[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 30 (Wednesday, March 2, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1084-S1085]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GAO REPORT
Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I thank the majority leader and the
minority leader both for their comments on this report. It is important
for the American people to know that this is the first of three reports
we are going to receive. This report just covers what the GAO has
looked at in the last 4 to 5 years. It truly only covers about one-
third of the Federal Government, and I am talking discretionary
programs, not mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare
and Medicaid.
The GAO report shows at least $100 billion in savings if we could do
our job. We are going to have a large debate over the next 2 weeks
focused on funding the government for the next 6 months of this fiscal
year and what the funding is going to be like in the next year. If I
were sitting at home as a regular American looking at Congress, having
read this report, the question I would ask is, Why will there be any
debate at all? The GAO has given us a roadmap. They have said: Here is
where $100 billion--those are my numbers, not theirs--of savings can
come on an annualized basis on the first third of the discretionary
side of the Federal Government. The discretionary programs of this
government are 24 percent greater now than they were 2 years ago.
The challenge we face before us as a nation is a far greater
challenge than anything we have ever faced. That sounds like a gigantic
overstatement, but when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who
is head of all of our military, reporting to our civilian officials,
says the greatest threat to this country is our debt, we ought to wake
up and pay attention to it. The average American--75 percent of
Americans--across this land wants the size of the Federal Government
and its spending reduced, and that includes Democrats, Republicans, and
Independents. What is lacking today is the leadership to define the
problem for the American people so that we can come together as a
nation and solve this greatest of all challenges before us.
Let me spend a minute talking about what is going to happen if we
don't solve it. We heard the minority leader, the Senator from
Kentucky, talk about the $1.65 trillion deficit this year. Today, the
United States is borrowing money, on average, for everything we have
borrowed, for about 2 percent. The historical average at which we
borrow money is around 6 percent. Over the next 2 years, we are going
to add, if we don't change things drastically--and I am talking
drastically--another $3.5 trillion to the debt, to bring us to almost
$18 trillion worth of debt. If we apply our historical interest rate to
the debt--which we will be at in 2 or 3 years, there is no question
about that--of 6 percent to $18 trillion, what we get is $1.08 trillion
a year in interest costs. Think about that. We spent $127 billion this
last year on interest, and we are going to take $1 trillion.
What happens if that happens? What that means is there is no
discretionary budget. That means there is no money for the military;
there is no money for education; there is no money for any or all of
the programs other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That
is the only thing that is left. And if that happens, our ability to
borrow money in the international market will markedly decline, and the
likelihood is that interest rates will go even higher than our
historical average of 6 percent.
So the time to call us together, the time for shared sacrifice--not
for sacrifice's sake but so we can restore the hope of prosperity for
our Nation--is now. It is not tomorrow, it is now.
We are going to have a small bill on the floor that over the next 2
weeks will eliminate $4 billion by advancing terminations of programs
both President Bush and President Obama want to terminate and eliminate
$2.7 billion worth of earmarks that are inappropriate. So that is $4
billion over 2 weeks. Our interest cost today and what we are borrowing
is $3 billion. That is what we are borrowing a day that we don't have.
Every day, we go into the markets and borrow $3 billion. So over these
2 weeks, 14 days--14 days--we are going to borrow $42 billion, and we
are only going to save $4 billion. Do my colleagues see the magnitude
of the problem? We cannot continue to go in this direction.
The bill the House sent us is a step in the right direction but far
less than what is needed based on the reality of what is in front of
us. Every dollar this government spends, we borrow 40 cents of it--40
cents. What do we think a 20-year-old individual out there is going to
see 20 years from now as a consequence of us going down the drain in
[[Page S1085]]
terms of the interest costs and the debt?
Necessity is the mother of invention. We have a need now as a
nation--not as Republicans and Democrats but as a Nation--to come
together and make the decisions that will put us on a course that
guarantees the future for our kids and grandkids. The easiest way I
know right now to take some of the sting out of the parochialism and
partisanship is for every Member of this body and those in the House to
become acutely aware of what this report says.
The minority leader listed a few of the programs. Let me go through
these. Sitting at home or sitting in your office, think about if any of
this makes sense.
There are 82 separate teacher training programs run by the Federal
Government--82 separate sets of bureaucracies and sets of Federal
employees. None of these teacher training programs, by the way, have a
metric on them to evaluate whether they are successful. So when we are
not successful--and I question whether it is even the role of the
Federal Government to be involved in teacher training. I couldn't find
it in the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson couldn't find it in the
Constitution. Roosevelt couldn't find it in the Constitution. Johnson
couldn't find it in the Constitution. They all said so. We have quotes
on that. Yet we have 82 programs, none of which do we know whether they
are working.
