[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 104 (Wednesday, July 13, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4536-S4542]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SHARED SACRIFICE IN RESOLVING THE BUDGET DEFICIT
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 1323, which the clerk will
report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1323) to express the sense of the Senate on
shared sacrifice in resolving the budget deficit.
Pending:
Reid amendment No. 529, to change the enactment date.
Reid amendment No. 530 (to amendment No. 529), of a
perfecting nature.
Reid motion to commit the bill to the Committee on Finance,
with instructions, Reid amendment No. 531, of a perfecting
nature.
Reid amendment No. 532 (to the instructions (amendment No.
531) of the motion to commit), of a perfecting nature.
Reid amendment No. 533 (to amendment No. 532), of a
perfecting nature.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there
will be 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled between the two
leaders or their designees.
The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise to speak in morning business.
I wish to thank my colleague, the Democratic majority leader, for his
opening remarks. He and I have been given an assignment of going to the
White House each day to sit down with the leaders--Democratic and
Republican leaders in the House and the Senate, as well as the
President, Vice President, Secretary of the Treasury, and leaders in
the President's staff--to deal with this pending crisis over the debt
ceiling limit.
On August 2, we are required to extend the debt ceiling of the United
States of America. It is an interesting exercise which usually goes
unnoticed.
Senator Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico presented to us yesterday a
history of the debt ceiling. I was glad to learn a little bit more. In
1939, we passed a law which said we could extend the debt ceiling of
the United States as needed, rather than have congressional approval of
every bond issued by the Government of the United States. It made it a
much more efficient way for the government to operate. As Senator Reid
said earlier, since 1939, we have extended the debt ceiling 89 times,
and on most every occasion it has gone unnoticed because the United
States has quickly extended its debt ceiling and kept its credit rating
in the eyes of the world because of our timeliness. There was only one
exception--a technical lapse that led to perhaps an increase in costs
of government for just a brief time--but by and large, on 88 occasions
this was done without any fanfare or notice.
It is interesting to look at the Presidents who extended the debt
ceiling. The alltime recordbreaker when it comes to extending the debt
ceiling was Ronald Reagan, who extended the debt ceiling 18 times in a
matter of 8 years. So more than twice a year, Congress was extending
the debt ceiling as our national debt increased dramatically under
President Reagan. The same thing happened under President Bush. He
holds the record--the second highest record, I believe--with eight or
nine extensions of the debt in his 8-year tenure as President. On both
occasions, under President Reagan and under President George W. Bush,
the debt of the United States increased dramatically.
As Senator Reid said earlier, under President George W. Bush, the
debt of the United States of America in 8 years nearly doubled. In
fact, some say it more than doubled. This was a period of time when we
were doing things that, frankly, cost us a lot of money in terms of our
national expenditures.
President George W. Bush waged two wars without paying for them. When
we do that, of course, the cost of the war is added to the Nation's
debt. President George W. Bush also did
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something no President had ever done: He cut taxes on American
taxpayers in the midst of a war. Most Presidents understand we have to
do just the opposite--we have to raise more money to wage a war because
we have the ordinary costs of government that have to be met as well.
So the idea of cutting taxes in the midst of a war added even more to
the deficit under President George W. Bush. Then he had this theory
that there were major programs we could enact and not pay for, such as
Medicare prescription Part D.
All of these things accumulated together with the basic philosophy of
the Republican Party that if we just keep cutting taxes, the economy
will get well. It didn't happen. Just the opposite occurred. When
President George W. Bush took office, our Nation's budget was in
surplus. When he left office, it faced the largest deficit in its
history. Instead of giving President Obama a positive economy when
President Obama was sworn in as President, we were losing hundreds of
thousands of jobs each month. Now we face a deadline of August 2 on
whether we extend the debt ceiling.
I see the Republican leader has come to the floor. I commend him for
what I consider to be a positive and thoughtful response. He
understands, as most all of us do, that extending the debt ceiling is
essential for the economy of the United States and for our recovery
from this recession. I asked my staff what would happen--what would
happen if we defaulted on our debt ceiling and didn't pay and interest
rates went up 1 percent. They are around 2.8 percent, 2.9 percent now.
What if interest rates went up 1 percent because of this self-
inflicted wound of a failure to extend the debt ceiling? The
consequences are real, and not just for the government but for families
and businesses across America. A 1-percent increase in the interest
rate, if we would default and not extend our debt ceiling--here is what
the Third Way reports: Treasury rates, if it increased 1 percent, would
cause deficits to increase by $20 billion in the first year and by $150
billion in the outyears. In other words, the debt of the United States
would increase by a dramatic amount.
