Budget Negotiations

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are now in the countdown phase as to whether this government of the United States of America--the most prosperous Nation in the world--is going to shut down, turn out the lights, close its doors, and walk away. That could happen tomorrow night at midnight. If it does, it is an unmitigated disaster. There is no winner. No political party can claim they come out ahead in this exercise. It makes us all look bad--deservedly so.

So this morning I called into a local radio station in downstate Illinois, and the host said: You ought to hear the phone calls, Senator.

I said: I can guess what they are saying. What is wrong with those people in Washington that they can't sit down and reach an agreement? They are supposed to be our leaders. They are supposed to work out our problems. They are not supposed to throw up their hands and throw a tantrum.

That is, frankly, what will happen if we close down this government. Now, I think there are ways for us to reach an agreement. There are certain issues on which we all agree. Let me tell you what they are.

Our deficit and debt are serious national problems. They threaten our future, and they leave a legacy to our children and grandchildren we cannot defend. In order to reduce our deficit and our debt, we need to change in Washington. We need to cut spending, we need to be honest about it, and we need to tell the American people, whom we represent, what it means. Some of it will require sacrifice, but on both sides of the aisle there is no argument over what I just said. We need to cut spending, and we need to reorder the priorities of government.

But there is something more we need to do, and I credit two Minnesota legislators who wrote a letter to the New York Times a few weeks ago, who, I thought, in a few words put it

together. This Democrat and Republican wrote in and said: We are facing a fiscal crisis in our State, and what we have discovered is, we can't tax our way out of it. We can't cut our way out of it. We need to think our way out of it. We need to find ways to deliver essential services to the American people in a more cost-efficient way. We need to stop the duplication, waste, and inefficiency that are clearly part of our government today.

So where are we? We are involved in negotiations, primarily between the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Speaker John Boehner of Ohio. They are trying to work out an agreement so we can move forward and finish this year's funding. It is 6 months and a few days, but it is critically important we get it done. They are close. In fact, I would say--and I just asked Senator Reid if this was a fair representation--the dollar amount of this negotiation is all but completed. The dollar amount is all but completed, meaning that both sides have agreed how much we will cut spending for the remainder of this year.

To give credit where it is due, to Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans, there are significant cuts in their initiative in this area they can point to as part of the agreement. On the other side of the ledger, I think at the end of the day we will be able to say, as Democrats: Yes, we supported spending cuts, but we drew the line where we thought it was important for the future of this country. We made sure the cuts were not too deep in job training programs for unemployed and new workers in America. We made certain the cuts were not too deep when it came to education, particularly for children from low- and middle-income families. We made certain the cuts were not too deep when it came to medical research and the basic competitive research necessary for the American economy and businesses to expand--and a host of other things. But those three major areas of job creation, education, and research we fought for, and at the end of the day I think we can point with pride to the fact that most of those are going to be largely protected.

So we can both walk out of the room with some satisfaction that after all of this time, we have reached the point where the dollar amounts are in basic agreement--I am not going to say in total agreement but in basic agreement.

So why am I not standing here saying with certainty that the government will not shut down? Unfortunately, now the House Republicans have decided this is no longer a battle over the budget deficit; it is a battle over issues--issues that do not relate directly to the spending of our government or the size of our deficit.

One of the things they are insisting on is a group of riders that are part of H.R. 1, their budget bill, which restrict the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington to deal with environmental issues.

I totally disagree with the House Republican position on this, and they are insisting on it. I would commend to them to pick up that always scintillating volume, the Congressional Record, from yesterday and read what happened on the Senate floor. Yesterday, on the Senate floor the Democratic majority agreed with the Republican minority, and we called four amendments on the EPA. In fact, we said to the Republican leader, Senator McConnell: Write your own amendment. We will call it to the floor, and we will vote on it. It was a sweeping amendment which took the authority away from the EPA when it came to greenhouse gas emissions. I think that is the wrong position, but Senator McConnell had his right to offer it.

He got 50 votes in favor, 50 votes against. It failed, but we had the debate. We are not ducking this issue, I say to Speaker Boehner. We have faced it. We have voted on it. This Chamber has spoken on that issue and had three other debates and votes yesterday on EPA. None of those proposals got more than a dozen votes, but we have had the debate. We are not running away from it.

So to insist now, as part of any budget agreement, we accept the House position on the EPA is to ignore the obvious. The Senate has spoken. The Senate has debated and voted, and it is clear where we stand.

The second issue Speaker Boehner insists has to be part of this package is one that troubles me because it goes to the heart of some basic health programs for people across America. It is the title X family planning program.

Speaker Boehner's approach would eliminate the entire title X family planning program. How big an expense is this? Mr. President, it is $327 million.

Since 1970, title X funding has provided men and women in every State with basic primary and secondary health care, including annual exams, cancer screenings, family planning, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

In 2009, title X-funded providers performed 2.2 million pap tests, 2.3 million breast exams, and over 6 million tests for infections, including HIV. Title X services prevent nearly 1 million unintended, unplanned pregnancies each year, almost half of which would otherwise end up in an abortion.

Family planning programs such as title X not only give men and women command over their lives, they save us money. Every public dollar invested in family planning saves us almost $4--$3.74 to be exact--in Medicaid-related expenses. If we ended title X, as Speaker Boehner and the House Republicans insist, it would result in more unintended pregnancies and, sadly, more abortions, and it would result in more than 5 million women losing access to basic primary and preventive health care.

