[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 9 (Monday, January 25, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S170-S173]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CONRAD-GREGG AMENDMENT

  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, tomorrow we are going to vote on the 
question of whether we establish a bipartisan debt commission, a 
commission empowered to come up with a plan, a plan if 14 of the 18 
Members would agree, would come to the Senate for a vote.
  This story ran recently in Newsweek. This was actually the cover of 
Newsweek:

       How Great Powers Fall; Steep Debt, Slow Growth, and High 
     Spending Kill Empires--And America Could Be Next.

  Inside, the story reported:

       This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt 
     explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the 
     resources available for the Army, Navy and Air Force. . . . 
     If the United States doesn't come up soon with a credible 
     plan to restore the federal budget to balance over the next 
     five to 10 years, the danger is very real that a debt crisis 
     could lead to a major weakening of American power.

  It is not hard to see how that could happen. Since 2000, the debt has 
exploded. In the previous administration the debt doubled. It has 
increased again with the economic downturn, and we are now on a course 
to have a gross debt that will be 114 percent of the gross domestic 
product of the United States.
  That is the short term. We can handle a debt of 114 percent of the 
gross domestic product. We have done it before. We did it after World 
War II. Japan has a debt right now of 189 percent of their gross 
domestic product.
  The real challenge confronting America is that, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, we are on course to have a debt that will 
reach 400 percent of our gross domestic product over the next 50 years. 
Nobody believes that is a sustainable situation--not the head of the 
Congressional Budget Office, not the head of the Office of Management 
and Budget, not the former head of the General Accounting Office, not 
the head of the Federal Reserve, not the Secretary of Treasury--all of 
them have said a debt of that magnitude poses a systemic threat to the 
economic security of the United States.

[[Page S171]]

  The National Journal, in a recent article, on November 7, 2009, 
reported this:

       Simply put, even alarmists may be underestimating the size 
     of the (debt) problem, how quickly it will become unbearable, 
     and how poorly prepared our political system is to deal with 
     it.

  That is not just the view of the National Journal or the view of 
Newsweek magazine in their cover story piece. This is the considered 
judgment of some of the budget experts in the country from both the 
Republican and Democratic side of the aisle.
  Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman, said:

       The recommendation of Senators Conrad and Gregg for a 
     bipartisan fiscal task force is an excellent idea. . . . I 
     hope that you succeed.

  Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was the key economic adviser to Senator 
McCain in the last election said:

       I am a reluctant convert. I have always felt that this is 
     Congress' job, and, quite frankly, it ought to just do it. 
     And that attitude has earned me no friends and has gotten us 
     no action. So I've come around to the point where I'm in 
     favor of something that is a special legislative procedure to 
     get this legislation in front of Congress and passed.

  Mr. Geithner, the current Secretary of Treasury, said this before the 
Senate Budget Committee on February 11 of last year:

       . . . [I]t is going to require a different approach if 
     we're going to solve the [long-term fiscal imbalance]. . . . 
     It's going to require a fundamental change in approach, 
     because I don't see realistically how we're going to get 
     there through the existing mechanisms.

  Mr. Walker, the former head of the General Accounting Office, said:

       I think the regular order is dysfunctional as it relates to 
     these types of issues. And it's, quite frankly, 
     understandable, because you're talking about putting together 
     a package that crosses many different jurisdictions. . . . 
     And the idea that that would end up emerging from the regular 
     order I think is just totally unrealistic.

  Leon Panetta, former chairman of the House Budget Committee, former 
Chief of Staff of President Clinton, said:

       It'll never happen. The committees of jurisdiction will 
     never take on the kind of challenges that are involved in 
     this kind of effort. . . . If you just leave them under their 
     own jurisdictions, that will never happen.

