Congressional Record, Volume 157 Issue 105 (Thursday, July 14, 2011)

[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 105 (Thursday, July 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4569-S4574]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE BUDGET

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I realize a scheme has been concocted on
the debt ceiling that allows Democrats to go into this next election
continuing to ensure that spending to many of their constituents is at
levels that please them; therefore, allowing them to run successfully
in 2012, and that scheme also allows Republicans to run in 2012 with
spending being the issue.
I think we all understand that, look, the debt ceiling is going to be
increased, and it is going to be increased in such a way that both
sides of the aisle have the ability to campaign against the other
respective to their bases.
But the fact is, our great Nation is in decline because of the
elected leaders in Washington. Our great Nation is in decline because
of this body and the way it is acting, the House of Representatives and
the way it is acting, and the White House and the way it is acting.
This body, as we meet and go on to a spending bill, is helping our
great Nation go into decline. Let me explain why.
Maybe the debt ceiling was the wrong place to pick a fight as it
relates to trying to get our country's house in order. Maybe that was
the wrong place to do it. The reason it was chosen is because this body
has not passed a budget in 806 or 807 days, and I credit both sides for
that. But the fact is the Senate has not passed a budget in over 806
days.
I had a dinner this week, Monday night, with six Democrats and five
Republicans. I will not mention their names to impugn them in any way.
But all of them expressed tremendous frustration with the way this body
is being run. Basically, most Senators in this body are nothing but
two-bit pawns--two-bit pawns--as a political fight is under way
basically to lay out the groundwork, if you will, for the 2012
election. That is what is happening right now in this body, and I think
we all know that.
Yet yesterday we voted to move to a spending bill where we, in
essence, are acting as accomplices. We are accomplices to this--the
Presiding Officer and myself. I voted against it. But anybody who votes
to go to a spending bill without forcing the Senate to come to terms
with a budget is, in essence, an accomplice to allowing the shenanigans
that are taking place right now to continue. We are allowing this great
Nation to go into decline by not forcing us to make those tough
decisions.
The reason the debt ceiling was chosen is because there has not been
any other mechanism to cause us to sit down and make those tough
choices as it relates to spending in our country. Because we were
unwilling to do that, many people lined up, as a matter of fact,
Democrats and Republicans--there is a Gang of 6 that had been working,
with three Republicans and three Democrats. It is my sense that they
too had planned to use the debt ceiling vote as a place to try to cause
us to come together around something that might be sensible for our
country. We have not seen the details of that. I hope we will see that
soon.
But my point is, both sides of the aisle actually had focused on this
debt ceiling vote--or many people on both sides of the aisle--to try to
cause us to have the fiscal discipline we need. Obviously, with this
new scheme, that is not going to happen.
I think we all know the debt ceiling is going to be raised. Blame
will be assessed to either side. Both sides will use that in the 2012
election, and then we will move on to another cycle where probably we
will continue to be irresponsible.
But the fact is, by moving to a spending bill without a budget--
everyone who agrees to do that, every single person in this body who
agrees to move to a spending bill, no matter what it is funding or no
matter at what level it is funding the things it is funding, every one
of us is an accomplice in causing this great Nation to decline, every
single one of us.
I would urge people in this body who would like to see us actually do
our work, cause us to function the way the Founding Fathers had created
this body, cause us to function in a way that no longer allows our
country to be in decline, I would urge everybody in this body to not
agree to go to this spending bill and to say we will not spend any more
of the U.S. resources--taxpayers' resources--without first agreeing to
those tough decisions.

I love seeing some of the masters of the universe on some of these
financial programs in the morning. I heard one of them this morning on
a particular program I sometimes turn on to see what the markets are
doing in reaction to the ridiculous, undisciplined nature of this body,
I heard one of them say the debt ceiling is no place--most

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countries do not even vote on a debt ceiling. What they do is they vote
on budgets. In this country, we do not even vote on budgets. Of course,
we have figured out a way to not make any tough decision on the debt
ceiling vote either, and I understand what is getting ready to happen.
