[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 28 (Monday, February 28, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S934-S936]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SPENDING

  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about our dilemma in 
the Federal Government. The American people are watching as we try to 
deal with our spending issues. I know there is a big debate over the 2-
week spending issue, an issue where we are trying

[[Page S935]]

to cut $4 billion. Hopefully, some resolve will come to that.
  What the American people are seeing is that unless there is some type 
of gun to our heads or some type of urgent situation in front of us, we 
do not have the ability in this body to deal with spending issues in a 
disciplined or courageous way. Everybody understands that, and they 
understand that the only way we are looking at whatever spending cuts 
will take place--I know right now there are discussions over what they 
might be, but the only reason this issue is being addressed is that we 
have this deadline of government funding ending in the next week.
  I know the Presiding Officer is someone who served as a county 
executive and had to balance budgets each year and had to figure out a 
way to live within their means. I know that upon arriving here a few 
months ago, he had to be totally aghast at the fact that we are taking 
in $2.2 trillion this year and spending $3.7 trillion this year. If we 
put all the discretionary spending we have, if we took every bit of 
nonmandatory spending or discretionary spending off the table, we still 
would not have a balanced budget. Everybody in this country knows that 
where we are is totally out of line. We are spending a little over 24 
percent of our country's economic output today. Over the last 40 years, 
we have spent about 20.6 percent of our country's GDP.
  I, along with Claire McCaskill from Missouri, have put a bill in 
place. We have a number of cosponsors. We put in something called the 
CAP Act. We hope that over the course of this next year--over the 
course of the next several months--this is a bill that will actually 
pass. What it does, I think in a very logical way, is it says we are 
spending at levels relative to our economy today that are out of 
proportion, and let's go from where we are today to the 4-year average 
over a 10-year period. Mr. President, you have to agree that this is 
just a logical thing that gives us time to go from where we are today 
over the next 10 years to where the country has been, spending relative 
to our country's output for the last 40 years.
  What this also does is it puts Congress in a straitjacket. Again, I 
think everybody who is watching knows that if we didn't have this CR--
this continuing resolution bill--that is ending this week and if 
government wasn't going to shut down if it wasn't funded, there would 
be no negotiations taking place right now over spending. We all know 
that. So this puts in place a straitjacket on Congress--one that is 
very needed, unfortunately--to take us from here to there over a 10-
year period. What happens if we don't meet the requirements of this 
declining spending relative to our economy is that sequestration comes 
into play. On a pro-rata basis--based on the relative weight of certain 
accounts to the overall spending levels, the OMB comes in and takes 
from every account of government on a pro-rata basis.
  One of the problems we have had in this country is we want to deal 
with those things that are easy, and that is discretionary spending, in 
many cases. Nondefense discretionary spending ends up being about $600 
billion, roughly, of the $3.7 trillion we are spending. Everybody in 
the world knows there is no way for us to solve our problem by only 
dealing with discretionary spending. So what this bill would do is put 
all items on the balance sheet. In other words, it would include all 
the entitlements.
  I don't think there is a person in this body who believes if we 
continue as we are, if we don't redesign the programs the seniors are 
counting on--Medicare and Social Security--if we don't redesign these 
programs so they will be sustained for the long haul, then seniors are 
not going to have them. So this bill will force us in Congress to deal 
with designing these programs in such a way they will be here for the 
long haul. It puts everything on the table. Again, there is not a 
thinking person in Washington who doesn't know we have to address these 
issues.
  There are a lot of people who say: Well, we cannot do these draconian 
things right now because we are in the middle of a recession. 
Hopefully, it looks like it is changing and hopefully changing very 
rapidly, but these changes would begin from where we are in the year 
2013. So we would have a year or so to redesign these programs. We 
could act in an appropriate way to ensure they were here for the future 
but also put them in place in a manner that doesn't kill the American 
taxpayer, and we would cap spending. We have a multiyear averaging 
process in this bill to make sure, if there is a change in the economy 
in 1 year, we don't just have this volatile situation, but we would 
have the ability, 1 year in advance, to know what the appropriate 
spending levels are. It gives Congress the ability to act upon that 
throughout the year.
  Again, if Congress doesn't act, then 45 days after a year ends, OMB 
comes in and puts in place something called sequestration--
automatically takes money out of these accounts. I think that gives us 
the impetus to want to make sure we actually act. I don't think there 
is anybody in Congress who wants OMB coming in and taking money out of 
accounts. So that would be, in essence, the thing that would give us 
the sense of urgency we badly need in this body.
  This is a problem that exists on both sides of the aisle and that is 
why I have sought bipartisan support for this bill. I have tried to put 
something in place that is very logical--I know that is not often the 
case here--something Americans across the country can understand and 
also those here in Washington will see as something that works toward a 
solution and gets us to where we need to go.
  I think all of us understand the demographic changes that are taking 
place in our country. I think all of us know that over the next 10 
years, 20 million more Americans are going to be on Medicare and 20 
million more Americans will be on Social Security. We are right on the 
cusp of that bubble. I am certainly getting ready to be a part of that. 
The Presiding Officer may not necessarily be there yet, but the point 
is this is something that has to occur for the good of our country.
  So this is called the CAP Act. Again, what it will do is ensure that 
long after the point in time when the CR window opens and closes, long 
after the time the debt ceiling vote happens a little later this year--
long after those occur and the American people have moved on to other 
issues and, obviously, Congress has moved on to other issues--we keep 
in place this fiscal discipline, this straitjacket, to take us where we 
need to go.
  The Presiding Officer and I were in Pakistan and Afghanistan last 
week, and we witnessed some of the problems we are having there. We 
also witnessed the brilliance of our men and women in uniform and also 
many hard-working individuals at the State Department. While those 
threats are threats we are dealing with that are very important to the 
American people, I think most of us know the biggest threat today to 
our country is our inability to deal appropriately with our financial 
circumstances. I think we all know if we don't deal with that pretty 
soon, we are going to be putting our country's future in jeopardy. We 
will be putting in jeopardy the future of these wonderful pages who sit 
in front of me.
  The thing that is fascinating about this issue is, unlike what we saw 
in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, where we are relying on other people, 
this is something we can do ourselves. We have 100 percent control over 
spending in Washington--100 percent control of this is held in the 
hands of 100 Senators and 435 House Members. This is not something 
where we are depending on other countries or we are concerned about 
what might happen elsewhere. This is something we ourselves can deal 
with.
  So what I have tried to put in place, along with Claire McCaskill and 
others--and there are growing numbers of other people who are part of 
this process--is something that causes us to be responsible to the 
American people. So I hope others will join this. It is my hope we will 
do three things: I hope we will vote and pass on cuts in Federal 
spending today. I hope that will happen over the next short period of 
time. Whether it is some of the things we are looking at on the CR or 
maybe it is recommendations that have been put in place by the 
President's deficit reduction commission, I hope what we will do as a 
body is go ahead and vote to pass real cuts now.
  Secondarily, what I hope will happen is that we will put in place 
something like the CAP Act to make sure we continue that fiscal 
discipline long after

