[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 17, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3130-S3132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND WAR OF 1812 BATTLEFIELD PROTECTION ACT--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 146, which the 
clerk will report by title.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A motion to proceed to the bill (H.R. 146) to amend the 
     American Battlefield Protection Act of 1996 to establish a 
     battlefield acquisition grant program for the acquisition and 
     protection of nationally significant battlefields and 
     associated sites of the Revolutionary War and the War of 
     1812, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.


                     The Budget And Reconciliation

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I listened this morning to President Obama 
as he spoke on the budget. In attendance with him were the chairmen of 
the Budget Committees in the Senate and the House, Chairman Conrad and 
Chairman Spratt. Essentially, the President was defending his budget, 
as proposed and sent up here to the Hill.
  His theme was we should not pass on problems to the next generation. 
Thus, he said, his budget took on the issue of energy and took on the 
issue of health care as being core questions that need to be resolved 
now and not be passed on to the next generation. I could not agree with 
him more--first, that we should not pass on problems to the next 
generation, and, secondly, we should take on the problems we have 
today. And they are fairly big.
  Where I disagree with him is the conclusion that the budget he sent 
up here does not pass problems on to the next generation. In fact, it 
passes the most significant problem on to the next generation, which is 
that it so greatly expands the size of Government in such a short 
period of time with so much borrowing that it basically will bankrupt 
our children and our children's children as a result of the cost of 
Government going forward.
  People do not have to believe me to recognize this. All they have to 
do is look at the President's budget. In 5 years, the President's 
budget will double the national debt. In 10 years, the President's 
budget will triple the national debt. To try to put this in 
perspective, if you take all the debt the U.S. Government has run up 
since the beginning of our country--from George Washington all the way 
through to George W. Bush, that total amount of debt--in 5 years it 
will be doubled under this budget, as sent up by President Obama.
  Now, a lot of that debt that is being run up in the short run I am 
not going to claim is inappropriate in the sense that it is something 
that is under his control or that he is responsible for as President. 
In fact, I agree that we as a nation need to expand our spending as a 
government in the short run in order to try to address this 
recessionary period, and specifically to try to stabilize our financial 
situation, our financial system. I do not happen to agree with the 
stimulus package which was passed. I do not agree with the omnibus 
package which was passed. They were both profligate and unfocused, 
money being spent inappropriately and inefficiently. But I am willing 
to accept the fact in the short run there has to be a spike in our 
national debt in order to address this recession.
  What is not tolerable, however, is that under this budget, after the 
short run--after this period from 2008, 2009, say, through 2011, when 
the recession, by all estimates, will hopefully be over--we will still 
be running the debt up radically, as sent up by this President. In 
fact, it doubles in 5 years, but it triples in 10 years, which means 
there is--I am not aware that a recession in the last 5 years of this 
budget is being proposed; I certainly hope it is not being proposed, 
but certainly there is nothing that requires that type of a radical 
expansion in our debt over that period.
  The practical implications of this doubling of the debt are that by 
the time the budget gets into the year 2013, the public debt of this 
country will be, as a ratio of GDP, 67 percent of GDP. I suspect when 
CBO scores the President's numbers at the end of this week it will 
probably be close to 70 percent of GDP. What does that mean? Well, try 
to put this in perspective.
  Prior to the recession, our public debt--that is the debt held by 
people such as the Chinese, for example, and the Europeans--our public 
debt--the debt which we sell to the world in order to finance our 
Government--was about 40 percent of our gross national product. That is 
an acceptable level. Most economists will say we can tolerate a debt to 
gross national product ratio of 40 percent. But when it gets up to 
around 70 percent, when it gets over 60 percent--when it gets into 
those numbers--it is not tolerable. You might be able to tolerate it 
for a little while, for a few years, but you cannot tolerate it for an 
extended period of time. What the President is proposing is that 67 
percent of public debt to GDP ratio--which will be over 70 percent, I 
suspect, when it is rescored that goes on forever.
  In addition, the deficit, beginning in the year 2012, under the 
President's budget, will be at 3 percent to 4 percent of gross national 
product. Now, historically, over the last 20 years--prior to the 
recession--the deficit has been around 2 percent of gross national 
product. Why is it important to keep that down? Because every time you 
run a deficit, you add to the public debt. When you get into the 3- to 
4-percent range of annual deficits as a percentage of GDP, you are 
essentially adding so much debt so quickly every year that basically 
your Government becomes unaffordable. That is the bottom line here.
  What happens, as you go into the outyears when you triple the debt 
and keep the deficit at around 3 percent or 4 percent of GDP the 
currency starts to be under pressure. The dollar becomes questioned as 
to its value. People start asking, especially in the international 
community: Do we dare buy American debt? In fact, you heard, 
regrettably, the Chinese Premier raise that issue already. If you 
cannot sell the debt and you cannot finance the Government, you do not 
have too many choices. You must move to inflation. That is not a good 
choice for Americans.