But, again, I say to all those folks who are not head of this body,
who are not in leadership, who in the bathrooms or in the halls or at
dinner or at lunch complain about the fact that this place is
dysfunctional, complain about the fact that they do not have the
ability to be involved in causing us to function in the way we should,
every single one of you, in my opinion, who votes to go to a spending
bill today or end debate on a spending bill--in essence, allow us to
pass a spending bill--is an accomplice, is an accomplice in allowing
this great Nation to go into decline. That is pretty strong, but I
believe it.
The fact is we make a big deal out of some items around here, but we
do not make a big deal when it comes to something we can actually
affect and cause us as a body to do the things we need to do.
I say to the Presiding Officer, look, I am very disappointed in the
Senate. I am very disappointed in the White House. I am very
disappointed in all of us. I am very disappointed in the childish
behavior this body has continued to exude over the course of this
entire year. I am very disappointed we would even consider going on
with spending taxpayer resources and not sitting down and making tough
decisions. I am very disappointed, candidly, that both sides of the
aisle only want it their way.
I do not think this great country was created the way it was so one
side of the aisle got it exactly the way they wanted it. I think this
body was created to be ``the greatest deliberative body in the
country.'' Yet we do not do that. We do not act that way. We do not
debate tough issues. We hide--all of us--we hide and we let our
leadership concoct ways to keep us from doing the tough things we need
to do.
The fact that we cannot even have a budget on this floor to come out
of a committee, when, obviously, there is a majority--and I am not even
pointing fingers at the other side; I think both sides are equally
problematic in this because both sides, it is evident to me, are going
to allow us to go to a spending bill today without a budget, but the
fact that we cannot even bring a budget to the floor, when committees
are stacked in such a manner that one side does have the majority, to
me, is incredible.
If we move to a spending bill today without a budget, if we continue
to do the things we do here, just without worrying about the
fundamentals of what it takes for this country to be great, this body
today will move one step further down the path of causing this great
Nation to go into decline, to keep us from making tough decisions, to
allow committee heads or subcommittee heads in Appropriations to be
able to bring forth their fruit, if you will, the things they would
like to spend money on.
By the way, I support much--I probably support everything that is in
this bill. I am not sure. It supports veterans. It supports military
construction. But the fact is, actually, the very people this benefits,
the people who are veterans, the people who have given their limbs--
some have given loved ones--probably are embarrassed by the Senate too.
Even though they would like to receive the benefits at some point in
time down the road--when these benefits come to fruition in this next
fiscal year, they would like to receive those--they probably would
prefer, first, that all of us in this body do our job, that we quit
acting like the children we have been acting like this entire year;
that we quit calculating what we are going to do around the 2012
elections; that we quit hiding behind our leadership and allowing them
to go down and negotiate grand bargains in private; that we quit,
again, hiding from tough decisions.
I hope others will join with me and that we will not end debate on
this bill. Let me put it this way: If we do not do that--in other
words, if we proceed with spending in this bill--I sure hope all those
who vote to do so will stop talking in private about how embarrassed
they are about this Senate, will stop talking in private about how they
feel like little pawns in a political game, will stop talking in
private about how they would like to see this body start acting in the
fashion it should act.
We have not done any real business this year. We all know it. We have
not done any real business this year because we have not wanted to take
on those tough issues. I am embarrassed by that, personally. I am
embarrassed about the way this Senate has been conducting its business
this year.
I am not going to vote for a spending bill until we pass a budget. If
we had passed a budget and had the tough debates about revenues and
expenditures, we would not be in this no-win situation right now as it
relates to the debt ceiling, and we all know that. But we want to hide
behind that.
With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, as we all know, in the next few weeks we
are going to have to be faced with a decision about what to do with the
debt limit, and of course there has been a lot of discussion around
here as well as between the White House and the congressional
leadership about how best to resolve this issue.
