Congressional Record, Volume 156 Issue 48 (Thursday, March 25, 2010)

[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 48 (Thursday, March 25, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2100-S2104]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

CONTINUING EXTENSION ACT OF 2010--MOTION TO PROCEED--Continued

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I have spoken with Senator Coburn, and he
and I reached an agreement about which I will propound a unanimous
consent request.
I ask unanimous consent that the time between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
be evenly divided between his side and our side in 15-minute segments;
the first 15-minute segment will be for our side, the Democratic side,
for those Members wishing to speak in favor of the 30-day extension;
the next 30 minutes to Senator Coburn on the Republican side for those
sharing his position; and the last 15 minutes back to our side until we
reach the end of this debate at 9:30 p.m.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Then at 9:30 p.m., there may be some procedural issues
unrelated to the substantive issue which we will be discussing between
8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., but that has to be worked out between both
sides.
To initiate the debate on this side, I yield to the Senator from
Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, for such time as he may consume within the 15-
minute segment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized.
Mr. REED. Mr. President, on April 5, the extension that was recently
voted for extended unemployment compensation benefits will expire. We
need to at least provide for a temporary extension while we await the
resolution of a much broader piece of legislation that is in the House
today which would provide for an extension of unemployment benefits
from today until the end of the calendar year, as well as FMAP payments
to the States and other provisions.
This is absolutely critical. In my home State of Rhode Island, we
have basically a 13-percent unemployment rate--12.7 percent. We have a
record number of long-term unemployed people. This is not a situation,
as in the past, where there was a temporary labor crisis. This has been
going on in Rhode Island for almost 2 years or more, and people have
reached the end of their resources and the end of their patience. For
many, the only thing that is sustaining them--and not particularly
well--is the fact they are still getting some unemployment benefits.
So we have to move very aggressively to provide a solution. We have
never, in the last several decades--reaching back at least as far as
the 1980s--denied extended unemployment benefits as long as the
unemployment rate nationally was at least 7.4 percent. It is 10
percent, and in many States it is higher than that--Rhode Island being
one of those States. So this would break tradition in terms of
disrupting, interrupting, preventing extended benefits at a time when
we have 10 percent unemployment.
We have persistently seen this, accurately and realistically, as an
emergency--an emergency that allows us to provide funding without
offsets. That is something that I think still is compelling. This is an
emergency. Perhaps one of the ironies that will take place on this
floor in the next several weeks is that we will call up a supplemental
budget from the Department of Defense which, as I understand, will not
be offset totally. One of the ironies is that we will be providing
benefits--because part of our strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq is civic
engagement--we will be providing employment opportunities and
investment in infrastructure for Afghans and Iraqis without offset,
which is my understanding at the moment. The irony, of course, is that
for our own citizens we are claiming: No, we can't do that.
The other side has accumulated, under the Bush administration, a huge
debt. In fact, in the term of the Bush administration, the national
debt grew astronomically. Part of it was because repeatedly the
Republican side refused to provide offsets to the funding for the war
in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and Medicare Part D, which was an
entitlement payment for seniors in terms of their drug prescriptions.
They thought that paying for things was an undue constraint on their
plans. But now that we are in a crisis that affects Americans, there is
the insistence during this emergency of paying for it, which
contradicts practice and contradicts the real needs out there.
One final point. We are now beginning to see some very limited
progress on the employment front. This week's report about jobs caused
a very positive reaction in the marketplace because the number of
first-time claimants for unemployment compensation dropped much further
than they thought. That suggests we are beginning to bottom out. There
are other reports that suggest we will see some job growth beginning.
That is because of the stimulus efforts we have undertaken today and in
the past.
Part of that stimulus effort has been unemployment compensation
insurance. For every dollar we invest in unemployment compensation,
there is $1.90 growth in economic activity. That is the result of
studies over many years. So when we don't invest in these types of
programs, we are not only denying sustenance to many families, we are
also not providing the kind of economic stimulus that the country needs
to move forward.
So for all those reasons and more, I hope we can move, in the course
of this evening or tomorrow, to adopt a measure that will allow us to
continue the funding for unemployment compensation.
With that, I thank the Senator from Illinois, and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). The Senator from
Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from
Michigan.

