[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 149 (Thursday, October 15, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10468-S10469]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE NATIONAL DEBT

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, the American people are rightly very 
concerned about the reckless spending being conducted in Washington 
spending that has resulted in huge national deficits. People sometimes 
think that Republicans and Democrats are just bickering, but the truth 
is that we have never had deficits such as these in the history of our 
country--perhaps only during the peak of World War II, when we were in 
a life-and-death struggle with millions of men and women in combat from 
one end of the globe to the other.
  The fiscal year 2010 deficit is $1.4 trillion. It is predicted to 
average $1 trillion for the next decade, without relief in the 
outyears. People often ask me: When are we going to start paying it 
back? There is no plan to do so. There is not even any plan to reduce 
the size of the deficit. In years 8, 9, 10, we are talking about over 
$900 billion in annual deficits. Interest today on our total debt is 
$170 billion, will rise to $800 billion in 1 year and that is just the 
interest on the money we must borrow in order to carry these deficits 
that are not being reduced in the outyears. It is unthinkable.
  A lot of people think that the high deficit is due to costs from a 
health care reform bill. Health care reform will add to the deficit, 
but is not currently counted in the numbers I referenced because the 
Congressional Budget Office did its scoring before any health care bill 
was written. We don't have a final bill, so CBO couldn't score it 
accurately anyway.
  The public debt will go from $5 trillion to $11.7 trillion in 5 years 
and triple to $17 trillion in 10 years, tripling the national debt. The 
total debt from the founding of the American Republic will be tripled. 
That is a big deal.
  My colleague, Senator Durbin, and our Democratic colleagues have 
taken great pleasure in attacking President Bush. I was critical of 
President Bush's spending, but his average deficit was $250 billion, 
which was too much and big. However, this year's deficit is going to be 
$1.4 trillion. That is the deficit as of September 30, for this fiscal 
year. And we will carry an average deficit $900 billion annually in the 
coming years. You can blame the origins of the deficit on President 
Bush if you want to, but President Obama's budget for the next 10 
years, scored by the Congressional Budget Office, continues to score 
deficits at $900 billion. Regardless, we are spending too much money. 
Republicans are guilty of it, and so are the Democrats. They promised 
to do better after they got elected this time, but I haven't seen any 
progress, frankly.
  The media has reported recently that the valuation of the Finance 
Committee's health care bill by the Congressional Budget Office was 
quite positive. They said--you may have heard the phrase--that it was 
deficit neutral. How did that happen? How can you add millions of 
people to the rolls of insured, and subsidize insurance for low-income 
people, all without having a cost? We need to examine that.
  The CBO says the Finance Committee bill would cost $829 billion over 
10 years, but they say it is not going to increase the deficit. It will 
increase the number of people covered but not increase the deficit.
  The Washington Post wrote:

       The Finance Committee's bill is the only legislation on the 
     table that meets Obama's objectives [. . .] all for less than 
     $900 billion over 10 years, and without adding to the 
     deficit.

  So that has been the spin. That has been the statement from the 
media.
  The President said in his September address to Congress that he would 
not sign a health care reform bill that adds one dime to the deficit. 
Senator Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman, said:

       Our balanced approach in the Finance Committee to health 
     reform has paid off once again.

  He said the bill was ``a smart investment on the federal balance 
sheet.'' Would that it were so, but that is not an accurate statement. 
The American people know you cannot expand coverage for millions of the 
uninsured without incurring cost. There is no

[[Page S10469]]