I believe what it really comes down to is a question about what is
the best way to resolve a debt crisis. I think it creates a great
debate, a philosophical debate about do we need to grow government or
do we need to shrink government. I would argue that is kind of the
defining line in this debate, whether you believe the best way out of a
debt crisis is to expand and grow government or whether you think, as I
do, that we ought to make government smaller, not larger, if we are
trying to figure out how to get out of this particular circumstance we
find ourselves in right now.
We have a $14 trillion debt. We are going to have to increase the
borrowing authority to get to the 2012 election by $2.4 trillion. That
is the rate at which our debt is growing. I have said on the floor
before that if you look at just the daily borrowing our Federal
Government does, it exceeds the entire budget of my State of South
Dakota for a whole year. So we will borrow more in the next 24 hours
here in Washington, DC--about $4 billion--than the State of South
Dakota spends in an entire year. That is the dimension of the problem
we are facing.
Many of us believe the best thing we could do in order to get
ourselves on a better fiscal track is to pass a balanced budget
amendment to the Constitution. Frankly, I hope we will have an
opportunity to vote on just that sometime in this next week or the
following week. Most States around the country, including my State of
South Dakota, have a balanced budget amendment in their constitution.
It requires them year-in and year-out to get their books balanced. They
cannot continue to spend as if there is no tomorrow. They cannot spend
money they do not have. They live within their means. That is what most
Americans have to do, that is what American businesses and families
have to do, and it certainly makes sense that we ought to be doing that
at the Federal level.
I would urge my colleagues, as we look at the short-term issue, which
is the debt limit vote, we have to figure out how we are going to get
the best deal we can get in the near term, but what are we going to do
in the long term to put our country on a more sustainable fiscal
footing? I would argue that putting an imposed discipline on Congress,
such as an amendment to the Constitution that would require us year-in
and year-out to balance our budget, just makes sense. It is practical,
it makes economic sense, and it certainly is discipline that has been
lacking here in Washington, DC, for some time.
If you look at the States that have made hard decisions--mine is a
good example of that--they had to cut spending this year significantly
to balance their budgets, but at least they are doing that. They are
making these

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hard choices and hard decisions, and that is something we have been
putting off here for way too long.
I would point out to my colleagues here that as we talk about how to
get the country back on the right fiscal track, we do have to start
setting priorities.
Well, we are not doing that. We haven't had a budget here now for 806
days. It has been 806 days since the Democratic majority in the Senate
has allowed us to have a vote on a budget.
Many of us believe that in order to determine how you are going to
spend $3.7 trillion of America's hard-earned money, you ought to have
some priorities. You ought to at least put a pathway out there about
how you are going to go about spending those dollars and setting
priorities for the country.
Well, we are not doing that because we have not passed a budget in
806 days. That is the fundamental responsibility we have as leaders.
The people of this country elected us to do that. We are not doing
that. I think that is creating uncertainty. It is creating instability
out there around the country.
I met with some business owners this morning who say that in their
particular industry, there are people who want to invest, they want to
create jobs, and they want to make capital investments. But these are
long-term investments, and they don't know what is happening, they
don't know what the policies coming out of Washington are going to be
with regard to taxes, spending, regulations, all of those sorts of
things. There is an enormous amount of uncertainty.
There was a survey done just recently by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
in which they asked small businesses about their future hiring plans,
and 64 percent of the small businesses that responded to that survey
said they were not going to add to their payroll this year, they were
not going to hire this year. Another 12 percent said they were actually
going to cut jobs. Why? Half of the people who responded to the survey
said: Economic uncertainty. They just flat do not know what Washington
is going to do next. And you can't have that kind of uncertainty. What
the markets want, what businesses want, what investors want is they
want to know what the rules are going to be, and they want some
certainty about what is going to happen next.