Increased Treasury rates would cause the gross domestic product; that
is, the economic activity of America, the sum total of our goods and
services, to decrease by 1 percent, according to J.P. Morgan. That
would cause the U.S. economy to lose 640,000 jobs. At a time when we
are losing jobs in the public sector but gaining them in the private
sector, the failure to extend the debt ceiling would, in fact, increase
unemployment in America.
J.P. Morgan predicts that a 1-percent increase would cause a stock
market loss of 9 percent. What does that mean to the savings and 401(k)
plans of American families? They would lose, on average, $8,816--
something no family would like to see. And raising mortgage rates by 1
percent would cause the typical mortgage to increase by somewhere in
the range of $38,000--$38,000 in payments that need to be made.
So why would we inflict this wound on ourselves? As we sit with the
President and try to find our way through this crisis, we should
understand that as the business leaders reported to us yesterday, this
would be a disaster--a self-imposed disaster, a failure of political
leadership.
The President has called us together, and he has said: You are going
to meet every single day until we get it done. That determination by
the President is keeping us at the table and focusing us on the mission
at hand.
I will tell you, I believe we can reduce this deficit if we are
honest about the spending in Washington. To focus only on domestic
discretionary spending--a part of the budget that has not increased in
real dollar terms in the last 10 years--and to ignore the costs that
are growing on the security side, the defense side, as well as the cost
of entitlement programs, is not only being blinded to reality, it
really means the cuts that are made in domestic discretionary spending
are outrageously deep.
What we need to do, what the Bowles-Simpson commission told us needed
to be done was painful but necessary: Put everything on the table--
everything on the table. That means all spending, all entitlements, and
revenue.
I find it hard to understand the Republican position that says we can
impose new obligations on the families of children going to college to
pay more for student loans but we cannot impose any additional burden
on the wealthiest people in America to pay more taxes. To think that
the George Bush tax cuts means that for a person making $1 million in
income each year--that is $20,000 a week in income--to think that
George Bush tax cut is worth $200,000 a year in tax cuts for a
millionaire and that we would blithely hear from the other side that we
should allow that to continue while asking everyone else in America to
sacrifice is upside down.
It is instructive to me that, when asked, people across America
believe we should put everything on the table, including taxes and
revenue. We can do this.
The argument that this is the wrong time to raise taxes on anybody
because of the state of the economy is not borne out by history.
Whenever taxes have been increased in recent times, we have seen the
opposite occur. If they are increased in a thoughtful way--not imposed
on working and middle-income families and lower income groups--in fact,
we have seen in the past that the economy has grown. It has not stopped
us from growing.
We now have a top income tax rate of 35 percent. When it was over 39
percent under President Clinton, we had the fastest and most dynamic
growth in our economy in modern time. There is no linkage between taxes
on the wealthy and the growth of our economy other than the exact
opposite of the Republican argument. Where taxes have been raised on
higher income groups, we have actually seen our economy expand time and
time and time again.
So I would hope we would have a balanced approach to dealing with
this deficit and put everything on the table. I would hope that as we
meet with the President, we get the job done. And we ought to do it
soon. The longer we wait, the more the uncertainty, and it is not good
for our economy in a world where we have a volatile economic situation,
particularly in Europe. It is not good for job growth, where we know we
desperately need to create more good-paying jobs right here in America.
And it is certainly not good for our reputation in Congress. We were
elected to lead, to make hard decisions. We have that opportunity, and
we need to do it now.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is
recognized.
Balanced Budget Amendment
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday morning I came to the floor
to announce my conclusion that, despite his repeated claims to the
contrary, the President has no real intention of cutting spending or
dealing with our deficits and debt. It has been my fervent hope that
the President could be persuaded to view the upcoming debt limit vote
as an opportunity--an opportunity--to change direction, to cut
spending, to cut debt, and to preserve entitlement programs. But those
hopes have evaporated as the President began to insist in recent weeks
that he would only consider spending cuts later if Republicans agreed
now to one of the biggest tax hikes in history. Republicans refused to
be drawn into this legislative trap.
When Democrats proposed a smaller plan that they claimed, without any
details, amounted to more than $1 trillion in cuts, we refused to go
along again because we knew that it really did not cut $1 trillion. We
refused to pretend that a bad idea was a good one. Our bottom line is
this: The White House would have to prove that the cuts it was claiming
to support were real and enforceable before Republicans would sign off
on any plan to endorse them.
As it turned out, our skepticism was well founded.
Earlier this week, I asked an administration official point blank
what the cuts they were proposing as part of their so-called bipartisan
deal would amount to next year; that is, year 2012. He said they were
talking about a $2 billion reduction--$2 billion--for next year. We
will borrow more than $4 billion today. That, Madam President, is not a
deal in which I am particularly
[[Page S4538]]
interested. This is what they were planning to spin as more than $1
trillion over 10 years. It was at that point that I realized the White
House simply was not serious about cutting spending or debt. The only
thing they were serious about was putting together a plan that appeared
serious but really was not, and they wanted Republicans to go along
with it. Well, we are not interested in playing that game.
