[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 161 (Wednesday, December 8, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8628-S8631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE BUDGET
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I hope the American people are watching
Washington right now. We are at a defining moment in our country. There
is not anybody in this body who does not recognize that our country is
on an unsustainable course. They know it. It is well known. The world
knows it. We can argue about how close we are to the debt crisis and
the liquidity crisis, but no one disputes that one is coming. We just
don't know when. Yet in the next 2 weeks Congress is going to make that
problem $1 trillion worse.
We can say that a lot of what we are doing is the right thing to do,
but what we are not doing is addressing the real issues that need to be
accompanied by grownups as we look at this. What should the American
people make of this? It is kind of like we are on the Titanic here in
America and everybody is saying: The bar is open, we will just have a
party the next 2 weeks. We are going to spend another $900 billion or
we are going to set it up so that it can be spent.
I do not often agree with a columnist by the name of Thomas Friedman,
but he has a column today that I think everyone in our collective body
should read. It is aptly titled ``Still Digging.'' Here, he writes:
Given where we need to go, this tax deal--this tax deal, opportunity
scholarship deal, unemployment deal, tax holiday deal--is just another
shot of morphine to a country that needs to do things that are big and
hard and still only wants to do things that are easy and small. He
concludes: Economics is not war. It can be win-
[[Page S8629]]
win. So it can be good for the world if China is doing better, but it
can't be good for America if, every time we come to a hard choice, we
borrow more money from a country that is not just outsaving and
outhustling us but is also starting to outeducate us. We need a plan.
I couldn't agree with him more. I was part of the deficit commission,
taken a lot of criticism for saying we needed to have that debate on
the Senate floor. I still think we need to have that debate on the
Senate floor. But this body will not even agree about having a debate
about having a plan.
Last week, the members of the debt commission refused to even debate
the plan--the Members refused to even debate the plan in Congress. We
didn't get 14 out of 18 votes; we only got 11.
I wish to congratulate Senator Durbin, Senator Conrad, Senator Crapo,
and Senator Gregg for their efforts on that commission. You see, they
think we need a plan. Senator Conrad had a wonderful statement about
it. He said this: The only thing that is worse than being for this plan
is being against it. What he was really addressing is the fact that we
are not willing to make the hard choices. We will not come together and
do what is best for America. What we will do is just take another shot
of morphine, drink another drink on the Titanic, and hope that somehow
it gets better.
The fact is, we already have a debt commission. It is called the U.S.
Congress. That is why I voted initially against the debt commission. I
spent 8 months, had a full-time staffer working on that commission for
the last 8 months. We are the debt commission. We have to have a plan
to avert the catastrophe that is in front of us.
America needs to know it is urgent. It is not something that can wait
a year. We are going to have a major liquidity crisis, and we are also
going to have a major interest rate crisis. Nobody knows when it comes.
But the one thing we do know is that if we don't have a plan, we will
no longer control our ability to get out of our problem; the people who
own our debt will control how we get out of our problem.
So if, in fact, we want to hand over our responsibility in the Senate
to the bondholders of the world, then we should continue to not have a
plan. But if, in fact, we want to embrace the oath we were given, then
we should have a plan.
As we debate over the next 2 weeks coming up to Christmas, part of
that debate has to be whether we are grown up enough to recognize that
the party is over and that we better start bailing water, we better
form the line, the bucket brigade; otherwise, we are going to go down
with the ship.
Now, people can say: You are scaring people.
That is realism. That is what is getting ready to happen to us. Mr.
Bernanke cannot solve our problems in this regard. Only we can solve
these problems for the American people.
Cutting spending should be the easy part of our solution. We can
document hundreds of billions of dollars a year that are either wasted,
defrauded, or duplicative in the Federal Government. I have given
hundreds of speeches over the last 6 years outlining those things,
whether it be the $5 billion the Pentagon pays to contractors for
performance bonuses when those contractors do not meet the performance
requirements to get the bonus or the $80 to $100 billion a year in
fraud in Medicare and Medicaid. Those are facts--the fact that we pay
three times as much for a motorized wheelchair as it costs. We have not
done anything to address any of those issues. It is not hard to cut
spending. It is hard to get the will to have a plan that recognizes
that we have to keep on keeping on until we get America out of this
very dangerous time period we are experiencing.
We just learned that we rank 25th in the world in math, 17th in
science. Yet we have 105 different, separate government programs to
incentivize excellence in science, technology, engineering, and math.
This is just a tiny little example of the work we need to do. We need
to have one plan. It needs to have measurements on it. We need to
oversight it. Then we need to look at it the next year. Is it working?
Is it effective? We have 105 sets of bureaucrats, and we have not made
the headway we all know is required for us to be competitive in a
global economy. Yet not once this year, not once last year, not when
Republicans were in control, not when Democrats were in control, did we
do the effective oversight that is necessary to get us out of the jam
we are in.