The kind of uncertainty we are creating reaches beyond our shores
because I think that if you look at what is happening in Europe today,
they are facing a debt crisis in many of those countries. What are the
economic impacts of that? Well, if you look at the interest rates in
the Euro zone, the 3-year government interest rates are 19.4 percent
for Portugal, 28.9 percent for Greece, and 12.9 percent for Ireland.
That is our future if we don't get our fiscal house in order.
What does that mean? That means that not just does the Federal
Government have to pay more to borrow money, pay more in higher
interest costs, it also means that those interest costs--all interest
rates in this country, whether it is for an auto loan or a home loan or
a student's college loan, they all track with the Treasury borrowing
rates. If those rates go up, that has profound implications for our
economy. That means people across this country are going to pay much
higher interest rates. Small businesses are going to pay higher
interest rates to borrow money.
These are real-world impacts if we do not make the right kinds of
decisions here to get this spending and this borrowing under control.
So if you want to see our future, look at some of the European
countries. Look at what impact this is having on interest rates and on
their economies. That is something our economy could not withstand.
We are already facing 9.2 percent unemployment. We have a need to get
people back to work. And what we need now is not more expanded
government and more uncertainty about what Washington, DC, is going to
do; we need stability, we need certainty, and we need decisions here
which have a favorable impact on the private marketplace and create an
inducement to hire people as opposed to discouraging it, which is what
we are seeing today.
I have argued down here on many occasions that this debt is really
strangling our economy because it is crowding out private investment.
Anytime the government is out there borrowing money, it means there is
less capital out there for private businesses to have access to. I
think the more fundamental issue in this whole debate, however--and I
mentioned this yesterday in some remarks on the floor--is really the
size and scope of government and whether we want to see an expanded,
bigger, larger government or whether we ought to try to work our way
out of this debt crisis by actually reducing the size of our
government.
I pointed out that in the past couple of years alone, we have seen
government expand dramatically. In fact, nondefense discretionary
spending in the last 2 years has grown by 24 percent. The debt has
grown by 35 percent in just the time this President has been in office.
The amount we spend on our Federal Government as a percentage of our
entire economy has grown dramatically as well. The 40-year historical
average is 20.6 percent. That is what we historically, for the past 40
years, have spent on the Federal Government as a percentage of our
entire economic output. If you go back to the year 1800--hard to
believe--it was 2 percent. That is what we spent on the Federal
Government as a percentage of our entire economy. Of course, it has
grown since that time, but it has really taken off here in just the
last few years.
I pointed out yesterday as well that of the five times the budget has
actually been balanced in this country since 1969, in every
circumstance it has been when government has spent less as a percentage
of our entire economy than the average. So if the average is 20.6 for
the past 40 years, the times when we have actually balanced the budget,
we have averaged spending 18.7 percent of our GDP.
The point simply is this: If you want to solve this problem, it gets
solved on the spending side of the equation. The problem we have in
this country is not that we tax too little or have too little revenue,
it is that we spend too much because this year we will spend, as a
percentage of our entire economy, 24.3 percent. There is almost a
quarter of the entire economy of this country now being spent by the
Federal Government, and that will only go up over time as we see these
new entitlement programs, the new health care program that was created
last year, continue to consume more and more of our resources in this
country. That means there is less and less out there for the private
economy where the real jobs are created.
If you look at just what we pay in interest costs alone and how we
would be influenced by a slight uptick in interest rates--there was a
great op-ed written in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks back
by Larry Lindsey, who is a former economic adviser to President Bush
and also a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. He pointed
out that if interest rates return to their 20-year average, it would
add $4.9 trillion in additional borrowing costs over the next decade.
So everything we are talking about here in this debate about the debt
limit in terms of reducing spending really pales in comparison to just
a normalization of interest rates.