In the end, the White House gave us three choices in exchange for a
vote to increase the debt limit: a massive tax hike, smoke and mirrors,
or default. And none of these options is acceptable. So yesterday I
proposed a possible fourth option as a last resort if the President
continues to shirk his duty to do something about our dire fiscal
situation. If the White House continues to insist on either tax hikes
or default, then we would send legislation to the President that
requires him to propose spending cuts greater than the debt limit he
requests; make the President show in black and white the specific cuts
he claims to support. If he refuses, he will have to raise the debt
ceiling on his own. But he is not going to get Republicans to go along
with that. That way, the President cannot pretend to support cuts when
he does not. He is forced to simply put up.
I understand the reluctance the American people have in concluding
that a serious solution is not going to happen. I hope I am wrong. The
idea of not doing something serious about the debt before August,
frankly, sickens me. Like most Americans, I previously did not believe
anyone in this country could seriously deny the need to rein in
government spending. Like most Americans, I previously did not believe
anyone could be so shortsighted as to propose massive tax hikes in a
weakened economy. Like all of you, I did not think even the most
liberal among us would go to such lengths to protect the expansion of
government. I am sorry to report there are people who believe all of
those things, and they currently reside right down at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. But Republicans refuse to let the President use the threat of a
debt limit deadline to get us to cave on tax increases or on phony
spending cuts that future Congresses could just as easily reverse with
a single vote. We are not gambling our Nation's fiscal future on the
promise of spending cuts tomorrow for tax hikes today.
It is time to change the conversation altogether. It is time to
refocus this debate on the kinds of real cuts and debt reduction
Americans are demanding of us. It is time to show there are two
different versions of our Nation's future at work here. So over the
next several days, Republicans will redouble our efforts to avoid all
four scenarios. Americans do not want tax hikes, they do not want phony
spending cuts, they do not want a debt disapproval plan, and they do
not want us to default on our debts. They want real cuts and real
reforms now, and that is what Republicans will spend the next 2 weeks
fighting for--the one thing that will ensure that Washington gets its
house in order and forces future Congresses to live within their means.
The time has come for a balanced budget amendment that forces
Washington to balance its books. If these debt negotiations have
convinced us of anything, it is that we cannot leave it to politicians
in Washington to make the difficult decisions they need to to get our
fiscal house in order. The balanced budget amendment will do that for
them. Now is the moment. No more games. No more gimmicks. The
Constitution must be amended to keep the government in check. We have
tried persuasion. We have tried negotiations. We have tried elections.
Nothing has worked. If the President will not do something about the
debt, we will go around him and take it to the American people. We will
have a real debate. Those who support endless spending and debt will
vote against it. It is time we all stand up to be counted.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank the Republican leader for his
efforts in this regard. I know for a fact that Senator McConnell and
the leadership on our side hoped and believed it was possible to take
advantage of the opportunity of the discussion over raising the debt
limit to create a major alteration in our plan of spending in this
country. It has been disappointing to not have been met halfway in that
regard.
When Senator McConnell was told the White House's plan included only
a $2 billion cut next year in spending, I found it stunning. Our
deficit this fiscal year will have added $1,500 billion to our debt. We
are going to save $2 billion next year? This is not acceptable, and I
am disappointed. I appreciate the Republican leader's efforts in that
regard.
I would note, as to the discussion about that the war is causing our
deficit, it has been expensive over 10 years. The war on terrorism,
Iraq, and Afghanistan together have cost about $1.5 trillion. This next
year, we are projecting a little over $100 billion to be spent. So I
will just say that the amount of the deficit this one year will equal
the cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars over 10 years. The deficit
this year is $1,500 billion. The cost of the war this year is about
$150 billion. It is about 10 percent of the deficit we are running this
year. Although we hope to bring those numbers down and are already
projecting next year those numbers to come down to closer to $100
billion from $150 billion, the cause of our deficit is not the war. It
represents about 10 percent of the total deficit we are running this
year. That is just a fact. That is what the numbers show.
One of the few things mandated for Congress to do every year is to
pass a budget. According to the Congressional Budget Act, contained in
the U.S. Code, signed into law in 1974, the Senate Budget Committee
must produce a budget resolution by April 1 and adopt a conference
agreement on that budget by April 15. Furthermore, a budget must
include total levels of spending, expected revenue, and deficits for no
less than 5 years, and frequently we do 10-year budgets.
Once a budget is in place, Congress is prohibited from passing
legislation with spending that exceeds the levels that were in the
budget--sort of like we do in our homes. In essence, a budget is both a
concrete plan for the future, and an enforcement mechanism to help us
stay within the limits we set, and to ensure honest accounting.
