[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 166 (Wednesday, December 15, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10279-S10280]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         OMNIBUS APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from California on 
her remarks. As a member of Foreign Relations, I voted to bring the 
treaty to the floor. However, there is another pressing matter I wish 
to discuss this evening.
  The Senate now has before it the START treaty, but on a parallel 
track we have before us the question of financing the government 
through the end of the fiscal year next year. There are three 
alternatives available to us. One of them is a continuing resolution 
through the end of next year. One of them is a continuing resolution 
that is modified with an Omnibus appropriations that is put on top of 
it which I understand is the plan. There is a third option which is the 
short-term CR. It is that question I rise to address for a few moments.
  Forty-three days ago, I ran for reelection to the Senate. For 2 
years, I traveled the State of Georgia campaigning for my reelection. 
Throughout that campaign, there were three guiding issues on which I 
focused. One was tax policy. At a time of economic recession and high 
unemployment, the worst thing for us to do is to raise taxes of the 
American people and, in particular, small business, which hires the 
majority of the people. That is No. 1.
  No. 2, I campaigned on the fact that we didn't have a revenue problem 
nearly as much as we had a spending problem; that we needed to ask of 
ourselves, as Senators, what every American family has had to ask of 
themselves at home. They have sat around the kitchen table, looked at 
what their income was, looked at what it now is, looked at priorities 
and reprioritized. Times have been tough, and they have been difficult. 
They did that because they had to.
  They don't have the luxury of credit and borrowing as our government 
has, which takes me to the third point I ran on in the campaign; that 
is, that unsustainable debt will make this democracy an unsustainable 
country.
  One of the things I understand a little bit about from having been in 
the real estate business is leverage. Leverage is a powerful thing to 
be able to do things, but too much can destroy even the best of people 
or the best of ideas. We are rapidly approaching a time where we owe 
entirely too much money.
  I love to tell the story about a lesson I learned in good politics. I 
know the Presiding Officer has had the same kind of lessons he has 
learned.
  I was in Albany, GA, making a speech in November of 2009. I kept 
talking about 1 trillion this and 1 trillion that. This farmer at the 
back of the room said: Senator, I only graduated from Dougherty County 
High School. I don't understand how much 1 trillion is. Can you 
explain.
  I oohed and aahed and I babbled. I finally said: Well, it is a lot. I 
couldn't think of a way to quantify 1 trillion.
  I got home that night. My wife took one look at me and said: What in 
the world is wrong with you?
  I said: I got stumped today.
  She said: What was the question?
  I said: The question was, How much is 1 trillion?
  She said: What did you say?
  I said: I said it is a lot.
  She said: That was a bad answer.
  I said: I know that, but I just couldn't think of anything.
  She knows better than I a lot of times. She said: Why don't you just 
figure out how many years have to go by for 1 trillion seconds to pass.
  I said: That is a terrific idea.
  So I pulled my calculator out and multiplied 60 seconds times 60 
minutes to get the number of seconds in an hour.
  I multiplied that 24 times for the number of seconds in 1 day. I 
multiplied that times 365 for the number of seconds in 1 year. Do you 
know how many years have to go by for 1 trillion seconds to pass? It is 
31,709 years. I put an asterisk by that because I didn't count leap 
years and every fourth year has an extra day. I know that will throw 
the number off a little bit.
  We owe $13 trillion of those dollars, not just $1 trillion. It is an 
astronomical amount of money. It is an amount we must quantify and 
begin to lower over time in two ways. One is expanding the prosperity 
of the American people, because as their prosperity goes up, revenues 
come back to the government. First and most important, we have to get 
our arms around spending. I am deeply opposed to putting an Omnibus 
appropriations bill on the CR that is coming to the Senate and passing 
12 appropriations bills in a short-time debate without the transparency 
we need.
  I am not a Johnny-come-lately to this particular position. In the 
House of Representatives, when President Bush brought an omnibus budget 
to the House, I voted against it. I voted against it last fall on a 
number of occasions when we had Omnibus appropriations bills matched up 
coming to the

[[Page S10280]]

Senate floor under President Obama. It is a bad way to do business. By 
rolling all those things together, you don't have the scrutiny, the 
oversight or the understanding of where the money is going, and the 
tendency to push spending beyond your limits actually becomes a 
reality. I am one who subscribes to the fact that we have to change the 
way we do business. We have to make hard decisions. We have to execute 
some tough love. We have to have some shared sacrifice, and we to have 
do it quickly.
  Time has run out on the American Government and our American budget 
process without substantial reform, which is why it would be a tragic 
mistake for us sometime this week or this weekend to pass an Omnibus 
appropriations bill.
  There is an underlying reason why I don't support that, and it is 
because I think a short-term CR makes a lot more sense. A short-term CR 
will put the Senate in the position of debating the rest of next year's 
spending or this fiscal year's spending under the cloud of the debt 
ceiling which is going to confront us in April or May or maybe as soon 
as the middle of March. If we pass a CR or an omnibus that goes beyond 
that date to the end of next year, September 30, we have no leverage to 
address the subject of raising the debt ceiling. It is time we stopped 
borrowing to spend more money we do not have.
  I come at a time when I know the pending business is the START 
treaty, which I will address on another occasion, but to point out why 
I am so deeply disappointed that we are rushing to judgment on an 
Omnibus appropriations spending bill at a time when the American people 
want us focusing on spending, on the deficit, and on improving the way 
we do business.
  I will vote against an Omnibus appropriations bill. I will vote 
against cloture on the bill. I will support a short-term CR. That is 
the best way for us to set up an occasion next year where we address 
our priorities in the right order and at the right time.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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