We are prepared to debate this. If the House Republican position is that we need to close these clinics across America and we need to eliminate access to basic primary health care to literally millions of women and men across America, I am ready for the debate. But to hold up this budget negotiation, to insist that unless the House Republican position of eliminating title X is accepted, we can't reach an agreement--we have to shut down the government? Does Speaker Boehner really propose we shut down the government of the United States of America unless we are willing to cut title X family planning programs and health clinics and close the doors of health clinics across America? Is that what the last election was about? I don't think so. I think the American people said in the last election: Get serious about the deficit and start working together and stop your squabbling. Those were the two basic messages I took out of it. Well, we are getting serious about the deficit because we are nearly in full agreement on the dollar cuts necessary for the remainder of this year.

I don't remember the last election being a referendum on whether poor people and children in America would have access to health care at title X clinics. H.R. 1 included an amendment from a Congressman from Indiana that barred Planned Parenthood from receiving any Federal funding, including Medicaid reimbursements, CDC grants, and teen pregnancy prevention program funding. Planned Parenthood health centers provide comprehensive care to millions of low-income and uninsured individuals each year. Forty-eight percent--1.4 million--of their patients are on Medicaid and would lose access to their primary care.

This provision is presented as a means to prevent Planned Parenthood from using Federal funds for abortion. However, Federal law already prohibits the use of Federal dollars for abortion--that is not the issue--except, under the Hyde amendment, which goes back decades now, in cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is threatened by the pregnancy.

Abortion counseling represents 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's services. Yet this amendment, this rider from Congressman Pence, would ignore that. Ninety percent of the care provided at Planned Parenthood is preventive care--cervical and breast cancer screening, family planning, sex education, and the treatment of infection.

If this amendment were enacted, most of the 800 health centers in the United States and 23 centers in Illinois, including in my hometown of Springfield, would be forced to close.

This prohibition on Planned Parenthood funding is a rider on the House budget bill that is now the stumbling block for an agreement on deficit reduction for the remainder of the year and keeping the government open. It is ridiculous that Planned Parenthood, which receives title X funding, should be such a target and should be an obstacle to an agreement.

We understand the conscience clause restrictions that are in the law when it comes to the issue of abortion. That is not what this is about. This is about family planning. And those of us who personally oppose abortion believe women should be given the information and opportunity to take care of themselves and make their own family decisions. That is what Planned Parenthood is about. This amendment would close down those clinics across America. I believe that is a move in the wrong direction.

We can work together, and we should, to deal with this budget deficit.

Paul Ryan is a Congressman from Janesville, WI. I know him. I like him. We worked together for almost a year on the deficit commission. He is a bright, hard-working young man and chairman of the House Budget Committee. He has proposed a plan for the budget for the next 5 to 10 years. It is not a plan I agree with, but I respect the fact that he put the time in to prepare it. The reason I don't agree with it is that, unlike the Bowles-Simpson commission, the budget plan Congressman Ryan has proposed does not really deal in a comprehensive and fair fashion with the challenge of the deficit. Here is what I think and the commission believed: If we are serious about the deficit, we need to put everything on the table--everything.

What Congressman Ryan has done on the Republican side is to say we are not going to put on the table any savings from the Pentagon over the next 10 years. That is hard to imagine--$500 billion-plus a year we spend at the Pentagon and no savings? While we are cutting programs in every direction, we can't find a way to protect our men and women in uniform, keep America safe and secure, and eliminate the obvious waste of money that goes on with much of the contracting in the Pentagon? Of course we can. I am sorry Congressman Ryan doesn't see that. I do, and I believe it should be part of the conversation.

Secondly, there is no suggestion of any revenue at all as part of the solution. In fact, Congressman Ryan goes in the opposite direction and continues the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. If we are worried about explaining to our children and grandchildren how we can leave them this debt, how can we explain Congressman Ryan's position that would have us borrow over $1 trillion over the next 10 years to give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America? How can we explain to our children that we are going to go to China to borrow money to give tax cuts to wealthy people in America as we cut our deficit? That is his approach. I don't think it is complete and balanced.

There is a better way. We need to look back to the Bowles-Simpson commission, the deficit commission, and we need to move forward, after we finish this debate on the budget for the rest of the year, in a comprehensive and bipartisan fashion.

For months--literally for months--I have been engaged in a bipartisan effort with some colleagues in the Senate. We are trying to come up with something. I don't think everyone will applaud it. I know some of my colleagues will hate it. But it is going to be an honest approach to dealing with the deficit for the next 10 years. It is going to have the same Bowles-Simpson goals of $4 trillion in deficit reduction and will include all of the major elements of our government in the conversation. I think that is the only way to honestly approach this. We can reach that debate once we get this immediate problem resolved.

So the point I wish to close with is this: We are at a moment here where we can resolve this issue, keep our government open, and move into the larger debate about our deficit in the years to come. It is morally a historically imperative debate, but in order to get beyond it, I hope Speaker John Boehner, whom I respect as well, will accept the obvious. His riders on the Environmental Protection Agency were debated and voted on in principle already in the Senate yesterday. It has happened. We are not avoiding it. Second, their rider relating to zeroing out funding for Planned Parenthood under title X funding is one we will take up at some point. We are not running away from it. But it is one that shouldn't stop the function of this government. It would be impossible to defend closing down our government, and all of the hardship that would follow, over that one rider--or two riders--they are insisting on.

Let's move toward reducing the deficit, but let's also reduce the political rancor. Let's put some of these issues, which have been around for decades, off to another day. Let's make sure we consider them--and we will--but let's move forward now to keep this government open. Let the American people at the end of this week look at us and say: In the end, they got it right. We didn't like the way they reached this point, but they didn't do the irresponsible thing and walk away from their responsibilities. They accepted their duties, they kept the government functioning, and now they can roll up their sleeves and deal honestly with this deficit.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source