Oversight is hard work. It is not easy. It requires that we actually
know what is going on in the government, which is part of our oath to
begin with. We have to do the work, we have to read it, we have to go
to the hearings, we have to interview the people, and we have to have
investigators so we know what is going on. Yet we do not do that.
I often hear from my colleagues on the other side that we need to pay
for the so-called Bush tax cuts, which are really your tax cuts. The
assumption is that once the money comes to the government at a certain
rate, it is always going to come, and it is not yours, it is the
government's.
Let's grant that premise for a minute. Let's grant the premise that
it is the government's money and not the individual's. I would issue
this challenge: Anyone who thinks we ought to pay for tax cuts ought to
have to put up a list of programs that we ought to eliminate to pay for
them. I put up, every time, when people are wanting to spend money, a
list of options we can do to make it to where we do not increase the
very problem holes we keep digging in.
The fact is, the body is not interested in cutting spending, and the
proof is what we did last year. The very same people who claim we need
to pay for the tax cuts uniformly voted to override pay-go to the tune
of $266 billion last year, just in this last year--not this whole
Congress, just this last year.
So what we need to do is move away from that rhetoric. The problem is
too big for us to take pot shots at each other on what we think is a
political point. And we need to get down to the real business of having
a plan that gets this country out of the very real difficulties we
face. The very fact that we do not know when the problem is coming, the
very fact that we cannot control our own destiny unless we start taking
action now should give us all chills, that we are about to be the
Senate, the Congress of the United States that allowed this to happen.
We cannot let that happen, no matter what our positions are. The only
way we get out of the hole we are in is if we make shared sacrifices.
That means political sacrifices. That means position sacrifices. That
means monetary sacrifices. That means sacrifices against our wish list.
It means we all have to sacrifice.
Some people say it is suicide to tell the American people they have
to sacrifice. I adamantly disagree with that. They are grown up. They
get it way ahead of us. They have already seen what is happening to us.
They are feeling it now. They have this innate sense that we are
disconnected from the very real problems they are seeing. They are
ready to do their part.
I will borrow a line from someone far more eloquent, J.F.K. I
remember; I was in high school.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you
can do for your country.
It was a great statement then. It is more appropriate now than ever.
What does a shared sacrifice mean? It means that if you live in this
country and make a decent income, you need to be more responsible with
your health care and retirement than you are today. If you have gamed
the system to get disability benefits or workmen's compensation, sorry,
your free ride is over. If you are receiving a special tax break
because you have a good lobbyist, you are going to have to give that
up. If you are a defense contractor, you might only get a bonus for
doing exceptional work, not standard work, not for just showing up to
work. And if you are a politician, it might mean you have to lose an
election to do what is best for this country.
If we think about what is required and how we would achieve real
change, we have two truths in tension: One, we have a government we
tolerate; two, the American people have the power to change that
government.
We can solve all of the difficult challenges before us, but we can't
solve them if Washington will not even debate the problem. And if we
can't overcome our courage deficit, the American people have a
responsibility to replace us all--to replace every one of us.
[[Page S8630]]
Courage is having the fortitude to do the right thing for the right
moral reason at the right time regardless of the consequences to you.
And we lack that in our body politic today.
I know a lot of people see this tax deal as a big political victory.
I do not see it as a victory at all for the country or for our side.
Actually, a former Bush staffer, Don Bartlett, is quoted as saying:
We knew that, politically, once you get it into law, it
becomes almost impossible to remove it. That's not a bad
legacy. The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel
pretty good, to tell you the truth.
This gentleman just ignored the magnitude, severity, and urgency of
the problems that face America.
The political cynicism that accompanies this should give us all pause
to think for a minute on the games that are being played in Washington.
Congratulations. Somebody embarrassed somebody else.
How does making our entitlement dilemma worse by passing Medicare
Part D feel? It is now up to $13 trillion in unfunded liability, and
the rich get the same benefit as the poor; does that feel good? How
about doubling the size of the government since 1999; does that feel
good, especially at a time when fraud, waste, and abuse has doubled?
Does it feel good that we have done nothing to reform Social Security
in the years since people applauded in the middle of the State of the
Union address because of President Bush's failed effort to fix Social
Security? Does that feel good? Did that solve something or was that
political showmanship? That belies the history of this body of coming
together.
Our Founders created the Senate to try to force consensus. That is
what the rules were all about. What we need to do, Democrats and
Republicans and our Independent colleagues, is recognize the depth and
magnitude of our problem right now. There needs to be a great big time
out. Who cares who is in charge if there is no country to run that can
be salvaged? It doesn't matter.
Economists worldwide and some of the brightest people at Harvard and
MIT, the University of Texas, Pennsylvania, they don't sleep at night
right now. They know we are on the razor-thin edge of falling over a
cliff.
