Remarks in the U.S. Senate by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois:

In a few minutes the Senate will gather here to vote on the continuing resolution which funds our Federal Government, in this case for 2 weeks. It is hard to believe we have reached that point in Washington where we are going to fund our government 2 weeks at a time. Critics may look at us and say that certainly the men and women who serve in the House and Senate ought to be able to gather together, to sit down like adults, Democrats and Republicans, and really plot the spending and budget for our government for at least the remaining 7 months of this year. It does not seem like an unreasonable request. Instead, we appear to be lurching from 1 month to 2 weeks, and I don’t know what is next.

What is at issue is how much money will be spent in the remainder of this year and whether we will follow the House lead in a bill known as H.R. 1, the House budget bill, which made $100 billion in cuts for the remainder of this year. The Senate has already made some $41 billion in cuts in an effort to use these spending cuts to reduce the deficit, but the House wants to move that to a higher level.

I just returned this past week from a visit to my State when we had a week of recess and went from one end of the State to the other to measure the House budget cuts and their impact on my State of Illinois. What I found is, in community after community, many of the cuts that were made by the House were not done in a thoughtful manner.

I was a member of the deficit commission. I acknowledge we have to deal with this deficit in a timely and serious way. I was 1 of the 11 who voted for the commission report, and I stand by the commission report, at least in its goal to bring all of our spending on the table and to look at it seriously so we bring this deficit down and not saddle our children and grandchildren with this obligation to pay off our debt. But we took a measured, thoughtful approach and engaged all levels of government spending to reach our goal.

The House took 14 percent of the Federal budget, the so-called domestic discretionary section, and made all the cuts there–all of them. As a result, they went too far. Let me give an example of how they went too far.

My last visit was to the Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago. I had representatives there from the Fermilab, a national accelerator laboratory in the same region. The resulting cuts from the House budget will reduce the amount of money available for those two key national laboratories by 20 percent. That sounds painful but not crippling; yet it is because it is a cut that has to take place in 7 months.

In the Argonne National Laboratory, they will have to lay off one-third of their scientists and support staff and cut back their research by 40 to 50 percent for the remainder of this year. Well, so what. What difference would it make? Here is the difference. Right now, the Argonne National Laboratory is doing critical research and work in areas of innovation. Where is the fastest computer in the world today? Good old USA, right? No. The fastest computer in the world today is in China. We have been doing research to make sure we develop the next “fastest computer.” It is not just bragging rights either; it is developing the technology that helps us develop our economy and develop our businesses and create jobs.

Part of this laboratory, the Advanced Photon Source, brings in pharmaceutical companies from all over the United States that test drugs that cure disease. They do it right there, Argonne National Laboratory.

I asked the person from Eli Lily what happens if they close down for the next 6 months.

He said: I don’t know where we will go. We may have to go overseas.

I said: Where?

Well, Europe, he said, or perhaps India or China.

Time and again, there is a recurring theme here. When we back off of an investment in America, our competitors have an advantage and an opportunity. That is why the House budget was so shortsighted to cut back in research and innovation.

The day before, I had gone to the Northwestern University Cancer Research Center and met with 50 or 60 medical doctors and researchers who said the cuts in the House budget would force them to lay off medical researchers for the remainder of this year. Is there anyone among us who has not had a moment in life when someone sick in their family needs help? You look for the best doctor and best hospital and ask that question we all would ask: Doctor, is there anything going on? Is there a drug we can turn to? Is there some experimental opportunity here?

The clinical trials that are part of the National Institutes of Health will be cut back by 20 percent during the remainder of this year. The oncologist at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine said: I have 100 people suffering from cancer who are gravely ill, and unfortunately I can only put 80 of them in a clinical trial because of these budget cutbacks. Senator, which ones should I turn away?

That is why the decisions on cutting money should require more than just bragging rights of how much you cut. We should be thoughtful. We should not cut education and training; that is tomorrow’s workforce. The Pell grants that are denied today stop children, young people from low-income families, from going to school and getting an education and being prepared for the workforce. The cutback in innovation and research we have seen here with this House budget goes too far. The idea that we cannot invest in basic infrastructure for America so our economy moves forward is so shortsighted.

Today, we are likely, by a strong bipartisan vote, to extend the budget of the U.S. Government for 2 weeks. In the meantime, we have to sit down and be honest, honest about reducing the deficit in a thoughtful way that does not cripple our economy, that does not kill basic research, that does not stop the job training and education we need for the workforce of the 21st century because, I will tell you this, if we don’t think about it carefully, our competitors around the world, particularly the No. 2 economy in the world today–China–will have an opportunity for a toehold and an opportunity to move forward at the expense of American businesses and American workers.

In this recession, with 15 million Americans out of work, we cannot afford to make the wrong decision on our budget. We have to sit down and make the right decision, carefully cutting waste and inefficiency–and there is plenty of it–but not cutting the essential services of our government that will build our economy and give us a chance to succeed in the future.

Mark Zandi, who is with Moody’s, has said that H.R. 1, the House budget, will literally kill 700,000 jobs in America. With 15 million Americans out of work, is that the best Congress can do? I don’t think so. Let’s be thoughtful about what we are going to do. Let’s make sure we get this economy moving forward and creating good-paying jobs for Americans so we can walk into a store someday, pick up a product, flip it over, and smile when we read “Made in the U.S.A.” Wouldn’t that be a great thing to prepare for by spending our money, investing our resources today for the workforces and businesses of tomorrow?