[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 28, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6602-S6604]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         RESPONSIBLE BUDGETING

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a package of 
initiatives which were reported out of the Budget Committee, the 
purpose of which is to put some order into our financial house and to 
try to make the Government of the United States an affordable event for 
its citizens, especially for younger people who will be working to 
support the next generation as it retires.
  This package has been grossly misrepresented by the other side of the 
aisle, especially by the leader on the other side of the aisle and by 
the assistant leader and by other Members who have come to the floor. 
They have taken out the bloody shirt of Social Security and waved it at 
this package in a totally irresponsible manner. Therefore, I think it 
is appropriate to come to the floor and point out what the facts are 
versus what they believe the politics should be.
  The facts are rather startling, regrettably, as we head into the 
retirement of the baby boom generation, which is the largest generation 
in our history. The cost of supporting that generation, which will have 
to be paid by our children and our children's children, is 
astronomical.
  There is now pending on the books of the Government $65 trillion--
that is with a ``T''--of unfunded liability. What does that mean? That 
means we have programmatic obligations on the books of the Government--
obligations to retired people, primarily--which will cost $65 trillion 
more than what we know will come into the Government under the present 
projections. In other words, we do not have the money to pay for it. We 
do not know where the money is going to come from. But we do know we 
have these obligations on the books.
  To try to put a trillion dollars in perspective, or this number into 
perspective, since the beginning of the Nation, since the beginning of 
our country, we have only collected $40 trillion in taxes--only. We 
have collected $40 trillion in taxes: a lot of money. The total net 
worth of America and Americans--if you take all our cars, all our 
houses, all our stock, all our businesses--is $51 trillion. So we have 
on the books an obligation which exceeds our net worth as a nation.
  We have to figure out how we are going to afford to pay for that, 
especially how our children are going to afford to pay for it because 
they are the ones who are going to bear the burden.
  To try to put this in even more precise perspective, three programs--
three retirement program, specifically; Social Security, Medicare, and 
Medicaid--will cost the American taxpayer more, as we head into the 
year 2025, than what the total Government cost the American taxpayer 
today as a percent of gross national product. Traditionally, the 
Government of the United States has spent about 20 percent of the gross 
national product of America. These three programs alone, as a result of 
the retirement of the baby boom generation--which is the largest 
generation in the history of our country, by a factor of two--will cost 
the American taxpayer everything that we presently pay into the 
Government by the year 2025.
  So that means, at that point, to pay for those three programs, you 
would be unable--if you were going to maintain the historical spending 
of the Government--you would be unable to pay for national defense, for 
education, for environmental cleanup, for all the other things the 
Government does.
  And that is only the start. Because as that baby boom generation gets 
into fuller retirement, the cost of those programs continues to go up. 
What does that mean in practical terms? It means our children and our 
children's children, in order to support the retired generation, would 
have to pay a dramatic increase in taxes under the present scheme.
  Basically, it would mean our children would be unable to afford a 
better lifestyle. They probably could not send their kids to college, 
buy a house or purchase a car the way our generation has been able to 
do because they would be sending so much of their money to the Federal 
Government to support these basic programs which are mandatory. It is 
not a tolerable proposal for our country. We cannot say, as one 
generation, that we are going to put on the books obligations that make 
the next generation pay so much in taxes that they essentially would 
not be able to live the quality of life we have. We would undermine 
their quality of life, and it is not fair to them.

  What we did in the Budget Committee was try to address this, not by 
policy changes but by putting in place processes which will force us to 
face up to fiscal discipline, which will force us as public 
policymakers, the Senate and the House and the executive branch, to 
look at these numbers, these facts which exist. And they will not 
change unless we do something because the

[[Page S6603]]

