‘I urge my colleagues to vote with us — to get us out of the business of political theater and back to the business of governing in a fiscally responsible way’



Washington, D.C. –U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday regarding the motion to commit the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill in order to restrain spending and hold discretionary accounts to the overall amount that the President requested:



“We’re now in the fourth week of the new fiscal year, and Congress still hasn’t sent a single one of the 12 appropriations bills to the President. Those who made a lot of noise about Republican spending habits before last year’s elections are now making the same mistakes themselves.



“But there’s a difference. This year the Democrats are delaying the most essential business of Congress on a political gambit. They’ve stuffed this bill with so much extra spending it’s guaranteed to draw a veto. Once again, they’re setting up the kind of media circus that’s become so common this year.



“So instead of having a debate about the issues, about spending, we will have a non-debate played out in front of the cameras, complete with props and outrage. A story in Monday’s Roll Call laid out the strategy. It said Democrats think that a presidential veto of the Labor-HHS bill will allow them to paint the administration and Capitol Hill Republicans as ‘out of touch’ with average Americans, just as they tried to do with SCHIP.



“Well, it’s time to stop painting and to start legislating. The fact is, the Labor-HHS Bill is simply too expensive. It’s $9 billion over the President’s request, and we all know what that means. Next year, Democrats will use that figure as their baseline. And on and on in perpetuity. They expect taxpayers to forget how much they increase spending this year so they can say it isn’t that much when they do it again next year.



“Democrats like to downplay their spending hikes. But let’s stop for a second and take a look at what some of their proposed increases this year would actually look like down the line. The spending hike they are asking for in this one bill, if allowed to continue at the same rate, will cost the American taxpayer $120 billion over the next ten years. That’s equivalent to the entire budget of New York state, just in discretionary increases, just on this one appropriations bill.



“They’re telling taxpayers that their proposed $23 billion increase over the President’s request for this year’s appropriations bills isn’t that much. How about ten years? Well, the $23 billion they want this year, at the same rate of growth, will end up costing taxpayers $252 billion over ten.



“With $252 billion we could fund this year’s entire discretionary appropriation to the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Justice, Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, Department of Homeland Security, Interior, Energy — and still have more left over than the entire 2005 Massachusetts state budget.



“That’s what our Democratic colleagues are calling ‘not a lot of money.’ Only in Washington, D.C. could this kind of spending be ‘not much.’ We need to get serious about how we spend other people’s money. And if we don’t start on this bill, which represents the largest increase among all the appropriations bills, we won’t cut anywhere.



“So Senator Lott and I propose to send this bill back to committee and instruct them to prioritize spending in a way that’s responsible and which will secure a presidential signature. We cannot continue to use the government charge card knowing our children and then their children will have to pay the bill.



“Senator Lott and I move to commit H.R. 3043 to the Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report back with total amounts not to exceed $140.92 billion. I urge my colleagues to vote with us — to get us out of the business of political theater and back to the business of governing in a fiscally responsible way.”



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