We have 47 job training programs, 44 of which overlap one another--
some to the degree of 100 percent, some 60 percent. We spend $18
billion a year on it, and not one of them has a measurement of whether
it is effective. We have a great need in our country today to retrain
people to available jobs. Yet we don't have any idea whether these will
work. If you are trying to figure out how to get through these
programs, you need another government program to help you figure out
how to get through them.
We have 20 offices with programs for homeless people--20 different
programs--at the Federal level. Again, if you read the Constitution and
the enumerated powers, you find a real difficulty in saying whether
that is a Federal responsibility versus a State responsibility. Yet we
have 20 separate programs for homeless people. How about one that
works--if, in fact, it is a responsibility of the Federal Government.
We run 80 separate economic development programs--80 of them. That is
in four different Cabinet agencies. We spend $6.5 billion a year, and
what the GAO says is you cannot say whether there is any economic
development that has come out of this $6.5 billion.
The Department of Transportation spends $58 billion on 100 separate
programs run by 5 different agencies with 6,000 employees, with no idea
whether that is the most efficient or effective way to do it because
nobody has ever put a metric on it.
We have 30 separate programs on food safety, run by 15 different
Federal agencies. We just added a whole bunch more with the last food
safety bill--none of which had a metric on it, none of which perfected
the food safety in terms of interstate transport, which is undoubtedly
a Federal responsibility. How about an efficient and effective way to
do that. How about 1 agency being responsible for food safety instead
of 15.
We have 18 domestic food and nutrition programs--we spend $62.5
billion--11 of which we have no idea whether they are performing
effectively.
The first question you might ask is, How in the world did we get all
these programs? We got all these programs because somebody saw a need
and thought that would solve that need. They did so without the benefit
of one of the No. 1 obligations of Congress, which is the oversight of
the bureaucracy. We have all these complaints by those who favor the
earmarking process that if we don't earmark it, then the Federal
agencies will spend the money where they are. They forget one little
clue in terms of the Congress. We have absolute power to oversee every
branch of the Federal Government in terms of their effectiveness and
their efficiency.
Yet we have not done it. The Congress has that. Whether it is run by
Republicans or Democrats, it is not done. It is not a partisan issue.
It is laziness on our part. It is far easier to write a new bill that
solves the same problem and not oversee the others. Consequently, we
answer the humanitarian, compassionate call to fix something we have
done by treating symptoms rather than the disease.
We have a real disease in our country today. The disease is a cancer
that will take away our freedom. If you look back in history, all
republics have fallen. The average age of a republic is 206 years. How
did they fail? What caused them to fail? If you read the history books
and look at all of them, you will find that even though they might have
been overrun by an enemy, the key factor that caused them to fail was
fiscal every time. They lived beyond their means. Look at what is
happening to us in the world today. The scope of our power militarily
is being limited by our economic power because we are extremely far in
debt. When you go to the lead economists, such as Ken Rogoff and Carmen
Reinhart--the book they have written is ``This Time is Different.'' The
economists tell us our debt right now--not what is coming this next
year but right now--with the interest costs we have today, is costing 1
percent of GDP. We are only going to grow about 3.5 percent this year.
If we didn't have the debt, it would be 4.5 percent. That means 1
million more people would have great-paying jobs this year if we didn't
have this debt. So there is a clarion call out there coming from
America--not inside Washington--to fix the real problems.
As a physician, what I know is this: If I treat the symptoms of a
disease and do not treat the real disease, I ultimately make the
disease much worse. I cover up the signs and symptoms of the disease.
The disease we have is a disease of not recognizing the very critical
nature that you cannot--never--you can never live above and beyond your
means without ultimately paying a greater price. The difference between
the Federal Government, most of the State governments, and every family
is when you have maxed out the credit card, it is maxed. You are not
going to get another credit card company to give you more. You will
either have to start paying or you will default on it.
The question comes, Will we honor our true commitments? Will we make
the hard decisions that are required to put us on a path for renewed
prosperity? Will we take real information--and I have offered 70
amendments on this over the past 6 years, which have been voted down--
and will we start paying attention now because, ultimately, if we don't
make decisions today that will control and set us on a path of
prosperity, we are going to be in a position where our debtholders will
make our decisions for us. That is when liberty declines. That is when
American exceptionalism dies. That is when our destiny is taken from
our hands. It should not be that way.
I, again, call on the President to lead this Nation to define the
problem, the real threat to our freedom, and come forward and pull us
together and let's solve this problem, with everyone recognizing that
everyone is going to sacrifice, but the sacrifice will create a future
benefit that will be rewarded in the lives of our children and
grandchildren.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KIRK. Madam 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.
____________________