[[Page S936]]

people move on to other topics; that we keep that straitjacket in place 
so we do those things that are, again, responsible not only to this 
generation but future generations.
  Thirdly, I hope we figure out a way, through some type of amendment, 
to ensure that, on into the future, we have put something in place at 
the Federal level which causes us to be fiscally responsible in this 
country. All of us know what it means to have to make choices. All of 
us have households. Many of us have led cities and States. Many of us 
have had businesses. We all understand what happens in the real world, 
and it is something that certainly needs to happen here. That has been 
sorely lacking for a long time.
  So I thank the Chair for the time on the floor today, and I hope to 
talk about this many more times. I have been doing it, I assure you, 
throughout the State of Tennessee and in multiple forums in the Senate.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORKER. 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.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I had the opportunity to speak with you in 
the last several moments, and you had a couple questions about the CAP 
Act that I was just discussing on the floor. The Presiding Officer had 
some great questions about what it takes to overcome the CAP Act, in 
the event we were able to pass it.
  It is just a 10-page bill. It is very eloquent. It doesn't have a lot 
of ``whereases.'' It is just a business document that takes us from 
where we are to where we need to be. But, in essence, to override it, 
it would take a two-thirds vote. It would take two-thirds of the House 
and the Senate to actually override or get out of the straitjacket, if 
you will. There were previous bills, such as Gramm-Rudman and other 
types of bills that tried to keep Washington fiscally focused, and 
those bills required 60 votes. So this would be a higher threshold.
  So, yes, if there was some type of national emergency and we needed 
to move beyond this straitjacket for 1 year or 6 months or something 
like that, a two-thirds vote could do that. I mean, 67 votes is a 
pretty tough threshold, and hopefully it is the kind of threshold 
necessary to keep the kind of discipline in place that we need.
  So it is a 10-page bill. Again, it is very eloquent. I think it lays 
out a solution for us that hopefully will be a part of anything we do 
over the next several months.
  I understand, after talking with the Presiding Officer over the last 
several days, while traveling to these various countries, that he, 
along with many of our other colleagues--I know I did myself--came here 
to solve problems, not to message. In a body such as this, it is tough 
to solve these kinds of problems, but the only way to do it is to offer 
a pragmatic solution.
  I know there are some people who are interested, sometimes, in 
messaging. I have tried to offer something that I think will take us 
from a place that is very much out of line in spending to a place that 
is more appropriate.
  I might also say I thought the President's deficit reduction 
commission had some very good points as it relates to tax reform. I 
think all of us are aware of the $1.2 trillion in tax expenditures that 
exist.
  I was doing an event over the last several days, and a gentleman 
raised his hand and asked me: What do you mean by tax expenditures? 
Isn't the money ours until we give it to the Federal Government? Why 
would you call it a tax expenditure?
  I think people realize in our Tax Code there are all kinds of 
exclusions and subsidies and favored companies and favored this and 
favored that. If we did away with all of those, there would be $1.2 
trillion we could use to lower everybody's rate, and we could make our 
Tax Code much more simple. The deficit reduction commission says we 
could take our corporate rates from where they are down to a level of 
about 26 percent--somewhere between 23 and 29 percent--and lower 
everybody's rates individually. I think most Americans, instead of 
filling out all these forms to see if they benefit from these various 
subsidies and credits, would much rather know that everybody is on the 
same playing field; that some favored company is not in a situation 
where they are more favored than another; that everybody is on the same 
basis.
  I think there has been some good work done there. I hope we are able 
to take votes on that over the next several months. But there is a very 
elegant, pragmatic solution that has been offered that would go hand in 
hand with these types of measures and would cause us, over the next 10 
years, to exercise the kind of fiscal discipline this country needs to 
confront what I think threatens our national security, certainly our 
economic security, even more than the things we saw on the ground in 
the Middle East last week.
  With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  Mr. VITTER. I object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The clerk will continue to call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk continued with the call of the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there an objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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