[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 113 (Tuesday, July 26, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S4898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BUDGET COMPROMISE
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I don't need to tell anybody in this
Chamber that our Nation is at a crossroads. We are at a crossroads. We
have said for many months that we would be at this point, and now we
are here. For months, we have said we will need to make tough choices
and difficult decisions, and now we are at that very point when we need
to make those tough choices and difficult decisions to rein in the debt
and the deficit, and to put our fiscal house in order, even as we raise
the debt ceiling.
This decision is difficult, tough, and excruciating for us. But it is
hardly different than what American families are doing all around this
country, and in Connecticut, because I have seen them and I have heard
from them. So have you in this Chamber--families who are struggling to
make ends meet, to stay in their homes, to keep their families
together, to make those cuts in their spending, which we are now
required to do in this Chamber for the Nation.
It is a historic responsibility. We cannot keep kicking the can down
the road. That is the analogy that has been drawn countless times in
this Chamber, around the country, and by the President of the United
States himself. The point is that the time for action is now--not delay
or indecision, but real action that achieves a credible solution, which
will demand compromise.
Compromise is the essence of the American Republic. It is the way our
Nation was founded--through compromise, people coming together,
bringing differences to the table and resolving them. Families in
Connecticut and all across the country are making these kinds of
choices every day when they buy a car, a house, decide to go to school,
and even marriage requires compromise. Compromise is the essence of the
American Republic and the way we do business in this Chamber, in this
city, in State capitals around the country, and in places of business
and all places where momentous decisions are made.
The American people expect nothing less of us than they do of
themselves. There is no avoiding these tough choices and compromises
now that will help us get our debt and deficit under control in a
meaningful way.
The markets and the Nation need a real plan, not a short-term or
stopgap effort. We must demonstrate that we are committed to finding a
real solution. A short-term plan would not provide the kind of
certainty and reliability the markets are desperately seeking at this
point. A short-term or stopgap solution risks many of the same dire
economic consequences that would be triggered by a default itself.
A financial Armageddon now, a catastrophic failure to raise the debt
ceiling now, is exactly the same risk 6 months from now if we attempt
to address our present issues through a short-term, stopgap measure.
That financial Armageddon will affect every American family, every
American small business, every American worker, and every job seeker.
It is about jobs and economic recovery, because a failure to raise the
debt ceiling will increase the cost of borrowing for every homeowner,
every car buyer, every small business, and every person who has a
credit card or otherwise seeks capital or credit in the market. By
raising the cost of borrowing, it will simply crush our fragile
economic recovery. It will be a job killer for this Nation. It is time
now for compromise that will avoid those dire consequences for the
American people.
The Reid proposal is a compromise in the best sense of the term. It
is a solution that meets all the criteria our Republican friends have
been insisting on for weeks. It does not include revenue increases. It
includes enough spending cuts to meet the amount of debt ceiling
increase, dollar for dollar. It includes spending cuts that have been
approved by many Republicans. Many of those spending cuts have been
voted for.
Most important, from my standpoint, and from the standpoint of many
colleagues on this side of the aisle, it does not make spending cuts on
the backs of our seniors and our most vulnerable citizens. It avoids
spending cuts to Medicare and Social Security that would imperil or
diminish the benefits of those programs.
Let me tell you about this compromise, the Reid proposal. It is not
transformational. It is not a grand bargain. It is incremental. It
achieves progress step by step by step--the way progress has been made
in this great Nation from its founding--step by step by step. It
represents, as perhaps one of the columnists might have described it--
in fact, this morning in the New York Times, David Brooks said there
has been an outbreak of sanity. This proposal represents an outbreak of
sanity in roiled waters of emotionalism, personality conflicts,
political acrimony.
I hope my Republican colleagues will join us in seeking and ensuring
stability for the markets and our fragile economic recovery, focusing
on what concerns the American people now, and should, which is job
growth. It is about jobs. We should get on with that historic path of
creating jobs and enabling small businesses to borrow at rates they can
afford, without hiking those interest rates as a result of a financial
crisis that is truly avoidable. Failure would be the result of our own
doing and our own failure in this Chamber.
We need to keep our economy moving in the right direction. I am
hopeful, even confident, that we can come together with good will on
both sides to overcome our differences and achieve that compromise that
the Reid proposal represents.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. ROBERTS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, so ordered.
The Senator from Kansas.
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