[[Page S2101]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first, I wish to thank the Senator from
Illinois for his leadership on this issue, as well as my friend from
Rhode Island who has been such a staunch fighter, and other colleagues
on the floor.
I can't help but think: Here they go again. One more time we are in a
situation where we need to extend unemployment benefits for people who
are out of work, through no fault of their own--breadwinners not
bringing home the bread, through no fault of their own--and we are
right back where we were before with the Senator from Kentucky, who
held up the ability for us to move forward to help families, to help
people who have lost their jobs or are out of work and looking for
work, who are caught up in an economic tsunami, an economic disaster,
through no fault of their own. Here we are again.
We just left a debate where we went most of last night with the same
kind of effort to block, to stall, to say no, and to try to stop us
from moving ahead and doing something very important for families,
small businesses, tackling the national debt in this country, and with
health insurance reform. We just went through hours and hours and hours
with our colleagues on the other side becoming just a party of no and
playing games, holding up things politically, finding tricks to make
people vote on things they support, knowing if they do, that will stop
us from moving forward on health insurance reform.

We finished that. We made it through. We cast the votes and achieved
the goal for the American people of saving money for middle-class
families, saving money for small businesses, saving money for seniors
on their medicines, and putting in place something that will make a
difference in bringing down cost and making sure every family can
finally have a family doctor. The same day we finally get through all
that, here we are again.
I come from the State with the highest unemployment in this country,
and it is not because people in Michigan don't want to work. People in
Michigan know how to work. They work very hard. They are out looking
for work. People are trying to hold it together, some with part-time
jobs right now, trying to just get through until they can get back a
job that is going to allow them to be able to take care of their
families and have some sense of security; to stop holding their breath
while they are waiting for things to turn around. But we are in a
situation right now where we have six people looking for every job. Six
people are vying for every job.
People are caught in an economic disaster that they didn't create,
and our job has been to help them get through that so they can keep a
roof over their head, food on the table, take care of their kids as we
work to create an economic situation, partnering with business, to turn
this around. Things are beginning to turn around but not fast enough
for any of us. We are working very hard to turn that around, but the
reality is we still have more than 700,000 people in Michigan who have
lost a job and who want to work. They are out of work, through no fault
of their own, and find themselves in a situation where they are looking
to their government to understand the situation for their family and
place some value on that.
We seem to be able to pay for things when people think it is
important. I have been here long enough to live through a situation
where tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans somehow were passed even
though they weren't paid for--and more than once. My guess is there
will be proposals to do it again. But when you are talking about
somebody who has worked all their lives and finds themselves in a
situation where they do not have a job because of what is happening in
the economy, then we say, but for you--for you--we are going to have a
different set of rules. We are going to have a different set of rules.
We are not going to treat this as a disaster--an economic disaster--as
we have at every other time in our country where we move forward with
emergency spending. For you, because you are not as important as those
folks on Wall Street or the folks who got the big tax cuts, we are
going to have a different set of rules.
Well, that is why we are here, because we don't think that is fair.
We don't think that is right. It is not right.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 5 minutes.
Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, as I yield the floor, I wish to say we
are going to be here, and we are going to keep fighting over and over
again, as things move forward this year and beyond, on behalf of the
people who want a job and who don't have one today, who are counting on
us to help them make it through this and do what they need to do to
care for their families.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Michigan, and I
yield the remaining time of the 15 minutes to the Senator from Oregon.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in talking about the
challenge that is faced by America's working families. Back home in
Oregon, our economy has been hit pretty hard. We have a timber
industry, and when you aren't building houses across the country, then
you can't sell lumber. So we have mills going out of business across
the State of Oregon and a lot of people unemployed--a lot of unemployed
people who would be working in the woods cutting down the trees as well
as working in the mills. Then we have the challenge of our
manufacturing industry that has been hit pretty hard too. We build a
lot of RVs and light planes, and those products aren't selling too well
in this recession. We have a fruit industry and we have a Christmas
tree industry. We ship a lot of that overseas, but the foreign demand
is down, and domestic demand is down as well. We have those Mexican
tariffs that have been applied to Christmas trees and fruit as well,
which has had a pretty strong impact.
You pile up all of this on a State that is on the Pacific Rim and add
to that the fact that the entire Pacific Rim economy is depressed, and
you have a State that not so long ago was second in the Nation only to
Michigan in terms of unemployment.
Well, things have improved a little in Oregon. We are no longer
second worst, partly because many other States have continued to get
worse. We are at about 11 percent. That is just about twice the
unemployment we had not so long ago. That is a lot of struggling
families. Unemployment is a program that helps keep the economy in gear
during a difficult recession. It helps break the headlong rush into a
depression. It helps families stabilize while they are looking for a
job.
Unemployment compensation is not a sweet deal. You don't get paid a
great deal with unemployment but maybe just enough to get by so your
house isn't one more foreclosed property; so you are not one more
family on the street, wondering where you are going to live; so there
isn't one more set of children whose schooling has been disrupted and
their path in life has been disrupted and as a parent you wonder how it
will impact them down the road. This is about us watching out for each
other here in America.
I can tell you it has been very frustrating to me to watch Members of
this body during the last two administrations decide to do things in
which they said: You know what, we are going to give away the Treasury
to the wealthiest Americans, and we are not going to have any way of
paying for it because we just to want give away money to the wealthy.
So the wealthy are doing very well in America. But what about the
workers in our Nation? The average compensation for a working family
plateaued the year I graduated from high school--1974. During the 36
years since, working families have been earning the same amount. Yet
the productivity of our Nation has gone up enormously. Where did all
that wealth go? All that wealth went to the wealthiest Americans. Then
my colleagues across the aisle are going to stand up tonight and self-
righteously proclaim we should not do this without paying.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the majority has expired.
Mr. MERKLEY. We need to extend this unemployment for working
families, not kick them when they are down.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
Mr. COBURN. I think we had an agreement with the majority whip that

