SENATOR HUTCHISON DISCUSSES THE FY2009 BUDGET

I, like many of my colleagues, have been reviewing the chairman's mark that came out of committee and the results from last week's markup. I am impressed with parts of this budget. There are some priorities in here that I share with the chairman and the committee. It fully funds the defense budget. It fully funds NASA, including the additional $1 billion that Senator Mikulski and I sought last year to reimburse the agency for the Columbia disaster, because we know NASA has been pulling from operating funds to repair the damage done from the Columbia disaster, and this has kept it from keeping up its research commitment.

We cannot have an agency that is supposed to be doing the state-of-the-art research and pushing the envelope not only in aeronautics but in science and medicine. Yet we have a billion-dollar shortfall taken from the research that could fuel scientists for years to come.

It funds the America COMPETES Act, which improves education, and that is such an important priority for us to remain competitive. We need more of our young people to go into science and engineering, the physical sciences, the hard sciences.

We are losing our edge in this global marketplace. Congress, in a bipartisan way, did pass the America COMPETES Act, and there is funding for much of that in this bill.

We must extend the sales tax deduction, which is a provision that is close to my heart because my State and seven others have a sales tax but no State income tax. So we believe it is a matter of equity that sales taxes be deductible, rather than just the State income taxes which is available to all of the other States but not available to the seven States that do not choose to fund their Government with an income tax.

These parts of the budget deserve our attention and support. However, this budget has a major flaw. Before long the budget had increased $22 billion above the President's request. We have now found that over the period of time that it has languished in the Senate committee, we are now looking at what appears to be a ballooning of that increase in spending. Yet the budget projects a surplus of $177 billion in 2012, $160 billion in 2013, and yet the budget has increased by $210 billion over 5 years.

Now, how can we have this increase in spending and yet still have surpluses? My economics 101 tells me there has to be a catch because we know there is no free lunch. So in addition to the large spending increases, the budget includes the largest tax increase in the history of America, $1.2 trillion. The budget allows the incredibly beneficial tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 to expire.

Now, these are the tax cuts that spurred our economy and created millions of new jobs in our country. It spurred the growth in our economy. When these tax provisions expire, 43 million families with children will have to pay an average of $2,300 more each year, and 18 million senior citizens will owe $2,200 more on average. Twenty-seven million small businesses, the engine of economic growth in America, will owe $4,100 more in taxes on average. Almost 8 million low-income workers will be added back to the tax rolls.

Especially during this time of economic uncertainty, why would we ask our fellow citizens to pay more and rob the jobs that have been created with the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003?

The first thing we did when we saw the slowing economy was, on a bipartisan basis, have an economic stimulus package. And what was the crux of the stimulus package? It was to give money back to the people who have paid taxes in rebates to help spur the economy. So why would we turn around in this budget and increase taxes and ask the people to whom we just gave rebates, that will be in the mail in the next 6 weeks, to pay more?

Consider what a $2,300 tax burden would pay if the average American family could keep the money they earned in that amount: groceries for about 8 months, health care expenses for about a year, electricity and home heating oil for about a year, and gasoline for the car that we know is now rising as we speak.

How can we consider taking money away from families when we are seeing the strain of this economy be a burden on those same families? This budget makes great promises for American families, but it also pulls the rug out from under them by saying: Here is the burden we are going to give to you to pay for this big Government spending budget.

So I hope as we consider the budget this week that we will take a serious look at keeping some of the major priorities, but having the good sense to cut in other places or to remain steady in other places where there is not the essential need right now. We do need a budget that looks out and says for the long-term competitiveness and vitality of our country and our society and our work concerns and our work force: We do need to spur investment. We need to spur research. We need to have more engineers and scientists graduating from our universities, and we can do that by funding NASA fully, by funding the American COMPETES Act. We must do that for the long term. But why not do what every family in America does when we have essential needs for long-term planning, but we are on a limited budget and we want to bring down that deficit? And that is, make choices.

Can we not come together and make choices just as we came together for the stimulus package? The last thing we want to do, since we did pass a bipartisan stimulus package which the President's supported, is to wipe it all out and say: Well, we are going to give you back a little bit but we are going to take more. We are going to take more at a time when we know America is a little jittery about the economic condition and looking to the future of the economy and our country.

I hope we will do what we can on a bipartisan basis and hash out what the priorities are and that we can have the priorities in spending without the ballooning budget and the tax increases they propose to pay for this ballooning budget.

We do not need tax increases. We need to make the tax cuts permanent that have helped so many people get back to work, get on their feet, small businesses make investments, and keep our economy going when this home mortgage crisis is trying to sort itself out.

Unless we can make some major changes in this budget, I cannot imagine supporting it. But we do have time. We do have time to do the right thing. I am hoping we go through the amendment process, that we make the choices that will take the taxes out, will put the priorities in, and will get our 10-year plan started that will create jobs, that will create more opportunities for scientists and engineers to graduate from our colleges and universities and have good careers, solid careers, because we have made the right investments in 2008.

I yield the floor.

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