[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 12 (Thursday, January 28, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S276-S279]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           DISCRETIONARY CAPS

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to share a few comments on 
the Sessions-McCaskill discretionary caps amendment that would limit 
spending to the budget items and budget levels we passed.
  Before doing so, I would like to say I was disappointed last night 
that the President and my good friend and very effective leader of the 
Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, have politicized a very important 
decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Justices didn't 
take an oath not to reverse bad precedent. They swore an oath of 
fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, and the first amendment guarantees 
the right of free speech.
  For over a decade, I warned against this, and others warned this 
legislation we were passing violated the first amendment of the U.S. 
Constitution. In fact, one of the supporters of the amendment, Senator 
Feingold, at one point offered a constitutional amendment to amend the 
first amendment because he recognized this campaign restriction on 
spending during an election cycle ran afoul of the Constitution, but at 
some point they decided to go forward with it.
  I would say two things about it. How it happened was this: During 
oral arguments on the showing as to whether a corporation which had 
produced a film about one of the Presidential candidates could show 
that film before an election and which was being blocked by the court--
where they said you can't show a film about an election candidate, and 
they objected, saying: This is free speech--the Supreme Court asked 
this question during oral argument to the government's lawyer who was 
defending the statute we unwisely

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passed, and the question was: Well, Counsel, what if a company produced 
a book and wanted to publish a book, would this statute prohibit that? 
What was the answer? Yes.
  Well, the Supreme Court said: Wait a minute. This is a serious thing. 
So you--Congress--passed a law that prohibits a group of American 
citizens from publishing a book that might have something to do with an 
election? This is a big deal. We have laws that protect pornography and 
all kinds of things, but the first amendment was written for free 
political speech.
  Anyway, I don't want to go into it today, I have talked a lot about 
it before, but I wanted to push back a little. I am very disappointed 
because my colleague and the President are attempting to politicize a 
very significant first amendment issue that we knew existed when this 
bill was passed. The New York Times, which supported it, was a 
corporation. They can write editorials on the day of an election. But 
if the Ford Motor Company gets tired of GM getting billions and 
billions of dollars from the Federal Government, can they not run an ad 
and say: Don't do this.
  Anyway, we will be voting soon on a very important piece of 
legislation, and so I am pleased to be working with Senator Claire 
McCaskill, my Democratic colleague from Missouri, to say we need to do 
better about spending, and we do.
  What happens in this body is, we too often find ways to get around 
the budgets we pass. Last year, we passed a budget that I thought spent 
too much, but it passed and it is our budget and it calls for spending 
over the next 5 years to have around 1 to 2 percent growth. But, 
historically, we have been violating that. Historically, we find this 
gimmick, this way to go above that. It is going above that, and I can 
demonstrate how baseline increases in spending compound themselves over 
the years and get us into serious financial trouble. What we need to do 
is stay with our budget.
  We need to have an option to go outside the budget or above the 
budget in case of an emergency--there is no doubt about that--but we 
have too often been able to get around the budget through manipulation 
and through emergency spending designations. Our bill has a number of 
Democratic Senators who are supporting it, and I think most Republicans 
will support it. I think we have an opportunity to pass it, and it 
would provide some integrity to our process.
  The American people aren't trusting us. I think they are right not to 
trust us and I am prepared to debate that. I can show they have a right 
not to trust the budget numbers we put out because we don't stick with 
them. So this amendment would say that for 5 years we will take the 
very numbers that were in last year's budget--the budget we are 
operating under today--and we would place them in a statute by number. 
The amendment would say how many millions of dollars we will allow to 
be spent this year in defense numbers and nondefense numbers. When we 
do that, if there comes an attempt to violate the budget and to spend 
more, then a Senator could raise a point of order and it would take a 
two-thirds vote of the Senate to override that point of order.
  I think that is good, sound legislation. Make no mistake, it will put 
some teeth in the budget. There are those of us who know we have given 
in too often to the desire to spend more because we get multiple 
demands from our citizens and we sometimes are unable to say: Well, I 
do need to help you, but I am going to have to cut over here. What we 
do say is, I can't reduce anything. Now that would make those people 
uneasy and unhappy with me. But I want to help this person, so I will 
just increase my spending and go over on the debt and over the budget 
limit.

