Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016 -- Conference Report -- Continued

Floor Speech

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, we are here debating choices. They
happen to be choices about our budget, about the future of our Nation
that will be determined by choices we make about how to invest.

That is the key concept at stake in this very momentous moment as we
consider choices for how to invest in middle-class financial security,
and all that goes along with it, job creation, infrastructure,
education funding, clean energy research. All of those choices are
critical to the future of our Nation, and we will make disastrous
choices if we adopt the budget that has come to us in the conference
report for fiscal year 2016 because it fails to understand the need for
investment in our future.

We are in danger of leaving a lesser America--an America that for the
first time in our history will reflect a lesser Nation left to our
children and their grandchildren. All generations before us determined
that they would sacrifice, that they would give back and pay forward.
Yet now, sadly, in fact tragically, we endanger their future by failing
in those investment decisions.

The conference agreement would cut trillions of dollars to domestic
programs without seeking revenue. In
fact, it relies on gimmicks that undermine its integrity--a significant
gimmick, for example, accounting, $2 trillion in tax revenue from the
Affordable Care Act while at the same time repealing that law. It
relies on trillions of dollars in supposed savings without detailing
how those savings will be accomplished.

At the very least, we owe a measure of integrity to the American
people. We can disagree about choices, but at least we should be honest
about how revenue is supposed to match the spending we allocate. The
proposal before us would, in fact, repeal the Affordable Care Act,
which has already allowed more than 16 million Americans to obtain
health insurance, access preventive services, and save money on their
premiums. It would cut more than $1 trillion from Medicaid, reversing
the expansion that has provided health insurance to millions of
Americans.

Too many Americans are still struggling, and yet this budget would
cut funding for job training and employment services. It would
eliminate the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which provides vital
support for small manufacturers in Connecticut and across the country.
Time and again, we have learned that education is the key to a brighter
future for our children. Yet, tragically, this budget would cut the
funding across the spectrum of American education, from universal
prekindergarten, which would be slashed, to college affordability,
where loan programs would be decimated. In fact, instead of making
college more affordable, this budget decimates two critical programs
that would help future students pay back loans. Remember, the average
student debt in this country is in the tens of thousands of dollars. In
Connecticut, it is about $30,000, conservatively estimated.

This budget would increase student loan payments for millions of
borrowers, and it would slash Pell grants--increase the cost of loans,
cut the amount of grants available that enable students to avoid
borrowing. In fact, it would cut the Pell Grant Program by nearly 30
percent and eliminate other important Federal subsidies.

These moneys are not spending, they are investments in our future,
the futures of those students whose hopes and dreams will be
constrained, undercut, and killed but also the future of our capacity
to manufacture and compete around the globe because what we have--more
than any other nation--is very smart, skilled people. That is why
companies are coming back to this Nation after outsourcing.

One of these programs, the Pay as You Earn Program, caps monthly
student loan payments at a level that is proportionate to their
earnings and forgives debt after 20 years of repayment.

But the Republican budget would require cuts to this program in a way
that could increase required monthly payment increases of more than 50
percent to some borrowers, and it paves the way for eliminating the
Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which assists students with
debt payments for those who go into public service professions, such as
teaching, firefighting, and policing. This program ought to be
especially close to our hearts because we purport to be engaged in
public service and to provide a role model for young people who engage
in public service.

I am particularly concerned about this program's impact on our
railroads, roads, bridges, and airports. We know those facilities as
infrastructure--the magic word in the Senate, ``infrastructure.'' In
fact, we had a hearing just this morning in the Commerce, Science, and
Transportation Committee on the importance of fully funded, long-term
investments in our Nation's highway transit and rail system.

We heard testimony from the public and private sectors about how
important a revitalized and reinvigorated transportation network is for
American competitiveness, American businesses, and American
professionals to compete in the world. Yet, through this budget, we
will not only sanction, but we will encourage and enable an inadequate
investment in infrastructure. The budget conference report before us
would cut funding for highways and mass transit by 40 percent over the
next decade. There may be no more important fact to know about this
budget.

So I regret that I will vote against this budget because I wish, as
do many of my colleagues, that we could reach a bipartisan measure that
will embody the best in America, not encourage a retreat from our
public obligation.

In fact, I think America is ready to invest, ready to give back and
to pay forward. In fact, I believe our wealthiest Americans are ready
to do more and approve closing loopholes and ending subsidies, not
making blanket cuts to vital programs, not cutting taxes for
millionaires, as this budget would create a pathway to do, not forcing
another 12 million middle-class families and students to pay for
college by ending the American opportunity tax credit or adding $1,100
more in burdens on them, and not forcing 16 million middle-class
families to pay a $900 tax hike by ending the expansions of the earned-
income tax credit and child tax credit. I think our most fortunate
Americans are ready to pay forward and do more and invest and, in fact,
make more sacrifices, which is the way this budget ought to be
arranged. And it isn't even a matter of sacrifices on the part of
anyone; it is ending the subsidies for outsourcing to ensure that
everyone pays their fair share without those hidden tax breaks and
subsidies that can be closed.

I hope we can do better than this. I urge my colleagues to join me in
opposing the budget conference report.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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