[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 111 (Friday, July 22, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4814-S4826]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          CUT, CAP, AND BALANCE ACT OF 2011--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 2560, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to the bill (H.R. 2560) to cut, cap, and 
     balance the Federal budget.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time 
until 10 a.m. shall be equally divided and controlled between the two 
leaders or their designees.
  The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, in about an hour, we are going to vote on 
a package that was sent to this body by the House of Representatives.
  Let me first comment on the context within which we consider this 
legislation. I think it is very important to remind our colleagues and 
remind citizens across the country who are perhaps watching and 
listening that our country is borrowing more than 40 cents of every $1 
we spend. That is unsustainable. It cannot be continued for long.
  I think all of us know that the circumstance we are in is 
extraordinarily serious. Here is what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff told us just a year ago:

       Our national debt is our biggest national security threat.

  I believe that is the case. Our gross debt now is approaching 100 
percent of the gross domestic product of the United States. We have not 
seen a debt that high since after World War II. It is extraordinarily 
important that we take on this debt threat. It is extraordinarily 
important for our country's future economic well-being that we change 
course.
  The legislation that has been sent to us by the House is one of the 
most ill-considered, ill-conceived, internally inconsistent pieces of 
legislation I have seen in my 25 years in the U.S. Senate. It has all 
the earmarks of something that was hastily thrown together, really 
pasted together.
  This legislation includes an amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States. We are better than this. The Congress is better than 
this. Certainly, the country is better than this. Let me just be brief.
  The fundamental problems with this balanced budget amendment are as 
follows: One, it restricts the ability to respond to economic 
downturns, having all the potential to make an economic downturn even 
more serious. It uses Social Security funds to calculate balance and 
subjects that important program to the same cuts as other Federal 
spending, even though it is funded separately. It shifts the ultimate 
decisions on budgeting in this country to unelected and unaccountable 
judges. Finally, it requires a State ratification process that could 
take years to complete. We need a long-term debt resolution now, not in 
the sweet by-and-by.
  The proposal before us has all of the potential to turn a recession 
into a depression. Why do I say that? Because it would prevent Congress 
from taking urgent action to provide lift to the economy in the midst 
of a severe economic downturn.
  Here is what Norman Ornstein, a distinguished scholar at the American 
Enterprise Institute, said about this:

       Few ideas are more seductive on the surface and more 
     destructive in reality than a balanced budget amendment [to 
     the constitution]. Here is why: Nearly all our states have 
     balanced budget requirements. That means when the economy 
     slows, states are forced to raise taxes or slash spending at 
     just the wrong time, providing a fiscal drag when what is 
     needed is countercyclical policy to stimulate the economy. In 
     fact, the fiscal drag from the states in 2009-2010 was barely 
     countered by the federal stimulus plan. That meant the 
     federal stimulus provided was nowhere near what was needed 
     but far better than doing nothing. Now imagine that scenario 
     with a federal drag instead.

  The Washington Post editorialized:

       Worse yet, the latest version [of the balanced budget 
     amendment] would impose an absolute cap on spending as a 
     share of the economy. It would prevent federal expenditures 
     from exceeding 18 percent of the gross domestic product in 
     any year. Most unfortunately, the amendment lacks a clause 
     letting the government exceed that limit to strengthen a 
     struggling economy.

  That has all of the potential to turn a recession into a depression.
  Two of this country's most distinguished economists, Alan Blinder, 
former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Mark Zandi, former 
consultant, adviser to Senator McCain in his Presidential campaign, 
evaluated the government response to the last downturn. Their 
conclusion: Absent that Federal response, we would have had ``Great 
Depression 2.0.'' The legislation before us would have prevented that 
Federal response.
  They call this legislation cut, cap, and balance. They misnamed it. 
They should have called it ``cut, cap, and kill Medicare'' because that 
is precisely what it would do. Why do I say that? Because when I 
referred earlier to the inconsistency of this legislation, this is what 
I was referring to. They have two different spending caps in the 
legislation before us. In one part of the legislation, they say the 
spending cap would take spending from 24.1 percent of GDP to 19.9 
percent. That is in one part of the bill before us. In another part of 
the bill--the constitutional amendment--they say the spending cap would 
be 18 percent of GDP. So I do not know who cooked this up, but you 
would think they would have at least gotten on the same page as to what 
is the limitation on spending.
  What does it mean if you have a balanced budget amendment with a cap 
of

[[Page S4815]]

18 percent of GDP? Here is what it means--by the way, the 
constitutional provision would certainly trump the conflicting 
provision that is in this legislation. So the cap would not be 19 
percent of GDP, the cap would not be 19.9, it would be 18 percent of 
GDP. What would that mean? Well, this dotted black line is 18 percent 
of GDP. If you fund just Social Security, defense and other nonhealth 
spending, and interest on the debt, you are at 18 percent of GDP. There 
is not a dime left for Medicare. There is not a dime left for Medicaid. 
Is that really what they intend? It must be because that is what it 
says. So Medicare is finished. Medicaid is finished. Anybody who votes 
for this ought to understand what they are voting to do.
  Here is a former top economic adviser to President Reagan. Here is 
what he said about the amendment that is before us:

       In short, this is quite possibly the stupidest 
     constitutional amendment I think I have ever seen. It looks 
     like it was drafted by a couple of interns on the back of a 
     napkin. Every Senator cosponsoring this legislation should be 
     ashamed of themselves.

  That is a former top economic adviser to Ronald Reagan.
  I have been here 25 years. I don't think I have ever seen a piece of 
legislation more unprofessionally constructed than the legislation 
before us.
  But those are not the only problems. When they titled this ``cut, 
cap, and balance,'' they could have also called it ``preserve, protect, 
and defend tax havens and tax shelters'' because that is the other 
consequence of this legislation. Why do I say that? Because it would 
take a two-thirds vote to increase revenue--a two-thirds vote. That 
means attempts to shut down these offshore tax havens, these abusive 
tax shelters--because they would raise revenue--would take a two-thirds 
vote.
  What does that mean? Well, here is a little building down in the 
Cayman Islands. I have talked about this many times. It is a little 5-
story building that claims to be home to 18,857 companies. They claim 
they are doing business out of this little building. I have said this 
is the most efficient building in the world. Quite remarkable that 
18,857 companies are doing business out of this little 5-story 
building. I am told there are not many people coming and going from 
this building during the day.
  Are 18 companies really doing their business--they call this 
``headquarters.'' Is that really their headquarters? We all know that 
is not their headquarters. We all know what is going on. It is not 
business; it is monkey business. What they are doing down there is 
avoiding the taxes all the rest of us pay.
  This amendment would protect this scheme. You want to protect this 
scheme, vote for this amendment. How big is this scheme? Well, here is 
what our own Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has told us:

       Experts have estimated that the total loss to the Treasury 
     from offshore tax evasion alone approaches $100 billion a 
     year, including $40 billion to $70 billion from individuals 
     and another $30 billion from corporations engaging in 
     offshore tax evasion. Abusive tax shelters add tens of 
     billions of dollars more.

  You want to lock in these abuses? You prefer to pay more in taxes 
yourself so that people can engage in these scams? Vote for this 
amendment. Vote for the legislation that is before us. Vote for what is 
on the floor because you will protect them forever more.
  I end as I began. This is perhaps the most ill-conceived, ill-
considered, internally inconsistent legislation I have ever seen in my 
25 years in the Senate. I hope my colleagues have the wisdom to vote 
no.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Indiana.


               Honoring the 88th Birthday of Robert Dole

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I would like this Chamber to know that 
today marks the 88th birthday of one of the great Members of this 
Senate body, a true American hero, former majority leader Bob Dole.
  As I reflected on the extraordinary life he has led--I had the 
privilege of serving under him as a Senator and working with him in the 
private sector, getting to know him and his wife--I could not help but 
note that the leadership he provided in comparison to the lack of 
leadership that is being provided in this body now stands in great 
contrast. There is an absence of leadership and seriousness of purpose 
that Bob Dole would never have allowed had he been majority leader.
  I say that because I come to the floor today greatly troubled by the 
remarks that were made here in this Senate yesterday and again this 
morning by the majority leader regarding the bill that is before us.
  The issue here takes two tracks, one of which is the content of the 
amendment and the bill that is before us that was voted on by the House 
of Representatives, passed by the House of Representatives, and sent 
over for us to debate and pass. We can disagree--and I think there has 
been some misrepresentation of what this bill actually does--we can 
disagree about the contents of it, but we have an obligation and a 
responsibility to debate those contents and to put every Member of this 
body in a position of saying ``yea'' or ``nay'' on amendments that 
might be offered to improve it or to change it or to modify it and, 
finally, whether to support it or not support it. The vote here this 
morning denies us that opportunity. This is a vote on a motion to 
table.
  You know, there are a couple of definitions of ``table''--more than a 
couple. One of those is getting to the table to negotiate something, 
just as the NFL players and owners are doing and, much more seriously 
and with many more consequences to the future of this country, what we 
ought to be doing--putting it on the table, debating it, addressing it, 
expressing your support or nonsupport, defending it, characterizing, 
mischaracterizing. That is what this body is about. It is the world's 
greatest deliberative body, and we are deciding not to deliberate this 
bill at all.
  The second definition of ``table'' is taking it off the table. So the 
majority leader has said: I am not going to allow you to debate it. I 
am not going to allow amendments. I am not going to allow up-or-down 
votes so the American people know where we are.
  This is a motion to table, so we don't even have the opportunity to 
debate it.
  It was the majority leader himself who said: We are going to be in 
session every day until we get this settled. Now he comes down here and 
says: I am not going to waste 1 more day on this. Yet there is nothing 
on the agenda. Senators who were told to be here every day, that there 
will be a vote on Saturday, are now told: We are having a vote this 
morning--on Friday at 10 o'clock--and then you can go home for the 
weekend. He hasn't even told us when we need to come back. What kind of 
a contradiction is that? What kind of leadership is that? We don't know 
whether we are supposed to be here or are not supposed to be here. Are 
we supposed to be debating what is happening with one of the most 
serious crisis we are facing, that the country has ever seen? 
Particularly in the financial area, it is the most serious, perhaps 
except for the Great Depression. And we are told we do not even have 
time to debate this, that this is a waste of time.
  I quote the unbelievable statement that has been made by the majority 
leader:

       This piece of legislation is about as weak and senseless as 
     anything that has ever come on this Senate floor.