generation that is going to cost all this money is already alive. It is 
my generation, the baby boom generation. We are this huge generation. 
We are going to cost our children these types of dollars. It is not 
going to change unless we do something.
  It will force us, as public policymakers, to face up to this reality, 
these proposals which came out of the Budget Committee. The major point 
is, we have a huge problem coming at us as a Government, as citizens, 
and as parents. You can't tax your way out of it. You cannot possibly 
raise taxes enough to pick up the cost of these programs and still give 
earning Americans an opportunity to live well.
  So what is the reaction from the other side of the aisle? They want 
to immediately attack any proposal, even though this one has no policy 
attached to it--it simply has processes which force a policy to occur, 
no specific policy to occur--attack any proposal as an attack on Social 
Security. How grossly irresponsible is that? How incredibly 
inappropriate is that? Does the other side of the aisle believe that 
our children should be faced with a burden which they cannot possibly 
afford? That seems to be the case. They have walked off the playing 
field of responsible public policy, waving the bloody shirt of Social 
Security for the purposes of political gain. It is inexcusable on their 
part.
  What is the proposal we brought forward, this outrageous proposal 
which, according to the other side, is so outrageous? It is pretty 
simple. It is very responsible. It is an attempt to get at the essence 
of the problem we have today. It has eight parts. The first part puts 
back in place an idea which the other side of the aisle offered 2 years 
ago. Yet now they claim it is horrific, the statutory caps, which says 
on discretionary spending, that when we put caps in place, they will be 
enforceable. Today we put caps in place, but they get waived around 
here like buying peanuts. This goes back to the old Gramm-Rudman 
approach, where you have enforceable statutory caps. That means we set 
a number. We agree, as a Congress, this is how much money we are going 
to spend. Then we say: You actually can't spend more than that, unless 
you have a cut somewhere else.
  That is totally irresponsible, according to the other side. We did it 
a few years ago. It worked. In fact, Chairman Greenspan said it was the 
most significant budgetary reform that has occurred around here in a 
long time. We are suggesting we put it back in place. It affects 
discretionary spending, which is every year spending, not mandatory 
spending.
  The second idea--I will skip down so we can go in order--is to put in 
place a BRAC Commission. We had a BRAC Commission for defense spending, 
and it worked. We did it five times. This is a BRAC Commission for the 
whole Government, same idea, same philosophy. It says, take a look at 
the programs and then have the Commission send the ideas to the Senate 
and then the Senate has to vote for them or against them. It is a 
reasonable approach to trying to do something which we have not been 
able to do on a one-by-one basis. It is a broader approach.
  It also has the President's proposal for a line-item veto or 
expedited rescission. It is a better proposal than what the President 
actually sent us because it is more balanced relative to the 
legislative branch and the executive branch. In fact, it is an idea 
that passed the Congress. In 1996, we voted for a much stronger line-
item veto than this. It gives the President the ability, when we send 
him these omnibus bills that have billions of dollars of spending in 
them, rather than veto the whole bill and shut down the Government, for 
example, he can now put together a package of specific programs in 
those bills that he doesn't think make sense, send them up here, and 
Congress has to vote on them in an expedited process, for or against 
them. Obviously, he will have to send up a package which has majority 
support or else it will not get passed.
  And we put in language which says that to the extent there is a 
rescission as a result of this, the savings have to go to the deficit. 
That is a very strong idea, in my opinion.
  We also have biennial budgeting, an idea which people think will be a 
more effective way for us to address budgeting. We are now effectively 
in a biennial process anyway since every year there is an election, we 
can't pass a budget around here; at least we haven't in the last three 
election cycles, both under Democrats and Republicans.

  And then there is reconciliation reform. The essence of the package 
is the mandatory reform effort, the effort to try to address this chart 
where Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are essentially going 
to bankrupt our children, unless we do something intelligent about it. 
This is where the other side of the aisle has been so grossly 
irresponsible--first, in characterizing it, because they have been 
factually inaccurate, and then abandoning the field of debating the 
issue and coming up with other processes, if they believe they are 
better ideas. The first approach is something that passed this Congress 
already. It basically says that if Medicare for 2 years in a row is 
found to take more than 45 percent of its support out of the general 
fund--Medicare is supposed to be a hospital insurance program, not 
supposed to be supported by the general fund--if for 2 years in a row 
it is supported by general taxation by more than 45 percent of its 
costs, then a point of order is put in place, which can be waived by 60 
votes, so it can be waived against any new entitlement spending. It is 
a reasonable approach. It is actually not that strong an approach, but 
it is something that basically highlights the problem.
  Then we get to the more substantive policy driving events. An 
Entitlement Commission is put in place. This is where the other side 
has grossly misrepresented the facts and then taken out the bloody 
shirt and attacked the facts which they grossly misrepresent. And 
that's a great idea. First, you make up what the position is, and then 
you attack that position. And then you take absolutely no responsible 
position on your own part, which is exactly what the other side has 
done. Obstruction has become the only thing which the other side of the 
aisle appears to be able to do, obstruction for the purpose of 
obstruction for the purpose of obtaining power around here.
  When are they going to face up to the fact that we are supposed to be 
doing policy which addresses the needs of our children especially and 
the affordability of the Government specifically?
  What is the Entitlement Commission? It is a group of people who are 
put together. They are chosen by the leadership of both sides of the 
aisle. There will be eight Republicans and seven Democrats, if it were 
to be put in place today. Eight and seven, that is not an overwhelming 
majority for our side of the aisle. And it takes 10 members of the 
commission to put together a report to be sent under expedited 
procedures.
  The leader on the other side of the aisle says: This is an outrage. 
It is a Republican steamroller. Tell me what is the steamroller. Eight 
to seven representation, takes ten people to put out a report? And then 
the other side of the aisle goes so far as to say: And they can't 
consider taxes.
  That is a total misrepresentation also. They can consider taxes under 
the Entitlement Commission. And then they say: 51 votes are going to 
pass it. That is a total misrepresentation again. The proposal takes 60 
votes to pass.
  In response to the issues raised by the Senator from North Dakota in 
the markup of this bill and because I accepted the fact that maybe it 
wasn't structured correctly the first time around, we responded to that 
concern. The other side of the aisle, the leadership of the other side 
of the aisle not only doesn't give us credit for responding to the 
concerns of the Senator from North Dakota because we changed it so that 
it became a balanced commission--we changed it so that it takes a 
supermajority to report from it and then it takes a supermajority to 
pass it--they not only don't acknowledge the changes, they would say 
that we didn't make the changes and then attack the proposal and put 
forward absolutely no policy of their own.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. GREGG. No, I won't yield. I think I have heard a significant 
amount from the other side of the aisle that has been irrelevant, 
inaccurate, and incorrect. And yielding at this time would limit my 
time.
  The third item in this is the ability of the Congress to reduce the 
deficit as

