[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 70 (Thursday, May 19, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3120-S3122]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the Congressional Budget Act requires 
that Congress pass a budget by April 15. The Republican House has 
passed its budget. They stated their financial vision for the future in 
America. The Democratic Senate, however, has not passed a budget in 750 
days. It has been 750 days since we have had a budget that passed the 
Senate. This year they haven't even brought a budget forward to 
committee to begin to mark up a budget as specifically required by the 
same statute. They have not even put forward a plan.
  The Democrats control the Senate. They campaigned for the majority 
and, as my wife says to me when I complain: You asked for the job. So 
we have the largest economy on Earth, and we are in the middle of a 
fiscal crisis. For the majority party to skip work on the Nation's 
budget is not something to be taken lightly.
  I ask my good friend, the Senator from Utah, the ranking Republican 
on the Finance Committee, my former chairman in the Judiciary 
Committee, if the American people were polled, how many does the 
Senator think would say the Senate should not pass a budget?
  Mr. HATCH. That is a good question. The distinguished ranking member 
of the Budget Committee has asked a fundamental question. The answer, 
to me, and I think everybody else, is as clear as a bell: The American 
people overwhelmingly expect the Senate to do the people's business. 
First, we have to get our fiscal house in order. The House has taken 
the first step. The folks in Utah have dealt with their family budgets, 
business budgets, and government budgets, and they rightly ask that the 
Senate do exactly the same.
  Mr. SESSIONS. One reason it is so important to have an honest, open 
budget process is that budgets are so easy to manipulate and spend. The 
President, in proposing a budget sometime ago, said his budget called 
on America to live within its means and ``not add more to the debt.'' 
That was the President's own statement. In fact, his budget doubles the 
debt in 10 years, producing annual deficits each year, the lowest of 
which never once fell below $748 billion. In fact, that would average 
almost $1 trillion a year and nowhere close to balancing.
  The CBO found numerous gimmicks when they analyzed the President's 
plan. They found that it contained another $2.3 trillion in deficits. 
It increased the deficit. The President delivered a speech promising $4 
trillion in savings over 12 years. After his budget was ill-received by 
objective commentators all over the country, editorial boards, and in 
Congress, he made a speech and he promised $4 trillion in savings over 
12 years. But the committee analysts on our staff revealed that this 
so-called framework actually worsens the budget in relation to the CBO 
baseline.
  Does the Senator from Utah believe the White House and the Democratic 
leaders in the Senate should produce an honest, concrete, fact-based 
budget on which we can rely?
  Mr. HATCH. I sure do. They actually worsen the deficit by $2.2 
trillion in relation to the CBO baseline.
  Until one sees the numbers in black and white, the budget is just 
talk. Democrats and Republicans have an obligation to produce fiscal 
blueprints in an intellectually honest, complete, and transparent 
fashion. The majority, the Democrats, have the responsibility to take 
the first step, and the Republicans have a responsibility to convey our 
fiscal blueprint through debate and amendments. That is the way this 
traditionally has always been done. As the distinguished ranking member 
indicated, our side is ready to engage in this important debate and 
process, but it is hard to do it when they would not even put up a 
budget. They have not done that in the last couple of years. Without a 
budget, we don't have anything to debate and analyze.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I ask Senator Hatch, for the people who may not 
understand, it is the chairman's responsibility to call a hearing and 
to begin a markup, and the minority is not able to call the committee 
into effect. So we do have to look to the chairman, and probably the 
chairman would operate in relation to the majority leader to call the 
committee into session; is that right?
  Mr. HATCH. There is no question about it. The chairman has the 
responsibility for holding hearings that lead up to a budget 
resolution, the structure of the budget resolution, in accordance with 
his party's belief, it seems to me, and then bringing it up in 
committee where both sides can argue about it and both sides have the 
right to amend and improve it. Then they can bring it to the Senate 
floor. But they don't do that. Then they wonder why we are in such 
fiscal difficulties.