  Really? I can spend half an hour talking about senseless legislation, 
egregious legislation, discriminatory legislation that has come to this 
floor and been debated and not just tabled. To characterize the serious 
efforts of the Members of the House of Representatives and the Members 
of the Senate, including some Democratic Members, to try to fix this 
problem--to characterize that as ``senseless and wasteful''--``I am not 
going to spend one more day of time,'' he said, ``on this senseless 
legislation.''
  I thought on reflection the majority leader would come here this 
morning and say: Perhaps I overstated the problem. Let me better 
explain where I think we are, where we need to go.

  But, no, he comes down and he doubles down this morning--doubles 
down--and says: ``It is a very, very bad piece of legislation.'' 
``Without merit.'' ``It gets in the way.'' It gets in the way? We are 
talking about dealing with cutting spending that we know we cannot 
afford. We talk about putting some caps on it so we don't keep doing 
this in the future, so we have a path to

[[Page S4816]]

fiscal responsibility. We are talking about a balanced budget so we 
live within our means. That is getting in the way?
  This body has failed its responsibility to be faithful to the 
Constitution and faithful to the people of America. As a consequence of 
that, we are sitting here saying we are not even going to debate 
something that was brought forward with hundreds, if not thousands of 
hours of effort. Maybe you don't like it, and maybe you don't agree 
with it. Well, stand up and say so and tell us what you want to do 
about it.
  The majority leader and his party have not brought one piece of 
legislation to this floor. The President of the United States has not 
offered one proposal in writing that we can work with. We have not had 
the opportunity to debate for 1 minute anything the other side has 
offered. So we bring something forward, and it is called a ``worthless 
piece of junk.'' Is that what the American people sent us here to do?
  I came here to find a result to the dire fiscal situation our people 
are in, and the majority leader comes down here and says we are not 
responding to the will of the people. Where has he been? What planet is 
he on? Responding to the will of the people? They are sick and tired of 
government spending more than it has. They are sick and tired of being 
told they are handing over debts to their children that are never going 
to be repaid. And we are told that we want to take this off the table 
so we can't even debate it.
  I woke up in the middle of the night so frustrated and so angry after 
spending last evening saying I am hopeful that we can come together and 
work something out, and the well gets poisoned last evening by the 
majority leader and gets poisoned again this morning. Those of us who 
have worked our tails off to try to get something done are told this is 
a piece of junk. That is not what I came here to do. That is not what 
we came here to do.
  I didn't come here to get mad this morning. But I am just tired of 
this stuff that goes on around here. When Democrats and Republicans--
and the majority leader knows it--are meeting in back rooms together, 
signing letters together to the President to ask him to step up--32 
Democrats and 32 Republicans--the President ignores that and does 
nothing until the very end, and he comes here and says: Look at me. I 
took care of everything.
  America is worried to death about the future. To say we haven't done 
anything except put forward a worthless piece of legislation--it is so 
worthless we are not even going to allow you to talk about it or debate 
it, we are not allowing amendments to take place, we are not going to 
give it the respect it is due. So if you do not like it, come down here 
and tell us you do not like it, and let's have a vote on why you do not 
like it instead of just simply saying: Take it off the table.
  I guess we are all getting frustrated. There is a 100-and-some degree 
heat index outside. I can understand people getting worked up about all 
of this sort of thing. But the future of America is at stake. This 
majority leader is not allowing us to deal with it.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I stand here today as a cosponsor of the 
cut, cap, and balance legislation and as a supporter of that 
legislation. Here is the insanity that has gripped not only this body 
but all of Washington. We are literally in here where we will have the 
third year in a row of deficits over $1 trillion.
  In fact, current projections are that this annual deficit will set a 
record--a very dubious record, I might add--of $1.6 trillion-plus. We 
were promised 3 years ago if this enormous, gargantuan effort to force 
more spending into the economy with the stimulus plan were passed, that 
trillion-dollar effort would put this country on a path to recovery. It 
has done nothing except raise our debt and pass the problem on to our 
children and grandchildren.
  After weeks and months of work on an idea to rein in the spending and 
to come to grips with where we are in this country, we are literally at 
a point where, within minutes, we will vote on a motion to table that 
effort. We will be right back to where we are today. We will be right 
back to a situation where we will face trillion-dollar deficits. We 
will be right back to a situation where every economist in the world is 
telling the United States of America--the largest economy--that its 
spending is not sustainable. We will be right back to rating agencies 
looking at our government debt and saying: You have not come up with a 
plan to rein this in, so you are being targeted to be downgraded.
  What we are really right back to is this: We have a government that 
is too big. We have too many promises that have been made, where no one 
had any idea how they would be paid for. By the end of the year, we 
will have a deficit of $15 trillion, which is significantly 
understated. In 4 more years, we will have a debt of $20 trillion, 
which will still be significantly understated. Somehow there are 
Members of this body who are arguing that this is a better way--to 
table cut, cap, and balance so we can return to where we are today.
  Is it any wonder that those of us who are concerned about this and 
concerned about the future of our children and grandchildren are coming 
to the floor and saying: Wait a minute. This is destroying our Nation.
  Mr. President, I have risen today, as I have many times over the last 
days, to say: Support this effort. Support cut, cap, and balance. I am 
pleased to be a cosponsor of this very important legislation which has 
the potential to change the direction of what we are doing. I am going 
to be one of the people who support this legislation.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota is 
recognized.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I echo the comments of my colleagues from 
Nebraska and Indiana who have expressed their support for the cut, cap, 
and balance approach to dealing with our debt crisis. It had 234 votes 
in the House, and it is the only plan out there.
  As my colleague from Indiana said, the Democratic leadership in the 
Senate has yet to produce a plan that will meaningfully deal with the 
greatest crisis our country has faced in my service in the Congress; 
that is, this massive, out-of-control debt the Senator from Nebraska 
pointed out which could lead to much higher interest rates along the 
lines of what we are seeing in some of the European countries, which 
would absolutely crush this economy.
  If we are serious about growing the economy and creating jobs, we 
have to get Federal spending under control. We need a smaller Federal 
economy and a larger private economy. What has been happening since 
this President took office is that we continue to grow government. We 
have added 35 percent to the debt. Spending has increased by 24 
percent--non-national security discretionary spending--at a time when 
inflation was 2 percent. Federal spending has been growing at 10 times 
the rate of inflation. The number of people receiving food stamps has 
gone up by 40 percent. The unemployment rate is up by 18 percent, and 
2.1 million more people are unemployed today than when this President 
took office.
  The policies of this administration are not working when it comes to 
getting people back to work and getting spending and debt under 
control.
  I was listening to my colleague from North Dakota with great interest 
when he was here earlier denouncing the whole idea of a balanced budget 
amendment--like it was coming from some foreign planet. He talked about 
how ill-conceived and ill-considered and stupid this approach is--cut, 
cap, and balance.
  Well, my observation about that is, the failure of the Democrats to 
produce a budget in over 800 days is exhibit No. 1 for why we need a 
balanced budget amendment. We ought to be embarrassed in Washington, 
DC; we are not doing the people's work; we have not passed a budget in 
over 800 days. Yet the other side comes down here and denounces the 
idea of a balanced budget amendment, which all 49 States have some form 
of, that requires them to balance their budgets every single year.
  My colleague from North Dakota knows that. His State has it and my 
State of South Dakota has it. It is a very straightforward concept that 
the people of this country clearly understand.
  Now, he takes issue with the way this particular balanced budget 
amendment is written. Fine. Come up with your

[[Page S4817]]

own proposal. But don't suggest that having a constitutional amendment 
that requires this place to do something that it hasn't been doing for 
the last 25 or 30 years is literally a bad idea. What we have today is 
dysfunctional. It is broken. It doesn't work for the American people. 
It is an embarrassment. That is why we need to put something on the 
books that will impose a discipline on this Congress to get spending 
and debt back under control and help us do something about the runaway 
debt that is putting a crushing burden on future generations of 
Americans.
  If you don't like this balanced budget amendment and think the cut, 
cap, and balance proposal is not prescriptive about this particular 
balanced budget amendment that many of us are cosponsors of, then come 
up with another one. But let's put something in place that enshrines a 
responsibility and obligation and a requirement for us to live within 
our means every single year.
  We cannot continue to spend money we don't have. We have demonstrated 
year after year around here that we continue to add more and more and 
more to this debt. Under the President's budget proposal, that debt 
would have doubled in the next decade. That is why I think when his 
budget proposal was put on the floor of the Senate it got zero votes. 
Not a single Democrat or Republican voted in favor of what this 
President put forward in his budget submission earlier this year.
  Since that time there has been an absolute lack of leadership out of 
the White House. The President has been completely missing in action. 
The Democratic leadership has put forward no plan of their own. We have 
in front of us something that achieved majority support in the House a 
few nights ago when 234 Members of the House voted for this proposal. 
It is a serious, meaningful effort to cut spending now, cap it in 
future years, and put in place a balanced budget amendment which is 
long overdue and, frankly, if it had passed 15 years ago in the Senate, 
we would not be in the position we are today. It failed by a single 
vote--one vote--in the Senate in 1997.
  I cannot help but think how much better off we would be today in 
terms of the spending situation had we gotten the necessary two-thirds 
vote in 1997. But it is never too late to do the right thing. We have 
an opportunity to do that today.
  To hear our colleagues on the other side get up and belittle the 
effort that has been made by a lot of people who are trying to do 
something about a problem that will wreck this country if we don't fix 
it is not befitting of this institution.
  This is going to be a tabling motion instead of a debate on cut, cap, 
and balance because my colleagues have decided this isn't worthy of 
consideration on the floor of the Senate. I think it is a terrible 
reflection on this institution, when something is brought forward in 
good faith--a serious, meaningful effort to address spending and debt 
and to put this country back on a sustainable fiscal course--and we are 
not even going to debate it. We are going to have a tabling motion in a 
few minutes.
  I hope my colleagues will defeat that motion and allow us to continue 
to debate this proposal and get an up-or-down vote on what will 
meaningfully address the problems this country faces.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, unlike any Republican in the House or the 
Senate, I have voted for a balanced budget. We balanced the budget 
under President Clinton. Not only balanced the budget, started paying 
down the national debt. He was able to leave hundreds of billions of 
dollars in surplus to his successor, who determined with Republican 
votes to go to war in Iraq and pay for the war with a tax cut. That is 
why we had to borrow the money from China and Saudi Arabia. Not a 
single Republican voted for a real balanced budget when they had a 
chance to. In fact, it passed the Senate only because Vice President 
Gore came and broke the tie.
  I was proud to have voted for that balanced budget. Not a gimmick, 
but a real balanced budget. We had to actually make tough choices. We 
did it. We balanced it. We had a surplus.
  When we talk about amending our Nation's fundamental charter, the 
Constitution of the United States, it is not something Congress and the 
American people should feel forced to do in the face of a financial 
crisis. I take seriously my senatorial oath to support and defend the 
Constitution.
  I know there are a lot of pressure groups demanding that elected 
representatives sign pledges about what they will and will not do. The 
pledge I follow, which is the one I was honored to make again at the 
beginning of this Congress, is to uphold the Constitution. That is what 
I intend to do as I represent the people of Vermont.
  The House-passed bill, H.R. 2560, which the Senate is now 
considering, claims to impose a balanced budget on future Congresses, 
but it doesn't even contain the proposed constitutional amendment that 
supporters are seeking to adopt. Nor did the bill pass with two-thirds 
of the Republican-controlled House voting in favor.
  That threshold is what is required for us to pass a constitutional 
amendment. The House vote was more than 50 votes short of that 
necessary number.
  The process by which this bill has been brought to the floor of the 
Senate is an affront to the Constitution that we are sworn to protect 
and defend. Instead, the House still denies authority needed to meet 
the Nation's obligations until Congress passes a type of constitutional 
amendment that will actually make it more difficult for us to reduce 
our national debt. That kind of constitutional blackmail has no place 
in our democracy, no place in our laws.
  I wonder whether anyone who respects the Constitution can support 
such an approach. Here is the convoluted language the House bill 
includes about an amendment to our Constitution:

       H.J. Res. 1 in the form reported on June 23, 2011, S.J. Res 
     10 in the form introduced on March 31, 2011, or H.J. Res. 56 
     in the form introduced on April 7, 2011, a balanced budget 
     amendment to the Constitution, or a similar amendment if it 
     requires that total outlays not exceed total receipts, that 
     contains a spending limitation as a percentage of GDP, and 
     requires that tax increases be approved by a two-thirds vote 
     in both Houses of Congress.

  The Founders didn't include a constitutional requirement for a 
balanced budget or a prohibition against incurring debt in our 
Constitution. They knew full well that would have been foolish, 
dangerous, and self-defeating for the Nation they were seeking to 
establish.
  I respect the wisdom of the Founders and will uphold the 
Constitution, which has served this Nation so well for the last 223 
years. Let's not be so vain as to think we know better than the 
Founders what the Constitution should prescribe.
  I reject the notion that for political reasons we need to rush 
consideration of an ill-conceived and evolving proposal for a 
constitutional amendment. I will stand with the Founders. I will defend 
their work and our Constitution, and I will oppose the proposed series 
of constitutional amendments, which, incidentally, haven't even had a 
hearing.
  Have we forgotten how the Revolutionary War was financed? Have we 
forgotten how the national government took on the debt of the states 
after the Revolutionary War? Have we forgotten that in 1792, just four 
years after the ratification of the Constitution, the budget deficit 
was 38 percent of revenues? Have we forgotten how President Jefferson 
financed the Louisiana Purchase expanding the country westward? Do we 
not remember what happened during the Civil War, how we emerged from 
the Great Depression, and won World War II? Do we not even recall that 
during the administration of the last Democratic President, we had 
balanced the budget after defeating a proposed constitutional amendment 
and were reducing the deficit with billions of surpluses?
  Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are permanent. 
They are not bills or resolutions that can be abandoned or fixed. They 
are not just a bumper sticker or a sound bite. Each word matters to 
hundreds of millions of Americans and future generations.
  I have never seen--and I have been here 37 years--the solemn duty of 
protecting the Constitution treated in such a cavalier manner. I wish 
those who so often say they revere the Constitution would show it the 
respect it deserves rather than treating it like a blog entry.

[[Page S4818]]

  We have already seen scores of proposed constitutional amendments on 
budgetary matters. None has been adopted and for good reason. The 
Senate amendment referenced in the House bill is one of approximately 
60 proposed so far this Congress. It remains a moving target, not a 
finished product worthy of consideration as an addition to our 
fundamental charter. The House bill itself proposed three different 
constitutional amendments and a catchall to include some proposal not 
yet introduced. Last night some members claimed that this catchall 
somehow allows flexibility. If we are going to limit the authority on 
the debt ceiling by requiring a constitutional amendment, there should 
not be ambiguity in what the amendment would actually do to hardworking 
Americans. This shows the lack of seriousness with which Republicans 
have approached this entire matter.
  These partisan constitutional amendment proposals are inconsistent 
with the views of our Founding Fathers. George Washington did not want 
our Constitution to constrain the national government from being able 
to respond to events as warranted. He led this Nation into being and 
knew that financial constraints had no place in the Constitution. The 
Constitution expressly provides for the power ``to borrow money on the 
credit of the United States'' and for Congress ``to lay and collect 
taxes'' and duties and ``to pay the debts and provide for the general 
welfare of the United States.'' That is what Congress has been required 
to do since the outset and that is our responsibility today. We should 
be acting without further delay to preserve the credit of the United 
States and to provide for our people.
  The proposed amendments are also inconsistent with the views of 
Alexander Hamilton, a key author of the Federalist Papers and the 
creator of the American financial system that allowed us to become the 
greatest economic engine in the history of the world. The United States 
was born in debt, of course, and debt has been needed to fund some of 
America's greatest chapters. Hamilton even termed national debt at 
times ``a national blessing.'' The Constitution allows for the Federal 
Government to borrow money at certain times, for wars, infrastructure 
building, and economic bad times. That fiscal policy can help drive 
development and unite the Nation. It should not be turned into a 
divisive wedge against the least powerful among us.
  I am concerned this is another example of how some in recent years 
have sought to impose their view by unilateral objection to compromise 
with minority obstruction. That has, at times, seemed to be the rule in 
the last few years. Some have tried to undermine the legitimacy of 
President Obama. Filibusters and requirements for supermajorities have 
become routine. They have stymied congressional action on behalf of the 
American people.
  This year should be a cautionary tale that convinces all Americans 
that the risks of default and ideological impasses to them, to interest 
rates, to financial markets, and to our household budgets are too 
great. We need only recall the game of chicken some played with the 
government shutdown earlier this year. The threat to push the United 
States into default on its obligations for the first time in our 
history is wrong. It is made possible by rules that empower a partisan 
minority.

  I cannot help but think if we don't take the steps we should, we will 
see our interest rates go up. We will spend hundreds of billions of 
dollars in extra interest to China, which they can spend on 
infrastructure, medical research and education, but we won't have it 
here in the United States. That is what the other side seems to want.
  We saw this before, in 1996, when a Government shutdown and a debt 
limit crisis went on for months as part of a partisan ``train wreck'' 
intended to extort President Clinton. It is happening, again, this year 
as some seek to gain political advantage over President Obama. The 
creditworthiness of the United States is too important to be sacrificed 
for partisan political advantage but that is what is being threatened. 
Indeed, this House-passed bill, with its proposed constitutional 
amendments, makes that more likely, not less.
  Charles Fried, President Reagan's Solicitor General, said a few years 
ago that supermajority requirements ``are against the spirit and genius 
of our Constitution, which is a charter for democracy; that is, for 
majority rule.'' He was right then, when the Senate rejected an earlier 
constitutional amendment on budgetary matters, and that truth remains 
the same today.
  We have seen the danger that irresponsible brinksmanship promotes. We 
should guard against building into the Constitution a supermajority 
requirement for fiscal policy. That invites political blackmail and 
gridlock. We have seen enough of that already.
  I suggest that Congress should not subject our ability to govern to 
any greater hurdles that would empower the tyranny of the minority on 
economic policy. Instead of hamstringing Congress with more 
supermajority requirements, we should be looking for ways to increase 
our ability to take necessary action to deal with a fast changing and 
increasingly interdependent global economy.
  The source of our budgetary problems does not lie with the 
Constitution. The Constitution remains sound. What is lacking is the 
political judgment and the courage to do what is right.
  Having again sought to use the debt ceiling to create a political 
crisis, congressional Republicans refuse to enact a program of shared 
sacrifice to put us on a better financial path. In fact, Senate 
Republicans filibustered the debate of a resolution calling for such a 
plan.
  It is telling that the Republican posture is now to require the 
Constitution to be amended.
  The last time we balanced the budget, not a single Republican voted 
for that balanced budget, and yet it created enormous surpluses. These 
proposed constitutional amendments will not cut a single dime of debt 
from the Federal budget. Rather than deal with our problems, some want 
to require that we deface the Constitution with a measure that will, by 
its own terms, not be effective for 5 years, if it were to be adopted 
by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and then ratified by three-
fourths of the States. Put another way, that is at least three election 
cycles from now. They get their bumper stickers today, but kick the can 
down the road for three election cycles.
  Economists have noted that all of the last five Democratic Presidents 
have reduced public debt as a share of GDP. The last four Republican 
Presidents did the opposite with the country's indebtedness increasing 
during their administrations. During President Reagan and Bush's 
administrations the Federal debt more than tripled. During the Clinton 
administration, budgets were balanced and we were paying down the debt 
from the budget surplus being generated. Then, during the 
administration of George W. Bush the debt nearly doubled again to more 
than $10 trillion dollars.
  We should not amend our Nation's fundamental charter of liberty to 
include arbitrary and inflexible requirements in order to look tough on 
spending, but without regard to the consequences.
  A respected Republican Senator from Oregon, Mark Hatfield, had it 
right 15 years ago when he said that a ``balanced budget comes only 
through leadership and compromise.''
  In 1992, the Senate and House took the hard votes to enact a 
budgetary plan that led us to a balanced budget and budget surpluses 
during President Clinton's time in office. Not a single congressional 
Republican supported the plan. They favored talking about 
constitutional amendments then, as well. The balance we achieved was 
later squandered by the next President, as his policies also wreaked 
havoc with the financial sector and threatened the entire economy. The 
near meltdown of the financial markets during the last year of the Bush 
administration and the resulting recession threatened to drive our 
economy and that of the world into depression just 3 years ago. 
President Obama and the Congress responded to pull it back from the 
brink.
  In a recent editorial, USA Today put it this way:

       [A] funny thing happened after that amendment failed in 
     1997. Thanks to prior deficit-reduction deals and a strong 
     economy, the federal government ran a surplus in 1998 and for 
     the next three years. Then an economic downturn, huge tax 
     cuts, two unfunded wars and unfunded expansion of Medicare 
     plunged the budget back into the red, where it has been ever 
     since.

[[Page S4819]]

       The moral is, Congress doesn't need a constitutional 
     amendment to balance the budget. It just needs the will to do 
     it and the willingness to compromise over how. But rather 
     than make the tough decisions about spending cuts and revenue 
     increases, it's always easier to vote for a balanced budget 
     amendment.

