produce a budget that actually does balance is something I hope my colleagues on both sides will support. It is time we got serious about doing the important work of the Senate, taking care of the people's business, which is to get spending on a more responsible and sustainable fiscal path so future generations of Americans aren't saddled with this massive burden of debt, so we can protect and save programs--important programs such as Social Security and Medicare--which are on a pathway to bankruptcy. Social Security is already operating at a cash deficit; in other words, there isn't enough money coming in, in the form of payroll taxes, to pay the benefits that are due to Social Security beneficiaries. Medicare is going to be bankrupt 10 years from now and even in the hospital part of that trust fund, by the year 2016, according to the CBO. It is clear. These things are looking us right in the face. This is not something out there on the horizon, these are issues today that need to be dealt with. Yet the Democratic budget before us does absolutely nothing to address the long-term fiscal challenges facing this country. What are we going to do to save Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid? In fact, according to the CBO, by the year 2023, 10 years from now, mandatory spending will represent 91 percent of all Federal spending. Think about that. It is about 62 percent today. We are on a trajectory and a pathway over the next decade to where 90 cents--over 90 cents out of every dollar is paying for those basic core programs with nothing left over. How are we going to fund the military or defense or the other priorities this government deals with every single day when over 90 cents out of every dollar is going to be spent on these programs? Yet this budget does nothing to address those important fiscal problems. What it does do is it grows government--a 62-percent increase in government spending over the next decade. It adds $7.3 trillion to the Federal debt, and that is on top of the $6 trillion that has been added in the last 4 years. It raises taxes. The Democrats will say it is only by $975 billion, about $1 trillion. But if you look inside the numbers, they replace the sequester--another $\1/2\ trillion--with a fund, some sort of fund. What is going to fund that? Spending cuts? I do not think so. We are talking about up to a $1.5 trillion tax increase in this budget on top of the $1.7 trillion tax increase we have already seen under this President and the Democrats here in the Congress. What does that mean? They say it is just a tax on the rich. We just need the rich to pay a little more. They need to pay their fair share. They got a big, fat tax increase with the fiscal cliff. They got a big, fat tax increase with the $1 trillion in ObamaCare. The rich are getting hit with higher taxes, but what is happening is a lot of these tax increases are starting to hit the middle class, and they are starting to figure this out. If you are a middle-class American and they are saying: Let's soak the rich a little more, that is OK, the rich can pay more--Mr. President, I have to tell you, it is coming at you. If you are a middle-class American, you cannot tax the rich enough to do all the things these guys want to do to increase Federal spending and grow the size of the Federal Government. Our focus should not be on growing the government; it ought to be on growing the economy. This budget does absolutely nothing to get the economy growing again. It simply does what we have done in the past 4 years; that is, increase spending, increase borrowing, and increase taxes. If you don't think the taxes are hitting the middle class already, just look at your health insurance premiums because the tax increases in ObamaCare were taxes on, yes, medical device companies, taxes on your health insurance plan, taxes on pharmaceuticals, all of which are being passed on in the form of higher costs to average working Americans. We have a crisis in this country that affects the middle-income families, people who are out there every single day just trying to do their best to make their budget balance and do the important things to plan for the future of their children and grandchildren, and here we are in Washington, DC, debating yet more policies that are going to hurt the economy, going to crush job creation in this country and lower take-home pay for those very middle-class American families. This is the wrong approach. I hope as we debate this we will have an opportunity to vote on amendments. Perhaps there is a way we can make this better. I doubt that to be the case. This budget is so far off in terms of where we need to be going as a country. If we are serious about getting the economy growing and expanding again, creating jobs for middle-class Americans, and doing something about the massive amount of debt we are passing on to future generations, this budget is the exact wrong prescription for that. We can do much better by the American people, and we need to. I hope that during the course of this debate that will become clear and that we will move in a different direction for the future of this country. I see the leader is here on the floor. I will conclude my remarks at least for the time being and allow him to make his.