  I know the distinguished Senator from Alabama understands this fully 
as the ranking member on the Budget Committee. Having also been 
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, frankly, I am concerned about it--
and I think everybody is concerned--because they don't want to come up 
with a budget, and there may be invalid reasons for that.
  Mr. SESSIONS. The budget is fundamentally a plan, a vision for the 
financial future of America. It is astounding that the party in the 
majority is not even prepared to say to the American people----
  Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.
  Mr. HATCH. There is nothing more important in our lives now than 
coming up with a budget that would put us on a downward trend for 
spending. We are spending around 69 percent of the GDP. Our national 
debt of $14.3 trillion is 90 percent of the GDP. We are headed toward 
90 percent of GDP of spending. If we get there, this country will have 
difficulties that will be difficult to overcome. That is where we are 
headed, especially if we don't have a budget to debate on the floor of 
the Senate.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I couldn't agree more. When the President submitted his 
budget, Mr. Erskine Bowles, whom the President asked to chair the 
fiscal commission that was supposed to come up with a plan to help us 
get out of this fix, said the President's budget is nowhere close to 
what is necessary to avoid our fiscal nightmare. That is what the co-
chair of the President's commission said.
  So now we are looking to Congress. That is the President's proposal, 
but the Senate has to move forward a proposal. We cannot even go to 
conference and begin to work out a budget that both Houses can agree on 
until the Senate moves a budget forward.
  Mr. HATCH. That is right. I think the distinguished chairman of the

[[Page S3121]]

Budget Committee, Senator Conrad, wants to do it. But in their caucus 
they cannot get together because they all want to spend and tax more. 
They want to keep spending and taxing the way they have in the past. It 
is clear we cannot keep doing that.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I agree. As a matter of fact, we have heard reports 
that the Democratic caucus is debating a budget in closed door caucus 
meetings, and they have done that at least twice. This is now 6 weeks 
after the committee deadline to bring forward a budget has passed.
  These reports indicate that in order to oblige the Senate's leading 
progressive, the Senator from Vermont, Senator Conrad has moved his 
budget further to the left, I think, than he probably desires. So we 
are told this budget now has more taxes than savings--raising taxes $2 
trillion and possibly even $2.7 trillion, while cutting just $1.5 
trillion in spending over 10 years. We will have to see it to know for 
sure. All we are hearing is news reports at this point.
  Even the President, in his speech, called for $3 in spending cuts for 
every $1 in tax increases. Our analysis of his speech shows he did not 
do that. But that is what he said is the right approach.
  As a ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, what are the 
Senator's thoughts about how steep tax hikes would affect the economy? 
Would it be better to cut wasteful Washington spending or to raise 
taxes and continue the spending spree we have been on?
  Mr. HATCH. That is a good question. I tell my friend from Alabama 
that it amazes me how much our friends on the other side are hard wired 
to increase taxes.
  As the ranking member knows, if current tax policy is left in place, 
including today's low rates, family tax relief and the alternative 
minimum tax patch, the Congressional Budget Office tells us revenues 
will trend to the historic average of 18 percent of GDP. The President 
moves revenues up to record highs as a percentage of GDP. Last year it 
was about 25.3 percent. The last time we had that was in 1945, at the 
end of the Second World War, at the height of it.
  Now, the tax increases contemplated by the President's budget will 
mean half of the small business flow-through income will be hit with a 
marginal tax rate of 17 to 24 percent on top of the regular tax rate. 
Democrats and Republicans agree the small business sector is the key to 
job creation. Seventy percent of the jobs are created by small 
businesses. The top marginal rate on capital gains income will rise to 
59 percent in a little over 18 months under the President's budget. 
That will drive down aftertax rates of return on investments.
  Is that policy a path to recovery? I don't think so. I don't think 
anybody else who looks at it with any degree of intelligence thinks so. 
That is another reason we need to engage in the budget process in the 
committee, and I have to say that I am appreciative of my friend's 
leadership on that committee. He will have to lead our side, but it is 
hard to lead when you don't have anything to lead on.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Well, we cannot even have a discussion if a budget 
isn't brought up.
