[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 157 (Friday, December 3, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8453-S8454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       DEFICIT COMMISSION REPORT

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, underneath the ground level of the 
buildings on Capitol Hill is a subway system. It connects on the Senate 
side the major buildings where Senators and staff and committees have 
their offices with this glorious Capitol Building. If you get on the 
subway over at the Dirksen Office Building to come over to the Capitol, 
it is a very brief journey. I do not think it lasts for an entire 
minute. In less than 1 minute you move from the Dirksen Office Building 
over to the Capitol Building.
  This morning, I took that journey, leaving the meeting of the deficit 
commission to come over to the Senate floor, and in less than 1 minute 
I emerged from the world of reality to a surreal world in the Senate. 
Let me explain.
  For the last 10 months, because of President Obama's Executive order, 
we have had a bipartisan deficit commission that has asked some of the 
hardest questions I have ever faced as an elected official: How can we 
come to grips with the debt of this country? What can we do to reduce 
spending and increase revenue so our children do not end up inheriting 
an unconscionable, unsustainable debt?
  It has been a hard meeting to discuss changes in the law and changes 
in spending. The goal was to cut $4 trillion out of the deficit in the 
next 10 years. It sounds simple, doesn't it, with a government this 
size and an economy this size, but it is not. When you get down to it, 
hard choices have to be made.
  Erskine Bowles from North Carolina and Alan Simpson, former Senator 
from Wyoming, chaired it and did a great job. It was inspired by Kent 
Conrad, our colleague from North Dakota, and Senator Judd Gregg of New 
Hampshire. They were the ones who asked for this commission.
  We went to work for 10 months, and today we voted on that commission 
report. I voted yes. I left that deficit commission to take that short 
1-minute subway ride over here to the Capitol to emerge in the Senate 
Chamber and to try to understand how two buildings so close to one 
another can be so far apart. Here on the floor of the Senate, the 
debate is on whether we should extend tax cuts for the wealthiest 
people in America. Doing that will add dramatically to our national 
debt.
  Just to put it in perspective, Senator Mitch McConnell's proposal for 
tax cuts for the next 10 years will cost us $4 trillion. Does that 
number sound familiar? That is the amount the deficit commission was 
told to eliminate in spending and create in revenue over the next 10 
years. All of the work of this commission, as controversial as it is, 
would only pay off Senator McConnell's Republican tax cut proposal, 
meaning we would make no progress in reducing the deficit of the United 
States of America.
  Well, let me tell you about that vote over in that deficit 
commission. My phone has been ringing off the hook because some people 
know--and I will put it on the record--I am a progressive. I come from 
the left side of the spectrum. I am a Democrat. I am proud of it. I 
come from a tradition of two wonderful people who served in this 
Senate: Paul Douglas of Illinois, who was my first boss on Capitol Hill 
when I was a college kid, and his friend and my mentor, Paul Simon of 
Illinois, who preceded me in the Senate. They were both liberal and 
proud of it, but they were both fiscally conservative. Someone may ask: 
How could you do that? Well, because, as Douglas once said and Simon 
often repeated, if you are a liberal, it doesn't mean you are wasteful. 
It doesn't mean you are a spendthrift and can't be thrifty and find 
ways to cut spending so that the money that is absolutely needed in 
America for critical national security or the benefit of people who are 
struggling is there when you need it. They believed those two things 
were consistent, and I do too.

  What this deficit commission forced us to do was take an honest look 
at the debt of America, which is over $13 trillion. This debt has 
exploded in recent years.
  A little bit of history. When President William Jefferson Clinton 
left the White House 10 years ago, the national debt was $5 trillion. 
The budget was in surplus. There was extra money in the budget that was 
being used to buy time and longevity for Social Security. And it was 
projected that the next year, there would be a $120 billion surplus in 
the budget. Ten years ago: $5 trillion debt, budget in surplus, and 
$120 billion surplus predicted for the next year.
  Fast forward 8 years after President George W. Bush, and there was a 
much different picture. The national debt was no longer $5 trillion. 
The national debt of America had risen in 8 years to $12 trillion. It 
more than doubled. The budget was in serious imbalance.
  Unfortunately, President Obama inherited in his first year a more 
than $1 trillion deficit. That is the budget he was left by President 
Bush. What happened in 8 years for that dramatic negative turnaround in 
debt in America? We waged two wars and didn't pay for them. We had 
programs that might have been fundamentally sound, such as the 
prescription drug program, but we didn't pay for them. And there was 
the argument by the Republicans that in hard times and good times 
alike, tax cuts were always the answer. So for the first time in the 
history of the United States of America, during two wars, we gave away 
tax cuts, plunging this Nation deeper and deeper into debt. Today, that 
national debt is over $13 trillion.
  Listen to this: 40 cents out of every dollar we spend in Washington 
is borrowed--40 cents. Who loans us the money? The Chinese--they are 
our mortgagors--Japan, Korea, the OPEC nations. Sadly, as we become 
more deeply in debt and more indebted to them, we are at their mercy. 
If tomorrow--and it could happen as quickly as 1 day--if tomorrow the 
Chinese said: We have lost confidence in the American dollar and we 
don't believe this government is serious about deficits, we could see a 
dramatic negative economic impact on the United States of America. We 
are at the mercy of our

