[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 103 (Tuesday, July 13, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5766-S5768]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE BUDGET
Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to continue the discussion which was
raised by the Senator from Tennessee relative to the letter which has
been signed by all the Republican members of the Appropriations
Committee. This is a unique event, in my experience. I have had the
great honor and privilege of serving on this committee now for 14
years, and I have never participated in this type of an undertaking,
which is basically the Appropriations Committee Republicans, at least,
stepping up and doing the responsible thing in the area of trying to
control the fiscal policy of this country when the Budget Committee has
left the field.
The Budget Committee didn't leave the field arbitrarily; it is just
that the other side of the aisle decided they did not want to do a
budget for some reason. Actually, I know the reason. The reason we are
not doing a budget of the country as we are supposed to do is that the
budget shows we are in dire straits. We are going to have a $1.4 to
$1.6 trillion deficit this year. It looks as if next year we are going
to have a deficit in the range of $1.4 trillion. And for the next 10
years, every year under the Obama budget and under the spending plans
of the Democratic leadership of this Congress, we are talking an
average of $1 trillion a year of deficits. That adds up to a doubling
of the debt in 5 years and a tripling of the debt in 10 years. The
American people understand that we cannot do this, we cannot continue
that type of profligate spending, that type of out-of-control spending.
But, unfortunately, the other party, which now controls with
significant majorities both the House and the Senate, is unwilling to
step up and produce a budget which brings those numbers down, which
makes us more responsible in the area of spending and reduces the debt
burden on our children. So the Republican members of the Appropriations
Committee have said: Enough. We want to stop this out-of-control
spending. We want to have a spending proposal in place that makes
sense. And we picked a number that is very reasonable. It is
essentially a freeze at last year's levels. It is a number which has
been supported, interestingly enough, on this floor when it was offered
as the Senator Sessions-Senator McCaskill amendment on four different
occasions, by a majority of the Senate, with all of the Republican
Members of the Senate voting for this type of essential freeze and with
a number--I think between 16 and 18--of Democratic Senators voting for
this. That is because there is a full understanding, at least on our
side of the aisle and by some Members on the other side of the aisle
who did vote for this, that we have to do something about controlling
spending around here.
This letter essentially says that before we start marking up any
bills in the Appropriations Committee, we have to have an understanding
as to how much we are going to spend. Is that an unusual idea? Is it a
terribly radical idea, that we should reach a number, an overall
agreement on an overall number as to what we are going to spend around
here before we start producing spending bills? No, it is not. It is
exactly what the budget is supposed to do. But we do not have a budget
for the reason I mentioned earlier--people do not want to talk about
how big the deficit is around here because they are afraid the American
people have already figured this out and will just get more outraged
about it.
What we are doing and what we are suggesting in this letter and what
we are saying in this letter is that we as Republican members of the
Appropriations Committee expect there to be a budget for the
Appropriations Committee even though there was not one passed here,
with the top-line number being essentially the number in the Sessions-
McCaskill, what amounts to a freeze proposal--freezing at 2010 levels,
essentially--and that we will test every committee appropriations bill
that comes forward on the basis of that number, and we hope our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, those on the Appropriations
Committee and those who are not on the Appropriations Committee, will
join us in this effort because it is a sincere effort and a reasonable
effort since it was already voted on here with all of our side voting
for it and a majority of the Senate voting for it. It is a reasonable
number to set forward as the goal.
Yes, it does mean a significant reduction. We have to be forthright
about this, and this is what we need to do, quite honestly. It does
mean a significant reduction from what the President requested. It
means a significant reduction from what the Senate Budget
[[Page S5767]]
Committee passed in committee, which budget was never brought to the
floor of the Senate because they did not want to shine lights even on
that budget. There is no question it is a reduction and a fairly
significant reduction from those numbers. But it is a reasonable number
and it is an important number because it says we are willing to be
disciplined about our spending around here and that is what we are
going to have to do. We are going to have to make these types of tough
choices. This is an effort by the Republican members of the
Appropriations Committee to make clear that we are willing to make
those types of difficult choices.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from New
Hampshire would accept a question?
Mr. GREGG. Yes, I would accept a question from the Senator from
Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask the Senator from New Hampshire, who served as
chairman of the Budget Committee of the Senate and is now its ranking
member--and there is no one in the Senate more familiar with the
numbers in the Senate budget--is it not true that this request by
Republican members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, since it
comes at a time when many Americans and most Senators believe the level
of the Federal debt is at crisis levels and threatens the security of
our country and since it comes at a time when the Congress has not
produced a budget and it comes at a time when there have been
substantial increases over the last year and a half in the 38 percent
of the budget that is discretionary spending, would the Senator from
New Hampshire, who has long served on the Budget and Appropriations
Committees, not agree that the first job of Senate appropriators is not
to decide where to spend the money but to decide how much money there
is to spend, especially this year when there is no budget?
Mr. GREGG. I think the Senator from Tennessee is absolutely right.