[[Page S6604]]

a percentage of gross national product. We know that if we don't get 
the deficit down, our children are going to get all these debts. So 
what we put in a place as a mechanism that says essentially the 
deficit, as a percentage of gross national product, shall be reduced as 
a percentage of gross national product every year until we get to a 
balanced budget, essentially a balanced budget by the year 2012, and if 
we don't hit those deficit targets--and they are fairly reasonable 
because actually the next 2-year targets we have already hit or we will 
hit under present projections, so this doesn't even kick in, and it 
doesn't look like it is going to kick in because it looks like we will 
get to a balanced budget--should we not continue on that path, then 
what will happen is there will be a reconciliation instruction because 
we know that 60 percent of all spending around here goes to mandatory 
accounts. We will say to the mandatory account committees: Reconcile 
your accounts so that they can be brought into line with these 
projections for the deficit to head to zero.

  What does that mean? That means that there will be policy changes 
which will allow savings to occur. I presume those policy changes, to 
the extent they affect entitlement programs such as Social Security, 
Medicare, and Medicaid, will tie into the Entitlement Commission 
report. Should those two mechanisms which force policy to be addressed 
not be accomplished, then you go to a sequester on entitlement 
mandatory spending, something that has never happened around here. And 
I don't expect it would ever happen because one presumes responsible 
people would want to make the policy changes to get to the targets 
rather than allow it to happen automatically.
  So where is the irresponsibility here? Well, the irresponsibility is 
on the other side of the aisle, which has buried its head in the sand 
of obstructionism because it wants to take power around here. It feels 
that if it doesn't do anything, if nothing is done around here, then 
outrage will occur and people will vote them into power. How cynical is 
that approach to governance?
  I have said I am willing to adjust this. In fact, on the Commission, 
the Senator from North Dakota suggested that we change the makeup and 
make it all Members of Congress versus outside individuals. I am 
amenable to that. If he wants to bring that amendment forward, fine. 
The Senator from North Dakota at the markup said: It doesn't consider 
tax increases. Actually, the Commission can consider tax increases. But 
I said: Let's take it to the floor and discuss the issue of pay-go or 
tax-go, as I would call it, which is the only proposal from the other 
side of the aisle, to raise taxes. But no, the response is: This is 
going to savage Social Security. This is going to undermine Social 
Security. This is going to privatize Social Security--all the words the 
pollsters have told them to use to try to get reelected.
  I will tell you what is going to savage Social Security. It is going 
to be my generation retiring and demanding the benefits that they have 
been paying for all of our working life and having our children have to 
pay for those benefits. Our children are going to get up in arms and 
say: We would like to buy a house. We would like to send our kids to 
college. We would like to have the good life you had, and we can't 
afford it because you put this huge tax burden on us. Because you, 
during your term of office, were unwilling to be responsible and 
address these issues.
  We have tried to be responsible. We have tried to bring forward a 
package which should be debated and which should be effectively moved 
forward in order to try to reverse the direction which we are 
inevitably going toward, which means if we stay on this course, we will 
eliminate the capacity of our children to look forward to the 
Government. So we brought forward this package which we call stop 
overspending. It may not have all the elements it needs. It clearly 
needs some tweaking here and there. I don't limit that. But it should 
not be attacked in the way that it has been attacked through the 
demagoguery of Social Security's bloody shirt being waved at it.
  That is not responsible. That is not governance. That is simply 
obstructionism for the sake of political gain.
  At this point, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.

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