  I am of the belief that this legislation, though modest, is very 
consistent with the numbers President Obama talked about last night. In 
fact, I think it is almost in perfect harmony with the freeze he 
suggested should happen last night. This would actually allow a 1- to 
2-percent increase, as I said, in defense or nondefense spending. This 
would be the kind of thing that would be in harmony with the 
President's proposal.
  The American people are cynical. We say these things--the President 
says these things, Members of the Senate say these things--but our 
spending, when we look back at it, doesn't do so well. Last year our 
domestic discretionary spending, the money we actually controlled in 
the Senate, increased 12 percent, which is a number above what we can 
realistically justify. Remember, we also had, on top of that, the 
stimulus package. A lot of that money hasn't been spent--maybe a third 
of it. That is pouring into the economy.
  Now is the time for us to get hold of baseline spending. I believe we 
can do it. These are some of the objections we have had about it. Would 
it prevent the Federal Government from responding to emergencies? No. I 
point out the emergency spending bills that came up before Congress 
were consistently passed with huge majorities. For example, the Defense 
bill on the war against terrorism and tsunami relief, 100 to 0; on 
supplemental veterans health care, we had 99 to 1; the Katrina spending 
was passed by unanimous vote; the second emergency for Katrina, 97 to 
0; another Katrina vote, 93 to 0; supplemental appropriations for 
disaster loans, no budget point of order even raised; another Hurricane 
Katrina supplemental, 80 to 14; Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, 
74 to 25.
  The votes have been high. But every one of these things does not need 
to be passed perhaps at the level initially proposed. Sometimes you may 
support Katrina or some other supplemental and you think the numbers 
are too high and you are going to object and the appropriators can come 
back with a smaller number and it would pass. I say that is the process 
we work with.
  We are violating the budget act too much. I urge my colleagues to 
consider this legislation and vote for it. Would it prevent Congress 
from adequately funding missions in Iraq and Afghanistan? The answer to 
that is no. The 67-vote threshold would not apply in Iraq and 
Afghanistan and our war against al-Qaida because the amendment 
explicitly states this rule does not apply ``in the case of the defense 
budgetary authority, if Congress declares war or authorizes the use of 
force,'' which we have done in these situations.
  In wartime it does not constrict our ability. We still have to vote 
for it and make sure we have the vote for it, but we don't have to have 
a supermajority for votes. I think that is the important part of it.
  Some would say you are attempting to balance the entire budget by 
reducing nondefense discretionary spending, which is a relatively small 
part of the budget. I would say we know this will not fully balance the 
budget, but I can demonstrate, and have, that the growth in spending 
that is occurring on the discretionary accounts in the last several 
years has far exceeded the growth of Medicare and Social Security, and 
it is crowding out our ability to fund Medicare and Social Security. It 
is a threat to us, to those programs, as well as to the long-term 
fiscal status of our country.
  Finally, I point out that I just left the Budget Committee hearing. 
Mr. Elmendorf, the CBO Director, testified today and indicated that, if 
several more things that are likely to occur, which he did not use in 
his calculations, take place the number would be much worse, much 
higher. He said we are facing a critical economically threatening force 
of debt that we have to act better about. Chairman Conrad and Ranking 
Member Gregg said the same thing in their opening statements.
  I point out what he reaffirmed, their score, that under the present 
path we are on, we now pay, in 2009, $200 billion per year in interest. 
That is what we paid to people who loaned us money, the public debt. In 
about 2019, 10 years, that debt will triple from $5.7 trillion to over 
$17 trillion, and the interest we pay in 1 year on that debt is $799 
billion.
  When you think about it, the Federal Highway Program is about $40 
billion or $50 billion. The aid to education is not much more than 
that. This is going to crowd out all kinds of spending that so many of 
my colleagues would like to see happen. We are either going to have 
massive increases in taxes or major reductions in spending just so we 
can budget and pay for the interest on this debt. He says it is 
unsustainable. This is a nonpartisan person.
  The Concord Coalition has a great focus on excessive spending in this