If we saw interest rates go back to what is a 20-year average, we
would see an additional $4.9 trillion that we would have to spend to
finance our debt. That is a staggering statistic. Again, I think it
speaks to the need for us to get our spending under control because the
amount we borrow, as it continues to ratchet up, and we continue to get
further in debt, the likelihood is that our interest rates are going to
go up in a corresponding manner, and we will end up spending more and
more on higher interest.
I think the real issue is whether we as a nation are going to make a
conscious decision that the way we resolve this debt crisis is either
on the spending side or on the revenue side. We heard our colleagues on
the other side--and we heard the President--say we need more revenue.
In fact, I have not been in on the discussions occurring at the White
House, but it is my understanding that one of the latest proposals on
the table was a $1.6 trillion increase in taxes. In other words, they
want to add $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenues in order to get
some amount of spending reduction.
We have seen this picture before. We can go back to the 1990 budget
deal that President Bush made with the

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Congress at the time which was supposed to have 2-to-1 spending cuts to
tax increases. The tax increases occurred; the spending cuts didn't.
That is our history. That is why making a deal that involves massive
increases in taxes on our economy, on our small businesses, when we
have 9.2 percent unemployment is a bad idea when the problem we are
trying to fix is fundamentally a spending problem. It would be one
thing if we were spending at a historical rate. If we were spending at
a rate that is 20 percent of our total economy, the 40-year average,
that would be different. We are spending more than 24 percent. This is
fundamentally a spending problem that cannot be solved on the revenue
side.
The only thing that increasing taxes would do is make it harder, more
expensive, and more difficult for small businesses to create jobs. That
is precisely what we want small businesses to think about doing.
Instead, 64 percent of them are saying that this next year they are not
going to add to the payroll, create jobs. Why? Because of economic
uncertainty. We need to create some certainty out there. We need them
to know that tax rates will stay at a low level--taxes on investments
and income. We need them to know we are committed to cutting spending
and getting the Federal debt under control. We need them to know we are
not going to add massively to the cost of doing business in this
country by dramatically increasing the number of Federal regulations
with which they have to comply.
I hear that everywhere I go, whether it is a farmer, rancher, or
small business owner--everywhere. In a meeting I had with some small
business owners, they said the regulations are making it increasingly
costly and more difficult for them to create jobs. So if we get into
the final days of this debate and these decisions have to be made, I
would say that the President needs to recognize that this is not a
revenue issue; this is a spending issue, and he needs to step up and
provide leadership and a pathway for how we get our fiscal house in
order--not by increasing taxes on the job creators in our economy, our
small businesses but, rather, by getting Federal spending under
control.
I think we would have an incredibly warm and favorable reception from
both the House and the Senate, who are prepared to do business when it
comes to reducing spending and making government smaller, not bigger,
dealing with this long-term structural problem that we have of a
runaway debt that is growing literally by the year at the tune of about
$1 trillion annually.
If we don't do this, as I said before, we are looking at a future
that will resemble many countries in Europe. We don't want to be a
country that defaults on our debt. We obviously need to address this
issue of the debt limit. We need to do it in a responsible way that
holds us accountable to the American people who spoke loudly and
clearly in the last election indicating that they believe government
has gotten too big and is growing too fast. They want the government
reined in.
The way we do that is to rein in Federal spending. That involves not
just the discretionary spending I mentioned earlier, which has grown at
24 percent in the last 2 years, but the long-term structural challenges
that we face in entitlement programs--Medicare and Social Security.
Republicans in the Congress are willing to lead on those issues and
are willing to step forward and put forward a plan. The only plan put
forward so far has come from the House Republicans, and it has been
criticized by a lot of Democrats in the House and Senate and also by
the White House. We have yet to see a plan from the other side. It has
been 806 days, and we haven't had a budget presented by the Democratic
majority in the Senate, nor has the President come forward with a plan
that actually does something to reduce spending and debt.
The President did submit a budget proposal earlier this year which
dramatically would have increased spending and doubled the debt over
the next decade and dramatically increased taxes. That is the wrong
message to have received.