  I will ask that copies of this and other editorials and opinion 
pieces from leading newspapers be printed in the Record.
  The House-passed bill is an end-run around the Constitution's 
requirements for amendment. It does not have the required support of 
two-thirds of even the House Chamber. Equally important, it is not 
necessary. Congress has the power now to take steps to avoid a 
government default and get us on the path to balancing the budget, just 
as we did at the end of the Clinton administration. This debate is a 
distraction from the hard work and hard choices that need to be made.
  The good news is that we do not need to amend the Constitution to 
balance the budget. Never have. Never will.
  The proposed constitutional amendments would also perpetuate bad 
policy. They are intended to enshrine tax breaks for millionaires and 
wealthy corporations. It is no wonder that Alexander Hamilton described 
supermajority vote requirements as ``poison.'' We need a balanced 
approach to fix the deficit problem. We cannot merely cut our way to 
balance any more than eliminating congressional earmarks will balance 
the budget. We will need to close the most egregious tax loopholes and 
everyone will have to sacrifice and contribute their fair share.
  There should be no mistake: The proposed amendments to the 
Constitution are not just unnecessary, they are unwise, unsound, and 
dangerous. In my view, the House-passed bill and the proposed 
amendments it requires demeans our Constitution. Never in our history 
have we amended the Constitution--the work of our Founders--to impose 
budgetary restrictions or to require supermajorities for passing 
legislation. Yet now we are saying: Let's do it on a whim. Let's do it 
without any hearings. Let's do it because we can do it.
  It would for the first time enshrine minority rule and undermine our 
constitutional democracy. It will destabilize the separation of powers 
among our three branches of Government and put into the hands of 
bureaucrats and judges the fiscal policy of the United States.
  Who is to decide what the ``GDP'' was for a particular time period, 
what is to be included and what is not? How often do those estimates 
and artificial constructs get revised? Since when do economic surveys 
and extrapolations become embedded in the Constitution? What justifies 
the constitutional permanence of the number 18, as opposed to 17 or 
18.5 or 20? Do we really want judges deciding whether an economics line 
written into the Constitution has been breached? What remedies could 
judges order if they find a breach? Who has standing to bring those 
challenges? None of these questions has been adequately debated or 
considered.
  Alternatively, we could end up with future Congresses having to slash 
Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, unable to respond to natural 
disasters or national security emergencies. I note that the budget 
proposed this year by Representative Ryan and the House Republicans 
with all its draconian cuts and the end of Medicare as we know it would 
not satisfy this arbitrary limit. Nor would the budgets of President 
Reagan. Consider whether we could witness future Congresses unable to 
meet the arbitrary limit and going into violation of that unsound 
constitutional prescription and the Constitution itself?
  At the beginning of our Republic, the national Government took on the 
debts of the States. These proposed constitutional amendments are a 
recipe for pushing costs and responsibilities onto the states. And 
doing so at a time when State governments need our help, not more unmet 
needs.
  The Senate Judiciary Committee has considered several balanced budget 
amendments over the years. The Senate proposal this year is even more 
extreme than the version the Senate rejected in 1995 and again in 1997. 
It is reckless and foolish to rush Senate consideration of such a 
radical proposal to change our Constitution, without process or 
consideration.
  All Senators swear an oath to ``support and defend the Constitution 
of the United States.'' That is our duty and responsibility. The 
pending amendments to the Constitution threaten the constitutional 
principles that have sustained our democratic form of government for 
more than 200 years. The Constitution allows America to flourish and 
adapt to new challenges. We have amended it only 17 times since the 
Bill of Rights was added.
  Our Constitution deserves protection. I stand with the Constitution 
today and I will support the motion to table this ill-conceived 
legislation.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
the materials to which I referred.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                            [From USA Today]

      Our View: Budget Amendment Wrong Vehicle for Right Principle

       In 1997, the Senate came within a single vote of passing a 
     constitutional amendment mandating a balanced federal budget. 
     Backers made all the same arguments you'll hear today when 
     the House takes up a new version of the old elixir: An 
     amendment will finally force Congress to balance the budget, 
     we'll never have a balanced budget without one, and so on.
       But a funny thing happened after that amendment failed in 
     1997. Thanks to prior deficit-reduction deals and a strong 
     economy, the federal government ran a surplus in 1998 and for 
     the next three years. Then an economic downturn, huge tax 
     cuts, two unfunded wars and an unfunded expansion of Medicare 
     plunged the budget back into the red, where it has been ever 
     since.
       The moral is, Congress doesn't need a constitutional 
     amendment to balance the budget. It just needs the will to do 
     it and the willingness to compromise over how. But rather 
     than make the tough decisions about spending cuts and revenue 
     increases, it's always easier to vote for a balanced budget 
     amendment.
       And not just any balanced budget amendment. Rather than 
     embrace the same legislation that almost passed in 1997 and 
     would surely attract Democratic votes this time around, 
     backers have made the latest version so extreme that it's 
     virtually certain not to pass both chambers of Congress, much 
     less the three-fourths of states required for ratification.
       This new version--part of the Republicans' ``Cut, Cap and 
     Balance'' plan-- sets a permanent limit on spending equal to 
     18% of the economy, a level it hasn't achieved since 1966. 
     (The plan of conservative House Budget Committee Chairman 
     Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would leave spending at around 20% of GDP 
     for the next two decades as Baby Boomers retire.) Raising 
     taxes would require two-thirds of votes by the House and 
     Senate.
       Reading between the lines, it's clear that many supporters 
     care less about cutting the deficit than about rewriting the 
     Constitution to embrace an economic theory that shrinks 
     government and makes it almost impossible to raise taxes.
       Certainly, balancing the budget is a sound goal. We've been 
     supporting it in this space for more than 20 years. Congress 
     and successive presidents have demonstrated an inability to 
     match revenue and spending. Something has to be done to 
     change the incentives.
       But the fatal flaw in virtually any balanced budget 
     amendment is that it ties the government's hands in times of 
     economic distress. When those sorts of crises hit, the 
     government needs to be able to move quickly to rescue major 
     financial institutions and deploy ``automatic stabilizers,'' 
     such as unemployment benefits and food stamps that steady the 
     economy until private-sector forces can create a recovery. 
     Failure to intervene caused the Great Depression of the 
     1930s, and had a balanced budget amendment been in place when 
     the financial crisis struck in 2008, there's no doubt at all 
     that we'd be living through another one now.
       Backers also argue that because states have to balance 
     their budgets, the federal government should, too. But the 
     federal government has responsibilities the states don't, 
     most notably to protect national security. And when state 
     revenues collapse, the federal government serves as a 
     critical lifeline.
       Preferable alternatives to a constitutional amendment 
     include pay-as-you-go requirements and firm spending caps 
     that require lawmakers to make choices, rather than run up 
     debt. But why make tough choices now when you can vote for a 
     gimmick that someday, maybe, would address the problem?
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, July 4, 2011]

                   More Folly in the Debt Limit Talks

       Congressional Republicans have opened a new front in the 
     deficit wars. In addition to demanding trillions of dollars 
     in spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation's debt 
     limit, they are now vowing not to act without first holding 
     votes in each chamber on a balanced budget amendment to the 
     Constitution.
       The ploy is more posturing on an issue that has already 
     seen too much grandstanding. But it is posturing with a 
     dangerous purpose: to further distort the

[[Page S4820]]

     terms of the budget fight, and in the process, to entrench 
     the Republicans' no-new-taxes-ever stance.
       It won't be enough for Democrats to merely defeat the 
     amendment when it comes up for a vote. If there is to be any 
     sensible deal to raise the debt limit, they also need to 
     rebut the amendment's false and dangerous premises--not an 
     easy task given the idea's populist appeal.
       What could be more prudent than balancing the books every 
     year? In fact, forcibly balancing the federal budget each 
     year would be like telling families they cannot take out a 
     mortgage or a car loan, or do any other borrowing, no matter 
     how sensible the purchase or how creditworthy they may be.
       Worse, the balanced budget amendment that Republicans put 
     on the table is far more extreme than just requiring the 
     government to spend no more than it takes in each year in 
     taxes.
       The government would be forbidden from borrowing to finance 
     any spending, unless a supermajority agreed to the borrowing. 
     In addition to mandating a yearly balance, both the House and 
     Senate versions would cap the level of federal spending at 18 
     percent of gross domestic product.
       That would amount to a permanent limit on the size of 
     government--at a level last seen in the 1960s, before 
     Medicare and Medicaid, before major environmental legislation 
     like the Clean Water Act, and long before the baby-boom 
     generation was facing retirement. The spending cuts implied 
     by such a cap are so draconian that even the budget recently 
     passed by House Republicans--and condemned by the public for 
     its gutting of Medicare--would not be tough enough.
       Under the proposed amendments, the spending cap would apply 
     even if the government collected enough in taxes to spend 
     above the limit, unless two-thirds of lawmakers voted to 
     raise the cap. More likely, antitax lawmakers would vote to 
     disburse the money via tax cuts. Once enacted, tax cuts would 
     be virtually irreversible, since a two-thirds vote in both 
     houses would be required to raise any new tax revenue. It 
     isn't easy to change the Constitution. First, two-thirds of 
     both the Senate and House must approve an amendment, and then 
     at least 38 states must ratify the change.
       But expect to hear a lot about the idea in the days ahead 
     and in the 2012 political campaign, with Republicans eagerly 
     attacking Democrats who sensibly voted no.
       Democrats, undeniably, have a tougher argument to make. A 
     fair and sustainable budget deal will require politically 
     unpopular choices on programs to cut and taxes to raise. 
     Americans deserve to hear the truth: There is no shortcut, no 
     matter what the Republicans claim. Nor is their urgency to 
     impose deep spending cuts now, while the economy is weak, as 
     Republicans are insisting.
       What is needed is enactment of a thoughtful deficit-
     reduction package, to be implemented as the economy recovers. 
     If politicians respect the voters enough to tell them the 
     truth, the voters may reward them at the polls.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, July 14, 2011]

              A Balanced Budget Amendment Isn't the Answer

                              (Editorial)

       Amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget is a 
     bad idea that never dies. It's not surprising that the 
     current avalanche of debt has inspired renewed calls. Given 
     that the political system appears unable to discipline itself 
     not to spend more--trillions more--than it takes in, why not 
     tie lawmakers' hands to prevent them from piling ever more 
     debt on the national credit card?
       The answer: The constitutional cure, while superficially 
     tempting, would be worse than the underlying disease. A 
     balanced-budget amendment would deprive policymakers of the 
     flexibility they need to address national security and 
     economic emergencies. It would revise the Constitution in a 
     way that would give dangerous power to a congressional 
     minority.
       The latest push from lawmakers advocating the amendment is 
     to couple a vote on the proposal with an agreement to raise 
     the debt ceiling. On the surface, this argument seems benign 
     enough: Why not give states the chance to decide whether the 
     Constitution should mandate a balanced budget? But 
     policymakers have an independent responsibility to assess 
     whether an amendment is wise. This one, especially in its 
     latest incarnation, is not. It would require a two-thirds 
     vote in both houses of Congress to run a deficit in any year. 
     The same supermajority would be needed to enact any tax 
     increase. Compare those hurdles to the version of the 
     amendment that passed the House in 1995, which called for a 
     slightly lower three-fifths vote in each house to pass an 
     unbalanced budget or increase the debt ceiling and a mere 
     majority vote to increase taxes.
       Worse yet, the latest version would impose an absolute cap 
     on spending as a share of the economy. It would prevent 
     federal expenditures from exceeding 18 percent of the gross 
     domestic product in any year. Most unfortunately, the 
     amendment lacks a clause letting the government exceed that 
     limit to strengthen a struggling economy. No matter how shaky 
     the state of the union, policymakers would be prevented from 
     adopting emergency spending, such as the extension of 
     unemployment insurance and other countercyclical expenses 
     that have helped cushion the blow of the current economic 
     downturn. The 18 percent cap on spending is so severe that 
     House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's economic plan 
     would violate its strictures. So would any budget passed 
     under President Ronald Reagan. With health-care costs rising 
     and the number of retiring baby boomers increasing, it would 
     be next to impossible to keep spending to that low share of 
     the economy.
       Both houses of Congress are expected to vote on the 
     amendment next week, but a responsible lawmaker's obligation 
     does not end at voting against this version. Even a less 
     draconian rendition--without the spending cap or with lower 
     thresholds for approving tax increases or running deficits--
     would be the wrong approach. If a balanced-budget amendment 
     had been in place when the economy crashed in 2008, Congress 
     would have been unable to respond with a stimulus package or 
     efforts to stabilize banks and auto manufacturers. Even if 
     you believe that was the wrong policy response, it is 
     important that Congress retain the flexibility to craft the 
     correct one.
       The fiscal situation is perilous. It's commendable that 
     members of Congress are trying to right it. The balanced-
     budget amendment remains a deeply flawed approach to 
     achieving a noble goal.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, July 17, 1990]

                   No to a Balanced Budget Amendment

       The balanced budget amendment that the House will vote on 
     today is impractical, unenforceable and wouldn't end Federal 
     deficits. But it would litter the Constitution with a vacuous 
     promise, and invite greater cynicism in budget-making.
       Deficits are arbitrarily defined and easily manipulated. 
     Achieving a specific level, like zero, has no special 
     economic significance. And trying to hit that target could 
     play havoc with valuable Federal programs and a declining 
     economy that might need deficit spending.
       Yes, Congress should keep deficits from spiraling upward. 
     But there is no immediate crisis, and the deficit--compared 
     with the size of the economy--has already been cut in half 
     under the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget law. More needs to be 
     done. The prudent way is to amend Gramm-Rudman to make it 
     work better, not spoil the precious Constitution in a 
     quixotic search for a quick fix.
       The proposed amendment would require a three-fifths vote in 
     both houses to run a deficit. That, say the sponsors, would 
     provide the flexibility to run deficits when they are needed 
     but stymie unnecessary borrowing. But nowhere does the 
     amendment come to grips with political reality. Evasion would 
     be simple. Congress could move programs ``off budget,'' like 
     funds for the savings and loan crisis.
       The amendment also would require Congress and the President 
     to agree on revenue and expenditure estimates. But 
     politicians have a common interest in fudging such 
     projections and pretending to pass a balanced budget. The 
     amendment's only safeguard against self-serving projections 
     is the proposed three-fifths vote to raise the debt ceiling. 
     That way legislators eventually would be forced to confront 
     the issue. Yet garnering enough votes would be easy since to 
     vote otherwise would bring the Government to a screeching 
     halt.
       As for states that have balanced budget amendments, they 
     also have separate capital accounts. That allows them to 
     borrow money for long-term investments in infrastructure. 
     There is no separate capital account in the Federal budget. 
     So a requirement to balance the budget would create a 
     horrific incentive for Congress to avoid costly investments 
     in railroads, education and research.
       Congress has been unable to make the Gramm-Rudman budget 
     law work fully as intended. But amending it to plug loopholes 
     would be far easier, and better, than drafting a skimpily 
     worded constitutional amendment.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, July 18, 2011]

              Why a Balanced-Budget Amendment Is Too Risky

                        (By Norman J. Ornstein)

       It is no surprise that a constitutional amendment to 
     balance the budget would reemerge now--there's the symbolism 
     of standing for fiscal rectitude and wrapping that position 
     in the cloak of the Constitution. And nearly all states have 
     constitutional provisions to balance their budgets, so why 
     should the federal government be different?
       But the answer to that question is a key reason a 
     constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget would 
     be disastrous.
       A sagging economy requires what we call countercyclical 
     policy, stimulus to counter a downturn and provide a boost. 
     The need for countercyclical policy became apparent in the 
     1930s, after the opposite response to economic trouble caused 
     a dizzying collapse; its application early in Franklin 
     Roosevelt's presidency succeeded in pulling the United States 
     out of the Depression (until a premature tightening in 1937-
     38 pulled us back down into it).
       Countercyclical policy is what every industrialized country 
     in the world employed when the credit shock hit in late 2008, 
     to avoid a global disaster far more serious than the one we 
     faced. Under a balanced-budget amendment, however, no 
     countercyclical policy could emanate from Washington. 
     Spending could not grow to combat the slump. And while the 
     Obama stimulus did not jump-start a robust economic recovery,

[[Page S4821]]

     any objective analysis would find that absent the $800 
     billion stimulus, the economy would have spiraled down much 
     further.
       State balanced-budget requirements make the option of a 
     federal balanced-budget amendment dangerous. When state 
     revenue declines during economic downturns, state spending on 
     unemployment and Medicaid increases. To balance their 
     budgets, states have to raise taxes and/or cut spending, the 
     opposite of what is needed to emerge from a fiscal funk. This 
     is the economic equivalent of the medieval practice of 
     bleeding to cure any ailment, including anemia. In 2009, the 
     fiscal drag from the states amounted to roughly $800 billion; 
     in effect, the stimulus from Washington merely replaced the 
     blood lost by the state-level bleeding.
       Even balanced-budget amendments that have a waiver for 
     recessions are a risk because there is often a lag between a 
     recession itself and when it is recognized. That lag could 
     produce more inopportune bleeding.
       The amendment under consideration has its own deep flaws. 
     The Republican proposal would cap spending each year at 18 
     percent of gross domestic product. Because the formula is 
     based on a previous year's economy, it would mean, according 
     to Republican economist Don Marron, a cap of more like 16.7 
     percent of GDP. This in turn means that the House-passed 
     budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, which calls for draconian 
     cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and discretionary 
     domestic programs, would not be nearly draconian enough. 
     Accounting for population changes, the 16.7 percent limit 
     would mean slashing Social Security and Medicare well below 
     the levels contemplated by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles 
     fiscal commission, and cutting discretionary spending by half 
     or more. It is hard to make the case that decapitating food 
     inspection, air traffic control, scientific research, Head 
     Start, childhood nutrition programs and more, as the 
     amendment would almost certainly require, would lead to a 
     healthier economy, itself a necessity to solve the debt 
     problem.
       To be fair, the amendment has a safety valve--a two-thirds 
     vote of both chambers can authorize a deficit. But imagine 
     the chances of securing a two-thirds vote in this Congress. 
     Similarly, its requirement that 60 percent of both houses 
     vote to increase taxes or the debt limit would result in 
     political gridlock and opportunities for legislative 
     blackmail.
       That this amendment has been endorsed by all 47 Republicans 
     in the Senate, and that a dozen Republicans have pledged not 
     to increase the debt limit without the amendment, are sad 
     commentaries on our politics. But the effects should this 
     amendment be adopted would be frightening.
       Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American 
     Enterprise Institute and coauthor of ``The Broken Branch: How 
     Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on 
     Track.''
                                  ____


                 [From the News Leader, July 17, 2011]

                    Balanced Budget Amendment Unwise

       Instead of making a good faith effort to work toward a 
     compromise and actually do something good for the country, 
     Republicans in Congress once again are bandying about a feel-
     good piece of legislation that could only further hogtie the 
     government.
       The balanced budget amendment is a flag conservatives love 
     to run up the pole when they think they can get the American 
     public to hate free-spending Democrats a little bit more. 
     It's disingenuous at best. Congress should not require a 
     special rule that says its members use common sense when 
     making vast and expensive decisions. When it comes to 
     international conflicts, domestic terror threats and economic 
     recessions, the added steps of arguing to get around a 
     balanced budget amendment is not what is needed.
       But when it comes to running the government, members of 
     Congress need to use forethought and that not-so-common 
     common sense to avoid unproductive tax cuts, conflicts 
     without reasonable exit strategies and the ability to find 
     solutions when deficits grow too large.
       The timing of our own Rep. Bob Goodlatte's amendment might 
     sound quite reasonable to a lot of people right now. But it 
     isn't reasonable. It's another ploy by those who don't want a 
     solution to the real problem, but just a way to make gullible 
     followers believe they've found a solution to our budgetary 
     woes.
       A balanced budget amendment does not equal smaller 
     government with less spending. Like any household, the only 
     way to balance a budget is by trimming expenses and adding 
     revenue. Pressed to balance a budget would force Congress to 
     raise taxes, especially if we are to hang on to high-cost 
     government entities like Social Security and Medicare.
       It's not a solution. Demanding that a balanced-budget 
     amendment go along with any agreement toward raising the debt 
     ceiling simply will drag the whole thorny mess down even 
     more.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 5\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I would appreciate the Chair letting me know when 4 
minutes has expired.
  Let us put this debate in context. In 2010, we had a major election 
in the country. The people who were elected in the House made promises 
to their constituents: If you send me to Congress, I will try to change 
the system and deal with the fact our Nation is being run into the 
ground.
  We have more debt than any future generation can ever pay off, with 
40 cents of every dollar we spend being borrowed money. If you are born 
today, you inherit about $48,000 of debt. We are spending more on 
Social Security payments than we collect in taxes. Medicare is 
underfunded by $30-something trillion over the next 75 years. When you 
add up all entitlement programs, we are about $50 trillion short of the 
promises we have made.
  Simply put, the House Republicans who were elected, during their 
campaigns said: I believe Congress is out of control. We are going to 
become Greece, and I want to do something about it.
  What did you expect when they got here? They would say: Okay, I have 
been taught the real way the Congress works, and it is all okay. They 
did something about it. Congratulations. Anytime a person running for 
office fulfills the promises they made to their constituents, they have 
done a great service to democracy.
  Cut, cap, and balance is the House effort to reduce spending not 10 
years from now but this coming year. The problem with all these plans 
and the very sincere efforts in the past to solve our debt problems--
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997 between 
President Clinton and the Republicans--and I was here then when we 
achieved balance, because we restricted the growth of entitlements such 
as Medicare, we restricted doctor and hospital payments, and we 
actually balanced the budget for a year or two, but then we found out 
how much it was hurting doctors and hospitals. We didn't institute real 
reform. We began to nickel and dime doctors and hospitals, and guess 
what. We stopped the program and we spent all the surpluses.
  How do you get $14-trillion-plus in debt? Both parties are working 
together. This has been a bipartisan effort for about 30 years to run 
the country into the ground. I want a break. I want to have a 
bipartisan effort to save the country from becoming Greece, and the 
only way you can do that is to put ideas on the table.
  Please, I say to my Democratic colleagues, let this debate go 
forward. If this is not worth debating, what would be? How do you save 
the country from becoming a debtor nation to the point the next 
generation can't inherit the American dream? If you have a better plan 
than cut, cap, and balance, please show it to us. We are willing to 
raise the debt limit, but we are not going to do it without changing 
the reason we got in debt.
  The cut part reduces spending in 2012 by $100 billion. That will 
cause some pain, but it is eminently doable. It is about 3 or 4 percent 
of the Federal budget. I think most people at home believe they can cut 
their budget 3 or 4 percent. If they had to do it to save their family, 
they would. We are talking about saving the country.
  The cap is an effort to control spending over 10 years to wipe out 
the $1.4 trillion deficit. We are going to become Greece because we are 
going to have 100 percent of debt to GDP in about the next 20 years, 
and a trillion-plus deficit has to be changed. You can't do it 
overnight, but you should be able to do it over 10 years.
  The centerpiece of the House legislation is the balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution. What rational person believes that 
Republicans on this side and Democrats on that side are ever going to 
find a way to fix our Nation's problems without something new 
happening?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has consumed 4 minutes.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the Chair.
  After 40 years, the evidence is in. The Congress is broken, and 
unless you change the system fundamentally, we are going to run our 
Nation into the ground. So I support a balanced budget amendment.
  Here is the way it works: You have to get two-thirds in the Senate 
and the House and three-fourths of the States

