[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 52 (Wednesday, April 14, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2255-S2257]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

  Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak on a 
topic I have addressed many times since I came to the Senate in the 
fall of last year. Having come from running a business and having 
worked in State government, every day it is still alarming to me the 
way Washington spends money. In no other place in America and perhaps 
no other place in the world is money spent by an organization without 
any reference to how much money is being taken in. Unfortunately, the 
situation has gotten to a point where it is completely unsustainable 
for this country.
  We open our newspapers today and we read stories about Greece having 
to borrow money from the European Union, being so far in debt that the 
forecast of the country's viability is in question. Yet our country is 
headed on the same path, but few come to the floor of this Chamber and 
sound the alarm. I will continue to do that for

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the remainder of the time I have here in this body because the future 
of this country is at peril.
  While we have spent too much for many years, the rate and pace of 
that spending now is beyond control. But it need not be. We need not 
continue in the ways of spending more money than we can possibly pay 
back. Let me set the table, if I may, of the financial situation we are 
in.
  Here in 2010, we are about the business of setting up the budget for 
2011. You would think the first question we would ask would be, How 
much money do we expect to take in in 2011? Well, the number is about 
$2.2 trillion. Yet the projected budget of how much we are going to 
spend is $3.8 trillion. We will run a deficit in this year alone of 
$1.6 trillion.
  Now, these numbers are so big. Well, $1 trillion--what is $1 
trillion? Well, $1 trillion is $1,000 billion--$1,000 billion. A 
billion is 1,000 million. The numbers are so hard to fathom, but let me 
explain, if I can, in a way I have often talked about here on the 
floor. If you put dollar bills side to side, you could cover two 
football fields with $1 million.
  If one laid $1 billion on the ground in one-dollar bills side by 
side, they could cover Key West, FL, which has a square area of more 
than 3 miles. They would blanket the city with one-dollar bills with $1 
billion. Mr. President, $1 trillion will cover the State of Rhode 
Island twice. Every one of these dollars is a dollar taken from the 
American taxpayer, a dollar they could spend on families, on children's 
education, on homes, on needed repairs. We take those dollars and spend 
them. Now we spend them beyond an ability to pay them back. Right now, 
because of the money we borrow, more than $200 billion a year goes to 
interest payments alone, paying for the money we should not have spent 
in the past. At our current rate of spending, according to this 
administration, by the end of this decade, we will have another almost 
$10 trillion in debt, making our total debt $22 trillion.
  At that point, our interest payment each year will be $900 billion. 
At that point, the budget breaks. At that point, what we call mandatory 
spending on entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare and 
Medicaid, will be all of the budget plus the interest. There will be no 
money for defense, no money for homeland security, for any of the other 
programs in government.
  If we have this impending crisis, if we are driving the car toward 
the wall, why aren't we making any changes? Today I am filing 
legislation to enact a change, enact a mechanism, an architecture to 
have a discussion on the floor in this Chamber and in the House to find 
a solution to put America back on a stable financial path. The bill is 
what I call the 2007 solution. In 2007, the economy was still going 
strong. It was not until December of that year that we found ourselves 
beginning the recession.
  If I go home to Florida, as I did this past weekend, and talk to 
Floridians and ask: Could you live on what you had in 2007? Based on 
these difficult times, my constituents had more money in 2007 than they 
do in 2010. Why shouldn't the Federal Government be able to live on 
what we spent in 2007? Why can't that be enough? If we did that, if we 
froze spending across the board at 2007 levels, when the economy was 
still going strong, before we injected all this stimulus money, if we 
go back to a place of normalcy--and, trust me, there was plenty of 
redundant and wasteful spending in 2007--let's go back to that as a 
framework. If we were to cap our spending at 2007 levels, by 2013, we 
would balance the budget and start running a surplus. By 2020, instead 
of having a $22 trillion national debt that is unsustainable, we would 
have a $6 trillion national debt. We would have cut it in half. We 
would have preserved the American dream for our children and 
grandchildren.
  I have four small kids--we just had a baby 2 weeks ago--Max, Taylor, 
Chase, and Madeleine, 6, 4, 2, and 2 weeks. My greatest fear is, 
someday one of my kids is going to come to me, when they are an adult, 
after they have gone to school, and say: Dad, we are going to move to 
India or Brazil or Ireland or some other country. The opportunities in 