  Senator Gregg, the ranking Republican on the committee, and I came to 
the same conclusion. Two years ago we started an effort to come up with 
a process that could assure a vote on a series of recommendations to 
meet the debt threat. All task force members are directly accountable 
to the American people. They are all elected Members of the Congress 
or, in the case of the Secretary of the Treasury, the representative of 
the administration. There are 18 Members: 10 Democrats--2 from the 
administration--and 8 Republicans. They are all currently serving 
Members of Congress selected by Democratic and Republican leaders and 
the Treasury Secretary and one other administration official who, I 
assume, would be the head of the Office of Management and Budget.
  The bipartisan fiscal task force has broad coverage. Everything is on 
the table--spending and revenues. I hear some on the left saying 
spending should not be considered and some on the right saying revenues 
should not be considered. Both have to be considered. I do not know 
what could be more clear.
  The green line shows revenues as a share of GDP since 1950. That is 
over the last 60 years. Revenue, the last 2 years, is the lowest it has 
been in 60 years. Let me repeat that: Revenue as a share of the gross 
domestic product is the lowest it has been in 60 years--a precipitous 
decline in revenue.
  Look at expenditures. Expenditures are the highest they have been as 
a share of the gross domestic product in 60 years.
  Whoever says: ``Well, you did not include revenue'' or ``you did not 
include spending,'' well, guess what, if you did not deal with spending 
and did not deal with revenue, you did not deal with the problem. Let's 
get serious. Let's get honest with the American people.
  The current status of Social Security and Medicare trust funds are as 
follows: Social Security will be permanently cash negative in 2016. It 
is already cash negative today. Let me repeat that. Social Security is 
cash negative today. It will be permanently cash negative in 2016. That 
is 6 years away. It will be completely insolvent in 2037.
  Medicare went cash negative in 2008. It will be insolvent, according 
to the trustees, in 8 years. Anybody who says we do not have to do 
anything, we can just keep on doing what we are doing, has their head 
in the sand. Social Security and Medicare are both cash negative today. 
They are both headed for insolvency. Those who say we do not have to do 
anything, they are guaranteeing a disaster. Some say: Well, the health 
care reform bill shows we can do this through the regular order. No, 
that is not what it showed. It shows the opposite. It shows we will not 
do this through the regular order because here is the long-term debt 
trajectory we are on. While the bill that passed the Senate will help a 
little bit, it is only a little bit. It does not fundamentally change 
the trajectory we are on. That is the reality. That is the fact.
  A bipartisan fiscal task force promises an expedited process, with 
recommendations to be submitted after the 2010 election, with fast-
track consideration in the Senate and the House, no amendments, with a 
final vote before the 111th Congress adjourns and a requirement, before 
you ever get to that point, of a supermajority necessary of the 18 
members to even report a plan.
  It would require 14 of the 18 members to even report a plan. If the 
plan is reported, then it takes 60 votes in the Senate, it takes 60 
percent of the House of Representatives, and the President reserves and 
preserves his ability to veto. So anybody who says this is somehow 
unconstitutional, it is fully constitutional. Anybody who says we are 
farming out the responsibility to come up with a plan, that is what we 
always do. We always have committees come up with plans that then come 
to a vote of the Congress.
  If you look at fiscal crises, such as the one we are in today and the 
one that is rapidly approaching that will be far more serious than the 
one we are in today, we have always had a special process, whether it 
was Andrews Air Force Base in the 1990s or whether it was the Greenspan 
Commission in the 1980s. We have repeatedly, when we faced a fiscal 
crisis, resorted to a special procedure.
  The Bipartisan Fiscal Task Force, as I have indicated, requires a 
bipartisan outcome: 14 of the 18 task force members must agree to the 
recommendations. The final passage requires supermajorities in both the 
Senate and the House.
  This weekend, the President endorsed this, the plan we will vote on 
tomorrow. This weekend, the President released this statement.