One of these enforcement mechanisms in the Budget Act as set forth in
the code is a prohibition against the consideration of any
appropriations bills in the absence of a budget. We should not move
forward with spending bills until we have established a budget. How
simple is that? That is why we are supposed to have it done by April
15, because the appropriations bills come along afterwards.
This is the essence of good government. We should not spend taxpayer
dollars without a plan for how to officially allocate the dollars and
in a way that maximizes the effectiveness of our spending and minimizes
waste and abuse and fraud. We have too much of that in our government.
This point of order--and there is a point of order in the code--
contained in section 303(c) of the Congressional Budget Act, once that
point of order is raised, the legislation in question cannot move
forward unless a majority of the Senators vote to waive the budget
requirement that taxpayer money should not be appropriated without a
budget--without a plan.
This is what the law dictates. I believe this is our responsibility
as legislators and as Senators. This is what the organizational
structure of this very Senate requires, and this is the duty the
Democrat-led Senate has refused to fulfill for 805 days. Senate
Democrats have failed to adopt a budget in more than 2 years, and this
year they have refused to even produce a budget for public review. They
claim they have one. They claim it does some good things, and they leak
portions of it to the public and spin it as being a positive document.
But when asked to produce it, they do not do so. When asked to have
hearings on it, they do not do so.
If they are proud of it, if it will sustain public scrutiny, why do
they not bring it forward? I have never imagined that I would serve 2
years in the Senate and now be ranking member of the Budget Committee,
and we would not have a budget even presented. Today we are scheduled
to vote on a motion to proceed to the Military Construction
appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012, beginning October 1 of this
year.
Regardless of my feelings about the legislation or my high admiration
for
[[Page S4539]]
those who have worked on it, I think I have a responsibility, a duty,
as ranking member of the Budget Committee during this time of extreme
fiscal danger, the greatest debt we have ever seen, to oppose cloture
on this measure and to raise the 303(c) point of order should cloture
be invoked.
My objection does not mean I do not support the bill. To any who
would suggest otherwise, let me say that this action is at its core a
defense of our men and women in uniform. No one understands duty better
than those who wear the uniform, and it is our duty to write a budget
that sets priorities and ensures the needs of our troops are met. The
military is a priority of the highest order. To protect that priority,
we must have a budget, especially in these challenging economic times.
The Senate has failed those in uniform if it chooses political
expedience over drafting a budget that includes a military spending
plan. How can we protect the military from unwise cuts if spending
plans are not even made public?
The only area of government significantly cut in the unseen
Democratic budget proposal that I have referred to previously--that I
have called a ``phantom budget''--appears to be the Pentagon's.
If we take the numbers that were leaked from their budget plan, it
calls for $900 billion in cuts to the Pentagon, to the government, to
the military. Well, if this is their plan we ought to know it. So I do
not want to hear people say that I am objecting to the Military
Construction bill because I do not appreciate the military, while the
Democratic majority, who is producing this Military Construction bill,
claim they have a budget that hammers the Defense Department by $900
billion.
Indeed, while that appears to be the plan, the budget submitted by
President Obama earlier this year--not one produced by the Senate
Democrats but the President's own budget--calls for a 9.5-percent
increase in the Energy Department, a 10.5-percent increase for the
Education Department, a 10.5-percent increase for the State Department,
and a 60-percent increase for high-speed rail and the Transportation
budget without money to fund it.
While they are proposing major cuts in defense, we have major plans
on the table to increase spending next year when we are, again, going
to run a $1 trillion-plus deficit. The authors of the Congressional
Budget Act likely did not contemplate a future in which the governing
party believes budgets are no longer necessary. That seems to be the
case today. That is why I am also bringing forward legislation that
will raise a 303(c) point of order threshold to 60 votes--no
appropriations without a budget unless 60 Senators choose to waive that
requirement. That is in the law.
We sometimes put requirements in the law. We do not have very good
enforcement mechanisms. The danger we face from continuing to operate
this government without a clear, concrete budget is simply too great.
Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that
our Nation's debt is the gravest of all national security threats we
face. It is so. We are reaching a point where our economy could enter
into a financial crisis as a result of our national debt.
We owe it to the extraordinary men and women who serve this country
to defend at home the way of life they have defended abroad. That means
the Senate must confront the debt problem that threatens us with
economic disaster. Already, as economists Rogoff and Reinhart
demonstrated, we are losing at least 1 million jobs a year as a result
of our high debt, which is now 95 percent of GDP and soon to be 100
percent of GDP.