[[Page S4822]]

have to ratify the balanced budget amendment. Give the people of 
America a chance to have their say. Let's pass a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution before we take the country and put it in 
a situation beyond redemption. The only thing that is ever going to 
change this body, I am sad to say, is some discipline imposed by the 
Constitution itself.
  I promise my colleagues to work with you where I can. But for the 
rest of my time in the Senate--and I don't know how long it is going to 
be--I am going to push a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, 
because I don't trust the Congress to do the hard work on its own. And 
when I say that, I mean Republicans too.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the motion to table 
the motion to proceed to H.R. 2560, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 
2011. At this critical juncture in our Nation's history, the Federal 
Government's record of fiscal recklessness proves we must work to 
guarantee fiscal responsibility not just for our time, but for all 
time. In that light, I believe it deserves debate and an open process 
that would allow for changes and improvements so we can ultimately pass 
a measure ensuring we are never again confronted with a vote to raise 
our Nation's debt ceiling. And I am therefore deeply disappointed and 
troubled that the majority in the Senate is not permitting us to 
proceed to any further discussion or votes on this bill.
  To achieve that goal, an indispensible element of the cut, cap, and 
balance bill is the balanced budget amendment--and I have been a 
champion of balanced budget amendments throughout my tenure. And in 
fact, this legislation before us represents the one and only 
opportunity we will likely have as we lead up to the debt ceiling 
deadline to consider and pass just such an amendment. Given our 
historic $14.3 trillion national debt, the record $1.6 trillion deficit 
for the current fiscal year, and the unrestrained and skyrocketing 
growth of government programs and services, we have little choice but 
to seriously and thoroughly debate measures to bring certainty and 
solutions to our broken budget process. We must commence a process that 
will force our government to reevaluate priorities and live within its 
means.
  Indeed, this is a threshold moment in our Nation's history to 
determine precisely what kind of nation we want to be. Will our fiscal 
future be held hostage to interests overseas, threatening both our 
national and economic security? Will we cede our destiny to countries 
like China, which already holds approximately one-fifth of our gross 
debt? Or will we seize the financial reins, pass a constitutional 
balanced budget amendment, and reclaim our future?
  Given what is at stake and Congress's perpetual disregard for fiscal 
responsibility, frankly, the burden is squarely upon the opponents of 
this resolution to justify how business as usual is sustainable for our 
Nation. Indeed, last week the President asserted that, ``we don't need 
a constitutional amendment to do our jobs.'' Well, if that were true, 
if such an amendment isn't required for us to do our jobs, why then do 
we find ourselves wallowing in this economic morass? If Congress 
actually possessed the capacity to forestall skyrocketing debt of its 
own volition, why are we mired in a major debt crisis?
  So let us not be confused as we hear all of the usual diversionary 
excuses why this amendment shouldn't pass. And having cosponsored a 
balanced budget amendment 18 times since my very first days in 
Congress, and having made statements in favor of it 35 times on the 
Senate and House floor, believe me, I could recite them all by rote--
how a balanced budget amendment will be overly restrictive, spending 
reductions too substantial, and that other measures would be equally 
effective without changing our Constitution. I recall during a House 
floor debate in 1992, colleagues asked: What if appropriations exceed 
estimated revenues? What if the President and Congress underestimate 
the amount of federal revenues in a fiscal year? What if it requires 
budgetary adjustments as a result of a contracting economy, or 
inaccurate estimates?
  And my response then was the same as it is now--welcome to the real 
world! That is what families, businesses and frankly, 49 States that 
have adopted balanced budget requirements confront day in and day out. 
State governors and legislators cannot leave their Capitols if their 
budgets aren't balanced and the U.S. Congress should be no different.
  Instead, we have not only a fiscal gap in Washington but a shameful 
imbalance between the trust the American people have placed in us, and 
the responsibilities we must carry out if we are to demonstrate 
worthiness of that trust. The demonstrable reality is that, absent a 
permanent mechanism that forces the Federal Government to set and 
fulfill its fiscal priorities, Congress will blithely continue its 
wayward practices. Indeed, the reason many lawmakers don't want a 
balanced budget amendment is the exact reason why it's essential--and 
that is to permanently end the types of legislative trickery that have 
brought our country to the edge of a fiscal chasm.
  The facts speak for themselves. On March 4, 1997, when the balanced 
budget amendment failed to pass in the Senate by one vote, our gross 
debt was $5.36 trillion, a number we rightly all found staggering! But 
apparently it wasn't staggering enough, as the abysmal track record 
following 1997 dramatically demonstrates.
  In 1999, just 2 years after that fateful vote in which the balanced 
budget amendment failed to pass, the debt rose to $5.6 trillion. By 
2002--it was $6 trillion. In 2004--$7 trillion. In 2006--$8 trillion. 
By 2009--it rose to $11 trillion, and last year to $13.5 trillion. The 
bottom line is that from 1997 to 2011, the national debt has almost 
tripled. Tripled--to an unprecedented $14.3 trillion. And now we are 
asked to raise the ceiling again to $16.5 trillion.
  Our government has balanced its budget only five times in half a 
century. Five times. Our 1997 deficit was $22 billion; this year's is 
projected to be 73 times as high, at $1.6 trillion. Does anyone know 
any families out there in America who are voluntarily spending 73 times 
what they spent in 1997? Families across the country have been paying 
down their credit cards. They are facing reality, while Congress 
continues to binge-spend, unabated.
  In 1992, I said on the House floor that, ``we have no way of knowing 
how bad things might get if we continue without the balanced budget 
amendment.'' Well, regrettably, now we do know, and the situation is 
dire as our outstanding debt now projected to reach 100 percent of GDP 
this year--which some economists have labeled an ``economic danger 
zone.'' In fact, economists report that gross debt levels above 90 
percent of GDP slow economic growth by 1 percent per year, resulting in 
approximately 1 million jobs lost. So I defy anyone to explain how we 
could have amassed these mind-numbing levels of debt relative to our 
GDP, and yet a balanced budget amendment is not a necessity.
  We have tried every statutory structure possible yet nothing we have 
implemented has withstood the test of time, circumvention, or clever 
gimmickry to successfully and consistently bind both the House and the 
Senate to provide continuity from Congress to Congress, to act in a 
fiscally responsible manner. Nothing. And no one can disavow the 
consequences of this lack of self-imposed accountability, which has 
engendered shockingly deficient oversight and review of our spending 
and Federal programs, both those already existing, and those proposed. 
As a result, we continue to pile on program after program with 
impunity.
  We have witnessed the positive effects of statutory limits with past 
budget enforcement mechanisms such as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, 
the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act, and the 1997 Balanced Budget Act that 
saved upward of $700 billion, and those measures led to 4 years of 
surpluses. But we allowed them to lapse, to wither on the legislative 
vine, and that has led us directly to the ``wild west'' mentality of 
today in which our entire budget and appropriations processes have 
virtually disintegrated.
  Congress is required by law to adopt a budget resolution by April 15, 
yet in the past 36 years Congress has met that deadline just six times. 
Throughout the last 10 years, Congress has approved a budget resolution 
on only six occasions. Congress failed to complete action on a budget 
resolution for 5 fiscal years--1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2011--