[[Page S2102]]

some unanimous consent requests would come in; is that correct? I will
be happy to yield out of our time to the majority whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am now going to be asking unanimous
consent that would extend the unemployment benefits for an additional
30 days. I make it formally in this form.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate
consideration of Calendar No. 323, H.R. 4851, to provide a temporary
extension of certain programs; that the bill be read three times,
passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. COBURN. Reserving the right to object, it is my understanding if
we were to do that we would add $9.2 billion to the debt. I am
wondering if that is correct. The same unanimous consent request was
asked earlier today, and the head of the Finance Committee said it
would add $9.2 billion to the debt. So given the fact that it will add
to the debt rather than us making choices, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. Who yields time?
Mr. COBURN. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Alabama.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate so much Senator Coburn's
leadership on this very important matter. I think we are at a defining
moment. I take offense for those who say we have no interest in
extending unemployment insurance. My State has high unemployment. We
were doing very well, and it has doubled now from where we were in
unemployment.
My home area is one of the worst in the State. I am well aware of
that. Members of the Senate on this side of the aisle strongly favor
extending unemployment insurance and actually extending other benefits,
too, such as the doctors fix that we need to do, the COBRA and FMAP and
matters of that kind which are in the legislation and we believe should
be passed into law. There is just one thing that I would raise, and
that is that we want it to be in a way that does not increase, again,
the debt because here we go again.
Our colleagues passed an amendment, passed the pay-go law a few weeks
ago, and within a few days they were violating it. This violates it
again. What we need to ask ourselves, then, is how we are going to help
people who are in need. Are we going to do it in a responsible way or
will we take the easy way out, pass the debt on to our children and
grandchildren without the least concern, it seems, about how we are
going to pay for it?
My colleague just recently said we should call it an emergency.
Unemployment insurance is fundamentally one of our established
government programs, he said, because that allows us to provide this
benefit without an offset. That is precisely what the deal is, you
understand. He was quite honest about it. We do not have to pay for it;
we don't have to look for money; we don't have to cut waste, fraud, and
abuse; we don't have to reach into the stimulus bill that we passed,
which was announced to be for unemployment insurance as one of its
primary motives and use that money that is unspent--and $100 billion or
$200 billion still remains unspent. Why don't we use that money? It
would not then increase the debt larger than we now have.
We proposed a number of other offsets, offsets that our Democratic
colleagues have utilized in legislation they have offered. We have
suggested to our colleagues, what other containment of spending would
you propose, and we would be willing to consider if you would use that
to pay for this. But the day of just continuing to increase our debt is
passed.
This Senate needs to face the truth, and the truth is we will double
the entire debt of the United States in 5 years, ending 2013. We will
triple the entire debt of the United States in 2019. In 2019 the
interest on the debt that we will be paying in that 1 year will be $800
billion. Just last year the interest on the total debt of the United
States was $170 billion. We cannot continue this. Every economist who
has ever testified before our Budget Committee has said repeatedly this
is unsustainable. When do we stop if it is unsustainable? Members of
our Senate say it is unsustainable, on both sides of the aisle. When do