In just a little over 2 months our Nation's gross debt will be as
large as our entire economy and growing larger. This year we will take
in $2.2 trillion, but we will spend $3.7 trillion. By the end of the
first 3 years of the Obama administration, we will have accumulated $5
trillion in gross debt--new debt.
Over the next 10 years we are projected to spend $46 trillion, adding
another $13 trillion to our national debt. That is 13,000 billion. The
President proposed saving $2 billion next year. He proposes we increase
taxes on corporate jets that over 10 years would save $3 billion, while
he has a budget submitted to the Senate that would increase the debt by
$13,000 billion over the next 10 years.
I do not defend corporate jets. We can eliminate that as far as I am
concerned and change our whole tax structure, which needs simplifying
and more integrity and more effectiveness in it. But that is not a
responsible way for a leader to suggest that we are going to fix our
debt problems--by changing the corporate tax rate for jets. No nation
can sustain this level of debt, nor can any nation ever raise enough
taxes to cover this level of spending. The course we are on is not
merely unsustainable, it is unimaginable. The American people have
every right to be angry with their Congress. We are sitting here
running a government and borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend.
They should be furious with us. It is unacceptable. It is
unexplainable.
We spend and borrow all we can. That is the fact. There is only one
sound answer: control spending and grow the economy, not tax it into
submission. For Americans to regain prosperity, Washington must regain
discipline. Hiking taxes to bail out the Washington spenders who have
put us in debt by increasing domestic nondefense spending in the last 2
years--not war, not Social Security, I am talking about general
expenditures of our government have gone up 24 percent in the last 2
years. They have run up huge debts, and now they want the American
people to pay more so they can continue to spend at this irresponsible
level. I say no to that. I am not for that.
Since the Democratic-led Senate last passed a budget, we have spent
$7.3 trillion and increased the debt by $3.2 trillion. When President
Obama took office the public debt of the United States was about $5.7
trillion. In 3 years we have added close to $4 trillion in debt. In 4
years President Obama's debt that he will have run up at this rate will
be larger than the debt that has been accumulated in the entire history
of America.
We are on an unsustainable course. This fiscal abandon has brought us
to the brink of the debt ceiling that we have. We have a limit on how
much debt we can run up statutorily. Yet, still, the Senate Democrats
will not produce a budget, and the White House will not put together an
honest plan with real spending cuts that they will stand behind and let
people analyze and score. Just more gimmicks, tricks, and games. That
is not acceptable. That is why we are in this fix today.
Majority Leader Reid actually declared it would be ``foolish'' to
have a budget--``foolish'' to have a budget. Would you tell a family
who is having difficulty with their finances it is foolish to have a
budget? Would you declare to a family who is running up credit card
debt and 40 percent of what they are spending is put on a credit card
every month that they should not have a budget?
The United States Code requires us to have a budget by April 15. It
is easy to claim deficit reduction as a priority, but if our leaders
were actually to put a plan on paper it would become all too clear that
their real desire is for larger taxes and only meager cuts to spending.
That is the truth. That will not get the job done. Numbers do not lie.
Their rhetoric creates the appearance of savings, but those savings do
not exist when you look at the numbers carefully.
But while the White House and Senate Democrats may think their
strategy is clever, I do not think the American people should be
amused. I do not think the American people are amused. Until the
majority, who asked for the responsibility to lead this Senate--that is
what they wanted. They have it. Until they allow this Chamber to adopt
a badly needed budget, I am going to continue to raise points of order
on appropriations bills.
Now more than ever, we should fulfill our legal duties, not shirk
them. More than ever today we should. We were not elected to preside
over the financial decline of this country. We were not elected to shut
down the committees, deny them the right to function, to shut down
debate or cede our constitutional responsibility to secret meetings and
closed-door proceedings.
The debt limit is not only about fulfilling our obligation to
creditors, it is about fulfilling our obligation to the all of the
people we serve, good Americans. We owe them a Senate that
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works, that works openly and tirelessly on their behalf, which casts
votes on these important matters and has to respond and be accountable
to the American people. We owe the people an honest, competent,
limited, efficient government. We owe them a Senate that is worthy of
their faith and trust.
We are not there. We are not fulfilling that responsibility.
Therefore, I expect that I will object and raise a budget point of
order against movement to the Military Construction bill.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota is
recognized.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I want to echo some of the remarks made
by my colleague from Alabama regarding a budget. He is the ranking
Republican member on our side on the Budget Committee.
It is ironic that we are on the floor of the Senate this week, as we
were last week, debating a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate bill that
states ``those earning $1 million or more per year make a more
meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort.''
It doesn't specify what that is. It doesn't say there should be tax
increases or spending cuts that should have an impact on these high-
income earners. I echo what was stated by my colleague, which is that
this is no substitute for a budget. Congress's job is to pass a budget.