[[Page S4823]]

that all ended with large, spendthrift, omnibus appropriations measures 
or continuing resolutions.
  Last year, no budget and no appropriations bills passed for the first 
time since the current budget rules were put into place in 1974, almost 
resulting in a shutdown of the Federal Government in April 2011. We 
have had 87 continuing resolutions in the past 14 fiscal years and 
passed not even a single one of the 12 individual appropriations bills 
for the current fiscal year. This tacit acceptance of dysfunction in 
our budget and appropriations processes has only exacerbated the trend-
line of unbridled federal spending, and it is symptomatic of the 
miniscule value Congress has assigned to averting economically 
corrosive deficits and debt.
  It is certainly not as though we lack the time to fulfill our legal 
requirement to complete budgets by April 15--and just ask the American 
people if they aren't required to meet their tax filing deadline on 
April 15! In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service 
reports that from January 5, 2011, through July 1, 2011, the Senate has 
been in session for 541 Hours, 243 hours of which have been spent in 
Morning Business--that is 45 percent of our time spent in 
nonlegislative activity. We couldn't have voted on a budget resolution? 
No wonder only 18 percent of the country believes Congress is doing its 
job, which only makes me wonder--who exactly are those 18 percent?
  Even when we had the historic opportunity of 4 consecutive years of 
Federal surpluses beginning in 1998, we squandered it with a deplorable 
lack of foresight. In 2001, the last year of surpluses when our debt 
was $5.8 trillion, I introduced a legislative trigger mechanism to link 
long-term Federal budget surplus reductions with actual budgetary 
outcomes and later led a bipartisan, bicameral group with Senator Bayh 
to offer a subsequent amendment, recognizing that federal surplus 
projections were merely that--projections. Yet both measures were 
dismissed and derided.
  And what has been the result? Since 2002, the Nation has run a 
deficit each and every year and our gross debt has increased from $6.2 
trillion to almost $15 trillion. Over the past 5 years alone, 
government has managed to increase spending by a remarkable 40 percent, 
contributing to the largest budget deficits in our history over the 
last three consecutive years. We are now borrowing roughly 40 cents of 
every dollar we spend.
  The reality could not be more stark--the balanced budget amendment is 
the only vehicle before us that will guarantee that a balanced budget 
will be the rule, rather than the exception--because it will compel 
Congress, through the ultimate authority of the Constitution--to return 
to the regimentation and discipline of the budget and appropriations 
processes, and thereby force the government to establish priorities and 
abide by those priorities.
  To paraphrase a statement I made during one particular balanced 
budget debate in the House, the Constitution is not for window 
dressing. It is not to score political points for any particular party. 
It is not for more games and gimmicks--and in fact, as I have stated 
many times, if it were a gimmick Congress would have passed it long 
ago! Rather, the purpose is to protect current and future generations 
from the crushing weight of ever-escalating debt that threatens 
America's security and our very way of life.
  There should be no mistake--debt and deficits are always a dangerous 
combination, and especially at a time when we are experiencing an 
unprecedented period of long-term unemployment with more than 22 
million Americans unemployed or underemployed, and another 2.2 million 
who want a job, but are so discouraged they stopped looking for work 
altogether. Consider that, in the 29 months since President Obama took 
office, unemployment has dipped below 9 percent for only 5 months, and 
actually increased to 9.2 percent in June. And yet at a moment when 
every dollar government spends should be wisely dedicated to job 
creation to return us on the path to prosperity, we are forced to 
commit an astounding $200 billion per year just to service our debt.
  The cost of net interest alone will more than triple in the next 10 
years to reach nearly $1 trillion per year in 2021. In fact, the CBO's 
most recent long-term outlook states that by 2035 interest costs on our 
Nation's debt would reach 9 percent of GDP, more than the U.S. 
currently spends on Social Security or Medicare! And if interest rates 
were just one percentage point higher per year, over ten years the 
deficit would balloon by $1.3 trillion from increased costs.
  Ironically, the conversations in Washington are about how the markets 
will react if we do not raise the debt ceiling, but the markets are 
already reacting. Standard & Poor's recently downgraded the Nation's 
outlook from ``stable'' to ``negative,'' Moody's warned that our 
``AAA'' rating could be lost if we do not reduce deficit spending, and 
large funds like PIMCO are divesting holdings of U.S. bonds.
  And let's be perfectly clear--it is not only our economy that may 
suffer should we dive into the fiscal abyss. When ADM Mike Mullen, the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, identifies the national debt as 
the single biggest threat to our national security--that ought to 
compel us to stand up and take notice. Yet in the absence of a balanced 
budget amendment, any fiscal foothold we may gain with measures 
implemented in this Congress could be summarily reversed by subsequent 
Congresses--whereas, a balanced budget amendment would establish an 
indissoluble contract with future generations that would cement fiscal 
responsibility in perpetuity.
  So let us be unambiguous what this debate is about. It is a 
fundamental disagreement between those who are concerned about our 
future economic standards, and those who are willing to erode the 
economic opportunities that have become the very hallmark of the 
American dream. You see, the dirty little secret is that those who 
oppose a balanced budget amendment don't want their hands tied . . . 
they don't want the fiscal restraints. Well, to them I say, this is 
America--can't we do better?
  Well, we can do better, and we must--and therefore, I will vote to 
proceed with this legislation. Critically, it contains a provision that 
exempts Medicare, Social Security, and veterans benefits from the 
spending caps. At the same time, I recognize it is not a perfect bill. 
In fact, again I believe there should be a full and open debate during 
which members can offer amendments to improve this legislation and I 
regret that the majority here in the Senate will preclude that 
possibility.
  I can foresee a number of improvements I would propose, including the 
addition of a ``pay-for'' title in the legislation that would provide 
for additional, mandatory savings including eliminating ethanol 
subsidies and direct agricultural payments to high-income farmers, and 
rescinding unspent stimulus and TARP funds, that could be better 
utilized within Medicare and Medicaid. And we must also enact 
straightforward budget policy reforms so that Congress no longer relies 
on accounting gimmicks. These are but a number of the improvements that 
would save billions of dollars and put our nation on a path toward 
fiscal responsibility.
  Again, the central question before us is as old as the founding of 
our great republic--and that is, what kind of nation do we want to be? 
That was the same question that historian David McCullough addressed 
years ago before group of legislators when he discussed the milestones 
achieved by Congress when leaders worked together.
  ``Think what your institution has achieved,'' he observed. ``It was 
Congress that created the Homestead Act. It was Congress that ended 
slavery. It was Congress that ended child labor. It was Congress that 
built the Panama Canal, the railroads and the Interstate System. It was 
Congress that created Social Security. It was Congress that passed the 
Voting Rights Act. It was Congress that sent Lewis and Clark to the 
West, and sent us on voyages to the moon.'' And some acts of Congress, 
he pointed out, like the Marshall plan and lend lease, were achieved 
under crisis conditions.
  I honestly believe that this spirit of accomplishment can be re-
captured--and what could be a more fundamental place to start than with 
the future fiscal health of our Nation? We can either bring disrepute 
upon ourselves by continuing to mortgage our future to

[[Page S4824]]

cover the fiscal offenses of today or we can rise to the occasion, meet 
our moral responsibility, and bequeath the generations to come a nation 
unencumbered by the shackles of perpetual debt. The choice is ours, and 
history awaits our answer.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the path to deficit reduction is difficult, 
but some of the essentials are clear for all to see. We must cut 
spending, which will require real sacrifice on the part of American 
families. We must also add revenue, which has plunged so dramatically 
thanks to Bush-era tax cuts that flow primarily to the wealthiest among 
us. And we must avoid proposals that would see the most vulnerable 
among us pay the highest price for deficit reduction.
  That is the path a broad array of budget experts, Democratic and 
Republican, tell us is the only way to relieve our debt problem. And it 
is the path the American people tell us they understand that we need to 
take. In survey after survey, poll after poll, Americans voice their 
support for a balanced approach to deficit reduction, one in which we 
cut spending, yes, but also address revenues by closing tax loopholes 
and asking the wealthiest among us to share in the sacrifices that are 
required to bring down the deficit. And they tell us, unequivocally, 
that they do not want us to fall short of our commitment to the most 
vulnerable, especially those who depend on Social Security and Medicare 
for a secure retirement.
  So this is the true path to deficit reduction: targeted and sometimes 
painful spending cuts; closing tax loopholes, asking wealthy taxpayers 
to join in the sacrifices we must make; and protecting the social 
safety net on which our most vulnerable citizens depend.
  We can choose that path, difficult though it may be. Or we could take 
a path like the one laid out in this legislation--a path leading 
straight off a cliff. The American public has made it clear to the 
Republicans in the House of Representatives that its budget objectives, 
as laid out in the draconian budget plan they sent to us earlier this 
year, are unacceptable. Rather than heeding that message, Republicans 
have sent us a plan that's even worse than the first.
  The budget championed by House Republicans this year would have added 
more than $6,000 a year to the typical senior's medical bills. The plan 
before us today tacks another $2,500 or more onto that bill.
  The budget plan from House Republicans this year cut billions from 
Medicare to clear the way for billions in tax cuts for the wealthy. The 
plan before us today would enshrine protection for those tax cuts in 
the Constitution by requiring two-thirds majorities in both Houses to 
enact any revenue increase, making it virtually impossible for future 
Congresses to reverse such disastrous policies, or to remove tax 
loopholes for oil companies or tax incentives for companies that ship 
jobs overseas.
  The budget plan from House Republicans this year would cost an 
estimated 700,000 jobs by removing support from an already weakened 
economy. The economy has, if anything, become more worrisome since that 
budget came to us, but the legislation before us today follows the same 
destructive path.
  Let us be clear: What Republicans have proposed is to abandon our 
commitments to the safety, security and prosperity of the American 
people. They would slash Medicare and Social Security, and leave the 
rest of the budget so threadbare that it could not cover our important 
priorities. The American people want us to reduce waste and redundancy 
in Federal spending. But they do not want us to stop protecting the air 
we breathe and the water we drink, stop inspecting our food supply, 
stop patrolling our streets or borders or educating our young people or 
ensuring safe air travel or any of the things that help keep them safe 
and healthy and secure. And yet there is no doubt that under this plan, 
we would stop doing some or all of those things. We would have no 
choice.
  It is especially disturbing that many of the same people arguing for 
these destructive policies are responsible for the policies that 
brought on our deficit to begin with. Republicans are quick to blame 
President Obama's policies for the deficit, but the vast majority of 
our current woes stem from policies adopted during the previous 
administration by Republican majorities in Congress. Republicans pushed 
for massive tax cuts, tax cuts that weren't paid for and that flowed 
overwhelmingly to the wealthy. Republicans pushed for a war of choice 
in Iraq that was not paid for.
  Our Republican colleagues like to compare the Federal Government to a 
family. Families have to balance their budgets, they say; why can't the 
government? Well, the Federal ``family'' had a balanced budget under 
Democrats. Republicans wrecked our fiscal discipline with the Bush tax 
cuts and wars that were not paid for, and now they want middle-class 
and vulnerable Americans to pay the price. If the government is a 
family, then Republicans are the guy who gets a big raise, blows the 
whole raise plus the family savings on a hot rod, gets fired from his 
job, loses his income, and decides to stop paying the kids' tuition so 
he can keep the hot rod.
  That is the path they propose, in this legislation. We can't follow 
that path. The better path is difficult, but it is clear. I hope our 
Republican colleagues will abandon the path of ruin, reject this 
destructive bill and join us in making the hard choices that the people 
we serve need us to make, and soon.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak of one of my 
gravest concerns, which is our Nation's fiscal future.
  All of us--Democrats, Republicans, liberals, moderates, 
conservatives--face a choice about whether we will seize the moment 
before us and confront our great fiscal nightmare or whether we will 
let this moment pass us by. Clearly, we face tough and difficult 
decisions. The decision we make as Members of Congress must be the 
right and responsible ones or our beloved Nation and our hard-working 
families will needlessly suffer.
  In my State, when I became Governor, we faced challenging times--
growing debts and tough budget choices. When I was first elected in 
November of 2004, the first thing I did afterwards was go to New York 
and talk to the rating agencies--the people who knew our State best--to 
find out what our gravest challenges were. I went back home and we 
started making changes.
  I did not blame anyone--any past administration, Republican or 
Democrat or any other body. I was elected to fix things, not to put 
blame on people. As West Virginians, not as Democrats or Republicans, 
we set about fixing the problems of our State. We didn't raise tax 
rates. People came to me and said we needed to do that, but I couldn't 
look people in the eye and do that without trying to run our State more 
efficiently.
  The difference between what we did back home and what is happening 
here in Washington is that we faced these choices together. We worked 
across party lines in a responsible way to address our fiscal 
challenges. In doing so, we set our State on the right fiscal path 
and--let me stress again without sacrificing our moral responsibility 
or obligations to our seniors, our veterans, and the people most 
challenged in our society. We did that without raising their tax rates.
  Right now, because we made the right choices, our State is doing 
well. Even in these most difficult, challenging financial times, we 
have had record surpluses every year--6 years in a row. For the last 3 
years, we have been one of the few States in the Nation that has an 
increase in our rating from Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch, the 
rating agencies. We did this by living within our means. It is the 
reason why I am such a strong supporter of a balanced budget amendment. 
It makes you put in place your priorities based on what your values 
are. I truly believe most Americans support a balanced budget. Every 
family I know in my State and in this Nation works off of some sort of 
a budget. Nearly all our State governments operate on a balanced 
budget. I have never seen another place, except here in our Nation's 
Capitol--our government in Washington--that puts a budget together 
based on what they want to spend, not on how much they have to spend.