The fact is, both parties have laid a trap for future generations by
our inaction, our laziness, our arrogance, and a crass desire for
power. We are waterboarding the next generation with debt. We are
drowning them in obligations because we don't have the courage to come
together and address or even debate a real solution.
The reason I voted for the deficit commission report? It had a lot of
stuff in it I absolutely hated. It had one thing in it Oklahoma can't
tolerate that will have to be changed. But the fact is, I believed the
problem was so big and so urgent and so necessary that we ought to have
that debate. We ought to make sure the American people know the
significance of the problems facing us. Both Senator Conrad and Senator
Durbin have taken heat. Guys on our side of the aisle have taken heat
because we dared to say we should have a debate about the real problems
that face this country. The special interests immediately started
attacking from both sides.
That tells me we were doing some good. I often hear my colleagues
assert the power of the purse when it comes to earmarking, but I never
hear the same thing when we talk about trying to cut spending. The bias
is to spend, not to cut spending. We are either going to do it or
outside financial forces are going to force us.
Look what has happened so far this year with some other countries. In
the first column of this chart, we see the debt in U.S. dollars in
fixed terms. The second is what they have done in terms of government
spending. In terms of debt, we, of course, lead the world, $13.8
trillion. We have France at $2 trillion, Germany at $1.46 trillion,
Spain $602 billion, United Kingdom $1.47 trillion, and Canada. Every
one of them froze or reduced the pay of their Federal employees. Every
one of them cut their Federal workforce. Every one of them cut Federal
spending by significant amounts. What have we done? A big goose egg,
zero. That is what we have done. So no wonder the world does not have
confidence and no wonder our business investment isn't coming in. We
haven't created an environment where they would have confidence.
There is no question when the tax bill goes through we will see a
bump up in confidence. When people get 2 percent more on their
paycheck, we will see some bump up. But it will be short-lived.
The problem is not the tax deal but the fact that we are not
addressing our real problems. We are addressing the symptoms of the
problem. Does a 2-year extension give businesses, small and large, the
confidence they need to plan for the future? I certainly hope so. But
tax reform that had a meaningful effect on future capital investment
would do a whole lot more. The problem is, we are not even willing to
consider the hard choices. We will not even have an honest debate about
a debate about hard choices. We just want to take our shot of morphine
and go on down the road, have another martini on the deck of the
Titanic.
The history of our country, at least what I saw growing up from the
1940s to the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s, was that our Nation
thrived because we always embraced the heritage of service and
sacrifice when our future was at stake. We actually have seen some of
that in the last 10 years. I challenge my colleagues to go to
Gettysburg or Philadelphia or visit ground zero and ask: What went
through the minds of the brave young Americans when the doors of their
landing craft opened on Omaha Beach? What motivated the heroes on
flight 93 on 9/11 when they stormed a cockpit occupied by terrorists?
What did our Founders think when they signed the Declaration of
Independence, knowing their lives and fortunes were on the line? They
were thinking about the future. They were making that critical decision
to have courage in the face of adversity and take with it what may
come. But they knew doing the correct and honorable and right thing was
more important than their reputation or any other thing they had.
Here is what one of our Founders thought. Almost 234 years ago, on
December 19, 1776, Thomas Paine was contemplating the great and
uncertain struggle that lay ahead in our battle for independence and
freedom. He said: ``If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that
my child may have peace.''
At the time of Christmas and Hanukkah, isn't that what we want for
those who follow, peace of mind to not be threatened by what we have
set up as an unsustainable debt dungeon?
I think we ought to have it in our day. Let it be our day. Let it be
today. Let it be started with this debate we will have on the tax bill
that will come before us. Let's make the effort to come to a consensus
that we have to have a plan. It doesn't have to be my plan or the plan
of Senator Bennet, but we have to have a plan. We have to signal to the
rest of the world that we are willing to start making some of the
appropriate sacrifices and generate the austerity that will allow us to
continue this wonderful experiment. We are now facing the most
predictable crisis in our history. We are doing nothing to avert the
catastrophe, nothing, zero. In fact, we are still digging. It is time
we stopped digging.
How will we be remembered? As a generation of politicians who saw a
gathering storm and took action or a generation of politicians who put
off the hard choices of honor and dishonored the sacrifices of our
past?
We do have a choice. We can choose to come together and work to solve
this problem in the very short term that will have a tremendous impact
in the long term. What we don't have is a lot of time. As I heard
somebody say today: Time fritters away so fast in Washington. It goes
by so fast. We are all so busy. There is no problem in front of us in
any committee, on any issue that is greater than the problems facing
this country. We need to come together across the aisle to put a plan
together that will give security to not only the generations that come
and are here already but the peace of mind to know we are listening, we
understand, and we are willing to make and lead by example in the
sacrifices that have to come for us to solve the problems.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado is recognized.
