Deficit Reduction Act of 2005--Conference Report

DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT OF 2005--CONFERENCE REPORT

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Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I once again rise to reluctantly, but adamantly, oppose the budget reconciliation bill before us today. I say reluctantly because the Senate ought to use the reconciliation procedure for the purposes for which it was intended: making difficult choices to reduce spending. We have an obligation to bring our Nation's budget back into balance so we don't saddle future generations with endless debt and economic ruin. However, this budget fails on every level to achieve this goal. And even worse, the budget cuts that this bill does make fall squarely on lower-income Americans who can least afford them.

One provision in this conference agreement that I support relates to extension of the Milk Income Lost Contract, MILC, program. MILC, which expired at the end of the last fiscal year, provides countercyclical support for the Nation's dairy sector. It is targeted. It is fair. It is essential. Moreover, it enjoys the President's support. It makes sense as part of the balanced Agriculture package in this bill.

But even this one bright spot is not enough to save this bill or the budget plan of which it is a part. This bill is just one piece of a fraudulent, fiscally, and morally bankrupt budget which I cannot endorse. While the conference agreement we are now voting on cuts almost $40 billion in spending, waiting in the wings is a tax-cut bill that will likely cost more than $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. The math simply doesn't add up. You can't pass a bill to cut spending by $40 billion and follow it up with a tax bill that will cost more than $70 billion and claim you are reducing the deficit it's simply untrue and irresponsible.

I am willing to make the hard choices to bring our budget deficit down, but this conference agreement does not reflect our Nation's priorities. I cannot support taking vital services away from families that need them the most--and use those cuts as a fig leaf to hide tax breaks for those who need them the least.

I am particularly disappointed that the House and Senate conference committee has come back with an agreement that is actually worse than the original Senate-passed bill. This so-called compromise causes more harm to low-income Americans while shielding powerful special interests, such as pharmaceutical companies and the managed care industry, from any sacrifice.

This conference report achieves much of its savings by requiring low-income Medicaid beneficiaries to pay more out-of-pocket for health care, and taking away health care services for which many beneficiaries are currently covered. Even more egregious, negotiators dropped a common-sense provision in the Senate-passed bill that would have saved billions of dollars by eliminating a slush fund for private insurance companies in the Medicare prescription drug program.

This bill before us also fails our Nation's students who are struggling to pay for college. Student loans help to ensure that every student in America can choose higher education regardless of his or her financial or social background. These programs are an investment in our future and an investment in a diverse, educated population who will lead this country in the 21st century.

At a time of rising tuition costs, this conference report would actually make college less affordable. It would establish a fixed interest rate instead of maintaining today's lower variable rates--leaving the typical student borrower, who has $17,500 in student loan debt, having to pay up to an additional $5,800 in order to repay his or her college loans. It is simply unacceptable to make the largest raid on the student aid program in history at a time when millions of families are struggling to keep up with skyrocketing tuition costs. And it is inexcusable to do this in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest in our society.

I urge my colleagues to reject this bill--and the irresponsible and cruel budget of which it is a part. It does not reflect the right budget priorities, and it certainly does not reflect the values of American families. And adding insult to injury, these harmful cuts will not even help our country dig its way out of a large and growing budget deficit. This bill will soon be combined with tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that exceed, by tens of billions of dollars, the value of the cuts themselves, and leave our fiscal situation in even worse shape than before. We should reject this reckless budget plan and instead work to make the responsible choices that the American people expect.

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Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I join many of my colleagues today in expressing sincere disappointment in the conference report to the budget reconciliation legislation. I could certainly echo the sentiments that we have already heard regarding the Medicaid and TANF provisions included in this conference report--two sections that will directly penalize hard working families, and prevent many from moving towards self-sufficiency. Or I could repeat the comments that this report represents not a compromise between the House and Senate bills, but an abuse of power that will harm rather than help, millions of families.

While I share my colleagues' dissatisfaction with this conference report, I would like to highlight a section that may have been overlooked. The conferees made interesting decisions in the area of child support--they chose to include provisions that would allow States to ``pass through'' child support payments to families, provisions that I have fought to pass for several years. Yet in the same conference report, they chose to make deep cuts to the Child Support Enforcement Program, cuts that may inhibit States ability from actually passing through those child support dollars.

I believe the inclusion of the child support ``pass through'' provisions is one of the few successes of this legislation. These provisions are similar to those included in S. 321, the Child Support Distribution Act. Senator Snowe and I have worked together for the past several years on this legislation, which allows States to ``pass through'' more child support collections to the families that need them, rather than send those dollars to the Federal Government.

Specifically, the conference report has three major provisions related to the Child Support Distribution Act. The conference report eliminates pre-assistance assignment rules--families applying for the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program would no longer be required to turn over their right to child support that accrues before they are receiving assistance. In addition, the Conference Report gives states the option to distribute more child support to families who have left assistance. Finally, for families currently receiving assistance, it allows States to let families keep more child support, rather than sending it to the Federal Government.

These changes were included in the bipartisan, Senate Finance Committee-passed welfare reauthorization legislation. It is unfortunate, given the wide support for these provisions, that the cuts contained in this bill will place such a financial burden on the States that they will unlikely be able to actually pass through the funding to the families.

The original House bill included a 40-percent cut to Federal child support funding. Thus, it would seem that the $5 billion cut included in the conference report before us is somehow less significant. This could not be further from the truth. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this conference report would mean that more than $8 billion in child support payments would go uncollected over the next 10 years. I will say that again so that my colleagues are clear: $8 billion in funds will not go to hardworking, single parent families; $8 billion that is owed to these families, that they rely on to meet their children's needs.

These payments would go uncollected because the conference report retains a provision that 74 of my colleagues voted against last week. I offered a motion to instruct that asked conferees to reject the provisions in the House bill that would restrict the ability of States to draw down matching funds on child support incentive payments. In addition, I sent a letter to conferees that was signed by 49 Senators asking that this restriction not be included in the conference report.

I have heard some of my colleagues argue that this is simply closing a loophole, that this funding source was not what Congress intended. I say to my colleagues that this is not the case. The reforms made to the child support system in 1998 created the performance-based system that has been proven to be so successful. Since this system was put in place, States have doubled their collection rates and have significantly improved their performance on every other measure.

The changes in this conference report would undo these successes. In fact, the cuts will actually drive up costs in other programs, such as TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid. That is why these cuts are opposed by the National Governors Association, the National Association of Attorneys General, and the National Conference of State Legislatures, among others.

It is highly ironic that the conference report gives States the option to pass through more child support to families that deserve it, while also passing on a financial burden that will directly restrict their ability to do so. This bill will hurt millions of families, and it should have been defeated.

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