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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to voice my support for the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. This is a credible compromise that accomplishes three key objectives: it prevents an economically catastrophic default, establishes 2 years of rational budgets for defense and domestic priorities, and provides our military with the resources they need without an overreliance on the emergency war fund accounts.
Specifically, the agreement takes the threat of default off the table until March 2017 and provides $80 billion in sequester relief over the next 2 years, evenly split between defense and domestic spending. Throughout this process to reach a budget agreement, I have urged my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work together to find a balanced, responsible way to address defense and domestic spending--because they are both essential to the security and financial well-being of the American people. And while this bill relies on emergency war fund accounts, it more accurately reflects the costs of our overseas military operations and provides the Department of Defense with some additional budgetary stability and flexibility to plan for the future. With the sequester relief that the bill provides, we will have greater fiscal certainty and the additional resources we need to maintain a strong defense and economy.
The bill also contains offsets that improve tax compliance among large partnerships and reforms federal crop insurance. These are the sorts of new revenue and spending cuts we should see more of instead of revenue and spending cuts that come off the backs of seniors and the middle class.
Now, while I would prefer to eliminate the sequester all together, this compromise sets an encouraging precedent for future sequester relief, which is balanced and allows the government to keep making investments in areas that spur economic growth like education, transportation, health care, and defense. And that is why it's important for the Senate and House Appropriations Committees to quickly reach a consensus and produce a detailed spending package before the expiration of the continuing resolution on December 11.
I urge my colleagues to quickly approve this budget agreement and move on to a bill to fund the government.
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