such thing as a free lunch. Money borrowed has to be repaid. If you 
make obligations to expand the federal government's role in our health 
care system, you must have the money to back it up.
  So how can the CBO make such a report? It is not because they are 
dishonest. It is because they scored the bill the Washington way, and 
the bill was written by Members of this body and staff who understand 
the Washington way. They write the bill in such a way to hide its true 
cost. Republicans have done this in the past, but we are reaching new 
levels of it today.
  Under the Baucus plan, true costs are hidden. The bill's requirements 
that all individuals have insurance does not fully phase in, for 
example, until 2014. However, new fees on insurers, medical device 
companies, drug manufacturers and cuts to hospitals and doctors take 
effect almost immediately. For example, hospitals will take cuts and 
see more patients beginning in 2010, but individuals are not required 
to have insurance coverage until 2014. If you are an insurance company, 
you will face increased taxes and new annual fees beginning in 2010, 
but again--individuals are not required to have insurance until 2014. 
Doctors' pay is kept stable in 2010, but under the Finance Committee 
legislation, doctors are expected to take a 25-percent pay cut 
beginning in 2011.
  Why have we been engaging in these budget gimmicks? Both parties have 
been guilty of doing this. Why don't we just make the difficult 
decisions? We have succeeded in balancing the budget in the past. But 
under the Sustainable Growth Rate formula as it applies today, our 
physicians the people that take care of us--would take a 25-percent cut 
in 2011. So, Congress fixes the formula, so to speak. We now call it 
the doctors' fix. We arrange for a short-term solution that keeps 
doctors' pay from being cut, but do not address the larger problem. If 
Congress were to fix the physician pay formula for 10 years, we would 
have about $300 billion more in costs to figure in to our budget as a 
deficit. The proposal that came out of the Finance Committee proposes 
to raise the doctors' fees for 1 year. It does not propose what is 
absolutely necessary: a 10-year fix for doctor pay. So, the Chairman 
acts as if an update to doctor pay will not happen in 2011 so that the 
bill does not have to reflect the true costs. And Congress will update 
doctor pay, as it has every year since 2002.
  The bottom line is this: the true costs of the Finance Committee bill 
will not begin until the new provisions are all phased in in 2014.
  The Senate Budget Committee estimates--and I am a member of the 
committee--show that the Finance Committee bill cost for 2014 to 2023 
is actually $1.8 trillion. So although CBO says that it costs $829 
billion from 2010 to 2019, if you look at numbers from 2014 to 2023, 
the cost is $1.8 trillion--twice as much--because the full benefits and 
expenses don't kick in until then that period.
  Budget gimmicks used to offset the bill are misleading. This is not 
an honest way to represent the bill's costs, and it is designed for 
political reasons. It is designed to make the score look better than it 
is and to hide the true cost of enacting this legislation.
  Let me use a chart.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used the existing time limit.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. The Senate Finance Committee bill is paid for in a 
number of ways. Perhaps one of the most unjustified claims is that we 
are going to produce $404 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid to 
fund an entirely new program.
  First, it is doubtful that Congress will actually vote to cut $400 
billion from Medicaid and Medicare. However, CBO must assume we are 
going to cut it because that it included in the Finance Committee bill. 
CBO also assumed in their budget that we were going to raise a lot of 
tax money by being more efficient in tax collections last year, but 
those new collections did not materialize either. The IRS said they 
wouldn't get them, and they were right. Our number one priority, if we 
were to somehow make Medicaid and Medicare more efficient and more 
honest and more effective and more productive and save $300 billion, 
that money should stay in Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare is going 
broke. We know that to be true. Medicare experts and the trustees 
issued a dire warning that unless measures are taken to shore up the 
program, it will be insolvent by 2017. We have known that for a long 
time. These $400 billion in cuts is very unlikely to happen. The rest 
of these basically are new taxes. I do not have time to go into them 
now.

  But imagine this scenario: your family is running in a shortfall and 
you do not have enough money for your business and you have agreed that 
you would take on a Saturday job to make more income, would it be smart 
to buy a new car? You have a debt. You are trying to pay it down.
  You take on more taxes, take on another job to bring in more income, 
but, in the midst of that, you start a new spending program? That is 
exactly what the Finance Committee bill proposes. Instead of getting 
Medicare on a sound footing, this bill raises taxes to create a new 
program. Supporters act like we should be thankful because it is 
deficit neutral, they say. That is not accurate. I know it, and every 
Senator in this body ought to know it if they have been around here 
very long.
  I am sorry about where we are headed. This sort of scoring is the 
kind of flimflam financial management that has put us on the road to 
tripling the debt of the United States in 10 years. It is an 
abomination. Our children will be paying interest on our debts for the 
rest of their lives. Indeed, the interest on our national debt today is 
$170 billion. In 10 years, CBO says it will be $800 billion a year. Yet 
we spend only $100 billion a year on education, by contrast.
  So I say, somehow we have to slow down, make some difficult choices, 
and recognize that we do not have the money to do everything we would 
like to do. We do not have the money, and Congress must be more serious 
and more committed to improving Medicare, saving the program, and not 
going hog wild with new programs that we do not have the money to fund.
  I thank the Chair for allowing me to go over and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business for 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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