[[Page S4825]]

  But how we balance our budget is critically important. We have a 
moral responsibility and an obligation to our seniors, our families, 
and those who are the most fragile in our challenged society. That is 
why I cannot support the cut, cap, and balance plan passed in the 
House, which we will be voting on shortly. As a moderate Democrat who 
is also a proud fiscal conservative, I agree with the bill's goal of a 
balanced budget. However, I cannot support the path it takes.
  The cut, cap, and balance plan does not reflect who we are or what we 
want to be as Americans. I believe we need to cut but not so deeply and 
without regard for our seniors and the most vulnerable. I believe we 
need a cap on our spending but not at a level that could destroy the 
most important and vital programs we have in our society. I strongly 
believe we need a balanced budget amendment but only one that takes a 
responsible and reasonable approach.
  Clearly, we can all agree it is time for us to make the difficult 
choice that will get our financial house in order, but we must do so 
with the right plan in a responsible manner--one that keeps our 
promises to our seniors, our veterans and, most importantly, our 
children. And like it or not, neither Democrats nor Republicans can 
tackle this enormous challenge on their own. This is not a political 
problem, this is an American problem, one we all face. We should put 
politics aside and truly put our country first.
  Earlier this week, I saw that spirit at its finest. On Tuesday of 
this past week, the Presiding Officer, along with 49 of our other 
colleagues, came together to listen to the Gang of 6, who worked so 
hard on ideas based on the President's fiscal debt commission. 
Democrats and Republicans rolled out the first bipartisan proposal to 
address the Nation's fiscal nightmare. At that meeting, 50 Senators 
from both parties--evenly split--came together to listen to the hard 
work of the Senators who spanned the ideological spectrum. At that 
moment, the Gang of 6 turned into what we affectionately called the 
``Mob of 50.''
  And for the first time in these negotiations about our fiscal future, 
we had a bipartisan plan with momentum that was putting our country 
first.
  We should not waste this moment. We must work together to cut 
spending and attack waste, fraud, and abuse in every sector of our 
country, every department, every program that needlessly costs our 
Nation hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
  We must work together to reform our Tax Code, not to raise tax rates 
but to make fairness a priority. It is simply unfair that hard-working 
middle-class families in West Virginia and all around this great 
country would pay more in taxes than a Fortune 500 company such as GE, 
which didn't pay a cent, or billionaires such as Warren Buffett who 
pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. Democrats and 
Republicans must work together to remove unnecessary loopholes, 
subsidies, and tax credits we simply cannot afford in light of our 
ballooning debt.
  It is time to end the three wars we have that we are spending so much 
on and the resources we can't afford and the lives we can't spare.
  I say to all this is a time for us to come together as Americans, to 
put our politics aside, and do what is right for all of the future of 
this generation and for this country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I want to say to my friend from West 
Virginia, he has been a great addition to the Senate. We of course know 
he replaced the great, the legendary Robert Byrd. The people of West 
Virginia should be very happy with the performance of Joe Manchin and 
his executive experience as the Governor of the State of West Virginia, 
which had an impeccable record with surpluses every year he was there. 
He has brought this talent to Washington, and it has been very helpful 
to us all.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, 5 months ago, President Obama unveiled 
the only concrete statement he has made to date on our Nation's budget 
crisis, a 10-year budget plan so preposterous, so unequal to the moment 
that it was rejected in the Senate by a vote of 97-0. The President's 
response to this crisis was to pretend it didn't exist.
  Two months later, the President doubled down on his vision for a 
future of debt by demanding that Congress raise the debt limit, without 
any cuts to spending or a plan to rein it in. It was a total abdication 
of leadership and it wasn't sustainable.
  So over the past several weeks, the President has been doing his best 
impersonation of a fiscal moderate. He has talked about balance and 
left it to others to fill in the blanks.
  Here is what Democrats in Congress have proposed as a solution: more 
spending and higher taxes to a debt crisis.
  Yesterday, with the clock ticking, we heard reports of a volcanic 
eruption among Democrats at the suggestion that we should solve this 
crisis by focusing on reducing Washington spending.
  The solution to this crisis is not complicated. If you are spending 
more money than you are taking in, you need to spend less money. This 
isn't rocket science. We could solve this problem this morning if 
Democrats would let us vote on cut, cap, and balance and join us in 
backing this legislation that Republicans support.
  But the first step in solving a problem is to admit you have one, and 
too many Democrats refuse to admit that Washington has a spending 
problem. That is why Republicans have insisted that we focus on 
spending in this debate.
  The reason we have a $14 trillion debt is because no matter how much 
money Washington has, it always spends more; and the only way to cure 
the problem is to stop enabling it. Americans get it, and I want to 
thank every American who has spoken out in favor of cut, cap, and 
balance. Today, the American people will know where we stand.
  A vote to table this bill is a vote to ignore this crisis even 
longer. A vote to get on this bill is a vote for getting our house in 
order.
  I urge my Democratic colleagues one more time to reconsider their 
position. Join us in support of a future we can afford.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to all my friends, and new Senators, 
welcome to the United States.
  This is a vote on the piece of legislation that was described by my 
friend, the chairman of the Judiciary, as well as anyone else: It is 
violative of our Constitution.
  This is a vote on this matter, and we are going to dispose of this 
legislation as it needs to be so President Obama and the Speaker can 
move forward on a matter that will have some revenue in it and send it 
over here, and we can move forward to complete our work to make sure we 
don't default on our debt.
  As a result of our conversation here, I move to table the motion to 
proceed to H.R. 2560 and ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. 
Gillibrand) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) are 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 46, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 116 Leg.]

                                YEAS--51

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blumenthal
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Coons
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson (SD)
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester

[[Page S4826]]


     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--46

     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
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Gillibrand
     Kerry
     McCain
  The motion was agreed to.
 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the 
vote on the motion to table the motion to proceed to the Cut, Cap, and 
Balance Act, H.R. 2560. If I were able to attend today's session, I 
would have supported the motion to table the motion to proceed to the 
Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, H.R. 2560.
 Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I regret that due to my attendance 
at a dear friend's funeral this morning, I was not in the Senate to 
cast my vote for the cut, cap and balance legislation. I fully support 
cut, cap and balance and I am proud that Republicans put forward a 
concrete proposal to cut spending, balance the budget, reign in the 
spiraling debt that imperils our children's future and ensures that our 
Nation continues to meet its obligations.
  The Democratic leadership has failed to put forward any meaningful 
proposal to break this impasse, but instead continues to set up 
procedural road blocks to keep Republican plans from passing and force 
votes on nonbinding legislation that will do nothing to solve our 
problems. The Democrats, led by President Obama, continue to insist 
that our fiscal difficulties can be fixed by raising taxes on 
individuals and small businesses--the exact policies that will deepen 
our economic woes, not fix them.
  Both parties must now find a reasonable, responsible path forward to 
address head-on our debt crisis, end the mortgaging of our children's 
future and make certain that our Nation meets its debt obligations, as 
we Americans always have. If Speaker Tip O'Neill and President Ronald 
Regan could find agreement on such matters, we can too. We must put 
politics aside and do what is right for our Nation.
 Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, no one disputes that we must 
act now to reduce our growing debt. The interest we pay on our debt 
costs us dearly in lost opportunity to invest in America. We spend 
millions of dollars a year paying interest to countries, like China, 
that we should be investing here in America to create jobs and get our 
economy moving again. At the same time, it is essential that we do not, 
for the first time in history, fail to pay our obligations and default 
on our debt. Doing so will only make our economic and debt challenges 
more difficult, and could make it almost impossible to turn our economy 
around.
  Unfortunately, I think this legislation is shortsighted and mistaken. 
It neither guarantees that the United States will not default on its 
obligations, nor does it provide a balanced blueprint to addressing our 
long-term budget obligations. Instead, it would constitutionally 
protect tax breaks for millionaires and special interest while forcing 
benefit cuts to Social Security and Medicare beyond those proposed in 
the House Republican budget.
  This legislation also distracts from making the hard choices we need 
to make to reduce the deficit and at the same time create jobs and grow 
our economy. The legislation makes it almost impossible to increase 
revenues, even on the millionaires and billionaires who are doing just 
fine in this economy. It also fails to reduce Pentagon spending, which 
accounts for more than half of our discretionary spending budget, 
forcing more pain on families, seniors and other hard-working 
Americans.
  We must address our budget challenges, but we cannot do so on the 
backs of our seniors and working families. For these reasons, I am 
opposed to this legislation, and while I was ill and could not vote, I 
would like the record to show that I would have voted to table the 
motion to proceed on HR 2560, the Cut, Cap and Balance Act. I am 
strongly opposed to this legislation.

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