       The serious fiscal situation that our country faces 
     reflects not only the severe economic downturn we inherited, 
     but also years of failing to pay for new policies, including 
     a new entitlement program and large tax cuts that most 
     benefited the well-off and well-connected. The result was 
     that the surpluses projected at the beginning of the last 
     administration were transformed into trillions of dollars in 
     deficits that threaten future job creation and economic 
     growth.
       These deficits did not happen overnight and they won't be 
     solved overnight. We not only need to change how we pay for 
     policies, but we also need to change how Washington works. 
     The only way to solve our long-term fiscal challenge is to 
     solve it together, Democrats and Republicans.
       That's why I [the President] strongly support legislation 
     currently under consideration to create a bipartisan, fiscal 
     commission to come up with a set of solutions to tackle our 
     nation's fiscal challenges, and call on Senators from both 
     parties to vote for the creation of a statutory, bipartisan 
     fiscal commission.
       With tough choices made together, a commitment to pay for 
     what we spend, and responsible stewardship of our economy, we 
     will be able to lay the foundation for sustainable job 
     creation and economic growth while restoring fiscal 
     sustainability to our nation.

  The President got it right. He is also representing the views of the 
American people. When asked: Would you favor or oppose creating a 
bipartisan commission as a way of reviewing and addressing our Federal 
budget problems, 70 percent of the American people said they would. 
Twenty-five percent were in opposition. Five percent were not certain.
  This is a poll taken by Peter D. Hart Research, a well-known 
pollster, a well-regarded pollster, taken November 16 to November 18 of 
2009. There is no doubt in my mind that if this poll were taken today, 
these numbers would be even stronger with respect to the need for a 
bipartisan fiscal commission.

[[Page S172]]