That is why we are here. That is why the taxpayers elected us. It is to
set priorities and make decisions about where we are going to allocate
their hard-earned tax dollars.
The Democrats have not passed a budget for 805 days. Now, this sense-
of-the-Senate bill--which is vague, ambiguous, and meaningless--does
not do anything to address the fiscal challenges our country faces or
achieve any level of budgetary savings.
Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. THUNE. I am happy to yield for a question.
Mr. SESSIONS. The Senator from South Dakota is an experienced member
of the Budget Committee and a member of the leadership on the
Republican side in the Senate. Isn't it true that we had more interest
from Members wanting to join the Budget Committee this year,
particularly new Members who had gotten elected and talked to their
constituents about their fear of America's debt and they wanted to be
on the Budget Committee, and only a few could be selected out of the
group who wanted to be on it?
What has been the Senator's observation as to how they have reacted
to the fact that no budget has been presented; that the committee has
never met or even marked up and held hearings as the United States Code
requires? Maybe the Senator can share how they feel about this.
Mr. THUNE. My colleague is absolutely right. There was tremendous
interest this year. If we look at the last election, the 2010 election,
a lot of the people who were elected in the House and Senate were
elected because they ran on a message to their constituents of getting
America's fiscal house in order, getting spending and debt under
control.
Where does that start? It starts with a budget. So they got here and
tried to get on the Senate Budget Committee. We have all these bright
new Members of the Senate who have a lot to contribute and who have had
no opportunity to do that because we haven't had a budget, a markup,
and we haven't done the necessary things in order to move the budget
process forward.
I am completely in agreement with the Senator from Alabama when it
comes to what the priorities should be. It ought to be doing a budget
that actually focuses on cutting spending and getting this debt under
control.
I tried to offer an amendment to this nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate
bill, but the majority is blocking amendments. That amendment would cut
all nonsecurity discretionary spending for the current fiscal year by
2.5 percent. It is a nominal amount, I recognize that. It is not a big
spending cut. It is a small haircut. It will not solve our problem. It
would produce about $11 billion in savings from some of these accounts
that have seen, as the Senator noted, extraordinary growth since 2008.
Spending has increased in the discretionary part of the budget by 24
percent in 2 years, when inflation was about 2 percent. The government
was spending at a rate of 10 or 12 times the right of inflation. It is
unsustainable.
We cannot argue to the American people with a straight face that that
is the kind of spending that ought to be going on in Washington, DC.
Because the amendments have been blocked, we are probably not going to
have a chance to vote on that. But the amendment says: Let's cut by 2.5
percent the discretionary spending, given the fact that it has
increased 24 percent in the last 2 years.
These accounts started to feel downward pressure when the continuing
resolution passed earlier this year, but more needs to be done. We need
to put pressure on the spending side of the equation, not the tax side.
All of my Republican colleagues have said it multiple times, but I
think it bears repeating and explaining that our problem in Washington
isn't that Washington taxes too little; it is that it spends too much.
That is true.
Revenues are below their historical average, but spending is
dramatically higher than its historical average. The reason we have
revenues that are lower than the historical average is because we have
an anemic economic recovery. If we get the economy growing and
expanding and creating jobs again, we will start to see some of the tax
revenue pick up. Just as a point of fact, in 2006 and 2007, we had a
very similar income tax system to what we have today. At that time it
raised more revenue than our historical average. Our historical average
is around 18 percent of our entire economy--what we raise in tax
revenues. In 2006 and 2007, in the Tax Code, the rates were similar to
today. We have exceeded the average.
The issue is not that we have too little revenue in Washington, not
that Washington taxes too little; it spends too much. Once the economy
starts to turn around, we know we are going to be raising a substantial
and sufficient amount of revenue without having to resort to tax
increases. In fact, if we were to enact tax reform that was revenue
neutral--and by that I mean it doesn't generate more revenue for
Washington to spend--but if we were to lower the rates on people and
businesses and broaden the tax base, our economy would grow and expand
dramatically, and we would see even more revenue generated for the
Federal Government and more jobs created, which is what everybody wants
to see. We should not, however, simply increase taxes to pay for ever-
increasing spending for programs that aren't sustainable.
This year Federal government spending will comprise 24.3 percent of
our Nation's entire economic output. So almost a quarter of every
dollar spent in this country will be spent by the Federal Government.
That doesn't take into consideration spending by State and local
governments. But it is 18 percent more than our historical average. We
spend about 20.6 percent, historically, of our entire economy on the
Federal Government. This year it is 24.3 percent. We are almost at a
quarter out of every dollar being spent by our Federal Government in
Washington, DC.
What happens? That means there is less activity in the private
economy, which is where the real jobs are created. When the Federal
Government is spending this much and borrowing this much, it crowds out
private investment and makes it difficult for the private economy to
create jobs that are permanent, good-paying jobs for the people of this
country.
