[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 201 (Thursday, December 24, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14132-S14134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              CONTINUED FINANCING OF GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

  The VICE PRESIDENT. The clerk will report H.R. 4314.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 4314) to permit continued financing of 
     Government operations.

  The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on the third reading of the bill.
  The bill (H.R. 4314) was ordered to a third reading and was read the 
third time.
  Mr. CONRAD. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. 
Bunning) would have voted ``nay.''
  The VICE PRESIDENT. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 60, nays 39, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 397 Leg.]

                                YEAS--60

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burris
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--39

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Bunning
       
  The VICE PRESIDENT. On this vote, the yeas are 60, the nays are 39. 
Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the passage of this 
act, the act is passed.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. REID. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, we have debated whether to increase the 
amount of money the Federal Government can borrow at the same time that 
we created a massive new entitlement program that will cost the Federal 
taxpayer trillions of dollars over the coming decade.
  Sponsors of the Reid bill have claimed that their bill would reduce 
the deficit and extend the solvency of the Medicare trust fund. We 
heard today from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that these 
claims are false.
  In reviewing the Reid bill, CBO stated that claims that the bill 
would both improve the government's ability to pay future Medicare 
benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would double 
count a large share of those savings and overstate the improvement in 
the government's fiscal position.
  My Republican colleagues and I have argued for 3 weeks now that the 
Reid bill takes money from Medicare and spends it on a new, 
unsustainable health care entitlement. Instead of strengthening the 
Medicare Program, today we received confirmation that the Reid bill 
robs Medicare to the tune of nearly $\1/2\ trillion and threatens its 
solvency.
  CBO has said that this robbery does not really strengthen the 
solvency of the Medicare Program. Instead the bill uses government 
accounting gimmicks to merely make it look like it is doing something 
to help the Medicare Program.
  The Reid bill cuts $470 billion from the Medicare Program. Rather 
than reserving those monies to pay for future Medicare benefits, the 
bill spends those monies to pay for a new program to provide health 
insurance for the uninsured.
  But because of government accounting rules, any savings are assumed 
to be used to purchase government bonds that will be saved to pay for 
future expenses. That allows sponsors of the bill to claim that they 
are extending the solvency of the Medicare trust fund.
  As the only accountant in the Senate, I find it disturbing to see the 
government using its accounting rules to allow it to spend these 
savings twice. The sponsors of the Reid bill are counting the savings 
towards the Medicare Program at the same time those monies are being 
spent to pay for other Federal spending.
  This would constitute fraud in the private sector. If they had to 
come under the same laws as private business, the administration and 
Congress would go to jail.
  If there is any doubt, listen to what the Congressional Budget Office 
said:

        Unified budget accounting shows that the majority of the 
     [Medicare] trust fund savings would be used to pay for other 
     spending under the [Reid bill] and would not enhance the 
     ability of the government to redeem the bonds credited to the 
     trust fund to pay for future Medicare benefits.

  This means the claim that the Reid bill strengthens Medicare is 
false. The bill robs Medicare to pay for new spending.
  Unfortunately this example of government accounting is just one 
example of the growing problems that our Nation faces. Our Nation's 
debt is now more than $12 trillion and our deficit for fiscal year 2009 
was over $1.4 trillion. As a percentage of the economy, our deficit is 
10 percent of GDP--the highest it has been since the Second World War. 
We are faced with increasing the debt limit at a time when our Nation's 
credit card is maxed out.
  I worry about the country that I am leaving for my children and 
grandchildren. Our Nation is being buried under a mountain of debt, 
which poses

[[Page S14133]]

a deadly threat to the future of our Nation.
  The government will make up the current deficit by borrowing more 
money, mostly from China and other foreign governments. These levels of 
debt are not sustainable. The Chinese Government already made it very 
clear that they are growing apprehensive about our ability to pay these 
debts.
  As China's apprehension grows, the interest rates we pay on our debt 
will grow. That means that it will soon cost us considerably more to 
allow Washington to continue to borrow the money it needs to fund its 
current spending binge.
  As the Chinese Government grows concerned about financing 
Washington's appetite for rampant spending, it should give everyone in 
this Chamber pause. Our most fundamental duty as Members of Congress is 
to wisely manage the power of the purse for our Nation. Congress is 
currently failing to carry out this obligation.
  According to David Walker, the former head of the GAO, at the end of 
fiscal 2000, the Federal Government had about $20.4 trillion in total 
liabilities, commitments, and unfunded promises for Social Security and 
Medicare. That number rose to $56.4 trillion at the end of fiscal 
2008--a 176-percent increase in just 8 years. By the end of this year, 
that number is expected to have risen to $63 trillion.

