[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 76 (Tuesday, June 11, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5337-S5338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
INCREASING THE PUBLIC DEBT LIMIT
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will
report S. 2578 by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2578) to amend title 31 of the United States
Code to increase the public debt.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the bill for the third
time.
The bill was read the third time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill having been read for the third time,
the question is, Shall the bill pass?
Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr.
Helms), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), and the Senator from
Idaho (Mr. Crapo) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 68, nays 29, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 148 Leg.]
YEAS--68
Akaka
Allen
Baucus
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Cantwell
Carnahan
Cleland
Cochran
Collins
Craig
Daschle
DeWine
Dodd
Domenici
Durbin
Edwards
Feinstein
Frist
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Hutchinson
Hutchison
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lott
Lugar
McConnell
Mikulski
Miller
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Thomas
Thompson
Thurmond
Voinovich
Wellstone
Wyden
NAYS--29
Allard
Bayh
Campbell
Carper
Chafee
Clinton
Conrad
Corzine
Dayton
Dorgan
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Fitzgerald
Graham
Gramm
Harkin
Hollings
Inhofe
Kyl
Lincoln
McCain
Sessions
Shelby
Smith (NH)
Smith (OR)
Stabenow
Torricelli
Warner
NOT VOTING--3
Bond
Crapo
Helms
The bill (S. 2578) was passed, as follows:
S. 2578
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. INCREASE IN PUBLIC DEBT LIMIT.
Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States
Code, is amended by striking ``$5,950,000,000,000'' and
inserting ``$6,400,000,000,000''.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote and I move
to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I rise today to offer my support for
increasing the federal debt ceiling by $450 million. This is a
difficult issue and I well understand that we need to raise the debt
ceiling. We have troops conducting military operations overseas. We are
working here at home to address critical national security needs. But
if we hadn't acted today, the United States would have been on the
verge of defaulting on its debt for the first time in history. This is
unacceptable.
However, now that we have voted to raise our debt limit, we must
begin an honest and open debate about why we are having this vote. I
want to make it crystal clear that I believe we need to extend the
budget enforcement procedures and establish reasonable discretionary
spending caps as soon as possible.
At the beginning of last year, the Congressional Budget Office
projected a ten-year surplus of $5.6 trillion and the debt ceiling
seemed to be high enough to last through fiscal year 2008. That all
changed, however, as the projected big surpluses first started to
decline last year and then dramatically changed into a $2.7 trillion
deficit. We know that the current deficit is the result of last year's
tax cut, the recession, and the tragic events of September 11, 2001.
One of the most important actions we can take for the nation's future
economic stability is to pay down the national debt. According to
Chairman of the Federal Research Board, Alan Greenspan, paying down the
national debt lowers interest rates and keeps the capital markets and
investment going. In January, he told the Senate Budget Committee that
one of the reasons long-term rates have not come down is the sharp
decrease in the surplus and the diminishing prospects for paying down
the debt.
I want to make it clear that the change in our fiscal situation has
driven estimated federal interest costs higher: CBO has boosted its
projection of federal interest costs in 2002 through 2011 from just
over $600 billion a year ago to $1.6 trillion. The dramatic downturn in
the federal budget will force taxpayers to pay $1.2 trillion more in
debt payments, money that could have been used to invest in additional
defense, homeland security, education, and job training.
Our total budget must be crafted within the need to maintain fiscal
discipline, and stimulate economic growth through continued federal
investment in education and job training, while also protecting the
environment. Furthermore, we need to invest in our nation's economic
future by making a commitment to public research and development in
science and technology--maintaining our status as a global leader.
It is a balance. We must make these investments to secure our
country. But we must do so within a framework that ensures we don't
spend beyond our means. If we want our economy to be strong, if we want
revenues, and if we want to make the right decisions, we need to keep
paying down the debt.
Having spent time in the private sector, I can tell you this: No
private sector organization thinks it can spend its way out of
programs; nor can we as a country. This is why I supported and
cosponsored the Gregg-Feingold Budget Enforcement Amendment last week--
and why I will continue to work with my colleagues on extending the
pay-as-you-go budget enforcement procedures as well as setting up
reasonable discretionary spending limits.
Some voted against this debt limit increase today because it had not
been paired with procedures for a fiscally disciplined framework. I
certainly empathize with that position. We are in tough times. And
tough times force us to make tough decisions. Today's vote was one of
them.
Mr. CONRAD. Madam President, I voted against S. 2578, a bill that
would increase the public debt limit by $450 billion.
I support taking action to increase the debt limit, in order to
protect the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. Frankly, we
have no choice but to raise the limit. The United States must pay its
bills. What I cannot support, however, is increasing the limit without
also putting in place procedures for arresting this dramatic downturn
in our nation's fiscal health.
I want to provide a little background on how we arrive at this
juncture. You might remember that a little over a year ago, when the
Bush administration submitted its first budget, we were told that, even
with the enactment of the President's proposed tax cut, we would not
hit the Federal debt limit until 2008. By August, with the tax cut
enacted, the administration acknowledged it was wrong and that we would
actually hit the debt limit in 2004. By December, that estimate was
moved up again, with the Treasury Secretary admitting the debt limit
would be reached within months and pleading with Congress to raise the
limit so that the United States wouldn't default on its financial
obligations.