  I just had occasion to meet with the Finance Minister from Canada, 
and he told me they are bringing their corporate tax rate down to 15 
percent or below. We are at 35 percent. We have the second highest 
corporate tax rate in the world. Wouldn't it be nice if we can tax more 
and get some more money? But as the Senator knows from his experience, 
if we have too high of tax rates, it drives investment out of America, 
drives jobs out of America, and companies are liable to want to move to 
Canada where they pay less taxes, creating jobs for them and not us.
  So there is a danger, is there not, economically?
  Mr. HATCH. Of course.
  Mr. SESSIONS. There is a danger economically, is there not, and a 
danger to growth, which we need desperately, if we keep raising taxes.
  Mr. HATCH. Our corporate rate is 35 percent. That is the highest in 
the world, other than Japan's. It is causing a lot of corporations to 
leave our country. In the 1970s, 39 of the top 50 multinational 
corporations in the world were based in the United States. Today there 
are only 16--that was the last figure I heard--which is low. The reason 
is we are taxing them to death, and we have a lot of other screwy tax 
aspects that don't work. We can solve all these problems if we just get 
a decent budget and work to bring spending under control and get on a 
downward trend with regard to spending.
  I have to say, we cannot do it without budget debates and balance. 
Our friends on the other side don't seem to be able to get their caucus 
together and allow the chairman to come up with a budget on time, in a 
way that will help us debate this matter and, hopefully, resolve it on 
the Senate floor.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I think the Senator is right. This Senate is filled 
with remarkable people, but I think our colleagues on the other side 
are paralyzed, frankly, by the challenge of putting a plan on paper 
that can actually be examined, the numbers calculated, and ideas 
confronted. I think their problem is they are not able to produce a 
budget their caucus will support, that the American people will 
support, and that would actually get the job done. That is a difficult 
challenge. But if you want to be a leader, you have to meet that 
challenge.

  Mr. HATCH. My friend from Alabama, as he always does, has arrived 
precisely at the critical point. We need a fiscal policy that is 
balanced. Its remedies must respond to the causes of our current fiscal 
calamity. In the most recent fiscal year, spending hit, as I said, over 
25 percent of GDP. That figure is easily more than 20 percent above the 
historical average.
  It is unbelievable we are spending that much. Spending is fueling the 
deficits we are facing. The President's budget reaches into the 
American people's pocketbooks with taxes trending at or near historic 
highs in an anemic effort to close the gap. The other side of the 
ledger, spending, is not dented. It remains far above any reasonable 
historic average. Nobody can refute that fact. These are facts. I am 
concerned about it. I will tell my colleague that.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Democratic leaders and the President talk a lot about a 
balanced approach to reducing our deficit. We believe in that approach. 
The Senator from Utah has indicated that. But I ask the Senator, what 
is the more balanced approach? Is the plan that hikes taxes and grows 
the government or a plan that controls Washington spending and shifts 
the balance back to everyday Americans?
  Mr. HATCH. The ranking member, my friend from Alabama, summed up the 
fiscal predicament perfectly. It comes down to a lack of balance. Our 
friends on the other side simply cannot agree among themselves at this 
time, and the reason they cannot agree is, most of them are looking to 
the revenue side of the ledger to resolve what is a spending problem.
  The Finance Committee has jurisdiction over 50 percent of Federal 
spending, and that will trend to 60 percent shortly. It has 
jurisdiction over nearly all revenues. As a member of the Finance 
Committee and ranking member, I fail to see how a tax-increase-driven 
budget can be advanced in the Finance Committee on a bipartisan basis. 
I am keenly interested in how the Budget Committee will come down on 
the biggest policy question of our time.
  I am pleased to have the advice and counsel of my friend from Alabama 
as that process moves forward. I would like to have the advice and 
counsel of the distinguished Budget Committee chairman, but he cannot 
get his side to do what is reasonable; that is, bring down spending. 
