Department Of The Interior, Environment, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010
Floor Speech
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (Senate - September 23, 2009)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to share a few thoughts about the process we are going through and the impact it is having on spending by the U.S. Government. We are at a rate that everyone agrees is unsustainable.
Worse than that, I think it is irresponsible, and we do not need to be doing the things we are doing now. I object. The ramp-up in discretionary spending for the appropriations in fiscal year 2010 is unprecedented. We know we have the biggest deficits we have ever had in the history of the Republic. Now we are passing more appropriations bills that will take effect next year that will have unprecedented spending levels. For example, the agriculture bill; I have always tried to support Agriculture Appropriations in the Senate. I have not always been able to do so. It had an increase of 14.5 percent. At that rate, spending on agriculture will double in 5 years. The average increase in agricultural spending, compounded over the past 7 years, from 2003 through 2009, was just 2.1 percent. So we have 14 percent.
Now we have the Interior and EPA funding and their increases this year in the bill before us today, which is 16.6 percent. What is inflation? Two percent or less. That is a 16-percent spending increase in 1 year. At that rate, spending for Interior and EPA would double every 4 to 5 years. Within this bill, the increase for the EPA is 33 percent. I guess that would double in 2 to 3 years. Since EPA was added to the Interior financing in 2006, it is difficult to compare--at least prior to that. However, we have added EPA funding to the Interior funding to get a comparison over previous years. The average annual increase in Interior-EPA Appropriations, from 2001 to 2009, is 1 percent but this year 16.6 percent. And we have the largest deficit in the history of the Republic this year.
When we pass a stimulus bill that is huge, in terms of additional spending, that is not being counted in what I am making reference to today.
We also passed the Transportation HUD bill, commonly called the THUD bill. Looking at its configuration for the past 3 years, we are able to conclude how that developed. From 1995 to 2009, we have seen a 5.2-percent average increase in discretionary spending--5.2 over the last 8 years. This year, what do you think it is? It is 23 percent. At a 23-percent rate, spending for highways in America would double in 3 to 4 years.
Why is this important? Let me back up one more time and mention the stimulus package. We passed, this year--the President insisted on it, and he was able to force it through--an $800 billion stimulus package. It was supposed to be to fix our crumbling infrastructure, our highways and bridges. Did you know only 4 percent or less of that $800 billion went to highways and bridges? That was a flimflam. The number I am talking about in the basic highway budget we passed, I guess, a few weeks ago, that bill has a 23-percent increase, in addition to the money they got out of the stimulus package.
To show you how large that $800 billion is--the stimulus package--spending only 4 percent on highways increased the Federal highway funding by about 40 percent. It may be more. You can say: Well, Jeff, the economy isn't doing well, so we need to spend more money. I submit that we are spending money to a degree that it is putting a cloud over the future of our Nation, and people who are involved in finance and investment and business are worried not about what is going to happen in the next year but about what is going to happen in the next 5 to 10 years. How can we sustain something that is unsustainable? The administration said this cannot be sustained and Democratic Senators have said it. Certainly, I say it.
In 2008, the entire national debt from the beginning of the founding of our Nation through 2008 was $5.8 trillion. According to our Congressional Budget Office, which I believe is a fair and impartial group, they calculated the President's budget and what it would mean to the deficit. They concluded that in 5 years--and the President submitted a 10-year budget--that would double to $11.8 trillion. That which we took over 200 years to accumulate--$5.8 billion--would be doubled in 5 years. By 2019, 10 years from now, it would triple to $17.3 trillion in debt.
The road we are on today will triple the national debt. I am not making up these numbers. These are the Congressional Budget Office numbers. It is stunning. In fact, it is based on the assumption that unemployment would top out at about 8 percent. What are we moving to now? About 10 percent. It also assumed a vigorous bounce-back in economic growth next year, which it doesn't look like we are going to get. So the results of those numbers can be worse than it appears here because the economy isn't coming back as rapidly as we would like it to.
It is hard to figure this. Some might say: I am unable to understand this, Sessions. How much money is this? A trillion dollars doesn't mean much to me.