we stop?
Senator Coburn had the courage to say: Now, we can pay for this. We
have moneys unspent that we can use to pay for the extension of
unemployment insurance, and we will not agree that we will just add
more to our debt.
I have in my pocket, I just happened to notice, pictures of three of
my grandchildren. I have had three--one born in November, one born 2
weeks ago, one born Sunday. We are talking about hundreds of thousands
of dollars that they are going to have to pay off.
It is an addiction and a habit that we must break. This is $9 billion
added to the debt. I hope and pray this courage by Senator Coburn that
calls us to account and says let's face the music and let's be honest
with ourselves is respected, as I respect it. I think the American
people respect it. When I am out talking in my townhall meetings and in
my communities and in the airplanes, they tell me: You guys are
spending recklessly. We can't believe it. What has happened?
The American people understand we cannot do this. There is no free
lunch. Nothing comes from nothing. Somebody pays, and we cannot just
spend and take the easy way every time without facing the consequences
of a debt that we create. When we spend more than we take in, we borrow
the money. We borrow it on the open market and we pay interest on the
debt.
I want to say my Democratic colleagues are at it again, spending more
and not paying for it. Have the Republicans failed in their
responsibility when they had the Presidency and a majority in the
Senate? Yes, we should have done much better. But we have never seen
the deficits we are seeing today--never, ever.
President Bush had a record deficit of $450 billion his last year in
office. This year, ending September 30, it was $1.4 trillion--$1,400
billion--three times. This year, when September 30 arrives, our budget
experts tell us our annual deficit for this 1 year will be $1.5
trillion, and we will average $1 trillion a year for the years to come,
more than twice the highest deficit we have ever had. We cannot do
that. This is serious business.
I hope and pray the stimulus package will give us some benefit. I
know it will. When we spend $800 billion, every penny of it is
borrowed, to be paid back someday, or the interest paid back by our
children or grandchildren. This stimulus package, hopefully, will give
us some lift, but we will carry the debt.
Do you know what the Congressional Budget Office told us when they
analyzed the $800 billion stimulus package? They said: Yes, it will
provide a benefit for a few years. You will get a lift in the economy.
But over 10 years, just over 10 years, it will have a net negative to
the economy, a slight negative because you have to carry this debt, and
it is crowding out private sector borrowing because the government
borrowed it first. The government has to pay interest to all these
people around the world who loan us this money.
There is no easy way out of this. It is time for us to be mature and
grown up and make good decisions. It is time to say no to this
legislation unless it is paid for, and we can pay for it. There are
plenty of places in our budget it can be paid for.
I thank colleagues for allowing me to share these thoughts. I thank
Senator Coburn for raising this important issue, for his courage in
saying it is time to do better. We can do better. We can do this in the
right way. We came close tonight to getting it done, I thought, in a
paid-for way--so close. If we stand in there, maybe in a week or 2 we
will be able to take care of the unemployment insurance and pay for it
in a sound way.
I yield the floor.
Mr. COBURN. I yield 7\1/2\ minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I am proud to rise tonight and follow,
first of all, Senator Sessions. He has come to the floor many times on
this issue and talked about the crisis that is building in our Nation
relative to the spending and the debt. He always speaks with such
eloquence.
I also want to say thank you to my colleague, Senator Coburn, for
giving me an opportunity to come down tonight and offer a few thoughts
in the

[[Page S2103]]