those countries are better than the ones in the United States. Dad, 
your generation and the generation before so mismanaged this government 
that you ruined the American dream. Our taxes now are so high to pay 
for the debt for things you spent in the past. Our entitlements are so 
weighty we can't afford them. We are going to leave.
  The 2007 solution would solve that problem. How does it work? Every 
year under this bill, the majority leader of the Senate and the 
majority leader in the House would have to come to the floor and file a 
procedure to allow for 50 hours of debate on this floor and on the 
floor of the House of Representatives to decide how we are going to 
make cuts to stay within 2007 levels. If the majority leader doesn't do 
it, the minority leader has the opportunity. If the minority leader 
doesn't do it, any Senator can do it. Then we will have to, for the 
first time, have an adult conversation about priorities. Maybe then we 
would call in the agency heads of the different agencies of government 
who have had 10, 15, 20 percent-plus increases year after year in their 
budgets for more than a decade, and we would say: Can you make some 
cuts? Can you do things more efficiently?
  American businesses for the past 3 years have been making tremendous 
cuts because they have to. We don't make cuts in our agencies. Our 
agency heads don't meet with the members of their organizations, the 
tens and thousands of workers who work in the different agencies, and 
say: Can we do things differently? Can we do things more efficiently?
  This morning I had the opportunity to speak to a friend of mine who 
is about to become speaker of the house of the Florida House of 
Representatives, a man named Dean Cannon. Right now the Florida 
legislature is in session. They have to balance their budget, a very 
unfamiliar notion in Washington, DC. They are cutting billions of 
dollars from the Florida budget, as they did last year and the year 
before, because revenues are down because the economy is hurting. They 
have three choices. They can make cuts, raise taxes, or find new 
sources of revenue. Right now they are going through the process of 
cutting because they have to. They are making responsible leadership 
decisions. That process does not happen in Washington, DC. Under this 
bill, a framework would be provided that would require that debate. It 
would require that focus.
  The majority of my colleagues are more interested in new programs 
than making the programs we have run more efficiently and effectively. 
We cannot afford new programs. We cannot afford the programs we have 
now. If we keep blindly looking off and pretending we don't have this 
crisis, the car is going to hit the wall. Our children are going to be 
in a situation where they can't fulfill the American dream. The 2007 
solution says we are going to have a debate for 50 hours on the floor 
of this Chamber every year about how we can get back to 2007 levels. It 
doesn't specify where the cuts should be. Shall we make cuts in the 
Defense Department? Do we need to reform our entitlement programs? Is 
there waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare? We would have those 
discussions. It would be our governing, focusing principle for at least 
50 hours. Do we not have 50 hours to figure out whether we can run 
government more efficiently and effectively?
  There are hundreds of billions of dollars we could cut out of the 
Federal Government and not impact our constituents back home. I am 
convinced of it. Do we not think there is 10 percent waste in Federal 
agencies that have not made cuts for more than a decade? If we cut 10 
percent across the board in Federal agencies, we would save more than 
$100 billion a year; 20 percent gets us close to $300 billion. 
Businesses, families, State governments are doing this right now and 
have been doing it for years. The 2007 solution, which I hope my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle will embrace, says: Let's 
have a discussion. Let's have the architecture in place to get back to 
a level of sustainable spending. If we did that, if we were principled 
about it, we could save this country. It is to that point. The debt is 
cascading out of control.
  I came to this body in September of last year. I stand on the floor 
of the Senate in April, and we have gone $1 trillion more in debt since 
I arrived, $1 trillion in a 6- or 7-month period. It took us until 
1980, from 1789 to 1980, to go $1 trillion in debt. We did it in 6 or

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7 months. Our spending is out of control. We need a solution. We need a 
framework for a governing leadership discussion. I believe the 2007 
solution bill can do that.
  I hope my colleagues will embrace this provision. I hope we can 
create an architecture to put America back on the right path. I know 
there are people of good conscience on both sides of the aisle, 
including the man who sits in the chair today, who care about this 
spending problem. If we could get past partisanship, if we could get 
past rhetoric and focus on this issue, we could save America.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak under 
morning business on the Democratic side.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. President.

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