And, I should not, the administration didn't just request a small
debt limit increase. It requested a $750 billion increase, which would
constitute the second largest one-time increase ever-surpassed only by
the $915 billion increase
[[Page S5338]]
signed into law by the President's father during his term in office, in
November 1990.
That dramatic turnaround in events followed a period of rapidly
falling deficits in the 1990s and 4 years of surpluses. In total, as a
result of the fiscal discipline put in place in the 1990s, we paid down
$400 billion of publicly-held debt and were on the path to eliminate
our debt in preparation for the retirement of the baby boom generation.
What a sad turn of events we now face today.
It is imperative that we find a way out of this mess. Last week, we
were close in the Senate on adopting a bipartisan deal to restore
budget discipline and prevent us from digging the hole any deeper. That
deal would have extended PAYGO and the Budget Act points of orders, and
set a cap on discretionary spending for 2003. Unfortunately, our
Republican colleagues blocked its consideration. It seems that many in
this chamber are still in denial about the dire position we find
ourselves in today as a result of last year's tax cut, the brutal
attacks on this nation last September, and the slowdown in the economy.
Let me state again that the Congress has an obligation to ensure that
the government avoids default, an event that would have severe
consequences for our financial markets and for the government's cost of
borrowing funds. However, I feel just as strongly that we should either
have passed a much smaller increase--in the range of $100 billion to
$200 billion--or passed the current bill in conjunction with the
adoption of bipartisan budget measures that would help us stop the
fiscal bleeding and return the budget to a path of balance. Simply
increasing the debt limit does nothing to force the President and this
Congress to deal with the very real fiscal problems we now face today,
problems that will only worsen as the baby boomers begin retiring over
the next decade. I feel we missed a great opportunity today to adopt
those measures as part of the increase in the public debt limit.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, today the Senate voted to increase the
debt limit by $450 billion. I agree with many of my colleagues that
raising the debt limit is the responsible thing to do. We must protect
the full faith and credit of the United States government and we are
dangerously close to debt limit. The Department of Treasury has already
used extraordinary measures to avoid a default. The time for action is
now.
However, I also believe that we must put pressure on the Congress and
the Administration to find solutions to our budget problem. We must
work together to restore fiscal discipline to the Federal government.
The bill approved by the Senate would raise the debt limit by $450
billion which will provide sufficient funds for the government to
operate through next spring. I opposed this increase. I would have
supported a smaller increase in the debt limit--$150 billion, for
example--that would prevent a default but would force an agreement on
our budget issues this fall. It would have given us leverage to force a
solution to our budget problems.
The debt limit must be raised. It is the responsible thing to do.
However, a smaller increase would have kept the pressure on the
Congress and the Administration to come to agreement on a long term
solution to put our fiscal policy back in touch and develop a plan to
eliminate our budget deficits.
Mr. HATCH. Madam President, as a longtime proponent of a balanced
budget amendment to the Constitution, I rise to speak concerning S.
2578. While we are told that this bill will increase the Nation's debt
limit, what we really voted on today was whether to keep the statutory
commitment that Congress has made to the Social Security trust fund.
Social Security's current surplus is the main reason we need to raise
the debt limit. Every single dollar of that surplus goes into the
Social Security trust fund, and by law, every single dollar of the
trust fund counts as part of the total Federal debt. Social Security is
expected to run a $160 billion surplus this year, with an even higher
surplus next year. Ironically, in order to place that surplus in the
Social Security trust fund, the law requires us to increase the debt
limit. Only in Washington, DC, can running a surplus increase your
level of debt.
Of course, the debt that is included in the Social Security trust
fund is just money that the Treasury owes to itself. What really
matters for the Government's budget and for the U.S. economy as a whole
is the amount of debt held by the general public. Over the last few
years, as a Republican Congress put the brakes on spending, debt held
by the public actually fell, lowering the amount of money our
Government had to spend on interest payments. However, the war on
terrorism, our current recession, and Congress's recent extravagant
spending have combined to increase the public debt over the past year.
While it is important for Congress to meet its statutory
responsibilities to the Social Security trust fund by increasing the
debt limit, it is even more important that Congress get its fiscal
house in order by working to cut discretionary spending and restore the
economy's health.
Time to act on the debt limit is running out. In fact, the Secretary
of the Treasury says that the main reason he has called June 28 the
``drop-dead'' date for raising the debt limit is because on that day,
Treasury is scheduled to make a large payment into the Social Security
trust fund. I am pleased that the Senate voted to raise the debt limit
today, and we can get a final bill to the President for his signature.
Finally, now that we have voted on this wartime increase in the debt
limit, I hope that Congress enacts tough budget caps, strong limits on
discretionary spending, and productivity-enhancing legislation so we
can bring our budget back into balance and restore the American economy
to its full potential.
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