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Senator Byrd: Bush Has Failed Us!
Senator Robert C. Byrd delivered the following remarks as the Senate Budget Committee prepares to debate and vote on the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2005. The Budget Committee is scheduled to work on that budget beginning on Wednesday, March 3, 2004.

With the release of the President's budget for the Fiscal Year 2005, and the upcoming markup of the Fiscal Year 2005 budget resolution, it's now clear that the promises made by this Administration during the 2000 election have not been kept. . . . Contrary to the promise made four years ago to ensure the Social Security benefits promised to our nation's workers, our retirement and disability system has become more vulnerable. . . . Contrary to the promise made four years ago to make health care more affordable, drug prices continue to rise and health insurance remains unobtainable for too many Americans. . . . Contrary to the promises made four years ago to protect our nation's vital industries, this Administration's tax and trade policies have been an unmitigated disaster, with an alarming number of jobs being lost overseas. . . . Contrary to its assurances that it could be trusted to act as a prudent and responsible manager of our nation's fiscal policies, the Bush Administration has demonstrated neither prudence nor fiscal responsibility. . . . The IMF, an international organization normally concerned with the debt problems of third-world nations, has issued an alarming critique of the United States, pleading with the Bush Administration to rein in its massive budget and trade deficits. Similar warnings have emanated from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, from former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and from the U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. Even the Administration's own political allies, ranging from the conservative Heritage Foundation to private-sector economists who endorsed the President's tax cuts, have pleaded with this Administration to get its fiscal act together. . . . The Administration is forcing working-class Americans not only to shoulder a massive debt burden, but also to give up those federal programs and services from which they most benefit. . . . The financial perils underlying the Social Security program were brought to light this week when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan forced the President to confront the fact that his Administration has been hiding from for three years now: if we continue on the fiscal course set by this Administration, we will lose the only opportunity we have left to save Social Security. . . . It's absurd that the Administration is proposing to cut vital domestic investments while billions and billions of dollars are lost every year in the Pentagon's broken accounting system. . . . To date, contrary to the modern tradition of an Administration funding large scale, ongoing wars, at least in part, through the regular appropriations process, the Bush Administration has refused to request funds for the war in Iraq in its annual budget. The Administration waits until funds for the troops are almost exhausted before requesting additional funds through a Supplemental. . . . The Bush Administration's purpose is clear – to limit debate, to limit discussion, to limit having to explain to the American people how much this war will cost and how many lives will be lost before it is over. . . . This year, however, the political posturing has gotten worse. Not only did the President not include any funds in its budget for the ongoing operations in Iraq, the Administration has announced that no supplemental will be sent to the Congress until after – after – the November elections, depriving the American voters of any opportunity to judge the president based on his promises about the costs of a war in Iraq. . . This is a budget of gimmicks, false promises, and unrealistic expectations. It's a budget of misdirection, canards, speciousness, spuriousness, sophistry, equivocation, fallacies, prevarications, and flat out fantasy. Worse, under the guise of reining in budget deficits, this Administration is continuing its assault on the values of the working class. . . . This is an Administration of corporate CEOs and Texas oil men. The corporate elite of this Administration did not grow up wondering if their parents could afford to send them to college. Their parents did not have to choose between paying for groceries and paying for health care. They do not stay up late at night worrying about whether they will lose their pension benefits, or whether Social Security will be enough to provide for their retirement. . . . When the Administration proposes to cut these programs or fails to provide adequate resources for them, it's because it has no personal understanding of the plight of America's workers and how much the President's budget cuts affect middle-class America.

posted by LoZo 5:15 PM