The message the people of this country are sending is that we want
Washington to focus on the spending side. We want a smaller Federal
Government, not a larger Federal Government. We want the Federal
Government to do what we have to do--American families and small
businesses--and that is to live within its means.
I hope this debt debate, as it comes to a conclusion, will come to a
good outcome and result for the people of this country. We don't want
to have this country in a situation where we are not making payments,
where we are defaulting on our debt. But we cannot just continue this
pattern of raising the borrowing authority of this country, adding to
the Federal debt, without doing something to get that debt under
control, without doing something to reduce the amount this Federal
Government spends every single year. Spending at 24 to 25 percent of
our entire economy is a trend that cannot be continued and cannot be
sustained. We need to get back to more of a historical average, where
the American people want us to be.
The reason the American people reacted the way they did in the last
election is they saw this government growing at a rate that made them
very uncomfortable and frightened. That continues to this day because
there is uncertainty about the country's future and an instability that
exists today.
I heard from some business owners this morning. They want stability,
some certainty about what the rules are going to be. More importantly,
it starts by having a Federal Government that lives within its means
and doesn't spend money that it doesn't have and that focuses intently
on getting spending and debt under control and creating favorable
conditions for economic growth and job creation.
That doesn't happen by raising government revenues, raising taxes;
that happens by the Federal Government exercising fiscal
responsibility, reducing spending, reducing debt, and keeping taxes low
on our job creators so that we can get people in this country back to
work. That is the correct prescription for this country. It is a
prescription I hope the President will embrace.
I can say that the Republicans in the Senate--and I daresay the
Republicans in the House of Representatives as well--are prepared to
meet him in working together on that challenge of reducing spending and
debt and creating conditions favorable to economic growth and job
creation and getting American people back to work.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to
15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I stand here today having spent some time
over the last few days thinking about this dispute regarding the debt
limit, as we are hearing from our constituents across the country who
are looking at Washington and asking: What is going on? What are you
guys doing?
It is a difficult process for people to understand. They elect us and
send us here to serve our country and to solve problems. Yet they read
in the newspapers all these startling statements--the President saying
a few days ago he can't guarantee Social Security payments, others
saying our bond rating might be at risk. And, of course, the reality of
daily life is that, more than ever, Americans are finding it difficult
to find a job, and the ones who do are working twice as hard and making
less.
So things have gotten tougher over the last couple of years,
unfortunately, and people have a right to be upset with the direction
we are heading. And that was one of the reasons I felt compelled to run
for the Senate--to come up here and be part of trying to make a
difference, be part of putting this country on a track that helps us to
embrace all the things that make us exceptional and unique and continue
to make us exceptional and unique.
When I look at this dispute, I see two things that are very clear.
No. 1, we can't continue to do what we are doing now, and anyone who
argues we can is

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not being realistic and is doing a great disservice to the future of
our country. It is this simple: You can't have a government that spends
$1.5 trillion more than it takes in every single year. You can't have a
government that borrows 40 cents out of every dollar it spends.
Look what happened yesterday. Greece was downgraded. They are on the
verge of being in default. Not Greece--I apologize. It was Ireland. Why
is that happening in Europe? Why are these countries in trouble? It is
not because they refuse to raise their debt limit; it is because people
don't think they can pay back the money anymore. The people who lend
the money, the people who sell the debt, they are saying: We don't know
how you are going to pay us back. Your economy doesn't produce enough
money. You have no plan to bring spending under control. We have lost
confidence in you.
That is the message being sent to Europe today, and if we keep doing
what we are doing now, that is the message that will be sent here to
America very soon. The impact that will have not just on our country
but on the world is, quite frankly, devastating. That is what we are
facing.
The fundamental problem is twofold: We have a government that spends
too much money--more money than it takes in--and we have a government
that doesn't take in enough money to pay its debts because its economy
is not growing. That is why I have argued from the days on the campaign
trail to when I got elected that the way out of this problem is a two-
pronged approach. You have to do them both.