Perhaps an even more pertinent statistic is the years in which our
budget has been balanced since 1969. These budgets were balanced
because spending was constrained. If we look at the 5 years when the
budget was balanced, the Federal Government's spending in those 5 years
comprises just under 18.7 percent of our GDP, our economic output. So
if we look at the problem that we are trying to diagnose in this
country, our colleagues on the other side diagnose it as a revenue
problem. I submit that the problem we are trying to solve is
fundamentally a spending problem. Five times, when the budget was
balanced since 1969, in every instance it was because we were spending
less than the historical average.
This year's spending is over 30 percent more than the years in which
we
[[Page S4541]]
balanced the budget; that is, as a percentage of our entire economy.
That is how much higher it is than the years in which we balanced our
budget. That is how much and how fast government spending is growing.
Unfortunately, it remains above the historical average every year in
the President's budget. He submitted a budget that borrows more, spends
more, and taxes more. I can't think of a worse way to get out of an
economic downturn and start creating jobs than to continue to spend at
this uncontrollable rate, to continue to borrow more and more money,
and impose higher taxes on an American economy that is already
struggling.
After 2018, according to the President's budget, spending increases
every single year. That is a spending problem; that is not a revenue
problem. Despite that, the administration wants to take what they call
a ``balanced approach'' and to have shared sacrifice.
Only in Washington, DC, would spending more and taxing more be
considered a balanced approach. Only in Washington would shared
sacrifice mean taking more of taxpayers' hard-earned money to spend on
the administration's priorities.
To put a fine point on that, this week, the President said he would
``rather be talking about things that everyone wants, like new
programs.'' This is code for: I need more of your money so I can spend
more.
I reject that notion. We don't need more spending in Washington, DC.
We don't need more programs. We don't need to expand government.
Government is too big already, at 25 percent of our entire economy.
Let's pretend for a minute that deficit reduction really was the
President's priority. What has happened in the past with these
``balanced budget'' deals? In 1990 the budget agreement reached by
President Bush at Andrews Air Force Base was supposed to have spending
cuts that outnumbered tax increases by a 2-to-1 margin. Spending was
supposed to be cut by $274 billion, and taxes were going to be
increased by $137 billion.
What actually happened? Tax hikes certainly materialized, but the
reality is that spending actually increased. So in the 1990
``balanced'' budget approach, we got increased spending and increased
taxes. In 1982, under President Reagan, the exact same thing happened.
Madam President, I simply say to my colleagues that this is
fundamentally a debate about the size of our government. We believe in
a debt crisis we ought to make government smaller, not larger, and not
create more programs. Our colleagues on the other side have a different
view. We ought to be talking about what we can do to get people in this
country back to work and small businesses hiring.
There was a Chamber of Commerce survey that said 64 percent of small
businesses will not add to their payrolls this year, and 12 percent
will cut jobs. Why? Because of the economic uncertainty created in
Washington and because we are unwilling to deal with the spending and
debt issue that is in front of us and to put policies into place that
will enable job creation and economic growth.
I hope my colleagues will work with us to reduce the size of
government, not grow it.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, how much time remains?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On the Democratic side, 15 minutes
remains, and there is no time on the Republican side.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise to speak about the budget and
deficit issues that are facing us. The first point, which is becoming
clearer and clearer to the American people, is how bad a default would
be.
The bottom line is very simple: America has never defaulted on its
debt--nor should any country, particularly the greatest country in the
world--debt that is a promise of expenditures that have already been
made. When we raise the debt ceiling, we are simply saying we are going
to pay our bills.
The bottom line is that every family in America has to do that. If
you own a mortgage, you can't say, after you have signed the mortgage
and lived in the house: I am not going to pay my mortgage unless ABC
happens.
If you have credit card debt and you have incurred significant debt,
you can't say to the credit card company: I am not going to pay that
debt unless you do ABC.
Yet some of our colleagues on the other side--and particularly in the
House of Representatives--seem to say that. It would lead to disaster.
It would lead to disaster for the government. In August America has
$306 billion--this government, this Federal Government, has $306
billion in obligations and $172 billion in income. If we don't raise
the debt ceiling, we are going to have awful choices: Do we pay the
Social Security recipients and not the veterans? Do we pay the veterans
and not those to whom we owe money? Do we say we will pay veterans but
not pay people who inspect food or guard our borders? The choices are
awful, and choices the American people should not have foisted on them
by an irresponsible Congress that says we will not raise the debt
ceiling.
It will also hurt American homeowners and debtors. If you are a
mortgagor, your debt will go up. If you have a variable-rate mortgage,
and we don't raise the debt ceiling, you will pay perhaps hundreds of
dollars more each month. If you have credit card debt, which most
Americans have, the rates are likely to go up.