How can we run a country and a government of a country if we are not
willing to decide on how much we are going to spend and then stick to
it? The reason we are so out of control around here in spending is
because every week for the last 8 to 10 weeks we have seen a new bill
brought to the floor of the Senate which has added to the debt and the
deficit of this country.
Interestingly enough, 8 weeks ago we passed a bill on this floor,
with great fanfare from the other side of the aisle, called pay-go.
That bill said all the bills that came to the floor of the Senate
were going to be subject to a test, which essentially said that before
you spent any money, you paid for what you are spending.
Since we passed that bill, over $200 billion--billion--has been
proposed or passed by the Senate which violated the very rule we
allegedly passed to try to discipline the Senate. So it is very clear
that unless you set out some hard parameters, unless you set out some
very specific spending limits--and that is what the letter from the
Appropriations Republicans does--you are not going to get any
discipline around here. We will just bring bill after bill out of
committee and we will spend money we do not have.
Where does it all go? Well, it all goes to our children as debt, and
we have to borrow it from the Chinese or we have to borrow it from
somebody else. Then we have to pay the interest on that. That interest
does not do us any good as a nation.
In fact, under the President's own projections, his own budget, the
interest on the Federal debt will exceed any other item of spending in
the Federal budget on the discretionary side within 7 years. We will
spend more on interest, because we are adding all of this deficit and
debt, than we spend on national defense. What a waste of money that is.
So unless we get some discipline around here on the spending side, this
deficit is going to grow, the debt is going to grow.
I saw a most interesting figure. I think the Senator from Tennessee
has seen it too. Since President Obama has been President, for every
second since he has become President, $56,000 has been added to the
debt of the United States--$56,000. That is the mean income of
Americans today. So every second he has been in office he has wiped out
the income of some American who is working, because that income is all
going to have to be spent to pay off that debt.
Granted, not all that debt was his fault. But interestingly enough,
as we go further into his administration, a large amount of it is his
decisions and the decisions of this Congress, such as the $200 billion
in debt that we have been adding or about to add that violates pay-go.
This week we are going to take up another supplemental bill. Does the
Senator know how much deficit and debt that bill will add if it is
passed in the form the administration and the Democratic leadership
have asked, just this week? I think it is somewhere in the vicinity of
$20 billion to $30 billion of new deficit and debt.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wonder if I could ask the Senator
another question. The Senator was talking about the increasing debt. Am
I correct that it took the first 43 Presidents of the United States and
the Congresses they served with about 230 years to run up $5.8 trillion
in debt, but President Obama's 10-year proposal, through 2018, would
add another $11.8 trillion?
In other words, am I right that the first 43 Presidents piled up $5.8
trillion in debt, and this President's 10-year budget, through 2018,
would double that?
Mr. GREGG. Triple it. The Senator was off by 100 percent but close.
In the next 5 years, the President will double the national debt under
the deficits which he is projecting under his budget. And in the next
10 years he will triple the national debt. As you say, if you take all
of the Presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush, put
all of the debt they have added on the books of the United States
through all of those administrations, cumulatively, add every one
together, President Obama will have added more debt than all of the
prior Presidents added, the first 43 Presidents of this country, in the
first 4\1/2\ years of his administration.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have one other question, if I may,
for the Senator from New Hampshire. I know we sometimes hear the
American people say, or commentators say: Well, why don't those
Senators work across party lines and get a result?
My question to the Senator from New Hampshire, who has years of
experience on Appropriations and Budget, is, in the present
circumstances where we have a debt crisis, and where we have no budget,
no budget for next year, and we will not have, would he not agree that
at the beginning of the process, taking a number that has been voted on
by a majority of the Senate and has widespread bipartisan support, is a
constructive bipartisan approach that ought to be able to gain the
respect of Democratic appropriators and Democratic Senators, and that
we could work together this year to essentially freeze discretionary
spending as a first step toward reining in Federal spending?
In other words, sometimes we see amendments around here that are
called message amendments, each side trying to score a point. Is this
not a proposal that deserves respect as a serious attempt to restrain
the debt and that should earn bipartisan support?
Mr. GREGG. I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his point. That is
absolutely valid. This is a bipartisan proposal for all intents and
purposes. It has been voted on. I think it got 57 votes once. I think
that was the most it got; maybe it got 58. There are only 41
Republicans, so clearly it had a large number of Democratic votes from
the other side of the aisle, because the number is reasonable.
``Freeze'' is a reasonable number on the nondefense discretionary
side, at a time when we are running deficits that are over $1.4
trillion. You have got to start somewhere. You know, all great journeys
begin with a step. So this is the place we should start, right here, by
freezing nondefense discretionary spending. We, as Republican
appropriators, have said we are willing to do it. I certainly think the
Senator from Tennessee is absolutely right; this is an attempt to reach
across the aisle and bring in a bipartisan coalition to accomplish
this, using a number which has already received significant bipartisan
support.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator.
[[Page S5768]]
Mr. GREGG. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KAUFMAN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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