That is what we have to do. We are taxing enough. We are spending us 
into oblivion, and that is the problem.
  Mr. SESSIONS. This is true. It is dangerous to our country. We have 
gone 750 days without passing a budget in the Senate. I do believe if 
we took a poll of the American people, what percentage would one get if 
they were asked: Should the Congress of the United States, particularly 
at a time of great financial danger, have a budget? We will not have a 
budget unless the Senate acts.
  It is a question both of philosophy and economics. Philosophically, 
the American people do not want Washington to hike taxes on millions of 
Americans in order to fund its wasteful

[[Page S3122]]

spending spree. Economically, the evidence shows cutting spending--not 
raising taxes--and we have done a number of studies on this--is the 
approach that consistently produces the best results time and time 
again.
  We need a budget based on facts. We need a budget to grow the 
economy, not the government. We need a budget that imposes real 
spending discipline on Washington. We need a budget without gimmicks or 
empty promises. We need a budget that is produced publicly and openly, 
allowing the American people full opportunity to see what is in it and 
to consider it. We need a budget that the American people deserve, an 
honest budget that spares our children from both the growing burden of 
debt and the growing burden of big government. We need a budget that 
ensures America will compete, creating jobs, lead, and thrive in the 
21st century.
  Mr. HATCH. I thank my colleague. He sums it up pretty well, is all I 
can say. For our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, we 
need to get this done. Frankly, it ought to be done in the Budget 
Committee and not by rule XIV on the floor. The reason it should be 
done in the Budget Committee is because I know the minority will weigh 
in and at least have their viewpoints expressed. There will be 
amendments, and people can vote up or down on whatever it is. Then they 
can bring it to the floor, and we should have a complete consideration 
of it here as well. That is the way it ought to be done.
  As a former member of the Budget Committee, I have to admit it is a 
difficult process, but it is not difficult if we all work together to 
get spending under control and quit taxing the American people to 
death. We can do this if we work together.
  I hate to say it, but I think our friends on the other side are not 
working together in their own caucus. The distinguished Senator from 
Alabama has pointed that out--I think courteously--today. I hope they 
will get together, even though I am pretty sure they are going to come 
up with a budget that continues to spend and tax such as we have had in 
the past. I hope they do not. If they do not, I think the American 
people will breathe a sigh of relief and say they did a good job. If 
they do, I think it will be more of the same.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Hatch. I have enjoyed sharing these 
thoughts. I will note again that we are looking at a period in history 
in which our systemic debt problem is greater, I believe, than any time 
in our history. World War II was serious, but we could see our way out 
of it as soon as that war was over, and we bounced back rapidly.
  Every expert tells us it is not going to be easy to bounce back out 
of the systemic problems we have. We need to have leadership. To have 
gone this long, 750 days without a budget in the Senate. Last year we 
did not pass a budget, and there were 59 Democrats in the Senate.
  One may say: Don't be so partisan, Senator Sessions. We are calling 
their names this morning. We like our colleagues, but the truth is, 
when you have the majority, you have a responsibility. The 
responsibility at this point in history could not be greater than to 
produce a blueprint, a plan for the future, such as the House has done, 
that the American people can see: Does that solve our problems? Does it 
put us on the right path? I think the House bill does.
  We have yet to see anything out of the Senate that does. It is our 
responsibility in this body to pass legislation, because if we do not, 
we cannot conference with the House, and we can never get a budget 
passed.
  I thank Senator Hatch. I look forward to working with our colleagues. 
Maybe we can somehow break this logjam. The American people have a 
right to watch us and not be happy when we are not doing the kind of 
work necessary to put this country on a sound financial path.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah is 
recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Is it time to move to the Liu nomination?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Not until 11 o'clock. There are a 
few minutes remaining.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to move to the 
nomination, if the leader has no objection, so I may give my opening 
remarks.
  I withdraw my unanimous consent request and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. 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. HATCH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I 
ask that the time be divided equally.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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