  Let me close, in the time remaining to me, to thank my colleague, 
Senator Gregg, the ranking Republican on the committee. We have a group 
of cosponsors for this bill, about 30 in number, about equally divided 
between Republicans and Democrats.
  Senator Gregg and I have not always agreed on every fiscal issue, and 
we have debated those issues sometimes in a way that is animated, full 
of energy. But this is one place we are in absolute agreement. I have 
served here now 23 years. I am absolutely persuaded that if we do not 
adopt a special procedure such as the one we have proposed, the chances 
of facing up to this debt threat in a timely way is remote.
  This is our chance. Tomorrow will be a defining vote. Are we going to 
take on this question of the looming debt, the threat it imposes to the 
economic security of the country? Let me be quick to say, that does not 
mean I believe we should raise taxes or cut spending in the midst of an 
economic downturn. That would be unwise. But it would also be unwise, 
once recovery has presented itself and is firmly rooted, for us to fail 
to face up to the greatest economic threat this country faces, a 
runaway debt, one increasingly financed from abroad.
  Last year, a substantial portion of our new debt was financed by 
foreign entities: China, Japan, the oil-exporting nations. They have 
told us, publicly and privately, we are on an unsustainable course and 
they will not long continue to extend trillions of dollars of credit to 
us, absent our taking action. The warning is clear. The time is now. I 
urge my colleagues to support our effort tomorrow.
  I wish to, again, thank my colleague, Senator Gregg, the ranking 
Republican on the committee, for his leadership in this matter. He has 
spent 2 years on this effort. We could not have a better partner.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire is 
recognized.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, first, let me congratulate the Senator from 
North Dakota. First, he was a ``voice in the wilderness,'' as we say in 
New Hampshire. That is the motto of one of our colleges. Then he moved 
from being in the wilderness to being on the side of the wilderness, 
and people were starting to listen. Now he has become the clarion call.
  The simple fact is, his statement, which summarized it all, presents 
the problem as it is. The debt is the threat. He, in his statement he 
just made, outlined the implications of the debt. You cannot deny it. 
It is there. It is coming. It exists. It is being added to. The numbers 
simply cannot be ignored any longer. We are, as a nation, on a path 
where, if we continue to spend and run deficits as we have and as are 
projected, our Nation will not be able to maintain its standard of 
living. We will not be able to finance our debt. The value of our 
currency will come under acute threat.
  The burden of taxes to pay for the cost of government will overwhelm 
the ability of people to live productive lifestyles. Inevitably--and 
this is not hyperbole, unfortunately--inevitably, we as a nation will 
go into insolvency of some form. Either we will have to inflate our 
economy radically or we will have to bear a burden that simply stifles 
the capacity of our children to have a high quality of life because of 
the cost of the government and the cost of the debt.
  The Senator from North Dakota has cited the figures. We go to a 
public debt that is 100 percent of gross national product within the 
next budget window cycle. We crossed the 60-percent threshold, which is 
the tipping point, where, similar to a dog, we have trouble catching 
our tail because we have so much debt on the books, potentially, this 
year but certainly by next year.
  These numbers are staggering. They are hard to understand--trillions 
and trillions of dollars in debt. As the Senator from North Dakota has 
also pointed out, the debt is owned not by Americans but by foreign 
nations. Today, China owns almost $1 trillion of our debt. Oil-
exporting nations own, as a group, almost $1 trillion of our debt. We 
are shipping overseas the dollars which we should be reinvesting in the 
United States to create a more productive and vibrant economy and a 
better lifestyle for our Nation.
  By the year 2017 or 2018, the interest on the debt alone will exceed 
every other account in the Federal Government. It will be approximately 
$900 billion a year, almost $1 trillion a year, more than what we spend 
on national defense, massively more than what we spend on education, on 
building roads, on doing the things a government is supposed to do.
  Where does that interest go? It does not stay in the United States to 
benefit America and make us a stronger nation. It is going to go to 
countries such as China--not that I have anything against China--
countries that have bought our debt.
  So we are on an intolerable path, a path of unsustainability, a path 
which leads us down the road to a nation which is less prosperous and 
has a lower standard of living than what we received from our parents. 
That is simply not acceptable. So how do we address this? Well, for 
years we have said: Let's do it by regular order. Let's come up with 
ideas and run them through the committee process, run them up the 
political flagpole, let the community of interest that wants to speak 
out on issues speak out on it. Then we will evolve solutions that work 
on these very difficult problems.
  Most of the issue, by the way, is driven by the cost of the 
entitlement programs and, for years, nothing has happened. Nothing has 
happened. There is a reason for that. Our political system is 
inherently prejudiced against doing substantive activity on issues as 
big as entitlement reform. We have a system where, whenever anybody 
puts a policy on the table, a substantive, thoughtful policy or even a 
policy that is not thoughtful, as a presentation of the way you should 
address the cost and the burden of our government, it is immediately 
attacked either from the left or from the right.
  They almost never even make it to the starting line. We have instance 
after instance of seeing this. So Senator Conrad and I decided you 
cannot do this by putting policy on the table. There are too many 
interest groups in this town that make their living off poisoning the 
will either from the right or the left because that is how they 
generate their income. They send out these letters to their constituent 
groups. If it is a Social Security group, they send it out in a Social 
Security-type envelope and say: if you do not send this money soon, 
tomorrow, somebody is going to ruin Social Security for you or, if they 
are a tax group, they send out the same type of letter that looks 
similar to an IRS form letter: If you do not send this money tomorrow, 
your taxes are going to go up radically.
  So as a very practical matter, nothing ever gets past the starting 
line around here. Regular order does not, has not, and will not work on 
those issues.
  We decided, rather than using that process, which we know leads 
nowhere, let's set up a process that does lead somewhere. We came up 
with what is basically, to thumbnail it, a procedure which is totally 
and absolutely bipartisan and fair, where neither side may game the 
other, which leads to a policy position, which then leads to a vote on 
that policy. That is the task force we have. The key components are 
that it is totally and absolutely bipartisan. Neither side can game the 
other. It takes 14 of 18 people to report out the proposals. They don't 
have to be proposals for everything, but the proposals that are agreed 
to have to have a supermajority; that is, 78 percent of the people on 
this task force have to vote for it. Since the membership of this task 
force is appointed by the leadership of the two parties, a majority of 
the party membership of both parties on this task force has to vote for 
the final proposal.
  One presumes that whoever goes on this task force, if chosen by the 
leaders of their party in the Senate, whether Senator Reid or Senator 
McConnell, or leaders of the party in the House, Ms. Pelosi or Mr. 
Boehner, is going to reflect fairly aggressively the viewpoints and the 
philosophies of the different parts. It will be a bipartisan report or 
it won't be a report at all. Then it comes to the Congress, and it has 
to be voted up or down on a supermajority vote. Once again, it 
basically moots the ability to game it. One side can't game the other. 
The proposal must be bipartisan and fair.

