By Cliff Montgomery – Apr. 8th, 2009
Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) last Thursday on the Senate floor exposed a number of GOP distortions, half-truths and flat-out lies regarding that chamber’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposal.
It seems only right, as the North Dakota senator was the chief sponsor of the bill.
The Senate on Apr. 2nd approved Conrad’s budget resolution by a vote of 55 to 43, “setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2010, revising the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal year 2009, and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2011 through 2014, as amended.”
Below we provide Conrad’s stinging rebuke of the GOP leadership:
“Mr. President, I am going to respond briefly to the Republican leader […]
“First of all, I have just listened to remarks that are an attempt to rewrite history. Trying to put this deficit and this debt at the door of our new President is simply misplaced. He inherited a debt that was doubled over the last 8 years, and most of my friends on the other side were silent sentinels as that debt grew and grew and grew. Most of them said nothing–worse, they supported the policies that created that doubling of the debt.
“Beyond that, they tripled foreign holdings of U.S. debt and left the country in the worst recession since the Great Depression. This President inherited a crisis in the financial markets, a crisis in housing, a fiscal crisis, and two wars.
“The budget that is before us is not as described by the Republican leader. The budget before us reduces the deficit by two-thirds over the 5 years of its term.
“In fact, as a share of GDP–which most economists say ought to be the measuring point because it excludes inflation–we reduce the deficit by three-quarters, all while maintaining the President’s key priorities of reducing our dependence on foreign energy.
“That is not just a Presidential priority, that is an American priority. If we are going to be strong in the future, we have to dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign energy.
“On education, there is a focus on excellence in education. If we are not the best educated, we are not going to be the strongest country in the world very long.
“The prospect of major health care reform, which is provided for in this budget, is the 800-pound gorilla. [But] we are now spending $1 of every $6 in this country on health care. If we stay on the current trend, we will spend more than $1 of every $3 in this country on health care. That is utterly unsustainable.
“They describe the budget of the President as having all these tax increases. I would remind my colleagues that when the Congressional Budget Office scores the President’s budget, they say there is $2.2 trillion in tax cuts. […]
“Now, on spending. Well, on spending, the hard fact is, the budget I have offered reduces deficits and debt by $608 billion compared to the President’s budget, on a 5-year comparison to a 5-year comparison. We reduce it by $608 billion in the budget that is before us. And on spending, we increase domestic spending, on average, by 2 1/2 percent a year.
“Believe me, I have heard lots of criticism from the left with respect to the fact that is not enough. But when you lose $2.3 trillion in revenue because of the new CBO forecast, we felt it was necessary to make adjustments in the President’s budget while maintaining his priorities. […]
“We also provide…a total of almost a trillion dollars of tax relief, offset by certain loophole closers to go after these abusive tax shelters–these offshore tax havens.
“We have the spectacle now of companies buying European sewer systems, not because they are in the sewer business but in order to depreciate them on their books for U.S. tax purposes. That is outrageous–United States companies buying European sewer systems so they can write them off on their books here, and then they lease them back to the European cities that built them in the first place. […]
“Is that acceptable? I don’t think so. The President in his budget and we in our budget say: Enough of that. Let’s shut down these abusive tax shelters. Let’s shut down these offshore tax havens, which our Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations tells us is costing [America] $100 billion a year. […]
“On a net basis, our budget has $825 billion in tax cuts. Again, on spending, domestic spending increased at an average rate of 2 1/2 percent a year. That is pretty tough.
“In our proposal, in the budget before the body, there is no energy tax. There is none contained here. This reference to a national sales tax on energy, it is not in this budget proposal. […]
“I wish to make clear that this budget is responsible, it controls spending, it reduces the deficit by two-thirds, it extends the middle-class tax cuts, and it adopts the President’s priorities of reducing our dependence on foreign energy, putting a focus on excellence in education and providing the possibility of major health care reform.
“Those are the priorities of the American people, and they are contained in our budget.”