  On January 15 of this year, the Senate Budget Committee held a 
hearing on the long-term outlook for Federal debt. We heard testimony 
from a bipartisan panel of experts, including Dr. Richard Berner, chief 
global economist for Morgan Stanley; Dr. Allen Sinai, president and 
chief global economist/strategist for Decision Economics, Inc.; and Dr. 
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office.
  Some of these economists were Democrats and some were Republicans, 
yet all three agreed that the long-term outlook for U.S. debt was grim 
and that our Nation's creditworthiness was at risk without a plan to 
address the costs of future entitlements and the multiple bailout/
stimulus proposals Congress has passed.
  All three panelists endorsed bipartisan commission concepts to 
address entitlement spending such as the one sponsored by Senators 
Conrad and Gregg. And the experts all agreed that the current budget 
process needs to be reformed to remove incentives to deficit spend. Yet 
none of those recommendations are evident in the legislation we are 
voting on today.
  Dr. Sinai--one of the Democrat's invited witnesses from that day--
testified that we have exceeded several tipping points in 
creditworthiness in the U.S. economy, but the only reason we don't feel 
the effects of it now is because ``everyone else is drowning too'' and 
investors are fleeing to quality. But how long can that continue?
  Further, Dr. Sinai states:

       The deficit and debt prospects under almost any scenario 
     are daunting, with deficit-to-GDP and debt-to-GDP ratios not 
     seen before in a G-7 country. This territory is uncharted 
     with no real historical analogue to this kind of financial 
     situation for a major global economic power. . . The answer 
     to whether the U.S. can afford all of the initiatives on its 
     wish list--economic, societal, defense, and otherwise--is no.

  Dr. Holtz-Eakin echoed similar statements from other panelists and 
strongly urged Congress to adopt a plan that conveys to markets a clear 
path for stabilizing and reducing the debt burden.
  That panel appeared before us in January, but we still lack any 
coherent plan to stabilize our debt. Just last week on Tuesday, Dec. 
14, the Peterson-Pew Commission released its first report, Red Ink 
Rising: A Call to Action to Stem the Mounting Federal Debt, which 
encourages lawmakers to act immediately to stabilize the national debt.
  Crafted over the past year by former heads of the CBO, OMB, GAO, and 
the congressional budget committees, the report strongly urges Congress 
and the President to commit immediately to stabilize the debt at 60 
percent of GDP by 2018 and develop a specific and credible debt 
stabilization package in 2010. But there is nothing in this debt limit 
bill that does either of these things.
  Some Senators will argue today that raising the debt ceiling is the 
only fiscally responsible choice before us. I disagree. A vote to raise 
the debt ceiling is merely a vote to raise taxes on our children and 
grandchildren.
  This cycle of kicking our responsibilities to the next generation 
must stop and it must stop today. In my view, the only fiscally 
responsible choice is to live within our means and balance our Federal 
budget.
  A newspaper columnist, Diane Badget from Lovell, WY, said it best 
when she wrote how her mother would react to what is happening in 
Washington today. Diane wrote, ``Momma always said, `If you don't have 
enough money to buy a quart of milk you don't take someone else's hard-
earned cash and buy ice cream.' ''
  If we fail to heed that warning, we will be responsible for passing 
along unsustainable costs and obligations to our children and 
grandchildren. That is where the Reid bill is taking our country.
  The only remaining question is whether we will have the courage to 
stop this process and preserve our Nation's strength for future 
generations.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to express my great concern 
about the need for the legislation before us, which would increase the 
Nation's debt limit.
  It is sad and disturbing that the last vote we will take this year 
before recessing for the Christmas holiday is one to increase the 
already almost unimaginably high $12 trillion debt ceiling.
  What a horrible gift to deliver to the American taxpayer on this 
Christmas Eve. In a season when most families have cut back their own 
spending and, in many cases, cut up their own credit cards, the 
Democratic majority is asking us to increase the Nation's credit card 
limit so that they can continue to take on more debt to cover their 
voracious appetite for spending.
  Up until a few days ago, the Democratic leadership was actually 
looking for a way to increase the debt limit by more than $1.8 
trillion, which would have been more than twice as much as the largest 
previous increase in the debt limit. They were looking for a virtual 
blank check to continue their unrestrained deficit spending all the way 
through next year's election.
  The fact that the majority party could not come to a consensus among 
its own ranks on this outrageous plan is evidence enough of the 
brashness and hubris of the other side. Apparently, even a drunken 
sailor can be embarrassed enough to show a modicum of restraint if the 
price tag is high enough.
  Plain and simple, we need to take control of this out-of-control 
government spending before we see the hopes and dreams of our children, 
grandchildren, and all subsequent generations of Americans dashed 
against the rocks.
  Federal spending is now taking the largest share of our national 
income since the early 1950s and the current deficit is as large as it 
has been since World War II. This is bad enough, Mr. President, but 
there is no end in sight to the profligacy.
  Based on current projections, which will probably get much worse, 10 
years from now it will be shown that this President and this Democratic 
majority have left a shameful legacy. The CBO estimates that in 2019, 
the Federal deficit will still be over $1 trillion for that 1 year and 
that our total national debt will be over $20 trillion. Most of our new 
borrowing will be needed just to pay interest on the previous debt.
  At some nearby place, which we are fast approaching, we will reach a 
tipping point where we will be in total bondage to this debt. When we 
get to the time that we are borrowing vast and ever-increasing sums 
just to pay the interest on previous debt, the hopes of ever escaping 
from the vortex of financial destruction will fade and we will have 
consigned the next generations to a permanent substandard of living.
  The other side keeps making the pathetically lame excuse that they 
inherited eight years of bad economic policy, which they say is the 
real culprit of our fiscal problems. What is conveniently forgotten 
around here is the fact that the final two of those eight years were 
under a Democratically led Congress.
  I am the first to admit that Republicans in Congress were too eager 
to spend and that President Bush should have wielded his veto pen more 
aggressively. There is some accountability