[[Page S173]]

  Why did we choose that path? Because the American people have shown 
very definitively that they will not accept proposals in these very big 
areas, especially Social Security and Medicare, that are not reached on 
a bipartisan agreement. They want fairness. They want to make sure 
nobody is gaming anybody around here. That is why we have these 
supermajorities. Then, it is on fast track, so the proposal has to be 
voted up or down and it cannot be amended. Why is that? Because, as we 
all know around here, amendments are for hiding in the corners. 
Amendments are offered not for the purposes of accomplishing anything 
but for the purposes of giving political cover. In fact, we are going 
to see a couple of amendments just like that on this issue, one from 
our side and one from the other side, so that people will have 
political cover if they vote against this task force approach.
  The simple fact is, if you really want to do something here, you have 
to have an up-or-down vote on a fast track, and everything has to be on 
the table, all entitlement and tax reform issues. Why is that? Because 
this has to be bipartisan. It is that simple. I would be happy to have 
a commission that focused only on spending reductions or adjustments to 
Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security programs, but there isn't 
anybody on that side of the aisle who will agree to that. They would be 
happy to have a proposal that addresses tax reform, such as has been 
proposed on occasion by the Senator from North Dakota, which is to try 
to collect the $300 billion of taxes owed and not paid every year. 
Nobody on this side is going to accept that. Everything has to be on 
the table. The key to protecting both sides' interests in this 
exercise, so that Social Security isn't treated inappropriately and so 
the tax increases aren't done inappropriately, if there are tax 
increases, is to make sure that the product has to be bipartisan and it 
has to be reported on supermajorities, which this does. That issue is 
addressed.
  We are here again. I don't know that we will get the 60 votes needed 
to pass this. It has obviously been attacked from the right and from 
the left, which usually means you are on a pretty good course. 
Regrettably, the President put out his Executive order proposal which I 
think undermined it, but then he has come to support it. But it may be 
a little late to the dinner here. On our side of the aisle, some of our 
major interest groups have come out against it.
  I know this much: We are getting to the point where we don't have too 
many alternatives around here. If we don't do something like this 
fairly soon, I genuinely believe that somewhere between 5 to 10 years 
from now, probably between 7 and 10 years, we as a nation will find it 
very hard to sell our debt. Countries will look at us and say: You 
cannot sustain your situation. You have run up a debt that you cannot 
pay back, and I am not going to lend you money or, if they do, it will 
be at a very high price. At that point, the options for us will be very 
few. They will all be horrific options for our children because they 
will all lead to a lower standard of living for us as a nation. They 
will all make our country less competitive in the world economically, 
competition which is very aggressive and totally global now.
  We can wait. We can punt this thing one more time, as we have done 
year-in and year-out. We can say there is not a problem out there or if 
there is a problem, if you don't address it the way we want to on our 
side or the way you want to on your side, then we won't vote for it. In 
the end, we will not have been responsible as people who have been 
given the mantle of government. We will not be fulfilling our 
responsibility to govern. Instead, the postwar baby-boom generation 
will be the first generation in history to pass on to our children a 
country with less prosperity than we received from our parents. That 
will not be a very good testament to our responsibility as people in 
charge of governance.
  This is a chance. This is the closest we have ever gotten to this 
opportunity. I don't believe we will get this close again at any time 
in the future. We can either take it or we can allow it to pass. I have 
often said that Congresses are good at handling the next election but 
they are terrible at handling the next generation. Unfortunately, for 
years this issue used to be over the horizon. It is not any longer. It 
is not only on the horizon, it is closing fast. The red flags are 
everywhere. We have even seen Moody's, the rating agency, put the 
United States in a special category with England, not on a watch list, 
but they have given us a new definition compared to the rest of the 
industrialized countries. There is no question but the clock is ticking 
and the hour is late. If we don't proceed to action that leads to 
actual activity, that leads to actual policy, in my opinion we will not 
be fulfilling our responsibility as people who are elected to govern 
and to pass on to the next generation a stronger America rather than a 
weaker one.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona.

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