Overall, at a time when we need jobs and the economy is so
precarious, it could send us back into a recession and perhaps even
worse, according to some economists. So not raising the debt ceiling
and defaulting on our debt is not an option.
Yesterday, Senator McConnell realized that. The substantive good news
here is that the plan Mitch McConnell offered, for all its faults,
makes the likelihood of our not paying our bills, of not raising the
debt ceiling less likely. However, the plan has a good deal of fault to
it. It seems to be a political document. It says what we care most
about is two things: It says we want to throw the responsibility of
raising the debt ceiling to the other side, and it says the Republican
Party cares more about preserving tax breaks for the wealthy and
corporate America than actually bringing down our debt.
All the talk about deficit reduction, all the talk about getting a
handle on our debt has been thrown to the wind, all in an effort to
say: We know if we raise the debt ceiling there will be trouble.
Senator McConnell is well aware--he is very smart when it comes to the
politics of it--that had the debt ceiling not been raised, the blame
would have fallen on the party that has been saying they don't care
about raising the debt ceiling.
Hundreds of members of the Republican Party throughout the country--
scores in this Congress both in this House and the other--have said: We
are not going to raise the debt ceiling. Senator McConnell, realizing
the consequences of doing that would fall on the party that doesn't
believe it is important to do so, had to act. But at the end of the
day, where is the debt reduction? Where is the deficit reduction we
have heard about in speech after speech after speech from the other
side?
The bottom line is very simple: Again, when President Obama offered a
plan that would remove tax breaks from the rich, that would close
corporate loopholes, the other side said: We can't tolerate that, even
if it means debt reduction. The McConnell plan shows what the other
party, the other side of the aisle, cares about: preserving tax breaks
for the rich and preserving corporate loopholes much more than reducing
our deficit and bringing down our debt.
Having said that, as I said, Senator McConnell has at least
recognized, even if partially politically, the gravity of the
situation, and he joins the other leaders in Washington in doing that.
President Obama has as well, and that is why he put out his $4 trillion
plan. Speaker Boehner has also. That is why he was willing to
entertain--until the rug was pulled out from under him--a big plan.
Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi have constantly talked about their views
and ways we can reduce the deficit and avoid default. There is only one
person who hasn't come up with a plan, who hasn't compromised, and who
hasn't reached out to the other side in an effort to move forward, and
that is the majority leader in the House, Mr. Cantor. He is the only
one
[[Page S4542]]
who still says: My way or the highway. Every other leader has said they
are willing to make certain concessions--even though they do not like
them--to avoid default.
The Nation, and, of course, this Congress is waiting for Leader
Cantor to step to the plate in a similar way so that maybe we can come
to a compromise that actually avoids default and, at the same time,
gets a handle on the debt and deficit problems and reduces both of
those.
Madam President, I yield the floor, and I 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. NELSON of Florida. 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.
Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I know we have a vote that is
coming up momentarily, but I just wanted to say my wish for those folks
who are huddling up down at the White House every day: Don't miss this
opportunity for a grand bargain to do something serious about deficit
reduction. That is why I am concerned about Senator McConnell's
proposal because it would take us off that practice.
When they look at that real opportunity for $4 trillion of deficit
reduction, they ought to look at the proposal of the Senate Budget
Committee--$4 trillion, $2 trillion of which over 10 years comes out of
the $14 trillion of the tax expenditures--or tax preferences that
special interests have. We would only have to take from 9 to 17 percent
of all that $14 trillion of tax preferences in order to produce the $2
trillion of revenue over 10 years.
I have just put that issue to a panel of experts in a joint Ways and
Means-Finance Committee meeting as to what they would recommend, and I
will talk about that later today.
With that, I yield the floor.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that all
time be yielded back.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
hereby move to bring to a close debate on S. 1323, a bill to
express the sense of the Senate on shared sacrifice in
resolving the budget deficit.
Harry Reid, Richard J. Durbin, Patty Murray, Daniel K.
Inouye, Christopher A. Coons, Sheldon Whitehouse,
Barbara Boxer, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Bernard Sanders,
Frank R. Lautenberg, Sherrod Brown, Jack Reed, Dianne
Feinstein, Jeff Merkley, Benjamin L. Cardin, Carl
Levin, Charles E. Schumer.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. By unanimous consent, the mandatory
quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on S.
1323, a bill to express the sense of the Senate on shared sacrifice in
resolving the budget deficit, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 51, nays 49, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 108 Leg.]
YEAS--51
Akaka
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Blumenthal
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Coons
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson (SD)
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--49
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Brown (MA)
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
Kirk
Kyl
Lee
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Nelson (NE)
Paul
Portman
Pryor
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the
nays are 49. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
____________________