[[Page S14134]]

there. But let us face it, our side are rank amateurs compared to the 
consummate spenders we now have in charge.
  For proof, we need look no further than the President's budget, the 
trillion dollar stimulus bill, this $2.5 trillion health care bill, and 
the recent $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill with its double digit 
percentage increases over last year's spending. The deficit has grown 
exponentially this year alone.
  The numbers themselves tell the story. The Treasury Department's 
Monthly Treasury Statement for November shows a deficit over the first 
two months of this new fiscal year alone of nearly $300 billion. This 
2-month deficit is greater than the full-year deficits in 2002, 2006, 
and 2007, which, by the way, are part of the past eight years that were 
supposed to represent the ultimate in reckless spending.
  I am scared. All Americans should be frightened as well. We are on an 
unstable raft in the middle of an increasingly raging river. The 
currents are swirling around us and we are beginning to lose control of 
where we are going. Sharp rocks are starting to appear in the river 
that threaten our destruction.
  Our alarm grows as we begin to hear a sound off in the distance that 
slowly gets louder as we head downstream on these increasingly wild 
rapids. The sound we hear is the cataract that represents our fall from 
the greatest nation in the history of mankind to that of a second-rate 
player on the world stage. Can you hear it? Can we find a way to turn 
this boat around before it is too late to avoid the fall? Many of my 
fellow Utahns can hear it and they are begging me to find a way to get 
us off this destructive course and get us back to safe waters.
  The first step is to reject this debt limit increase. Let us cut up 
the credit card and stop this frightening spending spree before it 
takes us to the precipice.
  It is a good thing we are recessing for a few days. The Members of 
this Senate need to go home and get a reality check from those who have 
sent us here. I hope that over the recess each of us will get a 
message, loud and clear, from our recession and debt-weary constituents 
that they are sick and tired of this fiscal irresponsibility. They are 
demanding change, and they will get it, one way or the other.
  I hope that in the new year, we can consider these messages and find 
a new resolve to come together, to find the restraint that is simply 
lacking now, and to reverse this reckless spending so we do not send 
our country down the river.
  The VICE PRESIDENT. The majority leader is recognized.

                          ____________________