[[Page S3131]]

  So basically what you are putting in place is a structural debt and a 
structural deficit under the President's proposal which simply is not 
affordable, which means our children are either going to be overwhelmed 
by a tax burden or they are going to find a country where inflation is 
rampant or basically the standard of living has dropped significantly.
  Why does this all happen? Well, it happens primarily because under 
the President's budget he is taking spending up radically. Sure, in the 
short run that may be acceptable because we are trying to address this 
recession. But he does not bring spending back down to its historic 
levels.
  This chart I have in the Chamber shows you that the historic level of 
spending of the Federal Government has been at about 20 percent of 
gross national product. We have been up and down around 20 percent for 
years. But under President Obama's proposal, he radically moves the 
Government to the left, greatly expanding the Government role in all 
sorts of areas: in energy, in health care, in education. As a result, 
he takes Federal spending up to 23 percent of gross national product 
and keeps it there for as far as the eye can see and revenues stay down 
at about 19 percent, so you have this big structural deficit in here.
  Even if you were to take revenues up to 23 percent of gross national 
product, the practical effect would be that you would be wiping out 
most people's incomes with taxes. The President says he is only going 
to raise taxes on the wealthiest in America. That, first, is inaccurate 
because he has put in this proposal a massive carbon tax, which is 
basically a national sales tax on electricity, and every time you turn 
on your electric lights, you are going to end up with a new tax, a new 
national Federal tax. But independent of that, he cannot get this debt 
under control with this type of spending level unless he radically 
increases the tax burden on working Americans--all Americans--to a 
point where basically productivity would drop significantly in this 
country, and that would be a self-fulfilling event, of course. Once 
productivity drops, your revenues drop, and you never get back to an 
efficient marketplace and, therefore, you probably aggravate the 
deficit.
  But the problem is, this huge debt he is running up and passing on to 
the next generation--this tripling of the Federal debt, about which he 
says: We do not pass problems on to the next generation--this is a 
pretty darn big problem that is being passed on to the next 
generation--is driven almost entirely by spending, spending at the 
Federal level, which he greatly expands.
  Under the proposal which he has put forward as a blueprint--this 
budget proposal--his way of solving the health care problem is to 
essentially nationalize health care. His way of solving the educational 
problem is to essentially nationalize the student loan program. His way 
of solving the energy problem is not to produce more energy in America, 
it is basically to significantly increase the cost of energy in America 
to all Americans by putting in place a carbon tax, which is a national 
sales tax.
  His way of addressing the issues which we confront, which are 
reasonable, philosophical approaches, is to significantly increase the 
size of Government and, thus, the cost of Government and, thus, to 
create this huge debt, this massive debt, which we are not going to be 
able to finance and which is, therefore, going to threaten the economic 
strength of our Nation and clearly give our children something less 
than we received. Therefore, when he says he is not going to pass the 
problems on to the next generation, the exact opposite is true. He is 
creating a huge problem for the next generation in the way he wants to 
spend this money.
  Now, there is a second issue I want to address today. That goes to 
the issue of the substance of the points made today at the press 
conference. This could be addressed, of course--this issue of spending 
and those questions regarding these major public policies--if he wanted 
to reach across the aisle and approach things in a bipartisan way.
  Senator Conrad, the Chairman of the Budget Committee, and I have 
proposed an idea calling for a commission with fast-track authority 
which essentially would talk on the big issues which drive this 
spending problem--health care, specifically; Social Security, also; and 
tax policy--and would allow us, in a bipartisan way, to come forward 
and grapple with these issues and put forward ideas as to how to solve 
them and bring under control these numbers so they are affordable and 
so we do not run up this massive debt on our children. That is a 
bipartisan initiative which I am totally committed to.
  In the area of energy, there are a number of bipartisan initiatives 
which make sense. But we are now hearing that rather than proceeding on 
a bipartisan path to try to address these issues, they are going to 
think about using something called reconciliation. That is a term of 
art around here. Most people do not know what it means. But what it 
essentially means is that you say here in the Senate that the Senate 
will function as an autocracy, it will function like the House of 
Representatives, that you will have the ability to bring to the floor a 
bill which will not essentially be amendable and which will only take 
51 votes to pass.
  Reconciliation was a concept enacted as part of the congressional 
budget process, and its use has evolved. Its purpose was to reconcile 
the budget. In other words, if the numbers on spending around here did 
not meet the budget, then there would be a bill to correct that, so 
that if the appropriations numbers were not correct or the entitlement 
numbers were not correct or the tax numbers were not correct, there 
could be a bill that comes through called reconciliation, which would 
follow the budget resolution.
  Sometimes over the years, it has been used in an aggressive way. It 
was used to adjust already existing programs--authorized programs, 
entitlement programs, and tax proposals. President Bush used it 
aggressively on taxes. In 1997, President Clinton used it aggressively, 
along with a Republican Congress, on everything--entitlements and 
taxes--but it was always directed at existing policy and adjusting that 
policy. In other words, we were raising the tax rate or dropping the 
tax rate, changing an entitlement program in some way that already 
existed or not changing an entitlement program.