time that we have. I appreciate it immensely.
Senator Coburn puts himself in a very difficult situation by standing
on principle because, of course, he makes himself a target of somebody
who wants to say he is not caring about the people who are out there
and looking for work. I know him and very much that is the opposite.
But here is the point. Here is what we are facing in this Nation. We
are literally getting to a stage in our history where the cascading
amount of debt is like a huge snowball that now is gaining enormous
momentum as it comes down the mountain. It is just growing bigger and
bigger.
I am going to head back home to Nebraska tomorrow. I am going to have
an opportunity to get across the State. I have some--we call them
community coffees but townhall meetings. I am going to talk to the
people of Nebraska. I will guarantee that one of the first things on
their agenda will be to raise concern about the spending and the debt
they see going on here in Washington.
Let me, if I might, take a moment and talk about the ethic of the
State that I come from because I think it is enormously important in
terms of what we are doing. I might add, I have had an opportunity as
county commissioner, as city council member, a mayor, and a Governor to
represent this great State.
In my job as mayor of Lincoln, I was a strong mayor, so I was the guy
responsible for the budget. Here is how we did it. There was only so
much money that was available, and what we would do is we would put a
list down, page after page, of very important priorities for the
community. At some point on this list there would be a line drawn and
my budget director would say to me: Mayor, if you want to go below that
line and fund some of these other important priorities, you are going
to have to look above that line and figure out what you can live
without because it is at this line that we have to quit spending.
Otherwise, our bond rating will be in jeopardy. Otherwise, the economic
stability of this community will be in jeopardy.
You know what. We made some very hard choices. We had some things we
would have loved to have done, but we began to realize we just couldn't
fit them into the budget.
Then I had the good fortune of becoming the Governor of the State of
Nebraska, and it didn't change anything. The Nebraska Constitution says
we can only borrow $50,000. Maybe at some point in our State's history
that was a handsome sum of money, but in effect what the constitution
says is we cannot borrow money.
While other Governors were balancing budgets by issuing bonds and
debt, we did not have that alternative. I had really three choices:
raise taxes, which I did not like and opposed, cut spending, or do
both. And I cut spending.
You could look at many places in that budget and say, well, Mike, why
did you choose this versus that? And you could have a great debate
about why this priority versus that priority. But in the end, what we
were doing was trying to choose the priorities for our State without
borrowing money, without putting our State in debt, while maintaining
economic stability.
I want to share that our State has fared as well as any State in the
country during this very tough economic time. Our unemployment rate is
about 4\1/2\ percent. We value our businesses, we create jobs, and we
do not spend money we do not have.
I came out here a year ago--a little more than a year ago--to join
the Senate. I am as proud today as I was then to be here on the Senate
floor. But here is what I will tell you: I am worried about where we
are headed with this budget. You see, this $9 billion is very
manageable. We want to provide unemployment insurance to the people who
need it. We all do. We want to help these people. But we have a
multitrillion-dollar budget here, and in effect what we are saying to
the American people is that we cannot find $9 billion to offset the
cost of that.
We can do better than that because, if that is what we are
acknowledging, that we cannot find $9 billion to offset the cost of
that important priority, then, my goodness, how will we ever deal with
a budget deficit that is over $1 trillion annually--annually--as far as
the eye can see.
I see I am running out of time, but I want to end with this thought.
I had a wonderful group of schoolkids from Nebraska in today, from
Superior, NE. I have been to Superior many times. It is a great
community. And these kids are great kids. As I was talking about the
various things that had happened here, I said something to them that I
hope made the point of the need to take responsible action on this
budget. I said this year I will celebrate my 60th birthday. God will
not keep me on this Earth long enough to pay the debt that has been
incurred.
It is no consolation to Nebraskans that I go home and say to them: I
have been here over a year, and I figured out who is at fault, because,
you know what, they are not caring about who is at fault. They are
saying: Mike, we elected you to go back there and lend your voice to
try to fix these problems.
It will be of no consolation for me to go home and say, well, it was
the Democrats or it was the Republicans. It will be no consolation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell.) The Senator has used the time
that has been yielded to him.
Mr. COBURN. I continue to yield.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may continue.
Mr. JOHANNS. I said to those kids: I will not be on Earth long enough
to pay this debt. I said to them: That means that will fall to you.
Do you know what I am saying to those kids? I am saying that the
quality of their lives will be impacted by the fact that we could not
take responsible action to deal with this debt.
I would like to say to them: You will not have any more wars. But
they will have their own wars to fight. They will have their own
pandemics to deal with. They will have their own recessions they have
to somehow fund and finance. And they will have their own challenges
they will have to deal with. You know what. If we do not start coming
to grips with this debt, they will not have the resources to manage
their way through those challenges.
You see, tonight is not about unemployment insurance. We want to help
those people. Tonight is about making the statement that we have to
take control of this because it is taking control of the future of
those young people.
I yield the floor and the remainder of my time to Senator Coburn.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. I will consume the remainder of our time.
I thank Senator Johanns and Senator Sessions for being here.
We have heard the word ``emergency.'' The emergency that is in front
of us is, we are a boat upside down fiscally, and there has to be a set
of competing priorities for how we right that boat. But the No. 1 way
we do not right the boat is to continue to add to the debt when we have
programs that are not working and are wasting money, that are consuming
precious resources we need to spend in other areas.
I am particularly interested in the very fast revisionist history
that has been presented by the Senator from Michigan.
Let me tell you what happened here today. What happened here today
was that a bill was offered and a motion to proceed on a bill that
would accomplish this was totally paid for. That motion was tabled,
with all of the Republican Senators voting against that, and some
Democrats. We worked, through the next couple of hours, negotiating
with the majority leader, with great help from Senator Durbin, the
senior Senator from Michigan, and a compromise was reached that we
would, in fact, make sure no interruption would happen over the next 2
weeks to those who are dependent on unemployment insurance. That was
communicated to the House of Representatives and the majority there,
and it was rejected.
Then the final thing that happened is we had an adjournment
resolution, for which everyone on our side of the aisle voted against
to stay here. Now, that probably was not a truly sincere vote. I would
put that out to my colleagues. But the fact is, the Senate does not
have to go home. And the reflection for this not passing should not
fall on the Senate; it should fall on the fact that the Senate came
together and agreed on a solution that was not acceptable to the
leadership in the House of Representatives.