Well, we spend less than $100 billion a year on education now. We spend about $40 billion on highways. Do you know how much we spend on interest on the debt? People think you can just print the money, and that is not what happens. We borrow. We sell Treasury bills and notes; people buy them and we have to pay them interest. Right now, interest rates are pretty low. It is expected those interest rates are going to increase from the financial sector on Wall Street, and the CBO, which calculates these numbers--everybody assumes the interest rates will go up some. How much, we don't know. They took a moderate increase in interest rates.
In 2009, this year, the interest on our debt is expected to be $170 billion. That is going to go up every year. Why? Because the deficit this year is going to be about $1.8 trillion. We have never had such a deficit in the history of the Republic. Last year, we had a $450 billion deficit, the largest deficit in the history of the Republic. This year, it will be $1.8 trillion. What does that mean? We have to borrow that money.
Over the 10-year budget window, as assumed by the CBO, the deficits will never fall below $600 billion. In fact, it will average over $900 billion--almost $1 trillion a year. That is how you get to $17 trillion after 10 years. So we have to borrow that money in the world marketplace. Countries such as China bought huge amounts of our Treasury. We pay them interest on that money. What does this mean over the 10 years? I think this can help the American people understand how sizable this debt is.
As I noted, we spend $100 billion on education federally and $40 billion on transportation. This year, 2009, we spent $170 billion on interest. In 2009, under the red line here on the chart, it will be $799 billion--$800 billion--money that we used to be in a position to do things with, such as build roads and do other things the Nation needs. That is now going to have to be spent every year--$800 billion--to pay interest. That is why Alan Greenspan, Wall Street experts, Ben Bernanke, and others have said this is unsustainable; we cannot continue this course.
What do we get from the Appropriations Committee and the Senate leadership? We get an Interior bill that increases funding 16.6 percent. That is not acceptable. That is simply too much spending. As I indicated, a lot of money is being pumped into Interior and environmental appropriations from this $800 billion stimulus. I am not counting that. This is baseline spending. So next year, if somebody in this Congress were to have an epiphany and become frugal, and we cut the budget and don't increase it a bit, what will be the average increase over 2 years? It would be 8 percent. That is totally unacceptable.
In the last 3 years, spending for interior and the environment, 2007 had a 5.6-percent increase; in 2008, a 3.7-percent increase; last year, minus 2.9. So you are averaging far less than that. This is a thunderous increase in spending in this Appropriations bill. I cannot support it. There are a lot of good things in this legislation, and I would like to support it. But I will not vote for a bill that increases discretionary spending by 16 percent.
Has anybody been in a townhall lately and talked to their constituents? How concerned are they? They think we have lost our minds up here. Have we not? Is the message not getting through? Look at this highway bill--a 23-percent increase in HUD and highway spending. It is 23 percent, and that doesn't include the stimulus money, which amounts to a 40-percent increase on top of that. This is baseline spending. When you put it in the baseline and do not make it an emergency, stimulus spending, you have created momentum for continuing increases in the future. How many people think we are going to cut spending for next year? How many people think we will have spending for HUD and transportation that will be below or equal to the inflation rate?
Unless the American people get heard soon, we will have another budget with a big increase. We have never seen 23 percent and those kinds of baseline expenditures before. I don't want to go on anymore at length. I don't want to vote against these bills. I would like to vote for the good things in them. But we have to simply recognize what we are doing is unacceptable. The American people are furious with us. They are rightly furious with us. We need to get our act together. When we had a shortage, one of the most significant votes I recall we took--it was so irresponsible--was when Senator Vitter, from Louisiana, offered an amendment that said the shortage in gas tax revenue that we find with the highway bill, that should be made up by taking money from the stimulus package. That had been unspent--$800 billion. If it only takes $20 billion or something such as that, that is what the bill was supposed to be for--crumbling infrastructure. He proposed that and it was voted down.
Why? Because they did not want to take a dime out of the $800 billion stimulus bill, even if it was not spent, and they wanted to fill that gap with more debt. Since we are already in deficit, to find another $20 billion or so to complete the highway bill over the next year or two, we just have to increase the debt. That is what we have been doing. It is an unsustainable course.
I urge my colleagues to begin to say no. Let's vote no on this legislation. Let's start sending the American people a message that we hear their concerns, we know their concerns are legitimate and right, and it is time for us to be responsible.
I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source