  Reconciliation has never been used for the purposes of putting in 
place a dramatic new Federal program which will fundamentally shift the 
way the Government functions in this country. It has never been used in 
the sense of an ab initio event or program.
  The carbon tax--or, as I call it, the national sales tax on electric 
bills--is a massive exercise in industrial policy, totally redirecting 
how energy is produced in this Nation and affecting everybody in this 
Nation because everybody's energy bill will be increased as a result of 
this tax, especially in the Midwest and in the Northeast. It is a brand 
new program--something we have never seen before. It is a huge program. 
Obviously, rewriting the health care system of this country is a 
dramatic exercise affecting absolutely everyone in this Nation at all 
sorts of different levels. It is a brand new, major program. These are 
initiatives of significant size and import. Reconciliation was never 
conceived to undertake those types of events, those types of 
initiatives.
  You can't bring to the floor of the Senate a bill which totally 
rewrites the way people produce and pay for energy in this Nation with 
a brand new national sales tax, under a rule that says you will get 20 
hours of debate and no amendments, and have the Senate function as is 
its purpose, which is to be a place of discussion and amendment. It 
would function like the House of Representatives, that is true, but it 
would basically eliminate the Senate as a concept and it would go right 
directly at destroying the purposes of the Senate. The same, of course, 
is true, to bring a major initiative--to basically rewrite health care 
completely--basically quasi-nationalize it, as far as I can see, is the 
proposal--but to have a massive health care initiative which would 
affect everything that has to do with health care brought to the floor 
of the Senate under reconciliation would be to fundamentally undermine 
the purposes of the Senate, which is to discuss, debate, and have the 
right to amend major public policy. I can't think of two things which 
would be more significant public policy than those initiatives.

[[Page S3132]]

  Yes, if they used this system of reconciliation, they would take 
serious risks because they would be subject to something known as the 
Byrd Rule on public policy, but just the concept that they would be 
thinking about this is the reflection of their willingness to ignore 
the concept of bipartisanship which we hear so much about. If you are 
going to talk about reconciliation, you are talking about something 
that has nothing to do with bipartisanship; you are talking about the 
exact opposite of bipartisanship. You are talking about running over 
the minority, putting them in cement, and throwing them in the Chicago 
River. Basically, it takes the minority completely out of the process 
of having a right to have any discussion, say, or even the right to 
amend something so fundamental as a piece of legislation of this 
significance. It also, I would note, takes anybody who disagrees, even 
on the majority side, out of the discussion, anybody who disagrees with 
the actual document brought to the floor under the reconciliation 
instructions.
  So using reconciliation in this manner, on this type of an issue, 
would do fundamental harm--fundamental harm--to the institution of the 
Senate. Why even have a Senate if you are going to use reconciliation 
on something this significant? You might as well just go to a 
unicameral body and be like Nebraska: just have one body. It would be 
the House of Representatives because that would be the practical effect 
of using reconciliation. It is such a dangerous precedent to set or to 
even discuss because by discussing it, you basically devalue the 
purposes of the Senate, which is to amend and debate and have an open 
forum; one where, as Washington said, the hot coffee can be poured from 
the teacup into the saucer. The Senate is supposed to be the saucer. It 
is supposed to be where we get an airing, and certainly on issues of 
this size we should have it.
  So I certainly hope we have no further discussion of the idea of 
using reconciliation for the purposes of pursuing either a national 
sales tax on energy called the carbon tax and the policies it would 
imply for industrial policy relative to energy production in this 
Nation or for the massive rewrite of health care.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I agree wholeheartedly with the warnings 
issued by my friend, the Senator from New Hampshire, whose service on 
the Budget Committee has been very valuable, and I hope everyone has 
taken careful heed of his words for what we need to do in the future.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________