You have to cut spending. We have to have spending cuts and spending
discipline. It doesn't all have to happen overnight, but we have to
stop spending $1.5 trillion a year of money we do not have. We cannot
continue to do that.
That is why I support the cut, cap, and balance plan, because it says
we are going to begin to cut spending this year in a real way, we are
going to cap the ability of government to continue to grow its spending
in future years, and we are going to give the States the right to
ratify a balanced budget amendment for our country that basically says:
You cannot spend more money than you take in. States balance their
budgets, businesses have to balance their budgets, families have to
balance their budgets. If this Federal Government doesn't begin to
balance its budget sometime in the near future, we may cross a line
that is irreversible and puts us in a place similar to what we are
seeing in Europe today.
So on the spending side, it has to happen. Again, to people who
pretend we can do it overnight, I say: Of course not. It took a long
time to get into this predicament, and it will take a while to get out,
but we have to start trending in the right direction. It is critically
important that some sort of spending discipline plan be put in place.
Look, I know this is a political place. The debate is always framed
by politics. I, like everyone else here, fully participate in the
political banter. But today, for a moment, I want to step back from
that and just say this. Ultimately, I want to see a solution to the
spending plan. I will welcome that solution whether it comes from the
White House, from the minority leader, or from the majority leader. I
just want someone to step up and offer a plan that begins to bring
spending discipline under control. I know I have endorsed one. It is
called the cut, cap, and balance plan. If there is a better way to do
it, offer it now. What are you waiting for? Now is the time to offer
it. If someone in this building has a better way to bring spending
under control, now is the time to offer it. Don't negotiate in the
shadows. All these negotiations going on we are hearing about in the
press--where is the plan? Where is the document that tells us and shows
us how we can bring spending under control? Now is the time to show it.
Now is the time to do it. What are you waiting for?
That is on the spending side. Spending cuts are important. They are
essential. We cannot do it without fiscal spending discipline, but that
is not enough. We also have to grow. We have to grow. That is where the
crux of this debate has really gotten to. You hear in the press that
this fight is because certain people don't want to raise taxes on
certain people. That is really not what this issue is about. I think
everyone agrees that we need growth, that government needs growth in
its revenue so it has a way to pay down this debt. The debate is about
from where this revenue comes.
Some argue: Well, the way you get more money for government is to
raise taxes on people--raise taxes on very rich people. I have two
problems with that, and neither one is ideological.
The first problem is it doesn't work. You can't possibly raise taxes
high enough to collect enough money to make a difference on the debt. I
looked at some of the tax increases the President and others have
proposed. It adds up to less than 10 days of deficit spending. Even if
you raise the taxes on what they define as rich to 100 percent next
year, it is still not enough money to pay for just 1 year's deficit. So
tax increases don't work because they don't work. They do not generate
enough money to do anything.
The second reason I can't support tax increases is because it will
kill jobs. And while this debt is a huge issue--it is very important--
the jobs issue is even more important. The No. 1 issue in Washington is
the debt--rightfully so because it is a huge, enormous, generational
issue--but unemployment is the No. 1 issue in America. We are talking
about people who have worked hard their entire lives, who went to
school and did everything that was asked of them, and now they go out
into the job market and they can't find a job. It is especially
astonishing among young people--25, 30 years of age--who went to
college and got their degrees and now they can't find a job, certainly
not in the areas they studied.
We have to get that turned around. Every other problem we face in our
country--the housing crisis and all these other problems--becomes
easier to deal with if you have more people working, people making
money, paying taxes, and spending money in our economy. So unemployment
is what we have to get at, and we are not going to create jobs by tax
increases. If someone in this building, if someone in Washington has a
tax increase that creates jobs, I invite them to offer it. We are all
ears. If someone in Washington has a tax increase that helps create
jobs, right now is the time to offer it. I would submit we will not
find one because there are no tax increases that will create jobs. If
you don't create jobs and you don't grow this economy, there is no way
out of this debt. You can't cut your way out of it, and you certainly
can't tax your way out of it.