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the proposed tax
compromise. Before doing that, since the
[[Page S8631]]
Senator from Oklahoma is on the floor, I wished to say how grateful I
am for his courage in supporting the bipartisan commission's report on
the deficit and the debt. His vote for that, as well as the votes of
Senators Crapo, Durbin, and Conrad, in 22 months in this place, this is
the first time I have felt any confidence that we may actually be
moving in the right direction. I wish to thank him for casting that
vote. No one who voted for that, Democratic Senator or Republican
Senator, agrees with everything that is in the package. But what we do
agree with is that we need a plan to get this right. That is what we
need to do.
There is a lot of talk in this town about whose side are you on. I
hear that all the time. I will tell one quick story from the campaign
trail. Every single townhall meeting I had, the issue of the deficit
and the debt came up, profound anxiety among the people of my State
that we are going to leave less opportunity, not more, to our kids and
grandkids. I share the Senator's view that time is short. If we don't
make these decisions, the capital markets are going to make them for
us. It will not be like that frog in the boiling water. One morning,
one day somebody in the capital markets is going to wake and say: I am
not going to buy your paper anymore at that price. We are going to see
our interest rates go through the roof, and we will see economic
turmoil far worse than we have been going through now, the worst
recession since the Great Depression.
I would talk about this in these meetings, about how we need to come
together, Republicans and Democrats, and actually start solving the
problems. The frustration people had--Democrats and Republicans, Tea
Party people, unaffiliated voters--at our inability to work together to
create solutions. I would say we have a moral obligation to the next
generation to get this straightened out so we don't constrain their
choices. The problem is even more urgent for our kids and grandkids.
I was lucky enough that my daughters came with me on a lot of these
trips. They sat through a lot of these townhall meetings. I remember
one morning my daughter Caroline followed me out. She is now 11 years
old. She had heard about the constraints we were putting on the next
generation. She tugged at my sleeve on the sidewalk and she said:
Daddy, just to be clear--she was making fun of me because I overuse
that expression--I am not paying that back.
When people ask me the question, whose side am I on, I am on
Caroline's side. I am on the side of the 850,000 children going to
Denver's public schools who don't deserve to be left what we are at
risk of leaving them.
I want the Senator to know I will work with anybody, Republican or
Democrat, in this Chamber in the time that I am here to make sure we
are not that generation of Americans that leaves less, not more,
behind.
I wish to talk briefly tonight about the discussions around taxes. I
have been a strong supporter of a long-term extension of the middle-
class tax cuts, estate tax reform that supports our small businesses,
farmers and ranchers and extension of unemployment insurance for
Coloradans who are struggling to find their way during this difficult
economy.
Over the last year, in the very townhall meetings I was just talking
about, Coloradans over and over have shared their frustration with me
about Washington's complete failure to come to an agreement and by both
parties' lack of willingness to even discuss a compromise. I could not
agree with them more.
The bottom line is simple and straightforward. These tax cuts will
expire in less than 4 weeks if we do nothing. If we do nothing,
hundreds of thousands of Coloradans will see a tax increase and
thousands more will lose their unemployment benefits in the worst
recession since the Great Depression. This is completely unacceptable
to them and to me.
If I were writing this bill, it would look different than the
compromise. It would propose a 1-year extension of all tax cuts. I said
that during the campaign because I felt it was important for us to have
the time to figure out how we were actually going to pay for these tax
cuts. So it would be for 1 year. It would be a longer term extension
for the middle class. I would raise the exemption level for the estate
tax but keep rates at the 2009 level.
I wished to say that, at the end of the day, while I am going to look
for opportunities to make improvements to this framework and listen to
other people's ideas as well, I intend to support the compromise. I am
not convinced delaying this legislation until next year will produce a
better bill. I am convinced it will create huge uncertainty for people
all over my State and around the country, at a time when the last thing
we can afford is uncertainty. The reality is, the new Congress might
likely produce something far worse than the agreement that has been
reached.
Whenever I cast a vote, I do so focused on the danger caused by our
medium-term and long-term debt. That is why I have supported multiple
measures to get spending under control. In this case, I think it would
be far worse to weaken a fragile economic recovery by letting the
middle-class tax cuts expire, throwing thousands of Coloradans off the
unemployment rolls simultaneously.
Moving forward, we desperately need a more constructive and honest
conversation about how we are going to turn our economy around for the
long term. I will work with anyone--Democrat or Republican--to develop
a Tax Code that actually encourages innovation, lifts innovation in the
United States, builds back our middle class, and brings jobs back to
Colorado and the rest of the country.
I will close by saying this: We face grave challenges, both economic
and fiscal, at this moment in our country's history. The message I got
loudly and clearly over the last 22 months is that people want to see
us working together and solving problems. That is what I intend to do.
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