[[Page S8454]]

creditors, and our largest creditor is China, which today happens to be 
our largest global competitor for emerging markets around the world.
  That is why this deficit commission is so important. The commission 
set out not only to eliminate $4 trillion in spending over 10 years but 
to engage America in a conversation long overdue.
  Think about this for a moment: If you ever happen to see the Tax Code 
of the United States of America and open it, you will understand why 
most people don't. It is unintelligible. Unless you are an accountant 
or a lawyer or practiced in the art, it is hard to understand what is 
going on, with sections and articles and subparagraphs. But that book, 
that Tax Code of America, is one of the most important books when it 
comes to this deficit debate because each year in America we spend, on 
that Tax Code, $1.1 trillion. We spend $1.1 trillion in deductions, 
credits, exclusions, and tax earmarks. That sum, as huge as it is--$1.1 
trillion--is more than we collect each year from all of the personal 
income taxes paid across America. That sum is more than we spend each 
year for all of the domestic discretionary nondefense programs. It is 
huge, and people don't know what is in it. Some do. There are a lot of 
special interest groups, businesses, groups, organizations, and 
associations that have protected themselves and taken care of 
themselves in that Tax Code.
  This deficit commission, the Bowles and Simpson commission President 
Obama put together, has finally opened the door and taken a look inside 
of that Tax Code. I think they did the right thing. What they said to 
America is, if we eliminated all of these deductions and all of these 
credits, how could we reduce the rates, the income tax rates paid by 
Americans at every level and by corporations. And the answer is, they 
could be reduced dramatically--dramatically. That, to me, would be a 
step forward. I am not calling for the elimination of all of the 
deductions and credits. Some of them are important--the deduction for 
health insurance, mortgage interest, charitable donations, and the 
like--but we should take a look at each one of them, and we virtually 
never do.
  Tax reform needs to be part of deficit reform. That was the message I 
took away from this deficit commission report.
  Some people ask me how a person such as myself, coming from my end of 
the political spectrum, could vote for a deficit commission report. 
Well, it is basically this: I don't think that borrowing 40 cents out 
of every dollar we spend for either a nuclear missile or a food stamp 
is sustainable, and I don't believe that being indebted for generations 
to China and OPEC makes America a more fair and just nation.
  When we engage in the critical decisions about our Nation's future 
budgets, I want progressive voices at the table arguing that we must 
protect the most vulnerable in America and demand fairness in budget 
cuts, in spending, and in revenues. My vote today for the deficit 
commission report is my claim for a seat at that table. I don't view 
this vote as a vote on final passage of a bill. That is not how I 
looked at the commission report. I view it, as we say in the Senate, as 
a vote for a motion to proceed, to begin an important budget debate on 
the floor.
  After the commission meeting, reporters came up to me and said: What 
is next? Well, I will tell you what is next. What is next is President 
Obama's State of the Union Address in which I am sure he will allude to 
this challenge. What is next is the President's budget, which we should 
receive in February, and following that, a budget proposal from the 
House, then one from the Senate, and a debate on our debt ceiling in 
America. Each of these will create an opportunity for us to take the 
message of this deficit commission and move forward. Some parts of it I 
will definitely want to change. Some parts I don't agree with. Other 
parts I think are essential.
  Let me say a word about Social Security. There is no more important 
social program in America, and there never has been. It is more 
important today than it has ever been because people understand that 
your pension and work may not be around when you need it. A lot of them 
have lost it. People understand that the little nest egg, the savings 
you have, may get beaten up by Wall Street tomorrow. But Social 
Security is the bedrock. It is what we count on.
  We have to make sure this program, which is destined to be solvent 
for another 20 years, is destined to be solvent for more years. This 
deficit commission has come up with a proposal which will add 75 years 
of solvency to Social Security.
  Although it is the deficit commission, the Social Security Program 
has nothing to do directly with the deficit. Making it a solvent 
program isn't going to help solve our deficit, but it is going to give 
peace of mind not only to those currently receiving Social Security but 
to a lot of young people who really question whether the program will 
be there when they need it. I don't agree with all of the proposals 
that came out of this deficit commission. I would change some. I think 
some of the benefit cuts don't have to take place, but I think this 
deficit commission is on the right track to give people peace of mind 
that Social Security is going to be there for a long time to come.
  There are parts of this proposal, this deficit commission proposal, 
with which I do not agree. But I will tell my colleagues, getting back 
to my beginning point--and I see some other Senators coming to the 
floor--I hope those Senators who come to this floor and passionately 
argue for tax cuts for wealthy Americans at this moment in time will 
acknowledge the obvious: They are piling up deficit debt on America, 
they are calling for more money to be borrowed from China and other 
nations, and they are enslaving our children and future generations to 
paying off that debt before they can enjoy the prosperity most of us 
have enjoyed in our lives. To ignore that is to ignore the deficit. To 
ignore the debt is to turn their backs on the reality of what extending 
the tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America will mean.

  I hope we can ask our Republican colleagues to take that little trip 
on the subway over to the Dirksen Building and go in there and read the 
deficit commission report before they come to the floor and make a 
speech that ignores the obvious: Cutting taxes on the wealthy adds to a 
debt that our children will have to pay.
  I believe we need to continue the tax cuts for the time being for 
those making $250,000 a year and less. That is needed to get us through 
this recession and create more jobs. I hope we can get that done before 
we leave so that what happened in the deficit commission will be 
reflected in sound judgment here on the floor of the Senate.
  The last point I will make is this: It is unfair, it is unjust, it is 
inconsistent with the history of this country for us to cut off 
unemployment benefits for Americans, as we did yesterday. Cutting off 
those benefits means that 2 million unemployed Americans will lose the 
helping hand they need to feed their families, to pay utility bills, to 
buy clothes for their kids, in the middle of this holiday season. There 
are 127,000 unemployed Illinois families that will lose their 
unemployment benefits this week. That weekly check of $300 may not 
sound like that much to a Senator or a Congressman. It may be the 
difference between making that second trip to the food pantry and 
keeping the lights on in their home during the holiday season.
  I urge my colleagues in both political parties to put party aside and 
think about the reality of this recession and unemployment in America, 
and whatever we do on tax cuts, I insist, I beg that we include 
unemployment insurance as part of that benefit.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.

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