Does that mean we don't do anything about taxes, as I hear some
commentators in the press saying? Of course not. Our Tax Code is
broken. There are a bunch of things in the Tax Code that do not belong
there, and I think there is bipartisan support--whether the media tries
to ignore it or not--in the Senate, in the House, in Washington for tax
reform.
Tax reform we can get done. Tax reform means we are going to look at
the Tax Code, and if there are things in the Tax Code that are there
because somebody hired a lobbyist and got it put in the Tax Code but it
is not really good policy, it shouldn't be in there. And if we find
enough of those unfair things in the Tax Code, then we can lower
everybody's rates. We can make the rates flat, we can make the Tax Code
simpler and easier to comply with, and that is what we should aim for
because that is what job creators tell us.
I swear to you, I have never met a job creator who told me they are
looking for a State with high taxes and burdensome regulations. I have
never met one. There may be one, but I invite anyone here in
Washington, DC, to produce for us a job creator--a company or an
individual--who says that what they are looking for is to open a
business someplace where the taxes are high and difficult to understand
and the regulations are expensive to comply with. And that is what we
have in America. You want to know why jobs aren't being created.
Because that is what we have in America. So if someone knows of a job
creator anywhere in the world who is looking for a high, complex tax
environment or looking for a high regulatory environment, I would like
to meet them because I have yet to meet a job creator who is looking
for that, and that is what we have.
I will submit to you that there is bipartisan support for the idea of
tax reform, of simplifying our Tax Code and

[[Page S4574]]

making it easier to comply with, of--if we do it the right way--
lowering everybody's tax rates so that people have more money in their
pockets to spend into the economy and grow their business or to start a
new business because that is how jobs are created.
I know all of us would like to think that Senators and Presidents
create jobs but not outside this building they do not. Jobs are created
when everyday people from all walks of life decide, you know what,
today I am going to open a business and operate from the spare bedroom
of my home or out of the garage or when somebody has an existing
business and decides: I want to grow this business, so I am going to
hire a couple more people because I have a belief this business can do
better.
We need to get people excited about doing that again, and we are not
going to get them excited about doing that again if our taxes and our
regulations are out of control. So let's begin to focus with regard to
this debt limit on some of the things that there has to be agreement
on, and there are two things: We must control our spending, and we must
put a plan in place that shows the world how America will bring its
spending under control, and we have to do something to grow our
economy.
Ask any job creator in the real world, What are you looking for to
grow and create jobs? They will tell you, We are looking for
confidence. And we get confidence from knowing that regulations are
predictable and easy to comply with, and the Tax Code is predictable,
affordable, and easy to comply with.
I submit that if we focused on that and not all the other noise that
goes on in the back and forth of this place, we can actually start
moving toward a solution.
The last point I would make is the word ``compromise'' is a very
popular word around here, and there is nothing wrong with compromise,
so long as the compromise also happens to be a solution. Because if
your compromise doesn't solve the problem, you have created a new
problem.
There is nothing wrong with compromise. Maybe your ideas of tax
reform are different than my ideas of tax reform, but ultimately we
have to solve the broken Tax Code. So compromise is not a dirty word,
unless the compromise makes it worse, not better. Too often in politics
compromise leads to things that make things worse, not better. If you
raise taxes in this economy, with 9 percent unemployment, you are going
to make things worse, not better.
I hope we will rally in a bipartisan fashion around the concept of
tax reform, of creating a Tax Code in America that encourages people to
create jobs here once again, because if we can solve the jobs issue, if
we can begin to solve the unemployment issue, all these other issues we
face as a nation become easier to face.
Mr. President, I thank you for your attention and I note the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CARDIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). Without objection, it is
so ordered.
Mr. CARDIN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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