[[Page S2104]]

So if there is a problem with what we have done today, it is that
when we compromised in the Senate, the House would not take it. And we
did compromise. We compromised on spending. We compromised on time. We
compromised on making sure the people who needed to have this extension
were going to get it.
I started out the debate earlier today on the basis of, where are we
going in our country and what is our problem? Our problem is that we
are drowning in debt, that our foreign policy is affected by it today,
our ability to borrow is affected by it, and the manipulation of our
ability to stabilize our own economy is affected by it. But, most
importantly, what we do today has dramatic impact on those who know us.
It is unfortunate that we did not work out a deal tonight. So we are
going to have a week of exposure for people who actually need the help.
It is actually going to be harder on the bureaucrats to handle this.
But it did not happen.
But I think the bigger question is, Should we just lay down and add
more money to the debt because we could not get agreement across the
Capitol? And so what we are going to do, when we come back, the day
after we get back, we are going to have a cloture vote, which I think
will be very difficult to achieve, but it may be achieved, because the
same principle is going to lie here.
With over $300 billion worth of waste, fraud, and duplication in the
Federal budget every year, there are many of us who believe sincerely
that it is time to stop spending money on lower priorities, time to
stop calling things an emergency when we actually have the money in
waste and fraud and duplication that we can use to pay for this.
We needed to start somewhere. The unfortunate aspect that we did not
accomplish that this evening means some people will suffer. But I want
you to contrast that with what the suffering is going to be in 2019
within our country when we have double-digit interest rates because we
can no longer maintain our borrowing; when we are, in the next 9 years,
going to pay $5.6 trillion in interest on $9.8 trillion we are going to
borrow. Of that $9.8 trillion, $5.6 trillion is going to be interest
payments.
What is coming is a tsunami to our country. So I feel a failure
tonight because I could not accomplish both goals, both protecting our
children and their future opportunity and taking care of those who need
us right now. But the principle is still there.
We have to, in fact, start making tough choices. If we learn to do
that together, the country benefits. And the future of our children is
at hand. But we can no longer make the decision that we steal from our
children to take care of things we are responsible for today. And I
understand the resistance to that, but the fact is, our future depends
on us starting today. It does not matter if you are liberal in
philosophy or conservative in philosophy, the economics will be borne
home to everyone. It has to stop. And we have to start with us.
I appreciate the congeniality of my friend from Illinois. Tough week
for us all--probably more tough for us than you. I congratulate you on
your victory on the yearlong battle with a difference in philosophy on
how we fix health care. But I know that 20 years from now, the Senator
from Illinois and I will suffer the same pain if our kids are
diminished by our lack of action here. So I will say, let's let it not
be so. Let's let it not be so. Let's start making hard choices. Let's
start doing what is in the best long-term interests of our country.
With that, I yield back a minute of our time to the Senator from
Illinois.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Let me thank the Senator from Oklahoma for his
professionalism and his own decorum during the course of this debate.
We want to maintain that on this side of the aisle.

____________________