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country. The Concord Coalition supports the amendment that Senator 
McCaskill and I are offering; so does the Committee for a Responsible 
Federal Budget, a great bipartisan group that has been watching budget 
issues for many years and is composed of some of the previous budget 
directors and experts on these matters, a very responsible, respected 
group. The Heritage Foundation, a solid group of conservative scholars 
who have written persuasively about the dangers of debt, as well as the 
National Taxpayers Union, which represents individual Americans who 
realize the threat to our country from soaring debt and bigger and 
bigger spending, all support this legislation.
  I think it is the kind of bipartisan legislation that will send a 
message not just to our Congress that we are going to contain spending 
but also to the whole world that we are putting in place some things 
that indicate we are going to be serious about avoiding this path we 
are on.
  This is not made up. This is based on present commitments of the U.S. 
Government in law based on projections of income that we will receive 
and the spending levels that are surging. I hope our colleagues will 
seize on this. I think it will help the stock market. I think it will 
help our own focus. It would be a statement by Senators that we are 
serious about this, and we will work together to get it done. I urge my 
colleagues to support it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Gillibrand). The Senator from Nebraska is 
recognized.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Madam President, I rise today to speak about the same 
topic the last Senator spoke about. Let me, if I might, start my 
comments today by complimenting Senator Sessions. I look at that graph 
that was just up and the one thing it points out to me in very vivid 
detail is that spiraling cost, that straight-up cost, is only to pay 
the interest. It does not even start to pay down the principal.
  I stand here today before offering some comments about this further, 
thinking how much we would unleash the potential of this country if we 
just sent a signal that we were getting serious about our spending, our 
debt load, and we were intent on addressing that.
  That is what brings me to the floor of the Senate today. I rise today 
to speak against raising the debt ceiling. This is a decision that 
should not be taken lightly. No one in this body should take this 
decision lightly. It is a serious matter, enormously serious. Our 
country has debt, and it is important that we start to deal with these 
commitments and the spending that is just out of control.
  Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: ``Pay every debt as if God wrote the 
bill.'' Yet I could not support increasing the amount that the Treasury 
can borrow by $1.9 trillion--it is the largest increase ever 
contemplated--in the current environment of spending the people's money 
as if it meant nothing. You see, what is missing for me, to get to a 
point where you could raise the debt ceiling, is a commitment, a plan, 
a serious plan, a roadmap on how we get our spending under control.
  The orchestra, sadly, continues to play oblivious to our government 
barreling down on this entitlement-and-spending iceberg which is coming 
our way. There is just no doubt about it.
  If this increase passes, the debt limit will have increased about 35 
percent in the last year. Think about that: 35 percent in the last 
year. We are not talking about a few million dollars or billion 
dollars. We are talking about trillions of dollars.
  Let me repeat that. Since this administration took the reins, our 
debt ceiling will have increased by over one-third.
  We as parents teach our children, we say: Money doesn't grow on 
trees. How many times did I tell my kids that? But it seems as if the 
U.S. Government has missed this sage lesson. The latest proposed 
increase is undoubtedly the largest increase in history, more than 
double the previous record of $984 billion.
  Since arriving here I have consistently argued for setting priorities 
and against wasteful spending. I would like to say again, and I have 
said this on the Senate floor, as my time as Governor of Nebraska went 
on I realized there were no easy choices in balancing the budget, but 
we had a constitutional mandate to balance the budget back home in 
Nebraska. What is more, our State constitution prohibited us from 
borrowing money.
  What did that mean? I couldn't balance the budget by issuing debt. 
This whole idea of the Federal Government issuing more and more debt 
was a foreign concept back home.
  When I came out here to join the President's Cabinet, I did not have 
to turn to the last Governor and say: I am sorry about all that debt I 
took on for the State. There is no debt in Nebraska. We pay our bills. 
Since arriving here, though, I have begun to realize this government 
tries to be all things to all people every day and all day. The U.S. 
Government simply cannot continue on that path. We believe back home 
that less government is better government.
  Many of my colleagues would probably come to the floor and stand and 
disagree with that. They may believe that you have to literally spend 
your way out of these problems, you have to spend your way to wealth. 
But there is nothing in our heritage that would lead me to the 
conclusion that is the right approach.
  Even if you disagree, we can have a respectful debate. I am hard 
pressed to find anyone, though, who would argue with the reality of the 
numbers. I used to tell my cabinet when I was Governor, when we were 
dealing with tough budget issues: Look, folks, this is not magic; it is 
math.
  And the numbers do not lie. The numbers tell us that the Nation's 
fiscal course is not sustainable. By the end of this year, our debt 
held by the public will be more than 60 percent of the gross domestic 
product. Think about this. Among internationally recognized economic 
thresholds, 60 percent is generally known as the tipping point toward 
an unsustainable nation. The European Union actually treats it that 
way. You cannot even be a member of the European Union if your debt 
exceeds 60 percent of your gross domestic product. Think about this. 
This great Nation would not be eligible to join the European Union.
  Looking down the road, within 10 years our publicly held debt will 
approach the 90-percent mark. You see, once that snowball gets going 
down that mountain, good luck of ever stopping the avalanche.
  We will not be able to catch up with this runaway debt if we do not 
start dealing with it now. We are, in my judgment, on the verge of a 
vicious cycle that requires more taxes, more debt to be taken on by 
American families and sent overseas to foreign creditors. If we allow 
our country to slip into this cycle--and we are dangerously close to it 
now--then that shining city on the hill former President Reagan would 
often speak about is more dim, if not dark.
  Instead of voting to increase the debt limit and simply kicking the 
fiscal can down the road, we need, first, to devise some concrete 
interventions. Unfortunately, the President's 2010 budget proposes a $1 
trillion deficit, on average, for each of the next 10 years. With that 
vision, debt limit increases are going to be very commonplace around 
here. The cost of bearing such debt will swallow up our Nation's 
resources. It will diminish productivity.
  I know the temptation is great--I saw it last night in the 
President's speech. I say this very respectfully--the temptation is 
great to say, you know, folks, these are the last guy's problems. This 
is the problem I created. All I can say is this: What that reminds me 
of would be like me becoming the mayor of Lincoln--and I served two 
terms as mayor there--and this time of the year, you have terrible 
pothole problems. It would be like me saying: Those potholes there were 
caused by the last guy. I will fix the ones that arose during my 
tenure.
  I think what the American people are asking us to do is to start 
working together to solve the problems. But, unfortunately, these are 
not just potholes in the road of our Nation's history, these are 
massive problems that are going to seriously impact our children and 
grandchildren and bring down their quality of life.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, how much time is remaining on our 
side?

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  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Four minutes fifty-five seconds.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I am happy to go back and forth if 
that would be the agreed-upon order of things. That would be certainly 
acceptable to me. I wanted to make sure what time we had on our side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator from Vermont is 
recognized.

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